Getting an interview was:Re: [olug] Omaha IT job market

Tue Mar 2 16:45:02 UTC 2004

This e-mail prompted me to impart something I've learned over the last few
years.

I've had the rather unique experience of being on several "hiring
committees" over the last couple of years.  Where I work we follow
University hiring policies which means that for each permanent position we
have a 3-5 person committee that reviews all the resume's and compiles a
short list of interview candidates.  This list is submitted to the Equity,
Access, and Diversity department to assure we're not being discrimatory and
also to the hiring authority.

Two of the  last  three committee's I was on I chaired so I was responsible
for the short list and setting up the interviews.  In short I've been as
closely involved with the hiring process as possible without actually being
the hiring authority.  The two committee's I chaired reviewd 97 resume's
for one position and 56 for the other.

Here are some things to vastly improve your chances of getting an
interview.

   Do NOT use the electronic submission through careerlink.org.  It
   horribly mangles the formatting and makes them painful to read.
   Consequently they are not read as thoroughly and rarely make the cut.

   Personalize the cover letter and resume'.  Write the cover letter and
   resume' specific to the position.  If the ad mentions "requires X" then
   for damn sure have X mentioned prominently in both your cover letter and
   resume'.  My recommendation would be to mention everything listed in the
   ad if possible.

   Have both a cover letter and a resume neatly printed on resume paper and
   mailed in.  This isn't a requirement but it will be noticed by the
   people reviewing your resume's and while they can't officially use that
   as a point for or against you it leaves a positive impression that will
   make them favorably disposed towards you and will get you the
   tie-breaker over someone who doesn't.

   This should be obvious, but no typos.  They get noticed and they will
   count against you.  Same goes for grammatical errors and not signing
   your cover letter.  The worst I've seen was someone who mentioned being
   "sure they could do a good job for Ameritas" on a cover letter sent to
   me.  My thought was, "Buddy you don't even know what company you're
   applying for or you didn't take the time to thoroughly proof your
   letter".  Either way he didn't make the cut.

   This is a very simple rule but oft-abused.  Your resume' should be ONE
   page.  Two pages if you REALLY REALLY have a lot of experience you want
   to get across.  Any more than two and you're hurting yourself.  I've
   seen 6+ page resume's and never once has one of those people made it to
   the short list.

   This ties in with rule two, but make sure you're applying for the right
   job.  If you're resume is filled with programming experience, don't send
   it in for a position which is a network admin position.  While you might
   feel qualified to do the job, there are going be people who have
   actually been doing network administration also applying and they're
   going to get the nod because they've been doing the job.  Now if you've
   been doing both programming and network admin, write your resume for the
   position highlighting your admin experience.

   Don't BS on your resume'.  Terms like "working knowledge of" or
   "familiar with" come across as "I've heard of it" or "I saw the box
   once".  If you actually possess the skill it's enough to put it down.
   If you're a novice at a skill then you'd better hope it's on the "nice
   if they have it but not required" list.

   Be responsive to call-backs.  Just last week I was calling people for
   interviews, and I called each person twice.  Once on Thursday, and once
   on Friday.  On my second message I told the candidates if I didn't hear
   from them over the weekend I was removing their names from the list.
   From a hiring standpoint, if you can't be bothered to call us back we
   don't want you to work for us.  The worst example was a guy had put his
   cell number as a contact number and I left several messages and never
   heard back.  He finally called me the day we wrapped interviews.
   Apparently his phone had been broken and he hadn't checked his voicemail
   for a week.  I was sympathetic, but he still didn't get an interview.

I think the days where you could shotgun your resume'  out there and have
someone pick it up are pretty much over.  There is a glut of IT
"professionals" out there and not all of them are going to be able to
continue to be in the IT field.  If you want to stay in the IT field you're
going to have to differentiate yourself from the masses.

As far as interviewing goes, I'll tell you the one thing that will impress
them more than anything:  demonstration of initiative.  This means showing
that you have the capability to see a problem and fix it without being
told.  We had one interviewee that was missing experience with an
application we use heavily.  He was strong otherwise so we interviewed him.
During the interview he said he hadn't had experience with the app, but
since it was on our list he had gone out to the Net, downloaded it and
installed it so he could get his feet wet with it before the interview.
This greatly impressed us as it showed a level of initiative and technical
aptitude.  He ultimately was offered the job but did not accept it due to
salary demands.

I hope some of you found this helpful.

Bill

olug-bounces at olug.org wrote on 03/01/2004 06:19:17 PM:

> <quote who="02fun-u2">
> >
> > so whats the current omaha IT job market like?
> > are thing do you think from your contact with others better or worse
> > than the rest of the US.
> >
> > is your bis picking up or the same.
>
>
>
> In one word: ick
>
> Any positions you do see & apply for expect to hear nothing back; or they
> do send the rejection letter to let you know they already hired the
> internal candidate. A few that I know who scored a position had an inroad
> with the company - so network & start smozing.
>
> I'm stuck in the Government realm right now, so our biz is not picking up
> either (not like we have a 'biz') - in fact with my company loosing some
> contracts they fired some back office folk (supposedly because they do
not
> have the funds to pay them).
>
> My contract is firm; in fact I/we will be looking to hire a person for a
> new part time position in about a month. When the paperwork is finalized
I
> will be sure to post the announcement to the list for ya all.
>
>
> --
> Timothy "Irish" O'Brien
> Publicity & Social activities chairperson
> Omaha Linux User's Group (OLUG)
> ----------------------------------------------
> A: No.
> Q: Should I include e-mail quotations after my reply?
> =====================================================
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> <I>
> "Spam is not about content, it is about consent".
> </i>
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