How to get a job (or not)

[hobbsyoyo]

Sorry for the late reply, but I think waiting half an hour to contact them is appropriate.

 

[AdamCrock]

Sorry for the late reply, but I think waiting half an hour to contact them is appropriate.

Who's "them" ? Some sort of aliens U got there ?

 

[Birdjaguar]

Eh, this clearly isn't true - as both DT and I have said, neither of our offices accept paper resumes.

My office is paper-free, if I want a resume mobile, I'll open it on a tablet. Furthermore we've got auditing requirements for applications and no storage system for paper. If I receive a paper resume I'd need to compare to see if it exactly matches an electronic one, if it doesn't I'd then need to scan it myself and put it into our electronic storage system. Far easier for me to just toss any paper resume into the secure destruction bin without reading it.

Yup. I work for a large media company, and there is 100% no place to send paper resumes. That's actually been true for most of my recruiting career.

Like Zelig, we're a totally paperless office. I don't even have a filing cabinet at my desk, so I don't have a place to *put* papers. We also spend tens of thousands of dollars a year on a digital applicant tracking system, which we not only need to store and track our candidates, but like Zelig, to comply with federal auditing reports. There is zero point in having a duplicate paper system. That just means somebody has to take the time to manually type all of their resume info into the computer system. That's not a good use of time.

I don't think this situation is super uncommon nowadays, to be honest. It saves everybody time to have your resume be 100% digital. If you insist on a paper copy, bring it during your interview (that may be useful for somebody to write notes on), but they won't need it before.

Thankfully, you guys are the exception and not the rule.

Such super efficient offices may enhance company cost structures, but I think that the all electronic HR process will overlook more good candidates than a more traditional approach to selecting folks. Both of you emphasize speed at handling resumes versus find the best candidate. That can be a valid strategy depending upon one's goals.

My experience has always been with companies of less than 800 employees and mostly less than 100, so I am biased towards a more personal approach.

@Hobbs: skip the internship. Stick with satellites and graduate as soon as you can.

 

[Zelig]

I absolutely don't emphasize speed at handling resumes over finding the best candidate. I'm not even in HR, and try to avoid HR as much as possible when evaluating applicants because I tend to think I'm better at it than they are.

We simply don't do paper, it's pretty straightforward. It doesn't matter if it's job applications, vendor contracts, invoices, etc., a filing system for paper doesn't exist.

I recently switched to paperless at home too. I literally don't have a single sheet of paper record of anything - anything important gets scanned before I toss it in the shredder.

 

[Birdjaguar]

But to throw away a paper resume without reading it because it is paper seems very counter productive. What industry are you in?

 

[Zelig]

We provide pretty simple and clear instructions for our application process, I doubt we're missing out on many qualified candidates who decide to ignore our instructions in order to go through the considerable extra effort to get a piece of paper to one of us.

I'm broadly in the auto industry, but it doesn't matter much in my experience. Prior to this I worked at a paperless software startup, before that in academic research, where we ran a paperless fax processing system. (Faxes sent to us got handled by a cloud-based fax-to-email service, emails would dump onto our server which would OCR and sort everything into neat folders.)

 

[Birdjaguar]

Thanks. Since you rely on your own people sense rather than HR's, how do you go about selecting the best resumes from those submitted?

 

[Zelig]

I imagine roughly the same way as anyone else goes about selecting the best resumes from those they have to deal with?

I find a quick run-through to eliminate resumes with obvious spelling/grammar/formatting problems and those with no relevant education/experience gets me to a reasonable number.

Maybe I wasn't super clear about HR - I'm not specifically doing a run-around them at my company, my department (IT and analytics) mostly handles our hiring needs internally. (As do other departments, as far as I'm aware, but I don't deal with hiring for other departments.) HR mostly deals with payroll, benefits, protecting the company interest, etc.

 

[downtown]

Thankfully, you guys are the exception and not the rule.

Such super efficient offices may enhance company cost structures, but I think that the all electronic HR process will overlook more good candidates than a more traditional approach to selecting folks. Both of you emphasize speed at handling resumes versus find the best candidate. That can be a valid strategy depending upon one's goals.

I don't know if I'm necessarily the exception, and as a firm, I'd say we certainly don't emphasize speed over the right fit. I think it's more a product of our industry.

My current employer is a digital media company. A very high degree of technical literary is expected for anybody who works here, and for the people that I interview and making hiring decisions for (writers), we do all of our communication via email, chat, or skype. If they are so uncomfortable with attachments or digital media that they would prefer to snail mail something instead of emailing, even after our instructions clearly ask them to, then I think it would be totally legitimate to view that as a negative in their candidacy.

My first recruiting position was for a major automotive company, looking for mechanics. In that situation, I'd agree, it would make sense to also look at paper applications, lest you miss on a potential applicant pool that isn't as IT savy, but still good at the core competency at the job.

Every job I've had since then, both as a recruiter, and now as an editor, has been paperless.

 

[Commodore]

Just a little tip for anyone who needs a quick hold-over job or a secondary income: Check the 'Gigs' section of craigslist. I just got myself a nice secondary income working as a driver/bodyguard for a private stripper. It's a pretty easy job and I'm pulling in an average of $150 a night.

The people who post there are usually willing to hire pretty quickly too. I was hired about 24 hours after responding to the ad.

 

[Hygro]

I bet your resumé for bodyguard/driver is better than mine for that position though

 

[Commodore]

I bet your resumé for bodyguard/driver is better than mine for that position though

I'm not saying you have to go be a stripper's bodyguard. There are plenty of other "easy money" jobs on there that can hold someone over until they get the position they really want.

I guess another point I'm trying to make is that people should be more creative when looking for ways to make money. Playing these little HR games with these big companies isn't the only way to get by in this world.

 

[Leonel]

My stomach has been in twists since Monday. I interviewed for a graphic design position at an engineering company in downtown Seattle last Thursday and I really think I have the advantage since my interviewer used to be my current boss's boss and she and I have the same experience in the same company and she specifically stated that she knows exactly what I do at the company. I felt I faltered a bit when I asked my questions but I feel that I started and ended strongly, starting earlier than my time and ending a little later. The vice president also commented that my example to her question was very good. Not only that, they asked for my references and when I sent my thank you notes, the senior editor thanked me the next morning for showing him my impressive portfolio and specifically stated that out of 80 candidates, it's down to me and another candidate and I'll know this week.

I'm curious if there's a significance to an interviewer replying with that type of information. I know there isn't one to an interviewer replying to a thank you note, but to include so specific a fact.

 

[Zelig]

What do you mean by significance? It means you're probably down to about 50% odds.

References typically aren't called to choose between candidates, they're just contacted to further vet the first choice, so if your references get contacted, you're doing well. (Though I give specific instructions not to contact my references unless I'm the first choice for a position.)

 

[Leonel]

I suppose. I guess I'm just anxious and looking for good signs like when they gave me a booklet outlining their benefits package when the interview started.

 

[downtown]

Yeah, I don't know many people who would use references to decide between candidates. It's time consuming, and something you'd only do for the top 2 or 3 people in your search. I only did it for my top choice, if at all.

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

Yeah, I don't know many people who would use references to decide between candidates. It's time consuming, and something you'd only do for the top 2 or 3 people in your search. I only did it for my top choice, if at all.

Speaking of which, is it common to expect the reference to be from a boss instead of a co-worker? One of the difficulties I'd envision when I look for a job in the future is that I may have to get a reference from someone in my current job somehow. Since I'd like to fish for a long time while staying comfy in this job, it's probably not a good idea to get the boss as the reference (it just makes things awkward, IMO). I do have co-workers who would be willing to give me good references but I am not sure if that's sufficient.

At the same time, I find it just a fearsome prospect having to bother people I know with calls from prospective employers...

 

[Leonel]

Speaking of which, is it common to expect the reference to be from a boss instead of a co-worker? One of the difficulties I'd envision when I look for a job in the future is that I may have to get a reference from someone in my current job somehow. Since I'd like to fish for a long time while staying comfy in this job, it's probably not a good idea to get the boss as the reference (it just makes things awkward, IMO). I do have co-workers who would be willing to give me good references but I am not sure if that's sufficient.

At the same time, I find it just a fearsome prospect having to bother people I know with calls from prospective employers...

I don't think it's unreasonable to use co-workers as references as long as they can be trusted to keep your job search quiet and one who you've worked with extensively.

 

[Harv]

Speaking of which, is it common to expect the reference to be from a boss instead of a co-worker? One of the difficulties I'd envision when I look for a job in the future is that I may have to get a reference from someone in my current job somehow.

Where I come from, no prospective employer would call your current employer for a reference. It is just a part of professional courtesy.

EDIT 1:
It might be possible that they just want a name. You might do well to tell them that you cannot give your supervisor's name because you still work for that company. They should understand. They might then ask for another name that you would be more comfortable giving.

In none of my job changes did I worry about them calling my supervisor. The closest I came to the situation you describe above, I told my next employer that I was not comfortable naming my supervisor as a reference basically because he just gave me the sack. So they just told me to name somebody I was more comfortable with.

 

[downtown]

Speaking of which, is it common to expect the reference to be from a boss instead of a co-worker? One of the difficulties I'd envision when I look for a job in the future is that I may have to get a reference from someone in my current job somehow. Since I'd like to fish for a long time while staying comfy in this job, it's probably not a good idea to get the boss as the reference (it just makes things awkward, IMO). I do have co-workers who would be willing to give me good references but I am not sure if that's sufficient.

At the same time, I find it just a fearsome prospect having to bother people I know with calls from prospective employers...

I think it depends on the job. If I'm recruiting for myself, instead of on behalf of a client, the only time I ever formally call a reference is to verify dates of employment and their salary, meaning I would need to speak to a manager (and I would never call their current manager).

When I had a client ask me to contact references and actually ask questions, getting co-workers would be fine, so long as one reference was from a manager (and again, not their current manager). I'm a little skeptical of the value of that exercise at all, but if any value can be gained, I think talking to both teammates and managerial staff would be useful.

FWIW, my own reference sheet contains both a manager, and teammate, references. I ask my coworkers if I can use them as a reference first.