Once I started hiring people, I was struck at how differently I perceived the process. As a job seeker, I was so focused on networking, making my resume perfect and doing practice salary negotiations that I never thought about it from the other side. So I have learned some things about this whole “getting a job” thing, having viewed it from the other side of the table, and I have some wisdom to impart.
Hiring is excruciatingly painful. I do not enjoy it; I don’t believe that anybody does, although some people might lie and claim that they do. I begin the hiring process when the pain of not having a person doing the needed work outweighs the unpleasantness of interrupting my “real work” with hiring activities. So by the time I meet with you, I really need someone.
For one position at HCI Training, I looked at over 50 resumes, asked for telephone screening interviews with 12 people and planned on interviewing 4. This makes me a lightweight. HCI was a very small company. Most companies would look at over 100 resumes but I just don’t have that kind of stamina. So a personal recommendation is huge. If you are recommended by someone who is going to have to work with you every day, and they already know you, then that provides a certain level of comfort and security to me.
Nobody really cares about the format of your resume, but your name should be clearly visible at the top and there should be no typos. I was not impressed by the guy who had extensive “manging” experience. Almost any job requires that you communicate in writing with someone and my assumption is that your resume reflects the gold standard; it’s never going to get any better than this. Have someone you trust review your resume and make sure there are no grammar or spelling errors.
Go to the company’s website and check them out. Read the job description and then edit your resume to reflect relevant experience. This isn’t cheating – a resume does not have to include every minute of your life. I care about the experiences that are relevant to me figuring out if you are a good fit for this job or if you are going to make my work life unpleasant. I do not care that you worked nights at Best Buy the summer after you graduated from college (assuming you have other, more recent and relevant job experience).
Do not waste space telling me about yourself. Your experience speaks for you. When I read, on your resume, that you are “responsible, independent, a quick study, an outstanding speaker and writer, motivated problem solver and results oriented” it makes me suspect you are none of those things. Why else would you have to tell me? And if you have no experience, then how can you know you are any of those things?
Tell me about your relevant work experience but don’t sweat it if you are not a perfect fit. If you worked an entire summer in Texas doing lawn care, then I know you want to work and have a certain amount of determination and grit. That’s great. Now I know you are responsible and motivated. If I’m looking for a ASP.NET programmer with five years of experience who can also yodel and you only have two years of ASP.NET but have amazing yodeling skills, then apply anyway. Enroll in an online class about ASP.NET and make sure to tell me about that class. It might not help, but it might. You have no way of knowing how important the ASP.NET skills are to me versus the yodeling.
I want to know some basics – will this person show up on time ready to work? Will this person do what they say they will do? Will they do it on time? Nobody is perfect, so if you are going to miss a deadline or are struggling in some way, will you tell us about it in time for someone to help you and fix the problem? Are you going to work well with everyone else? These are really important issues for me.
Understand that this is difficult for the hiring organization too. Nobody enjoys this process; it’s like a cross between doing your taxes and a blind date. If I could think of a better way of finding someone to take this job, I would go for it in a New York second. I am not having fun, either. I will admit that you are probably having less fun than I am, but not by much.
I’m willing to go through all this because the only thing worse than the hiring process is the firing process.
Mary Haskett is a cofounder of Tactical Information Systems and a serial entrepreneur. Her first experience with a start-up was a skydiving school she ran with her boyfriend then husband while she was an undergraduate student. That company was bootstrapped into a profitable operation that operated three airplanes and hosted a skydiving competition viewed on ESPN. Her second company was HCI Training, an instructional design and development company that developed custom training solutions for large corporations and government agencies such as Dell, USAA and the US Army. HCI Training, also profitable, was acquired in 2007 by Ideal Innovations Inc., a defense contracting firm that has appeared on the INC list of fastest growing companies three years in a row. Tactical Information Systems (TIS) is a local start-up that provides hosted biometric matching services utilizing face, iris finger and palm biometrics.
