In some ways, I’m a Luddite. I don’t feel as if I can evaluate a candidate without a paper resume. So imagine my surprise when Keith told me about this video resume website.I have these problems with video resumes:
It’s slow. I can read a resume much faster than I can watch a video. We can only effectively hear at about 30-60 words/minute. Most of us read at 200+ words/minute. Some of us read at 1000 words/minute.
I don’t think it shows candidates to their best advantage, at least not the ones I saw. The people look flat, no one said anything that knocked my socks off. Maybe in time as the bandwidth increases, it will be better.
The video allows people to say no quickly — without real understanding of what the candidate can bring to the organization. But I’m opposed to anything that allows hiring managers to say no before they even read your resume. Videos for candidates are just like videos for speakers. Speaker videos are what allow decision-makers to say no. Videos rarely help people say yes. The viewers evaluate the person on the video by their appearance, possibly by their articulation, and almost never by their content. I can think of at least 5 developers I would never have hired based on their appearance or general articulation. But put them in front of a significant technical problem and all their unease disappeared. In the problem-solving context, they were articulate.
When I read a resume, I’m paying attention to the resume. I rarely watch TV or a movie at home without doing something else. I suspect I’m not alone. If I was a candidate, I’d want the viewer to watch me. And I bet that people reviewing videos don’t pay 100% attention to the candidate.
How can a technical person boil down their experience or substantive content into a video? If I need a 30-45 minute phone screen to know whether I want an in-person interview, I don’t see how a 5-minute video will help me make up my mind. I’m concerned that a well-produced video could distract a hiring manager from asking the necessary questions and be prejudiced for someone who speaks well but doesn’t have the experience to back up the talk. I guess I’ll try to keep an open mind, but I don’t see yet how video resumes will help the great candidates. If you have had good experience with video resumes, please do let me know.
I had lunch a few days ago with a colleague who spent almost two years looking for a job. He’s happily employed now, and told me his secret weapon: “All you need is a business card.”When he saw my surprise, he explained. “To effectively network, you need to give people your email address and phone number. If you say a couple of phrases on your business card, that’s ok. But you don’t need much. You have to make the impression on the person you talk to, and then hand that person your card. They’ll remember you, much longer than they remember your resume.”Many of the people I’ve recently met have followed my colleague’s advice. They all have cards. You don’t have to have an expensive card. Cheap cards are just fine. I’m not a fan of the people who use make-your-own-on-your-inkjet-printer cards — they look cheap and ink rubs off. And if you use one of the online services to print your cards, make sure you don’t use a popular design. The cards look like everyone else’s cards. You don’t need a fancy design. A card with your information is all you need. Boring is ok.
Hiring mistakes are common. Too often, we don’t consider in advance what our critical criteria are, and we make mistakes. Here are some I made early in my management career:
I hired a prima donna developer, because I didn’t listen to my gut telling me he was wrong for our culture. The rest of the technical staff wanted him, because they thought they could learn from him. Nope, he wasn’t about to share his pearls of wisdom with the rest of us peons.
I hired a release engineer who alienated the rest of the project. Did I really want the builds to come out on time? Uh, yes.
I hired a tester who would not run any manual tests at all, not even to verify that the automation he was developing would work. Hmm, and just how did he think he was going to test his code, to know that the test was correct?
My hiring mistakes were all in the area of interpersonal skills and communications. Once I realized that, I could change how I hired.At a conference last year, one manager says he sets up an initial phone screen with every candidate with an administrative assistant, to see if the candidate can pass the “dirt-bag” test. If the candidate can speak well (and not offensively) with the admin, the candidate is ready for a “real” phone screen.If you’re not reviewing your hiring practices to see how well people succeed in your organization 3, 6, 9, and 12 months after you’ve hired them, you’re not learning from your hiring practices.
If you’re wondering how to network with people in person, take a look at Susan RoAne’s The Secrets of Savvy Networking, Chapter 4. I haven’t read the whole book, just the chapter she posted online. I like the part about magnificent minglers.For those of us who never made it to charm school, bring your self-esteem and self-confidence to your in-person networking. If necessary, practice those firm handshakes with others before you attend some event. If you’re like me, a little checklist that you refer to just before you walk in the room might be helpful. Here’s my checklist:
Smile. (If you have issues about work, acknowledge them, put them aside and become present.)
Listen actively. You’ll get your chance to talk later, JR.
Think about what I can do for the other person, not what they can do for me.
I’m a different person than you are, so my list is different from yours. Take a look at Susan’s 10 tips for magnificent minglers, and think about what you need to do to network effectively in person.
Whether you’re a hiring manager or a candidate, read Staying Networked. (Sorry, link no longer exists.) If you’re a hiring manager, you’ll want to network to find people, otherwise you’ll be overwhelmed with not-necessarily-appropriate resumes. If you’re a candidate with more than a few years of experience, networking is your best way to find a new job.Of course, you’ll run into the same problems I’m running into now. I’m trying to keep my database updated with everyone’s contact information, and when I call people, they’re concerned about my term “database.” I guess I’ll have to call it my contact management system. Maybe then they won’t run screaming in the opposite direction :-)Persevere with your network and you will find a job.
I’m always amazed at the number of people who take a job because it’s steady employment, or don’t choose to leave a job when they’re no longer learning. Eric Sink’s Career Calculus is an excellent essay on the value and necessity of continuing to learn throughout your career. He lumps all learning together. I think there’s a natural progression throughout a technical person’s career, and of course, you can make your own progression.At the beginning of my technical career, I focused on my functional skills: how to be a better designer, debugger, unit tester, coder, all-over software developer. When I transitioned into testing, I refocused on my functional testing skills: how to be a better tester. This is the time you learn new tools and technology skills.When I realized I was not interested in learning more than just technical functional skills, I started working on my project management and people management skills. It doesn’t matter which functional skills you start to improve once you’ve been working for 5-6 years; it only matters that you are ready for the next step.Once you’ve been working for 10-12 years, it’s critical that you continue learning about how to adapt your functional skills to new domains and new tools/technology. Otherwise you become like someone I met a few weeks ago, who said she was a “Cobol programmer.” She had not learned any other functional skills, such as design skills, or other languages or anything other than Cobol programming. She had not increased her value to her employer.Now that I’ve been working over 25 years, I’m focused most on my people skills, so I can improve my facilitation, consulting, and marketing. But I still keep learning new domains and how they are similar and different from other domains.Here’s a table of how I’ve seen a bunch of successful people manage their careers over time:
Career stage
Functional skills
Domain expertise
Tools/technology
Industry
early (first few years)
high focus on technical functional skills
moderate to high focus on learning the product domain
high focus on learning how to effectively use the tools and technology
typically, low interest in industry expectations
middle (next 10-20 years)
high focus on technical functional skills that help improve domain expertise, OR high focus on new functional skills for career move, such as into management, marketing, service, and so on
high focus on learning the ins and outs of the product
moderate focus on how to use different tools and technology more effectively or adapt them to current environment.
moderate focus on industry expectations
later (hey, I don’t intend to retire…)
high focus on previously ignored functional skills. For highly technical people, this might mean people skills
May focus on a particular domain, or adapt previous domain expertise to new domain
It’s critical once you’ve worked for a while to continue to learn new tools and technology. Otherwise, you’re seen as a dinosaur
typically, higher focus on industry expectations
Note that the columns are not mutually exclusive. You don’t have to choose one column and focus on that. For many of us, learning is something that starts in one place (maybe functional skills) and continues organically to some other place (such as domain expertise or tools). The key is to keep learning.I’ve made some unfortunate choices, and ended up with only jobs, not a place to learn as part of my career. I tried to move out of those jobs into more learning opportunities. If you’re a manager, I hope you think about how to help your staff with learning opportunities. If you’re a candidate or employee, think about where you’d like to learn next. Then go out and actively pursue those opportunities. The more you learn, the less of a commodity you are to your employer. And my personal philosophy is that life is way too short to waste it on non-learning jobs.