RECENTLY FILLED: Part-Time Call Center Assistant – Dallas, TX

This role is at the Dallas office of a large insurance company headquartered in New York.

Two shifts available. Great pay, part-time benefits offered.

Must have outstanding customer service experience.

Connect with me on LinkedIn or DM me via Twitter for email address to submit a resume.

More info to come!

Black Friday Search Syndrome

I have a theory that the majority of Black Friday shoppers actually lose money by hitting the stores early to get the “best” deals. I’d love to see a study reviewing lists of items shoppers go out with the intent to purchase with a comparison of the total cost of only those items before Black Friday, as well as the total cost of ALL items purchased during Black Friday shopping. I know, I sound Grinchy. I think all that beautiful marketing and crowd effect makes people forget if they even really want that thingamajig on the shelf.

This absolutely relates to job searches, by the way. During my first conversation with a candidate, I ask them what has prompted them to consider a new job and they always say something like growth opportunity, more stability, more interesting role, etc. I also ask them how much money they’re making now and what their expectations are regarding compensation if they get to the offer stage with my client. It’s amazing to me how many people will get an offer that meets their original compensation expectation (which is always more than they’re making currently) and offers some non-monetary incentive that they said they were seeking, but their primary reason for not accepting immediately is that they were hoping for MORE money.

I think this is Black Friday Search Syndrome. Sucked in by the glittering numbers and utilization gets completely ignored.

And I’ll be honest, we use it on the other side as recruiters too. I remind candidates that they’re not the only one who wants this job; there are other candidates pending. (Crowd Effect.) And if they didn’t get a big pay increase, I’ll try to show them how it might be recovered in other benefits. (Marketing Hand Trick.) Mostly, though, I try to remind them about what they wanted originally and how it matches up with the offer in-hand. If it doesn’t, we don’t usually get to the offer stage anyhow. (The Truth.)

Don’t wait until you get to an offer to tell me the only thing you care about is the money. Don’t get up at 3AM to buy crap you don’t need and didn’t want until you got there, then tell me you saved money. Both are silly.

Grinch out.

Timing, timing, timing!

If real estate has “location, location, location” then recruitment should certainly coin “timing, timing, timing” for our industry!

Once, I had a candidate in final stages with a client on a Friday. I was buzzing about my weekend happy as a bee. Monday morning, I learn the hiring manager went to lunch over the weekend and bumped into someone that used to work for them at a different company, but they hadn’t seen each other in 10 years. They got to talking about their current companies and decided the nearly-filled job was worth discussing with this person (who had also recently decided to consider new roles). After the hiring manager carefully considered some other recent staff transitions, he tweaked the parameters of the open job a little bit. Within 24 hours, they’d declined my candidate who was no longer completely qualified, and moved forward with an offer to the other person. HOW RANDOM IS THAT? A simple, chance meeting at lunch ON A WEEKEND changed the outcome of an entire search. TIMING, MUCH!?!?

I have often told outstanding candidates that sometimes they are the PERFECT candidate for a job, but timing gets in the way. If they are resume #104 and the recruiter closes the pool after reviewing 100, that company has never even seen their resume! And sadly for all, that company might hire a less qualified person as a result. The candidate shouldn’t feel disheartened that maybe they weren’t good enough for some reason, sometimes it really is just timing.

When was the job posted? How many internal candidates did they have before posting it to external candidates? Is this search extremely confidential or is it widely known that the job is available? How many candidates are currently in process and are they all at the same stage or varying stages of the interview process? What time of year is it? Holidays and vacations mean delays and these create missed opportunities in availability and interest from both a company and a candidate.

If I could offer any word of encouragement to a job-seeker, it would be to consider timing. Do what you can to eliminate delays. Be EXTREMELY quick to act on freshly posted positions – I mean apply that same day. If you hear a rumor about a job, learn who to contact in HR and contact them immediately! If you are getting declined for jobs or just never hearing back at all, remind yourself that timing was likely a huge factor in the decision. Beating yourself up over the jobs you didn’t get won’t leave you looking awesome for the next one.

Do you have any stories as a recruiter about how timing has impacted your searches? Or have you noticed as a job-seeker when timing was the reason for you getting (or not getting) a job?

Where do job descriptions go to die?

I wish I could find a lovely place to send job descriptions to die.

You know what I want instead? Job clouds.

Doesn’t that sound lovely?

A job cloud is a lovely, puffy arrangement of projects and functions that need to be completed in order for a company to be successful. Job clouds can overlap across functional areas as the needs of the company change and the people in each cloud can change as their experience and education increase.

So what happens when a new client or project comes on the scene? GO TO THE CLOUD…Ah yes, take a look at all the employees whose availability, personality and current experience makes them a good candidate to successfully engage and offer them the opportunity to participate in something new. GADZOOKS! They might LEARN SOMETHING! You might learn something from them! That’s so crazy.

I know one of my fantastic left-brained friends would want to organize the cloud into tidy project lists and start assigning agendas, building committees and the like, but let’s not over-document the thing. The beauty and the success is in the movement and ever-changing nature of the cloud. I envision implementation to involve something more like a web-based database where employees update their own profile with new skills. Failure to do so means you’re not really interested in contributing in new ways, so maybe you could be encouraged to go to a less interesting company. Managers could update project lists and define necessary education and/or experience for a successful outcome. Employees could apply for projects as they become available and/or managers could proactively seek out talent. Corporate recruiting would focus on strategically identifying gaps between existing talent and upcoming project needs, then bring in new talent or devise training/professional development programs to fill the needs.

That IT guy who barely talks might have an amazing eye for color and/or create ridiculously fresh marketing campaigns. Your recruiter might love numbers and just want to do a little finance sometimes. In the end, you get consistently challenged employees who view their role as making the company successful by contributing in new ways, instead of the “that’s not in my job description” mentality. And maybe it’d be a way of re-labeling some of those so-called bad hires. Maybe the person wasn’t a bad hire, maybe they should be contributing in a different way that originally anticipated. These personnel adjustments wouldn’t be as hard to absorb if a variety of projects were regularly available for assignment.

I know it would take a unique company to be able to transition to this effectively, but I’m a dreamer. Head in the clouds kind of girl here. Still, as people redefine their expectations of the workplace, I think it’s the future.