Lying on your resume is bad. Embellishing your bio could be more expensive.

Posted May 12th, 2012 in blog_news, For Employers, For Job Seekers

Yahoo’s new CEO was forced to step down.
He may also have to repay $7 million.

This week, Yahoo’s CEO of just 4 months was asked to leave the company, after an apparently disgruntled shareholder discovered that his official corporate bio wasn’t accurate: Thompson’s bio said that he’d graduated with a degree in accounting and computer science, but in fact his degree was only in accounting.

The ‘degree in accounting and computer science’ line has been following Thompson around for years, at least since his time as President of PayPal.  Did the line get added by a headhunting firm – or by Thompson himself – in order to make him seem more appealing to a high-tech company?  It seems odd that someone who is apparently so successful – think what you will about Yahoo as a going concern, becoming the head of these two high-profile organizations means you’ve done something right – would deliberately lie and continue to lie through any number of vetting meetings and SEC filings that are required for the head of a public company.  Surely he could have cleared up the computer science ‘inaccuracy’ at any point during the vetting process without everyone suddenly deciding he was the wrong guy for the job.

Thompson has tried to pin the blame on a headhunting firm, who he says ‘embellished’ his bio with the computer science information years ago and it simply went undetected for 7 years, but I think this misses the point:  No one is saying that Thompson was incompetent or incapable of doing the job; none of the coverage of the fiasco so far has indicated whether or not he ever took any computer science courses during his time at university.

The problem here for Thompson – other than the disgruntled shareholder, who seems to have made it his mission to get rid of Thompson, for reasons unclear to me – is that Yahoo has a strict code of ethics, which Thompson has breached.  He may be a fantastic CEO, a smart guy, and otherwise completely ethical, but to leave him in place when he’s been so publicly exposed as a ‘liar’ not only leaves Yahoo exposed to shareholders, but also to morale problems with employees who feel it’s unfair to be held to higher standards than the CEO.

The consequences for Thompson may also prove to be financial: Depending on how he and Yahoo decide to handle the departure, he may have to repay the $7 million in upfront compensation he received for leaving PayPal to take on Yahoo.

I just heard a commentator on BBC radio taking a very hard line about Thompson and his lies; I find myself less convinced of his implied inherent lack of morals.  (I have enough credits for a political science degree, for example – even though I ultimately got a degree in English – and if I’d ever been up for a job where those credits would have given me an advantage, I might have highlighted them on a resume or bio, and never worried that I was really doing anything wrong.)  However, the story is a good lesson for everyone:  In these days where biographical information is easy to double-check, we should all err on the side of caution.

 

Stop Using These Words on Your Resume

Posted April 26th, 2012 in blog_news, For Job Seekers

Your resume is supposed to make you stand out.
So why are you using the same terminology as everyone else?

As most experts will tell you, it’s best to think of your resume (or your LinkedIn profile) as a sort of ‘teaser advertisement’ for you and your skills and experience.  After all, the goal of the resume is to get a recruiter or potential employer interested enough to call you for an interview.  You have just a few moments to capture the reader’s attention.

Recruiters typically review hundreds of resumes every week, and the truth is that 90% of them contain statements like “Passionate about delivering effective results in innovative ways while leveraging my skills in a dynamic environment.” Quite apart from the fact that a line like that actually says very little about your unique skills and abilities, it also doesn’t do much to help you stand out from the competition – because everyone’s using the same words to describe themselves.

Here are some words you should avoid if you want to make sure your resume doesn’t sound like everyone else’s – and some suggestions for alternatives:

Passionate

10-15 years ago, ‘passion’ and ‘passionate’ may have been unusual words to use in a job-seeking context; today, they’re so overused that they’ve become wallpaper. Instead, try statements which begin in different ways:

“I do best when I’m…”
“Very interested in…”
“I get excited by creating…”

Innovative

Unless you actually work in a think-tank which is designed to pursue scientific innovation, ‘innovative’ is another word which has become chronically overused, especially when describing skills.  Using more varied language will do a better job of highlighting your achievements:

“Developed a more cost-effective method of…”
“Used web-based technology to transform…”
“Created a proprietary system to…”

Dynamic

Most people use ‘dynamic’ in a resume/profile context as a sort of shorthand to convey that they’re comfortable with a fast-paced environment, but like many overused words, it can lose its meaning through overuse. Try these instead:

High-productivity
Entrepreneurial
Brisk
High-change
Growing

Utilize

One of the worst offenders in the jargon stakes, ‘utilize’ just makes you sound like you’re trying too hard, and if I could delete one word from your resume, ‘utilize’ would be it. Go for simplicity instead:

“Put my skills to work…” (instead of “utilize my skills”)
“Used existing resources to create…” (instead of “utilized existing resources”)
“Developed new process…” (instead of “utilized research to transform existing processes”)

Extensive

‘Extensive’, in a resume context, is one of those words that can mean anything – and therefore tends to mean nothing. You don’t have to state that you’ve got ‘extensive experience’ in something if the skills and experience you’ve listed clearly outline your achievements. For example:

“Managed 5-person client services team…” (instead of “extensive experience in managing people”)
“Coordinated $500,000 marketing initiative…” (instead of “extensive experience with marketing”)
“Implemented enterprise-wide supply chain management system…” (instead of “extensive experience with supply chain management”)

BONUS TIPS

  • Avoid repetition of adjectives – it can suck the excitement right out of your resume, and make it look padded with description rather than facts
  • Opt for verbs (managed, led, completed) over adjectives (pro-active, forward-thinking, innovative)
  • Don’t use long paragraphs. Describe each job you’ve had in one sentence, then list accomplishments in bullet points.  This makes your resume an easier, more compelling read

Remember: As with any advertisement, resumes are best when they’re simple, straightforward, and go easy on the jargon.

BranchOut: Do you need to care?

Posted April 20th, 2012 in blog_news, For Employers, For Job Seekers

Some call it ‘The New LinkedIn’.
But did we need a new LinkedIn?

I don’t know about you, but in the past few days I’ve had a whole bunch of invitations to connect to people on BranchOut, the “#1 professional network on Facebook“.   It’s strange, because after an initial flurry of invites when BranchOut launched last summer, I hadn’t heard much about it, from job-seekers or recruiters.

According to yesterday’s media release, however, BranchOut has just raised $25 million in funding, has 25 million registered users, and is signing up new users at a rate of 3 per second.  So someone thinks this application has potential.

BranchOut is supposed to make it more easy to connect to professional contacts by leveraging your Facebook contacts, and by providing a more ‘sexy’, user-friendly interface than LinkedIn.

There’s no question that BranchOut’s look and feel are more appealing than that of LinkedIn, and if you’re the sort of person who has a lively Facebook profile, it’s easy to import/invite your friends to your network:

(I borrowed this screenshot from this website.)

But…

That’s still a far cry from LinkedIn’s 150 million users.  More importantly, it’s not clear what BranchOut offers that LinkedIn doesn’t.  Yes, there’s a theoretical efficiency in having your professional network connected to your personal network, instead of having to visit Facebook and LinkedIn separately.  Except that:

  • Until everyone in your professional network switches from LinkedIn to BranchOut, you’re still going to have to use both
  • Lots of people are uncomfortable with merging their personal (i.e. Facebook) and professional (i.e. LinkedIn or BranchOut) networks
  • Facebook doesn’t have a great track record when it comes to privacy.  Even if BranchOut is a ‘separate’ application, the fact that it’s contained within Facebook makes many people nervous

Some bloggers have suggested that BranchOut may make it easier to access professional information of friends – people you often interact with via Facebook but not via LinkedIn – but that seems a limited use at the moment, given the disparity in numbers.

What this means for recruiters and job-seekers

If you’re a recruiter who specializes in recruiting social media and communications specialists who tend to be early adopters of new social media channels, BranchOut may prove useful – but not to the exclusion of LinkedIn, at least at the moment.

If you’re a job-seeker, well, BranchOut says that they have 3 million job postings. And I’m all for spending an hour or two populating a profile, because you never know when a recruiter may be searching BranchOut for someone with your skills and experience.

But overall, I think it’s safe to say that BranchOut’s status is a lot like Google+’s status at the moment:  Keep your eye on it, but don’t feel compelled to spend a whole lot of time there, because they just haven’t achieved critical mass yet.

 

Luck vs Hard Work: A Case of Mistaken Identity

Posted April 13th, 2012 in blog_news, For Job Seekers

“The harder I work, the luckier I get.”
- Samuel Goldwyn

“Make your own luck” may look good scrawled on a graphic t-shirt and paired with a snap-back and some Vans, but it makes less sense as a (non-fashion) statement.  Given that luck is, by definition, beyond your control, how can you make it?

Apparently, the respondents to a recent LinkedIn survey have the answer:  Over 70% felt that things like work ethic and communication skills contribute to the amount of luck we receive.  But if that’s true – if tireless effort, networking and taking advantage of opportunities are the things that lead to big breaks – what’s the difference between ‘luck’ and ‘hard work’?

I don’t mean to wilt the leaves on your clover, but I think there’s a danger in linking effort and luck, as it disassociates success from control, undercutting the hopeful spirit of the article.

Let’s say it’s your dream to become a management consultant specializing in corporate social responsibility.  One day, your boss decides to launch a ‘Green Workplace’ initiative and needs someone to lead the committee.  Though your boss may be completely unaware that you’re the Jeremy Lin of corporate social responsibility (hopefully with stronger knee ligaments), you happen to run into each other one afternoon at the coffee shop next to the office.  Your boss, who can’t be bothered to go through an interview process, arbitrarily offers you the position of committee leader.

Was it by luck that you were given this potentially career-making opportunity?  Not necessarily.  There’s obviously an element of timing involved – but let’s say you’d strategically chosen to choke down coffee shop sewage every day to match your boss’s break schedule, increasing the likelihood of getting some one-on-one time.  Can we really call your good fortune ‘luck’?

Those who apply the concepts identified in the survey – a strong work ethic, good communication skills, acting on opportunities – are likely to be the kinds of people who would come up with these types of strategies.  In doing so, the line between ‘luck’ and ‘reward for effort’ is suddenly blurred.  In our example, you clearly took action to put yourself in a situation to succeed, so, in a way, your new undertaking should be credited as an accomplishment, not just dumb luck.

Let’s just admit that we have more control over our careers than we’d sometimes like to believe

The survey results are meant to give the apparently unlucky reason to believe there are ways to turn their fortunes around, to restore faith in our ability to control our careers.  To me, if you want to empower someone, you should be making them feel that they control the breaks they get.  To keep calling it ‘luck’ even though you’re making calculated decisions to bring about certain results seems to snatch power from the individual, instead attributing it to random cosmic forces.

I don’t mean to get all Freudian, but if luck is driving our careers, what personal responsibility do we really have?

In spirit, the article is trying to debunk the notion that we are powerless unless we fill our briefcases with horseshoes and rabbit feet.  My issue is not with the message, but how it’s framed.  I’ll be the first to admit that luck plays a role in career success, but strong work ethic, communication skills and opportunism should also increase your career trajectory, and give you a better chance of catching breaks.  What they’re really saying is that we can’t increase our luck, but we can increase our odds.  Putting ourselves in more potentially luck-bearing situations increases the likelihood that, at some point, we’ll catch a break.

By thinking of it this way, we can disconnect luck from success and re-establish the notions of control and responsibility.  So maybe it isn’t the number of bowls of Lucky Charms you scarf down at the breakfast table – maybe it’s where you’re going, or who you’re eating with, that’s actually going to help your career.

 

Guest post by Geoffrey “Don’t Call Me Lucky” Gilbert, Recruiter at Poly Placements

IT Consultants: Don’t get too mad at recruiters

Posted April 6th, 2012 in blog_news, For Job Seekers

It can be frustrating when an IT recruiter doesn’t know the difference between Java and Drupal.
But they’d really like to help you get a job.

(This clip is from The IT Crowd, a very, very funny show about 2 IT consultants and their not-so-tech-savvy boss.  If you haven’t seen it, you really should.)

In 1999 I met with a senior executive recruiter at an ‘exclusive’ recruiting agency.

“We know the future is with the internet,” he said, correctly.  ”That’s why I’m going to be specializing in recruiting people who are focused on internet marketing.”

He saw me looking at his desk.  ”Oh, yeah,” he commented, very seriously.  ”I’ve ordered a computer – it should be arriving next week sometime.”

(sigh)

If you’re an IT consultant – especially if you’re good at what you do and take pride in your work – the recruiting process can be frustrating.  Maybe you position yourself as a Java expert but are constantly fielding calls from recruiters offering you ASP-only jobs; maybe you find yourself having to defend your resume to someone who couldn’t HTML their way out of a paper bag.  It’s easy to get exasperated and start to tune out all recruiters entirely.

But you shouldn’t.  Recruiters may not know as much about IT as you do, and you may think they should have done more homework before they called you, but it’s important to remember that they do in fact have a vested interest in helping you get a job you like.  When they place you in a position, they make money; when you stay in that position, and excel at it because it was the right move for you, their reputation improves and they know that you’ll tell your colleagues.

How to work smarter with recruiters

You never know when a recruiter is going to contact you with an opportunity that may turn out to be your ‘dream job’.  So instead of just ignoring all those calls and emails, try these tips:

  • Respond with correct information. If a recruiter has called you about a database development position, and you’re strictly a PHP person, let them know.  Maybe the next time they come across a great PHP opportunity, they’ll put you at the top of the list.
  • Try to build relationships. When you come across a recruiter who seems friendly, interested, and connected, take a few minutes to speak with them.  One of the biggest misconceptions about IT consultants is that they struggle with ‘interpersonal’ skills, so demonstrating that you’re a good people person can ensure that you’re first in line for the best opportunities.
  • Don’t get angry. Yes, it’s annoying when you keep getting calls for jobs that don’t have anything to do with your skills and experience, but don’t get mad – think of it as a compliment.  It could be that the recruiter thinks you’re a  great candidate and is calling just in case your skills have changed since the last time you spoke.
  • It’s okay to stand your ground. If a recruiter is pushing you to change your resume in order to ‘fit’ a certain position, and you don’t feel comfortable about it, it’s okay to let them know.  A good recruiter will appreciate that you’re being honest with them.
  • Take the time to explain. Keep in mind that a typical IT recruiter is working on several roles, often for specialists in several different coding languages.  They may not realize what you can tell from the job description (i.e. that your two years of experience in a Microsoft environment isn’t sufficient for the senior role they’re proposing to you).  Instead of just refusing the opportunity, explain why it’s not the right fit for you.
  • Tell the recruiter what your perfect job looks like. It’s easier for a recruiter to match you with the right opportunity if they know what you’re looking for.  So tell them!  If your dream job is a Linux-based environment where you can configure servers all day, let them know – you never know when they’ll come across the right opportunity for you.

 

What your email address says about you

Posted April 3rd, 2012 in blog_news, For Employers, For Job Seekers

Okay, we borrowed this from The Oatmeal, where I think it was supposed to refer to people in general.  But to be honest, it’s a good outline of what recruiters think when they look at the email address attached to your job application.

Are employers really demanding social media passwords? Not so much.

Posted March 27th, 2012 in blog_news, For Employers, For Job Seekers

The media loves a juicy story, but employers aren’t as obsessed with what you’re doing on Twitter as you think.

In the past week or two we’ve seen a whole lot of media coverage of a supposed new trend:  Employers demanding access to the social media profiles of job-seekers as part of the ‘vetting’ process for new hires.  It’s gotten so bad that Facebook, in a somewhat ironic defense of personal privacy, issued a statement reminding users that sharing usernames and passwords was actually a violation of their Terms of Use.

But is the practice really so widespread?  According to a new study by Employee ScreenIQ – and, frankly, our own experience – employers haven’t suddenly started demanding Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter passwords:

  • 52% of employers say their screening process never includes social media channels
  • Only 9% say they always use them
  • That 9% doesn’t mean ‘asking for passwords’ – it could mean just doing a Google search or checking a public LinkedIn profile for accuracy compared to a resume

In Canada, particularly, recruiters have to be concerned with PIPEDA (privacy laws) and the Human Rights Code, which prohibits discrimination based on race, religion, gender or sexual orientation.  A recruiter who spends a lot of time researching a candidate on social media and thereby learns that a candidate is GLBT or a person of colour could find, when they don’t hire that candidate, that they are accused of discrimination.

The exception: Social media on behalf of an employer

Where things get a little tricky is when an already-hired employee is responsible for managing social media channels on behalf of an employer.  If you’re the Sales Manager for an organization, and spend a lot of paid work time building a large LinkedIn network of sales-related contacts during the course of your employment with that organization, it’s possible that when you leave, the employer could ask for those contacts.

If you’re the social media manager for an organization and spend a lot of paid work time building a Twitter following that is associated with the company, who owns that Twitter account when you leave?

These questions are a little tougher to answer – and probably won’t be, definitively, any time soon.  Best advice?  If your employer asks you to start tweeting on behalf of the organization, open a new account – don’t just do it from your own personal Twitter account.

 

Our Core Values

Posted March 25th, 2012 in blog_news, For Employers, For Job Seekers

A few months ago, we sat down and articulated our Core Values – the things we stand for, the qualities we value, and the goals we strive for.  I thought we’d share them with you.

There’s a whole booklet that accompanies these, but I think this probably speaks for itself.  (If you’re interested in reading the booklet, just send us a message on Twitter @PolyPlacements!)

If you could only choose one, which would it be: Success or happiness?

Posted March 23rd, 2012 in blog_news, For Job Seekers

They don’t go together as automatically as you think.

Whether you’re a virtue ethics professor or a shoe-gazing hipster trying to impress a girl with your emotional depth, many of us have pondered this question.  You may feel the answer is simple: success and happiness are one and the same.  If you have a great career, it seems natural to assume that it would make you happy.  It’s a nice idea, but I, for one, am not ready to join hands and go skipping off into the sunset.  The truth is, success and happiness are often unrelated.  The fine folks at the University of Notre Dame agree with me… sort of.

Their longitudinal study, the subject of a recent article on Fortune.com, found that high-achievers – educated, ambitious individuals that gain status and prosperity through career accomplishments – are not significantly happier than the rest of us (and to top it off, they tend not to live as long!).  It seems disheartening, at first.  Imagine you attended a prestigious business school, landed a great job at a venture capital firm, discovered the next Velcro and became wealthier than Croesus.  The thought that these accomplishments may have no effect to your ability to find contentment seems like a karmic punch in the gut, but aspiring entrepreneurs need not throw out their Steve Jobs turtlenecks just yet.

Don’t panic: Happiness is subjective

It becomes much less unsettling if we stop considering happiness an objective concept.  It doesn’t take much to show that there are more definitions of delight than there are Drake songs on the radio, which changes how we should interpret the results of the study.  If you were to ask a random assortment of people what happiness is, you’d hear a lot about beer and beaches, but you’d also get references to more substantive achievements, like advances in cancer research or the pursuit of universal morality.  I’m not judging, but it is safe to say that some people need more to be concerned about than a flip cup winning streak.

To some, happiness is simply the maximization of pleasure: do what makes you feel good.  Others see it as the by-product of meaningful pursuits: your mission is to dedicate your life to discovering XYZ, and true happiness is only gained when we make strides in that pursuit.  The pleasure-seeker has a distinct practical advantage – for them, happiness is well-defined.  The physiological and emotional responses you experience when you laugh at a joke, score a big goal for your rec league team or have a great date provide instant, unmistakable feedback, letting us know our score on the happiness high striker.

Those with deeper, more abstract definitions, on the other hand, may have a tough time understanding what happiness even feels like.  Sure, lessons learned from life experiences can help make us better people, but in terms of how happy they make us feel, it is isn’t exactly a wild night in Tijuana.  With constructs as fuzzy as “virtue” or “truth” as our guideposts instead of clear-cut physical indicators, searching for a deeper happiness can be like running a race without knowing where the finish line is.  This lack of clarity makes the journey much more rigorous, but the ultimate payoff is arguably much greater than that of the simple pleasure-seeker.

So what does this mean for you?

I am not trying to imply that the high-achiever is working on a more advanced philosophical level than the average person.  My point is that it is clear that with all the possible concepts of happiness, it is easy to see how it can be disconnected from career success.  Without any insight into how the participants of this study define happiness, we can’t draw any real conclusions.  I will be interested to read the full report when it is published later this month, because right now, it is a bit like anything by Michael Moore: sure, it brings an important issue to light, but it should be taken with a grain of salt.

Whether you work to live or live to work, simply understanding what success and happiness mean to you will go a long way in determining how to achieve them.  To borrow from two wise men – Socrates and G.I Joe – knowing yourself is half the battle.

Guest post by Poly Placements recruiter Geoffrey Gilbert.

The Remarkable Employee: Nature or Nurture?

Posted March 6th, 2012 in blog_news, For Employers, For Job Seekers

As the world prepared for life under Google’s post-apocalyptic privacy policy, I chose not to spend my last free moments writing to loved ones or reconciling my thoughts on the afterlife.  Waiting for our new Orwellian overlords to inform me that, based on my recent search history, my cholesterol was too high and my first child would be a girl named Prudence, an article on Inc.com caught my eye:  8 Qualities of Remarkable Employees.

The general sentiment of the article seemed to be that truly remarkable employees – those that breathe the rarefied air reserved for captains of industry and thought leaders – are driven by something deeper and more personal than anything that could be put in a job description.  Remarkable employees embrace the spirit of the job rather than the letter of the job, defining success in terms of how well they advance the discipline, not how well their performance compares to what’s listed on their job description.

At the risk of oversimplifying, the 8 qualities lend support to the old adage that fortune favours the bold, in that an inquiring mind and healthy irreverence can not only help an employee achieve greatness in a given role, but also have a positive impact on their co-workers and organizational culture.

The idea that a little eccentricity can add flavour to an otherwise vanilla organization has gained popularity in the past few years, but when we appreciate how delicately these 8 factors must be arranged in order to achieve the desired result, one wonders just how often the dish tastes a little…funky.  There’s a gestalt element that needs to be recognized.  Without a balance, you may find a misguided employee squirting ketchup on the company ice cream.

But let us return to the article.  Are the 8 specified qualities meant to help us identify potentially remarkable employees, or are they the sort of things one can cultivate in order to become remarkable?

Depending on where you fall on the nature/nurture scale, it could be that the unique makeup of The Six Million Dollar Employee cannot be learned – it’s a set of innate traits that’s coded into our DNA.  On the other hand, surely it’s possible to teach employees numbers 4, 5 and 6 (“They publicly praise”, “They privately complain” and “They speak when others won’t”).

The challenge, again, is balance:  It’s funny how ‘eccentrically’ blue hair becomes more palatable when it’s sprouting from the head that just invented your killer app; ‘speaking when others won’t’ isn’t so attractive when the speech is always “It sucks”.

Without all 8 qualities acting in harmony, it’s a short trip from ‘healthy irreverence’ to ‘preening windbag’.  The line between Future CEO and Impatient Malcontent can be easy to cross.

For the record, I’m pretty sure the piece was meant as a field guide, not a how-to guide.  But I’ve always been more interested in minutiae than in general conclusions.  Whether or not it actually delivered sufficient protein, ’8 Qualities of Remarkable Employees’ certainly provided some food for thought.

Guest post by Geoffrey Gilbert, Poly Placements recruiter and aspiring eccentric.

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