Magic Pot of Jobs

I’ve been reading a lot of complaining lately about how employers will Google potential (and sometimes current!) employees to check them out before making decisions about them. The horror! The intrusion! The disrespect of privacy!

First of all, I can’t believe that anyone who has been using the internet for longer than 10 minutes didn’t think this was happening. If you’ve ever Googled a potential date to check him/her out in advance, you should have seen this one coming.

Secondly, I can’t believe anyone sees anything WRONG with this. Hey kids, if you don’t want what you do to be known to your bosses, DON’T DO IT IN PUBLIC. The thing that makes the Internet so gosh-darn USEFUL is how very public and open it is. You don’t sunbathe naked on your lawn, so you shouldn’t post photos of yourself doing strange and unnatural things with a beer bottle on your MySpace page. You never know who might happen by. Common sense, people.

If there are some unflattering references to you on the Internet, there are a few things you can do- if the person with a compromising photo of you is a friend, you can ask him/her to take it down. Don’t bother asking Google to take it out of their results- you’ll get nowhere and your lack of forethought is not their problem.

If references exist that you can’t have taken down, the best thing to do is to engage in a little Google distraction. Register your own name as a domain, and put up a professional site- resume, work samples, links to resources of interest to your field, etc. Does this sound suspiciously like a way to take my advice about your personal brand? It is.

The way to deal with Google’s inevitable ability to find you is to be the one in control of what Google says about you. Build a site that will be the #1 search result for your name. When people Google me, my sites are what they find. Who has the patience to click through 10 pages of results to get the dirt? Not me. So associate your name with professional, constructive behavior on the internet and stop living in fear of the day your mom plugs your name into a search engine.

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Accountant Careers.co.uk provides accounting jobs in the UK via its employment Web site.

Just a quick tip- this isn’t a dealbreaker issue or anything, but it’s a little thing that will make you look more prepared and generally together:

When you’re going to meet with someone about a job, and especially when you’re just walking in, unannounced, to a placement office and interrupting someone’s day, be sure to have the folder containing your resume in your hand. Don’t stand around digging through your giant bag with the zipper and clip closures and multiple pockets for a few minutes to fish it out while the person you’re speaking with stands there, waiting.

In my office, there is one main number that rings to any of 7 lines. There are 8 of us in the office, and whoever isn’t in the middle of another call or an interview grabs the phone as he or she is able. There’s no administrative assistant or receptionist to screen calls.

So when I tell you that the person you’re calling isn’t available and offer their voicemail, don’t just tell me you’ll call again in an hour. It’s our job to be on the phone or in interviews pretty much all day, so there’s a good chance that when you call back, the person you want still won’t be available, and you’ll just have interrupted someone else’s day only to find out that the person you’d like to reach still can’t talk to you. And you’ll just keep doing it over and over, when the person you’re calling could have just returned a call after you left a message in voicemail.

Similarly, don’t refuse to leave a voicemail and ask me to leave a note instead. If you aren’t willing to leave a voicemail, but expect me to interrupt what I was doing to get up and go leave a note on someone’s desk, this is what that note will say:

John Smith called. He thinks he’s too good to leave voicemails.

A problem that we’re seeing all too frequently at the MISF is candidates that cannot be on time. It does not matter how talented you are, you still have to be on time. This includes being on time for both the interview and the job.

Lateness, especially without a call to explain, implies to me that you don’t care – either about the assignment, the interview, my time, or yourself enough to show up at the agreed-upon time. In some cases, it can get you fired.

I’d like to share a few incidents from the past few weeks that show

(*some details changed to protect the, um, innocent?)

1. The interview with me: Tom is a programming genius with a rare skill set. We set up a time for him to come to my office to talk about a position that we have for him. He calls me, 15 minutes before our scheduled interview time, to let me know that he’s “running a little late” for our 10:30 appointment. He shows up at 12:45 and is angry with me that I won’t cancel my next appointment to interview him.

2. The interview with my client: Leah is scheduled for a 11:00 interview with my client. She can’t find the building, and doesn’t let us know until 1:00. She finally makes it there, but the client won’t interview her, as she is in a meeting.

3. Working for my client: Kelly is a talented designer. She is charming and personable, and does amazing work. We send her to one of our most valuable clients who twice mention to her problems with her punctuality. We talk about it with her once the project is completed, and she jokingly mentions that it’s “not one of her strong suits.” She, not suprisingly, is late to the next assignment.

4. Getting yourself fired: John is on assignment at a client. He was late his first day, apologized and said that it would not happen again. He was over an hour late the next day, and tried to sneak in past his supervisor as to not call attention to his tardiness. The client called us and asked us to fire John.

Look, everyone is late now and again. Traffic happens, you get toothpaste on your interview suit, and sometimes you just need a little extra rest. But in the case of interviews, and especially when it’s been brought to your attention as a problem, it’s worth getting up earlier to ensure that it doesn’t happen.

In addition, most people have cell phones. Tiff and I encourage all of the people that we work with to program our number into their phone to call us if they’re going to be late. We’re far more sympathetic to a call before a candidate is late than we are to a call after the fact. Plus, it’s far easier to smooth things over with our clients if we know what’s going on in advance.

So this guy calls my office today, looking for a job. First he asks about jobs “…in Microsoft Access.” Frankly, I try not to work with the kinds of small-potatoes shops that do lots of database work in Access. It’s fine for small projects, but people don’t pay my fees for projects of that scope. But then the guy asks if we have Crystal Reports jobs. I should have realized that a guy who looks for a job in terms of one software package or another is not my ideal candidate, but as it happens, I never have Crystal Reports experts around when I need them, so I asked for his resume.

I was in the middle of giving him my (rather long) email address, when he asks me to hold because he had another call coming through.

Then after several attempts to answer the other call, he got back to me about a second before I would have hung up on him, and just asked me to finish giving my email address. I was so stunned that I just gave it to him.

I have his resume, but I’m not all that interested in working with him, and here’s why:

It’s not JUST that he took the other call, but that he did it like I was just one of his buddies, like my time wasn’t important. Look, if YOU call ME to ask for my help in finding a job, I don’t expect to be kept waiting on hold while you take some other call that you apparently think is more important. I mean, the guy is looking for a job, so it’s possible that he was waiting to hear back from a potential employer and didn’t want to miss the call. I get it. But if that was the case, he should have said so. It’s just not that hard to say, “I’m sorry about this, but I’m waiting to hear back about an interview.” But don’t just leave me hanging, wondering if you’re wasting my time so that you can make plans to hit the bar with your buddies later.

Details changed to protect the innocent my job.
What the recruiter says:

“No, I understand totally. If you want a sysadmin job, then this help desk job is not right for you. Thanks for your time.”

What the recruiter means:

“Then why the HELL did you send me a help desk résumé? Do you LIKE wasting my time? Maybe you’d get the job you wanted if your résumé actually reflected what that job was.”

I read a resume today that boasted the two items as job related experience:

Relies on extensive experience and judgment to plan and accomplish goals. Performs a variety of tasks.

Wow. Just wow.

In the past few weeks here at the MISF, we’ve had a few candidates walk in and want to discuss career opportunities without a resume. Two of the people that I’ve spoken with became insulted that we asked to see one. “But I have a wealth of professional experience,” was one reply; the other applicant wanted us to go to his website to learn more about him.

I’m unclear as to what the block is about resumes. A resume gives me a quick, basic overview of an applicant’s professional history. It’s the foundation for our discussion about career options.

I also must have one to send to my client. I will, of course, call my client to talk about a candidate in more detail and offer up information that may not be reflected in a resume, such as an applicant’s personality. But at the end of the day, my client still needs the piece of paper in her hands to see where a candidate has worked before, what skills he has, and some clear evidence as to why he’s qualified to do a job.

I recently had a thought about the value of resumes: think of them as an introduction, not as what’s going to land you a job. An interview makes or breaks a professional opportunity, but a resume is what piques the hiring manager’s interest enough to learn more about you.

Although I work for a company that does the majority of its business in office and light industrial placements, I work in the Professional division, which specializes in IT and Creative solutions.

I had hoped that my cushy spot in Professional would shelter me from ever having to have The Stinky Talk with a talent. Alas, it did not.

A client called me the other day to tell me that while he was thoroughly pleased with the quality of work my talent was doing, there was… an issue. The embarrassment was evident in his voice.

“Well, just go ahead and say it and we’ll figure it out. It’s what I’m here for.”

“There’s… an odor problem.”

“Okaaaay. What kind of odor?”

“He needs to shower.”

“I see. I’ll discuss it with him.”

Great. Now I’ve committed to telling someone that not only does he smell, but it’s enough of a problem that his coworkers are complaining to me about it.

I’m not good at this kind of stuff. I do reasonably well when I have to confront someone who has clearly done something wrong that I can be mad about, but how do you tell your employee that he smells bad?

One of the advantages to working for a large company (especially if you’re fairly new to the recruiting field like I am) is that we have an entire department dedicated to helping us figure this stuff out. And again, because so much of the company’s business is industrial, they get this question a lot.

It turns out, my instincts on how to handle the situation were pretty good, but it was nice to hear them confirmed. Here is what I learned:

- Start by complimenting the employee on the work they’re doing. (If they’re doing bad work, then you have bigger problems than B.O.)
- Explain that there is a concern that is uncomfortable to talk about, but you’d rather the employee hear it from you, privately, than in some other fashion.
- “There is a concern about… an odor issue. With us all working so closely together, odor is becoming a problem.”
- DO NOT suggest the causes of the odor yourself. Just ask the employee if it’s something he or she can address.
- LISTEN very carefully to the answer. Odor can be caused by any number of things- hygeine habits, diet, medical issues, etc.
- Tread carefully. Suggesting that someone change his or her diet could be seen as discrimination, since diets are often culturally determined. If there is a medical cause, it could be an ADA issue.
- Ultimately, treat the problem like any other performance issue and just ask the employee to take care of it.
- Remind the employee that you respect him and the work he does, and that’s why you want to help him succeed as much as possible.

As it turned out, my talent took it really well. So well, in fact, that I was afraid he hadn’t understood what I was telling him- I didn’t want to press the issue and make things more uncomfortable. My business partner heard the conversation and assures me that I was quite clear without overstating the point, so we’ll see.

I’ve been mulling a post on how people post resumes to Craigslist for some time, but the post I saw today inspired me to sit down and write it. The title of the post is “Posting in Vein- Employers Do Not Read These Resumes.” The poster goes on to complain that he or she sees the same highly qualified people posting over and over, so clearly they just aren’t getting read.

A few things ran through my mind when I read this.

First, if your résumé shows the same attention to detail that this post displayed, it’s no wonder, what with “Posting in Vain” being misspelled and all. Seriously, the number of postings that show no fundamental grasp of written communication in English is just astounding.

Second, I check CL for potential candidates at least once a day. Some of my very best people have come from Craigslist, but then there are people like this guy, who we’ve contacted a number of times and who consistently fails to get back to us with even so much as a “Thanks, but I don’t work with recruiters.” Now we just shrug at each other and laugh every time we see that he’s still looking for a job- we could put him to work pretty quickly, if he’d just return our calls and emails. Other notable CL flameouts have included the guy who disappeared in the middle of the application, never to return, and more than a few other candidates who blew off their interviews.

And then there are the “wishful thinking” résumés- the “I want a receptionist job three days a week (because you don’t need to have your phones answered the other two days)” people, the “I have no experience but I want a really awesome job!” people, the people who don’t tell you what it is that they do in the title of their post, the people who post two sentences about their experience and expect you to contact them to get their résumés (as if!), and the list goes on and on.

Do not even get me started about the people who list entirely inappropriate personal details in their Craigslist postings. We have this thing in the US called the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. EEO laws are complicated things, and rather than get yourself all embroiled in it, it’s easier to skip over ALL postings that include any reference to a person’s sex, sexual orientation, race, level of attractiveness. Besides that, aside from showing me that you’re a “young, gay, black man,” or an “attractive, blonde female,” you’re just showing me that you’re not terribly bright and have no idea what’s appropriate in a professional environment. Note to jobseekers: The whole point is that it shouldn’t matter if you’re gay or attractive or male or whatever, but if you mention it, you put the employer in a position of having to prove that it doesn’t matter, so you’re better off not calling attention to it.

So yes, employers do read Craigslist résumés, it’s just that most of them aren’t terribly useful to us.

(Update: I’ve submitted this post to the Monday Morning Linkfest at Recruiting.com.)