RecruiterMoe: The Goofball Awakens.

 

…a funny thing happened on the way to the Forum. Wait… hang on, scroll past the picture.

Right then. The thing is, I’m in recruiting, and I get to conferences. A few weeks ago, at the Indeed Interactive conference, Jessica Miller-Merrell, and I got to talking at the bar, as people do. We were talking about all sorts of stuff (as people do). Our backgrounds came up – how we got to be where we are in our careers at that point in time. As I was talking about things, she said “You know, I don’t think a lot of people know how deep your background in the industry goes – you need to fix that. You should definitely write about it.”

I said I would. But I didn’t mean it. Or at least I didn’t think I did. I’ve made the same promise before, about writing in general – Jeff Newman is probably pissed about it, in his affable way. My college advisor gave up years ago.

I suspect my mom has given up, but that’s a whole ‘nother story. And that’s a two-way street, Mother!

(This guy hasn’t given up. But he’s a hopeless romantic.)

ANY-who. Then, this thread showed up on Facebook. I’d link to it, but you may not be able to read it. Here’s a screen grab, just to give a sense:

There were many sincere responses. People opened up about loving to help people. About bringing real change to an industry that has a bad (and, frankly, oft deserved)  bad reputation. Improving the candidate experience. Changing lives. Changing how business is done.

And I, one of the industries awkward court jesters (there’s always at least one), wrote this:

I mean, it was kinda true.

But I felt bad. Flip, flippant, too cool for school.

Plus I’d promised to write about it.

AND, legitimate work reason: I need to sell my skills now. Because I am now a Consultant. That’s right: capital. Freaking. C. Baby. At a real company – a cool one, at that.

So… here it is: the story of RecruiterMoe (erm, that’s me – by way of starters: Moe was a childhood nickname from my godmother, I am a recruiter, and that Twitter handle happened be very available for some shocking reason…). Not the whole damn thing, mind you – I aim to leave a little mystery. So just the first chapters fleshed out, how I went from “Shit. I majored in writing poetry??” To somehow becoming someone who knows things people are willing to pay to gain access to. Holder of secrets and pathfinder of sorts. I’ll close with a sales pitch. Because: Consultant.

A genuine industry sherpa. Who woulda thunk?

Chapter 1: Zero Dark Recruity

College was interesting. Tucked away in the far far north of the States. Lots of characters, time spent in the deep woods. Then wrapping up in London and Europe. I bumbled around for a few years – argued with Franciscan monks about God. Moved to the South for a girl. Ran a bookstore. Things got Tennessee Williams level complex in my love life. Ran my ass back up to the North in a GTI that was a souped up and way too fast… I loved that car.

Tried my hand at publishing. The GTI and I parted ways at some point. Blown clutch, and trying to fund a business booking rock and hip hop acts around Boston made for a hard choice. Possible I should have chosen the car, possible not. Got to hang with the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Perry Farrell, and this guy who called himself Moby. Almost got into a fist fight with the lead singer from the Lemonheads. Fun times, but bills to pay…

So… soon, I’m looking for a job.  I have a stutter & talk way way way too fast.

I went looking. In the newspaper. That’s right: I. Am. Old. Monster was just emerging from under a router in an HR companies server room (I am not making that up) at that point. Newspapers had all the jobs.

I found an ad. It did make me laugh. And I found CPS – this client focused, ethical, old-school recruiting agency. Decided to use the word fiduciary in round 2 of my interviews, just to see if I could, because I thought it was funny.

They made me an offer. I think it was because the branch director was an obsessive reader of great books, and hated TV. We got to talking about books in the interview.

About that speech impediment? Making a living at full commission, on the phone (so: voice only) made a ton of sense.

Seriously: I wanted to force myself to talk slower. Fear of not eating, and being evicted, seemed like decent motivators to me at the time. Plus if I did it right: money. I was sick of eating ramen noodles, and praying I didn’t get sick, since, hey who needs health insurance, amiright? (Thanks for not being President yet, Obama… could have used your help). Over the next 5 years, I was trained in a few things:

• Service, to clients and to candidates, is a granted privilege (that’s the company motto)
  • Screw that up, by being dishonest or cutting corners, and you’re don’t deserve to be a recruiter
    • I thought that was how all recruiters felt (I was, sadly, very wrong)
• Mistakes happen – just own them when they do
• Money isn’t the most important thing, but it helps pay bills – just don’t make it everything
• Talk slower… No, Martin: slower
  • I had a girlfriend who hated how I talked to her when I was on the phone from work “You talk so normal.”
    • I knew I’d won something at that point
• I also convinced them that using e-mail was okay. And that the Internet, and e-commerce companies, were okay to do business with.

Chapter 2: Internet and Ecommerce Companies Are Not Always Good to Do Business With (Or: what they hell is that sound? It sounds like something popped… like a million VC-backed companies crying out in anguish all at once, and then… nothing)

2001-2005 quite literally sucked at a business level. On a personal level, I got married and became a dad. Took a lot of the suckage out of things, and replaced it with this blissful exhaustion. My wife was generally freaked out at the roller coaster a full commission recruiter’s income becomes when the economy is in free-fall. I left CPS and took an outside sales job selling agendas and 7-Habits curriculum to school districts that were watching their budgets get slashed every minute. Managed to increase the territories sales – I am not sure how I did this. I drove a fantastic old brown Legacy wagon named Midge.

One day, I saw my future, and… no.

Chapter 3: Once More, Into the Breach

I missed the hell out of recruiting. I’d been so good at it. It was fun, I got to meet new people, learn about all kinds of businesses, and I could support a family. Decided to go back in.

I wanted to try out corporate – no idea why, aside from a vague feeling that being a hired gun gets tiring. And I was curious. On the agency side of the world, corporate recruitment gets ridiculed. I wanted to find out if all the snide comments were true.

But then I got to thinking that there was no company in the world that would hire me into corporate, with the economy still shaky, what with me having been out of the game for a few years. So I went and talked to a bunch of agencies, found one that seemed promising, and took a desk.

I didn’t like it. The thing at CPS was all about ethics and service. That we checked references thoroughly on candidates before submitting them, verified college degrees, all of it. If we found out something bad, we did not submit them. Period. We could call and talk through the issue with the client, if the candidate had a strong enough background and whatever we’d uncovered seemed potentially reasonable, but it was never to be done as a sell. Our job was to protect our clients, not make money and run. And that went to candidates, too – bad clients who didn’t treat their people well were verboten. The idea was that behaving this way, paying it forward, would come back as a benefit – a long game. You’d hear from clients, as well as candidates, quite often “You people at CPS are just different from any other recruiters I’ve ever worked with – you seem like real people.”

It was naive of me to think that was the norm. Turns out, most agencies will tell their people: “If you find a bad reference, bury that shit and find a good one. Tell the candidate to never bring it up. Also, you found out they lied about their degree? Only submit them to clients you know don’t do degree verification. Get the placement.”

I really didn’t like it. I couldn’t do it, and decided to leave.

At the same time, I was reading this new (to me) site, called ERE. Lots of great info on recruiting, trends, etc etc. People who seemed to believe in recruiting as a calling. A way of doing good, while making a living. Cool stuff. One day, while reading it, I saw an ad for a company called ZoomInfo. I liked their tech, and got a demo. I was also in the habit (still am) of checking out interesting companies for fun. I’d recently written Big Ass Fans a fan letter (yeah, pun intended), and gotten a bag of swag as a thank you. I was thinking about doing the same with ZoomInfo, when I realized they were 1 goddam mile from my house.

1 mile. So, I went to their career site. They were looking for someone to run corporate recruiting! I’d never done that before. But, I figured, at one point I’d never ridden a bike. Or kissed a girl. There’s always a first time, right?

You know what I did? I wrote the Mother of all Cover Letters. It was beautiful. I wish I still had it (this was pre-Cloud, and it’s likely on a hard drive in some dusty corner). Bryan Burdick, who I suspect is a genius, was the new COO there. He loves good writing, and he appreciates a great cover letter.

He hired me. It was time for me to hang my guns up, and ride out of town.

 

Chapter 4: Goodbye Shane, and Hello Sheriff

To tell you the truth, Bryan’s brilliant. I also suspect he’s insane. He’d just hired a guy whose entire recruiting experience consisted of working on the agency side, recruiting actuaries and accountants, to build internal recruiting at a fast-growing internet start-up. Not only that, but the CEO had the classic engineering-CEO disdain of HR. So, it was up to our controller and me to be HR. Bear in mind: I’d only been in an HR department once, years earlier, and it was to get yelled at.

Have you met me? There is no way I should ride shot-gun on an HR department. I mean, when they told me they were thinking about doing sexual harassment training, I quipped “There’s a class for that? I thought that stuff just comes naturally to some people.”

We were hiring software engineers – and not just web-devs, but experts in natural language processing, AI-driven, big-data search. Before those skills were at least relatively common in the software community. In a location that was nowhere near Cambridge or Boston. In an office park in a remote corner of a suburb. The subway did not, and will never, go there. Hell, the nearest bus stop was blocks away. And they wanted shiny kids from MIT.

We were also hiring marketers. Sales reps. Product managers. Executives.

Oh, and, over 4 years, maybe 3 accountants.

Like the GTA sheriff above, I decided to get scrappy (no, I didn’t shoot anybody – thought about it, but didn’t go for it). Since I was a department of one, I needed to use tools, I figured, to increase my destructive power – err, reach. So, I decided an ATS was a good idea.

(Btw, day 1 on the job? Nobody was expecting me. My boss wasn’t in yet. My desk was covered in a layer of dust, the light didn’t work, and the IT guys – who I rapidly came to love – had no idea I was starting, so hadn’t set up my desktop yet. Also: I had a used desktop. Not a laptop.

One of the first things I created was an onboarding plan).

I knew jack-shit about corporate. About software. About, hell: Excel.

When the Director of Core Dev said “We need to create some reqs,” my first thought was “Wrecks? I know about getting wrecked. Maybe he wants to go binge drinking?”

Luckily I knew how to fake it, and figure it out fast. Plus – turns out, not knowing what I was doing was an advantage. I didn’t know any better. Figured what I was doing was normal.

So… I found an ATS. Shopped around, did bake-offs. In the end, Colin Kingsbury had a solid one called HRMDirect that fit our needs. So I learned how to implement an ATS. Which meant not sleeping for a while, but: learning experience. We were a startup, figured that’s how we did it.

There were a lot of reqs. That’s right: I’d figured out what the word meant (thanks you Google). Hell, I’d gone and created a req-approval process that included service-level-agreements with the hiring managers, all done paperless. So I was sourcing. Prepping candidates. Scheduling interviews. Checking references. Making offers. Assessing, and training, interviewers on interviewing. Created an offer letter doc and process. Full-boat recruiting.

And… I was doing content marketing. Without any clue, I was doing inbound marketing before HubSpot was even a blip. It wasn’t genius. It was just me assuming “This makes sense, this will make my life easier, I’m assuming everyone else is doing this because it makes sense. I have so many reqs. Holy shit I need more candidates! Whadda ya mean you want a weekly dashboard for the exec team – aaargh….” Finding a way to multiply myself mattered. I was encouraging our employees to blog (this was 2006 – blogging was this random new thing – I know, I know… amazing how quickly things age…) Getting their names out there, tied back into our career site. Creating thought leadership everywhere we could that candidates we wanted might see it. Set up a blog on my side, too – the one you’re reading.

It seemed pretty clear that a blog that was all just reposted jobs would be.. boring. Like a radio station that was all ads – not content. So I decided to make mine about career advice, with the occasional post about ZoomInfo (like, every 5 or 6). I found a widget that could pull in freshly published jobs into a sidebar on the blog, from our carer site.

We set up an employee referral program, and worked with Marketing to create buzz (proud to say that at its peak, we were over 60% employee referrals).

Oh: and the career site got rebuilt. That was fun. Learned about A/B testing. Site maps. Created a voice for our employment brand in the process. It doesn’t look the same anymore – I still think mine was better.

And job postings… I had fun there.

Rock Stars: that may be my fault. Not sure. All I know is, I was up one night, late, and needed a generic description. I didn’t want to miss great people once I’d pulled them into the site, just because they didn’t see an opening. So… I was watching the show 6 Feet Under. One of the characters called the other “You’re such a rock star!”

It seemed cool at the time. Different. I wrote a description called “General Rock Stars”. It got blogged a bunch as a great example of how to do a job description. Next thing I knew…

Look: I never called anyone a ninja. Or guru. But, rock stars is something I caused, or at least helped accelerate: mea culpe. I just liked the line in the show…

Along the years,  I kept trying on hats: designed & project managed a physical expansion of our headquarters; stepped into product marketing when we laid off our recruitment product marketing team; did some of the aforementioned HR stuff; worked a booth at conferences with our sales team; gave some talks to recruiting teams, helping schlep our products. Wrote copy (I’m fond of the summary I wrote here). It kind of goes on from there…

End of the day, I took an offer for a package, when the company shrank in 2010 – and it was perfect timing. I’d done a ton. Learned a lot. Had fun, got tired, did it again. But it was time.

Chapter 5: And This is Where I Start to Leave You

Look, you’re read a lot. If you’re still here (hi Mom). So thanks. I promise this starts to wind down.

After ZoomInfo, I kept going. Started my own business – Talent MatchUp – helping with talent products, career site design, branding, sourcer training.

Realized I was faking it. Went to Paris. Did a bunch of thinking on bridges.

Paris was fun. And it gave me time to think about consulting. I knew I enjoyed it, and that I had information, and leadership, to offer, but that I wasn’t fully baked yet.

Chapter 6: PreBirth of the Cool Consultant

Here’s some advice: If you’re hiring a consultant, make sure they’ve actually done your job (or something equivalent) before. If they haven’t led TA, built a department, hired & fired… if they haven’t implemented an ATS that they then had to live with, haven’t built and run processes that – you guessed it – they had to live with… how can they help you do that? Consultants who haven’t taken arrows, spears, and blows to the head as a result of their decisions cannot help you avoid those types of injuries. They lack the nuanced information that comes with doing the job. That’s what I realized in Paris.

To get to that point, where I could feel legitimate in my advising, I focused my company on being a mini-RPO for one major client, who I could get to know well, and advise, and prepped myself to go back inside. Joined, and then as head of global TA scaled a company from under 100 employees to close to 450, helped lead their international expansion, lived part time abroad, built teams & managed them. Then went to PwC. Learned about massive corporate, about matrixed environments. About OFCCP compliance – and what it’s like to live in that environment, and the subtle ways to work there. Helped them transform their recruitment technologies.

I built skills, in other words. Because, I wanted to be able to give advice that came from actual experience. Advice that would help, and create value – because as I’d learned several chapters back, that’s the long-game. Not spending 6 months at a client, hand them a deck with high-level buzzwords and bill them 6-figures (that happens, and people let it happen).

Chapter 7: C for Consultant (or: Bring the Noise, Bring the Pitch)

HireClix. Hire. Freaking. Clix.

We’re building something bold. Funky. Fresh. The team here is brilliant – I’ve used them as a vendor in the past, and the contrast with the TMP’s of the world is shocking. Service matters to me, as does expertise – if that’s not clear already. This team lives and breaths those attributes. They’ve built on that, and the client list is scaling rapidly – Fortune firms are moving over, and others are trying to end contracts to do the same. They know how to help companies improve recruiting technology efficiences, are service consultants for some of the leading ATS & CRM platforms, build creative, etc. It’s a solid offering. With my joining, we’re setting up a service that will provide practitioners with real world advice and guidance around talent acquisition, particularly technology. How to gauge its effectiveness. How to untangle the spaghetti mess of legacy systems. What tools to invest in towards the future, and what the future looks like. How to get their purchases approved.

Need to write an RFP? We’ve got real-world experience there. Want to do a pilot, and measure it? Done that over and over. Need a perspective on why you didn’t select the tool the Managing Director’s wife’s cousin built that “He’s sure we’ll want to use – oh, and he told me that he’s in talks with all of our competitors”. Lived that, can help you be ready with docs, decks, whatever you need for air cover. Heck, you can even make us the scapegoat – that’s our job. We will help you look amazing.

So… yeah. This was supposed to be acres shorter. Became a bit of a ramble, wound up with a sales pitch (hey, I’m excited, okay?). You can reach me here: martin@hireclix.com

I’ll leave you with this. Complete non-sequitor, but he is America’s finest actor.

Dr. Changelove: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying, and Went to Mobiquity

Funny, how life goes. A few weeks ago, I was buzzing along, running Talent MatchUp & working with a great client called Magenic. I’d been working onsite with them for a little over two years, and it was great. Smart people to work with, a nifty little model that I think may be a significant part of how we do recruitment in the future, and I’d become friends with many of the people there.

All that said… something was missing.

That’s not unusual, of course. You spend a few years doing the same thing, and you can start to feel a bit stale. The work had become fairly routine, I was in a pattern, and… I hate that. I’m not someone who’s good at rinse-cycle-repeat, and that’s where I’d gotten myself. Not that the work didn’t have its fun challenges, but still. I wanted something harder.

Like many entrepreneurs, I don’t know how to say “ahh, this is good – don’t mess it up.” On the contrary. I honestly think I exist to mess things up. A little bit of chaos, of weird, seems to suit me. It’s probably why the Absurdists have always resonated with me. Why I felt so at home the first time I stepped into the ICA. Why I find comfort in The Fairy Fellers Master Stroke.

Safety isn’t exactly in my power alley.

So. Last Tuesday, like I do from time to time (and, you should, too), I reached out to my network. Said something along the lines of “I’m sure you haven’t, but if you’ve heard of my dream job being open, could you let me know?”

See, here’s the thing: sometimes, when you speak into the Void? The Void also speaks back to you.

In this case, it was my friend Steven. He’d heard of something. Something that was Really Cool. Perfect. Insanely great. So, like I’m always telling people they should do, I took the resume I routinely update (you should, too), and shot it to him. He made an intro to their insanely great Chief People Officer. We had coffee. She’s insanely great.

So’s the team that she lined up to meet me on Monday. They’re really great. Winning dream-time kind of people. A smart idea, and first to market. Profitable in their first year. An inspirational founder who has multiple successes under his belt. Big goals, and smart plans on how to achieve them. I really wanted in.

So… yeah. It happened. The big IT. Susan (the Chief People Officer – did I mention, insanely awesome?) asked me to come onboard, and build their recruiting department. I think I hesitated for…. no. Nope, didn’t hesitate. Couldn’t. Took the job.

So, in my rambling way, I’m very (very) happy to announce that I will be joining Mobiquity later this month, as their Director of Talent Acquisition. I’ll be rolling up Talent MatchUp in the meantime, since Mobiquity is going to be scaling hugely, and will need all of my focus (along with the recruitment team I’ll be building). It also means that Magenic will be looking for an experienced talent acquisition specialist for Waltham (know a good one? send ’em my way, and I’ll treat ’em right).

Mobiquity is going to be big. They’re a year out of the gate, and already a leader in the mobile space – and, with IT directors now saying that mobile spending will be  growing by 50% in 2013, that’s a good place to be. The executive team is impressive. Well planned expansion underway. They’re – wait, _we’re_  going to be hiring. A lot.

If you – or, someone you know – is looking to get in early with a game-changer, this is it. Find me anyway you can, and let me know who you (or they) are.

Short term (ie, yesterday, if possible), I’m looking to hire several experienced Sales Executives for New York and Philadelphia, as well as a Client Partner for New York. I’m going to have a lot more to share, soon (developers, developer, developers….G&A. Marketing. Recruiters…). Stay tuned.

Also: the career site needs some work. Which I find geekily exciting. Just bear with us for a brief bit.

How Not to Open a Cover Letter

Want to move from being marked as a “New Candidate” to “Rejected” really, really quickly? Open your cover letter like this: 

In review of the requirements listed for the Business Analyst position at your client Magenic, I believe that my experience is in line with your needs. I’m currently pursuing new opportunities that focus on business development and client relationship management, and would be interested in speaking with you to discuss the strengths and experience that I can bring to this position at your client, including the following:

He goes on to list a number of strengths related to business development and selling, including cold-call training, and “ABC” attitude, etc.

Don’t get me wrong: those aren’t bad things. In fact, if the title of the role was, say, Sales Executive, this thing would make sense. But it doesn’t. At all.

My gut is he’s trying to bend and fit into any role he can, without making enough effort to demonstrate how he’s a fit. The irony is that he’s a sales guy, and not selling himself.

How Not to Open a Cover Letter

Not a good way to open a cover letter. I’d love to see if you can tell me why (hint: it’s not because the company is “(XYZ)” – I did that to obscure the name of the employer:

“I am presenting my résumé to be considered for the varied positions that I may qualify for within your organization. I am currently providing Analyst Support to (XYZ) Financial in the effort to further hone, as well as acquire more innovative on-job skills.”

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.

Stop Biting Your Teeth – Your Resume Cannot Be All of You

The Eastern-oriented philosopher Alan Watts once said “trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.”

He was right, and if you’re like me, the first time you saw that quote, you tried to bite your own teeth. I suppose if you have dentures, you could do it, but you get the point. It’s generally impossible, frustrating, and hard to resist attempting.

I happen to think resume’s fall into the same bucket. We’re taught for our entire business lives that we need to have a resume, keep it updated, list our accomplishments, skills, education and merit badges. Bullet points describing all of our jobs and duties. Not on pink paper. Keep it to one page (well, two is apparently permissible now). Blah blah blah.

Here’s the thing: if you can’t define yourself to yourself, how in the hell are you supposed to define yourself in two pages or less to a massive variety of strangers? That’s like trying to bite somebody else’s teeth, via e-mail. Utter rubbish to even attempt it.

So, don’t.

Let me ask you a question – how much time do you think you spend, on average, each time you revise your resume? I’m betting if you were to sum it up, you’ve lost days of your life on the bloody thing. Agonizing over font, margins, the objective, where to put your education, etc etc etc. Then, you get it done, and read a blog post by some idiot in Boston about the “proper” way to write a resume, panic when it doesn’t agree with how your resume looks, and restart the whole process.

Only to read a blog post by some other idiot that contradicts the guy in Boston.

Rinse. Cycle. Repeat. Vomit from stress as needed.

So. What to do?

Here’s my humble thought: stop. Stop trying to bite your teeth. Beyond being frustrating, you’ll probably clip your tongue in the process, and that’s no fun.

Now, you still need something to send in when you see that dream job (or, job – not all of them are the stuff of dreams). It’s still called a “resume”, and it’s still relevant to what you need to accomplish (ie: get job). It’s just less teeth-biting, and more move on to what matters. Which is better.

See, when I’m looking at a resume of a candidate, there’s usually a whole ton of stuff I don’t give a crap about on there – I mean, it’s not a ding on the person, but I have certain needs that I need met, and I’m selfish. So are you, by the way – it’s the human condition. Embrace it and all of that. What I need will be relevant to the job I’m trying to fill, and the more excited I get about your resume will be directly proportional to how close a match your resume is to that job.

That, my friend, is called a clue. A pointer to where I’m going, in what is a somewhat rambling and incoherent blog post.

If your resume has the skills/ words I’m looking for – giggity! I’m excited. You will be, too, since it means you’re going to get an interview. One step closer to “get job, do happy dance” time.

If you’re saying/ thinking “What the hell – does this guy recruit mind readers?”, well, fantastic as that would be, no. I don’t. What I do do, is make it easy for you to match your resume to my needs: by putting it in writing, and publishing it. The job description, in other words. A bulleted list of what I need. There for the taking.

You should. Take the help.

To break it down a little, it’s a couple of steps.

• Create a template

• Your name, contact info (you really should have your LinkedIn or online bio in there) at the top
• A section called “Relevant Skills Summary”

• Leave this blank
• In between, work history

• Just title, company, location, dates of employment – that’s it
• Basic educational info at the bottom (school, degree, year of graduation)
• Stop. “Save As” “Resume Template”

• Or call it “Angry Badger” I really don’t care
• Find a job you want
• Take the job description, and look at it bullet by bullet

• For every bullet where you say “I’ve done that (or, something close to it)”, add that skill in where it’s relevant on your template (ie, if they want, say .NET and you developed applications using C# .NET, ASP.NET, etc at a job, put that under that job, and talk about what you did that was cool about it, maybe it won an award, or made your boss look good)

• In the “Relevant Skills Summary”, put in “.NET 4.0” (or whatever  this isn’t redundant, it’s emphasis)
• As you go through the list, cross off the qualifications you’ve added into your resume
• At the end, look at the list – if you’ve only connected yourself with 2 out of 10 requirements, you may be in trouble – look again, and ask yourself why you’re qualified for the job

• If there’s something in the description that you can’t quantify with a relevant match to your past experience, but that you think makes you a fit, develop a compelling argument around it – use your cover letter, or relevant skills section to make that point

• Cruel reality: if your answer is “I’m a quick learner, I can figure this stuff out, I just need some training”, well, that’s not a qualification I can quantify – and, frankly, it means you’re technically qualified for every stinking job on the planet.
• Look over your customized resume – there’s probably a fair amount blank under some of your jobs. It’s okay at this point to add an accomplishment or two under each – but, try and keep it quick since A: less is more B: you’re going to spend too much time working on those, and I’m barely going to absorb them. Too much effort on your side for what amounts to a sideshow on mine.

• I like that you’ve accomplished things, but I’m not going to dive too deep into them if they’re not relevant to my needs

• Remember: selfish
• In the eduction section, think about if you need more than what you have. If you have certifications or training that are relevant to the job (ie, Microsoft MVP, Ruby on Rails Boot Camp, etc), it’s worth adding

• But, generally people don’t care if you’re in Mensa, or Toast Masters. Or went to clown school (I am not making that one up, by the way – and, no, I wasn’t recruiting for Cirque du Soleil)

• Recruiting clowns with ESP for Cirque du Soleil would be pretty bad-ass, though
• Save the resume with a name that’s relevant to the job (ie, Burns, Martin – Mind Reading Clown Recruiter Resume – CdS)

Alright – I know, that seems like a lot of “work” to do a custom resume for each job. But, the thing is, it’s not. It’s efficient. You’re much more likely to get noticed if your resume matches the job (just, don’t copy and paste, that’s a bit too obvious), which ultimately means less time spent sending out resumes and more time in the interview chair.

Where I highly recommend you wear a clown suit. A mind reading clown suit.

How Social Media Can (Quickly) Sink Your Candidacy – True Story

When you send in resume, make sure it matches your LinkedIn profile (this is dead-easy to do, and there’s no excuse not to). Also, when the recruiter/ HR/ whoever drops your e-mail into Facebook search (look, Virginia, no there isn’t a Santa Claus, and yes, you’re gonna get Facebook checked), make sure what comes up is professional, and is actually you. Not some fake profile you created to play Mafia Wars when your boss wasn’t looking. I mean, is your name really Mad Eyes Marilyn Mondroe?  That’s actually kindda basass, if it is. But when your resume says “Jane Smith”, we have to assume the worst. That, or you’re a secret-assassin.

If nothing else, make the list of Zynga Games you “like” non-public, and don’t use the same e-mail address you’re using on your resume.

Here’s the interpretation: If you’ve gone to the trouble of creating a fake profile for gaming, and like everything from Farmville to Palookaville, it’s a safe bet you’re spending your working hours planting watermellons, and offing Mafia dons. That, and you’d rather live in that rather sad, shallow world, and can’t even spend the time to hit the “Import Your Resume” button on LinkedIn. You’re considered damaged goods, DOA as a candidate.

Just a thought.

I Promise You, I Thought This Was Satire

How to Work With a Recruiter (and, How _Not_ To)

I started working as a recruiter back in ’97 – which means, I’ve got a few stories.

Oh, do I have stories. Fish jacket. Currie. The magical-disappearing candidate (that’s a recurring act). The ever-classic “well, I just got my mba, so I think that means I’m worth 20% more than I was making (short answer to that idea: no, it doesn’t)

Anyways. Recently, I had two candidate encounters that I thought really painted a picture of how people can make an impression on a recruiter. Good, and bad impressions.

I’m going to paste in two e-mail messages I received on the same day. One was from a great mobile developer, who’s built – and, will be building – some amazing mobile technology. The other is from a guy who can’t hold a job at the same place for more than 9 months at a time, and who seems to float in between gigs. Before I jump in, a quick point: it’s good to work with a good recruiter. We exist. What makes us stand out is that we take as much pride in our work, as you do in yours, and that we’re interested in working with candidates and companies for the long haul. That means we work hard not to make bad fits  happen (ie, overpromise or hide things from either party), and are willing to walk away from people or companies that seem to be questionable.

So. Example #1. He was a great candidate from the start, nice, smart, and easy to work with. After the placement happened, he sent me this out of the blue.

Hi, Martin,

I am now on my second day here at Magenic in the Android position you place me in.  And while I’m just starting to get into projects, I’m loving what I’m seeing.

I just wanted to drop a note to thank you for getting back to me so quickly a month ago. I couldn’t believe that I had an offer in my hand only 9 days after sending my initial email to you.  I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the promptness in which all of you acted.  It was a very impressive process.

As I’m getting my feet wet, I’m learning of some pretty high expectations of me, but I’m looking forward to the challenge of
delivering.  It’s definitely a great change of pace from the stagnant professional development I had in my previous position.

Thanks again.

I love this guy – a class act. A big part of the reason the process went so quickly was because he was a willing, and eager, partner in it. Prompt with his responses, interested in the work, and just, well, good. I’m sure that reflects beyond his work character – his personal character, and the way he approaches life, is reflected in how he works and job searches. He’s always going to get a return call from me because of this.

Now – example B. Actually, I’d love to call him example F.

One of the ways I build my business is by networking. I’ll connect with someone (randomly out and about, on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, whatever), and form connections, with the express idea that I’m willing to help that person out at some point (resume advice, restaurant suggestions, whatever) with no expectations that they’ll return the favor, but the hope that they approach life the same way. If nothing else, I’m richer because I’ve met and learned from someone new. Sometimes, I’ll see something someone’s done – a comment on  Stack Overflow, Reddit, MarketingSherpa, great blog post, etc – and want to connect because they seem, well, interesting. Sometimes, I’ll hear that someone is looking, and approach them about a job.

So, back to F. Yeah, I’m going with that. He’s listed a resume on Dice, and had a decent LinkedIn profile, as well as some chatter online in a few spots. Seemed interesting, but also seemed like he changed roles pretty quickly – this is usually because a person’s either someone who loves early stage development, and doesn’t stick around for maintenance, or someone who people can’t stand once they get to know him a little bit.

I sent him a note via LinkedIn, about a role I’m recruiting for that’s pretty interesting. First, my note, then, his response.

Me:

Just saw your resume and LinkedIn profile, would love to catch up. I’m helping a funded start-up with a lead engineering role, creating products for the web. Philosophy is very much “use the best of what’s available to get the job done right”. Thought it lined up with your philosophy pretty well. Don’t know if it’ll appeal to you, as there may not be enough multimedia, but it’s a pretty innovative approach to social & crowd sourcing to solve a business problem, so compelling on that end.

Let me know if you’d like to hear  more, and/ or if you’d like me to keep you in the loop for other roles. I tend to focus on start-ups to SMB’s in mobile and web, and would be happy to keep you in mind for something that’s a better fit.

F:

Hi Martin,

As much as it might line up with my philosophy on things this is actually an insult to me as an engineer. I spent a year as a Senior Engineer building an entire platform in Flash and iOS apps why would I want to go back to Web Development (Notice I didn’t say engineering here).

Let’s take this apart: first, you don’t get to call yourself a Senior Engineer if you didn’t complete more than a year of college, and have only worked at 4 companies, none of which let you stay for more than 9 months. You weren’t anywhere for a year. Some of them booted you – or, you left because they were “insulting you as an engineer” after two months. Senior Engineers tend to be mentors to more junior engineers, or produce large amounts of brilliant work. They may have called you that, but I doubt it – if they did, it was purely for your ego. Second, believe it or not, people still engineer products for the Web – I know, I know, Your Punkness, mobile is newer than web, so it must be better just by default.

Here’s the point: he may be right, maybe he is really brilliant at mobile, and maybe it’s more challenging than web. I’m not sure, but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. Where he goes off the rails is his unbelievable arrogance – there’s no call for it.

And, to that point, I’m now working on a very, very interesting mobile role, ground up stuff, funded, and challenging. There’s no call for him, now, from me.

And Another Thing… Words You Should Never Use On a Resume, Cover Letter….

Image via CrunchBase

I do like LinkedIn – it’s a good thing. Part of what I like about the company is the data they pull out, and serve up. That may be because I’m a people junky (“stick them in my vein!!” Hmm. That may get edited out later). One of their new ones is an analysis of the most overused phrases on people’s LinkedIn profiles – basically, words that make you look like… well, like everyone else. The full post is here

Apparently, the majority of the people on LinkedIn are/ have:

1. Extensive experience
2. Innovative
3. Motivated
4. Results-oriented
5. Dynamic
6. Proven track record
7. Team player
8. Fast-paced
9. Problem solver
10. Entrepreneurial

Hooray! Everyone’s amazing!!

The thing is… really? Because I’ve worked with a lot of people, and, well…. never mind. Just trust me: find some diferent ways to describe yourself. Pronto. Use words that relate to what you actually do, for the love of Pete. 

Oh: and stop using the word “vast”. And trousers. Slacks, as well.  But, mostly “vast”. You don’t have “vast knowledge”. Trust me.  Also: “people person”. Why is everyone a “people person”?  How in the world is that a compelling reason to hire you?

Anyways.

No, seriously, I’m done. Just can’t find a way to roll off naturally. Fin. Talk to you later? Hasta la pasta, baby?