Eight great job interview questions for applicants

By David Hunt, PE

It’s been a while since I wrote an essay about “penetrating questions” for job seekers to ask on interviews.  For reference, the prior ones in the series are Ask, Ask 2, Ask 3, Ask 4, Ask 5, Ask 6, and Ask 7.  (Ask and Ask 3 were actually republished here on Neil Patrick’s site; this one was written exclusively for him!)

As an aside, one of the questions from Ask 7 was about inviting five dinner guests from history.  I decided to answer it, publicly, myself in an essay.  I’d thought it was a worthy intellectual exercise.

I often get ideas for these questions from other peoples’ essays.  The essay The Interview Secret HR Doesn't Want You To Know... by J.T. O’Donnell, founder of WorkItDaily, sparked a thought for another question… or two or three.  I hope these prove useful to you in your interviews.

What on my resume caught your eye?

This is a question, to be asked of the hiring manager only, that gets to the heart of why you’re in their office.  It forces them to identify something overwhelmingly-positive about you, and puts you in a good frame in their mind (on the flip side of things, if they have no clue, that’s not a good sign!).  And whatever they name gives you specific things to focus on, because that gives you an opening to:

And that, , applies to which problem you have… ?

You’re making them do the work for you.  They’ve just – presumably – named one of the key strengths that they saw in your background.  Now you’ve opened the door to their explicitly naming one of the challenges they have and how your background meshes with it.  Not only can you now address that problem specifically, by getting them to tie your strength to their problem, you help get them to see you in the position.

What last made you laugh at work?

This is a culture question.  Nobody expects work to be a comedy or social club, but it is a place where you spend a significant portion of your waking hours.  The answer doesn’t need to be detailed or elicit a specific joke they remember hearing, but if they really have to think hard about the last time they laughed as a result of something – e.g., “Well, the other day my co-worker and I were ribbing each other about…” – then that’s a potential warning sign that there’s no real joy on the part of people working there.  Even worse if they flat-out can’t think of a single instance.

Am I the first person you’ve brought in for this position?

Very often hiring managers don’t really know, precisely, what they want when they first write the job description; they have a vision, but visions don’t always comport with what’s actually available.  And it’s very typical that as interviews go along tweaks to that vision they have are made.  Gleaning some idea of where you are in the sequence can help you understand the possibility that the real wants and needs have deviated from the published ones.

Can you describe the last time you had to help a subordinate get through a roadblock?  And can you describe, generally, what the issue was?

It is inevitable that projects will run into roadblocks.  Some of these can be gotten through with persistence on the part of the individual person.  Others can require managerial “pull” to get something loose.  A good manager will be willing to help a subordinate get through these – after, of course, the individual has tried without success.  And if an issue happened once, generally, it’s likely to happen again if it involves a different group or function, so forewarned is forearmed about a potential difficulty you might face.

Could you walk me through your day yesterday?

This should be aimed at a potential coworker.  It gives you, at least in a one-day snapshop, what a day might be like.  Also, watch facial expressions – positive or negative?  And do they attempt to gloss over the question?  People who are enthusiastic about the work and the environment will happy to talk about things at length.  People who are not, won’t.

(An example: I asked a similar question, “What’s your typical day like?” to a potential coworker during an interview.  Their answer was revealing: “Oh, I usually get here about 7 AM, …, and I leave about 7 PM… and sometimes I come in on the weekends to catch up!”  My unvoiced thought was “You’re pushing 60 a week at work, and you need to catch up on the weekends?  And this is OK with you?”  

Later, talking to a recruiter, I learned that this company has such a reputation for squeezing workers for immense hours of casual OT that people would tell this recruiter NO THANK YOU when she named the company whose job she was pitching!  One actually said “I’d rather be homeless than work for this company”.  The recruiter ended up not accepting any more contracts from the company.)

What is a typical day like for one of the group?

This is a compare-and-contrast question to the above, to be asked of the hiring manager.  What happens versus what do they think happens?  It’s also an awareness question, i.e., how connected to the group is the manager?  Are they aloof?  Connected?  A “helicopter boss”?  The answer can give some clues.

I hope these, and my former thoughts in Ask 1 – 7, help you not only land a good job by asking great questions, but gain insights into places that, when you hear the answers, you decide you will pass on working there.

© 2017, David Hunt, PE

David Hunt is a Mechanical Engineer looking for a full time position north of Boston, MA in the USA.  He is seeking a job, ideally in the medical device or defense industries, as a:

•          Design Engineer (with a strength in plastics, but that’s not all he can do)
•          New Product Introduction Engineer (e.g., DFMA)
•          Cost Reduction Engineer
•          Manufacturing / Process Engineer

And do check out his portfolio.

10 tiny things that can ruin your chances of getting hired

After many months of job hunting, my good friend David Hunt succeeded this week in getting hired into a part-time, seasonal job. Congratulations David; let’s hope for more good news soon!

During his search, he encountered and overcame many of the pitfalls waiting to catch out the unwary. So I was delighted when he sent me his list of traps he’d come across. Most are so small, you’d think they were unimportant, but in today’s jobs market, even the tiniest slip up can cost you the job!

All job seekers desire a quick conclusion to their job search. But the sad reality is that for many, this is not what happens. Today, job searches can easily last from several months to several years. Which means that as well as aiming for a fast outcome, we must also prepare for what may be a lengthy search.

Such awareness means adopting a long term strategy as well as short term focused action. This isn’t admitting we are defeated before we start, it’s simply a wise acceptance of the reality that luck plays a part. But we can still increase our chances of winning if we take sensible precautions and play the long game as well as the short one.

So here are David’s 10 things that shouldn't make a difference but often do. Don’t get caught out!



By David Hunt PE


1. Have a digital file of all your key documents to hand

If you are applying through an online ATS (Application Tracking System), open your resume file immediately after you upload it (so you can see it, and cut-n-paste, in case you have to fill in duplicate information – which is usually the case).

Have cover letter(s) already written: you may have the opportunity to upload one – they make a difference. Have your list of references file open too as some ATS programs require them to complete your application… and then immediately contact them to forewarn them you just gave their information out, to whom, and attach/include the job description, the resume you attached to your application, and any specific things you want them to stress.

If you don’t, you can have the ATS time out before you get everything open, or you frantically write a cover letter.

2. Don’t advertise your medical condition

If you have a medical condition of any type that requires you wear a warning – an allergy, a pre-existing condition, etc. – don’t wear a wrist band medical alert. Invest in a necklace. A wrist band will be visible, and will make people wonder what’s so wrong with you that you need it. And though it’s not legal, it can be held against you. This goes doubly if you have an infuser pump for anything and it’s visible. Again, it’s not legal to discriminate based on a medical condition, but it happens, and it’s undocumented, so it’s not legally actionable. (And an interviewer who was so biased would, doubtless, not even mention it; all they need to do is comment about your not being “a fit” even in internal discussions!)

3. Invest in your network relationships - with snail mail

Go the library once a month and peruse the magazine section. Try and look at trade-related magazines, but also hobby magazines, cultural magazines… basically, at least flip through every one. Why? Two reasons… you are looking for articles to send to networking contacts (actual and ones you’d like to make), and you are looking specifically in trade-related magazines for people at companies to write.

If you know of a person in your network that could use the information in an article, copy it and snail-mail it to them. This does not necessarily just mean work-related. (For example, a person I know is Portuguese and is there part of the time for work. I sent him an article about cork farms in Portugal… as it turns out, he owns a cork farm and really enjoyed the article. This makes an emotional impression, and keeps you in their mind favorably. Same thing for hobbies and interests that you know of, etc.)

Is there an article by someone at one of your target companies? Write them about it. Make it short, sweet, and ask a few questions to try and open a dialog. Do not mention you are out of work; this is a longer-term investment in cultivating contacts at target companies.

4. Polish your public speaking skills

Join a local Toastmasters group to start practicing public speaking. This is especially critical if you are more towards the introverted side of the scale. For networking and for your life and career, you need to be able to talk with people in a public setting, and give presentations. (I always loved the “Table Talk” events: you are given a topic for which you’ve not prepared or rehearsed, and then you need to talk for 60-90 seconds about it!)

5. Look for other people you can help

If someone approaches you because they’re also looking for a job, don’t blow them off. Try – as best you can – to help them. It’s good karma, and they’ll remember you for it. Over time, you will develop a reputation as someone who helps others.

6. The cleanliness of your car says more about you than the marque

Clean your car’s interior. Hiring managers have been known to go out to “scope out” your car while you are busy with other interviewers. If you’re political, get bumper stickers off (if you can). And if you have time, go through the car wash too.

7. Remember you are interviewing them as well

If a company can’t give you a list of the people with whom you’ll be meeting ahead of time, that’s a red flag about their organizational ability, as well as how they view you as a candidate.

8. Show appreciation to everyone involved

As you write your “Thank you” emails and/or notes, be sure to include the person who set up your interview. Odds are they were not on the interview schedule but, as someone whose involvement in the process was critical, reach out to them as well. It can’t hurt, and may help in making a better impression as they will likely forward it to the decision makers.

9. Protect your interviewers’ noses

Yes, you need to be subtle with any scents like cologne or perfume if not forgoing them altogether. But also… lay off the garlic, onions, carbonated beverages, beans and broccoli. And while it’s perfectly fine to need a bathroom break, try to eat a lower-residue diet for 24 hours. (Remember that smell is the only sense hard-wired into the brain unfiltered; if it registers in their nose, they will be consciously aware of it and its visceral and emotion-based response.)

10. Eating Etiquette

If invited out for a meal:

· Don’t go for expensive; they’re watching.

· Don’t be picky when ordering. I.e., “I’d like the ‘X’ but can you leave ABC out, substitute ‘this’ for ‘that’…”. If there’s a dish you really want but it has something you can’t eat, after ordering – explain. (E.g., eggplant will put me in the hospital for 2-3 days… but occasionally I’ll order a dish with eggplant, minus the eggplant, and then explain I have an allergy.)

· Don’t season the food until you’ve tasted it (I read this is one screening technique an executive uses and it’s a deal-breaker for them).

· When presented with multiple utensils, start outside and work your way in.

· Elbows off the table – and other etiquette.

· At most one glass of alcohol, but best to abstain. This is not the time to try and match someone drink for drink!

Hope these are useful thoughts for you in your job search.



© 2015, David Hunt PE

David Hunt is a Mechanical Design Engineer in southern New Hampshire. Currently employed part-time, he is looking for a full-time professional that allows him to design new products and shepherd them to stable production. His LinkedIn profile is: www.linkedin.com/in/davidhuntmecheng/; he blogs at davidhuntpe.wordpress.com and tweets at @davidhuntpe.

How to be perceived as a real leader

By Neil Patrick


Leadership is the number one competency employers seek today – but how can you prove you have it?

I've been investigating the data about the most desirable competencies employers are seeking today. Here is Indeed.com's list of the top 10 professional attributes that employers want to see in their employees, in order of importance:

1. Leadership skills

2. Interpersonal skills

3. Problem-solving skills

4. Self-motivation

5. Efficient

6. Detail-oriented

7. The ability to prioritize

8. Team player

9. Reliable

10. The ability to multitask

The list wasn’t particularly surprising. I suspect most people could second guess most of this even if it might be a little harder to guess the exact priority order the data reveals.

But the question this prompted in my mind was:

“If leadership skills are the most desirable competency, how can an employer discover what an applicant’s true leadership skills are and more importantly, fairly assess and rank competing candidates against this criteria?”

Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama in 2014 by Pete Souza 

Mike Sweeny at MAS Recruiting provides this answer to the question:

Organizations use a variety of assessment tests and/or tools to attempt to determine leadership as well as other personality traits in candidates. Overall, the results are very mixed.

Recruiting is not an exact science. You can't "test" your way to hiring people with strong leadership skills. I advise your hiring team to focus on a candidate's leadership track record. Ask each candidate to relate how they demonstrated leadership in various scenarios during their job history. Prior to the interview, have your team develop specific examples that relate to the job at hand. For example, the position being interviewed for may be a production supervisor in a manufacturing facility that has a poor quality record. During the interview session, have your team probe candidates to discuss their history at solving similar problems.

Past work history, combined with solid reference checking, is the best way to hire people with leadership skills. Assessment test may provide additional data to help in your hiring decision, but they are no substitute for probing past work history.

Fair enough, but this approach has several weaknesses:

1. Only candidates selected for interview are assessed against the number one competency

2. The measures are subjective and not quantifiable

3. References are unlikely to be able or willing to provide a great deal of reliable data on this characteristic, they after all are unlikely to have any data which records, let alone quantifies their employees’ leadership skills.

So job seekers are left with a quandary:

The number one most desirable personal attribute has no independent meaningful measure attached to it. And this means there is little we can do to provide independent verification of our leadership competencies.

To look at this in another way, there is no way currently in which HR and recruiters can reliably measure candidates against their most desired attribute.

This is a catastrophe. Especially when we consider that real leaders are not usually those who shout the loudest about themselves. The greatest leaders influence not by shock and awe tactics, but by a consistent influence, inspiring those around them by their behaviours and attitudes in a humble and collaborative way.

But there’s good news. Things are changing and they are the greatest opportunity yet for employees to demonstrate their leadership in a way that no-one can ignore.

Time and again, it is repeated that job seeking is a sales and marketing job, and the most successful candidates approach it in this way.

The rise and rise of digital and social media and ‘big data’ (I promise that’s the last time I’ll mention that in this post) are at last reshaping how HR and recruiters approach their hiring processes.

This revolution is having profound impacts. And it has given rise to something that it’s of immense value to marketers and job seekers alike.

It’s called social proof.

Businesses now use this all the time to prove their credibility in their online and offline marketing. The types of proof vary according to the nature of the business. And the immense value of social proof is deployed within the marketing tactics of most leading businesses today.

Hotels and restaurants covet their user ratings on online media. Writers seek favorable reviews of their books on Amazon. And at a more personal level, we all wish to achieve and retain a good feedback score from our buyers on Ebay.

The huge value of social proof resides in that it reflects what others think of us, not what we say or think about ourselves.

HR and recruiters are at last waking up to the potential this unlocks for them to get better and more quantifiable insight about candidates.

And it’s not rocket science to work out what this means.

Let’s work through a simple example. Faced with two otherwise identical candidates, which person would you assess as having the greater leadership skills?

Person A

• LinkedIn : 800 connections, 12 recommendations and 250 endorsements

• Twitter : Following 300 people, followed by 1500 people

• Klout score : 60

Person B

• LinkedIn : 200 connections, 1 recommendation and 30 endorsements

• Twitter : Following 750 people, followed by 150

• Klout score : 35

At this point I am sure that some of you will be howling in protest along the lines of, “these measures are unreliable and misleading because…” (place your protest of choice here).

And I would probably agree with your arguments assuming they relate to the facts that these measures are all prone to weakness and exploitation or gaming.

But I’d remind you of my opening point:

Presently there is no measure of leadership that is helping recruiters and employers reliably assess, measure and compare candidates against their expressed number one competency – leadership.

Yes the metrics I have selected are flawed. Yes they can be manipulated – (if you spend a really long time doing so) and yes they don’t tell the whole story.

But in the absence of anything better, what will employers do? My prediction is that these metrics will become more and more important. And therefore we ignore them at our peril.

As I have said repeatedly here and elsewhere, there’s no quick fix. The only way to capitalize on this situation for employees and job seekers is to invest steadily in building your online profile.

And for most of us this means a fundamental reassessment of how we prioritize our daily tasks. Yes it’s another thing to add to your already too long to do list. Yes it won’t deliver instant results. But it’s the only way you’ll become person A instead of person B.

Like it or not, your whole career future may hinge on this.

Why more and more people are dishonest on their resumes

By Neil Patrick

Are you more honest than a banker? Under what circumstances would you lie, or cheat, and what effect does your deception have on society at large?

Over the last couple of weeks, I've looked at the rise and rise of lying. Specifically on LinkedIn and then last week on resumes.

And I suggested why I thought this might be happening. But I’m not a psychologist and I wanted to understand better why people lie about themselves more and more in their professional life.

After a little more research, I think I have found some answers. And here’s what I think is going on.

Most people are mostly honest most of the time

There are very few out and out frauds and cheats. People who deliberately set out to deceive and cheat at every single opportunity. Equally, there are very few people who are scrupulously honest in every single aspect of their lives. And if you don’t believe me, think about the last time a friend or spouse asked you for feedback on something they had made or done. Are you always brutally honest?

Of course you are not…your wish to make the other person feel good (or at least not so bad) far outweighs your worries about being slightly deceitful in your response. Which brings us to the second point which is that: 

Lying is circumstantial

The situation we are presented with may increase or decrease our propensity to lie or gild the truth. And the factor which has a profound effect on this is the perceived distance between our actions and the people that our lies affect. The greater the perceived distance and noise that obscures our vision, the greater our propensity to lie.

In the job hunting situation, this is why so many lies are exposed at interviews. It’s much easier to tell a lie on LinkedIn or our resume, than it is to repeat that lie face to face when questioned about it. The evidence shows that time again, when challenged face to face, people ‘fess up.

The growth of digital media opens up our ability to communicate with more and more people. But it also creates a sense of greater separation between us and others when for example we are looking for a new job. If we see a job vacancy online, do we feel as close to the employer as we’d do if we saw a card in a shop window asking for new staff to help out? 

We try to rationalise our lies

Most people wish to think of themselves as being good and honest. But when the temptation to lie becomes too great to resist, we try to make ourselves feel better about it, through rationalization. Like, saying to ourselves, “How much harm can it really do?”, or “It’s not really anything much”.

The stakes influence our choices

In a low stakes situation, our propensity to lie is also low. But as the stakes increase, so the propensity to lie does also. And if we are desperate for any reason to get a new job, the stakes are high. So our propensity to tell lies is increased. Ironically, this fact actually supports the choice that recruiters and HR people often make to choose only from the ranks of those currently in jobs. I still don’t think it justifies such a policy, but it does have this attraction to employers.

The stakes were also high in the financial world pre the 2008 collapse. The distance between the lies and those it affected were great. The actions which we now know caused the collapse could be rationalized however spuriously. So we had a perfect set of conditions for cheating. Overlay incentives which reward the wrong behaviors and we have the perfect recipe for the 2008 meltdown.


Online job applications and Linkedin are a perfect set of conditions to encourage lies

Looked at in these ways, the epidemic of resume and Linkedin lies can be explained and understood: 

• The deception is thought of as small and therefore can be justified 
• The distance between the liar and the people it harms is seen as great 
• The rewards for getting away with it are high 

And last but not least, if we are told that everyone is doing it, then there’s a peer pressure effect which creates a vicious circle. If everyone else is cheating, then I need to as well, or I'll be disadvantaged.

What do you think? Are we headed towards an ever increasing downward spiral of lies, or is there a hope for a return to greater truthfulness? And if so, how might it be achieved in the digital age…? Do please post any thoughts below.

I'll return to this topic again after I have gathered some reactions and ideas.

Finally here’s some really insightful background from Dan Ariely, one of the world's leading authorities on human motivation and behavior, which amongst many other insights explains just why so many financial people deceived us and themselves for so long.

Why it’s time for zero tolerance on resume lies

By Neil Patrick

There's a growing and hard to spot threat to recruitment and employers' carefully developed talent acquisition programmes. It's called lying...

Back in April I posted here about the damage that lies on Linkedin cause employers and employees.

So I was really interested today to discover that CareerBuilder had completed a survey recently to look in detail at the subject of the lies people tell on their resumes.

And the findings suggest that telling lies on Linkedin is just the tip of the iceberg. I always knew that a lot of people stretch the truth on their resumes, but I was wholly unprepared to find out that resume lies are now an epidemic…

The nationwide survey, which was conducted online by Harris Poll on behalf of CareerBuilder included a sample of 2,188 hiring managers and human resource professionals across all industries and company sizes.

So the sample is large and the findings can therefore be relied upon to be representative of the current state of affairs.

58% of hiring managers said they’ve caught an outright lie on a resume. One-third of these employers have seen an increase in resume ‘embellishments’ post-recession. But these numbers don’t tell the whole story as I’ll explain shortly. For now, let’s look at some of the evidence…

Most Common Resume Lies

The first interesting finding is what people lie about.

There are some fabrications job seekers try to slip past employers more frequently than others. And it seems that what gets lied about most are the things which the applicants think (a) are most difficult to verify and (b) most likely to increase their chances of being hired. According to the survey respondents, the most common lies they catch on resumes relate to:

Embellished skill set – 57%
Embellished responsibilities – 55%
Dates of employment – 42%
Job title – 34%
Academic degree – 33%
Companies worked for – 26%
Accolades/awards – 18%

It's not really surprising that skills are the top of the table. After all, if I say I know how to use a particular piece of software, I know that you’re almost never going to test me on it. And if the day comes when I need to actually use it, I’ll have an excuse about it, like “I used the older version” or, “ I never used this particular function”.

But some of these lies are so crazy, you have to wonder what the applicant was thinking…

When asked about the most unusual lie they’ve ever caught on a resume, employers recalled: 

• Applicant included job experience that was actually his father’s. Both father and son had the same name (one was Sr., one was Jr.). 
• Applicant claimed to be the assistant to the prime minister of a foreign country that doesn’t have a prime minister. 
• Applicant claimed to have been a high school basketball free throw champion. He admitted it was a lie in the interview. 
• Applicant claimed to have been an Olympic medalist. 
• Applicant claimed to have been a construction supervisor. The interviewer learned the bulk of his experience was in the completion of a doghouse some years prior. 
• Applicant claimed to have 25 years of experience at age 32. 
• Applicant claimed to have worked for 20 years as the babysitter of known celebrities such as Tom Cruise, Madonna, etc. 
• Applicant listed three jobs over the past several years. Upon contacting the employers, the interviewer learned that the applicant had worked at one for two days, another for one day, and not at all for the third. 
• Applicant applied to a position with a company who had just terminated him. He listed the company under previous employment and indicated on his resume that he had quit. 
• Applicant applied twice for the same position and provided different work history on each application. 

Industries Most Likely to Report Catching Resume Lies

The survey found that employers in the following industries catch resume lies more frequently than average: 

Financial Services – 73%
Leisure and Hospitality – 71%
Information Technology – 63%
Health Care (More than 50 employees) – 63%
Retail – 59%

At first glance, it appears that old habits die hard in the financial sector. Despite all the extra regulation, penalties, media shame and criminal proceedings, the financial workers seem unwilling to give up their devious ways of going about things. But hang on, is it perhaps quite the opposite story here…i.e. the financial sector has had to get it’s house in order and is being a lot more vigilant today than the other sectors? I don’t know, but it’s a distinct possibility in my view.

Employers are leaving themselves wide open to exploitation

Career Builder reported that employers may be taking more time looking over individual resumes. 42% of employers said they spend more than two minutes (Wow! –Ed.) reviewing each resume, up from 33% in December.

Two minutes…I cannot imagine that the IRS would manage to uncover a financial fraud in less than two weeks, so employers are hardly giving themselves chance to catch the tricksters it seems. We all know what the excuses are; we’re too busy, we get so many applications etc.

The trouble is that like all fraud, the incidence rises in proportion to the chances of getting away with it. And right now it’s a free for all it seems.

These stats also don’t tell the whole story I suspect. If employers are asleep on their watch, there are a whole lot more lies getting past them that they never discovered and which consequently won’t appear in any of these stats.

What’s more, only half of employers (51%) said that they would automatically dismiss a candidate if they caught a lie on his/her resume, while 40% said that it would depend on what the candidate lied about. 7% said they’d be willing to overlook a lie if they liked the candidate.

With odds like these, I’m almost tempted to say telling lies on your resume is a worthwhile job search strategy. But I won’t because it does no-one any good in the long run and I hate lies, whoever tells them.

I think this is a loud alarm bell for everyone in the business of hiring. There’s a huge threat emerging to your talent acquisition programme or whatever you call it and you need to tackle it right now. Moreover, a huge prize awaits whoever can be the first to produce an effective resume verification software platform...

The full lowdown on ATS systems

By Neil Patrick and Marcia LaReau

ATS systems are now in widespread use by HR teams and recruitment firms. If you don't know how they work, you are at risk of getting caught out by one when you apply for a job.

It doesn't matter how well qualified you are. Or how keen you are to take the role. If you're unaware of how ATS systems filter applications, you risk being rejected without any person even looking at your resume or application. It's that serious!

My first post here on applicant tracking systems or ATS attracted a lot of readers and comment. After that, I knew I needed to get more information to share here.

So I turned to the one person I know who probably knows more about this subject than anyone else in the world right now. My friend, Marcia LaReau, the President of Forward Motion US has spent two years testing and evaluating these systems!

Last week I interviewed Marcia to find out as much as I can and I'm pleased to share this information in this post. NB This is a long post...but if you want to go straight to the action points just scroll to the end!

Marcia LaReau Phd.

NP: Why did ATSs come into being? 

ML: What I’m about to tell you here is based on my experience and information I collected from hundreds of conversations within the hiring communities.

The birth of Applicant Tracking Systems was before the Great Recession in 2008. They came about because available technology filled a need and could be sold to a huge market.

The Applicant Tracking Systems began with the job boards and when I started Forward Motion in 2007, I began by studying Monster and CareerBuilder, which were among the first. CareerBuilder (formerly NetStart) was launched about 1995 and Monster in 1999. Both sites sold subscriptions to companies and posted their job openings. They were able to report demographic information and served as a searchable repository of résumés.

The Great Recession brought a flood of desperate job seekers applying for every possible position.  Hiring professionals were overwhelmed and unable to satisfactorily filter all the applicants manually. Although they were in their infancy, the ATS platforms offered a tempting solution, despite their shortcomings.

NP: What type of jobs are ATSs used to screen for? How widespread are they? 

ML: ATSs are used for every conceivable kind of position you can imagine. Since a company can own and customize its own system or simply rent a system on a monthly basis, or just pay for candidates who click on their postings, everyone can now use them - from big companies right down to tiny ones. A company does not even need a website; an email address is all that is needed.

For example, if an entrepreneur is looking for a marketing manager or a part-time administrative assistant, s/he can easily use a system to find the right help at a reasonable price.

Two years ago, I spoke at the Connecticut Library Association Conference on the topic, “The Library as Employment Center". The librarians bemoaned that local supermarket chains and even small businesses sent job seekers to the library to “apply online” for jobs such as stocking the shelves and unloading the trucks. Sadly, some of these individuals did not have any basic computer skills and had not even used email. 

What hope would such a person have of getting through an ATS system?

NP: How did applicants respond to the use of ATS?

ML: With the recession, thousands of people began applying for jobs. HR was overwhelmed with the number of applicants and the first real “Tracking Systems” were quickly upgraded to help with the screening process. New job boards were cropping up daily and ATS companies began competing for market share.

This is what I call the first generation of ATSs. I don’t think anyone thought they worked very well.

Job seekers realized that keywords were important and tried beating the system by loading their documents. The problem was that once they “got through” the verbiage was unreadable and many were quickly eliminated. Some companies were so overwhelmed that they actually outsourced the résumé review process overseas - which didn't work either.

NP: You've tested these systems extensively Marcia - how did you carry out the tests?

ML: Since I had been in HR prior to being laid off, I was able to connect with many of my former colleagues and ask them how these systems were being developed. Importantly, they were willing to allow me to test their systems with imaginary candidates.

Over a period of two years, I learned about their hiring process from end to end. With my contacts' permission, I created several imaginary job seekers and started applying for positions at their companies to see if I could get through. I wanted to know what it would take to get a phone call. This way, I was experiencing the systems from the job-seeker side.

At this time, the experience was rather dismal from both sides. I never managed to meet more than 80% of the requirements with my imaginary candidates. Over a period of a year, I developed a system that was able to get through about 65% of the time.

NP: Tell me about the second generation of ATS. What changed?

ML: The next generation of ATS came fairly quickly and by 2011, price wars had begun. As of today, it currently costs over $400 to post a job on CareerBuilder or Monster. The aggregate job boards (e.g. Indeed.com and SimplyHired) frequently use Pay-Per-Click (PPC) pricing with charges between $.25 to $1.50 for each click.

These second generation of ATS began using more sophisticated filtering systems. ATS companies began selling directly to large corporations and offered additional customization. (Examples are Brassring, Taleo, HRM, iCims…)

NP: Is it true that the right keywords alone were no longer enough to get a résumé through the system?

ML: Yes. Some companies used a public job board for initial screening and then applied additional criteria and invited select candidates to enter their information into their internal databases. This second generation of ATS was more sophisticated, but the experience on both sides was still less than acceptable.

I might add that the many new cost-effective options allowed even small businesses to use the systems for initial screening. This was far better than their “Craig’s List” attempts at finding candidates.

NP: What's the current state of play?

ML: We are now embarking on a third generation of ATS. New levels of sophistication have been added all along. At this point, the companies gladly give me a 90-minute review of their “latest and greatest” so I think I’m up-to-date on the functionality. With my help, my clients get through the ATS at least 90% of the time now.

This new generation is certainly the most sophisticated. They typically integrate the whole hiring workflow that includes tracking and compliance with Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) as well as the Affirmative Action Plan (AAP). Since AAP is based on demographics and since the demographics are changing with regard to Hispanic and Asian populations in the U.S., these new systems have really taken on new roles. There are other features such as auto-responders and electronic scheduling that saves time and hopefully improves the experience for the job seeker as well.

These latest versions are better able to select qualified candidates, as they are able to read context. This is a double-edged sword for the job seeker though. Getting through to a person now requires a great deal of care. But it isn't rocket-science by any means. It is caring in ways that are meaningful to the hiring process, which begins with the ATS as well.

The articles I read that focus on beating the system and working around it (to get right to the hiring manager) are shortsighted from my perspective. Better, in my opinion, to work with the hiring communities rather than against or around them; especially since we all want the same thing - the right person in the right job.

NP: What in your opinion are the biggest shortcomings of ATS systems?

ML: This is an excellent question. Before I answer you, I’d like to give a bit of context.

I believe that we are still coming to grips with the fact that we are now a global economy and we have yet to fully comprehend the impact of the Great Recession. Add to this the technologies that are changing and influencing every area of our lives. I’m referring to Big Data, 3-D Printing, biotechnology, the demise of Moore’s Law, and disruptive innovations. (I’ve put 11 videos on YouTube about this topic.)

Add to this the number of baby-boomers who are retiring in record numbers (now that the stock market has restored some of the value of their retirement) and we can easily see that companies are scrambling. At this time, key concerns include “employee engagement” and succession planning.

So…let’s try to tackle “employee engagement.” We are learning that just because an employee can document that they have the needed skills, knowledge (experience) and abilities (SKA), doesn’t mean s/he will be engaged.

Business models have focused on measuring everything as proof of their success. Examples include Six Sigma, Lean Manufacturing, Balanced Scorecard and many, many others. But how do we measure employee engagement? And how do we devise a filter for it in an Applicant Tracking System?

Now, what about succession planning? With the record number of retirements, companies are losing their knowledge base. Succession planning is a challenge with a smaller Gen X. As we look to Millennials, we are finding a less-than-enthusiastic labor pool when it comes to corporate culture. So this takes us right back to the engagement question.

NP: So you're saying that the problem isn’t really with ATS at all?

ML: How many times do job seekers go through the interview process to find out that they have been eliminated because the position included something that was left off of the posting? Recruiters continually tell me about their frustrations when companies really don’t know what they want (or need) in a position.

The recruiter goes through long lists of candidates and scores of interviews and learns what the company is actually looking for through the process of learning what they don’t want. (The job seeker gets the frustrating response, “The company has decided to go in a different direction for this position.”)

Finally, the internal hiring professionals are enormously frustrated at the number of unqualified candidates. They are also deeply concerned that after careful vetting and attention to their hiring process, they are still hiring the wrong people.

The good news is that their attention to employee engagement is, in my opinion, exactly the right concern!

I have yet to see a job posting that sufficiently addresses this concern. Instead we get verbiage like, “Must be able to work under pressure and meet tight deadlines.” …now isn’t that inviting?

The root of the problem is how we think about the work that the employee will actually do. So the needed change will first require a shift in our thinking. Then we can ask the right questions so we can communicate with jobseekers. This is a whole new dimension about employment. From this point, we can easily manage the ATS questions to address the concerns about engagement. 

NP: What should job seekers do to avoid being eliminated?

ML: That’s the right question as well Neil. The Forward Motion Differentiation Workshop was designed in 2009 and has undergone 17 major upgrades and over 32 minor versions. I say this to make the point that as the hiring processes change, so must the jobseeker understand the phases of elimination in the ATS (usually 4 or 5) and adjust his or her cover letter and resume to fit with this.

It’s important to remember that once a candidate gets through the ATS screening, there are seven or eight more steps to get an offer. They have to appeal to HR first and then make it all the way through to the final approver. The ATS is step one. If we isolate that one step, then I offer the following suggestions:

1. Carefully vet the job posting and the company and apply only for those positions that are truly a good fit.

2. Narrow the information on both cover letter and résumé to address the skills, knowledge and abilities specific to the position. Customize accordingly.

3. Don’t assume that software can make a leap of understanding regarding experience. For example, if the job posting is for an Event Planner and asks for “project management” experience. If the résumé only addresses “event planning” the ATS won’t be able to translate. That résumé will be kicked out because it does not cite “project management.”

4. Different ATS set-ups have filters that may include a myriad of questions. These are critical. Many jobseekers do not fill out demographic information about themselves. Yet, with the AAP compliance, they may be eliminating themselves.

5. There should be ample demonstration of the needed skills, knowledge, and abilities in your résumé. These should come under the bullets in the Work Experience section.

6. Use Times New Roman font. Nothing smaller than 11pt. Despite the on-going concern over tables and bullets: they work just fine because the ATS is reading text strings.

7. If, after carefully entering your information into an ATS, you receive a link that takes you to another ATS and asks you to do it all over again…be encouraged! You've been invited to the “inner sanctum” of the company.

I believe the ATS is here to stay and it’s going to get better and better. As we look to new ways of finding the right people who can genuinely contribute to their employer’s success, it is only going to get better. I’m excited about it and looking forward to continuing to be a bridge between the job seeker and hiring communities.

I'd like to thank Marcia for the time she has taken to share these valuable insights. You can find out more about Forward Motion US and their resources and services here. Do please post any comments or questions below and we'll do our best to answer them.

Why are salaries such a secret?

By Neil Patrick

I've noticed a worrying trend in job advertisements. It’s been going on for a while now, but seems to be becoming the norm.

Job advertisements which use terms such as, “attractive salary and benefits”,  “salary negotiable based on experience”, or similar.

This is such a waste of everyone’s time including the employer's.

Employers and recruiters are struggling to handle the volume of applications received for many positions.

This omission of such critical information makes this problem worse. Without the benchmark of salary, both under- and over-qualified applicants will apply when many of them would either not take the job if were offered to them because the salary was too low, or will be too junior to be a serious contender.

It reeks of deviousness and destroys brand value.

What message does this send to the world? That you are open and transparent? That you are trustworthy? That you care about your employees? I’d argue that it is rightly or wrongly interpreted as, “We’ll see who applies and then with luck we’ll be able to hire someone who fits the spec, but whom we can pay far less than the market rate for the job”.

All those carefully crafted brand values are brought into question by this one simple omission.

To apply a less negative viewpoint, it’s also possible, that they are thinking, “If we get an absolute superstar applying who we have to pay over the market rate for, we don’t want to put them off applying”.

I’d argue that this is wishful thinking. Not specifying the salary or even the range, will mean that the real superstars assume the worst and ignore the vacancy. After all they are probably already being generously remunerated in their present position and they know that if someone really wants them, they’ll come knocking.

There’s no excuse.

I accept that in advance of appointing someone, it's often impossible to know the exact salary that is appropriate. An employer doesn't know who is going to get hired and what their precise experience level might be. But they’ll have a clear idea. So there’s nothing to stop them specifying a range of salaries.

I think it's just plain dumb and helps no-one including the employer.

I’d love to hear what job seekers, HR and recruitment people have to say about this, so do please post any opinions below.

Applicant tracking systems – the hidden peril for job applicants

By Neil Patrick

How to overcome the most invisible obstacle job seekers face today.

There’s a secret trap that stops great and highly qualified people getting hired. It’s the rise and rise of automated Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS). If you don’t know how these work, you are at serious risk of becoming a victim.

Here’s what you need to know.

You may have an excellent and relevant background, an impressive resume and be completely charged about working for a particular firm.

You may be by a country mile the best qualified person for the job.

But you still won’t get hired. Or even selected for interview.

And increasingly the reason is because an applicant tracking system filtered you out.

Some sources quote that as many as 75% of applicants are eliminated by ATS systems, as soon as they submit their resume, despite being qualified for the job!

In this post, I’ll explain all you need to know about ATS and what you can do to not get caught out by one. I’m sure you’ll be happy to leave those traps for your rivals!

So what is an ATS?

Applicant tracking systems are increasingly used by many employers to process job applications and to manage the hiring process. They are also sometimes known as talent management systems or job applicant tracking systems.

Applicant tracking systems automate the way companies manage the recruiting process. They extract key data from resumes and applications and store this in a database.

This information is then used for screening candidates, applicant testing, scheduling interviews, checking references, and documenting the end to end process.

Sounds good so far doesn't it? Instead of relying on the inconsistency of human screening, a machine will give everyone a fair and equal assessment.

If only that were true…

Why companies use Applicant Tracking Systems

The sheer volume of applications received for most positions today means that human reading of dozens or hundreds of applications and resumes is time consuming, expensive and prone to human error.

Applicant tracking systems are more than just administrative tools though. They are also used to provide a record of regulatory compliance and to track sources of candidates, for example where the candidate found the job posting.

How Applicant Tracking Systems work

Applicants upload their information, including their relevant experience, educational background and resume into the database. This information is transferred from one part of the system to another as the candidates move through the selection process.

So where’s the problem?

The problem with applicant tracking systems, is that they are just that. Systems. They lack human intelligence. And that’s a big problem for candidates.

If your resume isn't formatted how the system expects it to be and doesn't contain the right keywords and phrases, the applicant tracking system may well misread it and rank it as a bad match with the job, regardless of your qualifications.

And there’re no fail safe checks. That’s it. You’re out.

This weakness has been proven by research

In a test last year, Bersin & Associates created a resume for an ideal candidate for a clinical scientist position. The research firm perfectly matched the resume to the job description and submitted the resume to an applicant tracking system from Taleo, the leading maker of these systems.

When the researchers then studied how the resume appeared in the applicant tracking system, they found that one of the candidate's job positions was ignored completely simply because the resume had the dates of employment typed in before the name of the employer.

The applicant tracking system also failed to pick up several key educational qualifications the candidate held, giving a recruiter the impression that the candidate lacked the educational experience required for the job.

This perfect resume only scored a 43% relevance ranking to the job because the applicant tracking system misread it.

So your only hope for passing through an ATS successfully is to understand exactly how these systems work and to make sure you don’t get caught out.

How Applicant Tracking Systems rank your resume

Many think that applicant tracking systems rely simply on keywords to score the fit between a candidate's resume and a specific job. So they search to identify keywords in the job description and insert these keywords into their resumes.

In fact, what matters most to an ATS isn’t the number of word matches found. It’s the uniqueness or "rarity" of the keyword or the keyword phrase, i.e. those keywords and phrases specific to that particular job.

The ATS then calculates a ranking based on how closely each applicant's resume matches each keyword and phrase and only then how many of the keyword phrases each resume contains.

What recruiters see when they look at your resume on an Applicant Tracking System

But scoring shortcomings are not the end of it. An ATS also restricts what recruiters and HR people see when viewing candidates’ information on the system.

When a recruiter views a candidate whom the applicant tracking system has ranked as a good match for the job, the recruiter doesn't see the resume the candidate submitted. The recruiter sees only the information the applicant tracking system pulled from the candidate's resume into the database.

The ATS will try to identify this information on a job seeker's resume, but if a resume isn't formatted in the way the system expects it to be, it won't pull this information into the proper fields.

Sometimes, whole sections can be ignored, such as a key skills profile or an executive summary.

How to optimize your resume for an Applicant Tracking System

So if you are job seeking, ATS systems can potentially ruin your chances of getting hired. Fortunately there are some simple tips that can help ensure that the other applicants rather than you get tripped up.

Never send your resume as a PDF

ATS cannot readily structure PDF documents, so they're easily misread, or worse fail completely.

Don't include images, tables or graphs

An ATS can't read graphics and they misread tables. Instead of reading tables left to right, as a person would, applicant tracking systems read them top to bottom and consequently the information can get jumbled or missed altogether. So don’t be tempted to use images, boxes, tables or graphs anywhere in your resume.

You may choose to submit a longer resume

The length of your resume doesn't matter to an applicant tracking system. It will scan your whole resume regardless of its length. Because a longer resume allows you to include more of your relevant experience this may enable you to improve your ranking in the system.

However do not overdo this. If you get through the ATS screening, real people will still be reading your resume, so you still need to keep it concise and present it in a way which communicates your main strengths as clearly as possible.

Label your work experience, "Work Experience":

You may have chosen to refer to your work experience on your resume under headings such as "Professional Experience" or "Key Achievements". Don’t. Some people get very creative with their resumes because they think it will help them stand out, but in fact it damages your prospects once an ATS gets involved. Don’t run the risk of letting the computer miss your work experience just because you didn't label it as such.

Don't start your work experience with dates

To ensure applicant tracking systems read and import your work experience properly, always start it with your employer's name, followed by your title. Finally add the dates you held that title. It’s wise to give each of these pieces of information its own line. Applicant tracking systems look for company names first. By the same token, you should never start an entry about your work experience with the dates you held the position.

Follow these tips and at the very least an ATS should give your resume a fair assessment. And with luck your biggest rivals won’t know how to dodge these traps!

My friend and ATS expert Marcia LaReau at Forward Motion has also written a detailed guide for job seekers on how to format their resumes and cover letters to ensure you don't get caught out. I recommend you check it out. Just follow this link. 

Update: I have also just secured an in depth interview in which Marcia reveals the results of her two years of testing ATS systems and what every job seeker can do to avoid getting tripped up. The post with the full interview is here.

Why you should be truthful about your qualifications

By Neil Patrick

As many as one third of job applicants admit to lying on their job applications. But if they got away with it before, it’s about to get a whole lot harder.

A couple of weeks ago I posted here about the issue of people being ‘liberal’ in how they presented themselves on their LinkedIn profiles. It’s a dumb move and one which can lead to disastrous outcomes for employees and employers alike.

While I was researching for that post, I came across some interesting news that alleged that ‘degree fraud’ in the UK had been found to be most prevalent amongst older job applicants.

The types of fraud I refer to range from non-existent qualifications in some cases through doctored certificates to show higher grades to awards from non-existent academic institutions.

I had assumed (wrongly as it turns out) that it was simple for an employer to verify an applicant’s qualifications through a central database.

Not so.

Amazingly until now there has been no central database of information from academic institutions that allows simple checks to be made.

But that is all changing. The Higher Education Degree Datacheck (HEDD) is intended as the first port of call for any individuals or organisations seeking degree verification. It can be used to check that a UK higher education provider existed and was approved by the UK government at a given date. It provides contact details to direct the user to the appropriate records office for their query.

It is particularly useful for employers and postgraduate course providers wanting to verify degree results, and for graduates to request transcripts and replacement certificates.

HEDD is funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) to address these issues and direct those seeking information to the correct body to answer their query. HEDD is managed by the Higher Education Careers Services Unit (HECSU) on behalf of Universities UK and Guild HE.

I contacted Jayne Rowley, Director of Business Services at HEDD as I was keen to know more. Jayne told me that:

“80% of major graduate recruiters rely on CVs and degree certificates. Only 20% actually check with the issuing university. For smaller businesses we think it’s even worse. Our office wall is a rogue’s gallery of fake or doctored certificates and we list more than 140 bogus universities on the university look up service on the website”.

When HEDD did their original research prior to the service being was set up, they questioned employers about why they didn’t check. The main reasons cited were that they weren’t aware that fraud was a big problem and that there was no easy central way to make the checks.

Jayne said, “Every HR survey we’ve seen shows that about 1/3 of people admit to lying on job applications and the most common lie is about qualifications”.

Clearly this is a massive problem. But according to Jayne, the highest incidence of degree fraud occurs amongst older applicants:

“Even though there are many more enquiries about recent graduates, there are more 'errors' in HEDD enquiries about older graduates and it is disproportionate to the number of enquiries when compared to the checks on recent graduates.

We also carry out research with employers about their verification practices. The conclusions we draw on older people not getting checked are because they are assumed to have been checked earlier in their career, or because the focus is on their experience”.

So the situation is clear. If you are ever tempted to lie about your qualifications, don’t even consider it; you will get found out. The loopholes that previously existed are closing fast. Play to your strengths, invest your time and efforts in your interview skills instead and win fair and square.

And if you are an employer or HR person hiring in the UK, I recommend you check out the HEDD service. Here’s the link: https://www.hedd.ac.uk/aboutHedd.htm

I’d like to thank Jayne Rowley and her team at HEDD for talking to me and wish them well in their important work.

Your Linkedin profile – why you should tell the truth

By Neil Patrick

Last week, my good friend Axel Kőster at the Manhattan Group and I were chatting about the impact of social media on the recruitment industry.

At one point, Axel mentioned that many of the job applicants’ LinkedIn profiles he sees turn out to contain inaccuracies. Usually they are small, like exaggerating the importance of a project the person worked on. But sometimes they are huge, like alleging a qualification which the person hasn’t actually completed.

He also sees profiles where the person doesn’t list their full employment history. Others add time to show a longer length of stay in their appointment and remove positions which didn’t work out. And one of the most common exaggerations is a more senior title than the person actually held.

And Axel’s experience is verified by research. A study by recruitment firm Employment Office of 300 employers, found 82% of respondents believed candidates lied or exaggerated their skills and experience on their LinkedIn profiles.

The reasons this is happening are many, but most fall under these headings:

• The jobs market remains fiercely competitive and people will try to squeeze any advantage they can even if that means exaggerating a bit on LinkedIn 

• Many LinkedIn users approach LinkedIn primarily as a networking tool. Their profiles reflect this approach and if they are not actually job hunting, merely seeking to connect with others, they see no foul in being ‘liberal’ in how they present themselves on LinkedIn. 

• There are no direct penalties for anyone who chooses to tell lies on their profile. 

This is counter-productive for both applicants AND employers.

How can this be?

Over at the Marketing Eye blog, Mellissah Smith tells this story:

A current employee brought to my attention a previous unpaid intern, who then became a one to two day per week marketing assistant during her University holidays. She was only a casual employee, yet stated the following on LinkedIn: 

I Managed up to 30 clients (the portfolio in that particular office didn’t have 30 clients, she had no management duties whatsoever and was given tasks from time to time, but was strictly a marketing coordinator who at times had the opportunity to put together the first draft of marketing copy, that then went to an in-house writer and marketing manager) 

I Managed up to 8 staff (the office didn’t have 8 staff and certainly as a marketing coordinator, with senior managers and the owner in the office, it is impossible she managed any staff at all). From time to time she gave unpaid interns work to do like following people on Twitter, search engine optimization or even having a go at writing the basis of a marketing strategy, but certainly NEVER did she manage any staff.

Since she left in January, she wrote that she worked fulltime as a marketing coordinator for 1.1 years at Marketing Eye. She has had two jobs since leaving in January – possibly the lies caught up with her but her equally impressive resume continues on LinkedIn. She had fulltime hours for 8 weeks only and that was broken up with 3 weeks holidays which she was not paid for because she was a casual.

So where’s the damage?

If the applicant gets away with their deception, then surely it is the employer’s own fault for not being sufficiently rigorous in their due diligence to verify the accuracy of the claims made? But this isn’t the point. The damage caused goes way beyond the costs of hiring a person whose abilities are not as great as you thought.

How come?

Here’s another case from Mellissah at Marketing Eye:

Last year I hired a person who on paper had exceptional qualifications and upon ringing her last supposed supervisor, received a glowing report.

We employed her, and within days, realised that she had never written a marketing strategy, engaged in any public relations activities, organised the booking of an advertisement, done any social media, direct marketing or any marketing other than working on a trade booth and coordinating companies who put their brands on Coles’ shelves.

Clearly, her reference was a friend and she did not have any experience in marketing. She later admitted to this confirming she took the job because she wanted to gain experience.

At a high-salary level and due to the fact she had worked with big brands, we let her loose after training her on the administrative side of consultancy and helping her get up-to-date with client work. She also took over from an exceptional marketing manager who excelled in every area of marketing and was completely thorough in every aspect of working with clients and in her hand-over – which made the issue even bigger.

The result: We lost clients, our reputation was in tatters with the clients she was let loose on and with some people, we will never be able to buy back that perception of our brand.

Inaccurate LinkedIn profiles do untold damage to employers and their reputations. 

The stakes are clearly high for employers. It is imperative that they do not place too much faith in a LinkedIn profile and must carry out thorough verification of the facts before hiring a candidate, even if their references are glowing.

But it goes beyond merely the hiring process. Your former employees haver the potential to do damage to your reputation AFTER they have left your organisation. So there’s a good argument for keeping on tabs on what your previous employees say on LinkedIn they did whilst they worked for you.

But what are the risks for employees of lying? 

There are no obvious downsides are there? I’d argue to the contrary:

Unlike your resume, everyone can see your LinkedIn profile … whereas the only people who see your resume are the people you choose to send it to. So if you are lying on LinkedIn you are much more likely to be found out.

Your LinkedIn profile must be treated with care and attention. Just as a sloppy profile suggests poor attention to detail, an incorrect one brings your trustworthiness into question. You are declaring to the world that this is who I am, this is my experience and these are my accomplishments.

Once you have been exposed as being careless with how you present yourself, your status as a diligent professional is at once brought into question. And that’s not helpful if you make your living based on your skills and credibility…

Finally, make no mistake that employers and recruiters are both getting wise to such tricks. LinkedIn lies might get you onto a short list, or even an interview… but you are more and more likely to get found out as recruitment processes adjust to close down this weakness. Don’t waste your time and other people’s…it will do you no good in the long run.

As for employers, it is clear that:

It’s your reputation that your former employees are representing on their LinkedIn profile. When they move to their next employer, it’s your brand that they are ambassadors of. Do you really wish to be seen as a business that for whatever reason hires untrustworthy individuals?

In this increasingly connected world, it makes sense to think not just about your own business, but the wider business community you are a part of. It pays to be a responsible citizen. By taking the time to do thorough reference checks, you are not only protecting yourself, you are also doing your bit to expose those who try to cheat and make them think twice about continuing with their deceptions.

Last, but not least, the internet is as good or as bad as the behaviours of the people that use it. See yourself as part of the solution, not a perpetuator of the problem. So, next time you are considering giving someone an endorsement on LinkedIn, ask yourself, ‘Do I really know this person deserves this?’

If you have experience of or opinions about this topic, do please share them below.

Job fit - the key to understanding who gets hired

BY MARCIA LAREAU

Recruiters talk a lot about finding a good fit. Do you know what this really means? The answer may surprise you as Marcia La Reau explains here.

After an interview, jobseekers often say, “I hope I get that job…it’s a good fit.” 

When I read Human Resource and Recruiter blogs about hiring, they are constantly asking about job fit. And yesterday, a potential client spent about 90 minutes telling me about her current job, which could be summarized by, “It’s just not a good fit.”

What amazes me is that everyone is talking about something different. Job security is greatly dependent on fit, so attending to this single factor is critical. 

* * *

Sam was escorted to a room for his interview. There was a table with a chair and a few other chairs were pushed against the wall. A small side table sported a few magazines.

He checked the papers in his portfolio and felt his tie to make sure it was straight. He was early. He picked up a magazine and found an interesting article.

A young man entered the room and sat down at the table. He was wearing shorts, a wrinkled tee shirt and tennis shoes—no socks. He sat down at the table and placed a tablet and some papers on the table. Sam nodded and returned to his magazine.

After several minutes, the young man said, “Hi. I’m Cam…Cameron.” Sam smiled and said, “I’m Sam.” …and returned to his magazine as he checked his watch.

After a few more minutes, Cam said. “Well, how about if we get started with the interview.” Sam couldn’t believe it. THIS was the person who was going to interview HIM?

The interview continued for about 10 minutes and finally Cam said, “If you are having a problem with me, and that’s obviously the case, then this place is not going to be a good fit for you.” The interview was over. 

* * *

Recently a client was telling me about a lesson learned earlier in his career. He reported to the CEO of a large multi-national firm. They were interviewing for a Senior Vice President of Sales for North America.

After a finalist left the CEO’s office, my client said, “ He seems to be a perfect fit.” The CEO replied, “We will not be hiring him. His suit was slightly wrinkled, and it didn’t quite fit.” The decision was final. 

* * *

Job fit—by whose definition?
When I have a spare moment, I spend my time reading and listening to hiring professionals from recruiters, HR professionals to hiring managers—anyone involved with the hiring process.

What do recruiters look for?
This topic is central. Jorg Stegemann is a leading international recruiter with Kennedy Executive. In a recent post, How To Hire Someone: Checklist (7 Tips), Jorg asks if the candidate has 70% of the technical requirements and 100% of the personal requirements.

Other questions on Jorg’s list included:

1. Do I trust the candidate?
2. Do I want him to represent the company when I’m not around?
3. Can I imagine the candidate with my team? Does it look good to me?

Only one of his seven points address skill sets. The other six are about fit! Now do you see why I blog about this topic a lot? Most jobseekers think it’s all about their skills! It isn’t.

Candidates tend to focus their idea of job fit on skills and experience. Managers concentrate on the ramp-up time and the energy it will take to get a candidate to the point of adding value.

How about HR? Same as recruiters…or different?
A recent survey of online HR chat can be summarized in this article on the top 10 HR issues.

The top three issues cited here are retention, recruitment, and productivity. 

Here are a few quick excerpts that reinforce the point:

• Employees are the lifeblood of the company.
• Your business will also have invested significant time and money into ensuring maximum productivity wherever possible.
• The second major challenge facing the Human Resources’ department is recruitment of talent. Finding staff with the correct blend of skills, personality and motivation is difficult.
• The HR department needs to provide each employee with the right combination of culture, remuneration, and incentives.

My point is this: Human Resource professionals define job fit in terms of productivity. Also consider that when a company doesn’t make its profit margins, HR gets blamed for not hiring the right people…no pressure huh?

Please consider reading this article on The Science of Hiring. It focuses on job fit from the HR perspective.

What is important to the hiring manager?
The criterion of Hiring managers may not be essentially different than HR, however, the manner in which it is expressed will be.

Hiring managers look for the candidate that will be able to quickly become a member of the team and bring tangible value. It’s a combination of the time it will take to integrate into the team, embrace the tools to do the job, and produce the product that meets the need at hand.

This article sites three essentials and all of them assume that the skill sets, education, and experience are in place.

What are the essentials?

1. Credibility and reliability. The real issue was dependability.
2. Teamplayerism. This was about social skills.
3. 110-percentism. This addresses “self-directed enough, without a lot of hand-holding…”

Note that none of these are tangibles like an MBA or 7 years experience in a lab, or the ability to use specific software. The success factors deal with personal attributes and character traits.

And what about the jobseeker?

Jobseekers rarely think in terms of the concerns outlined here. Their idea of “fit” focuses on how comfortable they are with their colleagues, whether they get along well. Jobseekers concern themselves with the energy level of the environment, whether they can work at home, and if there will be work-life balance.

There is nothing wrong with those concerns and they are prime considerations. However they should not be the focus during an interview. The consequence of taking this mind-set into an interview is to send the message, “This is all about my comfort in the office.” That won’t win an interview.

Do business ALWAYS look for job fit?
The answer is YES and NO.

A careful read of a job posting should reveal whether the position is part of a change initiative. When a company is going through change, then they may look to hire people who have a different approach to problem-solving than the current staff. AND…yes, most companies are going through continuous change.

However, a prime candidate will be someone who can bring change with the least amount of angst—someone who can smoothly work through change without undo interruption to productivity as work-flow processes adjust to meet new business directives.

Understanding the differences in the needs of each player in the hiring process is critical and I hope this article helped. The next step is to clearly and succinctly demonstrate your attributes on your cover letter and résumé so each audience understands your value.

Need help?
That’s what we do in the Forward Motion Differentiation Workshop. This workshop is offered all over the U.S.

Called a Creative Thinker, Career Futurist, and a person of unusual solution, Marcia LaReau founded Forward Motion, LLC in 2007. Since that time, she has become a recognized leader in the employment industry, and Forward Motion has spread across the United States and abroad to help jobseekers find jobs that fit.

Website: http://forwardmotioncareers.com/
Blog: http://forwardmotioncareers.com