The Intoxicating Magic of the Rolodex

Having been a headhunter these x years, I have had the opportunity to be on a fascinating playing field. I talk to companies about what they want and I go and get it for them. They pay me for my skill and tenacity, perseverance and pain, in the relentless search for the "perfect" candidate. What does "perfection" really mean? Well a good dictionary says:

"flawless knowledge or conduct. Many philosophies and theologies have formulated theories about perfection."

Wow! As I get to thinking about this I ask myself, "is this really philosophical in nature?"

When my client says, "The perfect candidate will have a Wharton MBA, a PHD from Harvard and 35 years experience in developing multi-billion dollar text message advertising strategies," is this really a philosophical request best left to Plato, Francis Bacon, or the 17th Earle of Oxford to execute in the real world?

Before I share the answer, let's take the most common request from big companies about what they want their sales executives to have.

It is, today, a great Rolodex.

Many of my headhunter brothers will say, "Oh yes, I agree. A great rolodex is crucial, and don't worry, I will get you a guy with a great rolodex." This great rolodex, it is assumed, will blossom into immediate sales and bottom line profits and everything good and wholesome for the business.

Being 100% irreverent, I would ask the client, "Why?"

They would say. "Because if he has a great rolodex, we will inherit all those names and contacts and we will be able to parley those names and numbers into SALES FOR US, in quick order."

"Really?" I would ask.

Not really answering, they would say, "Well, it doesn't really matter what you think, because without a great rolodex, we won't give him an offer."

Blah blah. On and on it goes. So like I am supposed to, I go and get them what they want, and they hire the guy. But 89 days later, they call and say the guy "overstated his rolodex and has been fired."

Wait a minute. So the rolodex itself must not be just a rolodex of names and numbers, it must actually be a representation of actual relationships with people who will, factually and with no reticence, answer the guy's call when he calls? And then maybe BUY something from him?

Oh. That's a different story.

That's not perfection.

That's not philosophical.

It's actually the wrong place to focus one's attention.

Who was the philosopher who said, "Give the man a fish and he will eat today; teach him to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime?"

Well, the way I see it, if the guy has a rolodex, he better be able to keep it current, grow it, network it like crazy, and then he better be able to do his job WITHOUT it if he has to.

In the old days, we used to fling a phonebook at a sales guy and yell, "START."

Guess what? They did it.

Today, without the intoxicating magic of the rolodex, great sales guys don't make the short list. Unfortunately, some of the best rolodex owners out there don't make it past 90 days on the job

Go figure?

No, go fish.

Steve Eddington

seddington@electronicsearch.com

How many Interviews does it take?

I have had several conversations with candidates recently and some interesting facts have begun to surface.

One friend said, "I had 13 interviews to eventually get hired."

Another said, "it is a 30 employee company and I have now had 6 interviews, and I am still going."

I found myself laughing and then started thinking...

If a person needs to meet 20% of the staff at a firm to be "accepted," what if the company had 5000 employees? How would that work?

Maybe like this?

(Imagine the green smoke and eerie violin music of a dream)

"Yes, Mr. Jones, you will be meeting 1000 of your potential colleagues before we extend you an offer. With some luck, the interviewing process should be completed in 2 years. After the interviewing process is completed, we will require 6 months to evaluate the responses from the 1000 people and give you an answer promptly thereafter. Be advised that we will not discount the fact that more interviews may be necessary to fully evaluate your credentials. As a convenience, we have set up a web site for the purposes of keeping the information organized and accessible. Certain confidential parts of this site will, of course, not be viewable by you, the applicant, but you will be able to monitor how many of the interviewers have responded positively or negatively. Be further advised that the number of positive responses versus negative responses will not necessarily be the deciding factor in our decision. We appreciate your interest in us and wish you the best."

End of imaginary, dream-like, simulated altered-reality pictogram.

I am not saying that my perverted, cartoon-like vision of the ultimate nightmare will ever really HAPPEN, it is just another example of how the "interviewing and selection" process has evolved over the last year or two.

I am also NOT taking a cheap shot at employers who feel that "multiple" interviews are necessary to really evaluate someone. Sometimes it is necessary.

This is humor.

Factually influenced fiction.

In the old days, I would have a sales person come in at least twice to see if they owned more than one suit. Lots of times, they didn't.

If you find yourself in the endless interview loop, it is never inappropriate to ask how long the process is and what to expect from each interview. The employer should be able to tell you how, and WHY, they do it... or better yet, ask the headhunter.

Steve Eddington

Electronic Search, Inc

seddington@electronicsearch.com

The Hiring Decision - In the Current Job Market, Who's on First?

I have had the opportunity to observe and be directly involved in hundreds of hiring decisions through the years.
As the saying goes, I have seen (almost) everything.

As the headhunter, we have the distinct pleasure of being the guys in the middle.
This allows us to speak with the employer and the candidate and get the perspective of everyone involved. Because of this, we sometimes find ourselves in the line of fire from 2 different directions.

The candidate perspective in the current market is generally "who do I have to kill to get the job" and the employer side is usually, "we see no reason to hire you at this time since you are one of 1000 guys who wants our job and we're in no hurry cause the job can get filled whenever we see fit with whomever we want."

Oops, have I inadvertently taken sides in the article?

No, no, no, not really. What I really want to talk about is assumptions and how they change when the market changes.

People will always assume things, but the kind of assumptions people make vary depending on what the current job climate happens to be at the time.

Nowadays, there are more desperate candidates on the market, so the employer tends to be a bit wary, and assumes that the candidate will say anything to break through the hiring barricade.

Ever hear these?

"He stayed for only one year in his last job so he will leave us in one year also. We want someone who will stay, so this guy is out."

Or. "Yes, we see the references, but we want his REAL references. We want to know about the guys who hate him."

He WAS laid off from his last 2 jobs (telecom guy, of course). It wasn't his fault that Motorola and Nortel both laid him off, but the employer thinks that it is because he decided poorly when he joined a company that was going to have a layoff in 12 months. He should have known better, and because he did things that involved bad judgement, he will probably be a bad executive or a bad sales guy or a bad engineer. The other 800,000 guys who got laid off are all similarly flawed. It only stands to reason, right?

Personally, I think the 800,000 guys just all got hold of some bad sushi and went temporarily insane when they happily joined a "Telecom Giant."

Whatever.

Usually, the way I see it, these days, the candidate just wants to work somewhere where he can contribute and get a fair wage and maybe have some upward mobility. Maybe he doesn't want to rule the world, he just doesn't want to get knocked down because someone in another country made a decision to dump the product he sells.
Sometimes he assumes that his age or his nationality or the size of his feet is the reason he was not selected and also assumes that the job market is impossible and he DOES have a secret bad reference that continually sabotages his search in the bottom of the ninth inning.

All assumptions.

The employer, many times, assumes that the candidate will stay only until he finds something better to do, or until the market returns to normal, or joined-up only to get health coverage.

The candidate assumes that the company has no loyalty, doesn't really care about his life and will cut him as soon as they find a lower paid guy to do his job somewhere offshore.

In a confusing world, assumptions abound. I have never seen this set of circumstances make so many, so goofy, for so long.

What is the answer? There is no single answer but I am certain of one thing.

Everyone has to seek out the truth and present themselves honestly and not assume. If someone has made a decision based on an untruth, they need to be corrected. When in doubt...find out.

Steve Eddington

 Electronic Search, Inc.

seddington@electronicsearch.com

The One Page Resume & Other Urban Legends

Man oh man alive. Geeeeez. Holy Mackerel!

It is now my turn to speak on the subject of the one page resume.

I have NEVER been involved in such a complete fiasco as the unending discussion of whether you should or should not have a one-page resume.

I want to first say that this is a laborious subject, so I will try to spice it up with some pointed, irreverent comments that are sure to tick off some of my conservative readers.

First...some of the comments I have personally heard:

• Well, Joe Blow (insurance salesman) said I should have a one-page resume
• Well, I read a book and it said you should have a one page resume
• I can't really go into what I really did because if I did, it would take more than one page
• Gosh, I wish I could put my job at IBM on my resume but if I did it would make it more than one page and I was told never to have the resume be more than one page long so I hope people figure out (from Tarot cards or Ouija boards) that I worked there because that really was my best and longest job.
• I'm confused, should my resume be more than one page? I FEEL like it should, but I don't want to break the rules because if I do, I might be abducted by evil agents who will ruin my chances for getting employed.

Is this enough? NO. Here's another one.

• People just don't read resumes that are longer than one page.

I have heard some more, but we can start with these.

There is no scientific answer about whether a one-page resume is right or wrong. It all depends on who you are and how much experience you have.

The first thing to look at here is the PURPOSE of a resume. I will state for the record here and now, the purpose of a resume is TO GET YOU AN INTERVIEW. If the resume gets you an interview, it can be considered to be a good resume. If the resume isn't getting you interviews, then you should probably change it, unless you are a bricklayer hopelessly applying to be a CFO (in which case you should be reading a different article entitled "Megalomania and your Unlimited Target Market."

As someone who has read a zillion resumes, I can tell you that the biggest mistake you can make on your resume is to make it hard to read. Lots of graphics, small fonts, borders, boxes, footnotes and really really creative designs are not a good idea these days for a couple reasons. One, scanners don't like these oddities. Two, it can make the resume harder to read. I have seen many seasoned candidates using a 6-point font so they could get the resume on one page. Big mistake. Resume readers do not like eyestrain. If the resume is mechanically challenging, they might just throw it aside for one that is easier on the eyes. You might say that this is unfair and you are right, but since we want to deal with reality, you need to know the truth. There are LOTS of resumes out there and that is part of the problem these days.

If you are a college graduate looking for your first job, a one-page resume is probably just fine. If you have had a job, you should tell the reader what you DID. Also, in light of the current scanning scenario, more pages is not a deterrent because someone who doesn't care about anything but lunch break will automatically scan your "document" into the database. Once it is in there and searchable, you have accomplished one of the goals of resume distribution.

After the dust settles, remember that the resume must tell your story. If you have a longer story, the resume needs to be longer. And please, put the experience you had with each job under a section for that employer so we can tell WHEN and for WHOM you did WHAT. Resume readers don't have time to guess and most won't call to clarify. They will just move on down the line. Short resumes for people long on experience are not appropriate and the real audience for these short resumes is people with short attention spans and low IQ's. I assure you that if the resume gets into the right hands, it will be read thoroughly. If you have omitted significant chunks of your experience, it could be assumed that you do not have the experience in the first place. Heinous, so when in doubt, TELL YOUR STORY.

Here's an ironic twist.

Guess what group collectively has the worst resumes?

RECRUITERS!

Come on my brothers, get it together.

Oh, and by the way, another important point... Wait! ONO..I have to stop, it's going to be more than one pa--

Steve Eddington

Electronic Search, Inc.

seddington@electronicsearch.com