Magic Pot of Jobs

Web 2.Oh, Yeaahh!!!

Originally uploaded by Mike Monteiro.

I should get about 20 of these for clients…

Tiff and I had lunch with the lovely Erica yesterday. We had a productive and engaging discussion on the differences between women’s and men’s communications styles in the workplace. While we didn’t necessarily come to any new conclusions on the subject, it did higlight the value of good interview questions.

Erica shared that she was once in an interview where the hiring manager asked her “how smart do you think you are?”

I don’t see the value in a question like this. What does it truly tell you about the candidate? It’s a question that would make even the most experienced job seeker uncomfortable, and doesn’t give the interviewer anything valuable to follow up with. It’s a purely pop psychology question.

If the interviewer wanted to get a good perspective on how a candidate thinks, or how comfortable she/he is in uncomfortable situations, a more direct approach would have yielded better answers.

Some suggestions:

How do you deal with difficult workplace situations?

Tell me about a time when the odds were against getting a project done on time.

Have you ever been in a work situation where you were the subject-matter expert? How did you approach teaching your coworkers?

The point of an interview is not to psychoanalyze a candidate. It’s to gather information as to how he/she reacts to work situations, and to see how he/she has applied knowledge from past work experiences.

Jobseekers! Especially you younger, less-confident ones! Do yourself a favor and don’t say this:

“Um, yeah, I’d like to talk with someone about maybe possibly getting a job.”

No, you’d like to talk about getting a job. We may be able to help you. Possibly, you will get a job through us. But you would like to talk about getting a job. Be confident!

Unless, you only “maybe, possibly” WANT a job. In which case, I don’t want to work with you and don’t waste my time.

This Monster posting is being passed around by online recruiters. It makes me laugh just how seriously this person takes himself:

TO all recruiters- A job description + a Salary range MUST be emailed to me FIRST. I will not return phone calls or emails unless this step is taken first many of you are calling with low paying jobs and no job description and I don’t have the time to talk to everyone about a position I don’t want. I WILL NOT come into your office “JUST TO TALK” about my resume. If you’re a staffing firm/recruiter I can care less about what your company does or how long its been around. You serve one purpose and that’s to tell IT professionals what Jobs you are hiring for right now and how much those jobs are paying.

Valid point in part. We’re really damn up front about that when we talk to candidates, but I know that’s not always the case. But I strongly disagree that my sole purpose is to tell people what my jobs pay. My purpose is also to represent the best needs of my client.

What I look for in tech folks (and really, people in general) is a true passion for IT. I love the gleam in the eyes of geeks that enjoy being geeks. There are far too many IT professionals who don’t give a shit about technology, it’s uses, capabilities, limitations, and possibilities. When people ask about money before they want to talk tech (or about my client’s product) it’s usually a sign for me that they lack that passion that I’m looking for.

And frankly, money is not that important AT THIS INITIAL PHASE. I have a general idea of what a candidate’s skills are worth, salary wise. If I contact someone about a particular client need, I (almost always) know if they’re in a reasonable range.

If you absolutely deem it imperative that I come in to speak about your company and my resume be prepared to pay for 2 hours of my time at 50.00 an hour plus gas. If you find this notion absurd then so is taking 2 hours of my time plus gas money just to talk about my resume when this info can be relayed over the phone.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. What I can get over the phone is a rundown of a candidate’s IT skills, and some discussion about your experience. What I can’t get is his/her personality, manner, mannerisms, demeanor. I can’t tell whether he/she makes eye contact. I can’t tell whether he/she has blue hair and multiple piercings (welcome at some of my clients, but not at others). I can’t tell his/her personal hygeine (more important than you think). I can’t tell how he/she deals with speaking with more than one person. I can’t telll whether he/she has a crappy handshake. To sum it up, I can’t tell a personality from one phone call alone.

If a candidate can’t make the time to come in for an interview with me, then they give me absolutely no incentive to send them to my client. None. They’ve illustrated that a process is not important to them. I always think to myself “there is someone else that wants this job more than you. I’m going to go find that person.”

All recruiters and Staffing Firms MUST have a pay range of $55-65.00 an hour +,1099 or corp to corp.

Sounds like a fascinating business model. Let me know how this works out.

Every day, around 4:30 and continuing on until at least 6:00 (so our voicemail says), it happens. People start calling and hurriedly asking for jobs. They aren’t people we’ve ever talked to before. Sometimes they’re recent graduates, or students home for the summer. Sometimes they don’t even know what we do and are looking for light industrial or clerical work.

But the common thread always seems to be, “Oh crap! Parent/Spouse is coming home soon and they’re going to ask me if I looked for a job today! I’d better call a temp agency or something…”

We get it a lot right after holidays too, after people have just had to sit through Thanksgiving dinner and tell their extremely successful sibling or cousin that they’re “between jobs right now.”

Chris Abraham started an extended discussion of Stephanie’s job searching and dating analogy… and completely, utterly missed her point.

Look, embittered DC singles: The comparison is not that dating is about more money, more prestige, better status, because it shouldn’t be. The comparison is that you take a short period of time to make the best impression you can, and that all parties are evaluating each other to decide if the other is really what’s best for them at that point in their life.

Plus, you know, it was a joke. But some people aren’t into those.

There are amazing parallels between a job search and dating:

You see an ad for Accenture* online. You like what Accenture has to offer, and think that you might be a good fit based on a few surface qualifications. You offer up your contact information, and Accenture calls to set up a time to meet.

You then put on your nicest outfit, make lots of eye contact, smile, and be your usual charming self. Accenture asks you questions, you ask Accenture questions. You all get a feel for each other, and you are either interested in learning more, or you’re not.

In the second meeting, you have a chance to learn more about Accenture. What are Accenture’s vacation plans? What about culture? What are the benefits of a relationship with Accenture?

Then, the infamous third interview. You’re either offered “the job” or not.

But as much as there are similarities, there are notable differences.

I mean, if Accenture doesn’t call you back, you don’t sit and beat yourself up about it. “Maybe Accenture thinks I’m too fat! Or I bet it’s that I talked about my last job too much. Damn it, what if I never find another Accenture!?”

And the thing is that there is always another Accenture. It’s much easier for us to think that we’ll never find another mate again than it would be for us to accept that we will never find another job.

Now, only if there was someone who could check references on your behalf: How long have you known Accenture? Did you find Accenture easy to work with? How was Accenture’s punctuality?

*Just an example, sweeties. Accenture is the one place I haven’t worked. Yet. I’m still reading their horoscope for the right day to make my move. I’m also now shopping at Accenture’s grocery store, hoping that we run into each other in the produce section.

My friend Taryn recently told me this story over homemade guac. Let it be a cautionary tale about working for people who have no sense of humor (or a grasp on what is acceptable to say in an interview, for that matter).

Taryn had a great first interview, for a director-level position, at a trade association. She met with the office manager and felt like the interview went well, and that she had developed a good rapport with her.

A few days later, she met with the president of the association. Again, second interview, feeling good.

At the end of the same week, she received an e-mail from the president, alerting Taryn that she had some “concerns” about her, and wanted to meet with her again to see if they could be resolved. It’s at this point that Taryn calls yours truly, and asks what “concerns” means.

(Expressing concerns, btw, is simply a request for more information. Either that, or the person is terribly indecisive. When you can’t tell the difference, that’s a bad sign.)

Taryn goes back for a third interview, this time over her lunch break. The office manager and president chat her up with small talk for about ten minutes. Taryn, being the direct and ballsy hottie that she is, finally says, “So, ladies. Concerns. What’s that all about?”

The president proceeds to launch into a lecture about how Taryn is not allowed to drink at the national conference as they “have a reputation to protect.” (This is ironic, considering the business they represent, but I won’t kiss and tell here.) Taryn is a taken aback, and asks if she has done anything to give them the impression that she was a heavy drinker. No, they respond, but they just wanted to be clear about expectations in advance.

“Cool. Well, if that resolves it, then I’m heading back to work,” she says. The office manager chimed in at this point, and says there is actually one more thing: “Taryn, we’re concerned about your language.”

Taryn is racking her brain at this point “What have I done to give them the impression that I’m a drunken sailor?”

Taking a second to breathe, she asks for them to please explain, as perhaps she was just nervous during the interview process, and something slipped out. (Look, there goes the f-bomb!)

The president says, “well, Taryn, we asked you to cite an example of how you go above and beyond for your clients at your current job. You mentioned how you have one client that was constantly late for committee calls. You said that you call him a few minutes before the call every week, tell him to get his butt on the phone, and he always makes it on time.”

“OK,” waiting for the pres to continue.

Dead silence.

“Butt is NOT appropriate language in a business context. We DO have a reputation to protect here.”

Dead silence.

“Mmmmm, OK.” At this very moment, Taryn has decided not to take the job. While telling someone to “get his butt” is not the most eloquent way of expressing the sentiment, it does illustrate that Taryn did a good job of building a casual and friendly rapport with her client, something we here at the MISF call getting into the client’s operating reality.

And since when is “butt” a dirty word? It’s not as though she channeled Samuel L. Jackson and said “hey motherfucker, get that ass on the phone before I slap you like the bitch you are.”

At this point, Taryn stands up, and offers her own perspective: “Ladies, thank you for your time. If you were at all concerned about my professionalism, that’s what references are for. As you haven’t asked me for any, I can only assume that we’re not moving forward.”

They e-mailed her later in the day to request her references, and she declined.

Moral of the story: if the company makes you that nervous, or considers my niece’s favorite word ‘dirty,’ trust me that you don’t want to work there anyway.

Carly Lesser (who I had the distinct pleasure of meeting last week at Beyond Blogging 2006) blogs over at the CDG blog about Flash and its ramifications in client projects.

I found it particularly interesting because while Stephanie and I collectively specialize in both traditional IT positions (help desk, network engineers, sysadmins, etc.) and interactive media (web developers, project managers, information architects), she’s the one with the interactive agency experience and I’m the one with the traditional IT experience. So while I understand the technologies underlying interactive media, and I’ve worked in companies whose product was a web-based application, an agency environment is still pretty foreign to me.

I enjoyed Carly’s post because it gave me a glimpse into the inner workings of a diverse agency team- I understand the Google-friendliness issues of Flash, for example, but I’ve never given much thought to who on the team would be most opposed to using Flash for what reason, beyond the basic “designers don’t understand the technical ramifications of their ideas” and “programmers don’t understand design” stereotypes.

So thanks for the lesson, Carly, and I’ll enjoy reading more of the CDG blog. Aside from my personal interest in web development and design, things like this will make me a better recruiter for those clients and talent.

So there I was, crammed around a small table at a recruiting event, there’s conversation going on around me, and the candidate I’m talking with is soft spoken with a thick accent. And I haven’t eaten in hours, so my blood sugar is low. I space out for a second, and suddenly I am faced with an uncomfortable realization:

The candidate has just asked me a question and I have no idea what she’s said for the last minute and a half.

Shit.

I need a sandwich and a nap.