How Technology Affects Your Job Search

It has been only about 20 years since the Internet began to change the world.  Transactions and communications that used to be conducted using paper and the US Mail prior to the mid-nineties have almost exclusively shifted to electronic communications.  As is the case in every other facet of a company's operations, recruiting and hiring rely heavily on the Internet for searches, background checks, and just about every other method of communication between companies and candidates.  Paper cover letters and resumes are no longer the preferred way of sending or receiving information from candidates or within organizations.  

Unfortunately for many job seekers, more often than not they are unaware of how electronic communications can affect their job search.  It is estimated that more than half of all resumes submitted electronically are rejected, no matter how well qualified a candidate may be for the job. If a candidate thinks that an electronic resume submitted to a company that has posted a position is reviewed by a decision maker, the candidate would be correct, except more often than not that decision maker is a software program instead of a person. The program looks for key words, phrases, and acronyms that will determine whether the resume will ever be in front of human eyes. Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) are the default tool for deciding which resumes proceed and which ones are eliminated well before a hiring manager ever talks to anyone.  Additionally, even when a resume does contain enough of those key words, phrases, and acronyms in the right place within the document, it is usually just the portions of the resume that have that specific content that are presented to human decision makers, not the entire document.

Candidates who try to sound too formal or who use too many less common phrases to describe something simple often eliminate themselves as a result of their clever choice of words. For example, a candidate may have an outstanding skill set and excellent experience for a particular job, but if that a candidate uses "Scholastic Achievements" rather than "Education" to list and describe their formal training, the ATS may very well ignore that entire section. Or, if "Work Experience" is discarded in favor of "Employment History," the ATS may ignore the information in that section.  Any ATS program can be set up to either look for or ignore whatever the user want to use as screening criteria, including the overuse of any term.

Does this type of system sometimes eliminate candidates who would be/could be outstanding hires?  Absolutely it does, but the hope and expectation of the users is that the system will select the top five or ten (or whatever number they choose) resumes and that a worthy applicant, or two, or three will surface from that process, and that from that number an excellent candidate will emerge.  The additional benefit to the reviewer is that the process is much faster than anything a person could accomplish.

If you are writing your own resume, be aware of how it may be evaluated.  Do your research and learn as much as you can about what the company is seeking and do not try to use a different name for something than what the company uses.  Often the job description and/or job requirements provided by the company will give you much of what you need to know.  One of the main reasons that an Applicant Tracking System is used in the first place is to save time. When a company lists specific skills, certifications, education, or experience as requirements, they will usually get at least seven or eight resumes that do not meet those requirements for every one that does.  Those resumes take as much time to read as do those that do meet the standards in place.  The applicants who send in the resumes that do not qualify do so with the attitude of having nothing to lose, so why not try?  A good ATS will weed out the time wasters.

If you are working through a recruiter, the ATS is usually irrelevant.  The recruiter is the one who does the vetting.  However, if you are submitting a resume to an electronic collection box, you can be assured that what you submit will be screened by an ATS.  If you are thinking of using a professional resume writer, be sure to inquire about that writer's familiarity with ATS systems for the particular job/industry you are pursuing.  Familiarity and competence in one or two industries does not automatically imply the same expertise in others.  The best writers know the key terms and where they should appear in the resume.

If you are attempting to re-enter the working world after a significant time away from it, or if you have been in a job for several years and have not needed or prepared a resume lately, know that it is a different world than what you experienced previously.  Ignorance of that fact could keep you from getting the job for which you may be ideally suited.

Ken Murdock is the owner of Murdock and Associates Recruiters and New Wave Resumes. He recruits top talent in sales, project management, accounting/finance, manufacturing operations, and engineering for the manufacturing sector, oil & gas, construction, and the packaging industry. New Wave Résumés offers professional résumés and interview coaching for executives, mid-level professionals, recent graduates, and anyone seeking to take their skills and talents into a new career.

An End to Age Discrimination?

No doubt you have heard about the law of unintended consequences. Originally, it was described as "outcomes that are not the ones intended by a purposeful action." This particular law is most often cited if something bad happens when the intent of the original action was to accomplish something positive. We see it exemplified often in nature when one species is introduced to control another species and the new species creates its own set of problems.

Sometimes however, the law of unintended consequences can have a positive outcome from a trend rather than a purposeful action, and that is exactly what is occurring in the job market with people in their mid-forties and older being hired by companies to fill positions formerly dominated by much younger workers.

It's no secret that average job tenure for today's younger workers is not nearly what it was for their parents and grandparents. "Move on to move up" has become almost a mantra for millennials and other younger workers who have a much different attitude toward job structure and tenure than their parents and grandparents had. Job tenure of 2 to 4 years is common. Even among younger baby boomers, males have an average of 11.4 jobs and women 10.7 jobs during their working lives.

With tenure statistics like these, employers are beginning to realize that the idea of hiring a young worker with the expectation that they will eventually retire with the company is unrealistic. These statistics have been a motivation for many employers to look at older workers, who have traditionally been seen as "over the hill" to fill many positions that used to be the domain of younger workers. The rationale is that it makes more sense to hire someone in the mid to late fifties who has an excellent chance of staying in the job for ten to twelve years than to hire a much younger person who will use it as a springboard to the next position.

Age discrimination is still very real and is common in some industries, but more and more employers are beginning to consider the skill set more than the birth year as the main criteria for consideration in jobs they need to fill. I certainly see it in my recruiting business. I would not say that it is the norm just yet, but it is certainly moving in that direction. It is particularly evident in the hard-to-fill positions involving STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) knowledge and experience.

Employers reap the benefits of the older worker's experience and get an employee who is unlikely to use the position as a temporary parking place while looking for the next career move. Age discrimination is not going away anytime soon and probably will never disappear entirely, but the combination of high demand for many professional and/or skilled workers and the short job tenure in the millennial cohort is putting a dent in it.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ken Murdock is the owner of Murdock & Associates Recruiters and New Wave Résumés. He recruits top talent in sales, project management, accounting/finance, manufacturing operations, and engineering for the manufacturing sector, oil & gas, construction, and the packaging industry. New Wave Résumés offers professional résumés and interview coaching for executives, mid-level professionals, recent graduates, and anyone seeking to take their skills and talents into a new career.

To Get the Job, You Must Close the Sale!

Augusta National Golf Club is very well known for its exclusivity. Unlike most prestigious clubs, you can pretty much guarantee that you will not be admitted to membership if you even hint that you are interested in joining it. Everything is discreet, and membership is by invitation only. They must invite you…you do not ask to join.

The job and career search process is not at all like how August National operates. In this very strong buyer’s market, if you do not express your interest in joining the organizations where you interview, you can almost assure yourself of not receiving a job offer.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the number one rule of marketing is that when your demand conditions change, you must also change your promotional strategy. In the old seller’s market that existed prior to the economic downturn that began in 2008, there were more great jobs than great candidates to fill them. Companies were competing with each other to attract the best candidates for critical positions, and the best candidates often had multiple job offers. That changed as companies began to downsize, merge with others, or go out of business altogether.

While companies today still want to attract top candidates, for most positions there are more of them to choose from than in the previous market conditions. When a hiring manager has a choice between a great candidate who expresses interest in the job and one who gives no indication either way, the candidate who says that he or she wants the job will stand out more favorably than those who do not express interest.

There are a lot of nuances that can affect whether an interview goes well or not. Body language, eye contact, how you answer questions, and the questions you ask all play a big part in how you are perceived by the interviewer. Remember this: Companies want to hire people who want to work there, but hiring managers are not mind readers. Even if you answer all the questions well, ask good questions of them, smile, and have great body language and eye contact, if you do not let the interviewer know that you want the job, your chances of receiving an moving forward in the process or receiving an offer are slim.

You may be thinking as the interview comes to a close that you have really nailed it and that your performance could not have been better, but if you do not express that you want the job, the interviewer may very well be thinking that you are not interested at all. This applies to every position, but especially so to sales jobs.

In my recruiting business, the first and last counsel I give to every candidate I send to one of my clients is to listen well, ask good questions, and if they want the job, to say so. My clients who often hire sales people will not make an offer to any candidate who does not ask for the job. Their reasoning is that if the candidate will not ask for the job, neither will they close the sale with customers when representing the organization's products and services.

Of all the important steps in the interview process, candidates are typically more reluctant to “close the sale’’ than in any other part of the process. For many, the reason is that they simply do not know how to do it and they feel awkward. So, here is a very easy and effective method of doing it. As the interview is drawing near to a close, the interviewer will typically ask you if you have any questions or would like to add anything to what you have already said. This is your golden opportunity to say something like:

“I appreciate the time we have spent discussing this opportunity with (name of organizations). Based on everything I have learned about the job and the company on my own before today and what I have picked up in our conversation, I think there is a great fit between what I can bring and what you need in this position. I would like to take the next step in the process. How can I make that happen?” Then, do not say another word. Continue to smile at the interviewer. You have asked the closing question, and it is time for you to stop talking and wait for a response.

If you have done as well in the interview as you think, this may be the question the interviewer has been waiting for you to ask, and you will get a favorable response. Even if the interviewer does not give you any definitive answer at that time, you have planted the seed for moving forward. Quite often, in the post-interview discussions and deliberations about you after you leave (and there will be some), the question of whether you asked for the job will likely come up. More often than not, the interview process may involve three or more meetings with various others in the organization. You should “close the sale” in each step.

Interviews for the positions that you really want are not easy to come by in this market. You cannot afford to do less than your best in any of them. I cannot guarantee that you will get the job if you ask for it, but I can promise you that most of the other candidates are not doing it, and when you do, it makes you stand out in a very positive light. All other factors being equal, your odds just went up considerably.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ken Murdock is the owner of Murdock & Associates Recruiters and New Wave Résumés. He recruits for the manufacturing sector, oil & gas, construction, and the packaging industry. New Wave Résumés offers professional résumés and interview coaching for executives, mid-level professionals, recent graduates, and anyone seeking to take their skills and talents into a new career.

Why Your Resume Is Not Getting Results

This is a copy of an article I posted on LinkedIn a couple of weeks ago.  If you did not see it there, I think it's worth repeating here...

As a recruiter and resume writer, I see dozens of resumes every day. Many of them are from candidates who want to make a career change and are responding to an inquiry from me about a job I'm trying to fill for one of my clients. Others are from people who want to change their resumes because what they have now is not getting them any results. Most of the resumes I see are not very good and do not meet the standards I have for anything I would send to one of my clients. It's not that they do not have the margins set correctly or the layout is sloppy. It's not even the information they contain that is the problem. The problem is what they do not have in them.

One of the first rules of marketing is that when your demand conditions change, you must also change your promotional strategy. Prior to the economic downturn in 2008, a candidate who had only the basic resume components of name, contact information, experience, and education could get interviews and probably multiple job offers. We were in a strong seller's market at that time and there were more great jobs to be filled than top candidates to fill them. The best candidates often had multiple offers in their field.

However, what worked then does not work now. We are in a very strong buyer's market now, which means that hiring managers can be very selective on who they choose to interview and hire...and they are, simply because there are more great candidates now than great jobs.

Despite this very obvious change in the market, most job seekers and even most universities (who really ought to know better) continue to use the same resume style and format that was effective in the long-gone seller's market. They simply put facts about themselves on the resumes...name, contact info, education, and where they have worked, and they expect the reader to figure out the benefit that will accrue to them if they talk to and/or hire the candidate. It really doesn't work that way in today's market. If you don't also add information that gives the reader some good information about your "soft" skills, such as problem solving, creativity, tenacity, organization, attention to detail, and several others that may be specific to the job you are seeking, you cannot expect the reader to assume that you have these things going for you.

When we were in the strong seller's market, companies were mainly interested in skills, qualifications, and education. If the candidate happened to be a good fit into the culture of the organization, that was a plus, but the real focus was on whether the candidate could do the job. Today's market is much different. The challenge for recruiters is not in finding skilled, qualified, experienced candidates. There is a wealth of them out there and available. The challenge is finding someone who has all those qualities and who will be a great fit into the organizational culture.
Hiring managers are busy people. Running their businesses is how they make money...not by reading resumes and conducting interviews. Those activities are a necessary, but costly exercise that takes away from what managers normally spend their time doing. So, it only makes sense that for someone to take time to consider a candidate for an interview, that candidate should give them some good reasons for wanting to talk to them.
An effective resume today is one that makes it plain to the reader what benefits will accrue to them by talking to the person that the resume represents. If you cannot make those benefits obvious on the resume, do not expect the reader to realize them from the information you have presented. Adding those benefits is the first change I make to any resume I make for job seekers as well as those resumes I send to my recruiting clients. The results have been significantly better for those candidates whose resumes reflect benefits than for the candidates who focus only on the facts about themselves and expect the hiring manager to read between the lines and recognize the benefits for themselves.

 

Ken Murdock is an author, speaker, recruiter, and resume writer.  More information is available at 

http://www.newwaveresumes.com/ and http://www.murdockandassociates.com/.

So, Why Should You Use A Resume Writing Service?

I have seen several articles recently about whether anyone in a job search should use a resume writing service.  There are several good reasons to do so:

1.  Some people just are not very good at writing, especially about themselves.  Your resume is most often the only way someone may learn about  who you are and what you can do, and it is critical that what they see in that first impression is positive.  Not only should the information be positive, but it should be relevant to why they should consider you for a position.  The biggest mistake that most job seekers make in their resumes is putting in too much irrelevant information that obscures what a hiring manager wants to see.  A good resume writer can sort out the important information from the unimportant, and put what needs to be there in the right places.

2. Since the economy took a nosedive in 2008, the "rules" for writing resumes have changed considerably.  The first rule of marketing is that when your demand conditions change, you must also change your promotional strategy.  The type of resume that would have garnered you several interviews in the previously strong seller's market will not get it done in this strong buyer's market.  Unfortunately, most universities have not realized this and they continue to promote the old style that does not help their graduates get the interviews they need.  The best resume writers can make sure that your resume provides the information that will make the difference in whether you are separated from the crowd or part of it.

3.  Companies today are interested in not only your education, work experience, and contact information, but also anything they can learn about you that will tell them whether you will fit in well with their organization.  It is not enough in this type of market to simply list your qualifications such as experience and education.  In a strong buyer's market like this one, organizations want to know much more about someone than just that information.  They want to know about what kind of person you are.  "Soft" qualities such as perseverance, creativity, attention to detail, and curiosity matter in today's market.  A professional writer will help you identify the qualities you have that can separate you from other equally qualified candidates and make you stand out from the crowd rather than blend into it.

4.  A professional resume writer will customize your resume to the opportunity.  There is no such thing as a "one-size-fits-all" resume.  If you pursue five different positions, you should have a specific resume for each one.

At New Wave Resumes, we take the time to learn which outstanding qualities you have that are the same as those needed to excel at the position you seek.  When you have that information on your resume, you separate yourself from other candidates and are much more likely to secure the interview for the position you really want.

Check out our website at http://www.newwaveresumes.com or contact us at info@newwaveresumes.com.

IT'S A BUYERS MARKET

One of the most basic concepts a student of economics learns is the law of supply and demand.  That law describes the effect that the availability and the supply of a commodity has on the price of that commodity.  So, if the demand is high and the supply is low, we would have what is known as a sellers market.  Those who have the commodity can extract a higher price for the commodity when the supply is limited and the demand for it is high.  Conversely, when the demand is low and the supply is high, those who are the buyers have the upper hand in any sales transaction.

Prior to October, 2008 we were in a strong seller's employment market.  The demand for skilled, experienced, talented people for many different jobs was high.  There were more great jobs than great people to fill them, so those who were interested and/or available could be very selective in the job hunting process.  It was not unusual for good candidates to have several interviews in their field and to get multiple job offers as a result of those interviews.  Candidates were very selective for one simple reason...they could be.

However, on October 8, 2008 the stock market tumbled as some of the giants of investment banking either went out of business or saw their market value drop when the housing market "bubble" collapsed. Trillions of dollars of investments, owned by both institutions and individuals, vanished over the next few months.  Layoffs, consolidations, "downsizing" and liquidations became the norm rather than the exception, and in very short order the seller's market that we had seen for the previous several years turned into a buyer's market as jobs disappeared and millions of workers found themselves unemployed. 

Many organizations that were not hurt as much as many others saw the market conditions as an opportunity to rid themselves of marginal workers and to cut expenses just in case economic conditions continued to decline.  Others took the opportunity to automate, upgrade technologies, and put more and more machines to work doing the jobs that people had done before the economic decline started.  Within just few months, millions of employees who thought they would be in their jobs or at least with their employers for the long term in some capacity found themselves suddenly and unexpectedly in the job market.

The result of the market turmoil and the accompanying job losses was that the numbers of people employed declined sharply, and since that time we have been in a strong buyer's market. 

While one of the most basic concepts in economics is the law of supply and demand, one of the most basic concepts in marketing is that when demand conditions change, there must also be a change in promotional strategy.  Simply put, the strategies and tools that a job seeker could use effectively in the seller's market are not at all effective in a buyer's market.

A job seeker today who uses the same style résumé that was common in the seller's market will not find it to be nearly as effective in a buyer's market.  The job search strategy has to change to accommodate the new market conditions.  It is no longer enough to have a résumé that simply provides name, contact information, work history, and education.  There is no shortage of skilled, qualified people. Organizations want to know much more about the person than just the basic information.  They can afford to be very selective because there is a large supply of skilled candidates, but not that many great jobs.

You have only one chance to make that critical first impression.  Don't waste it with a résumé that you have to dust off and simply update your contact information.  It will need a lot more changes than that to be effective in a buyer's market.  Take the time, and if necessary, be willing to invest the money, to do it right.

Ken Murdock
New Wave Resumes
http://www.newwaveresumes.com

More Than You Ever Thought You Knew...

Since October of 2008 when the US Economy took a nosedive, the advantage has shifted to the hiring side.  That means that we are in a strong buyer's market.  Companies are more selective than ever, and mainly for one reason: they can be.  There are a lot more great candidates out there than great jobs, so the companies that are hiring are doing all they can to make sure that they hire the best and the brightest from among all those who are candidates for a particular position.

One of the tools that companies use is a "personality assessment."  Certainly they want to know that you have skills and talents and can do the job well, but once they establish that, the bar is raised considerably in the selection process. You see, they want not only bright, talented, skilled employees...they also want those bright, talented, skilled employees to fit in well with the organizational culture and the other people who already work there.

So, enter the personality assessment.  These assessments measure things like compliance, independence, patience, creativity, leadership, attention to detail, how you process information, problem solving, your need for stability, and how you react to stress among other qualities as well.  Different positions require different qualities, so when a hiring manager is considering, for example, someone to work in the accounting department, attention to detail would be a very important quality.  An outgoing personality might be just right for the sales position they need to fill, while the Chief Technology Officer position might require someone who is a creative, independent thinker.  There is no single personality type that is right for every position.

With the cost of making a bad hire higher than ever, companies want to get it right.  The money they invest in training, benefits, compensation, and opportunity cost of hiring the wrong person can be a crippling sum.  So, I think you can see that when they are considering making an offer to a candidate, they want to know all they can possibly know about that candidate.

Do you think it would be valuable to you to know how other people perceive you and to know without question the "soft" skills you bring to the job?  In other words, would you like to know the same things about yourself that the companies who interview you will know?  What if you learned that how you think you are perceived by others is nothing at all like others really perceive you?  Would it be valuable information to know what, if anything, you need to work on and improve before you go to an interview?  If you are already great at something and do not realize it, would it be helpful to you to know about yourself what others have seen for years? 

I think that knowledge would be very valuable, indeed.  In fact, I think it would put you in a very advantageous position relative to all the other candidates to have that information.  In addition to all that I have already described, you will learn which historical figures had the same personality type that you have.

What if I told you that you can have this information immediately, and that it would cost you nothing?  FREE, in other words.  For a very limited time, that is exactly what I am telling you. 

On my website (http://www.newwaveresumes.com) you will see an offer on the home page that can make the information I just described available to you for free.  These reports normally go for $100 to $150, but from now until the end of September I am offering the best personality on the market...the DISC Report from Peoplekeys (http://www.peoplekeys.com)...for free with every résumé order.  There are a lot of good reports out there, and I have used most of them over the years, but the one I find most useful, most accurate, and most reliable (meaning that if you take it more than once, you will get the same results) is the DISC report.

The assessment will take you, literally, about five to seven minutes to complete online with an access code I will provide.  Once you complete it, you will receive your report online immediately.

A great résumé and the knowledge you need about yourself to go into any interview prepared and confident...I think that is a combination that is hard to beat.