Job Hunting Skills

[Garrett Goebel]

I'll try to add things I haven't seen mentioned...

As if it isn't already clear: its about them... not you.

Rewrite your resume for each position. Re-order your skills and experience
in the order you expect your potential employer desires them. Cut the cruft.
And oh, hope you guessed right. Better yet, do a little footwork and guess
as little as possible. In the same vein, play up or down your past work
experience accordingly. If you're shooting low, play down your
over-qualications... for the reasons already mentioned (they won't hire you
if they expect you to jump boat at the next better job that comes along).

If you get far enough that they catch your over-qualification in an
interview... tell them your applying for the job because you really want to
work for their organization. You're happy to get your foot in the door and
willing to prove you're up to doing the dirty work. Hell, you even kind of
like this particular dirty work. They may still dump you in the bin... But
if you established any rapport with the interviewer you'll still have a
chance. Turnover is a fact, internal turnover is better, and companies
always need good people...

Make your resume personality neutral. Don't grind any axes or talk about
what you want, think, or believe. Forget personal hobbies and interests
unless they correspond with the job. The main thread here being don't say
anything anyone could imaginably intrepret prejudicially, get cross with, or
just give them bad mojo. No personality... just give them what they need to
match the expected skill set.

Once you get to an interview you can relax on this a bit and allow some
personality to show through. Same rules on anything that might be
politically incorrect or send bad vibes. If the interviewer asks you
outright, ask them to clarify what they mean by hobbies, sports, etc with an
example of their own. Then try reach into your own hobbies, sports,
interests and try to play up those which are similar to the interviewers.

On interviews. Stop and think before answering. Pause. Think twice speak
once. They may even be impressed just to see you thinking. You probably
wouldn't be surprised how many people can blow smoke out of their... -I hate
the glib I know-it-all interviewees. Better to express your understanding of
your own limitations and desire to learn than make a fool of yourself.

Make your resume easy to scan. If someone can't match your qualifications to
the job in question in ~5 seconds, chances are they'll probably be moving
along to the next resume. Try not to go over a page. If you have to...
you're probably wrong, but try to put the most pertinant stuff on the first
page, as they likely won't be reading any more anyway.

How to make work-to-hire work for you... I'm surprised anyone has success
directly submitting resumes anymore. My boss has one guy he goes to for most
of the positions he wants to fill. We bring someone in, try them out for a
few months to see if they'll work out... and then perhaps bring them fully
on board. It is very nice from the employer's perspective. Minimizes the
risk of bad hires and legal issues. If you have a shortlist of companies
you'd like to work for, call and/or email the manager or director in the
area of the company you'd like to work in. Ask them what placement firms
they use. Get contact information to the person they like to work with.

If you're really hungry to work and know your network/desktop stuff... Do
what I did. Pick an area with a lot of small businesses, preferrably close
to home, and go knock on doors. Pick an office building any office building.
Look for the floors that have lots of companies listed. Those are usually
your smaller operations. Offer to do anything they need computer-wise. If
they turn you down, ask them if they know anyone else who might be
interested in your services. Make sure you don't spread your clients to far
apart, as you'll be doing a lot of driving.

You'd be surprised how many small businesses have little or no in-house
technical expertise. Offer both an hourly rate, and a discounted rate if
they block out a certain amount of time per week or month. I charged
$50-75/hour. When you're not working... go knock on some more doors. Once
your weeks start filling up, push selling blocks of your time harder. Once
you've got a successful small business going... read up on and setup a small
business. Do it the other way round and you bog down in a mire of paperwork
without building up a customer base. Eventually some of your customers will
start asking you to come on fulltime. If you like being the short-order cook
of network support my all means keep at it. Myself, I held out for a while,
and eventually went to work for one of my customers.

--
Garrett Goebel
IS Development Specialist

ScriptPro                  Direct: 913.403.5261
5828 Reeds Road            Main:   913.384.1008
Mission, KS 66202          Fax:    913.384.2180
www.scriptpro.com          garrett at scriptpro dot com