Getting an interview was:Re: [olug] Omaha IT job market
David DeWester
nekochan at inebraska.com
Tue Mar 2 17:29:36 UTC 2004
I'll agree with everything Bill said, and I have a few things of my own to
add.
I work at UNL and I've been on a few hiring committees. First suggestion:
if you ever have a chance to be on a hiring committee DO IT! Volunteer
for it, beg for it, make time for it, offer to work unpaid overtime to do
those duties. Being on the other side of the desk will give you insight
you can't get anywhere else. You won't regret it.
Bill said it but I'll say it again: Write your resume to the position you
are applying for. Leave out or only briefly mention non-relevant skills
and do mention it if you have relevant skills. I've seen resumes that
implied they had the skills we were looking for but they don't come right
out and say it. Once (and only once) we ended up hiring a guy like that
anyway and he turned out to be extremely qualified for the position. If
there had been a single other applicant that was even slightly qualified
he would not have gotten the job.
Learn the answers to common interview questions and know the wrong answers
and why they are wrong. It is amazing the number of people who, when
asked "Why do you want to work for us" will come right out and say they
are just looking for a temporary job until something better comes along.
Way the H-E-double hockey sticks wrong answer.
If you don't know what behavioral interviewing is you better find out. It
is growing more popular by the day. Have STAR answers for every common
interview question. http://www.quintcareers.com/STAR_interviewing.html
David
On Tue, 2 Mar 2004, Bill Brush wrote:
>
> 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?
> > =====================================================
> > An often repeated quote on news.admin.net-abuse.email:
> > <I>
> > "Spam is not about content, it is about consent".
> > </i>
> > --------------------------------
> > Microsoft: Where do you want to go today?
> > Linux: Where do you want to go tomorrow?
> > FreeBSD: Are you guys coming or what?
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > OLUG at olug.org
> > http://lists.olug.org/mailman/listinfo/olug
>
>
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