This is a new approach for a cover letter: …please someone help me before im living under a bridge. I personally think it is wiser to explain how you, as an employee, will help the company. But that’s just me.
Continue ReadingTrivial, but funny
This should probably be an anecdote, but I found it entertaining. My general resume subscription pushed a resume to me of a candidate looking for a “House Manager” position. House Manager . . . never heard of such a position so my interest was piqued. Here’s what a House Manager does: Coordination of parties and other events Personal shopping & errands Handling of personal correspondence Care of house guests needs Keeping the family calendar & appointments Assist with travel plans Supervision of household staff Coordinate automobile maintenance Oversee maintenance & service to home Occasional driving Pet Care Household finances (I am a degreed accountant with many years accounting experience) They… Read More
Continue ReadingWhen Sales Ads Don’t Work
I’m reading posts in recruiter message boards that are discussing low salesperson response rates to employment ads placed on monster, local newspapers and publications. From the amount of responses to this subject, it appears many other recruiters are having similar difficulties. I then read the opening paragraph from this article that states: Seventy-six percent of employees are looking for new employment opportunities, according to the 2005 U.S. Job Recovery and Retention Survey released today by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and CareerJournal.com. Sixty-five percent of HR professionals indicated they were concerned about the voluntary resignations at their organizations. To prevent a mass exodus, almost half of the organizations… Read More
Continue ReadingActive Writing
This may be a bit self-indulgent, but writing style is a favorite topic of mine. Dan Tudor over at Landing the Deal authored this post – Great Sales Copywriting a couple days ago. The tip in the post are applicable to all writing, not just sales copy. The takeaway tip: The opposite of active voice is “passive” voice. Here’s an example: “While visiting China, a brand-new idea in vitamin supplementation was discovered by Dr. Smith.” You feel like Dr. Smith just stood around until he accidentally bumped into the idea, right?Now let’s change that sentence to active voice: “Dr. Smith discovered a brand-new idea in vitamin supplementation while visiting China.”… Read More
Continue ReadingColorful Employment Ads
Seems like employment ads are the topic du jour on the The Hire Sense today. One thing I have noticed that truly cheapens an ad is to use extra large fonts, multiple colors and highlighting. Does this approach just scream multi-level marketing or is it me? Most corporations write their ads in a prim and proper manner which is ok. This approach reminds me of the Apple commercials with the PC represented by the stodgy, business-suit guy and Apple represented by the trendy, young guy. Formula ads with cliche requests for degrees, years of experience, etc. are similar to the somewhat boring PC guy. Of course, that approach is certainly… Read More
Continue ReadingPromo Responses to Job Postings
One of the peculiar facets of Internet job boards is that you receive interest from around the world. That fact has its good and its bad. This would be the bad side of it: Meanwhile I am highly & hugely trying at my best efforts to post for this vacancy with heavily long-desired rayhopes that based on my supreme graymatters plusing with my well-accumulated experiences in working for several foreign-based firms as well as projects, & I have accrued a lot of skills or so specialization in various matters & manners…I make risks to submit for the aforesaid post with long-desired hopes that you will see through my sensitively &… Read More
Continue ReadingJob Board Update
We posted multiple ads about 10 days ago on multiple job boards for 3 different sales positions we are presently working. Our highly unscientific experiment has led us to these . . . conclusions. Big Boards – Monster.com still leads the pack – probably due to name recognition. We have had more success with monster as opposed to CareerBuilder. Niche Boards – We received a limited response and no viable candidates. My gut tells me these may work better for higher-level positions (VP, Director, Manager). Free Boards – We have been using them for 6 months and the response totals are increasing with each posting. The candidate quality is hit-or-miss,… Read More
Continue ReadingAccountants that Sell?
Even I had to do a double take regarding the title of this post – it is a bit misleading. AICPA has a rather dry article (what did you expect from a CPA website) about hiring trends in the accounting world. We try to stay on the cutting edge here at The Hire Sense so I read the short article. I was intrigued by this statement: The traditional structure of a corporation’s accounting department, with definitive job responsibilities and several layers of management and staff positions is changing. Accounting departments are staffed by fewer, more flexible, technologically savvy and highly experienced professionals. They are responsible for developing methods to grow… Read More
Continue ReadingGen Y Changes in the Workplace
I’m late in catching up to some articles, but I did read CareerJournal’s excellent Three Tips from Gen-Y About the New Workplace. There are some intriguing points here so let’s start with this gem: Gen-Yers crave feedback from bosses, clients and co-workers about what they should be doing, how they should do it, and, afterward, how they can do it better next time, she says. This approach is effective for more than just employee discussions, but also for customer interactions. We discussed some of these topics in one of our articles from earlier this year – Hiring Adjustments for Generations X and Y. Lastly, an epiphany for a Baby Boomer… Read More
Continue ReadingCyber Sleuthing Candidates
Here is a good tip from Tory Johnson via the abcnews.com website. Is MySpace a Professional Liability? provides insight into her technique for researching a candidate. It is surprising how many employers do not take a minimal amount of time to search the web for a candidate’s information. I must confess, I am a neophyte when it comes to the social networking boards. I have cruised around MySpace.com a couple of times looking at the business-related information. There wasn’t much that I found. However, the individual information is quite extensive. Yes, I have heard the punchlines on Leno about MySpace, but this article does lay out an excellent use of… Read More
Continue Reading