Hiring qualified people
I've been trying to hire a Senior Manager for User Support for almost a year now. Why am I having such a hard time? Maybe I'm looking for the impossible - a seasoned professional in managing user support in a complex higher ed technology environment.
But in the course of looking, I've seen a *lot* of resumes. And I have to say, I am shocked by the extent to which it appears that people don't even read the job description or requirements before submitting their stuff. Hey - if I wanted a unix sysadmin, or a .net programmer, or a graphics person, I would advertise such a job.
That's why I really liked Joel on Software's article on Getting Your Resume Read. Check it out if you're looking for a job, or even thinking of sending your resume in.
A résumé is a way to get to the next stage: the interview. Companies often get dozens of résumés for every opening ... we get between 100 and 200 per opening. There is no possible way we can interview that many people. The only hope is if we can screen people out using résumés. Don't think of a résumé as a way to get a job: think of it as a way to give some hiring manager an excuse to hit DELETE. At least technically, your résumé has to be perfect to survive.
Couldn't agree more. When there's more than a handful of applicants - one looks for reasons to say "No," not reasons to say "Yes." I've been on three hiring committees in the past 12 months- getting the "raw" and unfiltered resumes each time - and it's had to be that way each time.
As someone who has been looking for meaningful work for almost 3 years since the dotcom bust, it's frustrating how little traction I am getting. In fact, I think I applied for this job.
If after a year, you still find reasons to say no, perhaps it's time to find some reasons to say yes. With all the folks like me who are looking for jobs, it's hard to believe someone would leave a job unfilled for a year. Looking at this back of the envelope description -- "a seasoned professional in managing user support in a complex higher ed technology environment" -- I have to wonder what the odds are of finding that locally. How many "complex higher ed technology environments" are there to recruit from? I assume the UW (ie, the state) wouldn't relocate someone, so it would have to be local.
Why not a seasoned professional in a diverse and complex corporate environment? Seems to me there would be a lot of those around . . .
From my hiring experience in the established corporate and startup worlds, we couldn't describe the jobs we were hiring for that rigidly: we looked for attitude, energy, and intangible fit, people who could mesh and were willing to bring their experience and learn from ours.
It worked for us. In my last corporate gig, we had zero turnover in the first 3+ years, while growing from 2 to 12 or so in that time.