JOBMATCHBOX

GIGO is programmer jargon for Garbage In Garbage Out.  I’m pointing this out because hiring teams often neglect their most important effort - attracting the best and brightest people.  This frequently means that they copy and paste a job description, then hand it off to a recruiter who interprets the job description quite literally (just like a programmer would interpret instructions - good or bad into code that will ultimately be good or bad as a result).  The part that I’d like to point out is that unless you have a recruiting team that knows your subject matter as well as you do then you need to compensate for potential interpretation challenges that recruiters will run into if left to their own devices.  Now before I speak any further on this I want to point out that no matter how good your instructions are, if you don’t have the right recruiting team in place then finding what you need will be like finding a needle in a haystack.  That said, it is always a good idea to provide details - requirements, desired attributes, benefits to working for your team (not the kind that end in k).  The part where people stop short is in providing guidance with respect to interpreting these details - i.e. what the difference between a developer and a programmer is.  Hiring teams often choose words (and job titles) because they have some sort of hip factor or because that is what they are used to.  People often make the same mistake when buying cars and consumer electronics.  At least consumer reports can help them to make more informed choices, but with job descriptions there isn’t a consumer reports guide so you have to do some thinking. 

Here is an example of a job description that was written with this line of thought in mind.  You will notice the following bullet in the job requirements:
“You are a developer, not a programmer.”

The link takes you to the article that I’m linking to above that talks about the difference between a developer and a programmer.  You could easily provide similar differentiators for other types of roles as well.  For example, how is sales different from business development or B2B?  

Remember that the goal here isn’t to create more work, just to create an item on your checklist for making sure that you are writing outstanding job descriptions that will help your recruiters to help you.  This will save you time.  Don’t expect the spammy job seekers to read your job description any more carefully because you have clarified the role though.

It seems like only a few days ago that the guys over at Edgio closed shop and sold out to the highest bidders.  Around the same time Jobster’s CEO jumped ship and moved to New York City.  Today I received tips from multiple sources that Eric Yoon, the CEO of Jobthread has moved on officially resigned.  No word yet on why.  They were partnered with Jobster right around the time that Jobster’s CEO moved to New York.  I can’t help but wonder if this is all happening by chance. 

I’ve been critical of big job boards, but this is out of control.  It’s official, Wal-Mart has entered the online classifieds business.  Does this mean that their next mark is Facebook?  Craigslist eat your heart out.

I’m a big fan of the beach and go every chance that I get, but the first time I hit a beach on the East coast I remember that the water was really cold.  I stuck one toe in and stopped.  I had expected to just jump right in and that the water would be warmer.  Networking is a little like this too.  For most people who haven’t done it before it is a really tough to get into.  You walk into a crowded room of people and there are so many strangers in the room.  The most natural thing to do is walk up and start talking to someone who you know, but in networking your goal is to meet new people and extend your conversation range.  Notice that I didn’t say rolodex (these days you can do that on Linkedin or elsewhere), but “conversation range”.

Yesterday I was talking to two different people who convinced me that I needed to take the plunge, into the networking Ocean that is out there.  In talking to them I realized that I have had one toe in.  Now don’t get me wrong, it isn’t that I’m not networking.  I go to all kinds of different events and meet and have conversations with new and interesting people all the time.  The problem is that to be a really good networker requires that you constantly identify and explore uncharted territory.  In my case this means figuring out new groups of people to interact with from time to time.

The lesson here is that we all stand to benefit from expanding our social context so consider this a dare to go out and jump in - it will be a bit uncomfortable at first, but you’ll be comfortable before you know it.  Don’t just stockpile online contacts.

I found this collection of social media advice links that Chris Brogran assembled to be interesting and you might too.

The next Social Matchbox event that will be held (location TBD) on Monday, June 30, 2008 and would like to hear from you.  The last event had nearly 200 people and 30 companies in attendance.  Based on the feedback we received from that last event we are going to limit the number of presenters and try to secure a location that closer to a Metro stop in the district so that more people can be there.  If you would like to volunteer or if your organization would like to become a sponsor and help with the costs associated with the event (we work hard to minimize them).  Also, if your startup company is hiring and would like to present at the event let us know now.  We allowed event registration to go up until the day of the event last time, but that is not likely - if anything we will issue a limited number of tickets and once they are gone we will cut off registration.

To get involved, or to get more information, send a note to: email@jobmatchbox.com . 

Click here for details on the the last event.

The following article has been re-published with permission from the staffmagnet team, a Washington, DC based company that specializes in attractive practices for companies that inculde active community engagement.

A few months ago a good friend took a job working for a startup company that you’ve probably heard of.   He had been having informational interviews with the top startup companies from around the area.  I say informational interviews and not interviews because these were more like conversations about what he wanted to do and whether or not they could line something like that up.  There were no developer tests or technical screen interviews (at least not in the early stages) or other major hoops that he had to jump through.  The companies that he interviewed with had an edge over the competition, but not a silver bullet.  Three of them had active community engagement programs.  One of the three didn’t have the flexibility to make a role for him, but the other two did.  He ended up taking the best opportunity of the two. 

The magic of what happened wasn’t that he responded to an ad on ANY job board.  In fact, there was not a job posted anywhere.  He had a connection to the companies that were hiring (all three) because they had active community engagement programs.  A few others out there do too.  The big ones have the resources to do this and usually implement programs that are directed toward college students, but smart companies these days are implementing active community engagement programs that leverage both their employees and their recruiting teams.  In one case I’ve seen a company hire a community manager outright.  A community manager who serves both the interests of the company and helps the company recruiter – together they actively engage the community very effectively. 

But even with all of the community engagement efforts of this dynamic duo, they miss a lot of really talented people who they would like to hire.  But the people who really miss out are the companies who don’t have any sort of community engagement program in place.  Some have passive community engagement programs, aka employee referral bonus programs.  The problem is that just offering a referral bonus is like offering someone a reward for referring their relatives and immediate friends.  The problem with this is that friends and family don’t get screened like prospective applicants and they end up taking more time than they are worth (think courstesy interviews).  Community engagement means that employees are actively scouting for talent all the time, because they have been trained to think about it and because they see the benefit of it. 

As I’ve mentioned, the power of community engagement is really clear to some companies, but to me it became even more clear today.  I would like to share two different examples: 

This morning I spoke with a candidate who I have been talking to for more than 6 months.  He works for a company that is well known for hiring too many people, overpaying them and then letting them go in bulk.  People stick around because the money is too good not to.  The candidate just got a big raise and had no reason to be looking for a job.  No job board resumes or job descriptions involved.  The candidate knows me well and knows that I’m a door opener.  I figured that when the candidate was ready to look that I would get a call, or at least a Twitter message.  Instead, I got a ping about the candidate having given 2 weeks notice.  I asked why I didn’t get a call (I had recently presented some great opportunities) and here is what the candidate said - It was his collaboration with one of the lead team members from the company he is going to go to work for in two weeks that prompted the move, not something that a recruiter set up.  Now I know the person who un-officially recruited this candidate personally too.  It is someone who is very active in a DC area group that both are involved with (I am too which is how I know one of them).  This candidate is a top notch developer, the kind that a lot of companies would move mountains for. 

Later today I spoke with a candidate who had also just given his employer two weeks notice.  He is going to work for a company that has hired more than a dozen people with hot web developer skills and experience (all local) while other companies have been pressed to hire any web developers with similar skills and experience.  The small company that he accepted an offer at doesn’t have an office or a recruiter.  They have done this because they have taken an active role in a local group and they send their people to this event monthly.  After each event they typically go out for drinks and appetizers with whoever is around.  The crowd is really social and the team members from the small company get to know the members of the group through this way.  It isn’t that the small company is doing something amazing, they are just spending time on a regular basis in the company of the people who they want to hire.  It has paid off for them. 

 It is easy to get lost in all of the different events that are going on these days, but there are only a few that happen on a regular basis that these companies have to hit to find who they are looking for and get to know them well enough to attract them.  While companies could send recruiters in to do the work of peer talent scouts, the result isn’t the same as a coordinated effort.  You know the saying, the more the merrier, and it is very true in community engagement as well.

Copyright 2008, Robert Neelbauer, staffmagnet, LLC.  Re-publication of this article without permission is prohibited.

Update: I found this post with a related story while skimming the day’s job seeker Tweets.

If you’ve ever thought about picking up a resume writing book or hiring a resume writer you may want to read this before you go out and fork over any money for someone else’s ideas on the subject.

Resume writers and guides will tell you how to style your resume in much the same way that designers will help you style your website or marketing materials.  But that isn’t why you need a resume.  That is unless you are looking for a job as a web or graphic designer, but even in that case you will need a resume before you get into the style.  Exception - if you are an artist then you may want to break the rules completely. 

So here is everything that you will ever need to know about resumes:

Rule #1: You are writing your resume for a specific audience, so your resume should speak to that audience.  If you are looking to get hired as a developer you don’t really need to emphasize that you are a realtor.  If anything, this shows me that you are easily distracted by other things going on in your life.  Focus on the things that are important for the job.

Rule #2: Your resume should be more like a short story and less like War and Peace.  Actually, if you are thinking about your resume as an essay or work of literature then you need to get over this idea really fast.  People do not read resumes like they read literature, they read resumes more like grocery lists.  Short, sweet and to the point.

Rule #3: Your summary says it all.  Objectives are goals, but summaries are for professionals who want to show their audience that they are qualified, experienced and interested in the job that that are applying for.  You need to have a thesis that summarizes what you have done and why you are qualified for the job that you are applying for.  This should be followed by no more than 3-5 bullet points that support your thesis.  The rest of your resume will support this central thesis.

Rule #4: NEVER lie on your resume.  You will have to support the lie for the rest of your career and it will catch up with you - even if you don’t know that it has.  Save yourself the need to lie on your resume by writing a great summary and then supporting it with what you have done.  If that isn’t enough to do it then you should be networking or do something else to help support your career direction.  Note: A degree from an online university is low hanging fruit that isn’t worth the cost to you - think traditional university or certificate program or get a hobby that gives you resume experience. 

Rule #5: You can easily have too many skills for your own good.  A resume is a lot like a website.  You can search engine optimize to drive traffic to your resume just like a website.  The problem is that you don’t want to do that.  Just because you used an email program on a UNIX environment when you were in college 10 years ago doesn’t mean that UNIX is a skill for you.  Take this off your resume along with every other keyword that will put your in the wrong search results.  Job boards suck at search and a lot of recruiters do to - you don’t want to talk to the bad recruiters out there do you?  I know I wouldn’t.  I made the mistake of putting Sharepoint on my resume ONCE and I got 6 calls from the same recruiter - each time I said I don’t use Sharepoint (except for on one project and not in a big way - I had only listed it in my skills).  Monster.com told him that I was a Sharepoint WIZARD because I was in his search results. 

Rule #6: If your education is relevent then put it at the top, if not then put it at the bottom.  I don’t care where you went to highschool.  If you are listing classes that you took in college 10 years ago on your resume then it is time for them to go. 

Rule #7: Work experience should be concise and to the point, not paragraphs.  List off the employer (not the staffing agency, though they do appreciate your plug), dates, location (city and state), then 3-10 bullets that speak to what you did there.  This is where you really need to be thinking about supporting your summary (thesis).  You shouldn’t repeat your summary bullet points here, but you should be expanding on them.  Don’t use your job description, use what you actually did.  Recruiters don’t assume that you are going to be a perfect fit for their job and neither do hiring teams, but they do look for patterns.  If you don’t show them what you were doing then the pattern will not present itself.  For example, if you talk about how you used Java, but don’t clarify what types of Java applications that you worked on then you are probably going to get put at the bottom of the call list by the recruiter or person reviewing resumes (if they are good, and you don’t want the bad ones calling you…).

Rules #8-10 will have to come later.  Good luck!

Before I launched my own company I had to recruit a lot Java developers for HUGE companies all the time.  There were endless Java developers and endless teams hiring them.  I guess this was good for business.  The problem then is pretty much the same problem now - there are too many bad Java developers out there.  And by bad Java developers I mean people who treat technology as if it was their VCR.  They really don’t care about the technology that they work with and could care less if they were writing code or selling real estate, as long as they get a big paycheck.  I wish that I was making this up, but I’m not.  One of the reasons why I got so excited about Ruby on Rails several years ago (before it became the big phenom that it is now) was because I spent time in the Java and Ruby communities.  I found that the people who were into Ruby were into technology.  They cared about technology.  Java people just did whatever paid the most.  Now don’t get me wrong, there are Java people who care about technology, but they are just really hiding out somewhere.  If I had to guess I’d say that they are hiding from staffing agencies who pester them.  But that can’t be it - these people have to exist.  So why don’t they come out and play with the rest of the technology community?

If you know any good Java developers or happen to be one, let me know.  I’d be happy to introduce you to others.  Here is my email address: email@jobmatchbox.com

As a small job list publisher I would have never thought that this day would come, but it has…

TMP Worldwide, the parent company to Monster.com, has posted a job on Jobmatchbox.com.

For that I’m flattered enought to feature their job today. 

Thanks and good luck!