Author:
Ed Pollock, January 6th, 2010
Years ago, the San Jose Mercury used to hold Job Fairs at the Santa Clara Convention Center. It was not unusual for there to be 50 companies attending and space was on a first come-first served basis, and rapidly filled up. In the last few years the numbers have sharply decreased, and with the Mercury’s unfortunate down-sizing, they left the field.
Dice’s Targeted Career Job Fair has filled the void, and now has 4 shows scheduled in the South Bay for 2010. The first show is scheduled for Thursday, January 14th, between the hours of 11 am to 3 PM at the Santa Clara Convention Center. I suggest you come early, there will be a line to get in. Make sure you bring several clean copies of your most recent resume. Read more…
Categories: Hiring Trends, Job Hunting Tags: job fair, resume critique | 
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Author:
Ed Pollock, January 6th, 2010
Choose the right clothes for your interview!
Here’s the follow-up to my post regarding the candidates who showed up for the interviews. There are two important themes here. First, dress appropriately, and second, arrive early.
Dressing for an interview.
I wrote a bit about this previously, so I’ll just enhance that a bit with examples of how people showed up here for their interviews.
Too many of the applicants were either over dressed or under dressed. How can you be “overdressed”? Well, in a sense, its dressy clothing for the wrong occasion. When you dress up for an interview, you don’t want to wear clothes that look like you’re gong out on a date. Yes, that’s dressy, but it’s not business dress. It’s fancy casual dress. Others were under-dressed. No matter how much you paid for your jeans, they aren’t interview clothes for office jobs. After you get the job, jeans may be fine – but when you interview, you want to dress in business wear. With so many people today responding to the same ad, it is critical to dress properly.
Read more…
Categories: Interviewing Tips, Job Hunting Tags: arrive early, interview dress | No comments
Author:
Ed Pollock, December 14th, 2009
Um...don't do this ever, and especially not when job hunting!
A few weeks ago, AA-Careers ran a job ad on Craigslist. When we ran the same ad 3 years ago, we received 48 resumes in a 30 day period. The November, 2009 result? This time, we received over 650 resumes in less than a week.
After a couple of follow up questions to my initial post, we decided to go into some more detail on the statistics:
- 29% of applications had at least one spelling mistake.
- 33% had attachments we couldn’t open using either the latest version of Microsoft Word or Acrobat Reader.
- 17% of applications had poorly written, missing, or completely inappropriate cover letters.
- 44% of resumes had a very vague objective unrelated to the job being applied for.
Ouch! Our initial reaction was a bit of shock at all the work it would take to go through the applications. Then, after we’d gone through a triage process, we became concerned for all the job hunters. Hundreds of them made the triage process easy – because they were easy to eliminate. Read more…
Categories: Job Hunting, Resume Writing Tips Tags: Cover Letters, Resume Writing Tips | 4 comments
Author:
Ed Pollock, December 10th, 2009
Hmmm... maybe I should have done more research!
Preparation and practice for interviews is critical, and can help you avoid the 8 deadly mistakes.
How do you prepare? Use ZoomInfo, Yahoo Finance, and the company’s website. Learn as much as you can about the company (or if a large company, the particular group or division you’re interviewing with).
First, know the basics. How long they have been in business? How many employees do they have? What products do they produce? Who are their clients? Are they privately or publicly owned? Where is corporate headquarters? Who is on the Board of Directors? Who are the officers of the company?
Second, dig in. You might find out that the CEO graduated from your alma mater, or that the company does business with one of your past employers, or you own one of their products. All that information will help you ask or answer questions at the interview. Be prepared! With that, and a bit more, you might avoid the 8 deadly interview mistakes below! Read more…
Categories: Interviewing Tips, Job Hunting Tags: Interviewing Tips | 2 comments
Author:
Ed Pollock, December 6th, 2009
Choices, choices...
Most Human Resources people will tell you that a candidate’s appearance at your job interview is the best that the candidate will look during their employment with the company. They’re talking about you. In the Silicon Valley, the dress code has always been less formal than the East Coast and has become more and more informal for decades. Today, it’s not uncommon to find companies that are not just “business casual” or have “casual Fridays” but are “casual”. That doesn’t mean that informal dress is right for the job interview.
You need to consider what level of job you are applying for, and the level of the person you’ll be interviewing with, and if possible, the typical dress at the interviewing company before deciding what you will wear. The term “dress for success” is a good policy to follow. Spend a few minutes using ZoomInfo or LinkedIn and learn the interviewer’s title(s) at the company. Talk to someone you know about how people dress there. Read more…
Categories: Interviewing Tips, Job Hunting Tags: interview dress, Interviewing Tips | No comments
Author:
Ed Pollock, November 30th, 2009
Just saw this over the weekend, and it builds on my recent post on hiring trends: it was recently reported in the Wall Street Journal, that the government’s multibillion-dollar push into energy (green jobs) research is reinvigorating 17 giant University funded research facilities, which included Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. This is great news for people looking to shift careers into the “Green” area. The Office of Science estimates that 1,400 jobs were created in 2009, that’s an increase of 11% over 2008. Another 1,400 jobs were created at Universities doing research in to clean energy.
This makes the future at Lawrence Lab look bright for 2010, and an interesting place for job seekers who are interested in making the switch to “Green” jobs. The push on the government funding now appears to be for applied science rather than pure research as it has done in the past. Lawrence Labs says it will receive about $240 million for research in alternative energy sources, computing, energy efficiency and other areas.
-Good hunting!
Categories: Hiring Trends, Job Hunting Tags: cleantech, green jobs, Hiring Trends, lawrence livermore labs | No comments
Author:
Ed Pollock, November 22nd, 2009
Remember, your resume is a marketing document...it's an ad for you.
A quick Google search comes up with 2,920,000 entries for “resume tips”, with many results linked to even more sites. Some of the suggestions appear good, but many appear to us (and we work with resumes and job hunters day-in and out) as bad advice. For one thing, you run into many “resume factories” using cookie-cutter templates. Some of these factories are outside the U.S. and are not attuned to what’s going on in the market. Also, let’s be clear: one size does not fit all. A search for books on Amazon comes up with hundreds of books on resumes and job hunting. Some of these seem to be from people who never even looked for a job in their lifetime, except maybe in academia.
I have spent over 50 years in the Human Resources field. I have personally reviewed countless thousands of resumes, and my firm has helped thousands get jobs. Each year, AA-Careers has a booth at every Job Fair in the Santa Clara-San Jose area and we provide a FREE Resume Critique to thousands of people. The lines sometimes stretch outside of the show, and it is very common for there to be a one hour wait for assistance. After each show, our staff discusses how very few resumes really are done well.
Why read on? Our clients are having good success with job hunting campaigns, even in this economy. Here’s my perspective: different styles of resumes work in different areas of the country, and vary by career type and years of experience. But several things really help. Read more…
Categories: Job Hunting, Resume Writing Tips Tags: | No comments
Author:
Ed Pollock, November 18th, 2009
The job hunting pendulum swings to...GREEN...
Many patterns in our society act like the swing of a pendulum, first one way and then the other. The highs usually go too high, and the lows sink too far. The same pattern fits hiring trends.
In the not to distant past we had the swing of the dot-coms, companies were being started almost every minute of each day. During that period, we had an office in San Francisco. When our lease expired, the landlord looked to triple the rent. We looked at other locations in the city and the first question the building owner asked was “Are you going public” and then requested as part of the lease he would require stock option. Many of the “old companies” were forced to depart the city, and then came the swing of the pendulum, companies folded, jobs disappeared, and now ten years later many of those building remain vacant.
Then we entered the 21st century and the hot industries were bio-tech and health-care. The Bay area saw a growth of schools training people in the medical field, even the EDD started training people for entry level jobs in the medical field. Unfortunately, after a few years, the number of people looking for jobs far exceeded the needs of the industry and today many of these people are now seeking a new hot field. Read more…
Categories: Hiring Trends, Job Hunting Tags: clean tech, green careers, pendulum, SF bay area | No comments
Author:
Ed Pollock, November 16th, 2009
Searching for a job in the Great Recession...
In a recent article by Dan Burrows in Daily Finance, the lead on the story is “Bernanke between the lines: We’re in for the mother of all jobless recoveries”. The government’s “bail out” and “stimulus” programs seem to be working. The “too large to allow to fail” mantra and policies have saved many companies, which now – after huge layoffs – are beginning to show a profit and the stock market is on its way to complete recovery.
But, what happened to the second part of the government program to develop new jobs? So far, that is a failure. Unemployment has risen nationally to 10.2%, and it’s more like 17.5% if you count the people who have given up looking for a job. Over the last two years, 8 million people have seen their jobs in the private sector just disappear and in some cases they re-appeared in some distant country.
A few weeks ago, AA-Careers ran a job ad on Craigslist. When we ran the same ad 3 years ago, we received 48 resumes in a 30 day period. The November, 2009 result? This time, we received over 650 resumes in less than a week. We learned a few things from that ad – and these are the most commonly made mistakes: Read more…
Categories: Hiring Trends, Job Hunting, Resume Writing Tips Tags: Hiring Trends, jobless recovery, Resume Writing Tips | No comments
