[CaptainCrunch]

Ok, after getting blistered by a frustrated friend over his job search and his lack of success in terms of getting interviews and getting PFO emails after interviews I thought I'd return to this thread and kind of create a summary of my thoughts when it comes to job searches. This comes from both personal experiences in finding work, and my multiple years as a recruiter. Just to add on to that, I've recruited for everything from executive, to admin, warehouse and labor as well as scientific and within the food industry.

I also want to preface this with. I am not the end all and be all, my advice is free for a reason. First of all, because I don't feel right in changing people for advice or resume work when they're trying to find a job and aren't making money. And second and most importantly, I guarantee nothing, i don't guarantee that by following my road map that you'll have a job in 30 days, or that you'll increase your income by X percent when you get to the offer stage.

So with that in mind, I want to dive into job searches. Lets start things off by saying that things are pretty crappy out there. I think officially there are a million people un employed in this country, unofficially its probably far worse then that. Add in people that are under employed or are working part time casual and are searching for better situations and we can see how competitive the markets are.

So what can you do to help yourself? What are maybe the little steps that you can do to improve your chances of finding a job or a new situation, and no I'm not going to talk about things like starting your own thing, or searching for contracts. Its not for everyone. I'm talking about a for real actual job search.

PreSearch

Before you start diving in and flinging out 50 resumes out per day, you need to dive in and really understand you're search.

What are you looking for? What are your skills? What's is your experience level? You should take a few days and really do a deep dive on yourself, write out your successes and failures in your field. Write out your ideal job description including what you think you're worth pay wise and what your low point is. This will help you immensely during your search and interviews.

Take your home made job description and google it, go to Glassdoor understand what the compensation rates are and how people talk about those roles. Look at job descriptions, look at anything in linked in groups about those positions.

Take your time, be thorough before you dive in.

Search

A fisherman that uses a net will catch more and eat more then a person with a fishing rod. What do I mean by that? Cast a wide net. Sign up on Ziprecruiter, Indeed, Jobs.ca, Linkedin jobs, anywhere that you can. On top of that wide net site wise. Be creative with your search criteria. Create multiple searches that will create notifications with different job titles. when I was looking I had a search for Sales, sales manager, technical sales, IT sales, Sales support and on and on and on. Its easier to filter your notification for jobs you want to apply for, then getting a small list of notifications and having to endlessly search. Be creative about it.

At the same time, go and google recruitment and search firms. I'll wait . . . still here. Ok got them. Go and search those sites as well and create notifications, and more importantly submit your resume to their data base. What . . . I haven't talked about resumes yet? Be patient cricket, we're still doing some research here.

At the same time start researching and compiling a list of companies or organizations that you're interested in, again cast a wide net. Most organizations have a career site with postings. Its a wellspring as a lot of mid and small organizations don't want to pay for job sites or recruiters so they'll post directly on their site and be able to find people that are smart enough or dedicated enough to target them.

Ok, by now you should have a whole wack of resources to fill your days with the joyful sound of searching your notifications, and searching. Its research and as GI Joe says knowing is half the battle

Build your resume

In the old days, resume's were basically lists of how long you worked at jobs and a check list of what you did. The day and age has changed.

With the way the economy is right now things have shifted. When you go to a job site you can see how many people have viewed the role, and sometimes how many have applied. This is known as crushing discouragement as most people will see 500 views which usually means at least 20% have probably applied. You're competing against a 100 resumes. of which they'll be filtered down to 10 for interviews and then 3 for seconds and so on.

This is why the old way resume's have failed. Two things happen with resumes. Ok three.

1) When you send them in their first stop is an ATS. Think of it as a cartoon factory that grinds out interviews. when a company decides to hire a harried hiring manger gets together with the person in need and they create a job description a hi low compensation range, and minimum requirements.

For future reference we're going to call this A, this will be important later.

2) they then enter this into the ATS and throw open the flood gates, the resume's flood into the ATS which then does things like word searches, date searches and gap searches. The words that it looks for are the specific skills in the job description. The date search, it looks for the numbers of years of experience, and probably your education level. The gap search looks for holes in your resume. It grinds through this and will literally assign a percentage of match. if you look on Ziprecruiter you can literally see your match in your notifications. At this point at the end of the search date, a bell rings and the poor hiring manager gets a report with the top 20 or so resumes. The rest get an automated PFO email if they're lucky. From that point, the hiring manager will look through those top resumes and do her own filtering based on conversations with the person in need and filter it down to probably 5 people for interviews.

3) If its a recruiter, the process is the same, however it can be a bit looser, what do I mean by that? For a recruiter to be successful the more resumes that he or she puts in front of a hiring person with a stamp of approval the better the odds of filling a position, or at least having a conversation with the client to readjust the search to the recruiters benefit. Believe it or not a Recruiter getting to actually talk to a hiring person is a lot rarer then you think and should be celebrated with a twinkie and a mountain dew.

Occasionally you will get a company that doesn't have a recruiter or an ATS, they will painfully go through a bunch of resume's and actually because of taht their criteria tends to be a lot tighter, they don't get guarantees on a bad hire, and they can't blame a computer system. So they become very good at filtering.

So is there a way to game the system?

Sure, first of all

Resume

I cannot emphasize this enough. your resume isn't a page of achievements, or a this is my professional life document. A resume is a sales document, it has to stand out. Think of yourself as a product and your resume sells you.

First of all there's been a shift thanks to social media that appearance is king. If you get through an ATS and your resume is the same old Arial 11 font black on white paper with bullet points, all of your achievements don't matter because you don't stand out. Color, variant fonts, pictures if that's your thing can capture the eyes of a hiring manger. First of all because it looks like you take pride in your work. Second of all, humans are like crows, shiny captures the eyes.

Second, create your list of hard skills, and list them in thee resume, first of all it captures the eye, second of all it captures the ATS, the most brilliant people can also look at a job description for a role that they really want and adjust their skills list to jigger the ATS. One person was brilliant, he put his skills in the footer in invisible text so it didn't crown his resume.

Third remember this is a sales document. Too many people list their duties. I did AR/AP for 10 years. I sold computer software including applicant tracking systems. Cool, but everyone does that, remember this is a sales brochure of your professional life, your selling them on why they should talk to you. So think of yourself as a skill a cause and a effect.


I worked AP/AR - in that time I reduced write offs by 50% through these processes, and thus helped increase the companies profitability
I sold applicant tracking software for XYZ, I usually achieved at least 120% of target and with a high profitability and added at 10 net new clients per year.

Don't be afraid to humble brag about your achievements, just don't exaggerate as a good recruiter or interviewer will unwind your exaggerations in a hurry.

If you have worked in multiple disciplines, split your resume. If your an IT guy that managed the safety program, Unless your applying for another company that wants an IT safety guy split them out. Stick to the topic of what they're looking for and build your brochure around that. For example I have two resumes one for recruiting and one for technology sales.

Watch your age. Ageism is absolutely real. Add on that nobody cares what you did in the 90's Limit your resume to a max of 15 years and even that might be too long. If they want to know what you did prior to 2005 they will ask. But its rare for you to see a job asking for 20 years of experience in any field.

Watch your gaps and red flags.

Ok there are two major red flags that are looked for before an in depth review.

Job skipping - If you have a lot of jobs in a short period of time you might get eliminated. As a recruiter I get asked about this all the time, but a person with 7 jobs in 10 years doesn't look desirable, especially with the costs of hiring and on boarding. Companies won't take the risk of hiring someone that might be flakey or might be a counterfeit candidate.

Large gaps in your resume. I'm not talking months, but if your resume has one to two year gaps be prepared to explain it and justify it. But it is a red flag and recruiters and hiring managers will absolutely drill in on it.

Reduction in role. If you are a VP in one job and the next job your an account executive its a red flag, and you will be asked how this happened. Be prepared. Again with 500 or 600 hundred applicants it might just get you tossed.

The other red flag is the impossible brag, if you brag that you personally saved the company from bankruptcy or invented the Covid rapid test, they might talk to you and drill the crap out of you on the hows, what's and whys of your impossible brag. People are tempted to exaggerate on their resumes to get a role. Be honest, talk it up but back it up. Honestly a recruiter or hiring manger gets no better joy in an interview then grabbing a thread of over brag and pulling on it an knocking a candidate off balance.

By the way reminder remember that job description is A
The above Skills is B and Experience is C

Ok, so now you have a colorful stand out sales document. You look at your notifications and blammo you see a job that you really want. You look at the job description and you really love it.

The Application

First of all really read the job description. do an honest breakdown of it. Take a figure of 100, and whenever you see a distinct requirement or experience requirement or anything assign a ranking number to it.

IE they want 10 yeas of experience in a field that's easy to quantify, give it a score of 20. If they want specific certifications that's easy to quantify. Adjust the grid til it equals 100.

Then match your skills and experience to that grid and be honest about it, if you come in at less then 60% you might not be a fit and you either need to really look at what your applying for and your skills and readjust, or send in a flyer to see if you get by the system. Your choice, everything is math based.

Once you have that grid, then you can start with your cover letter, and I can't emphasize this enough, every application needs a cover letter, it makes you look like you care about the role and understand it, and desire it.

If your resume is your sales brochure, your cover is your introductory cold call letter. This is your opportunity to take the job description and take your resume and match them. This is where you can say, I feel that I'm a strong match for this role, because I have this experience and theses certifications, and when I worked in another role I bought forth these changes or these improvements. If you write a generic cover letter. Please consider me for this job style, it puts you back with the other 10 or 20 people that got through the ATS.

So why did I do all of those letters for the job description and skills and experience?

Its simple

A - (B+C) = interview

Job description - (skills + Experience) = interest.

Other things on a cover letter. If you can find out who the hiring person is personally address it to them. Its a tough task, and easier with recruiters but its worth the effort. At the end always have a call to action. I love this role and I want to talk to you about it, I would like to set up a conversation with you. If you're bold be specific. But don't just end with I hope to hear from you. Ask for the interview, put in a closing statement. Hey based on my strong match you should be talking to me.

Ok, I wanted to cover one other important thing, the compensation question. It pops up on search sites, what's your compensation requirement, or range requirement. This is a pit fall of death question, the ATS system knows what its told to look for. This is an elimination questions, because unless the ATS scores the rest of your application in the top 5 percentile this will eliminate you even if you're close. Absolutely go back to your research on compensation ranges for your position and experience that you can find in glass door, and use the industry range. It doesn't damn you to that range as you can negotiate a higher rate once they're invested in your application. But if you go to high your out, if you go to low your out. A ATS doesn't respect your boldness or hubris at all, nor does a hiring manager or recruiter they are in the first round, filters period, that's it, they're not looking as much for the best people as they are the clear non fits that would waste their time with interviews.

Tomorrow

You get an interview request, so what?

Your pre interview research strategy.

Practice Practice Practice

Wedenesday

The interview don't puke, some tips and tricks that I look for in recruiting

Thursday

Gut it out, what after the interview
The honest post mortom, you didn't get the job what can you learn going forward.

I hope this helps even a little bit.