I want to job of Cock Washer: The job search help thread.

Regarding dates: after we closed our family business in '06, I find myself cycling through jobs pretty quickly (average tenure 18-24 months). While somewhat typical for my industry (tech), it's not necessarily typical for my age (40 plus one) - so instead of removing my graduation date, I removed my employment dates and added "date last used" to my core competency/skill level section.

Although I have a job I don't hate, I usually send out 1-3 resumes a week to stay engaged - and rely almost exclusively on my LinkedIn network for anything and everything job related. I've had several interview opportunities since I've switched formats (one of which I'm pursuing), and will have both dated and undated versions of my resume for my interview.

Agree and disagree; I think everyone should have .docx, .pdf and .txt versions of their resume (yup, .txt!) - some ATS's have trouble with .pdf's and OCR recognition, so if I'm sending my resume to Taleo (or some other ATS), I send the .docx version. If I'm emailing the hiring manager directly or applying on a company's site and .pdf is an upload option, I go with that. (I've used the .txt version when sites won't parse a .docx file - I'm too lazy to retype that shit).

Oh, I don't put my address on my resume - just my cell, email, and LinkedIn profile link. And I use '99999' for my zip on LinkedIn - the last thing I want is to miss an opportunity because I live in Shittown, USA.

 

I'm about to be replaced by robots. I need a new strategy. I know how to setup and troubleshoot communications systems, and I know how to make wine. Suggestions?

 

Sounds like useful skills in prison.

 

I've made too many questionable career decisions to offer advice, but I wanted to say that Kubla seems to be making the right steps. I've never wanted to job of cock washer, but his wording speaks to his sincerity. Employers like that.

 

I finish my MBA in sustainability in a whopping 7 weeks.

I'm currently working in sales for a SaaS start-up, and I've been here since June 2016. I was at my last gig (software sales) just over a year.

If I start looking for a job now, fully using my MBA do I look like I am job hopping?

My start up is fun, but I have little equity, and the insurance flat out sucks. It wipes out the pay increase I got when I took the job. I've doubled the client roster since I've came on board, and added sizable deals each month, so I've done well. I'm also looking to relocate to the DC/Annapolis area. I'd like to leverage my Master's and Peace Corps experience into something a bit more lucrative and/or stable than sales.

Thoughts?

 

Tip: don't misspell your own name on your resume.

I got two of those today. Both of them had Bachelors degrees from public universities.

How the hell does that happen?

 

Figured this would be a good place to ask the board, since I have some questions from the perspective of an employer/hiring manager and I'm working on redesigning our interview process:

- what do you consider to be an appropriate time between submitting your resume and a call back? (I operate on 3 business days max, preferably the following day, but if people want it that day I'm curious)

- what do you consider a "long" interview? What about "too short"?

- do you come prepared with questions for the interviewer? Do you feel put on the spot if they ask you what your questions are? (I figure it's a two way street, I wanna see if they're a good team fit but also, just morally, I want to make sure that we are a good fit for what they want... but I don't want to come across as overbearing or make them uncomfortable)

- if you walk in for an interview and there is another interviewee waiting, does that make you uncomfortable? Does it matter if there are multiple positions open?

- if you've submitted your resume to a bunch of places (like through monster), rough guess as to the percentage of the places you sent your resume actually call you?

 

I think three business days is good, a week max. That said, it was so rare I considered it an oddity when I'd actually hear back regarding positions I applied to, but that may be the nature of applying to larger corporations. It's anecdotal, but for the most part; the smaller the company, the more likely I heard back from them.

As long as it needs to be. I've interviewed for positions which lasted less than twenty minutes that went well and hour long (or longer) interviews that sucked. However, the 'sweet spot is about 30-45 minutes.

You're an idiot if you walk into an interview without your own questions. Google "questions to ask at a job interview" and you'll get thousands of pages of suggestions. The process is as much a chance for you to find out more about your prospective employer as it is for them to find out about you. I never walked in with any less than three (the interviewer may answer some of your questions during the process to the point your question will make you look like you weren't paying attention) and I always ended with this question: "what hesitations or concerns do you have in hiring me?" Nobody's a perfect fit and it gives me a chance to know where they think I'm lacking and the opportunity to address those concerns. However, I have found the initial interview with an HR rep often more difficult than the second round interview with the person you'll actually work for/with. Usually, HR typically only has a sheet of "requirements" a potential candidate must have and barely understand the position they're hiring for. The challenge then is articulating you fit the core criteria to someone that doesn't understand what exactly they're looking for.

Never bothered me...even if I'm the only person currently waiting for my interview time; I know I'm not the only person they plan to interview.

Responses to applications through Monster, LinkedIn, etc is about the same as directly through the company. The positive to using sites such as Monster or LinkedIn is my resume is out there for viewing vice me actively pushing it to every company. Even though I haven't been looking for a new job for over three years, I still average about 5-10 hits a month from HR folks looking for employees.

 

Thanks so much for your responses Kubla and AF. I was worried I was going out of bounds a little more than necessary, but your responses confirmed (as much as two opinions can "confirm" anything) that I'm a lot closer to on target than I thought.

My thinking is, we will provide everyone with the skills they need to be good at their jobs here, it isn't rocket science. But you can't train someone to be bubbly, or enthusiastic, or a good team fit with the rest of their co-workers. Just because someone might make a good employee in the industry, doesn't mean they make a good fit within our team. And you can tell pretty quickly who will make a good team fit or not, beyond that you're just trying to see where on the team they'll fit. If someone will definitely not make a good team fit, the interview is over in about 5-10 minutes. If they might make a good team fit, it's going about 30 minutes. If I really like them (and I ask if I'm keeping them from something else), then it's going about an hour. Good thing for me is, I have backup in the form of a second interview directly after me, to weed out those who slipped past.

 

So I'm not looking right now but a headhunter I once used, ask if I could send a current resume in Word format. Since headhunters are sometimes not very reputable, would you like that's red flag? I've heard of some recruiters making changes to the Word doc in order to make you more attractive to their clients. I don't want someone altering my skills just to pad their numbers.

 

I've never heard of a head hunter significantly altering a resume, and why would they even do that? You're going to have to interview with the company later on so if they put something in there that isn't true it's going to get revealed later. Also, practically every interviewer asks you to bring a copy of your resume to the interview so if they don't match up it would look odd.

The head hunter needs something to send the employer so of course they're going to ask you to send the resume. How is that a red flag? Take this however you want, but your concern just seems really odd to me.

Also, I've used several head hunters in the past to set up interviews and this has never happened to me.

 

Out of curiosity, how many of you have dealt with recruiters that ended up getting you hired?

I'm pretty consistently getting 1st and 2nd interviews through them (about 2-3/month), but so far not a single one has moved forward. What gives? Should I look at most recruiters as a waste of time?

 

I have gotten 3 jobs through recruiters, including my current one where I am now permanent. But none has been all that lucrative, and I have been rejected for at least 10 interviews that have been arranged through recruiters.

All recruiters can do is get you the interview; they have no actual control over whether or not you get the job, even though you will actually be working for their company when you start out.

In my experience I have found that recruiters are a waste of time when they don't have a specific position for which they are trying to set you up an interview at the time that they call you. I have never gotten as much as even an interview when they have reached out just to talk or meet me in person.

 

This has been my experience too, but in a good way. I'm an engineer and I've had great success with recruiters in my career. That's mainly because engineering positions are pretty specific and easier to target than a lot of other jobs. It's easy to sort out candidates who don't meet the qualifications from those who do.

When I got downsized from my first job out of college the company paid for an outplacement service, where they stressed the value of networking and told us over and over again that traditional methods like newspaper ads and recruiters don't work. Within 4 weeks I had two job offers - one from an Atlanta Journal ad and one from a headhunter. In my next job search after that I again got two offers, both from recruiters.