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Maybe The Reason You’re Failing Is…. YOU!

March 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment

flickr 'relationships' [aka 'bullshit detector']I have an acquaintance, we’ll call her “Sam”.  Sam has been trying to get a job for three years now, ever since she was laid off from her accounting job at the start of this recession.  Sam keeps complaining to me about why she can’t find a job.  Sometimes she complains that the job postings companies put out there are not real. Sometimes she complains about how the only people who get the jobs are the ones who are friends of the hiring manager.  Last week she complained to me about how all the good jobs are going overseas.  At this point I offered to sit with her and go over what she was doing and see if there was room for improvement.  She sent me her resume as a starting point and I spent about 30 seconds looking at this document before determining that Sam’s biggest problem was Sam.

Sam’s resume looked like something out of a resume nightmare.  It was poorly formatted, full of spelling errors, filled with massive run on sentences and overflowing with useless information.  It was 5 pages of utter nonsense which would make any would be hiring manager toss it into the garbage can as soon as they saw it.  When I further asked Sam about her job search, I found out she had done no networking and no research into the various companies she was trying to get hired at.  Think about that for a second.  Here’s a woman who had been looking for a job for THREE YEARS and she was utterly clueless. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Communication, Confidence, Coping With Failure, Decision Making, Getting Hired, Networking, Relationships Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Reach Out And Touch Someone

December 13, 2010 By 2 Comments

Lunch with friendsYour friends are your most important resource.  By that I include not just your good friends with whom you drank too much rum last weekend (thanks Dave!) but also those slightly weaker relationships like the people you used to work with at your last company, the folks you volunteered with at that Wetlands Restoration project or even the folks you went to school with all those years ago.  These are the people who will help you find jobs, get home loans, find the right school for your kids, buy a good car or build that surfing website you’ve been thinking of.  That is the very essence of a good network, a great bunch of people who help you when you need help.  The only problem is that most people are absolutely clueless about managing a network like this.

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Filed Under: Friends, Getting Hired, Networking Tagged With: , , , ,

How To Get A Job In A New Field, The Rule Of 27

October 25, 2010 By Leave a Comment

COMICS + INFORMATION DESIGNI had a professor in school who taught me about what he called “the rule of 27” and I would like to pass this information on to you because I’ve found it to be amazingly useful.  The rule of 27 is basically a way of remembering that informational interviews can be your best friend when looking for a job in a new field.

How Does This Work?

  1. Figure out what kind of job you want.  For me, it was being elected to public office on a local (city or county) level.
  2. Find three people in this field that you know through your network.  I found the former mayor of a local city through a family member and two city councilmen by looking up their emails on the city council site.
  3. Arrange informational interviews with them.  Be honest about what you want.  Tell them you’re looking for a job but you know nothing about the field.  Explain that you’re hoping to learn from them.  Most people I know will say yes to this.  It’s flattering to be considered an expert and most people like the opportunity to teach others through their experience.  For me, all three interviews went extremely well.  I learned a lot and all three seemed happy to share their experience.
  4. Come to these interviews prepared with a lot of questions.  If you show up and you’re obviously unprepared or unenthusiastic, you’re going to waste their time and no one likes that.  You need to ask a lot of intelligent questions about the field, what it’s like to work in it and what you can expect.  I think I spent about 2 hours with each of these people.  I repeated my questions with each one but it was interesting to see the different answers each one gave me.
  5. Do not ask these people for a job.  You are there to learn, not to apply for employment.  Asking for a job makes it look like you’re just using them.  Believe me, if they have a job for you and you impressed them with your questions, they’ll offer.  My third interviewee told me I should apply for a job on one of the city commissions as a way to get my political career started.  I did and she helped me get the position.
  6. After your informational interview, keep in touch with these people, send them follow up questions and keep them up to date on your progress.  Don’t spam them with daily emails but do keep the contact alive.
  7. Ask these people for three more people you can talk to.
  8. Use the knowledge you just learned in your next informational interviews to ask even more in depth questions.  Dive into the details!

The whole point here is to make a lot of useful contacts and become an expert in the field.  In the end, any expert with a lot of contacts is going to be offered a job.

By the way, the name “rule of 27” came to be because no one has gotten beyond 27 different informational interviews without being offered a job.  Honestly, if you’re doing this right then by your 5th to 10th informational interview you’re going to be an expert on the field.  For me, after a year of serving on the Sunnyvale housing commission, my fifth interviewee offered to help me run for city council.  I had to turn it down at the time because I was finishing up school, but it was gratifying to hear that offer.  Five informational interviews is all it took to get on the city commission and be offered help for an election run.

Limitations

Note that this only works if you have the right skills.  For example, if you have no engineering skill, no one will hire you as an engineer no matter how many informational interviews you do.  Well, I do know one person who used this method to go from bartender to investment analyst but that’s the exception, not the rule.  However, this method does work when making changes like going from tax accountant to financial analyst or going from sales to marketing.  That is, making the sort of career jump that doesn’t require a whole new skill set but does require some specific knowledge.  I’ve also used something similar to get into grad school but that’s a whole other story.

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Radical Honesty is still going great!  Will sum up my experience next week.

Filed Under: Getting Hired, Honesty, Networking Tagged With: , , , ,

How To Get Hired In Silicon Valley

July 12, 2010 By 1 Comment

I’ve been neck deep in resumes for the past few week, all because I’m trying to hire one new person.  So I thought I’d share a few tips based on what I’m seeing.  These are basic things that you think everyone would know by now and yet…

Be Professional

I can’t emphasize this enough.  I get A LOT of resumes and I’m just looking for reasons to eliminate yours!  If you give me an easy one, I’ll take it.  So:

  • Spell check your resume – I don’t care if you’re not a native English speaker, I’m not either, get someone to proof read your resume.  If you have spelling mistakes in your resume it will be trashed.  (No, I don’t care if there are spelling mistakes in this post.  I am not trying to get hired with this post).
  • Format the thing properly – No long paragraphs, I’m not going to take the time to read them.  Give me short, concise bullet points that tell me what you’ve done and accomplished.  Don’t make things too complex in terms of formatting.  I don’t need to see how clever you are with MS Word.
  • Dress properly for an interview – It’s better to overdress than to underdress.  A tie is usually not necessary for an interview at a tech company, but a nice  dress shirt is.
  • Get a professional email address – If your resume says lovemonkey@gmail.com, I’m going to ignore it.

Be Precise

I don’t care about anything that’s not related to the job I’m hiring for.  So please, stop telling me about other stuff.

  • No, I don’t care that you’re a big fan of jazz music, I have enough friends to go out with.  This has no place on a resume unless it’s some kind of interesting accomplishment.  For example, “loves science fiction books” does not belong on a resume, “published three short stories” does.
  • An objective is useless crap that resume writers add to look cool.  I don’t care that your objective is “to get an exciting position in a dynamic work environment.”  That’s meaningless fluff.  Your objective is to get me to hire you and we both know that.  Get rid of the objective and fill up the space with something useful.
  • Speaking of space… I’m not going to read a resume that’s more than two pages (preferably one!).  Just forget it.  If you can’t summarize your own experience then you’re probably going to be one of those employees who drones on and on and can’t give me a short summary of what you’re working on.  I don’t want those so I’m not going to look at your five page resume.

Customize

If you’re sending out twenty generic resumes per day, it’s no wonder you’re not getting any responses.  Take the time and tailor your response to the specific job you’re applying to.

  • Get the right key words in there.  You can typically figure out what those key words are from the job posting.  If they say they’re looking for someone with analytics experience, your resume should talk about your analytics experience.  If they say they want someone with experience in managing a store, you should emphasize that time you managed a Wal Mart electronics department.  Sure, you may not have exactly the right experience, but make it look as close as possible.
  • Send a brief cover letter which shows you understand the space the company is in.  Don’t make it a generic “thank you for looking at my resume.”  Send in something that says “I understand that your company is in the ___ field and I think I can help because of my experience with ___.”  Make them think you understand their problems and can be part of the solution.  That’s how you stand out.
  • Interview me – Don’t passively wait for my questions, ask me stuff as well.  I want to know that you’re interested and doing your research.  I want you to make me aware of how valuable you are and you can do that by asking me a lot of intelligent questions.  I had a candidate in here last week where most of my interview time with her was her asking me questions.  That was awesome!  I felt like I was selling the position to her instead of the other way around and it really made her stand out.  One of her best questions was “I was looking at your industry and I noticed the following competitors, X, Y and Z.  I noticed the following differences (here she went into some detail) but is that all?  What makes you better?”  What a great question.  With one stroke she’s made me think of her as an expert, as someone who does her research and as a proactive person with great decision making skills.

Network

Speaking of standing out, the best way to stand out is by networking.  I am willing to overlook almost any of the above issues if you come with a personal recommendation from someone I know.  Use your network, check LinkedIn to see who you know at the target company and talk to those people.  Even if it’s a second or third degree connection, use it.  Ask them to set up an informational interview with the hiring manager.  That goes right back to the “interview me” comment I made before.  When a friend tells me “Hey, I worked with this guy in a previous company and he’s a star!  He wants to talk to you to make sure this job is right for him.”  I’m going to pay attention.  First of all because it’s coming from a friend I know and trust and also because I like people who do research before making a decision.

I cannot emphasize this enough.  Network, network, network and then do your research.  If you do that, your job search is going to be a lot more successful.

Filed Under: Getting Hired, Networking Tagged With: , , , , ,