The 5 things employers look at in a resume or at an interview:
- What skills do you bring to the job?
- Will you get along with everyone?
- How long will you stay?
- How much will you cost them?
- How are you better than the next person?
If you make them put it in writing that you have say a 3 year contract, can they still try and kick you out after a year?
Yep. Without so much as a second thought. The minute you’re no longer needed, you’re gone. Every contract stipulates this regardless of anticipated period of performance (ex. 3 years).
My problem is not the interview. I interview very well. These days the problem is getting to the interview.
You forgot:
- Are you heavily pierced, and covered in tattoos from head to toe?
That, and not the reverse, seems to be a requirement for getting a job, any job, nowadays.
Yes, I had a cousin this happened to. He was hired to be head engineer of a project and paid him the sun and moon. When the project ended he was out.
When Cerner came to Kansas City they offered a heck of a great job to a coworker who was a good manager to help start things. He turned it down because they wouldnt give him a 2 year contract and he wasnt going to throw away a federal job even though the money would have been great.
Yes and you better not be over 50.
One thing is missing on that list: will you deliver us more benefit than you will cost us?
What I notice a lot is that employees only focus on what they bring (and what they think is important), while disregarding all the aspects that cost the organization time, money, attention, unrest. A solid unexceptional worker who does his job satisfactorily without complaining is often preferable to talented persons whose personalities mean they will continuallly require management attention. The latter kind may range from perceptive persons who can’t let well enough alone (or keep complaining about co-workers), to prima donnas who will feel underappreciated no matter what you do. (of course in certain parts of the organization you do need these kinds of people, but you can’t have a whole organization comprised of erratic geniuses).
Hence employers may also look actively for things that spell trouble (i.e. hidden costs). I’d advise a prospective employee, when interviewing for a job, to really consider how to project the image that the benefits you will bring will outweight the costs.
To clarify: although employees may rightfully be critical about things they notice, and it is a good thing if they draw attention to it, quite often there are reasons why you won’t do what they expect you to do (larger policy decisions and trade offs, time constraints, employee policy). If an employee complaints very often, then it is often no longer about contributing to the organization by pointing out areas of improvement, but about voicing personal griefs and letting of steam. I.e. it has become a cost, not a benefit.
Given that employers have about 100% of the power in this deal unless you’re a super-star and they know it, I’m curious how the “make them” part of your plan will work.
As others have said, practically speaking employment contracts mean almost nothing good for the employee unless you’re willing to spend decades fighting them in court after they ignore terms of the contract. While also being blackballed from your industry as soon as you start the court fight.
Yeah, I think the problem is everyone (employers and employees) have all these varying views on what makes a “good” employee or employer. Often it isn’t in line with reality. And yet, that doesn’t stop everyone from trying to quantify these things, leading to all sorts of absurd metrics and biases.
Take this example from the other day. Some headhunter from the Midwest (who calls herself the “CEO” of her recruiting agency, but I suspect it’s just her) approaches me about a job near me in New York. It’s a manager job for a small ediscovery / litigation consulting firm (basically a company that collects email, docs, databases, and other electronic data for law firms, etc). It’s not a bad job and the salary is good, but this is the sort of work I stopped doing a decade ago.
So she’s trying to tell me how “senior” the role is and how she’s been sending "VP"s and “C-level” execs to try and fill it (even though it’s a “manager” title with a consulting manager’s salary). She’s also trying to say how they are using “big data” for “huge data sets” (even though the job description just calls for SQL Server, SharePoint, and VB…not actual big data tech like Hbase, Hive, and Spark).
Then this recruiter asks me all these “scoring” questions - how many years of “management”, how many years of “accounting”, how many years of “complex data analysis”. Stupid questions that are absolutely meaningless in terms of understanding what I know how to do.
And then she’s questioning why I changed jobs every 1 to 4 years. Because why not? If I didn’t change jobs that much, I wouldn’t have the 5 careers worth of experience this particular company appears to be looking for.
The point being, this seems like a lot of scrutiny and hoop jumping for a job that a) I’m not a great fit for because I haven’t done it in a decade and b) not really all that interested in and c) can probably be performed by anyone else of equivalent experience coming out of Deloitte, PwC, KPMG, EY, Alvarez & Marsal, AlixPartners, Kroll, BDO, or any other consulting firm that has a forensics / ediscovery practice in New York.
Are employers also checking social media to learn about you?
I once lost out on a job because in the interview they asked me if I preferred working in a team or by myself. I said I do great at both but they kept hammering me to pick one so I said by myself. I lost out because they said “we want people wanting to work on a team”.
But then looking back I should have guessed the answer they wanted.
Actually that is #4 on the list but it could cover anything from an employee who will require expensive accommodations to a person needing lots of time off for family to as you say, a person who complains so much they bring the whole office down.
And your right, alot comes down to the image one projects.
I never had the opportunity to work with a headhunter. Are they paid only if they find someone for the job?
The whole process and line of questioning she gave you sounds inept and misleading. I know nothing about the stuff your talking about and I’m guessing she doesnt either. Why wouldnt the company have someone who works there, who knows all the stuff you are talking about, be the one to recruit and hire a new person?
I see your point, I may have read # 4 too narrowly. Regardless I feel it is usefull to stress that there is also a cost-benefit analysis involved. I.e. a comparison of not only the skills but the total benefit: can and will you apply your skills in a useful way, and will this outweigh the costs. There are persons who do have skills but do not employ them as they don’t care about the organization and their colleagues. These may be persons who can get along famously on a personal level precisely because they don’t spend energy on actually doing their job.
I would assume so. That’s why LinkedIn exists and you should keep it up to date.
They can’t really check Facebook if you don’t want them to.
Headhunters or third-party recruiters get paid by the company where they place a candidate. If they don’t place a candidate, they don’t get paid. Sometimes recruiters are retained by companies, sometimes they just have long-standing relationships, sometimes they are just anyone who decides to call themselves a "recruiter and then goes trolling Linkedin and Indeed looking to match random jobs with random candidates.
I think the fact that there are all these layers of recruiters trying to “find the perfect candidate” speaks to how broken the system is.
Yeah, she was pretty inept. And she wouldn’t fucking stop talking!
:: sigh :: in the vast majority of circumstances, there is no legal requirement to show that there are no available U.S. workers to hire a foreign worker in H-1B status. That’s only for the employment-based green card process. And to use a job requirement for the green card process, you have to show that the foreign worker for whom you are petitioning gained that qualification before working for the petitioning employer. It’s also a legal requirement to offer the prevailing wage for the occupation, level of experience, and geographic location, and the prevailing wage is determined by the Dept. of Labor.
Eva Luna, U.S. Immigration Paralegal
I would find it weird if there were many people who think that finding a job is easy.
There are many people who aren’t comfortable with job interviews, who don’t have the required degrees, who don’t fit into corporate culture for one reason or another, who are disabled or have health problems, don’t have the right connections, or can’t take “just any job” for whatever reason.
I myself am lucky to be working in a job I like and where I work from home. I don’t think I’d survive in a work environment that many people would consider “normal.”
Totally agree. right now any job (I think) that pays over $30k a year with any kind of benefits is damn hard to find.
Chris Rock (the comedian) said on the concept of “you can do or be anything you want”.
“Sure you can! If #1 You are good at it #2 They are hiring and #3 Its still good to know someone”.
I think all these kids who have gone into STEM fields will be in for a rude awakening in a few years when that job market becomes saturated with #1. all the Americans going into it and #2. all the foreigners moving to the US to take jobs.
Kind of like 20 years ago when all the grads went into law thinking their would be big money and now the lawyer field is over crowded.