How and why you should want to get hired by a start-up

By Neil Patrick

Warning: This post is an announcement (but doesn't contain nuts)

Not all start-ups look like this. Fortunately. Photo credit: Erin Siegal

Start-up activity in the US has been slowing since the explosion of the 80s and 90s which ultimately prepared the way for Google. Amazon, Uber, Facebook and many more of today’s biggest employers. But these giants of tech are by no means the only types of businesses which are creating jobs. Across all sectors, start-ups are springing up everywhere.

Meanwhile Twitter, Intel and Microsoft are shedding jobs – looking more like the disrupted than the disruptors.

But not all start-ups are tech companies, and not all tech companies are start-ups.

So the news about start-ups can be very confusing and off-putting for job-seekers. Yet I contend that it shouldn’t be so.

Start-ups don’t need to be successful for people to acquire hugely valuable skills and earn money.

I haven’t written a huge amount about start-ups. Which on reflection is odd, since I have been a founder of three so far, including the biggest ever venture capital funded start-up in the UK.

So I’m delighted to announce my new column about this topic which is being hosted by the very wonderful job-hunt.org.

Job-hunt.org is probably the most comprehensive online information resource for job-seekers available today. It was founded in 1998 by career expert Susan Joyce, a veteran of the United States Marine Corps and a recent Visiting Scholar at the MIT Sloan School of Management

My friend Patricia Frame (also a contributor to job-hunt.org) introduced me to Susan Joyce at job-hunt.org several weeks ago and we soon got talking about the subject of jobs at start-ups. Not only have I not written much about it, neither has anyone else it seems!

Which is doubly odd, because no business columnist can seem to stop writing about entrepreneurs, disruption and digital businesses. But the mainstream media are obsessed with the entrepreneur hero archetype, whereas I'm  more interested in the people that work in start-ups rather than just the people that start and lead them.

Anyway, the outcome was that I accepted Susan’s invitation to write a column at job-hunt.org about the reality of working for a start-up. What it’s like. How to get hired by one and how to excel in this unique and exciting work environment.

And critically, how to tell the next superstars from the lemons.

Start-ups are not just for boys with beards, they are for everyone.

I honestly think there are way too many myths, assumptions and prejudices about start-ups which are hurting both job-seekers and employers.

It’s time to re-evaluate things and I hope this new column will assist people who are more interested in working for the disruptors than the disrupted.

If you want to know why, and how you can turn the risks to your advantage, head over to my new column at job-hunt.org here, and find out.

See you there.

P.S. My weekly ramblings will continue as usual here.

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.

Should we all turn off Linkedin Notifications permanently?

By Neil Patrick

The number one trap that inexperienced Linkedin users seem to get caught out by is its activity broadcast settings. In a misguided attempt to help members promote themselves, everytime you make a change to your profile, give an endorsement or follow someone, Linkedin will send an automated message to all your contacts telling them that you’ve done it.

Now I think automatic notifications are pretty annoying. But this particular one is potentially catastrophic for jobseekers.

How?

Just think about it. If you have just lost your job, you cannot show you are still employed in your old job (at least not if you don’t want to risk being caught out by your next employer or a recruiter who checks you out).

In this situation, many people engage in volunteering, contract work or consultancy whilst they are job-hunting. It keeps you sharp, earns you some money and expands your network. It also keeps the dreaded word “Unemployed” off your profile.

All good so far.

But here's where the trap surfaces.

Most people rightly update their Linkedin profile to reflect this change. And since getting hired is now a priority, it’s natural and sensible to make sure your profile is as good as you can make it. So you might update your LinkedIn profile to say something like your current position is “Owner of XYZ Consulting”. Update and expand details of your skills and experience. Reach out to people in your network and make new connections. Or whatever.

However, the moment you make a change to your job title and/or employer, the LinkedIn auto messaging kicks in and sends a message to everyone of your contacts telling them you’ve got a new job! Erm...

At a stroke you’ve broadcast to everyone in you network PLUS potential employers searching for someone with your skills that you are now off the market. But the reality is you’re just starting your job search. And that’s a disaster.

It’s often made worse by the fact that it’s fairly normal to make changes gradually over a few days or weeks as we attempt to revise and update our profile to make it more suitable for our current aspirations. And every time we do, out goes another notification to our contacts.

The problem is that the default setting for Linkedin profile broadcast setting is ‘ON’. Fortunately it’s simple enough to turn it OFF. It’s just that unless you know your way around Linkedin's settings, it’s not very obvious how to do this.

So here’s a simple step by step to do this:

1. Go to your account settings by clicking on your image in the top bar and click on "Manage" against the Privacy and Settings option:

2. Within the Privacy Controls menu, select "Turn on/off your activity broadcasts"

3. Untick the broadcast box when it opens and then click the "Save changes" button:

That’s it. You can now happily make changes to your profile without LinkedIn telling everyone about it every time you do this.

You can revise, enhance, expand, update and polish your profile as much as you wish without annoying your contacts with notifications about it.

There is an important footnote to be aware of however. Turning activity updates off will NOT stop Linkedin sending activity updates when you do these things:


1) Add or change your profile photo.

2) Connect with other LinkedIn members. However, you can effectively turn this notification off when you make a new connection by hiding your connection list.

3) Share content.

4) Follow a company.

5) Upgrade your account to premium. (However this doesn't apply to Job Seeker subscriptions).

6) Follow an Influencer, Channel, or Publisher.

7) “Like” shared content.

8)  Engage in group activity. However, you do have the option to turn this off within your Group settings; if you don’t, your activity will be posted. This is optional depending on your personal privacy settings.

9) Reach an anniversary in your career eg. When you have spent 3 years at XYZ Corp..


Nb Because I am fairly active on Linkedin, I keep my Linkedin notifications permanently OFF. I don’t want to fill my busy contacts' messages boxes with automatic notifications every time I update my profile – they've got better things to do than read automatic notifications from me I reckon…

What do you think? Is it time we petitioned Linkedin to change the default setting to Off?

Who employs older workers?

By Neil Patrick

There are always plenty of opinions floating around about which types of business employ younger people and whether or not this is fair or even sensible. I have expressed my own views on this often enough on this and other blogs.

Today though I opted for a different tack. I thought I’d run some numbers and see what they revealed.

This was by no means an exhaustive study, but I was amazed by what I found.

I expected there to be few discernible patterns and yet I found quite the opposite. This quick dip into the numbers showed conclusively that there is a huge variation across business sectors when it comes to the age of their staff.

My method was simple enough. I just took the average age of employee as recorded in the Sunday Times top 50 best UK companies to work for as reported for 2014.

To calculate a simple benchmark, assuming a normal distribution curve based on an age range of 18 years to 65 years old, the mean age of employees should be 41 years. Higher than this means the workforce is older; and vice versa.

Now of course this assumes also that the available workers for each age group are the same, which of course, they are not. The baby boomers for example created a significant swelling of their age group as a proportion of the total population. So my purely mathematical average cannot be taken as wholly accurate – just a rough approximation.

Meet the new boss...

I simply wanted to discover which, if any sectors had demonstrably older workers and which ones had younger workers.

Since the average age of employee is not a significant factor in the Sunday times’ ranking, we can take this as a more or less randomised sample of the age profiles of people working in UK businesses today.

Moreover, every one of these firms has been assessed to be well liked by their employees, so they also represent some of our best employers.

So based on this data, here is the average age of employee at the top 50’s best UK firms to work for which I have re-ranked by oldest average age of employee to youngest (the original list rank is also shown in the first column):

N.b. I am not suggesting that my re-ranking makes any of these companies more or less ageist. There are plenty of perfectly valid and legitimate reasons why a company might have an older or younger age profile within its workforce.

What I was interested in was to see if there were any patterns when I re-ranked the list - and there certainly are.

The two firms ranking first and second are both from the same sector – contract catering.

Three of my list’s top 10 are from the pharmaceutical/medical sectors.

On the other hand, four of the five firms at the youngest end of this list were from two sectors – recruitment and financial services.

This list reveals other facts too. First the range of average ages 45 at oldest to 21 at youngest, reveals a huge range of age profiles across the sample firms – clearly if you are only in your early forties, you are already well past the average age of the majority of sectors’ employees.

Second, taking the approximate average age we’d expect to see – c.41 years - only 6 firms (12% of the list) had an average age that was older than this.

To sum it up, if you are over 40 and looking for work, contract catering looks like your best bet unless you have experience from the pharmaceutical sector…

What do the best career coaches actually do?

By Neil Patrick

Do you need a career coach? How do you find the best career coach for your requirements?  

Career coaching is a new and high growth industry. There are over 300 coaches following me on Twitter alone. It’s arisen because as job search becomes ever more competitive and challenging, people are discovering the hard way that being really good at what you do is no longer enough to ensure that you have a successful career.

The best career coaches provide the insight and key skills that people need to reach their career ambitions. Whether that’s finding and getting hired into a new job, moving forward in an existing career, or making a complete change of direction mid-career.

But with so many coaches out there, how do you know what to look for to find the best coach for you?

Do you even need a career coach?

So I turned to my good friend Marcia LaReau, founder and President of Forward Motion US to try and find some answers to these questions. Marcia is exceptionally well qualified to deal with this subject. Since founding Forward Motion, Marcia has helped hundreds of people succeed in overcoming their career obstacles.

NP: Marcia, why do you think career coaching is needed at all?

ML: Thank you Neil. First I’d like to say that the definition of career coaching has changed dramatically with the economic situation. As we become a global, technology-driven economy, the very core attributes that are needed for businesses to succeed is changing. That in turn has changed career coaching.

Prior to the Great Recession we believed that we could define what we liked and enjoyed and pursue that as a career. At that time career coaches helped their clients identify what they liked and enjoyed and then helped them find a place where they could do those things, get paid a living wage and hopefully, grow their career. It was a long-term outlook.

Today this isn’t enough. It’s still important for a person to understand what they enjoy; however, businesses have been under a mandate to cut costs, increase profit margins and get everything out of their employees that they can. I don’t’ mean to infer that businesses are all being run by inhumane ogres. Many businesses are simply trying to survive. I also don’t mean to infer that there isn’t a fair amount of inordinate greed that causes companies to drive their employees past what is reasonable.

Let me get back to career coaching—the point here is that companies do not have the capacity to focus on the career growth of their employees (unless it is part of their succession plan and directly benefits the company). So today, everyone who wants to work is in charge of their career development and the direction they will pursue.

The scope of doing this is huge! People have to be aware of their core attributes from a business perspective. They have to position themselves both online and in the business community as a viable, credible resource in their areas of expertise. Then they have to understand the changes in their industry and how they can remain viable in a changing market. It’s a lot!

Today’s career coach is also a job coach and understands the hiring processes and the employment market. A career/job coach guides their clients to maneuver through the distractions to identify the employment goal and scope out an effective path to get there. In the process their client should (in my opinion) learn how to manage their career so they are proactive with regard to their future security.

Without a career coach, many people have become resigned to the idea that if they get a job that gives them a living wage, then they should be grateful and settle…even if they don’t like what they are doing for eight to 10 hours a day (or more), five to six days a week.

NP: Should someone use career coaching when they have a job, or is it really just for when they are facing unemployment?

ML: Businesses, industries are changing at record speed today. In my opinion, everyone should have a career coach and check in with him or her at least once a quarter and more often if there are signs that a business is losing its place in the market. Further, it is expected that everyone will change jobs every three to four years. It could be within a company, but not necessarily.

I believe every person who wants to work for more than five years should engage with a career coach as someone who is watching their industry and market and identifying potential disruptions that could cause an unwanted financial situation. In addition, the career coach should be looking for opportunities to grow potential earnings and help the client maintain their credibility in the industry and move their career in the direction that suits their long-term goals.

All the people that I talk to want to end their career strong. Today that is easier said than done!

NP: Does everyone need it, or are some job sectors more suited to it than others?

ML: Disruptive innovations such as Big Data and social media are changing the landscape of every job sector. So in my opinion, everyone should have a regular “career checkup” with a qualified career coach.

NP: If someone loses his or her job and money is consequently really tight, how can anyone justify spending money on coaching?

ML: How can they NOT justify it? One of the primary goals at Forward Motion is to reduce the time to employment. A good career coach should reduce the number of weeks of unemployment significantly.

Let’s say that a standard (non-executive) job search costs between $2K and $3,500. If a person makes, let’s say $52,000 a year. So the job search costs less than one month of salary. AND if the average job search is approximately six to eight months, and the job coach reduces that by four months, then the client is now $12,000 ahead because they spent $3K on a career coach.

Also, with a career coach, the chances a person will get a better job at a better salary, increases significantly.

NP: Tell me about the typical problems people come to you with?

ML: Their situations run the gamut of the imagination. Some people just have no idea how to go about the job search. They are bewildered and overwhelmed. Others have tried everything they can think of and used every available cost-free option they could find—nothing worked and the finally called me.

Some people are in industries that are failing or have already died and need to assess their transferrable skills and/or re-credential themselves and figure out how to get a new career path without having to start from scratch at as an entry-level employee.

And then there are the early-career millenials who see record-high unemployment numbers in their college friends. They don’t just want a job, but they want to do something that brings value and doesn’t just fill the pockets of corporate business owners and investors.

Finally, about 30% of my business includes executives, who many times have reached out to their network and come up empty. Executives, more than any other group, come to me earlier in their job search. They know they need help and that they aren’t an expert and they want someone who can advise them.

NP: And how does coaching help people overcome these problems?

ML: A good career coach knows the market and the current hiring practices. They can put together a customized program that will reduce the time to employment through a carefully designed, flexible search strategy.

A truly dynamic jobsearch strategy is anything but a shotgun approach where people apply for a ton of opportunities and hope something happens.

I believe that an effective program sets a foundation for the search by identifying the most viable employment opportunities where the jobseeker is found credible, and where they qualify for the jobs. Then they must create an airtight identity both online and through their application materials. That includes a stunningly polished and customizable cover letter and résumé. With the foundation in place, we apply for 5 jobs and find out how what happens. We then rework the materials and apply for five more jobs. Within two or three iterations, the client is getting calls for jobs that are a good fit.

NP: What can you tell me about your success rates?

ML: First, I don’t abandon clients. If they are diligent and conduct themselves in a professional manner, then we will work until they are hired. It’s harder in some industries than in others.

Nonetheless:

- 98% of Forward Motion clients get hired
- 76% of mid-career clients get hired in 68 days
- 96% of early-career clients get hired in 45 days

NP: If someone is considering career coaching, how should they go about finding the best coach for them?

ML: First, there should be a good fit from a relationship perspective. In other words, there should be open communication. A good career/job coach sometimes has to say things that are personal and private. The relationship should develop so that when comments are made, that are difficult to hear from the jobseekers perspective, the jobseeker knows it is being said with his or her best interest in mind. So the relationship must be candid and comfortable.

Second, the career coach should be someone who diligently wants to get place his or her client in a new job. This is tricky since the jobseeker brings in income for the career coach. There are some career coaches who want to sustain the relationship to earn more income. I am sorry to report this. I handle this by putting a cap on the cost of the jobsearch. So the jobseeker knows that expenses won’t get out of hand.

NP: What does it cost? And are there any things you’d caution people about?

ML: I try to provide my clients with choices around the costs. An early-career search may go as high as $2,500. A mid-career (non-executive) search may double that number although I haven’t had anyone do that. Executives are a different ballgame and it depends on how much he or she wants to do and how much I would do. So an executive search might be as little as $2500 and include no more than a stellar résumé, or it could be as high as $20K and include the total management of a jobsearch.

NP: Thanks Marcia.

ML: Thanks Neil.

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.

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.

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.

Priorities and time management for an effective job search

By Neil Patrick

The myth we can have everything continues to delude us

There’s an explosion of self-help books, podcasts, webinars, forums. It’s become a multi-billion dollar industry. People spend their money AND time so they can change something about themselves they are not happy with.

People think they want to start a business. They think they want to lose weight. They think they want to become an expert musician. But they don’t REALLY want it. What they fall in love with is the pure attractiveness of the thought. And the myth that we can have everything.

People become enamoured with the idea of their goals rather than the reality of the commitment that’s required to achieve them.

They want to have it all.

Well we cannot. Not you, not I, not anyone.

Everything in life costs time or money or both

Everyone who is a true star at something has a talent for sure, but also dedicates themselves to it.

The idea we can have everything sets us up to fail from the start. But we persist in the belief that we can always have more, we just have to find a bit more time to get it.

So one thing that everyone seems to want more of is time. Including jobseekers.

Tim Ferriss, spotted this emerging market early and made I am sure a very good return on his bestselling book “The Four-Hour Work Week”.

Who wouldn’t like to work just four hours a week and spend the rest of their time doing…well whatever they felt like?

It’s a very seductive idea of course. And the many thousands who bought that book prove this. But it's the idea, not the reality involved in achieving this nirvana which seduces us.

Our number one excuse is time

We deceive ourselves that our lives would be so much better if we had almost infinite freedom to do just about whatever we wanted.

Being too busy is the most tempting excuse. We kid ourselves that if we had more time we’d achieve more.

Well we can’t. And we won’t. Time is finite. Everyone has the same amount every single day.

The only choice we really have is how we spend those hours.

And we still waste that time every day

A while ago I was facilitating a workshop with a group of senior managers. It was about project management. I asked them how much time they spent on their A tasks…the things that they needed to do to achieve their personal objectives that they would be appraised on.

I thought this was a fair way to get them to focus on the most important things they needed to do every day.

And almost all of them said they spent the first couple of hours every day reading and replying to emails. Whilst I am sure many of them worked more than 8 hours a day, that’s still around 25% of their available time spent on admin.

Moreover it was their best time...the time when they were most alert and able to be productive.

Next I asked them what were the biggest organisational problems they faced? The number one answer was communication. Huh?

The urgent stuff was stopping them doing the important stuff

Or what they thought was the urgent stuff.

And the reason they had a communication problem was that no-one actually talked enough to their colleagues. They were all too busy reading and replying to their emails.

What really mattered was communicating the important things and doing it fast. And the fastest way I know to communicate with someone isn’t to send them an email. It’s to speak to them.

How can that be you say? An email is instant. Except it usually isn’t. It’s usually a chain of back and forth commentary and remarks which often spreads out over days. And how long does it take you to write an email? Unless you’re an expert touch typist, I bet it’s much longer than it is to actually say it…

A person to person live conversation is two way and simultaneous. It allows you to reach a conclusion. Not next week, but NOW.

That’s where we fail. We let the things which are most demanding of our attention get it. Even if we know that it’s not really the most important or valuable thing we have to do that day.

The trouble is that we feel so much better when we know we’ve answered all those emails. We think that our team isn’t kept waiting for our decision. Our boss has the information he needs for his report. Our peers won’t accuse us of holding them up or being uncooperative.

That’s a good feeling right? Yes it is. But it also means we have sacrificed one of our most important assets - time - just to get that good feeling.

“I cannot do x because I’m just too busy”.

Bullshit. You either want to do something or you don’t. We often like the idea of doing something, but when it comes down to it, we don’t actually really want to do it.

This isn’t just time management, it’s success or failure

But here’s the problem. Just about every professional person I know that has a job is money rich and time poor. And just about every unemployed person I know is money poor and time rich.

Except they are not. Their time is simply gobbled up by the non-productive tasks in their job search.

Or what they tell themselves is their job search activity.

I’m networking. I’m searching for vacancies. I’m polishing my resume. I applied to 20 jobs this week alone! I’m so busy!

That’s the danger. Letting the most at hand tasks get in the way of the most important ones.

And if you are jobseeking that needs to be the activities which are most likely to lead you to getting hired fast.

Why this is even more critical when you’re job seeking

You may think I am talking nonsense. That I don’t understand just how demanding a schedule you have set yourself. And how hard you are working.

So ask yourself this question:

How do you rank the priorities and most value-producing activities involved in your job search?

If you cannot answer this question, then you have your answer…you need to know what they are.

I cannot make that list for you. But I can suggest some likely candidates for it.

Some things that I think should be at the bottom (or not even on) the list are:

• Searching job boards
• Browsing newspaper and magazine job ads
• Uploading your resume to online databases
• Emailing people asking if they know of any vacancies
• Calling up recruitment firms
• Improving your resume
• Getting more qualifications

Some things which probably should be towards the top of the list are: 

• Creating a search optimised Linkedin profile
• Setting up newsfeeds for organisations in your sector
• Improving your social media profiles
• Following relevant people and organisations on social media
• Sharing and commenting on the content of relevant thought leaders
• Talking to people in your network who already work in your target sector
• Growing your network of connections in your industry
• Making appointments to talk with people that may be able to help you

And last but not least, getting off your computer and talking to as many relevant people as you can face to face. At every opportunity.

You may not agree with my lists. That’s fine. But I am sure that somewhere in your daily schedule is something that you know is robbing you of time. And if you’re really honest with yourself you already know what it is…

An extra way to get found by recruiters when you are jobseeking

By Neil Patrick

I’m always thinking about ways I can make this blog and my Twitter account more valuable for jobseekers.

And this morning I had a flash of inspiration.

I have a lot of recruiters who follow my Twitter account - 500 at least. I also have a lot of job seekers.

But it occurred to me that jobseekers usually don’t have a lot of recruiters following them on Twitter. And recruiters are always looking for ways to find candidates.

So I have decided to try something new.

I have set up a new list on my Twitter account that any jobseeker that wishes to can appear on. Just send me a tweet if you are jobseeking and I’ll add you to the list.

The list is called “My job seeking friends”.

I have no idea what the results will be. Or how many people will join the list. All I know is that the people that join it first will be the most visible because they will be at the top of the list.

There’s no cost, no catches and no downsides that I can think of. It’s no more and no less than it appears.

I’d suggest that if you do this, you also make sure that your Twitter bio contains a link to your Linkedin profile. That way recruiters can go straight to your Linkedin profile.

It’s an experiment I admit, but you have nothing to lose if you are job seeking. Just let me know and I’ll be happy to put you on the list.

I’ll also tweet about it to encourage recruiters to view the list.

It might be a total flop, I don’t know.

But I’m ready to give it a try!

If you are a jobseeker or recruiter I’ll be happy to hear what you think!

Why the wrong people get hired and how to turn this to your advantage

By Neil Patrick

There are a lot of very average people that get hired simply because they fit a template. 

It’s not because these people are special. It’s because archaic approaches to selection have proved to be astonishingly persistent in many organisations. If you don't believe me, I think you'll change your mind, when you read some of the examples below, at least some of which I am sure you'll have personal experience of.

When these flawed approaches are combined with some bizarre thinking, it’s unlikely the best person for the job will be selected.

You cannot change this fact, but if you know what the process flaws are, you can use this knowledge to your advantage.

I’ve been talking to several recruiters recently about their businesses and how they and their clients go about the process of selection. And it’s clear the best person for a job is often not the one that ends up getting hired.

How can it be, when this is such an important decision and so much time, money and effort is invested in it, that so many poor decisions are made?

Well my conversations revealed that the supposed science of selection is frequently distorted and corrupted by a whole range of instinctive, almost primitive beliefs and practices.

1. Managers define the person rather than the job

Most job descriptions are written so that the desired person’s personal characteristics are much more specifically defined than the characteristics of the job requirements. These personal requirements presuppose what the person hired ought to have in terms of background, skills and experiences. Such profiles not are not job descriptions, they’re ‘person descriptions’.

Since clear definitions of work success have repeatedly been shown to be the main driver of personal performance, it seems obvious that managers should carefully define the work that needs to be done before defining the person they think can do the work.

Specific, key performance objectives should be the main part of a true job description. Not vague and generic characteristics like, “good communication skills”, “self-motivated”, or “results-orientated”

2. Getting the job requires a whole different skillset to doing the job

In an election, when deciding who to vote for, we often judge and choose based on our perception of the candidate’s presentation skills, not their ability to do the job.

Managers do the same with job candidates. They overvalue first impressions, likeability, and communication skills. They instinctively exclude those who are “different” in some way, temporarily nervous, or those who are not slick and polished interviewees.

 
3. People with personal connections are treated differently

People who are connected to the interviewer in some way are evaluated more fairly than a complete stranger. Strangers are assumed unqualified from the outset.

Ordinary candidates are assessed on the depth of their skills, level of direct experience, personality and first impression. These have been proven by research to be useless as predictors of future performance and fit.

The connected person has an automatic advantage – it’s assumed that they will fit with the team and culture of the organisation. Those who are unknown are not given this approval. They have to prove it and that can be difficult.

4. Managers ask irrelevant questions and assess people on meaningless facts

Brain teasers were proved to be of no value in selection processes long ago, but they remain a persistent feature of numerous interview and selection processes.

I heard of one CEO who predicted team skills based on whether or not the candidate picked up the coffee cups before leaving the interview room. I worked with a senior manager who co-related strong organizational and planning skills with a tidy desk, and would regularly carry out desk ‘inspections’, in the belief this would help him know who was performing and who wasn’t.

More recently, I heard about a manager who assumed that any person that could not keep to the appointed interview time for any reason at all lacked a strong work ethic.

5. The decision process is based on candidate features not benefits

Filling jobs with those who tick the largest number of boxes is a poor but common substitute for hiring the best person possible. The latter involves a dialogue aimed at acquiring an in-depth understanding of a person’s capabilities, aspirations and fit. There’s more give-and-take in the negotiation process. Both sides balance their long and short-term needs.

So, I have no doubt that the hiring processes in many, many cases are flawed and that the best candidates are often not the ones that get hired.

What can you do about this? Yes it’s unfair and counter-productive for everyone involved. But you have to face facts and ignore the things you cannot change, and focus instead on the things you can.

1. Pay close attention to the job description, however flawed it may be.

If the JD has been thrown together without due care and attention to detail, play them at their own game. Make sure that you include every clichéd key word from the JD in your resume AND then verify that you have that qualification, by means of providing an example of how you have delivered that result, or shown that capability in your previous job(s).

2. Recognise that the job interview will place undue importance on how well you present yourself, probably much more than how well you can do the job.

Approach the interview not so much as an exercise in showing what you know, more as an opportunity to seduce the interviewers. This is why you should pay close attention to every detail of your dress and personal presentation.

Understand that if you show an interest in the organisation and the job by asking appropriate questions, you’ll actually make the interviewers like you more and they will thus rate you more highly.

3. Adjust your target jobs to prioritise those where you may have a connection to the person hiring

This is where long-term investment in building a good personal network can really pay off. The bigger your network, the more chances you will have of finding vacancies where someone you know personally can come into play…whether it’s by giving you a confidential inside track, or in the best situations, actually putting you forward for consideration.

4. Don’t lose self-confidence following a rejection where you were the best candidate but still didn’t get hired.

I know this is easy to say and hard to do. But if you spotted any of the above process weaknesses I described above in your selection process, you can take heart from the knowledge that: 

• It was poor process by the hiring firm not your unsuitability that meant you didn’t get hired. 
• If the firm can’t get this key process right, maybe, it wasn’t such a great firm to join after all. 

For all the talk in HR circles about process quality and selection science, the sad fact is that the process flaws I describe above will probably never be banished completely. But at least if you know what they are, you have a chance to counter them.