Job Hunting -- Job 1 Post-mortem

Job 1:

I was still in last 2 weeks of school when this opportunity arose. Bit of background, the job was 3 hours from where I live, but near my family. I applied online. Boys and girls, this is how I think you should do an interview process.

First, the Superintendent himself calls me. He tells me the job would like be a significant pay cut. (Yay! Set expectations early! This is good). I figured that going in so I said that is fine. He asked about why I was applying for a job so far away. I told him the reasons. He says he will call back to schedule the interview.

Two days later, he calls, and we schedule up the interview. He sends me directions, contact information, etc.

A week or two later, we have the interview with his team. They were looking for a different skill set than I brought to the table. Happens. I ask about timelines, etc. He set the expectation of about 5 days to expect them to select the candidate.

A week later, the Superintendent calls me. He says they went with another candidate. This is a hard call to make for most folks, but you gotta do it. He did. I told him thank you for letting me know and wished him well.

Overall, it was a positive experience. Personal calls and contact were made. Expectations were set from the get-go. Dates and timelines were generally kept.

Job Hunting or How to Lose a Candidate in 30 days

I've finished the degree. Yay! I've had a celebration vacation. Now it is time to start the job search and skill growth phase. I'll try to do some postings of the, uh, funny things that have happen so far in the job search. Stories 2 & 3. I'll tell story 1 soon enough.

I've recently applied online for a couple of jobs. Greatness. Anyhow, both resumes made it past the first bridge troll in HR (or automated troll) to get onto the next phase of review.

Job Two:

Sent me a series of email questions asking for responses. I know I'm IT oriented, but this was simply WRONG. Seriously, if one of the questions is salary range which can be a weed-out question due to an applicants requirements being outside of the range, why even ask the other questions. They wanted me to provide real depth to what I did in writing to questions like:

·Please describe the topology of the network at your most recent position and your role. Please be specific and include the vendor and model numbers of the equipment you managed, as well as the protocols used to connect neighboring devices and remote data centers.

· Please describe your Unified Communications experience, and any conversion projects in which you have participated. Please be specific, include your role, and the dates.

· What network tools did you manage and/or use to perform your daily job functions

Then don't ask what are your salary requirements in the same questionnaire if an applicant will be disqualified based upon that number. Go ahead and state it up front to the applicant. Otherwise, you are wasting my time and yours. I understand working in the public sector or in education. Sometimes, you are capped. Go ahead and state it up front what the range is, especially if it is a hard cap. I always had my Admin Asst call any applicant who were potential candidates and give the salary range. Saved a lot of wasted time for both parties. I also used that phone call to ask, if the candidate would share, what was an approximate salary they were looking for so we could potentially adjust our pay rates. Never happened -- the adjustment --, but at least it was easy to say why the process took so long or we had to take a candidate we'd have to train up. Lesson for all the HR people or hiring people or whoever will listen. If there exists a range, post it, let the candidates know. Sometimes, good tech people will take a pay cut to get the better hours, better work life balance (no on call 24/7!), new opportunity, etc.

Job Three:

Applied online. About a week later, a computer sent me an automated email asking me to schedule an interview online. Okay. Done. Scheduled it. Then the automated scheduler sent me a response to email the Admin Asst. confirming my interview. Sure. Done. She responded a day later. First real human contact. First clue on the environment.

Interview takes place. It runs 45 minutes long. Most of the time that means it is going well.

Week one goes by.

Week two goes by.

Week three, day 1: One of my references listed lets me know he's been contacted to schedule a call. My reference asks what to say. I tell him to do whatever he wants. He will anyway. Make shit up, tell the truth, don't care. Please note, the prospective employer hasn't contacted me.

Week three, day 3: Same reference says I'll likely be the finalist based on his call. Guess he wowed them. I hope it was with reality.

Week three, day 5: email from prospective employer asking me to fill out the rest of these forms as I am the finalist. Seriously. No other contact. No phone calls. No pay-rate discussions. No follow-up. Wow. On top of that, the emails say these are automated emails, and request that I don't respond to this address. However, the email later states I can contact them if I have any questions. No contact phone number nor email was listed though. 

Lesson for all. If you are hiring someone, stay in contact with the candidates. Use human methods, not automated emailers, regardless the size of your organization. Interviewing is like dating. You have to call, send email, text, whatever. This must be done with the preferred candidate often. Once every 2-3 days at worst. People like to be flattered. They like to feel important and wanted. Yeah, dumb human instinct, right? However, if this is my first interaction with you as a company and organization, how do you want to me to think of your organization? 

• That you called. You followed up. You kept me in the loop. You made sure I knew you were there if there were any questions I had. You thought I was important.
• You were quiet. You never said anything. You just disappeared. 0 communication. I'm just another cog in a machine.

Job Three is a pass based upon these simple things. I don't know if I'll even look to find out how to decline the opportunity. You get what you give. 

 

Job Three Update:

 

Today, the computer has asked me to go get fingerprinted via an automated email. So the standing orders from the computer are:

• Give us your personal info so we can run your background check
• Give us your college transcript so we can verify you went to school
• Give us your fingerprints so we can run your criminal history
• Give us your bank information so we can setup direct deposit
• Give us your citizen and ethnic status

Things not done by the prospective employer (or computer)

• Stay in contact with me. That includes no contact information to follow up. Nada. Zilch. 0.
• Notify me in a personal manner that I was the finalist.
• Discuss salary, job specifics, or anything related to the job since the interview.

Wow. Its almost like the computer wants to steal my identity. Automation and Technology has its place boys and girls, but when you are hiring for a position, you are hiring a person. Treat them as such.

I'm sure there will be more to this saga.

Job Three Update #2:

They finally presented an offer, in email of course. It really looks like a form email, but sometimes HR is told to keep it bland to ensure no "bad' things can happen. Its on okay offer. Probably about the same per hour as when I left to get a degree. I find it amazing no one from the group I interviewed with has chosen to make a personal attempt to contact me for nearly 4 weeks. Yes, I know, if I wanted the job, I'd do the contacting. However, I have received 0 contact information except for the Admin Asst's email.

Job Three Update #3:

I declined the offer stating the position didn't match my career goals. Now, they are asking if it is the pay that cause me to decline. To no one's surprise, the question was in the form of an email. Again, you are hiring a person, not an email correspondent. Time to politely formulate an answer.

Job Three Update #4:

Ha! A phone call from the person with the position asking what they can do to get me in there. This is almost comical. Its hard to maintain some sort of professionalism with all this automation and actually pick up the phone and return the call now.