Jobs Simply

Can you give me any good tidbits to know about the job search process based on your own experiences?

I'm writing a book on the job search process due to what I learned when I was searching for a job early this yr. Any good tidbits that you could share would be appreciated. Thank you!

Public Comments

1. .
2. searching for a job is a full time job in its self.
3. It all depends on who you know, not what you know or where you bother to look.
4. rule 1 adopt a can do attitude.
5. honesty, endurance,will to learn, lots of patience, can do attitude or its over my head. It of course depends on what job and that determines how much education you need to go along with your street smarts
6. I have held five jobs in the past 10 years since I finished my military training. I enlisted in the US Army after finishing college, so I have been employed non-stop since I graduated in 1992. Each of these civilian jobs was found through online job searches. I am a programmer, and my specialty is web development for both Microsoft-centric and open source-centric platforms, so your mileage may vary: 1. Always aim for the prime. If you have the choice between answering an ad for an agency or an ad from a principal (that is, the guy that is doing the real hiring), go for the principal. It will mean less grief and the process will be a bit faster. 2. Do not EVER answer cold calls from "recruiters." Ever. How do you know it is a cold call? The recruiter will be vague, telling you they have plenty of positions, then he will ask you for your updated resume. Funny because they called you because they saw your resume in Monster, right? Wrong. They did not pay for your resume, all they got was your name, phone, email and the knowledge that somewhere in your resume they got a hit based on what they are recruiting, be it java, management, whatever. 3. Updating resumes once a week involves getting a flurry of calls from cold calling recruiters. Anyone looking for a job needs to get used to the idea that only a small percentage of the phone calls are going to be legitimate. It can be discouraging but that is the way it works. 4. Unethical recruiters will push people into high profile jobs if they feel they can fake the candidate into the interview. Why? Because the commission is based on starting salary, so it is in the recruiter's best interest to push that salary as far up as possible. 5. Employers cross post to job sites. Don't answer postings until you have checked all the sites that you frequent, so you can spot the duplicates. With your bad luck, you reply will end up at 3 people at the same company, and the 3 idiots won't talk to each other before calling to schedule interviews. In January I secured an interview from a prime, did the interview, it was not good. Over the next month I got five separate queries from recruiters for the same stupid job, which had been posted with just slight differences. 6. Be wary of primes recruiting for positions that depend on a contract award that is not final. Make sure you are hired into the company directly, and not conditional to the award. If the award goes away, so does your job. In my second job as a programmer, right in the middle of the dot com craze, I got hired at the same time as a dozen other people. I was a straight hire. They where hired because of a huge contract. The huge contract went away, and so did 9 out of the other 11 that got hired at the same time. 7. Don't let primes push you around. Each prime is entitled to at least a 30 minute phone screening. If they ask you to interview in person, they owe you no less than one hour if talking to one or two people, then an extra half hour per person you have to talk to. I have done 4-5 hr interviews and each ended up in a job offer pretty much on the spot. No second interview after a marathon interview, there should be no excuse for a second interview. 8. Don't let primes push you around, part two: Once the prime hints at an offer, be direct and ask when they will send it. It is ok to receive a verbal over the phone and maybe a word or PDF document emailed, but you need to have the paper copy in your hands in 2 -3 days tops. 9. Don't ever burn bridges even if you have to. If you are walking away from the worst job in the world, don't gloat, don't abandon the job. Turn in a resignation letter with two weeks of advance, not a day longer. The resignation letter should say thank you for letting me a part of the company and good luck. That's all. Even if they basically told you to get a job or get fired, you have to give them that letter. Why? Because it is your way to give them a clean way out. When 2 years from now somebody calls to verify you worked there, HR will open the jacket, see your old and faded resignation letter and guess that you were a professional and you left in good terms. If you instead write "I hope you choke and die" there is no way to predict what HR is going to tell that person calling to ask about you. 10. Once you turn in notice, it is not your problem anymore. Two weeks of notice are plenty of notice. It is not your fault if the company is "hurting" because you left. You left because of whatever reason. If possible, avoid signing post-employment consulting agreements. You really need to move on and concentrate on your new job.
7. My last 8 jobs (in 6 years) I found online. I registered with ALL of the freebie job sites, both public (Career Builder) and engineering specific. I checked them at least once a week, and posted my resume on all of them.