Recruiters - and their lack of communication with potential candidates

Recruiters will not tell you this and probably will deny everything I say. BUT I've been working directly with recruiters for the past 8 years and I know what they give me and what I use to make basic decisions and I know what I tell them to do with the reqs.

So, you just applied to a job. Your resume matches all the qualifications and skills and you meet all the requirements and many of the preferred. Now you wait. First you get the "canned" e-mail saying thank you for your interest in XXXXXX position and blah blah blah. As we all know the only thing we are concerned about is keeping this e-mail to track what jobs you applied for. 

Many companies have no intention of ever calling you back and probably have opened this job requisition as a legal requirement to say they advertised it. SO a lot of companies open these "reqs" for 3 days they already may have a preferred candidate and it is a formality that job is even open.  BUT lets say, you get lucky and you get a call back from the HR screener.  Now you start feeling good, you talk with them, they are friendly and then they always ask that question on what is your salary requirement? This is 80% of the time the factor that puts you in a pile either the circular filing cabinet or the "potential candidate" files. SO here is a little tip. Go Low. BUT always base your salary requirement on the amount of information you "currently' know. This is not the official offer so it is irrelevant other than moving you from one pile to another, based on more information about your responsibilities you will negotiate your salary. If you have read any of my previous posts then you will know that you will find out details of your job as you are interviewed and throughout the interview process.

This isn't about those strategies so I will keep my negotiation talk to a minimum. This is about why they don't call you back. If you just read the previous section, 80% of the reason is you are out of their price range. 15% is all based on the job, the companies need, your qualifications, skills and experience and how desperate they may be to fill the position.  The last 5% are factors that are just straight related to the Recruiter themselves and their skills.

1. Too Busy. So many candidates and they may be the only recruiter screening hundreds of candidates.
2. Lack of organization.  They may not be the most organized and may have even lost your resume and contact info. (So follow-up e-mails are always good, maybe even attaching your Resume for reference)
3. Fear of confrontation. They don't want to tell you your not hired.
4. Personal Bias. Maybe you have a long last name, or an accent, or your Linked In profile isn't good, or you name it you can imagine it. As long as they keep it all to themselves you will never know BUT I know it happens.
5. Personal Favorite. Maybe they know you, maybe they got a recommendation, maybe a friend of a friend said this guy or that girl is good.
6. Lastly just plain lazy. They scanned the first few found one that meets the requirements of the job and that becomes their candidate.

In any case if you get that call, Don't put yourself in that 80% "delete" file and give a fair price for what you know, even if it is below your current salary. When you are in the interview take notes, identify the other areas that are not in the req and take into consideration the "work till you get it done" attitude then when negotiation  comes. That is when you negotiate with power and confidence, only after the interview can you truly understand the position and even know what salary is fair.

Interview Questions - How to ace what you just learned

An interview is one of the more stressful events that a person can attend, it is all about talking about you and about how good you are and what you have done and where you are good and where you are bad. It can be very revealing and for the most part it is one of the most important meetings you will ever attend with people you may never meet again.   If you are like me or like any true professional you don't like touting or focusing on your accomplishments as a way to get ahead, you would hope that others recognize your accomplishments and reward you accordingly. However in the job hunt this is not the case and your accomplishments are just another list of things. Things that are said without any real proof, visible affirmation, or way to know if what is said is true.  SO here is what I believe is a winning strategy to ace the interview and provide the new potential employer with a lasting impression during your one time decisive meeting. 

First review the job description, position listing, or whatever information you have that is specific to the duties of the job. If it is not listed and you have a recruiter that has contacted you or you have contacted ask the right questions before the interview to allow you insight into how to prepare for the interview.

Here we go. First ask what the daily duties consist of? Or ask what are the common problems encountered? Then ask what is the basic overall responsibility of the position? By asking these questions we can begin the basics of our interview response and our speaking portion of the interview planning.  The goal is to plan out exactly what you intend to say, not allow the interviewer to only hear answers to questions they have canned that are an attempt to pull information out of you that relates to the job. By only providing an answer you fall into the same rating scheme as the others that have come before you. If the interviewer is not taking active notes then you will probably be forgotten or at the very least marginalized to only a few bullets about what is good….or what is bad.  SO here is how it would go.

You come into the room, you introduce yourself then you go right into answering that first question. "So tell me a little bit about yourself.". If this is the typical recruiter interview or hiring manager interview that is the start, primarily because they have to ask similar questions of all candidates to cover their legal butts and not seem biased in doing more for a specific candidate.  After that you go into a little bit about what they expect and if your lucky they ask how you can contribute. Then they may ask some canned questions about your strengths and weaknesses, maybe how you handled a problem or what you did to make your company money. Then they ask if you have any questions. FINALLY your chance to take over the interview.  This is where you turn the whole thing around, take control and show them you understand the position, know some of what their challenges are and have real experience that will help them.

Your talking piece should be centered around these items. Let them know that through your research of the company. (Really its just asking the recruiter questions) you believe that there problem with X is something that your experience with Y would help them to solve. Go into detail with how your experience and situation relates to theirs and give some good details of how that situation does have a solution and you can help.  By doing this you directly relate yourself to that position and your experience to the solution.  Doing this also gives them an impression of your drive, real world understanding of their company and details that may have been lacking through the previous portions of the interview.  If possible have two to three good examples of how YOU match their job responsibilities

Having your resume printed out and available for your own reference will help you to be able to point to the specific job and section that relates to the story of how your experience can help them.  What this does is give a longer memorable element that is not tied to their "legal" format and allows you to expand into areas that they may not be able to because of the interview constraints put on them by their legal departments.

The Person…Part 2

For my second post on "the person" I'm going to talk about, attitude. Attitude can be everything in an interview. I sat in one interview where the person I was interviewing came across OK. That’s it just "OK" that meant to me in my head that I could either hire or not and it made no difference. So I was continuing on with other scheduled interviews, and then all of the sudden this same lady came back into the area where I was conducting the interviews, waited till there was a break and walked over to me and my partner and told us thank you and handed us a card. The card was hand written, it thanked us for our time and then went on to tell us about what else she could do and how she felt she was a great fit for the position. Immediately it moved her to the top of the list, primarily because her attitude was I am going to get a job, do my best and I want to be remembered that I have the initiative to get done what needs to be done. I cannot share all of the information that she wrote in the card but it was an entire inside of a card written to describe all the good things about hiring her and thanking us. There was no bribe, no promise of extraordinary things or outright declaration of abilities that she didn't have, but it was a simple statement of I will do more, and I will do it with the right attitude. Internally this was a move from just OK to on the hire list. Of course she already had a resume that matched the basic skill requirements so that part was a given, the rest and the primary reason for the in person interview was fit with the team. All Interviews are meant to get a feel for how the person is …...in person and settle in the hiring managers mind whether someone can fit with the team. Your attitude, if you make it to the in person interview or over the phone interview should be one that portrays your willingness to get the job done. Understanding your own limitations but conveying your willingness to succeed. Of course answer all the questions but when you have the chance, just as in the hand written card, explain to the person you are speaking with how you are a great candidate, your skills are a good match and where there are shortfalls you will make up for it with initiative, determination and hard work. This gives the impression that not only will you meet the basic requirements but you will meet the "intent' of the job and that is to go above and beyond to get the job done. Your body language, tone and overall curiosity should be the primary focus points for your own "how do I act" thought process going into the interview. These areas will help you to convey a positive image. Don't slouch, try not to interrupt, and ask genuine questions about the job not the basic questions like what are my hours and how many people will I work with. Many of those things will not affect hiring and will be made available after you are hired. Asking questions about the organizational culture, is there a work life balance mentality within the company and are there specific technology's that the company is looking to move to in the future will help the hiring manager to see you are thinking about more than just working there. So the difference between just "OK" and "On the Hire List" should be the goal for everyone. Getting there is a self taught journey that we focus on when we are looking to be hired, but what isn't as apparent in the everyday work we do is the fact that we are building our resume and increasing our experience everyday. Keep in mind getting to the interview is the last step in being hired.

The Person ... Part 1

One thing about being a hiring manager that is different and exciting is the fact that you get to give someone a Job. On the other hand it is not that fun having to go through 100s of resumes looking for the right person. It means putting forth an effort to find someone that you believe will do the best job, complete the work assigned and not be a pain in the butt. How do you make this determination? Well first off almost every time I have the NEED. NEED is what is supposed to be accomplished. I NEED 1 person to do X. If I have the need I can make a pretty good determination on the skills required and then I can match up the person to the need, when I say match up the person, I mean the whole person. What is "the person" well in my experience it is a combination of two major items. First I will cover RESUME and then I will cover Interview and attitude, all in all they make up a whole. So to get started lets go with Resume. RESUME this is a document that tells your job history story. It tracks each job and the efforts (work) that you have done. Typically they are chronological and they encompass your entire work history from the time of your professional life forward, depending on where you are in your job/career lifespan it will include things from your professional career forward, SO if you had a High School job working at a Grocery Store as a check out clerk and you are 42 years old and have held multiple positions in Information Technology fields, you may not want to include this as it does not pertain to what you may want to portray as professional experience. You would however want to have jobs that relate to whatever job you are potentially applying for and so you would want anything that had a technical or IT related description or job responsibilities. When thinking of the sections of your resume you should have jobs in chronological order with the most recent job listed first. You want a Job Title, Company you worked for and date time span year to year. Hopefully without any breaks in employment. If you do have breaks in employment be prepared to answer questions about them and describe the why, the what you did, and your thoughts on breaks in employment. Another thing is if you are a job hopper, someone who has 6 month jobs then move to another and another. This would generate a question. Also the title and job listing should match. If your title is Software Engineer then you should have a lot of statements about Writing Code, Gathering Requirements and troubleshooting issues, your job write-up should match the position title. You also don't need a long drawn out job write-up but one that describes your major responsibilities. Be prepared to talk about each position with an example of something that you specifically did during each job time period. Next you should have Education. This should list your highest education accomplishment first. Whatever Degree you have with the School name, and Dates. This should list only accomplished and finished degrees, listing what you are working on should be left for conversation during the interview. If all you have is a High School diploma or GED you can skip the education section if you want and not have an education section, but again this depends on the type of resume and job you are applying for. If it is for a technical position a degree will help. The last item that you would want to include is certifications, this will help to identify the items that you have actually studied for and tested to assess aptitude in a particular specialized area. I used to think that certifications were just a good list of things that someone knew. Then the more I reviewed resumes it seemed I focused on those who had certifications more than others that were in the pile. This then led me to believe that even though the certs in my mind had marginal value they did make people rise to the top in getting more views. If you are following what I am saying is regardless of what your personal opinions are on certifications if you have them list them if they get you more views then so be it. In the next section I will post more about the interview and attitude. Bottom line getting hired is a lot about what you know and your experience but its not the only factor going into getting you that job you know you deserve. Remember your resume is the story of you and it may be the only thing a recruiter sees that they can use to make a determination if they want to talk to you more or not.

PMP Bootcamp Classes Reviewed.

Here is a quick view of my experience with PMP Bootcamp Classes. I will give you the information and let you be the judge. A company called Project Weavers, was contacted by me to attend a class. They offer a veteran discount and they offer classes in many locations. They do not guarantee that the class run and in my case 2 classes were cancelled. I contacted the number from their website and it is an answering service and they transfer the messages to the owner and he will contact you. I contacted them about materials, books, or cheatsheets and recieved one e-mail with a "terms" list form the back of the PMBOK.

The first class was cancelled 3 days before it ran. Cancelled on a Friday intended to run on a Monday. The next class I was not aware it was cancelled until I looked it up on the website. I then emailed the address from the website and was told the owner would call me back. The owner called me back and said that he would check what e-mail he sent the notification of cancellation, He then said I could take their Online class, to which I said I still have no materials to study at all. He told me that everything was online and he could send me links....I then asked why I had no links and I have been signed up for 3 weeks.

To make a long story short I requested a Refund and decided to go elsewhere. I was told I would receive notice of the refund the next day and it is now 5 days later and I still have no notification and am still in contact with the company.

The new class is reviewed in the next post

Certifications and what is worth pursuing. Anymore there are a million certs out there, IT certs of every type and style and so many that your not sure which one is good and which one is bad. To tell you the truth NONE are bad, and all have their place in helping you get hired. Each have their own merit for being considered and they show that in fact you take things at least serious enough to try and prove yourself against thier standards. Whatever those standards may be. Recently I myself have needed to prove myself, in the area of Project Management. SO what better way than to attain the PmP Cert.

If you're not familiar with this cert it is a pretty challenging cert, with questions at the expert level and many based on scenarios in which you need to know the "Best" answer out of 4 answers that are typically all right.

My challenge was to be able to break away and study. Many Project Managers cannot just get away, or dedicate their nights to studying without having a forcing mechanism to help them "pencil" in the time. Time is truly the enemy and if you are busy and a dedicated professional well Time is just something we need more of.

SO, in order for me to "get away" and find time. I decided to attend a Project Management Professional(PMP) Exam Cert Bootcamp. This is typically a 4 day dedicated class that focuses on polishing off your knowledge and getting you ready to take the test. They typically are not designed to teach you everything you need to know they are focused on taking your existing knowledge and studying and truly dedicating 4 full days on channeling it into a test prep that should end in getting your Cert.

I haven't went into an overview of the class that I am attending, however I will do a reveiw once I return. One thing I do know is that I will give you information, and you can decide whether it is positive or negative. I will tell you there are different reveiws and levels of "quality" when it comes to bootcamps. I have two experiences from two different classes that need sharing and I will give you an update in a few weeks.

Resume Tweaking for the job you want

First off this is a quick one. JUST WRITE GOOD AND EDIT TO MAKE SURE YOU HAVE NO MISTAKES. If your sentences are crappy or your spelling is bad then your statements about "attention to detail" and all those areas where you say you're GOOD seem to have less meaning. Hell sometimes it throws me so far off that I just give up on thinking in your direction. NEXT don't put an objective. NO S&^%, you want a challenging job that allows you to expand your skills, work within a team and further your career. SO DOES EVERYONE ELSE. Use this space to expand on what you can do or have done. "Over my past 20 years of experience within the IT field I have designed full scale networks, worked and led multiple teams of individuals to successful completion of their tasks and have worked and managed multiple efforts which have saved millions of dollars in software licensing, manpower and time. My experience is further detailed below". This may not be the best write-up BUT it can be something that entices the 'resume reviewer' to be curious about what you have done. ALSO update your skills and make sure you list the skills you have acquired on your most recent job. IF you have NO new skills and you're just looking, maybe look into a ONE day class that can increase your current skills and give you that ONE little differentiating factor over your competitors.

Be diligent and review your resume and make sure when someone contacts you based on a resume they the one they have seen is in fact your most recent. Try to add a DATE to your resume and then you can know for a fact it is most recent if not ask them if you can e-mail and updated version.
That one mispelling on the other guys resume may just give you the edge over all the exact things on their resume.