Job Search

The Job Search: You’re Not The Customer

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

“I’m tired of the dehumanizing, violent slog of the job search,” a friend said to me.  Those words made me put on my career coach cap, which I haven’t worn in awhile.

Why is the job search such a pain for people?  Sometimes the job search is degrading and dehumanizing in a way that some, like my friend, can consider psychologically violent.  Why do some recruiters and companies make hiring people such a pain?

For that matter, why is it some recruiters and companies make it easy?  Whereas other job search tools require you to endlessly re-enter data and watch your resume be mangled, why do others make it so simple?  How come those making the search hard don’t learn from these people?

The answer is (and yes, this is Agile) who is the customer and what do they want?  The bad news is the job search too often is not designed for the searcher.

People who need to find employees and talents have limited time, money, and people.  Managers have their own projects and priorities, legal departments have their worries, and so on.  The job search process has to factor in many people’s needs, demands, and limits.

If you’re lucky you factor into those choices and are a high enough priority.  If not, then you’re probably facing incoherent recruiting sites and incomprehensible job search requirements.  You’re not the customer.

As depressing as this is – and it is depressing – I also use this as an indicator of who actually cares and can be worked with.  A poorly done job search site and recruiting process is a sign of problems, bad priorities, or employees not being valued.  It’s a warning.

On the other hand some company or organization that makes job searching and applying easy – even if you’re not hired – is one to pay attention to.  They may actually care, or at least realize you don’t find quality people by making quality people decide you’re stupid.  At worst, an organization that makes the job search easy at least hasn’t screwed it up, which is a good sign I suppose.

In my personal experience, the ease of finding a job that interests you and getting into the interview is a good measure of what it’s like to work for that employer.  It shows enough awareness to find and talk to the right people.  Sadly, I have found speed of the process is not always a measure, having seen good employers take forever, and bad ones quickly hire (the wrong person).

So next time you’re facing the job search, for each recruiter and job site, ask yourself who seems to at give a damn about you – or at least isn’t making you miserable.  They’re probably easier to work with.

Steven Savage

Beware The New Age Of Job Spam

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

Lately I’ve been receiving a lot of phone calls and emails about job opportunities, and I’m not alone according to my friends. I’ve begun to realize a lot of this is due to technical changes and business changes – ones that it’s important as a sort of Geek Career Person to warn people about.

Now before I go into just what I found, a note that this isn’t bragging. I’ve been in IT for decades, my resumes have been sent all over the country for twenty years, and I’m in a ton of databases. I’m also in my 50’s, where people are experienced, start to retire (less competition), or die (also less competition). It works in my favor – except for that whole “aware of my own mortality” thing.

Now, onward – let’s walk through what happened and what I found.

THE SITUATION

So last six months or so I started getting hit up by a lot of recruiters. This wasn’t like previous experiences where it appeared to be people “raiding” California for talent that got tired of paying rent so high you could buy a gaming rig once a month. This was the usual combined with lots of samey emails, odd calls, and weird inquests that didn’t always seem to relate to my skillsets, often from companies I never heard of.

I didn’t think about it much, until some caller noted she was in a different time zone – one that didn’t fit the area she was listed as calling from.

So I began digging a bit and looking into all those emails.

WHAT I FOUND

First, the emails I was ignoring anyway looked real spammy – cut and paste jobs, search and replace issues, and sometimes repetitive. On top of that there were mostly companies I didn’t recognize.

Secondly, the emails didn’t seem to give a damn where I was. I mean, yeah I’ve seen people try to raid Silicon Valley for talent, but this didn’t follow any identifiable pattern. Previously I could note trends in what states were hiring, but this was more incoherent.

I also began looking at how to unsubscribe from them, and that was the real revelation. A lot of the unsubscruibe links sent me to the same kind of software setup – clearly different companies, but all using the same mailing list software.

Finally, I recalled how many people had mentioned they had me in a database, or saw me on Dice, or LinkedIn.

That’s when it came together for me.

WHAT’S GOING ON?

At the most basic, it’s a helluva easy to set up a consulting type company, get requests, spam out inquiries, and try to get people. So now plenty of people are doing that and outsourcing globally, at rate I’ve not seen before. And it’s annoying.

Specifically it looks like:

  • A company get set up anywhere in the world then route calls through a phone number in other countries. That explains the weird time zone issues I was getting from calls.
  • A company can use existing software out of the box to set up all sorts of HR and mailing systems. Then you can easily mail things out to people without thinking.
  • There’s all sorts of databases out there, and companies can fill them or just purchase data. Pretty sure some of my old resumes from fifteen years ago are sitting around somewhere in digitized form.
  • Dice and Linkedin and other sites are easy for dedicated people to scrape, especially if you have settings that allow people to see you’re looking, show information, etc.

So we’re now at the stage where you can basically spin up a consulting company or modify an existing one to pretty much run as a spam system. Sure, it sounds like it’s inefficient, but if you can throw out leads to a ton of people, you only need a small percent of responses. It’s pretty much like advertising.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

So what’s the takeaways from this for my fellow job seekers? I have a few.

  • First as always I recommend people always ask what the next stage of their career is. It may well be “more of the same,” but a review now and then is good. I evaluate my skills and plans once a month.
  • If you’re at all concerned about job stability, you should have a regular job search going on, from once a week to once a month.
  • Job searches by now are going to need to be selective. So be aware of who you’re applying to.
  • If you’re looking at temp or consulting companies, research them before applying. Build a list of reliable companies over time (and share them) so you know when trustworthy leads come in and you build good relationships.
  • If you have specific companies or organizations you want to work for, then I’d apply at their websites specifically. Now and then, do a “deep dive” and go back through listings to apply to past jobs, not just new ones.
  • Be careful how you set yourself up on job sites, LinkedIn, etc. You might be accidentally asking to be spammed.

Hope that helps. Let’s see how this evolves in the future, because I’m sure there’s more changes to the job market and technology to come . . .

Steven Savage

Job Skills For The Future – Scheduling

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

So as I explore Job Skills you’ll need in the future, as the Geek Job Guru that I am, let’s talk about one no one thinks about and everyone is usually awful at.

Scheduling.

No, REALLY.

Let’s be honest right now basic scheduling of meeting, events, software launches, etc. is almost always an excruciating experience.  Why? Most people are terrible at it.  Recently I got to talk to someone who had been quadruple booked for a meeting, which I think wins him some kind of award.

So right now people are really bad at scheduling.  They don’t plan, they don’t think, they don’t check the responses.  They don’t think about launching software before a weekend.   Yes I’m bitter.

So being good at scheduling and planning events sounds like a job skill that everyone bloody well needs now.  And they do.  Trust me.

But now I want you to add what we’ve talked about previously, about working with people in other cultures and time zones and so on.  Scheduling becomes even more important in the future – says the guy who often works with India teams.

Now I want you to imagine critical technologies becoming more and more intertwined, where every software launch has more far-reaching effect every release.

I want you to imagine publicity issues of launching a book just an hour ahead or behind in this wired world.  Now ask how that’ll change.

Good scheduling is definitely a skill people could use more of now, but one that is going to be far, far more vital in the future.  But I’d also take now, thanks very much.

I think this is important enough that scheduling and planning as a basic skillset is something talented people will actually need to call out in resumes.  Note it among your planning skills, or your software launch skills, or your media release skills – but note it.

As for getting better at it, I’d recommend this:

  • Just general awareness will go far.  Take some time to watch how you schedule and plan.
  • A basic project management or planning guide or class will work wonders. Pick up a book, take a class if you can.  Get some knowledge yu can use.
  • If your company or team is bad at it, schedule (ha) a meeting to discuss how it can be done better.  You’ll learn more and you’ll look good taking initiative.

I can’t emphasize how much people need this skill now, and how important it’s going to get over time.  Remember, I belong to a profession, Project Management, that just exists to coordinate things – we exist for a reason.

Your Scheduling skills have good reason to exist too.

– Steve