searching for a director job position: do not forget professionals...

I am heavily involved in social networking (LinkedIn, Viadeo, Xing, Rozee), and I noticed that job positions at director's level often do not appear in "standard" social networking sites.

The best way to find these director job position is to send your resume to "professional" recruiters, such as  Hays, Michael Page & co.

3 most important questions to ask as a recruiter or to answer as a job applicant

 All questions asked during an interview for a job come down to one of the 3 following questions:

1. Can the person do the work (qualifications)?
2. Will the person do the work (motivation)?
3. Will the person fit in company/team (adaptability)? 

The goal of the interview is that the interviewer has a clear view on answers on these 3 questions.

Read details and slightly different views here:

• 3 Things Employers Look for on Your Resume 
1. Can the candidate solve the specific top problems I have today?
2. Can the candidate build shareholder value?
3. Will the employee fit in with the company’s culture?
• The 3 Things a Hiring Manager Needs to Know to Hire You
  1. Are you likeable?
  2. Are you motivated?
  3. Can you do the job?

Ms. Sarah Zulfiqar wrote: We look for the following 4 A’s in a candidate:

• Attitude (behavior and posture)
• Appearance (attire and expression)
• Aptitude (skills and talent)
• Agility (communication skills)

Generally an individual excludes the first 2 A’s and concentrate on the last two. Observing the attitude of the interviewee helps the interviewer to determine if the candidate will fit in the prevailing organizational culture and environment. Appearance indicates interviewee’s interest towards the job and respect for the employer. According to a wise saying “You dress for the person you are going to meet and not for yourself.”

Looking for a local job

All jobs on a google map. Try : http://jobcompass.net/

Googling for Jobs - How to Use Google to Find a Job from Jim Stroud on Vimeo.

for recruiters

TalentSeekr™ makes recruiting through online advertising easy. No matter what type of candidates you're searching for, TalentSeekr can find them on the web and display precision target ads -- all while monitoring candidate response and optimizing your spend.

Resume: do & don't

The Fall of CVs & The Rise of Personal Branding: CVs / Resumes are dead (by the way, I do agree).

5 things you should never put on your resume

Top things to never put on your resume by readers

Make sure your career progression is not mistaken for job hopping

How to Write a Resume That Will Land an Interview

How do I answer to a job posting

Let's imagine I read a job posting with the following lines:

Experience:

• Requires BSCS/EE or equivalent and 8+ years of software development experience with 2+ years in a first level management role.
• Experienced in managing embedded software development teams and developing and maintaining a training concept for the group.
• Experienced in managing the entire software development life cycle including requirement gathering, architecture, design, implementation, testing and deployment of functionality.

After writing a motivation letter, I usually copy/paste above items and specifically answer them line by line. This is a way:

1. to help the recruiter "selling" my profile to its client.
2. to show my understanding of the post.
3. to show that the job specifically interests me and that I spent some time and energy answering it.

Experience:
• Requires BSCS/EE or equivalent and 8+ years of software development experience with 2+ years in a first level management role.

• 7 years as 1st level management role @ Logitech & Mariner Networks

• 13 years of embedded software

  • 8 years for businesses

    • 5 years network product @ IBM

    • 2 years network product @ Mariner Networks

    • 1 year elevator @ Schindler

  • 5 years in consumer electronics @ Logitech

• Experienced in managing embedded software development teams and developing and maintaining a training concept for the group

• 7 years as 1st level management role @ Logitech & Mariner Networks

• Regarding developing and maintaining training concepts:
  

• I organized some courses that were also adopted by the other firmware swiss development team

• Through the years, I progressively set setting additional embedded software goals every year.

• Experienced in managing the entire software development life cycle including requirement gathering, architecture, design, implementation, testing and deployment of functionality.

• requirement definitions interacting with marketing

  • 5 years @ Logitech

• architecture

  • 2 years @ Mariner Networks

• coding

  • 8 years @ IBM, Mariner Networks & Schindler

• test management

  • 7 years @ Logitech & Mariner Networks

• field support

  • @ Logitech & IBM

emurse.com

emurse.com is yet another resume posting site:

My Resume
Web	DOC	PDF
RTF	ODT	TXT

BUT here is what I especially appreciate about this site:

• displaying who has visited your profile
• how they did find you. For instance with Google using such and such keywords: <<Your "Main" Resume has just been viewed. Below are the details:
  
  What: "Main" Resume - Webpage
  When: Friday, March 06th, 2009 11:17:01 AM
  Where: Browns Mills, NJ, United States (estimated)
  Who: verizon.net
  From: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=cmmi+methodology+in+resume&btnG=Search
  >>
  

There are also some other pluses also offered by some other sites:

• resume downloadable in different formats.
• widget as above that you can post on your blog.

Drawback is that it seems to be mainly a US site and I am living in Europe...

The process of being laid off

What are generally the top priorities you would address during first months in a new job?

This is a question asked on LinkedIn: In a new job, what are generally the top 5 priorities you would really address during the first month and then the two following months ?

One of the answer was:

First month:

- Know who is who in what places. DON'T judge
- Know the systems you have to work with
- Know your job and who is your client, internal or external
- ORGANIZE yourself
- LISTEN to people, NO MATTER WHAT

2 next months:

- Get involved in projects that will help you know you job
- Know the daily routine of your direct report
- Get in better touch with the clients
- Know what the problems are and what you are really facing
- AND NEVER TURN YOUR BACK ON A PROBLEM. It won't go away

May you be successful.

other resume/CV formats

Do you want to experiment non-text resumes/CVs?

Video CV, Flyers CV...

Click here: in french but everyone can understand

Video CV By Jim Newton: http://www.customvideoresume.com

Les réseaux sociaux tissent des liens en amont du processus de recrutement

Les entreprises peuvent maintenant se mettre en contact avec des personnes au profil intéressant, avant même de viser un poste à pourvoir. Ce, sans que la recrue potentielle soit en recherche active d'emploi.

en lire plus...

"Automatically" test your resume

Catherine Palmiere writes in one of her mail I received: "It is vital to know that automation plays a new role in the hiring process. Companies now use special scanner and software packages and feed through resumes they receive in order to search for keywords and phrases. Spend those extra few minutes to customize your resume and use as much specific verbiage as possible from the ad itself. If they mention international travel, then you mention international travel too, etc."

Here is the opportunity to test your resume: http://jobetic.lingway.info/

The result is in french but it did a pretty good job analyzing mine which is 100% english written.

It understood RTF format much better than pure word/doc format.

21 Ways to Know It's Time to Leave Your Job

Read Davids Finch post.

un bon CV

Etes-vous sûr d’avoir un CV irréprochable ?

Notre CV dans les mains du recruteur

"The What The F%&K Factor" or What Not to Write In a Resume

Save Your Linkedin Profile To PDF

http://www.linkedintelligence.com/linkedins-built-in-save-to-pdf

I tested it, it does the job as expected, printing resume PLUS recommandations.

Interview questions

The best hiring questions list I know is available in files
HRinterviewquestions.doc at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NESTJOBS/
I use some of them as an interviewer...

"Un bon post" en français: Comment trouver un emploi de conseiller aux ventes...

Indian walkins / walk-ins

To get a feeling of the software indian job market it is a good idea to wander in offshore related forums to get a better feeling of what's happening in India.

• Get a view of the indian job market and the industrialization degree it reached:
  • http://groups.google.com/group/grkist?hl=en
  • http://groups.google.com/group/chetana_freshers?hl=en
  • http://groups.google.com/group/lookhere?hl=en
• Get a more specific view on how some engineers are recruited:
  • http://www.kyapoocha.com/
  • http://www.mywalkin.com/

You will soon notice the word "walk-in" or "walkin". There are plenty of those industrial recruiting events in every big indian city. Here is an example of a recruiting "walkin" exam:

Walkin Interview @ XXXXX in Chennai on 5th to 12th June 2007

Walkin Interview Details:

Date:5-Jun-07 to 12-Jun-07
Venue:

XXXXX India Pvt Ltd
XX, XXXX Main Road
Chennai - 600058

Contact Person: XXXXX yyyy@zzzz.com
Phone: YY-YYY-YYYYY

IT - Microsoft technologies

Software Engineer

Desired Skills

- 2 years hands on experience VB.net, ASP.net, SQL Server 2000.
- Completing tasks with allocated resources. Research and Development as and when required.
- Reporting on progress.
- Documentation and Record keeping

Experience 2 - 6 years

Location Chennai

Read also my offshoring paper: 9_OFFSHORING_ADVICES

Social Networking for Jobs

Should Monster be scared?

Read this article about employers and job seekers using LinkedIn. Viadeo is missing in this comparisons between different websites.

How to use Linkedin and Viadeo to find a new position in 4 steps

Step 1 connect with as many people as possible

The main goal is to maximize the chances to see and be seen on LinkedIn and Viadeo. An additional goal is to minimize the path for reaching people you want to contact.

Connect with 3 different kinds of profile in addition to your near colleagues:

• Connect to people who share your professional goals.

• Connect with recruiters. There is a huge number of these people on LinkedIn and Viadeo.

• Connect with people having a lot of contacts (several thousands) on Viadeo and LinkedIn like eric.mariacher@gmail.com.

To add me as your LinkedIn connection:

0. register on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com

1. copy/paste eric.mariacher@gmail.com

2. click on http://www.linkedin.com/addContacts?displayAddByHand=

3. paste eric.mariacher@gmail.com in the email field

4. click on "search"

5. click on "send invitation"

To add me as your Viadeo connection: Invite Eric Mariacher on Viadeo

As a general rule do not use standard boiler plate invitation (3rd advice). People with more than 1000 1st level connections usually accept every invitation provided it is not too standard.

To find the most connected people on LinkedIn: click on http://www.linkedin.com/search and sort results by number of connections.

To find the most connected people on Viadeo: ask me

Step 2 get recommendations

One of the real plus of tools such as LinkedIn and Viadeo is the recommendation feature. You get feedback from former colleagues in real time. people looking for those recommendations can contact those former people to get additional information.

Step 3 use Q & A feature on LinkedIn

Another plus of LinkedIn (and to a lesser extent of Viadeo and Xing) is the Q & A feature where you can show your expertise concretely.

Step 4 read my "My 2 cents about Online Business Networking"

http://eric-mariacher.blogspot.com/2006/05/my-2-cents-about-online-business.html

“Grow your network while you don’t need it”

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