Sandwich-board job hunt works for Brit grad

Recent graduate David Rowe found an old way to get attention: A sandwich board.

LONDON (Reuters) – In a pinstripe suit, silk tie and polished shoes, David Rowe has all the trappings of a successful London city worker, except for one stark difference — he is wearing a sandwich board that says “JOB WANTED.”

Saddled with £20,000 of student loan debt, Rowe was ready to work, but the economy didn’t help. Unemployment in Britain is widespread, and the jobless rate for new grads is the highest its been since the government starting tracking the statistic in 1992. The standard path for a new grad with a degree in history from Kent University would be to join one of the many City firms. However, positions for new grads have been cut by 28%, and many jobs are left unfilled.

The going was tough, so Rowe got creative. After some discussion with his father, he picked a way to sell his skills and experience, and to get some attention. Rowe’s tactic, while unusual, caught someone’s eye: a recruiter.

Gavin Walker of international recruitment firm Parkhouse Bell liked Rowe’s initiative and decided to interview him.

“I liked the fact he had thought out of the box. I was impressed by that. I was even more impressed after the interview. He’s very employable, so much so I offered him a job to work with me.”

Walker interviewed Rowe to a 15 minute interview, but the conversation lasted two hours. At the end, Rowe got a job offer.

This method isn’t for everyone, but Rowe has succeeded in both getting his message out and in branding himself. Rowe set himself apart from his competition, and got to the hiring manager. It worked.

See the full story on Yahoo by clicking here:
British graduate scores in sandwich-board job hunt
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/British-graduate-scores-in-rb-3853075230.html?x=0

Free Job Hunter’s Class this Friday

My CTRN buddy Scott Birkhead of the Most Placeable Candidate will be offering an interesting personal branding session for job seekers. Check it out!:

Becoming the Milkshake –

How Being LOUDLY Yourself Helps You Get Hired Faster.

Friday October 9: 1-2 p.m. – mid-town Denver

In a struggling economy, traditional job hunting skills are less and less effective. Can you adopt small-business direct-marketing skills and get hired faster? Yes!

In a famous marketing story from years ago, a restaurant wanted to increase the number of milkshakes it was selling…very profitable item, the milkshake.

It hired one group of marketers, who did classic marketing research, and spent a lot of money…but didn’t budge sales.Then it hired another, which was incredibly successful.

The difference between the two approaches to marketing a very simple product contains lessons that every job seeker should know and understand – if you want to beat a volatile, crowded market and get back to work.

In this 45 minute session, we cover:

• Assumptions and methods that could be killing your chances of landing work
  
• Why applying for every conceivable job may be the exact wrong thing to do (even if you are desperate for work)
  
• How to look beyond traditional approaches to discover what your ‘ideal client’ really wants to hear
  
• Easy marketing fixes to get noticed and get more interviews – NOW.
  

Date: Friday, Oct 9

Time: 1-2:30 pm

Place: Jobing.com Community Room

1391 Speer Blvd.,

Suite 850

Denver, CO 80204

Free parking code will be sent upon registration…

Cost: FREE, but you must register to attend because we have limited seating.

*********

Scott Birkhead is the President of Most Placeable Candidate. Scott has 15 years and 727 hires under his belt in corporate, for-fee and consulting recruiting roles.

As well, he’s spent the last 5 years learning basic buyer motivation and direct-marketing methods as a small business owner determined to build his own business.

For the last two years, he has combined recruiting and marketing experiences to offer job seekers low-cost training and coaching that allow them to beat the crowd and get back to work.

Summer Break is over!

Dear Readers,

Thank you for your patience as I took a desperately needed summer break. Instead of locking myself inside at the keyboard, I got out and did some camping, helped with a few scout activities and worked on growing a face cord of zucchini. I also got to work on some interesting projects at work.

However, I did miss commenting on a few items over the summer, topics like:

• Ricci v. DeStefano aka the New Haven Firefighter Testing Case, in June.
• The July article on How Not to Write a Resumes by Max Messmer, chairman and CEO of Robert Half Intl.
• The recent college grad who sued Monroe College because she hasn’t found a job (on CNN in August), diploma shown above.
• The Canadian Navy’s employment branding campaign tackles recruiting problems (also in August).

Ah, but it is good to be back.

Facebook vs. LinkedIn: Which is better for business?

Today’s issue of ComputerWorld asks the question:
Which is better for business,
Facebook or LinkedIn.

ComputerWorld (CW) looked at six different areas, comparing both tools for business networking.

LinkedIn	Facebook

CW called it a tie, which IMHO shows their bias. Here’s my analysis, which is at least as unbiased as theirs:

Topic	CW	TCB
1. Look for a job without your boss knowing	Tie	LI
2. Find information about a job you’re interviewing for	LI	LI
3. Find a contract worker for a three-month Web project	FB	Tie
4. Solicit ideas and discussion from team members	FB	FB
5. Get feedback on a nasty IT problem from peers outside your company	LI	LI
6. Keep track of former associates	Tie	LI

A few notes:
1. Find job – Facebook’s lack of privacy and security are well known problems that CW didn’t even address. Plus, Facebook ties your search to Jobster, which is a huge negative in my book.
2. Find information – Facebook only allows users to research certain areas, and is known for editing profiles to remove vital information like titles.
6. Track associates – ComputerWorld seems to assume that all of us are college kids. Okay – I’m over 40, and can only find a few of my friends and associates on Facebook. However, I can find plenty of my friend’s children on Facebook!

I liked what Chad D. said in the comments:

As far as Facebook. It’s a “social” network. Why do people continue to try and make it anything but what it is? Do I really want my brand and professional reputation within arms length of teenagers poking, biting and tagging? Stop trying to force a round peg into a square hole. Let Facebook be what it is… a virtual playground.

Corporate Life: This MUST be Boulder

This request appeared today on the e-mail list for Boulder, Colorado HR folks.

Hi!

We allow employees to bring their dogs to work. This worked great when only a couple of employees wanted to do this. Now the number is growing.

We are wondering if there are any other local companies who allow dogs to come into the workplace. If so, have you instituted dog policies?

If you do have a dog policy, would you be willing to share it with me?

Sincerely,

Stephanie

I’ve been working in the “People’s Republic of Boulder” for over 10 years, and I’ve seen the doggie-at-work thing many, many times. I’ve actually had people accept a job because of it.

Can anyone help out Stephanie?

UPDATE 14-FEB: Check out the thread by Mike M on The Furry Receptionist

Branding – When It Works Too Well

An employment brand is a great recruiting tool, but a tough thing to build. The folks at MI6, the British Secret Intelligence Service, are finding out what happens when employment branding works too well:

007 Association Gives MI6 Recruitment Headache

LONDON (Reuters) – The success of the James Bond movies has given the British Secret Intelligence Service a recruitment headache — too many cranks want to join MI6.

“I think it gives people a false impression of what working for the organization is actually like,” the head of MI6 recruitment — named only as “Mark” — told BBC Radio One’s Newsbeat program on Monday.

“So it does tend to turn up quite a lot of thrill seekers and fantasists and we’re really not interested in them”.

As well as dismissing the notion that spying was a never-ending life of fast cars, fast women and shaken not stirred Martini cocktails, “Mark” was keen to demolish another myth surrounding MI6.

“We don’t have a license to kill — we don’t carry Berettas — that’s simply not true.”

How Not to Hire: Whacked Job Postings

The Recruitards.com blog has some amusing examples of bad job posting on the web. Recruitards is “A collection of the dumbest job ads from across the web”, complete with comments (in italics.) Samples include:

Think Big, Pay Small

“Since we are a new company our budget is extremely low ($100-$200), and because of this we can only offer a small amount of compensation. However, the right candidate will without a doubt be throwing him/herself into a situation where your skills and talents will gain serious exposure – and more work.

WE think BIG, and so should YOU

Please contact for more information, and include links to your work.

Thank you, and Serious Inquiries only.”

Obviously, they want someone who thinks big, except when it comes to their paycheck. Good luck with that.

and

Must be able to deal with SHOUTING

We found this ad for a ‘Web Designer/Developer’:

“MUST BE EXPERIENCED WITH ALL ASPECTS OF WEB DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT.
MUST HAVE PLEASENT PERSONALITY AND BE EASY TO WORK WITH.
MUST BE ESPECIALLY CREATIVE.
MUST HAVE EXCELLENT WORK ETHIC.

SEND RESUME AND ANYTHING ELSE WHICH YOU THINK WILL HELP YOU GET THE POSITION TO … ”

And if you get the job, maybe you can help them write better ‘help wanted’ ads, too.

(Oh – and they misspelled PLEASANT)

Too bad this blog isn’t updated more often. Please help them out – send them some samples.

WSJ backfires on NAU?

Seeking to reverse five years of declining enrollment, Northern Arizona University (NAU) contracted with educational institution image meisters Lipman Hearne. The LH campaign rolled out in 2006. NAU got a new logo, a new web page and series of print ads. Lipman Hearne got several awards, including a 2006 Best of Show from the Admissions Marketing Report.

In the last month or so, NAU has been peppering half-pages ads through various print editions of the Wall Street Journal. One ad in particular caught my eye:
As a college recruiter, I’m not impressed by this series. Many thing bug me about these ads. I’m sure that Sunday Hannan (above) is probably a nice person, but the fact that NAU has her appearing in a national ad wearing shower thongs doesn’t impress me. From reviewing the series, I must say that it doesn’t appear that NAU attracts the type of student that I want to hire.

I sincerely hope that NAU can attract more students. However, because of these ads, Northern Arizona University is off my list of targeted schools for this year’s college recruiting season.

Why should someone choose you over your competiton?

Patrick Lefler at the Intrepid ideas…and other musings blog writes about some research into why some banks have problems in a post titled: Why should someone choose you over your competition?:

He revealed that his researchers always ask bank employees a simple question: “Why should I choose your bank over the competition?” Two-thirds of front-line employees have no answer – they simply make something up on the fly.

Patrick is writing about getting customers, but we recruiters should look at this as advice about getting candidates. “Why should I work for your company over the competition?” is a question recruiters and hiring managers must address.

I’ve not met Patrick, but he looks like a good guy – a mountaineer, not a golfer. I’m going to read more of his work. Check out his thoughts and sources.

Great Job Preview at the UP

Realistic job previews are key to helping candidates understand the job for which they are applying. A business analyst at company X might have a completely different job than the same title at company Y. Some companies are clueless about previews, and some companies do great.

One company that does a great job of previewing how jobs fit into their business line is the Union Pacific Railroad. The UP is 145 years old, but railroading now uses high-tech tools to get the job done. That Great Big Rolling Railroad has a nice feature to explain how the different jobs for which they are recruiting fit into their business model. See it here:

(if you have problems – go here and click “Working on the Railroad”)

Also – check out their corporate employment branding. The UP should be in the running for an REA or CEA award.