I have a very severe problem--my last name. My first name doesn't help much for that matter. There are a million David Smith's. There's even a guy in Britain with the same middle name--same spelling--who is an artist and a sculpter. He even reserved the domain name.
But where my name is common, I bring a very impressive ability to develop new business strategies. Electric utilities. Water utilities. Freeway transportation policy. Real estate development. Media and entertainment. Diverse industries, all.
The problem is that I was born to a Smith, not a Gates, Perot or Buffett. Heck, I know guys over ten years my junior who were born to families whose fathers founded a company and sold it for millions who now manage the family's real estate investments. In their twenties!
I was born in the wrong zip code. Maybe I was switched at birth?
So where I bring a pronounced talent to the table, I lack the backing to "do" my own deals. Hundreds of people out there like me, right? Bill Gates among them.
My problem then becomes more pronounced and more specific--I have a terrible record of securing capital and launching my own deals.
But at least I know what the problem is. And as was the case with my freeway congestion relief plan, when you identify the true problem it is much easier to attack it by developing a solution to the problem. And solutions are what I specialize in.
But I think that I am too married to my ideas to be effective at this stage at securing funding for my projects. Which is where the blogosphere and LinkedIn come into play. I need some suggestions. Advice. Sage counsel from those who have been there, done that and gotten the t-shirts from all over the globe where the wealth their participation has generated, allowing trips to all the places the t-shrits came from.
Phase one, I suspect, is the business plan. No problem. I'm good at that. But within that will be the management team. I have simply been more junior (i.e. young and inexperienced!) than most qualified managers would be interested in partnering up with. But I have a record now! One of my proposals has literally seen six other companies either copy in whole or in part or at the very least launch based on the same ideas.
Phase two will probably be the capital. I have long heard that the capital follows the management team. Everyone has ideas. Ideas, as I have proven, are a dime a dozen. And the biggest reason I have never proceeded to phase two is that I have not yet completed phase one's requirement for a management team.
That should probably provide some pretty good opportunity for comments. Anything is fair game. But please recognize that I'm talking about significant IP, so if questions get too in-depth I may elect to take it to email or phone calls. Thank you for respecting this from the outset.
Monday, February 25, 2013
Sunday, February 10, 2013
HR, hiring managers...get job posts right, please!
Have you ever been on an interview or had your resume presented to a company only to have the job yanked? Apparently the company didn't know what they were really looking for, they didn't find the right candidates and they wasted everyone's time finding out!
Oops.
I've had some variation of this happen several times. Hiring manager doesn't know what they need for the new subordinate's role. HR person doesn't know what questions to ask the hiring manager. Company paying too little for what they're seeking in knowledge and experience. A million variations. Every single one of them drives a dagger through a job hunter's heart, rips it out and shoves a family-sized bottle of lemon juice in right after. Nasty situation.
I had a situation like this recently where I was actually approached by four recruiters for the same position. Four! What's funny? Two of those were located in India! I awoke one morning with two voice messages from Karachi via VOIP and Pennsylvania area codes, so eager they were to fill their quota via monster and career builder resumes. I got a phone call later in the morning from an American recruiter on the East Coast (not even my region, but minus the thick accent), so I returned their call. They presented me then the cute blonde in my region called two days later. Oops.
Well, they presented all of their candidates and then the company yanks the job. I guess they didn't actually know what they were seeking after all. Never mind all us job seekers and the pain such an event causes us.
There is another position currently listed that is even worse. You're not typically able to determine if a hiring company is going to go jerk weed on you, but this position is a dead giveaway.
I'm a corporate financial analyst by trade, and a darned good one if I may say so myself. Not the best at marketing my skills, but skilled nonetheless. And smart enough to know that the phrases "New Grad," "Financial Analyst, Senior" and "5 years experience" simply do not go together. Ever. Toss in, "bachelors required but gee, we sure would prefer if you had a masters" and you're obviously talking about either a hiring manager or an HR generalist who woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Or got reamed at the mid-morning meeting and decided to take it out on a group of online job seekers unbeknownst to them.
I run across other job posts all the time that have been taken down. I'm not talking about Doostang.com, where I have not once applied for a job that was actually a job. That's simply a scam--haven't figured out what their "game" is yet. We're talking about every tenth job listed on CyberCoders being yanked. "We're sorry, that job appears to be no longer available or has been filled." At least they've added the "or has been filled" part, although I'm relatively certain the previous part about "no longer exists" is closer to the truth.
HR generalists. Hiring managers. I hope that you are never in a position of being out-of-work and have to experience this first-hand. Sincerely. Take my word for it--when you shove that lemon juice bottle in? Yeah. Boy, that sure does leave a lasting impression.
I hope that you have been employed continuously over the last 5+ years. But please, take pity on those of us who have been in job hunt mode at some point over that time frame. The economy has been miserable. Pervasively so. Not your fault. Not ours. But please--make the process easier for us. You never know when the tables will be reversed in the future, and stranger things have happened than one of you submitting your resume to me at my whoop-d-do start-up, Inc. asking for a job and my doing a little bit of research when "that" company's name pops up on your resume and I say, "I wonder?" Be nice.
Hiring managers, you ought to know well enough what the role entails to fill out an accurate job posting. I'm sure you'll include the, "bright, intelligent, analytical and easy to get along with" stuff typical to just about every job posting ever. We're talking about the points specific to a Financial Analyst role or an IT or administrator role, as I'm sure that sector has seen a lot of the same problems. Get it right. If you need to get an HR generalist or manager involved to ensure you get it right, do so.
If you are working with a recruiter, are you working with an IT professional trying to fill an accounting department role? If so, might I suggest you need to get another recruiter. If the person doesn't understand the difference in their elbow and your cash flow, you've got the wrong person trying to staff your department. Get another one.
If you are the HR department, good luck! I realize you have to staff up with marketing, accounting, IT and other completely unrelated professionals. Again, perhaps you should get with the department manager and also an outside recruiting company. There are no shortages in recruiters or companies. Interview several. Find one that fits your needs, even if that means you use one for the accounting department and another for IT. Again, there are many. No need to compromise on quality or qualifications. And no need to do it yourself and have the same resulting compromised staff.
This job posting thing should be old hat to hiring managers, HR and staffing firms alike. Geez, I've interviewed with so many over the years it has been insane the tidbits I've picked up. Observations of their hop-scotch skipping between companies. Did you know the staffing industry basically runs the same from company to company? Get in a certain number of potential interviewees, certain activities during different times of the day, etc. I've never heard from a recruiter at certain times of the day. If I call, I get voice mail. Period. It's almost formulaic except I think that industry is completely fly by the seat of your pants when it boils right down to it.
I would expect a greater sense of professionalism all the way around. We interviewees are expected to wear suit and tie, "tell you about ourselves" and every other thing entailed in an interview. Do us the courtesy of at least posting a job you are actually intending on hiring someone for.
And get the bloody JOB POSTING right! That's pretty basic. Don't waste my time.
Oops.
I've had some variation of this happen several times. Hiring manager doesn't know what they need for the new subordinate's role. HR person doesn't know what questions to ask the hiring manager. Company paying too little for what they're seeking in knowledge and experience. A million variations. Every single one of them drives a dagger through a job hunter's heart, rips it out and shoves a family-sized bottle of lemon juice in right after. Nasty situation.
I had a situation like this recently where I was actually approached by four recruiters for the same position. Four! What's funny? Two of those were located in India! I awoke one morning with two voice messages from Karachi via VOIP and Pennsylvania area codes, so eager they were to fill their quota via monster and career builder resumes. I got a phone call later in the morning from an American recruiter on the East Coast (not even my region, but minus the thick accent), so I returned their call. They presented me then the cute blonde in my region called two days later. Oops.
Well, they presented all of their candidates and then the company yanks the job. I guess they didn't actually know what they were seeking after all. Never mind all us job seekers and the pain such an event causes us.
There is another position currently listed that is even worse. You're not typically able to determine if a hiring company is going to go jerk weed on you, but this position is a dead giveaway.
I'm a corporate financial analyst by trade, and a darned good one if I may say so myself. Not the best at marketing my skills, but skilled nonetheless. And smart enough to know that the phrases "New Grad," "Financial Analyst, Senior" and "5 years experience" simply do not go together. Ever. Toss in, "bachelors required but gee, we sure would prefer if you had a masters" and you're obviously talking about either a hiring manager or an HR generalist who woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Or got reamed at the mid-morning meeting and decided to take it out on a group of online job seekers unbeknownst to them.
I run across other job posts all the time that have been taken down. I'm not talking about Doostang.com, where I have not once applied for a job that was actually a job. That's simply a scam--haven't figured out what their "game" is yet. We're talking about every tenth job listed on CyberCoders being yanked. "We're sorry, that job appears to be no longer available or has been filled." At least they've added the "or has been filled" part, although I'm relatively certain the previous part about "no longer exists" is closer to the truth.
HR generalists. Hiring managers. I hope that you are never in a position of being out-of-work and have to experience this first-hand. Sincerely. Take my word for it--when you shove that lemon juice bottle in? Yeah. Boy, that sure does leave a lasting impression.
I hope that you have been employed continuously over the last 5+ years. But please, take pity on those of us who have been in job hunt mode at some point over that time frame. The economy has been miserable. Pervasively so. Not your fault. Not ours. But please--make the process easier for us. You never know when the tables will be reversed in the future, and stranger things have happened than one of you submitting your resume to me at my whoop-d-do start-up, Inc. asking for a job and my doing a little bit of research when "that" company's name pops up on your resume and I say, "I wonder?" Be nice.
Hiring managers, you ought to know well enough what the role entails to fill out an accurate job posting. I'm sure you'll include the, "bright, intelligent, analytical and easy to get along with" stuff typical to just about every job posting ever. We're talking about the points specific to a Financial Analyst role or an IT or administrator role, as I'm sure that sector has seen a lot of the same problems. Get it right. If you need to get an HR generalist or manager involved to ensure you get it right, do so.
If you are working with a recruiter, are you working with an IT professional trying to fill an accounting department role? If so, might I suggest you need to get another recruiter. If the person doesn't understand the difference in their elbow and your cash flow, you've got the wrong person trying to staff your department. Get another one.
If you are the HR department, good luck! I realize you have to staff up with marketing, accounting, IT and other completely unrelated professionals. Again, perhaps you should get with the department manager and also an outside recruiting company. There are no shortages in recruiters or companies. Interview several. Find one that fits your needs, even if that means you use one for the accounting department and another for IT. Again, there are many. No need to compromise on quality or qualifications. And no need to do it yourself and have the same resulting compromised staff.
This job posting thing should be old hat to hiring managers, HR and staffing firms alike. Geez, I've interviewed with so many over the years it has been insane the tidbits I've picked up. Observations of their hop-scotch skipping between companies. Did you know the staffing industry basically runs the same from company to company? Get in a certain number of potential interviewees, certain activities during different times of the day, etc. I've never heard from a recruiter at certain times of the day. If I call, I get voice mail. Period. It's almost formulaic except I think that industry is completely fly by the seat of your pants when it boils right down to it.
I would expect a greater sense of professionalism all the way around. We interviewees are expected to wear suit and tie, "tell you about ourselves" and every other thing entailed in an interview. Do us the courtesy of at least posting a job you are actually intending on hiring someone for.
And get the bloody JOB POSTING right! That's pretty basic. Don't waste my time.
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