Resume Bait & Switch: Or, Somedays, I’m Ashamed of My Job

Pfft. There are days when I just want to leave the planet…

See, a big part of my job – maybe the major part – is finding people who have certain key skills for my clients. True, there’s landing new business, networking, negotiating salaries, yada-yada-yada, but none of that matters if I can’t produce great people for the jobs I’m trying to fill. So, every day, I spend time doing what’s called sourcing. All sorts. And, yes, sometimes I’ll look at a few resume databases – not many, since most of them tend to be full of spammers, repeat offenders, and the like, but some. Today, I was looking at Dice, which I used to like but I’m starting to seriously question at a quality level.

The major reason is the cause of today’s rant, and why the human race is making me consider stowing away on the next probe to Mars (I was to going to go with Uranus for that one, but thought I’d class things up a bit).

Today, I’m looking for people who know how to code and/ or architect applications in SharePoint. That’s a bit tough, since it’s not the most popular skill-set, and it’s also a skill-set that lots of companies around Boston are hiring for right now. Lots and lots of fishermen, teeny-tiny pool. So, I’m using ever bit of equipment I have at hand, including checking Dice. I typed in my search terms, and – et voila – up popped a great candidate: Susan Lyons. Huh-za! .NET, C#, SharePoint, awesome-fricken-sauce. Heck, she lives right downtown, in the city, which is where I need her to be.

All good. So, on behalf of a client who’s retained me to help them with Microsoft-tech related searches (Magenic – I’ve mentioned them before), I shot her a note to see if she wanted to catch up.

Then, I got suspicious. That address… SharePoint pays well, but Beacon Hill? Tres tony Boston address? Right across from the State House?  Google’s a pretty good thing – I dropped said address into said search bar, and there it was: a staffing agency.

In other words: a dirty trick. Here’s something, my friends, that you may have long suspected: recruiters? Sometimes, they lie. They do something called “rusing”: pretending to be something they ain’t. Whether it’s calling into a company receptionist, claiming to be a long-lost college buddy of “your best sales-guy”, to this one. In this case, it’s an agency (to be fair, maybe it’s a rogue recruiter at the agency) posts up a fake resume as a lure. They pick a skill-set that’s in high demand (SharePoint – check!), create a fake e-mail account for the candidate, and then post the resume up on Dice, etc all (they can’t do this on places like Stack Overflow, because those communities are more worried about their rep & quality than they are about bragging about having “millions of resumes!”). Once it’s up, unsuspecting/ perhaps a bit desperate companies start shooting them messages to set up “interviews”. The agency recruiters who put the lure out waits a day or so, then calls in “innocently” saying “I heard you were looking for SharePoint, and wow, do I have a great candidate for you!” They then rattle off the skills they listed on the fake resume, and the corporate recruiter gets excited, and agrees to sign a contract. The agency recruiter gets the contract, waits a day, then calls the company again, saying “I’m sooooo  sorry, but he/ she was soooo popular” (and, yes, generally it’s a mega-perky 23 year old with no clue that “C#” isn’t pronounced “see-pound”). “They took a job in, like 3 hours! It’s craaaazy out there! But, my colleague say she’s got someone great that they think they can get for you, so we’ll start sending over more resumes!” The best bit: they start hitting Dice, Monster, etc, desperately searching for resumes they can send over. Most of which are also fakes. It’s like a bunch of half-trained, overly excited, super-chippy sharks trying to eat each other….

Annnnd, rants over. I feel better. Sort of.

I Need a Job

Sound familiar?  It should.  One of the most commonly searched words on Google is job, and “need a job” is up there in terms of phrases.   You’ve got company, in other words.  Likely this guy is one of them.

You’ve done what you think is the right thing: created a solid resume, and cover letter.  Used one of the job search engines (Indeed, SimplyHired, etc - blow off Monster, HotJobs, etc, the only jobs there are the ones that companies pay to put up, whereas the engines crawl employer sites, job boards, CraigsList, etc – everything in one spot, way easier).  Applied and applied and… oh wait: that’s where it seems to break down.  Nobody’s calling you back.

Don’t worry – the same people you’re competing with are having the same issues.  Here’s a tip: it’s likely no one even looks at your resume.  The reason comes down to resources on the hiring side.

Think of it this way: you see an interesting job at what seems like a great company.  You e-mail in your resume with cover letter as instructed (btw, copy and paste your resume into your e-mail – below the cover letter/ e-mail – as well as attaching it – trust me here).   Want to know how the sausage gets made from that point on?

• Resume gets e-mailed into an applicant tracking system (ATS)
  • The ATS rips your resume apart (parses is a nicer way of saying that), looks for keywords, then reassembles it into a file in the ATS
  • (hopefully) a copy of your resume gets attached to the file
• The recruiter logs into their ATS
  • They don’t look at every single applicant
    • Here’s why: they don’t have the time
    • Why? Simple math: if they’re working on 10 openings and doing their job right, they’re getting on average (and I’m making this average up, but it sounds right) 10 applicants per day
      • So, no big deal, right? That’s just 100 resumes to look through
        • Hmm – ‘k, so let’s say they give each resume an average of 5 minutes, which is a poor return on your investment of days and days of working on the thing, but so be it
        • 5 minutes X 100 resume = 500 minutes
        • 500 minutes = 8.3 hours
          • Per day
          • It’s not gonna happen
          • Whoever’s doing initial resume screens has meetings, coffee, interviews, lunch – hell, they might even go to the bathroom
• Instead, the recruiter uses a nifty feature that every ATS comes with: a search box
  • Let’s say they’re looking for a Senior Software Engineer, and you have a couple of key requirements before somebody will even be considered
  • They type in things like J2EE, Hadoop, Spring, etc
    • The results get looked at – if you’re not one of ‘em…

There’s a lot more beyond this, of course – the recruiter might find you, say “a-ha!” (I prefer shouting “excelsior!”).  Then, the manager might say “no, I don’t like that typo…” or “they change jobs every two years” or “who uses that font?”  and rule you out.  It’s a crappy world.   All that said: you need to at least get your resume looked at.

How? Keywords, keywords, keywords.  Don’t make things up or drone on and on, but think about how the search will operate: likely by somebody who doesn’t work intimately enough in your field to read between the lines and understand that when you say X, it also includes Y and Z.  It’s perfectly acceptable to add a technical skill-set to the resume, separate from your day-to-day job descriptions – if it’s a long one, you can add it at the end of the resume with a quick summary of your Core Skills at the top.

One caveat here: there’s a trick floating around where people add keywords in white font all over their resumes, in between sections, at the end, top, wherever.  The idea is that they can add every tech term in the book and the ATS will read it, but the naked eye won’t thereby making sure you get “found”.  Don’t do it: savvy recruiters will find the resume, wonder why the keywords they searched for aren’t there, drop a copy of the resume into a Word doc, hit “select all”, and change the font to black – et voila, all your keywords now belong to us.  And you don’t make it in.

Want to Get More Recruiter Calls? Stay Visible

Sometimes, what seems clear to some (due to their occupation) is pretty damned opaque to others.  I was just looking at a profile on LinkedIn – background seemed at a high level to be a fit for a job I’m trying to fill (Java Engineer).  So, I got excited.

Then I saw that he was interested in hearing about a new job.  I got even more excited.

Then, I decided to reach out to him.  And that’s when I got less excited.  Considerably less excited.

See, he’d made that part impossible.  He hadn’t done the standard workaround, for starters.  LinkedIn likes to keep e-mail addresses hidden, so they can charge you for access to the person.  If you want to be reached, add your e-mail next to your name, or title, whatever.  Just get it up there.  If you’re not so inclined to *ahem* play with the rules (I’m the “apologize later” type), at least provide some level of information.  This guy had blocked out the name of every company he’d ever worked for, provided clearly generic titles, etc.  I’m willing to dig around if I’m interested in somebody, and find a way to contact them, but there’s a limit.  And, no, I’m not paying for LinkedIn’s premium service (and, I’d say the majority of my recruiting bretheren are the same), when I can typically get the info for free.  If you’re the exception to that, then expect to remain hidden.

Beyond that, and back to my title, in general you want to be very visible.  I don’t mean show up (with a briefcase full of crackers – a la Kramer), start working, and expect to get paid.  Although, that’s taking the “apologize later” philosophy to potentially _awesome_ levels.  But: try and contribute to Q&A sessions on websites that relate to what you do (recruiters read those religiously, looking for people who seem actively engaged in their professsions, and are – always important – reachable); check out Meetup, and find a group that relates to what you do – get to that MeetUp, and mingle; post your resume online, at Scribd – it’s ridiculously easy, and makes your resume searchable (recruiters do keyword searches on Google all the time: putting “inurl:resume” plus some skill set words in gets great people); use JibberJobber to manage your search; and…

…wait, I’m digressing into how cool Web 2.0 can be when it comes to helping get a better job, and that’s it’s own post.  Just got excited again.

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So, You Want to Be My Automation Engineer/ Product Marketing Manager/ etc, etc…?

Selling.  It hurts, which is why sales people tend to get paid tons of money.  You’re subjected to near-constant rejection, have to deal with ambiguity on a regular basis, and have to be a master at overcoming sometimes ridiculous objections.

It’s just like looking for a new job.  How’s that for a pep talk?  Now on the plus side, when you’re job searching you have an advantage over most sales reps – you built the product, you know it better than anybody, and there are sites where potential buyers literally list what they’re looking to buy.

You should still approach it like a sales call – reps who know how to close deals, know that the sale is won or lost before they even stop foot into the prospects office.  The best ones know that this happens even before the first contact to set the appointment.  They do their homework, know the targets needs (pains, really) well, and know who the key people are.  How often have you just responded to job postings with a canned letter?  If you do this on a regular basis, stop right now.  It may seem time consuming to research a company just to target your cover letter to the right person, and to be able to tell that person why you skills will make their company better, but it’s worth it.  Compare the net amount of time you spend sending our that canned cover letter, over and over, and tracking where you sent it in a spreadsheet, following up with a call, etc, to investing some time on the front end that will actually get someone to pick up the phone and call you, and I think you’ll see that the front end stuff is a time saver.  As an analogy: my father was, among other things, a highly skilled carpenter.  He worked with some pretty expensive woods, and this made him conservative about simply hacking away.  He’d spend hours researching the design, planning the cuts, practicing on cast off wood, before he began his project – the cliche here is “measure twice, cut once”.  Getting a better job is -frankly – waaay more important that making a fancy wooden clock.  You should prep.

Once you’re in the house, as it were,  come prepared – as an example: bring copies of your resume.  It’s likely that the interviewers all already have them, but if they don’t you look prepared.  Fact is, even if no one needs one, not coming in with one makes you look like you miss important details, and that can be a strike against you (seriously – one of our managers just ruled out a candidate, and that was one of the reasons: he felt it spoke to the overall impression that the candidate wasn’t that serious, and/ or just didn’t get it).  

Anticipate objections.  You should arrive knowing a ton about the company, the position, and where your experience isn’t an exact match.  Expect to be challenged here, and practice your responses.  Don’t give long-winded, defensive sounding answers, but have a quick, friendly rejoinder that allows you to segue back into why you’re a good fit.  Come from a ginormous company, and now you want to join a 100 person, hip, cutting edge Web company?  No problem, because while you were there you were always putting your hand up for duties that fell outside of your box, and gained a reputation as somebody who was great at doing more with less – and you’d love to be somewhere that you didn’t get looked at like you had 3 heads for being scrappy and resourceful.  Somewhere like, say, ZoomInfo….

Probe – that means, ask questions that require answers beyond a simple yes or no.  Ask questions of everyone you see – never, ever say you don’t have any questions.

And finally – ask for the job.  Close people.  Show them some love.

There, now you’re a sales person.  Rock on.

Shameless, Shameless Plug…

…for votes   For whatever reason, Good to Know  is up for best recruiting blog of the year.  I’m pretty sure it’s not because my employer is paying for the grand prize (seriously – what I suspect is that Jason Davis, the guy who runs RecruitingBlogs.com, the organizer of the whole contest, is just ridiculously nice and felt bad at how poorly I did at poker last time we hung out).

While I’m under zero illusion I’ll win, I wouldn’t mind not coming in dead last.  Seriously.  Soooo…. if you’re so inclined, I’d appreciate it if you clicked here and exercised your right to vote.  Primarily in categories #1& #6 – well, feel free to vote in the rest, too – in fact, I’d recommend checking out all of the nominated blogs – there’s a lot of really great guidance out there, from a gang of remarkable minds.