oliviatamccue

Recruiters have tough competition and have many challenges to overcome.   There are a lot of recruiters and recruiting firms.

There are some recruiters whose behavior are hard to understand, maybe all have good reasons.

Case 1: these recruiters reached you multiple times and told of a very urgent position and could not wait; just then after giving a  response and requested information, they vaporized as quickly as snow in summer.  Are they just trying to collect enough resumes and candidates for their clients?

Case 2: the recruiter conducted screen interview, and spent the phone interview to almost convince that the job was not the right fit for you.   Why bother to waste time on both sides?  Do they have a quota in terms of number of folks to interview before making an offer to the secret candidate they have in mind?

Case 3: the recruiter criticized a company on the resume, like “so-and-so company is conservative”. How would they know?  and if they know, why would they interview a candidate who used to work there?

There are mind-boggling yet real situations.

To write or not write a cover letter for job positions applied?

– Applying a job without a cover letter is like showing up in a house for a date, without asking first.

– Yet with a cover letter,  it can also be the quickest way out of the consideration if there is flaw easily noticed.

To reveal or not reveal age?

 – At 50, it may still be possible to be disguised as a 40ish.

– At 60+, it takes magic to be disguised as a 40ish.    Why bother?

In Chinese sayings, 三十而立，四十而不惑，五十而知天命，六十而耳顺，七十而从心所欲不逾矩 roughly translated to “thirty and independent; forty and not be tempted; fifty and know the fate; sixty and accept differences; seventy and everything is as wish”

– Share one  as a sandwich:  Strength at the top and the bottom; weakness in the middle.

– Share one irrelevant to the position.

Tell me about yourself?

____________________________________________

I was raised in a culture where the parents expected their children to be “concentrated” in their work.  At meal time, we should focus on eating and  no talking; at homework time, we should focus on “doing homework” and no distraction from TV shows.  It is more than the pragmatic concern of not delivering quality when we are distracted, it is more the courtesy and respect to the people around and to the tasks at hand.

How many jobs out there have put in their description on “ability to multi-task” and “ability to manage parallel projects” and “manage conflicts”?

Is Multi-Tasking a good thing or bad?  What would be the result of such a poll?

Here is my scoop

– in terms of mannerism, it is bad, we are now getting used to talking to people who are doing something else on the smart devices

– in terms of the effectiveness to the task at hand, well, it is not a problem; I have seen many who can use different parts of the brain at the same time, our 5 senses can be used at the same time, why not working intellectual stuff and trivial stuff at the same time; or why not read book while watching TV; it makes no apparent difference for most tasks that are not mission critical.

– in terms of comfort level – what would you think if a pilot driving planes while reading a book; or a driver in a self-driven car playing a musical instrument?

I suspect the multi-tasking requirement in job description is the corporate intent of getting more from the working hours of the employees.  Isn’t it better to have employees working 5 projects than 1 project at the same time, with same pay?

That said, I have a small belief that people, who multi-task well, could plan better, more adaptable, fast-paced, and learn quick.  Those are all very useful qualities in today’s market, aren’t they?

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/38067053/about%20multitask%20-%20trial.mp3

I have known some getting jobs without resume writing, it is possible.

The social media and career transition services emphasize the importance of networking. In an amazing short number of years, linkedin and pre-scripting on how to get to talk to a “stranger” become such a trend.

How soon would it become “totally impossible to get an interview without a contact no matter your skills/experiences are for the positions”?   Some positions require the same “job search techniques” to be successful, then some honestly do not.   What is the “social network index” required of the positions?

While networking is important skill for what I look for, so I have situations to use the “social network path”.  At the same time,  I am keen to get a feel of “starting from a resume knowing no-one in the related job positions” and live through the experience of “job search without knowing anyone”.

The resume is a reflection of the experiences so far, there are days I enjoy doing it, I pick those days to work on it and it becomes easier.  Writing the resumes and improving it,  give a clean bill of what has been achieved (or not achieved); and brush up communication skills.

Statistics work its way, more resume submission increases the odds of its getting attention. It is statistically low percent to earn an interview this way, I am not yet discouraged by it and have a pretty fair expectation.  I got pleasant surprises every time my resume gets noticed!   Fortunately, I earn some interviews this way, it is low percent but not zero.   Adding many zero chances is still zero chances, if it becomes that, I need to change.

Generate interest for the interviewer in phone interview. Sometimes, I feel that I miss the opportunity of  “reading the intent of the questions”, it is a funny feeling because  it is not necessary that I could not figure it out, it could be a lapse in concentration during the conversation or a lack of reaction.  I hope more practice makes it better. Questions like “do you have experience in …?”  A simple “No” but truthful answer can be a one-strike-out. A second chance could be provided if the interviewer drills on a similar question later, don’t miss the second chance. If you get a second chance, it could be a sign that the job may not have lined up many candidates as of yet.

I like face-to-face interviews, it is where to get the most about the people in the company, the setting of the office, the positions and the people dynamics. It is educational.  Just that questions are asked first of you, it is inviting to answer by talking about the past experiences to impress. In part, career transition services rightfully advise their clients to prepare well on stories for behavioral questions.  After working hard to prepare the stories,  it is easy to get carried away to finish the story.  I am going to try the approach of getting into a dialog and then briefly summarizes the related past experience naturally.  The questions of interviewers are often reflection of the needs and existing problems.  Like in many projects, it is tempting to “skip the requirement phase, provide solution too soon”; or forever asking about “the requirement”.  It is a balancing act to fine tune.

Statistics work its way.  It takes some time to recover from the often “pre-formatted” message like  “thank you for your time. you do not have the right match; or unfortunately…”.  I still like to receive them than those jobs that become a black hole that you never heard of.  It is a matter of style, I guess some would prefer never be told of unsuccessful attempts.  It is easier for me to take comfort that each of these messages get closer to a call from hiring manager “I would like to talk about next steps..”

We often tell our kids “don’t talk to strangers”.  This did not bode well with Job searching.  Job searching is about talking to strangers.  They come in the name of recruiters that you know them on the phone for the first time, or hiring managers for job positions that you have never met before, or people that are introduced to you because they work in some companies that you are interested in career opportunities?

How do we shape up the “talking to strangers” skills and comfort level?

There are many techniques in Career Transition Services on how to network, and how to connect, with emphasis on social network and professional network; some even with the scripts on what to say, and what to write to increase chance of a response?

After a few years, would we start to see these types of “networking” electives offered in school?

Recent economy has created job opportunities in areas of career transition, recruiting, training….  With the automated search engine of many recruiting firms, there is no lack of the same job posting showing up, creating the perception that there are a lot more jobs out there than it really was.

Job search group is one of the best ways to meet different people and expand the horizon.

How about these tips in job search?

Try paste resume text to http://www.wordle.net  to check out the word cloud of the resume.  It is a fun experience to validate whether your resume is communicating core competence.

How about http://www.lynda.com to get training, it requires subscription but much cheaper, esp. compared to many training classes that charge a hefty $500+ per day.

About training classes, isn’t it something with the business model of training centers like http://www.sshin.com to take care of  the EDD training paperwork for you?

After making the decision to leave a comfy position as IT Manager in a very big company, I am in between jobs in this “Launch into the Deep” break.  45 days have gone by quickly, with moments of anxiety and excitement.  It is not clear how long the break would become, how good it becomes, how depressed it could turn out.   The thing is it has happened before, 20 or so years ago, and that was a memorable period.

Come to think of it, in US, at home in the first 5 years of life, onto school education for the next 20 years, then work 40 years or so till the so-called retirement. As we retire in the 60s, there are another 20 years or so.   What do you think of this 5 – 20 – 40 – 20 equation?  If we grow something on a fertile soil, could the harvest happen for consecutive 40 years, and still produce good crops?   What do we do to the soil to keep it fertile?

In a comfy position for some time, things happened – got many partnership working, knew a lot of people, yet, sometimes the hunger and uncertainty feel dwindles, the reality replaced by the corporate view; I tried in the last few years, to reinvent the wheels, it worked for a while.

So now it is the 46th day in my break, I grasp a book about blogging from a library.   Let’s see how it goes.