Today’s blog is sort of a continuation to two earlier blogs and will deal with how a recruiter goes about finding candidates.  In my earlier blogs I wrote about making sure you are able to be found in terms of where to put your CV and where to network.  The focus for today is a realization that a recruiter simply doesn’t go on to Monster or to LinkedIn and randomly search through everyone in the system.  A recruiter has to find a way to narrow the search down.  Sorting through 250 resumes when only 10 of them are the type of candidates your looking for is a waste of time.  Often the positions a recruiter gets need to be filled yesterday so time is always an important factor for a recruiter.  The quicker a candidate can get through the process, the better chance the position will close. 

That being said, lets examine how a recruiter would do a search.  Let’s say for example I’m working on an SAP Project Manager position and the person I’m looking for needs experience with the Plant Maintenance (PM) module.  Searching for SAP would bring me too many candidates to sort through, as SAP has too many modules in too many varied roles.  So rather then sort through a tone of SAP resumes I may search for someone who’s resume has “SAP” AND “Plant Maintenance”.  This would hopefully narrow the search and bring the numbers down.  If that number was again to great, I would then search for someone who’s resume had “SAP” AND “Plant Maintenance” AND “Project Manager” in it.  Why did I tell you this?  I want to emphasis that ‘key words’ are the best way to generate traffic to your resume or profile on any given site as someone is doing a search on ‘key words’ in order to find your profile.  If you are posting an online profile or a generic resume online somewhere you should make an effort to put as many ‘key words’ in your resume to increase the odds of being found. 

Listing a lot of technologies can also be a good thing as technologies are often used as search strings when searching for technical positions in hopes or narrowing the candidacy pool.  Let’s take a .NET platform for example.  If I’m looking for someone with ASP.NET, C#.NET and VB.NET experience but you only write “I’ve developed applications in a .NET platform” you may not be pulling as much attention to yourself as you may want.  What I would recommend for this (and it helps the recruiter – which is never a bad thing) is at the bottom of each position your listing on your resume, write a list of the technologies you used for that position.  That will eliminate a lot of the questions a recruiter may have about what you’ve used in the past and should increase your odds of attacting a recruiter to your CV.  There are many other ways to narrow searches down:  Location; Education; Salary Expectations; etc; so just be aware of this when your putting your resume or profile online.  What you put online could screen you in or out of any given search, so give yourself the best odds of success.

What I don’t mean to imply by this is that someone should just begin to list irrelvant information on their CV.  But if you’ve done .NET development then list all the .NET technologies you’ve used.  If you’ve used more then one SAP module then list the modules rather then just putting SAP.  Put yourself in the mind-set of the recruiter.  Perhaps putting just SAP on your CV will cause a recruiter to pass you by when he is looking for someone with SAP PM.  Listing more information is not necessairly a bad thing and will most likely increase the traffic your resume gets.

Which is never a bad thing…

This week marks the first week that the majority of workers will head back to work following the holiday season and begin work for the 2009 year.  I myself just got back from a hockey tournament in Port Alberni, British Columbia.  I was forunate to attend this years World Under 17 Challenge where team Ontario was crowned the Champions after beating team Pacific.  The only thing I will say about that trip is that drivers in Ottawa shouldn’t complain about road conditions until they have to drive up a 411M elevated mountain on a 45 degree angle.  I should also mention that this road was unplowed during snow, ice, sleet and rain storms while being guided through the mountain by 10 feet deep ditches and 100 ft trees.  Easily the kind of conditions where you could slid off the road and not be found for days.  But that’s enough of a rant for me on the BC road conditions, as I was told not to stereotype the whole province with what I experienced on the island.  However todays blog (I haven’t been slacking I’ve just been out of the office) is inspired by a conversation I had with a local on the island.  I was working a game in beautiful Campell River when I was chatting with a local mill worker before the game.  He had said that a local mill closed and laid off close to 1000 people.  Being concerned with the labour market, I quickly asked him where those people have to go.  His answer was not something I was prepared for.  He told me most of them would move to Alberta to find a new job or career!!

This was something I didn’t really think of, and I know I took that for granted living in Ottawa.  I assumed that when a person in Ottawa lost their job they simply found another one in the city with a different company.  I realize that not every job transfers into another job, but at least there are options here.  For the case of Campbell River inhabitants who had spend their life working in a paper/saw mill, there was simply no other option for them.  This brings me to the ‘idea’ behind todays post which is two fold.  1 – With the economy going the way everyone says it is, can people who lose their job afford to be picky about their new career move?  2 – When someone is juggling career options should they turn an opportunity down because their potential new employer isn’t doing much for them?

Question 1 -  I think people can afford to be picky, however a realistic approach to a job search is probably required now a days.  Anyone who is actively looking for a job should consider that not as many companies are hiring these days.  Look back 10 years ago and IT was booming.  Job offers were coming left right and centre and you could wait for one you really wanted.  I think someone who gets an offer today should really consider taking the opportunity because another one may not come along.  I’m not suggesting anyone take a job for the sake of taking a job.  Working in a job you hate is surely not going to work out for you or your employer.  But if the company and opportunity is good, why not give it some serious consideration.  A big road block in people finding the right opportunity is their salary expectations.  Either they want too much or the employer is offering too low.  Both happen all the time and sometimes the two sides just won’t meet.  I think my point is more that while you may have had a high salary in your last position, you may want to consider a lower salary if the opportunity was right.

Question 2 – I don’t think I worded that properly above so let me elaborate.  What I mean by this is, in the summer when I was recruiting positions a lot of the questions I got were around: does the company offer certification; do they have an RRSP matching program; do they offer stock options; etc.  This is a trend that I have seen come to a screeching halt as of late.  I don’t think its that employers aren’t offering those things anymore, but rather that people are willing to accept jobs now without those being offered.  I think this gives a pretty good analysis of what the market is like.  Where as 3 years ago it wasn’t uncommon for someone to turn down an offer because certification wasn’t offered by an employer.

Perhaps this is a sign that we are in for a long and interesting 2009…