While interviews can seem hard on job candidates, they may actually be harder on hiring mangers. Apart from recruiters, most people – unless they’re an ineffective “interview and burn through people manager” – don’t interview enough to make interviewing second nature. As a result, instead of focusing on the candidate, hiring managers can get lost in thinking about their next question to ask, engage in a little white knuckle time while interviewing, and actually sweat and pray they’ll finally interview well.… Read the rest
(More) Time to be Greedy: Why You Need A Brand Called “You”
This is the second in a series of three posts dealing with “brand.” A piece on employment brands in general proceeded it and some company employment brand examples and how-to’s will follow. As someone who’s been in the people (and teams) coaching business for over 25 years, and also been directly responsible for hiring thousands of people through roles running large staffing / recruiting operations, I have a pretty good idea why some firms recruit well (and others don’t), and how people can take their best foot forward as either a job candidate or consultant / vendor.… Read the rest
Time To Be Greedy: Your “Brand”
This is the first in a series of three posts dealing with “brand.” A post on personal brands (YOU), and “how-to-do” examples will follow this first overview piece. As someone who’s been in the people (and teams) coaching business for over 25 years, and also been directly responsible for hiring thousands of people through roles running large staffing / recruiting operations, I have a pretty good idea why some firms recruit well (and others don’t), and how people can take their best foot forward as either a job candidate or consultant / vendor.… Read the rest
[Land O’Spin] New Hire Selection: Fly Blind or Hire Smart – 3 Simple Ways to Improve Your Hiring Effectiveness
With the job scene mostly a seller’s market, a recent lunch with one of my favorite search from one of the blue chips reconfirmed my sense that psychological testing continues to be a hit and miss element in getting hired.
Employers continue to hire psychologists – many with little commercial experience – to poke, pry, question and generally get under the hood of would-be executive placements.… Read the rest
[Land of Spin] The Job Hunt: TwitterShouldHireMe.com and Other Tricks of the Trade
Fortune Magazine’s April 13, 2009 edition has an article on Jamie Varon, who built a website called TwitterShouldHireMe.com as part of her job hunt campaign to get – guess who – to hire her. She also writes a blog called “intersected ." Her Twitter job campaign site apparently has spawned a host of imitators (googleshouldhireme.com, Facebookshoulehireme.com, etc.). [Update: Varon has also just launched a new blog site called "Shatterbox – The Way of Standing Out and Changing the World."… Read the rest
[New Rules] Fortune Magazine’s “How to Find a Job” – What’s Working Now
This week’s April 13, 2009 Fortune Magazine (on newsstands now, online in around 10 days) identifies tactics that they believe work in the current job market. Many will sound familiar from readers of the nine-part “Choose Me” Hire Me! series from the Life Back West blog.
Here are some of the job hunting actions Fortune identified that work:
- Be thorough and methodical
- Work your Rolodex
- Target your search
- Do your homework
- Get the word out
- (Be creative and) Get noticed and get your foot in the door
- Build your network
- Offer people intelligence on the competition
- Fine tune your resume (include metrics and stats)
All of these ideas are really helpful and I think complement the type of know yourself, know your message, and build your network approached advocated by experts such as Richard Nelson Bolles .… Read the rest