Hire Power

I am excited I get to blog about this!

I’ve been given approval to announce that we are rolling out an awesome new incentive plan to reward people for referring excellent people to us. This is further proof the marketplace for talent is getting hotter, and we’ve decided to allow anybody to pitch in and help us continue to connect talent with opportunity! While you’re looking for work, you might as well help others find great positions and get paid on the side!

Here’s the details:

1. Find and refer someone to us for a specific job-posting we have. (How to find out jobs, get alerts and more) You must personally know the individual… they have to agree to being referred by you.

2. They get hired or placed on that job and work there for 30 calendar days.

3. We’ll pay you $250.00 cash! Sweet Deal!

This is available to anybody, already employed with us on another position or not. Just be sure you personally recommend the person and be sure they know you are referring them to us!

Good luck!

Seth Godin writes an interesting note about our emerging economies, relating it to an old one which was very modern at the time:

“We’re in the middle of the biggest shift(s) of the last century—whole industries are disappearing, worldviews are changing and the rules are being rewritten.”

What are you doing to be ready?

Recently, we helped students at Provo College by holding mock interviews. They went very well, and some of the people we met seem to be on-track for very excellent careers.

A few days later, we received, literally, a stack of handwritten, personal Thank You notes, one from each of the people we interviewed. This was huge!

What you’re up against:
On Tuesday this week, I started my day downloading more than 250 emails from people looking, even begging for work. Part of my job is to sift through those people as intelligently as possible, finding the ones that stand-out the most and align them with the needs of my clients.

The sad truth is, few people actually do stand out, and we have technology that helps us find the golden candidates in the massive inbound emails, but the ones who do stand out will almost always land more interviews, faster than the ones who don’t. Better than that, the stand-out candidates always seem to have a few common characteristcs. Consider some of these before the next time you slam out 2,000 resumes, mass-distributed to every possible email address you can find:

Personalize Your Message.
Hey, everybody likes hearing the sound of their own name. If you could address your email to the individual who will be reading it, you will get their attention! If you can’t do that, please be at least more creative in your cover-letter than something which sounds like “I’m applying for a job at any company I can find where I might make a buck…”

Show Me—I am not a mind-reader
Give me an excuse to get excited about your potential. Make it easy for me to immediately see how you are different, and how you will solve the problems I (or my clients) have. Don’t bury information in your resume just to follow chronological order. Use headlines, use action-oriented phrases, a summary paragraph and speak proactively about your skillset.

Go the Extra-Mile
The truth is, you should never rely on my tickler file to secure your next position. Give me excuses to remember you. Thank-you notes are absolutely huge for this. They show up a few days after your initial interview, by mail, and they should be hand-written and addressed to show you took time to thoughtfully write it. Don’t worry about tissue paper and a second-envelope though, that’s for wedding announcements.

Summary:The whole point is, the way you approach things before, during and after your interview goes a very long way toward showing how you will work, how you will act in certain situations, the kind of energy you will expend in your job, the kind of attention-to-detail you will give, and how quickly I could count on you to make a positive, measurable difference for myself or for my client.

Good luck!

Here’s a photo of our Orem, Utah Technical Office. We are on the West side of the same building our Orem SOS Staffing office is in, south of Sizzler, and West of University mall in Orem. Drop in and say hello!

SOS Technical – Orem
1256 South State St. Ste. 101
Orem, UT 84097
Phone: 801.426.6120
Fax: 801.426.6121
Email: dept056@sostechnical.com
Google Map

Yes, that is my bike in the shot. It’s been some sweet riding lately!

We’re excited to announce that we’re testing a concept of podcasting—saving digital audio recordings here to our weblog so you can download and listen to them or simply stream them from our website.

We will be announcing new jobs, interviewing consultants we work with, and also talking with business leaders, executives and hiring managers as well.

As the Utah Economy heats up this summer, keep track through our new JobsCast! Subscribe to any of our feeds to be alerted when new items are available. If you’re new to "podcasting", you can always simply listen to our items right online. For more details, we recommend the podcast entry at Wikipedia. We also recommend Newsgator’s new, free tool, Feedstation that can help download and manage your feeds.

Happy Listening!


MP3 File

As I meet with clients, I am always keeping my ear to the ground for new opportunities and trends. I have a particular advantage in that I speak with several people each week who are otherwise isolated from eachother. When I begin hearing almost the exact same things from three or four of my clients at the same time, I pay very close attention.

There’s something happening here, and I believe it is very, very good.

With that, I am going on a limb to describe what I am seeing and predict some coming events:

• Businesses are very active right now in Utah County.
  From Lehi to American Fork, Orem, Provo and even down to Spanish Fork and Payson, it seems that everybody is growing. Everyone I talk with is getting ready for some big stuff they’re working on.
• BUT, it’s all in development right now, so there is a very select market of people that is being hired right now.
  You know this if you are a designer. There is already a hiring crunch for good designers and drafters in this area.
  


• BUT, that means it will all be into production soon.
  If you are an engineer, programmer, machinist, technician, installer or any other kind of developer, in the next 90-180 days, you will be very, very busy!


• Then, everything must be managed.
  At this point, all of this new business must be packaged, marketed, sold, serviced, warehoused, repaired, upgraded, accounted for, and otherwise managed. In fact, I can’t think of any other job-type that won’t be affected when the trees of commerce in the area really begin to be heavy with the fruit of their own labor! It may not be for 6-12 months for this final phase of growth to begin, but it will be worth it.

My greatest single piece of advice to a job-seeker right now is: “Are you ready?” Are you meeting the people you need to meet with? Are you honing your skills? Are you keeping/getting in shape? Are you networking? Are you volounteering? Don’t ever, ever wait for someone else to tell you it is okay to make a difference in the lives of people around you!

These things will prepare you, and you need to be ready because, with all of this growth, there will still be some who do not find their dream job. At the same time, I don’t believe this is a game of “survival of the fittest”, but I do think it is “survial of the prepared“.

Change is coming, and the economy grows stronger daily. But, employers (and employees) are not taking things lightly this time. Companies are still smarting from the economic misery of the last few years. Worse yet, many of them still have the bitter aftertaste of their relatively foolish mistakes and dizzy-decision making from the late 90s. As embarassing and financially problematic those decisions were, you can bet companies are keeping their cards very close to the vest right now, and unwilling to take very many leaps of faith.

For the job-seeker, this means longer interview cycles, being turned down for a position for the smallest-of-reasons, or not ever getting a response to your application—ever!

“Opportunity”, it has been said, “is the distance between where you are, and where you want to be.” My opinion is that you should run to where you want to be, don’t stoop down and try and measure the distance.

Are you ready?

There’s a lot of things you can do to make life easier when you’re at work, or job-hunting. As we’ve scoured the web looking for Great People, we’ve come up with a few “gotta-haves” that are simply tools or things we think everyone should know about.

So, I’ve just added a new category: Cool Tools & Apps

Check out our bookmarks, and be sure to tell us about your favorites as well!

The Monster Blog recently posted an article titled: Working Harder Is Not Always Smarter which discusses different work-ethics in the workplace. They even give a list of ways to identify your own workaholic addiction.

When I read item two, “Listen to how people describe your strengths”, I disagreed at first until I read the whole paragraph.

It is true that great leaders have rarely been known simply as “hard workers”. At the same time, exceptional leaders are the ones right their with the people they’re leading—and working very hard for the success of the whole group.

I like to call this “muddy-boots leadership”. And, it is the kind that rallys people, companies, communities and even nations to greatness in the face of trials.

Yes, vision, boldness and communications are absolutely crucial for top-level business success, as long as your whole team is familiar with seeing your sleeves rolled up just as much as theirs.

Wednesday night, I helped to panel some mock interviews for students at a local career college. The experience was both fun and interesting for me. The only thing I wish I could have done is spoken to their entire group afterward and provided a more general feedback session.

Writing about it here feels like the next-best thing.

My first overall comment to anybody in school—even night school or a community college—and looking for their next opportunity is “congratulations”. You really have made a large step forward already. Many people stand and look at the mediocrity around them and believe that “this is my life” and don’t take the extended effort and time it takes to change it.

The next thing is to never give up on your dreams. I know this may sound like line from a self-help book, but if you have no idea where you want to go with your life, and you just go “where the wind takes you”, that usually ends up pretty dull and pretty miserable. Just look around you—unfulfilled and unsatisfied people are everywhere. They may be hard-working; many are very well-paid. But without direction, they will never, ever be satisfied!

With that, I recommend, even when you find a job, that you stay thirsty for your goals. You must keep looking and searching for the “right” opportunity for you.

Personally, I was challenged once with the question:

“Have you found the opportunity that will take care of you and your family for the rest of your life?”

That changed my life because I had no response. None. I had a great resume, spectacular references, and I could interview with the best of them, but I could not, seriously answer this question.

Several years later, I believe I have found it, and I am able to call upon more passion, focus, energy and direction in accomplishing this work than I have been able to muster at the highest-paying-but-unfulfilling jobs. Never, ever, ever, ever give up!

My last suggestion? Remember that every job-opening represents a problem of some kind that the employer wants to solve. If you will focus every response, every comment, your resume, your dress, your demeanor, even your smile around the idea that you are a problem solver—you don’t complain about it, you don’t get stuck on it, you just work hard, ask smart questions when you need to, and push through the problems that come up until you can solve them right—the first time!

Good luck! If you never give up on your goals, and become the kind of person known as a problem-solver, you’ll have no shortage of opportunity, and you’ll have a life that can bring you joy and incredible pleasure!

Go for it!

Today, I visited several customer locations here in Utah county. Each of them are well-known, two of them are international. Each of them told me that their efforts to find quality people are tightening up.

“We’re not back to the dot-com craziness yet, but its defintely getting there again.” I was told.

Good news? I think so. I think this news is very, very healthy for all of us. It means growth, innovation and more security ahead for both employers and employees.

Link: You Already Know This Stuff: The Tipping Point.

I’m very curious about that point at which people realize they have the personal POWER (Purpose, Open-Mindedness, Wisdom, Energy, Responsibility – that POWER) to do something about their own lives.

Seth Godin writes an interesting post about marketing yourself:

“Think of the people you know—in every endeavor, in every line of work. What business discipline would they most benefit from? Would it be the ability to do a spreadsheet or manage inventory? Perhaps they’d do better in their careers or with their passions if they were better at conforming to human resource regulations… I don’t think so. It all comes down to spreading ideas. If you can get your art or your political cause or your restaurant’s ideas to spread, you win.”

So, what’s your story?

There are many ways you can keep up with our job-postings.  Lately, we’ve had no less than 10 or more a week. New companies are signing on with us constantly, so we want to provide you with as many ways to keep in touch with us as you can.

Though our jobs are the same, here are several ways to track us down and sniff out a great opportunity for yourself. Choose the method(s) you like the most and you’ll be thanking us about your great new job before you know it!

• Our website: www.sostechnical.com
  Hey, this is our home.  We put every job we have on here.
  
• Subscribe to our JOBFEED . 
  Click a link below to add our feed (You need a newsreader or one of these services for this)
  
  
• Get our jobs by email
  (delivered by indeed.com)
• The Job Boards (of course):
  Hey, you’re going to find us everywhere, but some of the best places to look are the following (especially if you already have an account there):
  
  
  • 
    Indeed.com is just cool. They take all our jobs from all the job boards and combine them into one.  See?  Oh, you want it even better?  Get our jobs by email or by RSS newsfeed, too. Hey, I am all for easy… and indeed it is! (pun intended)
    P.S. They are getting quite The buzz on the web…
    
  • 
    Career builder is still my personal favorite for job-seekers because it is so simple to apply for positions.  You can easilly find our company’s positions.
    
  • 
    Hot Jobs has done some really nice things lately. If you have a Yahoo account, it’s very simple to add jobs to your MyYahoo page (see our feed, above, to do this, too)
    
  • 
    Monster has also been enhancing things. No doubt their resume-agents and tools are some of the very best.
    
  • Craig’s List
    If simple is your gig, then Craig’s list is your Ritz Carlton. Bookmark our jobs, or get them sent to you by RSS newsfeed. Your call. Easy.

If anything else, we’re always at the other end of your telephone or email account.  Please contact us at any of our offices, at any time.

“I had a most painful conversation with a candidate yesterday upon making a job offer on behalf of a client. While I admired his fortitude and effort, I had to cut him off finally..I just couldn’t listen anymore…

This doesn’t happen often…I advise you make your best offer first…

that’s it…it doesn’t need to get complicated. Yes, from time to time we all have to negotiate a few things..but if you do your work throughout the process – set and measure expectations..the offer is well rather anti-climatic. It’s anticipated and becomes more of an itinerary (or should)...like when do we move, first day of work..logistics..itinerary/schedule for first day and/or week.

If you find you are negotiating offers more than you’d like, review and revise!”

[Via Lucia Apollo-Shaw]

It’s always interesting to find out what is happening inside company walls. Here’s an interesting look though inside a local entrepreneur’s mind on what he feels myFamily.com might have been:

Now, after years of neglect, I hear there is some renewed interest in growing MyFamily.com. But during the heads down years, look what has happened in areas where MyFamily.com could have played a role… (more)

First the good news, then the bad news about women in leadership positions, from a joint study by Caliper and Aurora. Link: BostonWorks – The Job Blog.

Link: Job hunting? New service may link you.

a new approach to the tiresome task of job hunting, LinkedIn.com, will soon up its job listings into the millions. The San Francisco-based company offers a Web approach to networking and brings millions of people, including more than 8,500 locals who are LinkedIn members, a chance to mine contacts or trusted people for information like job openings. That tally of users is up by 75 percent since January, when the local total was 4,800. LinkedIn differs dramatically from cyber-job giants such as Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com, which is partially owned by Enquirer parent company Gannett Co. Inc., because it is a referral-powered job board. LinkedIn members can see their connections to executives and others because it shows the contacts of other contacts – that is, a member knows another member, who also knows another member. Those contacts show up as degrees of separation, which are mined by the new job search section. The result is that jobs offered by contacts or people in users’ LinkedIn contacts list show up at the top of any search list created by job hunters. "Those are the jobs you are mostly likely to get, even if your resume does not perfectly match the job description, because of the personal connection," said Konstantin Guericke, vice president of marketing and co-founder of LinkedIn, which has 2.7 million users

Link: The Occupational Adventure (sm): Learn how to bounce back.

Face it. There will inevitably be times in your journey when things feel like they’ve imploded. You’ve fallen on your face. Things have gone completely wrong. What do you do? Here’s an article that suggests that the ability to bounce back can be learned. A nutshell version of the tips:

Some of you know that I am a big-fan of LinkedIn (do you know me? Request to be linked to me!).

It helps with many things, the least of which being a way to keep in touch with people. In fact, this week I reconnected with several colleagues who worked at the Incredible Genuity Experiment back in Boston during Heyday-dot-com. (Good to know you’re all doing excellent—wild ride, wasn’t it??)

Now, as highlighted recently in the Boston Job Blog, Social Networking is helping reduce barriers between the employer and the employable:

The web, as we all know, has had a huge impact on job searching. But now it’s going beyond job boards. A new class of sites is attempting to change the professional networking process by putting it online:

Dave Taylor answers a great question: "Why would I bother with networking sites like LinkedIn?"

Link: Blue Sky Resumes Blog: Student Resumes.

As many students approach graduation and other start to look for internships, many are faced with the issue of writing their own resume – sometimes for the first time. No one likes to write a resume, but I think students worry more about this than more experienced job seekers. If that’s you, don’t worry – it doesn’t have to be intimidating if you understand the goal of your r鳵m頭 to generate interest and interviews. It doesn’t have to get you a job and it doesn’t need to cover your life history. It simply has to pique the interest of the reader and answer the only question he cares about: will this candidate add value to my company?

Jim Durbin at Recruiting.com throws an interesting idea into the mix.  When is the best time to interview potential candidates?  Even though it may not be the easiest model to implement, the idea is interesting.  Here’s a snippet:

I have a radical idea that I dare hiring managers to implement. No more 8-5 interviews. 8-5 interviews are a sure sign that you aren’t interviewing the best people out there. Why? Because the best people are already working!...

Yes, the right candidate might be available and out of work, but if you only interview people from 8-5, you’re cutting off candidates who simply can’t take off to meet you. Employees might lie to their bosses about doctor’s appointments… [or] even skip out on important meetings or phone conferences to meet with you. Is that really the type of conduct you want to encourage in an employee?

My largest concern with this lies in that staffing and recruiting aren’t always about who is the very best, but who is the best available person.

In my company, we do not dig into companies seeking to harvest their best people in order to satisfy our other clients (while driving away existing or future ones).  We work with consultants who first contact us (either by replying to a posted position or by keeping their resume public on one of the job boards).

What’s your take on this?  When is the best time to interview potential clients, especially technical ones?

If you read it right, Brian Carroll’s Seven lead generation tips can be used in your job search, too.  Your "customer" is the prospective employer and their company.  Also, look into the "style" of company you want to work with.  Does it fit you?  What are they like, what do they do?  What is the corporate culture?  What about companies like them… what is their culture?  Maybe you’ll end up liking the competition better!

My favorite one of these is number three, paraphrased here by me:

Know the needs you can solve: Once you under stand why [companies hire you] you can tailor your message around the needs you solve.  Why are you relevant?

Incidentally, my current position with SOS Technical came because I was seeking employment with their competitor.  My research into that competitor helped me discover SOS Technical, and eventually, this great opportunity I am engaged in right now.

Reno, NV is ranked #1 and Boise, ID is ranked #2 in this years ranking of the top cities in which to do business, based primarily on economic growth. The survey was published today by Inc. Magazine. Salt Lake City ranks #31 but jumped an impressive 73 places. A total of 274 economic regions were studied. Read the full article here.

Link: Paul Allen: Internet Entrepreneur.

On the subject of what not to write in your resume, let me note a phrase my Newswriting professor jammed into my conciousness:

"Show, Don’t Tell"

Simple as that, but it’s a powerful tool.  It means, use the facts to paint the picture.  Don’t say, "I am the best employee they ever had", just be sure you note that you were "awarded employee of the year 4 times." and that you "broke all previous sales records".

In your resume and cover-letter writing, "Show, Don’t Tell" will allow you to convey what you really want to say without sounding snobbish or conceited.

I know you want to be successful…  SHOW ME.

Just scanning through some resumes and I find the following bullet-points under a person’s job heading… Read the last one:

• Ran a crew of up to 30.
• Organized all outbound freight for my location.
• Set up ties between several companies.
• Worked my ass off.

My hard-working friend, I don’t know if I am going to call you about this position, but I will always remember your resume.  File this under "what not to say, even when you really want to…"

You will notice local job postings here on the site.  Right now, they are listed as blurbs along the sidebar.  I am working on integrating them into this blog so you can subscribe as just an RSS feed.

These jobs are coming from all the major boards (monster, Career Builder, and HotJobs, as well as from other local sources, such as Paul Allen’s Utah Jobs board.

I’ve just got to say this.  If you’re sending your resume around, please do just one thing, even if it’s just for me: Write an objective that means… something.

The generic objectives I see daily are useless, bland, and (in my opinion)
put you right back against the wall with the other job-searching flowers.  They read something like this:

Objective: To obtain solid employment with a potential for advancement at a good company where I can use my skills.

Well, great.  Isn’t that the definition of a good job, anyway? 

Action Item: Write a passionate, vehicular resume objective.  Something that moves me from mediocrity to activity.  A well-written resume headline and objective makes you stick out from the crowd like the hot, red Ferrari you’ve been staring at every day during your bumper-to-bumper commute to the current “solid job at a good company” you’re trying to upgrade from.

Additional Help:
It may be worth your time (and money) to have someone else look at your resume and even write it for you.  Career Builder, for example has a Professional Resume Writing service you may take advantage of.