For the first time in several years I’ve put my recruiting hat on. Broadlook is expanding and we need to hire about 10 people. I decided to get in on the ground floor and do the initial outreach to prospective candidates.
Here is what I observed:
The general professionalism of the better candidates was…better. Does this seem obvious? Possibly, but what I am talking about is simple things like voicemails and formats of email addresses.
Emails: One of the emails contained the following: DaddySpankU@(email domain.com). This was in application for a Director level position. The resume contained the minimum level of experience, but I had to ask myself, “what is this persons level of professionalism?”. In the end, I don’t care, I’m not going to roll the dice with this person.
Voicemail recordings: Next, I called a candidate and got a voicemail with dogs barking, an obvious party going on in the background. Again, not professional. BTW, he also sounded as if he had at least a six pack in him, slurring his words.
Poor Voicemail message: “Yeah, high um, I like got your message and I ahh will send you my resume…. blah blah blah”. Message deleted.
Voicemail message with no recording: “You have reached the voicemail number 414-555-1212…etc”. My goodness, if you are applying for a sales or customer facing position, record a voicemail so people know they are talking to. I want to hear how professional you sound.
Funny voicemail: “If you are driving or over 30 send me an email later. If you are under 30, send me a text message”. I liked this guy. Shows some personality and that is better than an “UM, Er, Ah, speaking dolt”. Sales reps should have personality.
Facebook pages: I don’t care if you have a tattoo on your ass. But putting it as your *Profile* photo on Facebook is a bad choice. This lady did not get a call. Ok, nice photo, but I don’t want you representing my company. Mrs. politically correct in Human Resources may tell you different that you can’t be discriminated against due to something on your Facebook page. Reality: your application will be deleted and you will never find out why. No call. No job. No explanation.
Regarding your resume. For the experienced people… dates like 2010-2011 is a huge red flag. That could be December 2010-Jan 2011. Fill in all dates. Good interviewers will ask you to account for all dates and gaps in your work history. Did you take a 4 months off to travel Europe? Don’t hide it. This is a positive thing. What did you learn and grow from it?
Don’t lie. You will get caught and there is no excuse. In the first 10 phone interviews, I caught a few people in lies. The interview immediately ended. People lie about stupid things.
Example:
“I made $55,000 last year. ”
“Are you sure about that”, I ask
“Yes. It might have been a little more.” (then I got a detailed description of the compensation).
I interjected. “You do understand that we require copies of your last 3 years of W2 to verify past compensation”.
Pause… then. “Ok, then I only made $45,000 last year”.
“So you lied to me”. I stated
“I just really wanted the job”.
I terminated the interview. This is something that he should have learned in Kindergarten. Funny thing is that his skills would have commanded the $55,000 he was looking for.
What it all comes down to empathy. Job Applicants need to understand how each and every way you interact with a potential employer looks to the employer. Here are some take-aways. There are many articles and tips and what to do and not to do. Here are some of my pet-peeves.
- Have a professional email address. DormStalker@gmail.com FAIL. Try something like First.Last@something.com
- Have a clear voicemail message. If your message includes “Um”, “Er”, “Ah”, “you know”, “like” (at the start of every sentence), then re-record it.
- Fill in all dates on your resume. If there is a gap, explain that gap.
- Spelling mistakes on a resume. Have a friend proof-read it. Yeah, I’m awful, but I have a job
- Unless you are prepared to forge W-2’s Don’t lie about compensation. You will get caught when you are asked for proof.
- Do what you say you will do. Return calls when you promise, send paperwork, etc. Failing in what is required in the job application process is a huge red flag.
- Don’t treat my assistant rudely. She has a copy of your resume and will write notes about how you engage her. She is interviewing you too!
- Don’t lie. What you think is important may not be. Job applicants lie about the stupidest things.
What happens to my iTunes music after I die?
It’s been something I’ve been thinking about. Now that Steve Jobs has left us, it’s come to the top of my mind. For months I’ve been looking on iTunes at the Beatles complete collection. It is around $100, a $9.99 download does not make be think, but $100 makes me stop and contemplate.
When I die… can I leave my vast iTunes music collection to my children?
My CD’s sure, but what about digital rights? I’m not sure if anyone is having this conversation. What about divorce? Who gets the iTunes? After reading the lengthly iTunes user agreement, it is unclear. So in preparation, I changed my official iTunes email login to a family-oriented email. If I get hit by a train, my family will have control of my music and Apps. This made me look at copyright lengths. UK Copyright lengths are 50 years. What that means is that:
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Copyright June 1967 will be free to copy in June 2016. Unfortunately, this will be in the UK only. The US copyright has been extended to 95 years. How to resolve the US/UK difference? I’m sure the Beatles copyrighted music and the US and UK, but it is interesting to think about.
This made me think more. Is this why bands keep releasing “remastered” sound tracks? A new soundtrack means another 50 years copyright. That is every band’s right. It is also my right to hold on to orginal CD’s of non-remastered recordings until they pry them out of my cold dead hands.
What it all comes down to is that there will be many more discussions on digitial music and video rights. It is interesting. I just want to live long enough to learn to play Stairway to Heaven and then use the sound track for a really cool product release…royalty free.
An article on UK copyrights:
Last week, while presenting a live webinar “The Near and Far Future of Recruiting” I had an epiphany. I was talking about the eventual decline (or morphing) of Facebook. The theory is this: Mobile computing power in 10 years will be server-capable. Add in violation of trust and general mistrust of social networks. The result is peer-peer social networking. No Facebook needed. Everything sits on your mobile device. More private, more secure, total user control and no ads. Facebook may lead the way, but it will be hard to do as they would cannibalize their own ad-driven revenue model.
This was last year’s Epiphany.
What led to the new epiphany was my pontificating on CRM systems. This was a recruiter-centric talk about the future of recruiting. Many recruiter CRMs have connections to LinkedIn profiles. Every one of these, that I have seen, has been implemented incorrectly, not due to any fault of the vendors. In an optimal situation, the data inside the Profile should be mashed up with current CRM data. Instead, LinkedIn requires usage of their API which brings back a canned LinkedIn profile. This is what I call “social linkage”.
The optimal situation would be a pair of “social agents”. While a company may have 1000 company prospects in their CRM, they may only contact 50 in a given day. One “social agent” would automatically refresh the entire CRM on a longer cycle such as once per quarter. Another just-in-time social agent would update the CRM just before the outreach process. Why is this important? LinkedIn is not a definitive data-source; nothing is. What happens when you combine Facebook, Google+, Jigsaw (now data.com), Foursquare, twitter and whatever social network Microsoft comes up with? Are you going to clutter your Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics interface with 6-8 little snippets, much with redundant information? This gets ugly fast. The optimal implementation is to have a social agent retrieve LinkedIn, Data.com, Google+, Facebook, Twitter information. Next, mash, score, apply analytics to present the information in a way that optimally fits your selling model.
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After about 2 years of talking about this topic, I thought it best to collect some solid data before doing an official blog about it.
LinkedIn is not a social network.
A thing is defined by it’s major attribute. While LinkedIn has aspects of a social network, it is actually a social database.
Hey Donato…But they say they are a social network!
In the early days they were. As the network grew, savvy users realized they needed to grow their networks as large as possible to spread their reach. In polls done over the last year in live webinars, I’ve asked groups ranging from 200-600 how they use LinkedIn. Here are the questions and the responses.
1. I get as many connections as possible and figure out how to contact people directly.
2. I use LinkedIn to as it was meant. Connect with people through a series of connections.
3. I don’t use LinkedIn.
69% of people choose option 1. Last year, it was only 50%. The trend is growing and…
LinkedIn is a social database.
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I’ve tried this and it works every time. How long it will work, who knows.
If you google a specific page and then search the page again… but this time using the last few words from the excerpt of the page results… you can use this technique to actually scroll through an entire web page.
It’s like peering through a small cache window a section of the page at a time.
Resumes sites, Linkedin, and many others. Maybe call it a recursion search?
