The Hiring Decision - In the Current Job Market, Who's on First?

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I have had the opportunity to observe and be directly involved in hundreds of hiring decisions through the years.
As the saying goes, I have seen (almost) everything.

As the headhunter, we have the distinct pleasure of being the guys in the middle.
This allows us to speak with the employer and the candidate and get the perspective of everyone involved. Because of this, we sometimes find ourselves in the line of fire from 2 different directions.

The candidate perspective in the current market is generally "who do I have to kill to get the job" and the employer side is usually, "we see no reason to hire you at this time since you are one of 1000 guys who wants our job and we're in no hurry cause the job can get filled whenever we see fit with whomever we want."

Oops, have I inadvertently taken sides in the article?

No, no, no, not really. What I really want to talk about is assumptions and how they change when the market changes.

People will always assume things, but the kind of assumptions people make vary depending on what the current job climate happens to be at the time.

Nowadays, there are more desperate candidates on the market, so the employer tends to be a bit wary, and assumes that the candidate will say anything to break through the hiring barricade.

Ever hear these?

"He stayed for only one year in his last job so he will leave us in one year also. We want someone who will stay, so this guy is out."

Or. "Yes, we see the references, but we want his REAL references. We want to know about the guys who hate him."

He WAS laid off from his last 2 jobs (telecom guy, of course). It wasn't his fault that Motorola and Nortel both laid him off, but the employer thinks that it is because he decided poorly when he joined a company that was going to have a layoff in 12 months. He should have known better, and because he did things that involved bad judgement, he will probably be a bad executive or a bad sales guy or a bad engineer. The other 800,000 guys who got laid off are all similarly flawed. It only stands to reason, right?

Personally, I think the 800,000 guys just all got hold of some bad sushi and went temporarily insane when they happily joined a "Telecom Giant."

Whatever.

Usually, the way I see it, these days, the candidate just wants to work somewhere where he can contribute and get a fair wage and maybe have some upward mobility. Maybe he doesn't want to rule the world, he just doesn't want to get knocked down because someone in another country made a decision to dump the product he sells.
Sometimes he assumes that his age or his nationality or the size of his feet is the reason he was not selected and also assumes that the job market is impossible and he DOES have a secret bad reference that continually sabotages his search in the bottom of the ninth inning.

All assumptions.

The employer, many times, assumes that the candidate will stay only until he finds something better to do, or until the market returns to normal, or joined-up only to get health coverage.

The candidate assumes that the company has no loyalty, doesn't really care about his life and will cut him as soon as they find a lower paid guy to do his job somewhere offshore.

In a confusing world, assumptions abound. I have never seen this set of circumstances make so many, so goofy, for so long.

What is the answer? There is no single answer but I am certain of one thing.

Everyone has to seek out the truth and present themselves honestly and not assume. If someone has made a decision based on an untruth, they need to be corrected. When in doubt...find out.

Steve Eddington

Finally the health care industry has developed a pill that will really help the economy. It is a pill that helps people deal with being umemployed and will actually, if taken according to directions, get the patient a job !

Early  trials were very successful on monkeys and dogs who had been unemployed for an average of 6-12 months. Human patients in the  study who took the medication 3 times a day, got more interviews than those who were given a placebo.

The actual "hired" statistics among the animals tested were inconclusive due to disagreements on what it actually means for a monkey  or a dog to be gainfully employed.The statistics on the dogs were promising  at first due to the fact that a typical dog job of fetching newspapers, barking at people walking past the house and providing companionship to owners, are very measurable. Still being analyzed is an abnormally high attrition rate and failure to complete probationary periods for all who participated, both human and animal. This statistic was very severe with the monkeys who actually worked an average of 16 days before quitting. Further evaluation will hopefully determine if the medication caused the high turnover rate among the monkeys or if it is just a normal variance because those tested were, in fact, primates. The dogs seemed very interested at first but seemed to lose interest in the jobs after a very short period of time, despite increased dosages of the medication. They seemed to revert back to the typical dog behavior of eating, sleeping, barking and humping the kids.

These "difficult to interpret" test observations resulted in most of the animal tests being thrown out. NOTE...the rat scores were immediately discarded because the rats were either just totally uncooperative as test subjects, or they died, neither of which made them a viable source of  data.

The human results certainly proved valuable though and passed the trials with a normal amount of side effects. Among the side effects experienced were;  sleeplessness, hysteria,  psychosis, perversion,  abnormal number of trips to the dry cleaner, a feeling that their left foot actually was a German aircraft, skin rashes especially on the private parts, excessive word processing with irregular fonts, moist palms, thoughts of owning Mick Jagger's wardrobe, bizarre and vivid dreams of being a  " Lord Voldemort "  type character, desire to kill the mailman, desire to simultaneously be and assassinate the King of Zamunda, violent reactions to people with nose hair,  thoughts of suicide,  actual suicide, thoughts of bleeding ulcers, actual bleeding ulcers,  mayhem,  irrational exuberance, irrational pessimism, irrational glee,  uncontrollable urges to hurt everything,  fear of eyebrows, genocidal tendencies, desire to be famous for mass murder, desire to be murdered, desire to cause pain, unemployment, bankruptcy, irrational desires to detonate nuclear weapons, felonious activities  (seasonal),  Thelonious Monk (an actual disease),  claustrophobia, burping through the ears, cancer, inability to create a powerpoint presentation , constipation or diarreah  and  general crankiness about the emotional side effects of unemployment while secretly not actually wanting to work , aggravated by constipation.  A few other more bizarre side effects (thought to be from different drugs still flaring up from previous  trials ) were also present in some volunteers.  A few random deaths occurred, no big surprise, just too insignificant to mention as part of the clinical trials.

Because the  overall  side effects  for this type of drug are considered  "normal, "  doctors will be prescribing this medication for just about everything. 

The medical profession, heavily threatened by the drug industry and psychiatric henchmen, unanimously agreed today at a press conference that if the entire populace got on a regular regimen of this drug, that all of their goals for humanity could be easily achieved ahead of schedule.

Those of us in the employment business are thrilled to hear that we have yet another solution to the lack of work, and while we personally would not take this pill for all the tea in China, it is yet another giant step in the direction that mankind seems to be going.

    It is now my turn to speak on the subject of the one page resume.

I have NEVER been involved in such a complete fiasco as the unending discussion of whether you should or should not have a one-page resume.

I want to first say that this is a laborious subject, so I will try to spice it up with some pointed, irreverent comments that are sure to tick off some of my conservative readers.

First...some of the comments I have personally heard:

• Well, Joe Blow (insurance salesman) said I should have a one-page resume
• Well, I read a book and it said you should have a one page resume
• I can't really go into what I really did because if I did, it would take more than one page
• Gosh, I wish I could put my job at IBM on my resume but if I did it would make it more than one page and I was told never to have the resume be more than one page long so I hope people figure out (from Tarot cards or Ouija boards) that I worked there because that really was my best and longest job.
• I'm confused, should my resume be more than one page? I FEEL like it should, but I don't want to break the rules because if I do, I might be abducted by evil agents who will ruin my chances for getting employed.

Is this enough? NO. Here's another one.

• People just don't read resumes that are longer than one page.

I have heard some more, but we can start with these.

There is no scientific answer about whether a one-page resume is right or wrong. It all depends on who you are and how much experience you have.

The first thing to look at here is the PURPOSE of a resume. I will state for the record here and now, the purpose of a resume is TO GET YOU AN INTERVIEW. If the resume gets you an interview, it can be considered to be a good resume. If the resume isn't getting you interviews, then you should probably change it, unless you are a bricklayer hopelessly applying to be a CFO (in which case you should be reading a different article entitled "Megalomania and your Unlimited Target Market."

As someone who has read a zillion resumes, I can tell you that the biggest mistake you can make on your resume is to make it hard to read. Lots of graphics, small fonts, borders, boxes, footnotes and really really creative designs are not a good idea these days for a couple reasons. One, scanners don't like these oddities. Two, it can make the resume harder to read. I have seen many seasoned candidates using a 6-point font so they could get the resume on one page. Big mistake. Resume readers do not like eyestrain. If the resume is mechanically challenging, they might just throw it aside for one that is easier on the eyes. You might say that this is unfair and you are right, but since we want to deal with reality, you need to know the truth. There are LOTS of resumes out there and that is part of the problem these days.

If you are a college graduate looking for your first job, a one-page resume is probably just fine. If you have had a job, you should tell the reader what you DID. Also, in light of the current scanning scenario, more pages is not a deterrent because someone who doesn't care about anything but lunch break will automatically scan your "document" into the database. Once it is in there and searchable, you have accomplished one of the goals of resume distribution.

After the dust settles, remember that the resume must tell your story. If you have a longer story, the resume needs to be longer. And please, put the experience you had with each job under a section for that employer so we can tell WHEN and for WHOM you did WHAT. Resume readers don't have time to guess and most won't call to clarify. They will just move on down the line. Short resumes for people long on experience are not appropriate and the real audience for these short resumes is people with short attention spans and low IQ's. I assure you that if the resume gets into the right hands, it will be read thoroughly. If you have omitted significant chunks of your experience, it could be assumed that you do not have the experience in the first place. Heinous, so when in doubt, TELL YOUR STORY.

Here's an ironic twist.

Guess what group collectively has the worst resumes?

RECRUITERS!

Come on my brothers, get it together.

Oh, and by the way, another important point... Wait! ONO..I have to stop, it's going to be more than one pa--

Steve Eddington

Novatel Wireless Appoints Greg England as Vice President of Sales and General Manager for EMEA
Monday December 15, 7:30 am ET

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Novatel Wireless, Inc., (Nasdaq:NVTL - News), a leading provider of wireless broadband access solutions, today announced that Greg England has joined the Company as vice president of sales and general manager for EMEA.

Mr. England has served in executive marketing, sales and general management capacities for a variety of global manufacturing and technology companies. He brings to Novatel Wireless more than 10 years as a proven achiever in the mobile telecommunications industry alone. Having served in numerous senior executive roles, Mr. England also has in-depth experience in overall management with proven success in forging strategic relationships with some of the leading mobile operators and equipment manufacturers in the world.

"We are thrilled to have Greg's drive, creativity and integrity at Novatel Wireless," said Peter Leparulo, chairman and CEO of Novatel Wireless. "His deep technical and strategic expertise in wireless technologies and mobile applications and established reputation for delivering results, will complement the energy and dedication of all those here at Novatel as we continue to grow our EMEA business."

He comes to the Company most recently as vice president and general manager for GN Netcom, which develops and manufactures hands-free communications solutions. Prior to GN, Greg worked in various capacities at Palm, Motorola and Viasystems.

Greg earned his Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from Loughborough University of Technology in England.

ABOUT NOVATEL WIRELESS

Novatel Wireless, Inc. is a leader in the design and development of innovative wireless broadband access solutions based on 3G and 4G WCDMA (HSPA & UMTS), CDMA and GSM technologies. Novatel Wireless' USB modems, embedded modules, Intelligent Mobile Hotspot products and software enable high-speed wireless Internet access on leading wireless data networks. The Company delivers specialized wireless solutions to carriers, distributors, OEMs and vertical markets worldwide. Headquartered in San Diego, California, Novatel Wireless is listed on NASDAQ: NVTL. For more information please visit www.novatelwireless.com. (NVTLG)

  Electronic Search, Inc.'s definitive directory of reasons NOT to hire:

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1. Candidate is almost dead or actually dead
2. When you ask the candidate what happened at their last job, they don't remember
3. When you schedule the drug test, the candidate informs you that in 5 minutes he is leaving on a 3 week vacation but would be happy to take the test as soon as he returns
4. Candidate smells like garbage dump or dead bird
5. The candidate says his only reference is his twin brother who lives in Siberia. All other past references were killed in the Civil War
6. Before and after answering a question, candidate says "dude" or "dude-skee"
7. When you ask a computer programmer what languages he knows, he says "all of 'em"
8. You ask a question and the candidate gives you a perfect answer, but the answer is to a different question. You ask again and he says "yup"
9. You ask the candidate to clarify when they went to college and they ask to see a copy of their resume so they can check
10. Candidate comes to interview with a 3-day beard, says his name is Robert, but you can call him "Spike." Only employer listed as "CIRKUS"
11. Candidate says he will do daily commute from Greenland to South Africa

We hope these pointers will help to fully educate all of our staffing friends, as the challenges of turning away good candidates in these trying times become trickier.

Stay tuned for other hints and suggestions from the friendly folks at Electronic Search, Inc.

If you would like to find out more about Electronic Search's unique approach to solving tough staffing problems in an industry that can only be described as "nutty," please give me a call.

Steve Eddington

 How many Interviews does it take?

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I have had several conversations with candidates recently and some interesting facts have begun to surface.

One friend said..."I had 13 interviews to eventually get hired."

Another said..."it is a 30 employee company and I have now had 6 interviews...; and I am still going."

I found myself laughing and then started thinking...;

If a person needs to meet 20% of the staff at a firm to be "accepted," what if the company had 5000 employees? How would that work?

Maybe like this...?

(Imagine the green smoke and eerie violin music of a dream)

"Yes, Mr. Jones, you will be meeting 1000 of your potential colleagues before we extend you an offer. With some luck, the interviewing process should be completed in 2 years. After the interviewing process is completed, we will require 6 months to evaluate the responses from the 1000 people and give you an answer promptly thereafter. Be advised that we will not discount the fact that more interviews may be necessary to fully evaluate your credentials. As a convenience, we have set up a web site for the purposes of keeping the information organized and accessible. Certain confidential parts of this site will, of course, not be viewable by you, the applicant, but you will be able to monitor how many of the interviewers have responded positively or negatively. Be further advised that the number of positive responses versus negative responses will not necessarily be the deciding factor in our decision. We appreciate your interest in us and wish you the best."

End of imaginary, dream-like, simulated altered-reality pictogram.

I am not saying that my perverted, cartoon-like vision of the ultimate nightmare will ever really HAPPEN, it is just another example of how the "interviewing and selection" process has evolved over the last year or two.

I am also NOT taking a cheap shot at employers who feel that "multiple" interviews are necessary to really evaluate someone. Sometimes it is necessary.

This is humor.

Factually influenced fiction.

In the old days, I would have a sales person come in at least twice to see if they owned more than one suit. Lots of times, they didn't.

If you find yourself in the endless interview loop, it is never inappropriate to ask how long the process is and what to expect from each interview. The employer should be able to tell you how, and WHY, they do it... or better yet, ask the headhunter.

Steve Eddington