Crank Up Your Career

PMA goes a long way to getting hired faster

Wendy Terwelp 1 Comment

Some have it some don’t. And it can dramatically affect results during your job search. What is PMA? Positive Mental Attitude.

Here’s a person who has ZERO PMA. Just got this today:

“I have mostly applied for B.S. jobs in the Milwaukee area, for supplemental income. In two weeks, I have had 1 response! I believe the economy to be much weaker than you imagine!!!!!!!!!!

Here is an updated resume sent to your company for possible second/third shift consideration.

I am interested in …. Please see that this document is forwarded to the correct personnel. If I hear back from you, then I know I will not be wasting my time filling out one of your applications / interviewing. [emphasis mine]…”

OK, first, we’re not hiring. Second, this is what constituted as a cover letter for this job candidate. Crappy attitude. That’s my impression. Who wants a Grumpy Gus on their team?

Some time ago I did a huge outplacement for a major utility company. I still remember the labor relations director’s tip: “I hire for attitude. You cannot teach attitude. You can teach a skill.”

Guess this guy’s going keep on having a tough time – unless he changes his ‘tude – and definitely his cover letter!

Recruiter Rants

Wendy Terwelp Leave a comment

Hi, this contribution is from Alice Hanson, former resume writer turned recruiter. Enjoy!  [Oh, and some side bar stuff from me, Wendy Terwelp]

It struck me today how far I’ve gone from resume writing and my former job in career coaching…It’s just a very different perspective here. I am hiring mid level technical contract positions. We get and fill about 10 jobs a day. With this kind of speed, there are some things that really drive me crazy…thought I would share. And a great resume is still a great asset-thanks to those who do them!

Recent pet peeves:

Applicants who don’t put their phone number in the Monster job ad…how am I supposed to call them? Do you want a job or what? Don’t be coy on me. I’ll call someone else and sometimes I don’t have time to mess with an email and wait for you to email back..the job will be closed by then or I will have submitted someone else. The market is really moving.

[Note: I must say, I too have been receiving resumes for review that have only a name listed as contact info. Hello! Read the above!]

Applicants who call back a week later expecting the job to still be there…uh, no, sorry.

Applicants who have nothing but soft skills on their resume. Even if they are a project manager or business
analyst or product manager or even a project coordinator, I want to know what type of projects, technical skills, and expertise they can manage:

Software development, networks, new products -what kind? What beside a PM are they? Don’t tell me they are “good with people.” What industry? What tools? What did you create? Give me all the alphabet soup. Are you a Linux guy or a MS guy? Database or Web/front end? .net or Java? If you test, have you done black box, white box, performance and load, UI or regression testing?

[In other words, provide specific examples of your projects – we call them “achievements.” Quick tip: Use the CAR technique – Challenge, Action, RESULT.]

Give me a grid of hard skills that I can match against the job desciption I’m sourcing…Get really specific and stick it in a chart with number of years used and the year it was used….very helpful….if I see the right skills, then I read the most recent job description and check the date of their last employed date and the job history.I hate resumes that are done in two column tables. Give it to me straight and direct. I just dump out all the formatting and stick it in our corporate format anyway..and tables make it harder..the hiring manager never sees your formatting if you go through a recruiter. 

[Now, now, there is SOME formatting – like paragraphs and bullets. 🙂 ) I don’t bother with profiles..and this makes me grimace after all the pain I used to put into picking the right adjective that “captured” the uniquness of my client…but I don’t mess with them…10 seconds of reading is very true..often I read the resume from the bottom up, looking for career history and how the candidate evolved. If the candidate makes it through my screen, the hiring manager may be interested in the profile so I guess profiles have a role. I determine
who the person is by the phone screen. Chronological formats, to the point, are my favorite…but they don’t hide much, so there you go.

[Time and time again I hear chronological is the fave. I personally use a combo, a few meaty statements in front and chronological info right after. To date, rave reviews from employers and recruiters alike. How do I know? My clients get hired. And sometimes the HR person who hired them becomes a client!]

Six page tech resumes can be fine, suprisingly. I had a Microsoft manager tell me the other day to take a one page resume and “give it more beef.” We had to add a lot of left out details to make the candidate look credible. The old adage–make the resume as long as it needs to be to make the candidate looks credible and worth the money they are asking.

[Six pages?! No way!]

Anyway, a perspective from my desk…thought I would share for what it is worth.– Alice Hanson

Take Action – be in the top 5%

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Courtesy of Marcia Yudkin, www.yudkin.com

When L.A. filmmaker Jeff Bollow moved to Sydney, Australia a couple of years ago, he planned to launch an independent feature film studio but couldn’t find enough commercially suitable screenplays. To beef up the supply, he began teaching screenwriting workshops in his new homeland.

Four years later, he had trained 641 workshop participants, but he still did not have a dependable stable of screenwriters. Although nearly everyone in the workshops loved the training, less than 5% of participants did anything with what they learned.

From what I’ve observed, this outcome has nothing to do with Australia or with screenwriting. It’s human nature. And where Bollow lamented his 95% wasted energy, I see vast opportunity for the 5%.

Taking action on what you know puts you ahead of the majority of your peers. Many know how to attract publicity, for instance, but just let that knowledge sit. When you not only take action, but do it well, you’ll find yourself way, way ahead of colleagues.

Ignoring all the usual excuses may be the most powerful step you take!

——–

What can I say? Marcia rocks! This advice is essential when job hunting. Don’t just pour over internet ads – NETWORK. Take action. Be creative. For more ideas, check out our newsroom at www.knocks.com/news.html.

Interviewing: What’s your ROI?

Wendy Terwelp 2 Comments

Are you a Matt Damon or a Russell Crowe?

Here’s an exerpt from today’s ERE.net ezine:

“Let’s look at an example to illustrate the ROI of top actors. If you were going to hire a well-known actor for an upcoming action movie you could pick from many obvious choices like Russell Crowe, Tom Cruise, Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, and Angelina Jolie, or you could hire “Joe Nobody.”

Each of the well-known actors will cost you significantly more than hiring an unknown newcomer, but each also has a demonstrated ability to attract a greater return. Forbes.com recently completed a calculation of the ROI of top actors and what it found was:

  • Matt Damon returned $29 in gross movie revenue for every dollar that he was paid (29X or 29 times his salary).
  • Brad Pitt returned $24 for every dollar that he was paid.
  • Tom Cruise returned only $12 for every dollar in pay.
  • Russell Crowe returned only $5 for every dollar in pay (five times his salary).

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to do these calculations. The results, even to an untrained eye, are startling. If you hire Matt Damon, he will return nearly six times more per dollar invested than Russell Crowe. That’s not a 6% difference; it’s a 600% difference! If the comparison was made broader to include the comparison of hiring “Joe Nobody” as a lead actor (instead of a noted star), the difference in the ROI would simply be mind-blowing.

The lesson to be learned here is that the “on-the-job performance” of the hire (often called quality of hire) can be quantified and converted into dollars in the sports and the entertainment industry and that the same calculation needs to be done by the recruiting function in the corporate world.” (Author: Dr. John Sullivan)

So, you’re not an actor, why is this important? It is essential to know how employers look at you when hiring. Next time you are on an interview, think about what you bring to the table that no one else does.

Calculate your ROI – on a per project basis. Take a look at your performance over the past few years. Is there a project you worked on where the resulting savings was more than your salary? If so, how much more? Or if you add up all the projects, ideas, suggestions, enhancements, improvements you made to the organization over the term you were employed, how much money did you save the company? How much – in terms of revenue – did you bring in through yours (or your team’s) sales efforts? By what percentage did you improve the company’s bottom line?

When you calculate these numbers against your salary, are you a Matt Damon or a Russell Crowe? Be sure to convey your star ROI in terms of results on your next interview.

Rock on.