Before I Begin…

Some quick thoughts on this promised list of 10 Things to Make Hiring Better…

I need to stay with what I know…and there are obviously some rather large areas where I am completely in the dark.   So here are some caveats that come to mind:

I’m looking from a job hunter’s perspective.  As I put together the list, I realized that I would like the hiring side to improve.  Not unexpectedly I would like the improvements to done by someone else!   That isn’t going to stop my recommendations, but I’ll try to remember this and also think about improving the job hunting side.  (Much easier to suggest when the change isn’t mine!)

I also know nothing about jobs at the 1% level or even jobs that typically don’t show up on the job listings.  If you’re a plumber, hairdresser, artist, maybe even a shoe-salesman….I’m sorry, but my recommendations may not apply.

No doubt there are other areas of darkness of which I am blissfully unaware…but I will jump in any way!   

Next:

Ten Ways to Improve the Hiring Process!

To Celebrate the New Year!

It’s the New Year and guess what!  It’s time to think about what to do in 2012.  (Ok, it takes me a while to get going.)

This blog was on my list.  It wasn’t at the top of the list - like this year’s diet!….but what, exactly did I want to accomplish?

My original thoughts were just to review what was available on the job boards and to give the job hunter some comic relief about an awful process.  As a side note to this, I have been asking people about the process.  Here’s what found:

EVERYONE HATES THE PROCESS!

Job hunters, recruiters, HR people, hiring managers…the complaints are universal.  It’s non-productive, it wastes time, it’s difficult, the results are uneven, we don’t get the right people, there are too many people applying, there are too few people applying (unbelievably!), the requirements are too specific, the expectations are too high, it takes too long…it goes on and on.

I’d like to help fix this.

So starting this week, I’ll be blogging about what I’ve seen so far and offer suggestions on how to improve this.  I’ll aim for a Letterman 10 list…

Let’s see how this goes.

Privacy – What my e-mail says to do!

So what is the good news that dropped like manna into my e-mail box?

After a long warning paragraph….A solution!  (I like solutions.)

I can use the service provided (I’m sure for a ‘small’ fee)   What will it do?  It will post my resume on 88 top career websites and if I employ its confidentiality feature,  it will post my resume so “your resume will be seen, however, no one will see your name, address or phone number.”

Other than a question about how an employer will contact me if this is all blanked out, the directions continue with:

“NOTE: These practices may conflict with the Terms of Service listed on some of the 3rd party career websites where we post your resume. If you choose to use this feature you must agree to do so at your own risk. To visit and review the terms of service on these sites, click here.”

What follows is a list of about 87 of the 88 sites with hyperlinks where you can presumably find and read 87 different privacy agreements.

Surely this deserves...not just one ANDY AWARD…but two…

The Harry Potter Invisibility Cloak Award for blanking out all my information

&

The Bedtime Reading Award for guaranteeing 87 nights of instant deep sleep

Privacy – WOW! Again!

No sooner did I start writing about privacy than I got an e-mail titled “Job Hunters: Your electronic privacy may be at risk!” 

This is followed by an article going into the ‘DANGERS’ of posting online.  Besides the unscrupulous recruiters, you are leaving yourself open to scammers, phishers, spammers and all sorts of other nasty people who are sitting there waiting to grab your information off your resume, drain your bank account and tell your current employer you are looking for job. 

Oh dear!

What’s in my resume that’s private?.  Let’s see what Wikipedia has to say.  My Personally Identifiable Information (PII for those of you who want to sound keyed in)  consists of linking my name with other information that identifies me specifically – usually listed as my birthdate, my address, social security number, financial account information (banks/credit card numbers) and other ‘sensitive’ categories like health information. 

So what protects me, resume-wise.  Right now, some state laws…the federal legislation is languishing in Congress (no surprise there!)  If you live in Massachusetts, for example, there are some pretty stiff penalties for inadequate protections and very embarrassing requirements for reporting breaches to a data file.

My take…my address is already out there for the world to see and paying a couple of bucks will get you more about me than even I know.  I do use some basic precautions on my social security and account information and hope that I am such a small fish that no one will bother with me.

Next...I'll fill you in on the e-mail's solution...

Resume Tracking

The chatter you hear in the job market is that you are supposed to control your resume.  Hold it close to your chest like a hand of cards that has 4 aces.   Why?   Because if a company gets your resume through two different sources and one of the sources is a recruiter who expects to get paid for filling a job, the company will avoid at all costs getting into the fight over who came in first.   Two recruiters pitching your resume and the scrapping comes close to a heavyweight prize fight.

The word is ‘don’t post’…’keep control’…’know where your resume is at all times’. 

And do you? 

Urban legend…your resume may get tossed in the scrapheap just because some unscrupulous recruiter has applied for a job for you without telling you.

Here’s what happened to me.   I applied for a job online and I was asked to hand over my resume to have it ‘scanned to help match’ my qualifications on the application. (Note: This was NOT to post the resume for the job.)  I blanched a bit and then turned it over.   I then went on to fill in a set of questions that would have qualified me for top secret clearance.  Not fun.

As far as I remember, there wasn’t any notification that they were storing my resume, but later exploration of the same company site proved that it was out there. 

Now the BIG question.  This was done for a company that is a provider for a number of Fortune 500 companies.   Do they all have access to it?  I’ll never know.    Well, I might if I read all the fine print in those agreements.   Agggghhhh!

PS…to unscrupulous recruiters, if you do land a job for me…please tell me about it!