Resumes Aren’t Dead, but Your Work Product Rules
by:
Vikki Pachera
Here is a great article about going beyond the resume. Whether they are Design, Marketing or thought leadership roles like a CTO, we’re interested in seeing what you’ve done. Portfolios, articles, blog– that helps hiring execs understand and assess how you think, how creative you are, what your style is and how that all fits in with their needs. For roles that require speaking, increasingly we’re after YouTube videos of a candidate.
What you provide better have top notch graphics and images and be perfectly written. As I’ve blogged about before, Be Beautiful.
From Wall Street Journal, January 24, 2012 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203750404577173031991814896.html
By Rachel Emma Silverman
Union Square Ventures recently posted an opening for an investment analyst.
Instead of asking for résumés, the New York venture-capital firm—which has invested in Twitter, Foursquare, Zynga and other technology companies—asked applicants to send links representing their “Web presence,” such as a Twitter account or Tumblr blog. Applicants also had to submit short videos demonstrating their interest in the position.
Union Square says its process nets better-quality candidates —especially for a venture-capital operation that invests heavily in the Internet and social-media—and the firm plans to use it going forward to fill analyst positions and other jobs.
Companies are increasingly relying on social networks such as LinkedIn, video profiles and online quizzes to gauge candidates’ suitability for a job. While most still request a résumé as part of the application package, some are bypassing the staid requirement altogether.
A résumé doesn’t provide much depth about a candidate, says Christina Cacioppo, an associate at Union Square Ventures who blogs about the hiring process on the company’s website and was herself hired after she compiled a profile comprising her personal blog, Twitter feed, LinkedIn profile, and links to social-media sites Delicious and Dopplr, which showed places where she had traveled.
StickerGiant’s John Fischer, right, and interviewee Adam Thackeray shoot a video Monday. Mr. Fischer uses an online survey to screen applicants.
“We are most interested in what people are like, what they are like to work with, how they think,” she says.
John Fischer, founder and owner of StickerGiant.com, a Hygiene, Colo., company that makes bumper and marketing stickers, says a résumé isn’t the best way to determine whether a potential employee will be a good social fit for the company. Instead, his firm uses an online survey to help screen applicants.
Questions are tailored to the position. A current opening for an Adobe Illustrator expert asks applicants about their skills, but also asks questions such as “What is your ideal dream job?” and “What is the best job you’ve ever had?” Applicants have the option to attach a résumé, but it isn’t required. Mr. Fischer says he started using online questionnaires several years ago, after receiving too many résumés from candidates who had no qualifications or interest. Having applicants fill out surveys is a “self-filter,” he says.
A previous posting for an Internet marketing position had applicants rate their marketing and social-media skills on a scale of one to 10 and select from a list of words how friends or co-workers would describe them. Options included: high energy, type-A, laid back, perfect, creative or fun.
In times of high unemployment, bypassing résumés can also help companies winnow out candidates from a broader labor pool.
IGN Entertainment Inc., a gaming and media firm, launched a program dubbed Code Foo, in which it taught programming skills to passionate gamers with little experience, paying participants while they learned. Instead of asking for résumés, the firm posted a series of challenges on its website aimed at gauging candidates’ thought processes. (One challenge: Estimate how many pennies lined side by side would span the Golden Gate Bridge.)
It also asked candidates to submit a video demonstrating their love of gaming and the firm’s products.
IGN is a unit of News Corp., which also owns The Wall Street Journal.
Nearly 30 people out of about 100 applicants were picked for the six-week Code Foo program, and six were eventually hired full-time. Several of the hires were nontraditional applicants who didn’t attend college or who had thin work experience.
“If we had just looked at their résumés at the moment we wouldn’t have hired them,” says Greg Silva, IGN’s vice president of people and places. The company does require résumés for its regular job openings.
At most companies, résumés are still the first step of the recruiting process, even at supposedly nontraditional places like Google Inc., which hired about 7,000 people in 2011, after receiving some two million résumés. Google has an army of “hundreds” of recruiters who actually read every one, says Todd Carlisle, the technology firm’s director of staffing.
But Dr. Carlisle says he reads résumés in an unusual way: from the bottom up.
Candidates’ early work experience, hobbies, extracurricular activities or nonprofit involvement—such as painting houses to pay for college or touring with a punk rock band through Europe—often provide insight into how well an applicant would fit into the company culture, Dr. Carlisle says.
Plus, “It’s the first sample of work we have of yours,” he says.
“We Loved Them Both”
by:
Gwen Moore
Four little words you love to hear as an executive recruiter. I recently started my day with that exact message from a client and felt like I scored a touchdown. Upon reflection, I realized the bigger story was how you get there.
How do you create the elusive win-win-win? Here are two things that stand out for me, two common elements that can’t be underscored enough – the quality of the hiring manager and the candidate. Quality might seem like an odd word choice, but for me it fits when examined more closely.
Let’s take the hiring manager first. Most know exactly what they are and are not looking for but not everyone does a good job in articulating that. The clearer a hiring manager can be about what they need – skills, experience, DNA – the faster and more accurate we are in finding the right talent. Great hiring managers go beyond a basic description and share their vision for the organization and how the role and individual fits within that. They know it’s often that extra color or context that hooks the candidate and arming recruiters with that makes us more successful for them.
Great hiring managers are also responsive with feedback about candidates – they don’t let them get cold, have excellent interviews skills themselves, and ensure the rest of the interviewing team conducts a well-orchestrated interview with each member focusing on a different area.
As for the candidates, simply stated, they are prepared. They are clear about what they are looking for – the role they want to play, the visibility, challenge, and responsibility they desire, and the environment they want to work in. Even more important, they are clear about their passion and what they bring to the table. Companies want to hire people who are passionate about what they do – they know when they are able tap into an individual’s passion on the job, the satisfaction, engagement and contribution are much higher. Great candidates are able to articulate their passion and the precise value they bring to the team.
The days of tire kicking for candidates are over. If you’re not clear and focused about what you want, and what you offer an organization, you’ll never be part of the win-win-win trifecta.
So for me, it is about quality. The quality of the hiring manager – vision, finesse, great communication; the quality of the candidate – preparedness, readiness to change; and the recruiter – understanding of the role, and having the ability to align great candidates with great hiring managers.
As for my ‘we loved them both’ situation, the hiring manager is finding room for both candidates. He knows when top talent walks in the door, you don’t let them walk back out.
How to Respond to a Recruiter
by:
Vikki Pachera
It’s really in the candidate’s best interest to hear what a recruiter has to say before leading with money or title.
I hear ‘I’m only interested in senior vp/director/grandpoobah’ too often. Titling can be something that’s negotiated sometimes, and can be deciving across industries. Everyone’s a VP at a bank for example, while at Google, you can be a manager and that’s equivalent to a VP elsewhere.
I also get ‘I’m only interested in roles at $300K or higher.’ Bingo! The role pays $400K but now I know we have a lot of leverage.
Listen first, talk later. It’s the first rule of negotiating and the negotiations start with the first ping.
So, how do you respond to a recruiter? Take a page from Ross, “I’m all ears.”
Take notes, keep an open mind, speak carefully or ask to sleep on it overnight, and then come back with concerns as well as interest.
The Sales DNA
by:
Vikki Pachera
I was talking to a consultant today who was being assessed for his ‘Sales DNA.’ It’s an important attribute, particularly to small companies always in search of new business.
What is Sales DNA?
If you have it, you are the type of person who scopes out the passengers on an airplane, looking for possible connections. If you don’t have it, you plop down in your seat, put your headphones on and jump into a magazine.
If you have it, you read the news services with excitement — hoping one of your connections just landed a CEO job and could be a new prospect. If you don’t, you may be oblivious to connections and may not care about who knows who.
As a consultant, if you have Sales DNA, you are constantly looking for new business and not afraid to ask for it. If you don’t, you’re dependent on others to ‘feed you’.
If you have it, you’re always ‘on’, thinking about pitching yourself — whether at the gym, a cocktail party or at Starbucks.
And if you have Sales DNA, you’ll be a great fit in a small company where you’ll stand out by the connections you make, the leads you generate and the business you bring in.
7 Things Highly Productive People Do
by:
Kathleen Avery
Or how to stop saying “Oh look, something shiny” 100 times a day.
Most of us spend a fair amount of our time these days multitasking. We believe we’re so much more effective because we can accomplish many things…seemingly all at once. As it turns out we may be shooting ourselves in the foot, productivity-wise.
Tony Wong, a project management blackbelt, is an expert at keeping people focused on the job at hand. He spoke with Ilya Pozin at Inc and offered his suggestions for staying productive:
http://www.inc.com/ilya-pozin/7-things-highly-productive-people-do.html