Archive for the 'Job hunting' Category

Is there a job listing site for free market, conservative and libertarian organizations?

Thursday, September 18th, 2008

My favorite job posting page may be found here and has listings from numerous conservative, libertarian and free market think tanks and other policy research organizations. Most, but not all of the jobs listed are with 501(c)3 nonprofits.

There are job sites hosted by Washington DC–based organizations as well. America’s Future Foundation has a job board here, Institute for Humane Studies hosts a job site here, and, Atlas Economic Research Foundation has jobs posted here.

Michael G Smith

Posted in Career Planning, Job hunting, Post a question, Recruiting | No Comments »

Should I omit the graduation date on my resume?

Tuesday, September 9th, 2008

According to a resume “expert” at a career website: “your degree is over 10 years old; time to take out the dates. Junior reviewers will toss your resume and make you a victim of age discrimination.”

Intentionally omitting dates is a colossal mistake, for two reasons: when you withhold information, you invite others to infer your reason for doing so; and, obscuring your years of experience will only cause you to be passed over for the most desirable positions.

In the case of this resume expert, the reason for omitting dates is: “junior reviewers will toss your resume and make you a victim of age discrimination”.

Why would junior reviewers toss the resume? Presumably, this expert believes that “junior” (or younger) resume reviewers discriminate against older job candidates, but reviewers who are not “junior” do not. In other words, this expert has learned that junior reviewers make mistakes in judging resumes that older workers do not.

Now if this expert has learned that older resume reviewers do a better job of judging resumes than younger reviewers, doesn’t it stand to reason that there are many, many hiring managers who appreciate the superior judgment of older workers?

I suspect this resume expert has little or no experience actually screening resumes and hiring people. I say so because, contrary to popular belief, hiring managers do NOT discriminate on the basis of age (or sex, color, race, etc.) as doing so would arbitrarily reduce the number of qualified candidates. It is hard enough to find well-qualified candidates to fill important positions, why make the task even harder by arbitrarily eliminating many of them?

Job seekers often tell me they get more interviews after they remove degree dates and some early jobs from their resume. When I ask if the increased number of interviews resulted in more job offers, the answer is always “no”.

It turns out that employers are actually quite rational. For a job with limited responsibility and requiring only moderate experience, the ideal candidate is one with minimal work experience and willing to work under less than ideal conditions, for low pay, in order to acquire more work experience.

For management positions with significant responsibilities, employers seek candidates with substantial breadth and depth of management and industry experience. For these positions, employers not only prefer older workers, younger workers won’t even be considered.

This is what you accomplish when you omit information in order to obscure your age: 1) more interviews for low-paying positions with negligible responsibility, and 2) fewer interviews for higher-paying positions requiring judgment, experience, industry knowledge, management skill, and wisdom.

Michael G Smith

Posted in Job hunting, Resume writing, older workers | 1 Comment »

How do I get recruiters to look at my resume?

Friday, September 5th, 2008

In order to attract the attention of recruiters you must first: contribute as much as possible to the success of your employer, accept responsibility, and put the interests of your employer and customers first.

Recruiters earn their fees finding exceptional individuals, so the first step is excellent on-the-job performance. If you are not an above-average employee, getting your resume in front of recruiters is pointless. On the other hand, excellent performance by itself may attract the attention of a recruiter. Recruiters frequently ask the question: “who are the top performers in your field?” and those top performers then become recruiting targets.

Is it a good idea to contact recruiters directly? Yes, this is the best way to get your resume seen. Forward your resume to the recruiter as an email attachment. In the email message, briefly state: why you are looking, what career goals you would like to meet in your next position, if and where you will consider relocation, and what general compensation requirements you have. Keep it brief, or it won’t be read. Include a cell number so you can be reached during the day.

The recruiter may or may not respond to your emailed resume. Recruiters are busy trying to fill jobs that are open now and don’t usually have time to respond to each unsolicited resume received. Rest assured, however, the recruiter will enter your resume into his or her database so any search matching your experience will prompt a review of your resume.

As you may be aware, recruiters tend to focus on one or more specialized business sectors. There are sectors in which many recruiters are active, and others in which you will not find even one recruiter. It is a complete waste of time to contact recruiters who do not work in your industry.

There are two ways to learn about recruiters working in your field: 1) a recruiter seeking candidates in your industry contacts you; 2) search the web for recruiter lists, websites and job postings using keywords to narrow the results to your area of interest (for example, Google: recruiting jobs “free market” organization).

If called by a recruiter, ask about the areas in which they work and get a phone number and email address for future use. When the future arrives, it will be too late to get contact information from the recruiter who called two years ago.

When searching for recruiters in your field, don’t stop when you’ve found one or two. Some industries have hundreds of recruiters and each one works with just a small number of firms. Build a list of potential recruiters, then narrow the list by evaluating each one. Keep those who have been in the business the longest, whose positions and client companies are the most desirable, and whose specialty is the closest to your field. Drop those whose positions are consistently lower paying or much higher paying than your current level, whose clients are not well-regarded in the industry, or who seem overly aggressive about getting information without providing any in return.

There are other strategies to attract recruiters who work in your field. Make use of networking sites such as LinkedIn, where you can provide information about experience, qualifications and interests, that a recruiter will need. Recruiters often use LinkedIn to find candidates, and to learn more about candidates. (See “What is the most common mistake job seekers make“.)

Place your resume online at Monster and CareerBuilder; don’t wait until you need a new job, as months may pass before a recruiter with the right job finds your resume.

Finally, keep in mind that recruiters you’ve contacted will call more often if you are helpful to them. When starting a search, my first calls go to contacts whose past candidate recommendations have been valuable. Not only do these contacts get first crack at any opening, more frequent conversations enable me to become better acquainted with them and their career goals.

Michael G Smith

Posted in Career Planning, Job hunting, Resume writing | No Comments »

Should an older worker list early positions on a resume?

Saturday, August 2nd, 2008

List all of your previous positions. As an older employee, extensive experience is your greatest asset, and it is an area in which you have an indisputable competitive advantage over younger workers.

Many job seekers drop from their resume positions held early in their career. When I ask candidates about early jobs, I often find gems that add to the candidate’s qualifications. Sometimes a position the candidate considered irrelevant may be quite relevant, but for reasons not anticipated by the candidate.

For example, a history of several short-tenure jobs will be viewed negatively by prospective employers. Including on the resume early work experience showing long tenure with one or more employers will help counteract the impression of job instability. While the candidate may view the early experience as irrelevant to the type of work they now do, an employer may view it as quite relevant to judging the prospective employee’s overall fitness.

Another example: a senior-level management position is being filled. One applicant omitted his first job in an unrelated field (banking) from his resume. The position is currently held by a highly-regarded individual who, as it turns out, began his career working for a bank—experience which he views as having bolstered his budget management skills. Had the applicant included the banking experience, his resume would likely have been viewed more favorably owing to the similarity with the work history of the current manager.

When listing early career positions, it is not necessary to include the same level of detail as more recent positions. Dates of employment, position held and employer’s name should be adequate. Including outstanding achievements or accomplishments is always a good idea.

Michael G Smith

Posted in Interviewing tips for job seekers, Job hunting, Resume writing, older workers | No Comments »

How do I find a management job after being self-employed for 20 years?

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

Question: I am older (50+) with a career spanning 30 years, the past 20 years as a self-employed owner/operator of small companies. How do I go about rejoining the workforce in a management position?

Answer: Many believe it is difficult to find a job after a long period of self-employment. Yet, I have reviewed thousands of resumes which often show that individuals find desirable work after a long period of self-employment. Therefore, I have concluded that it’s probably no more difficult for the self-employed to find career opportunities than those who have not been self-employed.

That’s not to say there are no challenges, but 20 years of self-employment confers significant and unique advantages on a job seeker.

First of all, most job seekers today have resumes characterized by job instability: too many jobs that lasted for two years or less, and too few jobs that last for more than four years. Aside from not meeting the position requirements, job instability is the chief reason candidates are rejected, and the more senior the position to be filled, the more heavily it weighs. So twenty years in any job–self-employed or otherwise–is a strong asset.

Next up for consideration is the match between your work experience and the particular position you may be seeking. Every employer has certain qualifications in mind when filling a position and these may be categorized as: 1. industry experience, 2. work experience, and 3. responsibility experience.

Industry experience refers to the knowledge and familiarity with normal expectations one acquires from working in a particular field or industry. I still recall much of what I learned in the first few years I spent in the printing business, but I would be quite lost in a modern graphic arts facility due to technological advance.

Work experience is “on-the-job-training” from which we learn to perform a range of tasks and projects appropriate to a specific job and industry. Up to a point, greater work experience increases efficiency and decreases “spoilage” or bad outcomes.

Responsibility experience refers primarily to experience in management, including the management of staff, budgets, facilities, resources and, in some cases, profit and loss. When filling management positions, employers typically consider both the scope and extent of experience in each of these categories.

Do you see where this is leading? You must inventory your work experience in each of these three areas; list everything, not just the big stuff. For example, experience using Quickbooks accounting software is a marketable skill and should be on your list. Order the list based on the amount and recentness of your experience, since the passage of time depreciates its value, particularly in the case of industry experience.

This list will serve as your guide for three purposes. First, you can use it to brainstorm the types of employers and positions to which your experience and skills may be applicable. Second, it is a checklist of essential assets that should be mentioned on your resume. Third, it will aid in marketing your experience to potential employers.

The first and third points require further explanation. The applicability of your experience to certain fields or types of work will be immediately obvious, but with some reflection and creative insight, you may recognize that your experience is quite applicable to other fields as well. The logic supporting the applicability of your experience to a seemingly unrelated field must be honed and internalized so you can easily demonstrate the connection in a cover letter and interview.

Now you should see that several key factors (job stability; industry, work and responsibility experience; and applicability of experience and skills to the open position) constitute the basis for hiring decisions. These factors have little or nothing to do with whether one is currently self-employed.

If you understand the depth and breadth of your experience, and can quantify and communicate an accurate description to a prospective employer, you are ready to go job hunting. If you pursue jobs that fit your experience, you will actually have a competitive advantage in the job market.

Michael G Smith

Posted in Job hunting, Resume writing, older workers | 1 Comment »

What is the most common mistake job seekers make?

Thursday, June 12th, 2008

The most common mistake, surprisingly, is job seekers don’t anticipate that hiring managers will perform an internet search to find out more about them. This oversight can result in two different problems: 1. negative information that comes to light; and, 2. positive information is available, but not found.

It is always prudent to consider the potential career consequences of our actions, but with an increasing amount of real-time and historical information available on the Web, the likelihood is now much greater that missteps will be discovered by potential employers, even many years after the fact.

Some sources of information are obvious: photo posting sites, forums, blogs, and social networking sites. But less obvious sources are just as important. Google, for example, keeps Web pages cached and available to searchers. So even if a page has been taken down, it will come up in a Google search and can be accessed by clicking on the “Cached” link in Google’s results. ZoomInfo.com permanently stores Web pages that mention individuals by name and can be retrieved from their cache at any time.

In addition to your name, employers will Google your phone number, email address, former employers, and anything else on your resume that might produce a “hit” when combined with your first or last name, city or state. Before you send out a resume, perform each of these searches so you know what potential problems await you.

There are sources other than Google that employers may check; the most intimidating, perhaps, is Lexis-Nexis, which can search and retrieve nearly every newspaper, magazine, radio or TV story from the last twenty years, or more. Though not as extensive as Lexis-Nexis, public and university libraries offer full text access for written and transmitted stories.

Finally, there are many ways in which “legal” records can be retrieved at little or no cost from online databases. If you have a corporation registered in your name, marriage, divorce, bankruptcy, tax delinquency, civil or criminal court proceeding, or any type of state professional license, the records are generally available. Even traffic and parking tickets can sometimes be retrieved.

Information that enhances your reputation will aid your job quest. Attention must be paid, though, to assuring the information will be found. A Google search may miss something if it is associated with a less common variation of your name. I consistently use “Michael G Smith” as my name online, since anything associated with “Mike Smith” or “Michael Smith” will be listed so far down in Google’s results they won’t be seen. It’s important to decide what your name is and then stick with that exact form. “Kate Smith” is not the same, in Google’s eyes, as “Kathleen Smith,” “Bill Board” is not the same as “William Board,” and “James R Towne” is not the same as “James Towne.”

Finally, sites where individuals create and edit their own records are of critical importance. You have no control over much of what comes up in a Google search, but the employer knows you alone control the information at sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr and so on. Content you post can be a liability if it is inconsistent or potentially embarrassing—your resume and your LinkedIn work history, for example, had better agree. On the plus side, if you anticipate that potential employers will view your profile, then you can emphasize your accomplishments and achievements in order to make a good impression.

You must decide what your purpose is in having a presence on these sites. Your profile on LinkedIn—currently, the most important business networking site—should not feature activities that detract from your “day job,” as that will give the impression your focus is not on work. If you are a fundraising professional and have a political blog that is compatible with the outlook of the organization you work for, that’s fine. But if your profile emphasizes a personal business you operate on the side, a reasonable person will conclude you are stretched too thin and your attention is divided.

Michael G Smith

Posted in Career Planning, Job hunting, Reference checking, Resume writing | 1 Comment »

What one thing will most improve my resume?

Saturday, May 31st, 2008

The most effective change most resume writers can make is to avoid listing the responsibilities of the position—as if writing a job description—and focus instead on notable successes and contributions achieved in the position. List personal accomplishments, not daily activities, and use specific numbers whenever possible, such as “ranked #2 out of 10″.

Most employers are not really interested in learning the fine details of each of your jobs–they can ask for more details in an interview if necessary. What they really want to know is how well you performed in the position.

List the successes for which you can take full, or at least primary, credit; don’t list trivial items, though, as that will give the appearance you contributed nothing of substance. Obviously, any performance-based award received from your employer should be noted.

Managers face a greater challenge with resume writing, as accomplishments often involve the efforts of many subordinates and the causal chain may not be obvious. For example, an increase in sales achieved by a division may be directly attributable to the efforts of the division’s sales manager, but the cause and effect relationship must be spelled out on the resume or it may appear that the manager was simply in the right place at the right time. A secondary benefit of elaborating on one’s role in effecting change is that the hiring manager sees the method underlying the success, instead of just the before and after.

Michael G Smith

Posted in Job hunting, Resume writing | 1 Comment »

What do you look for when reviewing resumes? How do you avoid overlooking a “golden nugget”?

Saturday, May 31st, 2008

I don’t think there are reliable shortcuts for reviewing resumes. The more time you take with each one, the less likely you are to set aside a viable candidate.

I don’t reject candidates for reasons not relevant to the job; that is, I don’t reject a candidate because the resume has spelling or grammar errors. I have found blunders in the resumes of successful journalists and authors, so unless I’m hiring someone to write resumes, I don’t use resume mistakes as reason to reject candidates.

I feel the same way about interviews; I don’t particularly care how well a candidate interviews, I’m only interested in how qualified the candidate is.

Screening resumes effectively depends on having a very specific list of qualifications required of a candidate in order to perform the job being filled. As a recruiter I have often found that the qualifications provided by the employer are too vague, irrelevant or simply too numerous. It’s best to boil down the qualifications to the two or three truly essential for the job and then reject all candidates lacking them without concern for rejecting a “golden nugget.”

I don’t think it makes sense, for example, to reject a candidate with, say, 10 years of appropriate experience because they don’t have a college degree. Of course I’d prefer the candidate to have a degree, but I’m trying to find the best candidate in a pile of resumes, and since this candidate’s experience demonstrates he or she is qualified, potentially even the best qualified, I’m not going to reject based on a preference for a college degree.

By looking at the last two or three jobs on the resume, I can quickly evaluate the candidate for two key considerations: 1. evidence of job stability; 2. appropriate work experience at the proper level of responsibility. Job stability is the most important consideration as far as I’m concerned; the candidate’s resume should be dominated by positions with at least three, and preferably five, years of tenure. A habit of job-hopping assures the resume will not be read.

Appropriate work experience is clearly a decision factor. If I need candidates with experience in nonprofit fundraising, then either nonprofit fundraising is on the resume or it’s not. I then evaluate the level of responsibility and the years the experience. Typically, I’m filling management positions, so the resume must list managerial experience of the scope, and for the length of time, that I previously determined are required.

If the requirements for the position are not entirely clear, or qualified candidates are likely to be hard to find, then I may decide to sort resumes during my initial review. I label resumes as: “unqualified,” “possibly qualified,” and “qualified.” After I’ve gone through the batch, if I have enough “qualified” resumes, I probably won’t revisit the “possibly qualified” batch. If not, then a more extensive reading of the resumes in the “possibly” batch is warranted, combined with some online research on those candidates.

Aside from job hopping as a reason to reject, any misrepresentation, intentional obfuscation, or lie will cause me to reject a resume without hesitation. If a candidate has no reservations about fibbing on the resume, they will fib on the job.

Michael G Smith

Posted in Interviewing candidates, Job hunting, Managing employees, Resume writing, Screening candidates | No Comments »

Why don’t recruiters state the name of the employer in job postings?

Friday, May 30th, 2008

One of the chief reasons recruiters are hired to fill job openings is that the employer lacks the time or manpower to deal with job seekers responding to ads. It makes more sense, for a number of reasons, to outsource that responsibility by hiring a recruiter.

One might assume that providing the employer’s name in a job posting would be fine, so long as interested candidates are instructed to apply through the recruiter rather than the employer. But an astounding number of people think that it is perfectly OK to ignore those instructions and contact the employer anyway. They figure that, by applying to both the recruiter and employer, they increase their odds of getting an interview. Or, if they don’t hear from the recruiter (which only happens if they are unqualified for the job), they then contact the employer directly, figuring they have nothing to lose at that point.

The large number of utterly unqualified individuals who respond to a job posting is a sight to behold. Then there are those who feel the need to apply two, three or even four times. In fact, these two categories constitute the majority of responses to most postings.

Unlike most employers—especially those lacking a human resource department—I deal with this every day; I know what to expect and have put in place automated systems to handle the avalanche of responses. From the employer’s perspective, I reduce the workload arising from job postings in two ways: pre-screening qualified candidates, and insulating the employer from unnecessary outside contacts.

Michael G Smith

Posted in Job hunting, Recruiting | No Comments »

Blunders, gaffes and boners, oh my!

Tuesday, May 13th, 2008

Tragic Comic
Resume and cover letter mistakes can be comic or tragic:
comic if we learn from them, tragic if we don’t.

I won’t reject a candidate due to mistakes on their resume or cover letter, but most hiring managers are not as forgiving.
Some examples from which to learn:

“Early Retirement, The website for people who used to work for a living”
  Sounds good, except this site’s author applied for a full-time job.

“Thank you for inviting me to dialogue with you about any/all appropriate positions; I believe my experiences and skill sets closely match the position announcement.”
  Always have a trusted friend read your proposed cover letter in order to avoid a first line fiasco.

“The under mentioned are the highlights of the experience that I can offer.”
  Grammatically correct? I have no idea, but it reads like hell, and that’s why you should have someone read your cover letter.

Posted in Humor, Job hunting, Resume writing | 1 Comment »

What should I say in my resume cover letter?

Monday, May 12th, 2008

Many job seekers believe that elaborating on their experience and skills in a cover letter enhances their chances of getting an interview. Although this belief underlies much of the available “advice” on writing cover letters, it is completely mistaken. The simple truth is that hiring managers have limited time and nearly unlimited resumes to screen; they just don’t have time to read cover letters.

(I should point out that “cover letter” in this context means a letter, or more typically, a cover message, as in an email message that accompanies your attached resume or application. Almost all resumes are sent by email these days, so “cover letter” refers to the email message you send to an employer or recruiter, or the text message inserted into the appropriate spot on an online application.)

The most efficient way to screen resumes is, well, to screen the resume and not bother with the cover letter. A quick review of a resume is all that’s required to place it in one of three categories: not qualified (the vast majority of all resumes); possibly qualified; and, almost certainly qualified. If the resume screener has enough candidate resumes in the “almost certainly qualified” category, the resumes in the other two categories are set aside (with the cover letter never having seen the light of day).

If the number of potentially qualified candidates must be reduced, the resume screener will take a more detailed look at the resume and possibly read the cover letter. It’s at this point the tactic of packing lots of info into the cover letter may backfire: information in the cover letter might be used to reject the candidate. Remember, the resume has survived the first cut and is now sitting in the “to be interviewed” pile, so the ideal letter for this situation says simply, “Please consider me for the position you recently advertised”, as it avoids providing the screener with any information that may be used to reject the candidate.

Rest assured that if the cover letter is long-winded, contains stupid comments (”out-of-the-box thinker”; “I’m a people person”), contains some otherwise benign detail that is viewed negatively, or any one of a thousand other problems that the job seeker may not anticipate, the resume will move out of the “interview” pile and into the “not now, maybe later” pile.

Since one cannot know with certainty how the person reading the cover letter will react to any particular bit of information, it is best to let your resume carry the full load of securing an interview. Don’t risk providing a reason in your cover letter to undo what your resume may have already accomplished.

Michael G Smith

Posted in Interviewing candidates, Interviewing tips for job seekers, Job hunting, Resume writing | 1 Comment »