check out Johnson county iowa,
you can't swing a broom without someone looking to hire people.

unemployment rate: 1.7 %

I look at 50 resumes a week for several specialized positions.

More information / pages on a resume is actually less attractive to the reader - if you don't have something I want in the first 1/4-1/2 of the page (ie qualification, experience, etc), I typically just hit NOT HIRED.

Might be a great person, but either they don't have the quals / exp I need or don't know how / didn't take the time to highlight it to be part of their resume 'first impression', which is the top 1/2-1/4 of the first page.

The top 1/2-1/4 is your sales pitch. Tell me why I should spend more time reading your resume and consider you for the position. Because nobody is going to dig to find it on page 2.

That is part of the reason referrals / intros are important. If someone who works for us / with us refers someone, I take it seriously (at least the first time - obviously the shit birds who are always referring people who don't live up to the hype get dropped by the wayside quickly).

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
I like the online application process:
Fill out application.
Submit.
Then..... Nothing.

I retired in summer of '03 and just to keep busy I decided to get a job at Walmart, walking distance from my home.

I sent in a paper application and waited a couple of weeks. I heard nothing, so I called and was told: "They lost it".

I hand delivered another app and they "lost" that one, too.

I got the message and moved on.

Success is like pregnancy.

Everybody congratulates you but nobody knows how many times you got fucked to achieve it.

quote:

Originally posted by jimmy123x:

My situation is different as I own and run my own business and have had this business since 2003. But ALL of my business since 2004, has come from networking. I've never once advertised (nor had to) and in the past 10 years, give away at least as much business as I take. Don't discredit networking, as honestly it's probably number 1 in finding work.

Different animal completely. You are not looking for a new employer, you are marketing your services.

quote:

Originally posted by jigray3:

quote:

Originally posted by jimmy123x:

My situation is different as I own and run my own business and have had this business since 2003. But ALL of my business since 2004, has come from networking. I've never once advertised (nor had to) and in the past 10 years, give away at least as much business as I take. Don't discredit networking, as honestly it's probably number 1 in finding work.

Different animal completely. You are not looking for a new employer, you are marketing your services.

Yes and no. One aspect of my business is managing/maintaining a yacht for an owner, so technically each owner is an employer. BUT, that being said I get several offers of a Full Time Captain's job for one yacht/one employer/owner each year all via word of mouth. Networking still works. My business and I work for very few people (extremely exclusive owners) that are referred to me and pick and choose who I work for, not just anyone who happens to call or a broad array of people.

Networking isn't about hitting up strangers on LinkedIn and asking them for help. Unless you're young and out of school, no stranger is going to want to help you.

Networking is getting to know people and getting people to know you. You build up connections on LinkedIn but it's a minimum. Hopefully you built up connections while doing your MBA. If you're in a field, join the professional organization for that field. Get active in the local chapter. It's like building a spiderweb. The bigger and stronger it is, the easier to catch your next meal. But to make the web stronger and better, the spider has to shit a lot of silk.

It's also called digging your well before you get thirsty.

Back to LinkedIn, if you have a decent profile, decent number of connections, a recommendation or two, you should be getting hits from recruiters. Look at other profiles and look for the ones who are employed but uses words that indicate they're open to new opportunities without outright saying they're looking for a new job.

There is also a premium option where you can actually say you're a job seeker but it keeps that info away from your present company.

quote:

Originally posted by RHINOWSO:


The top 1/2-1/4 is your sales pitch. Tell me why I should spend more time reading your resume and consider you for the position. Because nobody is going to dig to find it on page 2.

That is part of the reason referrals / intros are important. If someone who works for us / with us refers someone, I take it seriously (at least the first time - obviously the shit birds who are always referring people who don't live up to the hype get dropped by the wayside quickly).

this is great info and i agree IME

networking is extremely important. cannot be over-emphasized

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

quote:

Originally posted by 220-9er:
Maybe you need to look for a different kind of company or job that is smaller right now with higher growth potential.
Take the blinders off.

I thought about this quite often over the past few days.

Then I looked back and thought about a couple of guys who left my company last year. They stayed in the same industry, though. I reached out to them this past week and one of them happens to be in management now.

Going to look further into positions with their company. Much smaller company, it's privately held as opposed to having stock holders to answer to. Lower volume and from what I've been told, a better work-life balance.

My favorite part is spending 30 mins re-typing my resume info into HR’s web form and still attaching my resume.

quote:

Originally posted by pessimist:

quote:

Originally posted by Lord Vaalic:

quote:

IMO the biggest waste of money in current companies is their HR Dept and its staff. They're are all but utterly worthless at this point.

They aren't worthless, they are worse. They are a bane on business and efficiency. They are a virus, digging in and growing and perpetuating themselves.

I wish you luck

I have to agree. They're usually over-staffed and they love to justify their existence with more and more bureaucracy.

+1000

I was the manager of a small team of lawyers in the Legal Dept for the megacorp I worked for. I got budget to hire another lawyer and was required to use HR to find candidates. You would not believe the number of resumes they sent me for unqualified people.

I called the idiot in HR to complain and he protested that these candidates showed a "lot of promise". I tried telling him that they might be great people, but in order be hired as an attorney they need a law degree and a bar admission.

I was wasting my breath and continued to get resumes for non-lawyers. I ended up ignoring HR and found someone on my own.

quote:

Originally posted by RHINOWSO:
I look at 50 resumes a week for several specialized positions.

More information / pages on a resume is actually less attractive to the reader - if you don't have something I want in the first 1/4-1/2 of the page (ie qualification, experience, etc), I typically just hit NOT HIRED.

Might be a great person, but either they don't have the quals / exp I need or don't know how / didn't take the time to highlight it to be part of their resume 'first impression', which is the top 1/2-1/4 of the first page.

The top 1/2-1/4 is your sales pitch. Tell me why I should spend more time reading your resume and consider you for the position. Because nobody is going to dig to find it on page 2.

That is part of the reason referrals / intros are important. If someone who works for us / with us refers someone, I take it seriously (at least the first time - obviously the shit birds who are always referring people who don't live up to the hype get dropped by the wayside quickly).

But that's just it...you're reading resumes, yet in most systems, lots of great/good/qualified candidate resumes are shit canned by the automated culling system, and never even seen by an HR 'professional' (it really pains me to use that term in today's business world). So the candidate pool that does make it to a person for review aren't necessarily the best most qualified candidates.

When I used to work for EDS, I used to help screen candidates who made it to the first round of interviews. I think my batting average was about.100 when it came to HR actually recommending for hire candidates I gave a thumbs up to. As a rule, they sent us people who as a rule, would generally quit within 120 days because they couldn't handle the work load and/or the stress. And then we'd start the process all over again trying to hire someone else. Talk about a system that made everyone work far harder then they needed to, and insured our customers ended up with less than they were paying for and expecting.

I worked for EDS for 9 years running multi-million dollar projects to successful completions, but I'd bet any amount of money that if I reapplied there today, I likely could't even get an interview, let alone a job offer. The current HR process is an utter disgrace, manned by people who are hopelessly incompetent at doing their jobs. Personally, from what I've seen, most companies would be far better off firing their entire HR department, outsourcing their payroll, and placing all the resumes received for a particular position in a lottery hopper, giving it a turn, and randomly pulling a winner. I'd have as much confidence in that system as I do in the current system.

What you have to understand is that the HR Department's responsibility is today is to keep the company out of court. It is not to get the best person for the job. So they are more worried about socio-economic quotas, providing a diversified cross-section of the population to hiring managers for consideration and culling out anyone who may be high risk for suing the company.

It sucks but is the reality of today's job market. Just try to get a "good" job today if you are over 55. Ageism is alive an well in today's market.

I met a guy a few years ago who had just lost his long-term job. It seems he went to Europe for a funeral and his company folded while he was gone. He had an accounting degree but was scared since a lot of the industry rags said that the future wasn't too bright for him.

Here's what I told him;.....

People who like to discourage you, especially industry rags, get you to read their crap by getting you worked up in one way or another. What they say may be total BS.

Most activities have a 95% failure rate. That means for every 20 applications you make, maybe one will produce a lead. It's a numbers game and you may end up wasting a lot of time on dead ends.

Some employers go through the motions of looking for someone even if they have a person selected already. It's done to make it look like they're being fair and open about their hiring process.

This fellow, in spite of what he was told, got hired two months later with a starting wage of $20.00 per hour and topped off at $36.00. Not too bad - better than he expected.

Hang in there and don't be discouraged.

V.