Posted on 10/02/2018 4:05:50 PM PDT by Celerity
With my new investment influx into the company I've been green-lit to start hiring. I'm looking for a developer and for the first time using Indeed and LinkedIn to post this job.
This whole thing is very, very funky and it's very different than the last time I looked for work. Maybe what I have to say will help job seekers here understand what the process looks like and clear up some questions, frustrations and the golden answer : "Why does no one contact me back?!"
The pressure is so high to get a job because not many people can save up enough to live for the months it may take to get into a new position. I hated being unemployed.
As a consultant I was a professional interviewer. Still am. If I can get a face to face with a decision maker at a company, I can get work. The biggest roadblock I ever ran into were Satan's Bowling Team themselves, the EVIL H.R.
You may call those around you "People" but to the HR they aren't people. They are resources. Says so right in the name.
When HR gets the job requirement they ask the hiring manager for a list of qualifications. HR doesn't understand a single qualification. They understand the list of things they get to check off. If you don't have one of those checkboxes clicked off, you aren't getting past them. The hiring manager won't even know you exist.
If you have more things on your checklist than they were asked to check off - you too will not be included in many hiring manager meetings. HR simply has no understanding of what they are hiring for - they only understand the checkboxes. There is a huge disconnect there and the hiring managers, who may love you, never get to know you exist.
I'm using online services now and the results are mind-bending. I am getting inundated with 100s of resumes. Of the 50 I'm looking at now ? 3 Asians, 1 "normal name dude" and the rest - THE REST - are Indian.
The Indians are ruthless with their approach for work. These guys don't care about my requirement for location or skill set. They load up their skillsets with buzz words and just overload my mind. If I don't look at them, I have to accept that I'm a racist and their names will just shut down my attention and make me move on.
None of the middle easterners or indians are leaving cover letters. A cover letter still goes a long way - the online systems give me a full view of the cover letter before even having to click something. I get your name in bold, then your cover letter. If you have no cover letter then that is what greets my eye : "NO COVERLETTER".
This is a true shame too. I have worked with plenty of Indian professionals over my life that I would love- LOVE - to work with again. But with this concentration the whole thing is just blown apart. My eyes are glazed over.
From there the next big issue that I have is that no one knows how to use google maps apparently. Post something for sale online and watch how many people from 2 hours away respond. People have no clue that opportunities that are 6 inches from their eyes may be 6 hours from their garage. And if you're going to relocate, tell me you will. And tell me you will out of your own pocket and how long it would take to do so. I appreciate it.
Finally, I have to say that this process has completely sucked my life away. I "get out of work" (Which for an independent business owner is like saying "When I float off my unicorn") I have to read these endless driveling letters with a fresh mind to make my decision. It will take days for me to get to these applicants, and when I do I'll need help from the writer in keeping the attention where it should be kept - on you.
I have a top candidate in mind. He is from Nigeria. I love the way he communicates, and the way he types out his resume and cover letter. my "American sounding name dude" also had a brilliant approach to his CV: He talked about legos. Now I've been sitting here all day thinking about legos. Oh, and he backed up his cover letter with a website dedicated to his job search (Where he solidified the Lego analogy and really hooked into my brain)
So basically it comes down to this:
Have an awesome cover letter. It doesn't matter whats in it. just talk to the reader with excellent grammar.
Connect that cover letter to a website. Go to WIX and setup a job searching website with a little about yourself (Play guitar? Mention it in your cover letter, then link to a youtube video of you doing it.)
Separate yourself from the Indian candidates. Listen, these guys are all over the place. I love em but it's tough to pick from a list of a billion similar candidates. If you need to, give me a stand-out alias. Make "Van M" stand in for Vanketta Marfath. Seriously. It sounds racist as hell, and I'm STILL reading these resumes but when one jumps into the inbox that makes sense to me, I'll minimize the terrible one and immediately click the interesting one.
These middle eastern candidates also love to send in 12 page resumes. My eyes are falling out onto my keyboard at page 2.
Education isn't important anymore. CV, CV, and CV. Let me know your thoughts on the travel, and then I'll be expected to rank you in even if you have one or two things missing from your skill sets, or one or two things more on your skillsets.
I'd be happy to talk about more of this !
“I have a top candidate in mind. He is from Nigeria”
As long as he doesnt call me at 10 pm telling me he’s a prince and I have to send a check to get double my money back..
Very interesting. I was unemployed 5 months in 1988, and one year in 2009. I sent out 300 cover letters in 1988, and over 500 in 2009.
I also searched for four months in 2015, when I retired. I applied perhaps another 300 times.
Cover letters got me my interviews. I had 75 in 1988, a dozen in 2009, and half a dozen in 2015-2016.
I got job offers. I turned them down when I had to move and take a pay cut.
In my 2015 search, they emphasized search terms. I’d never heard too many search terms were bad.
Thanks for sharing.
Looking to follow this for a young new grad, just starting out. Thanks for posting it!
So I have years of experience. Which translates to, “Hey, he’s probably over 50!”.
I do the one-page resume w/ the buzzwords all in one spot so the next search engine can find them. HR types and headhunters can’t figure out the tech nuances, so I have to list a bazillion buzz words that should be self-explanatory.
We live in an era where one set of bad laws make it better to hire contractors, and then another set that make it so H1B or offshore contractors are more attractive, then another set where onshore contractors can’t stay for more than a year. So the hiring types go nuts trying to hire.
Amen.
Employers who allow Indians and body shops to get involved have nobody but themselves to blame.
Bkmrk.
Just send the guy from “Legos” Nigeria your credit card number. It will be safer. (I always spelled it “Lagos”).
Be sure to sponsor his wives, as well. And you might look into a metal neck brace - there are more Muzzis than Christians in Nigeria.
You are very likely to end up getting what you deserve.
I certainly understand the value of the cover letter - if nothing else it shows the applicant is interested in your specific opportunity rather than tossing CVs at anything that looked vaguely like something that interests them.
Regarding the ‘6 hours from their garage’ - do your ads explicitly say ‘no remote work’ or something similar? If a position looks like an interesting match for me I will ask if remote is allowed either before applying or in the cover letter even if the ad doesn’t mention one way or another.
You are a waaaay small shop
Fill out applications on line. If you know a head hunter use them. Contact all your friends in the field.
Silicon Valley has worked like that for a long time and continues to
As a software engineer, may I suggest some things on picking candidates?
1) Ask them to let you see some of their source code and then ask them to show you what it does and why. It’ll go a long way in letting you know how much they made themselves.
2) Ask them what the hardest thing they ever did was and why.
3) Ask them to show you some documentation they made of their work. Finding a good programmer can be challenging. Finding one who knows how to communicate with the non-IT crowd about real needs being met can be impossible.
He talked about Lagos and you thought it brilliant.
Remind me to send me my resume’ to White Castle
before you.
Whether looking for a job or looking to hire someone, start with word of mouth. I used to get people calling me all the time asking if I knew anyone who would be appropriate for a position they were filling. You’re hiring - let people know the kind of person you’re looking to hire. You’re right - it’s mind numbing to sort through random resumes where it’s impossible to judge the accuracy of what’s on there. Another benefit of putting the word out is that you will get recommendations of people who may not currently be looking for another job but would be willing to move.
Horseshit.
You need to hire someone to do something you can’t do?
Hire somebody. Do it tomorrow.
Nigeria? Really? The best you can do?
Dump the effin Indians and Asians and hire an American.
Maybe grab a younger, less experienced but talented and dedicated employee in your company and . . . TRAIN em!
Or pay for them to learn and build some loyalty.
Lots of folks can do the work you need done, whatever it is.
Hire someone and pay the going rate.
Or is it you want 20 years experience in a new technology but want to pay the rate of someone with 2?
Located in a terrible place to live? Or too far from anything? Or bio hazards abound? Or zero recreation possibilities?
If not, Any complaints about not finding qualified AMERICAN candidates is a lie.
Make someone’s day and hire em tomorrow.
No, Legos.
There is another guy in Chicago who has an obsession with Legos. Like the toy.
The Nigerian guy is near the top of my list. He’s not IN nigeria - he’s in Connecticut, and is a citizen.
Read it again Captain Angry.
The Nigerian was born in Nigeria. He’s an American now.
The 3rd party job channels have made it ridiculous for all but the 3rd party head hunters.
Sounds like you have a pretty good process and also like you’re in a smaller-ish company. The reason I say that, and of course it’s an “elephant in the room” secret, but in larger corporations the very first thing HR is going to do is attempt to prioritize applications on the basis of “EEO points”. I’m sure everyone understands what that is...
One of my funniest hiring experience was back in the 90s when I was hiring a couple of summer interns. I specified grad students because I was tired of having my guys babysit undergrads all summer, and to my surprise the pile of applications was really impressive. But after an hour or so I got a panicky phone call from the (young, newly hired) HR gal apologizing that she’d given me the wrong envelope, and that I should come get the right ones. I did so but I also kept the others, much to her chagrin, because just as I thought, the pile she intented to give me were all minorities, female, and half were undergrads. Getting their quota was a much higher priority than meeting the hiring managers needs.
I enved up hiring an Indian grad student who was sharp as a whip and who came in my office one day and asked if I’d ever seen this brand new thing called the “world wide web”...
I’m getting some super racist sh!t thrown my way in this thread.
The indian hiring thing is a fact of life - the tech industry is FULL of Indians who are in the US on a visa or something else. They have to work. The competition is fierce but they also have a way of flooding inboxes with stupid stuff because they know what works - FLOOD THE SYSTEM. It’s how things are done in Indian culture.
Then the whole Nigerian thing. Sheesh people. If I said “Some Italian guy” would everyone be asking me if he was from Rome?
I’m hiring Americans. These Indians - many of them are Americans. You’re gonna have to get used to it, they are here and most of them followed the procedure to be here. And they are here because their home is a vile sh!tpit and they don’t want to go back. So they are utterly KILLING IT with the I.T. work and making it damned near impossible to view any resume that ISN’T a transplanted Indian.
I am still reading their resumes (And hit with the usual terrible, terrible third-world resume) and I’m evaluating them the same.
I can tell you that regardless of where you are from, what your name is, and anything else that the last few paragraphs are important.
So quit the racist bullshit. You know who you are.
Pretty much the only way to get hired, is to find a way to bypass HR. My current job, I was friends with a guy who was friends with a manager there.
Knowing people who will vouch for your abilities to the person looking to hire, beats an interesting cover letter. But you have to develop your network before you need it.
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