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.

Writing the/ a Book on Job Searching

So, this is a pretty selfish post, but the heck with it.  I’ve been toying with the idea of writing a book, or possibly editing a selection of essays from other recruiters/ career coaches/ managers on job hunting.  That said: there are a ton of books out there on the topic, and I’d rather not do this just because I’ve got an itch to write a book.  I’d rather it be something useful for candidates - if you’re reading this, and have a suggestion on  way to make it more useful than the resources already in existence, mind popping the suggestion in the comments?  Would really, truly appreciate the input…

Thanks!

ZoomInfo’s Semantic Search Rocket Takes Off

(Full disclosure: This is me bragging a bit about this place that I love.  It’s also a blatant hook to try and pull in some more great talent.  That said, if anything I’m being modest about ZoomInfo.) 

Last JuneI sent in a slightly cheeky, but well thought out (and, thankfully, received) cover letter to ZoomInfo’s COO, Bryan Burdick.  Once he came around to the idea that I wasn’t a complete lunatic (more on that if you ask), he invited me in a few times.  Over the course of several days, I interviewed here and met with individual members of the executive team.  Great people, great interviews, all of that.  What really hooked me were a few key things that I saw in every peson I met, one of which I’m going to talk about a bit deeper in this post.  These were: clearly intelligent management; street smarts; sense of humor & perspective (we’re not big on egomaniacs here); a consistent message that ZoomInfo was about to become a big deal.

Everything I sensed from those interviews has played out.  This is an interesting, well run, deeply enjoyable place to work - those traits were obvious from the get-go, as was the potential.  What’s exciting now is that this potential has become reality.

Some quick data around that last point: in 2006, we nearly doubled our customer base to over 1,500; exceeded 12 million in sales; our sales team won a Stevie Award for “Best Software Sales Organization of the Year”; increased unique site-visits tenfold.  Oh, and did I mention that we’re consistently profitable?

We also hired a couple of people (about 20 in the past 9 months), and we’re still adding to our staff - we frankly need to keep adding exceptional talent to keep pace with our growth.  (Hint: click here, apply now…).

All of this was done by the people here - an incredibly remarkable group of individuals.  There’s so much dedicated, raw talent here - this is a brain-trust full of interesting, engaged craftspeople who constantly surprise me with the work they produce.

One of the most important achievements we’ve come up with was the unveiling of the new ZoomInfo.com - the first market-ready semantic search engine.  With this, we’re able to offer free access to the deepest, freshest and most comprehensive information available on more than 3.5 million companies, including detailed descriptions, M&A activities, their revenues, key employees, competitors and current job openings.  Not to mention some of our partnerships, like Indeed.  I’m going to blog more on this late, but very quickly: you can come to ZoomInfo to look for jobs in your area (powered by Indeed’s job search engine), find a list of roles that sound interesting, and then quickly pivot on your search to research each company in depth.  Nothing like applying and knowing the hiring manager’s name…

Here’s some recent press coverage is around us:

“On Apr. 2, ZoomInfo launched a new business search engine it says is the first market-ready semantic search engine. This type of information can be especially helpful to recruiters who may be looking for mid-level managers at specific companies. “It gives me more people in a targeted company to pursue,” says Alan Bogard, manager of recruitment for the Full Spectrum Lending Div. at Countrywide Financial (CFC), which uses ZoomInfo.” -Business Week, 3/2007

“ZoomInfo plans to do more than just enhance its content offering, though. In addition to wanting to know more and find better jobs, the company also believes its users want to get more accurate information faster. So, in late April, ZoomInfo also implemented a new database architecture. The key impact will be that the process in which its crawlers cull content, dump it into databases, then churn and combine it before making it available will be reduced from a month to a mere three hours.” -EContent, 4/2007

“As mentioned previously on Mashable, ZoomInfo has long been a standard for business research and provides data for recruiters, job seekers and others involved in corporate environments. Their new semantic search improves on their existing product and brings forth the needed evolution for niche search engines, and would do best to be applied to others across the board.” -Mashable post 3/2007

There’s more, here.

This is, in essence, a long “thank-you” to the executive team for hiring me, and running this place so well.  It’s also a more directed one to our COO, Bryan Burdick, for taking a chance on an odd-duck in a recruiter’s costume, and to our CFO, Bill Price, who seems to think I’m doing a smash-up job.  Best CFO I’ve ever worked with (and as a recruiter who used to make a living placing CFO’s, that’s saying something). 

Thanks everyone.

Cover Letter Basics

It’s odd, but one of the most common searches that pulls people here is the term “cover letter”.  Not exactly the sexiest of searches (I have yet to see “hot recruiter” show up - sigh…).  That said, got me thinking that this is probably an area I should touch on again - if nothing else, a quick do/ don’t list.

First off - length & format:

No more than one page - to quote Pascal (Twain stole it from him): “The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter.”  Show people you know how to get to the heart of the matter - this matters in business.

3 paragraphs.  Remember the old essay advice from grammar school on up?  Say what you’re going to say, say it, and then tell them what you just said. 

First paragraph: “I’m applying for this job.  I’m a great fit for it, because I did XYZ job, (OR) I’m not an obvious fit but am actually great, because I did/ do XYZ.”

Second: “Here’s what I do so well at what I do, which makes me a great fit for this job.  Here’s a couple of concrete examples of successes that I know are gonna make you droll over me in regards to this little ole’ job you have open. (OR)  While I’m not an obvious fit for XYZ, consider that my hobby/ passion is X, the part of my job that I really kick-tail at is Y, and Z is part of my nature - I can do the work, and also bring a valuable outside the box approach to this role - hiring me will make you look like you’re able to find unique solutions to problems (this open job everyone needs you to fill), and will be a brag story for you as I kick tail at the role.”

Third: “So, that’s why it makes sense to bring me in - I can do the work, I’m a nice person, and hey look at that, I know how to write a conise, effective communication.”

Next: Overall tone.

There’s a fine line between cheeky & cheesy.  If you don’t know how to dance right on it, I’d just keep in moderately informal

It’s okay to use the first person in a cover letter

Never, ever, ever, write a cover letter in “IM speak” (a la, “i am ritin to apply 4 the job U posted”).  That’s a true, sad story - don’t let it be yours

Read through the company’s Web site, and try to get a feel for their overall “voice”.  If it’s a hip, cutting edge, “god I wanna work there”, software company, then don’t get too stuffy.

Just don’t get too scary when you get informal - be conversational, but not just-had-a-few-beers conversational.

Make sure you address it to the right person. Usually, if the firm’s recruiter is any good,they’ll have made their contact info easy to find.  Nothing I hate worse than a cover letter that starts off “Dear Sir/ Madam” (okay, that last one’s a lie - there are lots of things I hate worse than that, but I do still hate it).

Don’t rely on spell-check. 

Check your spelling with it, and then by hand.  Check it again by hand.  Read the thing backwards (well, word by word) so that you don’t get caught up in the flow of reading it and miss something.  Have someone you know proof it if at all possible.

As an example, when someone writes me and says that they’re “Martial” status is married, I know several things: they get way too personal & don’t know where to draw the line in business communications; they rely on spell-check; their marriage is in trouble.

Email beats snailmail.  It’s just weird getting a resume & cover letter mailed to you.

Some words to keep out of the letter altogether

Vast: no one, and not you either, has “vast” understanding of Word.  That’s just weird

Liaison: In part because “to liaise” is defined by me as “to avoid doing real work.  to scurry like a crab scuttling backwards between people who are actually doing work”  Also in part because I bet you misspell it in the cover letter.  Just saying

 That’s all I got - good luck to us all.

Making Sure Your Resume Gets Seen by the Right Eyes (which is as many as possible…)

Monster is the mother of the job boards, but they’re facing some serious competition.  It’s not just the other big boards, either - there’s a whole slew of new options out there for corporate & agency recruiters to choose from.  Remember, these guys make very little (if any) money off of the job seeker - they make their money selling access to your resumes, as well as charging companies to post jobs with them.

So, who’s nipping at their heels, revenue-wise?  Well, there are the usual suspects: careerbuilder, and yahoo! hotjobs.  Some of the niche players have taken a chunk: dice.com is probably a better destination if you’re on the tech side.

All that said, why make a company _pay_ for the privilege of seeing your resume?  Job-search, like sales, is a numbers game: the more prospects that you’re in contact with, the more likely you are to make the sale.  No good salesperson would choose to limit access to his products from potential buyers.  You shouldn’t either.

Here’s the thing - I don’t use the job boards much.  I’ll use craigslist to post before any of the “big” boards - I ran some tests at one point, tracking returns from ads on different services, and craigs won hands-down.  Better quality candidates, more of them, and at $25 a pop versus $300+ for the Monster’s etc al, kind of a no-brainer.

Beyond that, I don’t really even like the boards for resumes - you tend to see the same names over and over, and the majority of the candidates aren’t even active anymore.

So - how do you access job postings efficiently (who has the time to go through company after company), and how do you get your profile in front of hiring authorities & recruiters?  Funny you should ask, as I have a couple of suggestions.

On the job postings side, there are several free services that crawl all sorts of companies job listings, keep them, and make them easily searchable by you - essentially, vertical search engines that focus on open positions.  I like Indeed, but you should also try SimplyHired (do check out SimplyFired, because, well, it’s funny) and Jobster.  Full disclosure, we just announced a partnership with Indeed, so I’m biased, but I’ve been a fan for awhile so I figure my sleep won’t be too disturbed by this little plug.  They all allow you to get updates e-mailed to you (or if you’re kinda techie, an RSS feed) when new jobs come up that match your criteria.

As for making sure you’re seen by the right kinds of people, here’s what I recommend.  First, another shameless plug: build a ZoomInfo profile - over 3,000 recruiters log-on every day to look for people to network with.  May as well be one of those people.  I’d set up a LinkedIn profile, as well.  Find job boards that don’t charge recruiters to look at resumes and upload your information - if you’re an engineer, try DevBistro as an example.  A blog’s another way to get your presence up, but does require some bit of commitment.

The bottom line is that you want to get some visibility when you’re job searching.

UPDATE (3/9/07): Almost forgot one.  I haven’t used JibberJobber’s suite of tools much myself,  but like what I’ve seen - quick, apparently easy way to organize & track your hunt.  No more spreadsheets of where you sent what resume, when you followed up, etc al.  Please tell me you’ve at least been doing that…