In a world where my resume keywords are waiting for your algorithm...
A tale of two emails
Monday 12:26 p.m. -- Thank you for your resume! Your credentials are indeed impressive and appear to match our requirements.
Monday 1:03 p.m. -- Gary, I have bad news. The hiring manager canceled this JR this morning. Apparently the gov’t is not yet ready to fund this position. I’m sorry for any inconvenience.
I've had lots of companies go out of business on me, but I've never had a job get killed before I could even get there!
Distractions
I don't recommend job hunting while going through major personal upheavals (ala The First Dumpling). For most of my life I could count on one hand the number of times I got an interview but didn't get a job. Last week I had three phone interviews in 24 hours and couldn't close the deal on any of them. I'm not one to make excuses, but my advice is don't try to be superman. Do your best every day, but remember your best will vary. If your best ain't gonna cut it that day, go walk on the beach instead.
Bet this happens to a lot of people
You're working with a recruiter about a company with a blind ad, a perfect job for you, only to find out halfway through why it's so perfect. It's your old job at your old company -- and they are now willing to pay the next person more than they paid you. Hilariously tragic. Good thing I keep a sense of humor about me.
Odd requirements
Since my ex-boss treated everybody like they were an idiot (check out the sixth graf here) I was hoping I'd get a job on my second resume out the door. Didn't work out that way because of the craziest of requirements -- three references from three former employers reachable at that employer's office number. I couldn't do it -- either the companies are out of business or my references are now at a new company. Just amazes me how people in stable professions look at my part of the world.
Is it just me...
... or does everybody, after posting their resume to CareerBuilder, get a half dozen offers to sell insurance?
PC-only
The biggest Web operation in this area runs an online application system that only works on PCs. Considering how many creatives use Macs, it's probably not a coincidence that most of their sites stink. It's Rule No. 1 of programming -- write cross-browser, web-standards code. PC-only, Internet Explorer apps are so 20th Century.
Code Rule No. 2
Just because you CAN do something doesn't mean you SHOULD do something. Case in point -- the automatic resume extraction systems used by many big corporations. I've never seen one come close to working; life is about more than finding a keyword and copying the next 200 characters that follow. So let me propose Rule No. 3: Simpler is always better -- just present the end user with clearly labelled text boxes (cut and paste contact info here, cut and paste work history here) and get on with it. It's just input from an HTML form for God's sake.
Interface matters
I see very few jobs for interace designers anymore, but I sure see a lot of bad interfaces. I won't bore you with technical details (except to point you to the Godfather of Interface Design) but I'd like to remind the programmers at a Fortune 500 company in this area that consistent navigation, and the ability to review and undo changes, is really important.
It's an otherwise great company, and I've applied three times. Thing is, I'm not even sure they ever got a couple of them, and I'm really unsure if any of the online cover letters ever matched up to the right online job. The funny thing is, their applicant tracking system can find enough matches in my resume to recommend jobs for me, but can never find enough keywords in my resume for further consideration on the other side of the building.
No wonder so many companies now rely on CareerBuilder or Monster for their resumes. The interface designs at those sites were apparently tested on actual users. Now there's a novel idea.
At a certain age...
... you're overqualified for everything except dying.
-30-
To quote Rich Galen: "A" people hire "A" people. "B" people hire "C" people.