In the Moment

OK so I'm sitting at home the other day trying to schedule a working lunch meeting with my three year old kid on my lap. I scheduled an overnight meeting - 24 hours. Task master that I can be, that was ridiculous! Very funny though. Good thing my business partner knew me well enough to laugh. So, my work is creeping into home and vice versa. Why am I talking about this?

I just read a hilarious article from Chris Erskine called "The Tricks of 6". It's all about how 6 year olds are in the moment. To quote his article, "All hat and no horse.", but in the moment, I think more people need to be in the moment. So when I'm at home I need to pay attention to the 3 year old on my lap - put down the computer Heidi -- and when I'm at work I need to only check Face Book - OK, maybe twice a day? Let's all try to occasionally quit multi-tasking and be in the moment. We might actually get a bit more done.

Stop Paying for Bad Resumes

Please quit paying thousands of dollars for bad resumes!

We have had too many people coming to us with a bad resume they have paid thousands of dollars for. It's frustrating and infuriating to see good people taken on a cheap ride. Most of these people are unemployed and I think are having their fears preyed on.

If you need resume tips, go through this blog. I have lots of resume writing tips here 
(Resume Writing Tips). If you are totally stuck, phone us, and we’ll help. Don’t spend your mortgage, car payment, or a month of groceries on a bad resume.

Bad Attitudes Don't Sell

Recently we've had a few candidates come in to meet with us with such doom and gloom attitudes. Maybe they are letting down their guard with their old recruiter friends but seriously, bad attitudes don’t sell.

No matter how awful your day, week, year has been, most people prefer their potential employees – leaders of their company -- to have a positive outlook. I’m not saying you can’t gripe every now and then. Life would not be fun without a few sarcastic comments, like the old saying goes, “If you've got something nasty to say come sit by me.” 

But in an interview, please keep the snarky attitude to yourself.

Adding to Your Team

Create an accurate and detailed job description. The number one difficult thing about a search is when the hiring manager has no idea what they want. If you don’t quite know what you need ask around, talk to your employees. They typically know exactly what you need and what you don’t need. Open up those lines of communication.

Think about the intangibles -- the person’s personality. Develop and idea of who would work best on your team. If you have too many introverts who never speak up, maybe you find yourself an extrovert. Make sure you round out your team.

Use your network to find your ideal candidate. Yes, email all your friends and ask who they know. If that doesn’t work then call us. We’ll start using our network.

Conduct an in-depth interview. Make sure you get all your questions answered. Going off the cuff works when you interview all the time (like us) but if you don’t interview often make sure you cover the essentials. Over here we start out new recruiters with an interview cheat sheet. Bring your interview cheat sheet into the interview in case you forget what you need to ask.

Background checks tell all. Make sure you run one on the final candidate. We’ve a had lots of skeletons come out of the closet with a detailed background check.

I'm a Recruiter, Not a Computer

We keep on receiving what we call “marketing resumes". What is a marketing resume? It’s a shortened version of a candidate’s history that is written for a computer -- just in case they are scanned and never get seen by human eyes. The resumes usually look good, they give some information but they are not what a recruiter wants. Keep in mind they are useful and have a purpose but send those marketing resumes to the databases and large companies who want them. I am not a computer, I’m a recruiter! I do not scan for key words. When I recruit someone I actually read their resume. So, when you are approached by a recruiter and asked for a resume please, please send us a real “old fashioned” resume.

Now, don’t go dig out granny’s typewriter. We expect them to arrive in an acceptable format like Word. I still like them to look good and read well. I also like a chronological resumes with things like titles, dates of employment in chronological order, what you did there, where you went to school, your address, phone and email. We do not want a mishmash of information that I have to figure out and piece together. I already have to dig through your background. For example - and keeping in mind I’ve been watching Jurassic Park too much due to my 3 year olds obsession with dinos – picture a paleontologist digging up fossils. They don’t need anyone else dumping layers of dirt on top of what they already need to dig up. They aren't bringing in the dump truck full of dirt to spill all over the bones so they can spend more time in the dirt. Think minimal digging, keep it simple.

So help us out – send a solid, well written, looking good resume. Keep your marketing resume for the job boards, networking events and throwing it at some huge corporation’s computer to scan. Send me (the human) the readable resume, the one my client wants to see. When we recruit you, we really do want you to get the job!

The Multi-Tasking Mommy

I am attempting to refine my multi-tasking/organization skills because....

School started! The mommy in me has had to get extra crazy disciplined and refine my multi-tasking and organization skills. It’s amazing how much I can get done, not always as quickly as I wish, but I get it done. A few things that have helped me out:

Plan the family dinners. If you have a weekly plan it makes each night easier. Plus, it makes shopping easier.

Pack lunch ahead of time and lay down the law. What I mean by that - If the kid doesn’t tell you what he wants when you’ve given two choices - he gets what you give him – no exceptions, no substitutions. What is the old saying, “You get what you get, don’t put up a fit.”

Homework must be done soon after school – before football! Get it over with.

Highlight each family member’s schedule on the main calendar in different colors. It helps everyone know who is doing what and where they are headed to next.

Return all important email, calls and mail immediately. The more you put it off the more it seems to stack up.

Delete all unimportant emails and voicemails immediately. Don’t let your in-box clog up. This includes mail – throw out everything you don’t need and sort it before you get into the house – i.e. sort it into the trash bin. Keep the bills (although you should be on-line by now with all that) and invites.

Whew – then relax for a few minutes before you need to GET BACK TO WORK!

Catching Up

Whew – I’ve been swamped streamlining TAG’s social networking efforts as well as recruiting. On top of that, I’ve been out and about going to networking events and to add to my chaos, at home, we just started football season. Football is a huge commitment and I’m trying to figure out how to get through the season. I think my biggest issue the last few weeks is figuring out the logistics for practice each night. It’s all about feeding the dudes healthy food, not fast food – I’ve gone way too organic for that! I might actually start blogging about the football food issue and posting all that recipe madness on another blog.

So, to wrap it all up, I’m up on Twitter now - you can find me at Splitworld. I’m sending out our most current jobs and anything else I think is helpful. The company should be up this week Tweeting any new jobs and/or some of Dave’s short rants.

A huge thank you to Andrew Bermudez at Lee & Associates for his insights into these social networking sites. We’ve always had a great network here at TAG and now it’s getting even better.