Magic Pot of Jobs

This is one of the most dreaded interview questions, and for good reason. Unless the answer is, “I was laid off,” it’s a minefield. But that doesn’t mean there’s no good way to answer.

The key to successfully answering this question lies in understanding what it is that the interviewer is trying to uncover. A potential employer is not only trying to discover your strengths, but also any red flags about traits that might make you a “problem employee.”

So first, don’t bash your previous employer. No matter how much your previous employer might deserve it, taking that approach is just going to make you sound like a whiner and make the interviewer wonder what you’ll be saying about his company when you leave it.

Second, don’t complain about your workload, even if it was unreasonable. See above warning against sounding like a whiner.

Basically, understand that an interviewer is going to view your answer from the boss’s perspective- if you didn’t like your workload at your last job, maybe you just aren’t a hard worker. If you hate your boss, maybe you’re just hard to work with.

Instead, think about how to frame your reasons for leaving in terms that a new employer can sympathize with. Instead of talking about the excessive workload, consider the conditions that make it that way. Talk about how you weren’t empowered in that position to make the decisions that would have made the department run more efficiently.

It’s perfectly reasonable to explain why your last job wasn’t a good fit- it gives the new potential employer a good picture of your work style and preferences. But it’s important to do so in such a way that doesn’t give an unfairly poor impression of you to the interviewer.

Let’s talk for a minute about the “Summary” and “Objective” portions of a resume. When used well, choosing one of these resume features can really tie your experience together and present you as a person, rather than as a collection of dates and job titles. When used poorly, they either make you look like you’re trying (poorly) to pad, or like you didn’t even bother trying to learn anything about the job for which you’re applying.

It should be noted that in many cases, a summary or objective isn’t really even necessary- when in doubt, just leave it out.

The Summary

The summary is best for people with several years of experience, especially those who want to highlight skills that aren’t necessarily assumed to be part of their job descriptions. For example, if you’re a network administrator who has also managed a migration or a rollout and want to highlight that project management experience, you might say something like:

Network administrator with 7 years of progressively responsible experience in user and network support. Experienced in project management and systems migration. Supervised teams of up to 7 people.

What you should not do is use the summary to talk about how smart you are if you don’t have the experience to back it up. Don’t say things like, “Candidate possesses a deep understanding of Information Technology from a substantial perspective.” Even if you come up with a more intelligent way to say it than that, it just looks like you’re trying to make something out of nothing.

The Objective

The objective is best suited for people who have a wide variety of experience, or who are trying to change the focus of their careers, because the experience listed on the resume might not suggest what it is they’re looking to do. For example, if you’ve always done help desk but are looking to move into networking, this would be a good situation in which to use an objective, because it tells me as a potential employer to be looking at your help desk jobs to see if they’ve given you any real network experience.

First, let me tell you what not to do. Don’t use the generic “To obtain a challenging position in the field of ____ that will allow me to utilize my _____ skills.” I see 10 variations of that a day and they’re all useless! Useless, I tell you! It doesn’t tell me anything about what your goals are or what you’d like to specialize in. If you can’t come up with something better than this, leave it off.

Instead, try to tailor your objective to the specific job for which you are applying. This isn’t dishonest- you only apply for jobs that you want, so there’s nothing wrong with saying, “To obtain a position on the development team for a web-based information management system in a start-up company environment,” on the resume you’d send to a company like the software company I used to work for, and then sending the non-profit who needs a webmaster the resume that says, “To obtain a website management position at a non-profit organization focused on education.” Because in each case, it’s true. It also demonstrates that you’ve taken the time to understand the position as well as the company you’re applying to, and you’d be surprised at how many people don’t even bother with that step.

This is especially critical if you’re going to work with a company like mine- I might be looking at your resume and thinking that you’re perfect for this job order I have open that I can’t fill- until I look at your objective and discover that in fact you want to do something completely different.

Someone protested to me today that he doesn’t have enough experience to know what he wants to specialize in. Fair enough. If you don’t have enough experience to know what you want to do, then you don’t have enough experience to use an objective. It’s not strictly necessary. And everyone knows that right out of college, your objective is to get a job, and if it’s in the field you majored in, that’s a huge bonus.

Where I work, we have a core value called “simultaneous promotion of all interests.” That means that it’s my job to not only make the client happy, but also to make the person I place there happy, and also to do what’s good for me and for my employer. In other words, I’m to make sure I find that magical point in which the person I place with the client is happy with the work and what they’re being paid, the client is happy with the quality of work being done and the bill rate they’re paying, my employer is billing a fair price for the service we provide, and I don’t have a client or talent making my life hellish.

Sounds good, yes?

Well, that also means that if I have a junior-level help desk position open, and my choices are A. A junior-level help desk person, and B. A network engineer/database administrator, I’m going to lean toward choice A. Why? Because unless it’s a short-term fill-in sort of job, my client wants someone that isn’t going to get bored and quit. I’d rather place the person who is a perfect match and will be able to use the experience to advance his or her career than the person who is massively overqualified and who will constantly be trying to get something else that’s a better match for their skills.

I’m not against the idea of people taking whatever they can get while they look for something better in principle, but if I have the choice, I’m going to place the person whose experience level is the closest to the requirements of the position, because then:
- my talent is pleased to have something good to put on his/her resume
- my client is pleased to have someone with a low turnover risk
- I am pleased at the lower likelihood of having to refill the position on short notice
- my company is pleased that the client and talent will be loyal to us for future business opportunities.

Thus, if you call me and tell me you’re a network engineer who also has three eyars of Oracle DBA experience, I’m not going to put you in a help desk position unless I’m all out of help desk people to fill the job with. So don’t argue with me about it.

Just a few pieces of advice that ought to go without saying, but apparently don’t (where do people learn to write resumes?):

Be sure that your name is spelled correctly, everywhere it appears on the resume.

Use the advanced features of Word to format your resume. Don’t use a bunch of tabs to align your text. First of all, if you tell me you’re an expert in Microsoft Office, you’d better believe I’m going to do “Show hidden characters” to see if you really are. Secondly, as a staffing agent, I have to strip out your contact information before submitting it to a client. And if your resume needs a little tweaking (just tweaking, wording improvements, no substantial changes), I’m going to do it. If you’ve used the electronic equivalent of paperclips and bubblegum to hold your resume formatting together, you’re very quickly going to irritate me.

Finally, don”t list your experience building a website for a community group you’re part of, and then tell me that its web address is http://www.MCORG@YAHOO.COM. I’m going to think you’re bullshitting me, because you probably are.

I’m posting this because it’s an example of one of my favorite parts of my job, so if in a few months I’m whining, you all can hold my feet to the fire about it. I never felt the need to go into some kind of altruistic work, because I was always taught that all work is honorable as long as it’s honest. But my job, as I’ve said before, is a nice blend of the altruistic and profit-driven motives.

I’ve had people out on a less-than-glamorous assignment lately- installing and configuring new PCs for a company-wide upgrade. Consequently, having this assignment encourages the people I send on it to find better, permanent jobs. This happened to me recently and I needed a replacement. I ended up sending someone I hadn’t been able to put to work thus far even though I had interviewed her a couple of months ago. For benefits reasons, I don’t “hire” someone (collect their post-hire paperwork) until I’m ready to put them to work. So I had to go out to the client site to pick up her tax stuff and I-9.

“Hey! How are ya?”

“I’m blessed, thank you. How are you?”

“Doing well, thanks, really busy at the office.”

she cracks a big smile “Well, thanks to you, I’m busy too.”

“So, I see that you’ve done some “end user and technical documentation.” Can you tell me about that?”

“Uh, what?”

“The documentation you did. What was it for?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“I’m reading the sentence directly from your resume. It says you did ‘end user and technical documentation.’ What were you documenting?”

“Oh! Well, see, one day the network was down. So we had to log the calls by hand, on paper.”

*Tiff wishes for a wall to bang her head against*

—
“Well, the job description says you want a web developer who will also manage your network, and that’s a very rare sort of person. They’re very divergent skill sets.”

“I don’t want a web developer!”

“Your job description specifically says that 50% of the person’s time will be spent on web development, and 15% on database administration.”

“But I don’t want a web developer! I want a programmer!”

“A programmer who writes code for the web IS a web developer.”

“Oh.”

—
“This HTML Programmer you’re asking me for really sounds more like a Unix Systems Administrator.”

“We don’t need a Unix administrator. We need someone to do HTML and install and configure Solaris.”

“A person who can install and configure Solaris is called a Unix Systems Administrator. An HTML coder who designs websites will weep if you ask him to configure a Unix box.”

“Oh.”

—
I shouldn’t complain. It’s their ignorance that makes my job necessary. But yesterday I was biting my tongue a couple of times to keep from adding, “…so STOP ARGUING with me! You clearly don’t know what you’re talking about and I DO!”

A fairly common mistake people make when deciding whether or not to accept an offer is to only think about the number printed in their offer letter. When evaluating whether an offer is fair or not, they only think about the actual dollar amount of their proposed salary.

This is very short-sighted. Employers have become very creative in finding ways to compensate their employees as part of comprehensive packages of which the salary is really just the most noticeable part. When thinking over a job offer, try to see it as a complete package. What other benefits are being offered, what is their monetary value, and what is their value to you?

Health, dental, vision, and prescription coverage have become fairly standard offerings, but what are the details of the plan? Will you pay less in copays for office visits and prescriptions? Is the coverage better?

And what about time off? Are you getting more time off than at your previous position? Employers have to count that as part of your compensation, because if it’s an accrual system, then they have to pay you for any unused time accrued. What kind of sick and personal time do you get?

Contributions to an IRA or 401(k) are also a high-value component of compensation, and one of the easiest to value. If an employer makes a 5% contribution to the retirement account of an employee making $50,000 per year, then they are actually paying the employee an additional $2500 per year.

And then there are all the other perks and benefits that a company might offer. In a major metropolitan area, a lease in a parking garage costs $3000/year, and many employers pay for them. There might be a gym in the company’s building that employees can use- Gym memberships are often worth $500/year.

When all the benefits are taken into account, they can raise the value of a compensation package by 25-35% of the value of the salary component. Don’t make the mistake of only looking at the number printed next to the $ on the offer letter. Dig a little deeper and find out what they’re really offering you.

I work in the Professional Division of a major, multi-national staffing services company. I match up employers and IT professionals with the idea that the client gets the ideal employee for the environment and the employee gets the perfect working environment for their skills and personality. It’s a nice job.

But there’s something that I don’t get. Applicants complain to me all the time about how they need to work, as if I have some Magic Pot Of Jobs that I am capriciously denying or granting access to.

Look guys, my company gets paid (and my bonus compensation is therefore determined) when I put someone to work. So if I had the right job for you, wouldn’t I be trying to get it for you? Next to you, I am the person who most wants you to have a job. So whining to me about how you’re running out of money, or insisting that you’re really smart and learn new things really fast, isn’t going to get you to work any faster. I feel bad that you don’t have a job, and I know you’ve got bills to pay, but the fact is, I didn’t do whatever it was that caused you to be out of work in the first place, and you are only 1 of hundreds of people calling me on a weekly basis for help. Some of you, I will be able to find a job for. Some of you I won’t. Whining is just going to annoy me- it’s not going to convince me that you’d be a great employee for someone.

So in that spirit, consider this site a mixture. Some of it will be things I’ve learned as a recruiter about making yourself more marketable. Some of it will just be little rants like this one. In any case, enjoy, and welcome to my Magic Pot of Jobs.

(The next several posts will be from my personal blog, so no freaking out about stolen content. It’s not stealing if it was already yours.)