What Did We Learn?

My dad made a good point on Tuesday when I was discussing my job situation with him. The company I'm now working for (until it's sold!) essentially did what I had considered doing a month or so ago. That is, they hired me and then disclosed that it wasn't for the long term expected.

It's kind of funny being on the flip side of the equation. The situation isn't exactly the same (I will supposedly have a job at the purchasing company), but it serves to confuse my sentiments further on the issue of telling a company if you're leaving soon or not. So, we'll revisit the arguments once again:

The Real Company Treatment

Here's me last month on companies:

...I don't think for a minute that they are going to worry about me if they need to lay me off. I don't think that company loyalty or employee loyalty is a true principle or a moral obligation.

While I will supposedly have a job, the company didn't tell me about the change until after I had been hired (and after I'd quite my old job to take this one).

The Invisible Hand

The company was acting in its own best interest. They offered a reasonable salary and I failed to ask the appropriate questions. I thought I was acting in my own best interest, but me not doing my due diligence in understanding what I was signing up for is pretty much my own fault.

I'll still get value from the job in the month or so I'm there. The bonus and salary are good for the time. It's just a bit of an adventure right now.

Implications For Interviewers and Interviewees

So, if I were interviewing again with the intention to leave in 6 months, would I disclose that information? Yes, I think I would. I would personally rather be overly honest then appear dishonest. If someone else were to not disclose the same information in an interview though, I wouldn't hold it against them for a second.

I think the lesson I need to learn here is that when interviewing from either side of the table it's important to ask the right questions and be sure that what you are expecting from a situation matches the reality of the same situation.

New Job : I Am Now Free To Move About the Country

I got a job offer last Thursday. It's for the position I interviewed for last Tuesday.

The salary is $59,000 a year. That's $6,500 more than my current salary. There are less benefits, namely no 401K, or life or dental insurance. There is health insurance though, which is nice.

The best benefit though is that it's a work at home job. Besides getting an office with a window (my current office is solid walls) this means that when we go to move in January I can take my job with me. It means that even in a new city we'll know what I'll be making before hand.

The work is more up my alley too. Less of a computer-for-computers-sake type product and more of a computers-as-a-tool-to-help-people angle. It's a small (6-8 people) company which gives me more autonomy, which I've been wanting.

Mostly though we're just happy that we'll be able to save more towards our house and that we'll be able to move there more easily when we find one we like.

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I think we might just go out to eat to celebrate, even though it wasn't in our budget (neither was an extra $6500 a year!).

Interview Tip : They Know Who You Are

I had a great job interview today. I don't know if I will get the job, but the interview itself went well. It's for an online company, and would be a work from home position. Working from home would have it's own challenges but at least I would be able to take my job with me when we move in January.

Before the interview the interviewer already knew a ton about me. About the projects I've done, about my family and more. All sorts of things which I never told him and which certainly weren't on my resume.

Also today my wife interviewed a girl to be our baby sitter. With just her first name and Email address, we were able to track down her livejournal site, her facebook page, photos of her on MySpace and her profile on YouTube. Although the interview went well, based on what I've found about her online I don't think we'll be hiring.

How did my interviewer find out so much about me? How did we find out so much about this babysitter?

Digital Archaeology

I sent my resume from my Gmail. My Gmail users name is the same as the handle I use everywhere online. I also have a domain name or two which match that same handle. And one of those pages links to my wife's blog, etc. etc. etc.

In this case it was beneficial. I have done several projects which piqued the interest of my interviewer. There is also quite a lot of material on my website which showcases my programming abilities, but which aren't things I'd bother to put on a resume.

For the babysitter things didn't end up as well. It started the same way. She replied to our Craigslist posting, listing only her first name in the email. We googled her email address and got nothing. By dropping the '@yahoo.com' portion though we got enough leads to find out more about her. She's had 8 siblings, two died of cystic fibrosis. She says she is a Mormon but her pictures and words say she doesn't practice what she says she believes. (Note: Our baby sitter doesn't have to be Mormon, but we'd rather not have a hypocrite).

Shots in the Dark

Sometimes you can hit a dead end and can't find any more information via Google or other search engines. If that's the case it may be time for a couple of shots in the dark to try to locate the individual. Teens and college students can often be found on Facebook or MySpace if you know their name and school. Brazilians can often be found on Orkut, other South Americans on Hi5. Business professionals can sometimes be found on Linked-In (although most of Linked-In is also indexed by Google it seems).

Hiding Your Tracks

Being found online is a mixed blessing. It makes it possible to reunite with old friends and find out about others before meeting them. It also makes you more vulnerable depending on what you've put online.

If you have material online which you don't want a future employer, date or colleague to see, you need to hide your tracks. The best way to hide your tracks is to create a new online identity strictly for business (or nefarious!) purposes. For example instead of artickat9912@hotmail.com I might send my resume in via my new and improved college_alumni99@gmail.com address.

If creating a new identity isn't really an option, or if your name is unique enough that someone could search and find you (eg. not John Smith) then you may need to work to remove or hide the existing bad data.

The first thing to do is to remove pictures which don't portray you in a positive light from social networking sites. Make your profile private while you're at it.

Next, do some research on yourself. Make note of what information you can find about yourself via Google, Altavista, MSN Search, Yahoo, etc. For any site which you do have control over (eg. old forum posts which you can still edit) be sure that the content is what you want seen.

For content which you don't want to show up, it's a bit more difficult. You will likely need to do a bit of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for yourself. You will need to create enough new pages with your name (or handle) on them that Google and other search engines will link to those good pages before the bad ones. You can create good pages for yourself by blogging and posting in forums among other things.

Conclusion

Taking care of what of your data shows up online may help you land that next job interview. Be sure to research the person you're interviewing with if possible. And if you're going to be blogging about your salary and financial situation be sure to use an alias so future employers don't know how much they *really* need to pay you.

Job Interview Full Disclosure

Morality, Honesty and Applying For a Job

I have been pretty excited about this new job I'm applying for. I've felt confident that it would be a great fit and that both I and the company stood to gain from me working there.

Then my father in law asked if I felt there was any moral issue in not telling the company that I am planning on moving in January. I hadn't even thought about it before that, but his comments got me thinking.

Big Business

First of all, I've never really liked big business. I don't think for a minute that they are going to worry about me if they need to lay me off. I don't think that company loyalty or employee loyalty is a true principle or a moral obligation.

This is the logic that I use when I decide not to talk about my real future goals at work (move out of state, get a more interesting job). The same logic was what I'd been using in this job application process.

I figured that if they didn't ask, I wouldn't tell them. I don't think any business has the illusion that an employee they hire is going to be around for life. After my father in law's comment, I started considering different factors.

The Invisible Hand

First of all, I thought about Adam Smith's principle of the invisible hand which is summed up by Wikipedia thusly:

...[I]n a free market, an individual pursuing his own self-interest tends to also promote the good of his community as a whole through a principle that he called “the invisible hand”. ...[E]ach individual maximizing revenue for himself maximizes the total revenue of society as a whole, as this is identical with the sum total of individual revenues.

I was definitely acting in my own self interests -- who wants to hire an employee for only six months? The business was acting in it's own self interests, they were trying to hire the best employee they could get.

Could I Provide the Company Value in 6 Months

I would have worked there for six months. My skill set was very closely aligned with what they were looking for. I believed (and still believe) that I could have been profitable for them within a month or two.

That is, I think that my benefits for the company would have offset the cost of training and of the hiring process within one or two months. Some sites however say that the cost of hiring an employee is 150% of their salary. Obviously I have no way of knowing exactly how much the company would have spent, but I find that number very high for this position.

Job Hopping Is Normal Now

My generation is the slightly maligned job hopping generation. There are many different sources saying that this is a normal practice for younger workers like myself.

Granted, I've only been at my current job for 10 months, and I would be at the new one for 6, but when we move I plan on finding a job to hold for a longer time.

Am I being Selfish? (And is that wrong?)

The wonderful MPR asks if my generation is 'the selfish generation', and you know what? Sometimes I feel like I deserve better. I can't blame businesses for doing what is best for them financially going forward, but when they cut pensions and 'let go' older workers I feel like if they're not going to give me a fair shake, so why should I give them a fair shake?

I think that I don't want a lot. I just want to do something that I can support my family with and which will leave me happy at the end of the day so I can enjoy my time with my kids and wonderful wife at home.

My current job doesn't do that. I feel frustrated, bored and grumpy at the end of the day without enough energy to say "Hey! Let's go to the park and play!", which is what my two year old would really like the most.

In part that's what this whole site is about. A big part of my self improvement is that I'm trying to find out how to support my family and be able to spend better time with them. If that's selfish, then by all means I'm selfish. If that drives me to not disclose to a future employer that I'll only be around for six months, then yes, I am inclined not to tell them that.

Is it Honest?

This is where all my invisible hand job hopping selfishness broke down. After several days of introspection, I decided that

• I wouldn't tell a lie to get a job


• Telling only part of the truth could be as bad as lying


• I would hate to be in the employers position and not have all the cards on the table


• If they were planning on laying me off in six months I would want to know


• Even if they are a big business, that didn't change the fact that deals should be done honestly


• I felt that if I withheld information that was critical to making a good decision on their part, I wouldn't be being 100% honest with them.

*sigh* I really wanted that job. It looked like it could be fun, certainly more fun that where I am now.

I sent an email to the manager I was to interview with last week, explained my situation and said that I felt that I could provide value in the next six months. I also said that I'd be happy to telecommute from new new location if that was acceptable. They sent me back an email saying that they needed someone local and long term.

I am disappointed, and still job searching, but I feel that it's what I had to do to be honest.

Interview Phase Two, and How I Write A Resume

>Job Hunt Update: I got an email today that asked if I could come in for round two of interviews next week! I believe that there are only two rounds of interviews, but I suppose we'll see what happens after this one. Since my resume presumably was one of the factors which got me an interview (I had a friend who works there deliver it too), I've decided to share my resume techniques. Maybe they'll be helpful to someone, and maybe someone can help me improve as well.

Resume Writing, My Style

I don't remember the last time I actually sat down to write a resume from scratch. My resume has kind of evolved and grown since I started college. Recently though I did have an opportunity to sit down with my brother Bob and help him with his resume.

Bob is a really smart kid. He got into computers way before I did, speaks fluent Spanish and is very responsible. And if that weren't enough, he just graduated from high school. Bob isn't very wordy though. His emails and essays make Hemmingway look verbose.

Before and After

So, here below is a before and after of his resume. The one of the left is the one he created himself, the one on the right is the one I helped him with.



Here are the differences:

Things Wrong With the First Resume

• Duplicate information


• Vague, tangentially related objective


• Only one work experience entry


• List formatting runs together


• No spacing between sections


• All fonts, except his name, are the same size


• One third of the page is blank space


• Non-work related interests


• No reason why visiting a foreign country is relevant


• Soft verbs and interest

Improvements In the Second Resume

• Single line address format saves valuable vertical space


• Name top and center makes it the most noticable page element


• Different fonts for each level of information


• Included all past, current and planned education


• Each skill or activity line starts with an adjective or, if appropriate, a verb


• Name software or other tools you know by name


• Title 'Work History' as 'Experience' and include related non-work activities


• Include real numbers in job descriptions where the demonstrate added value


• For jobs/positions without official titles, use a descriptive title that says what you did


• When possible, use verbs with positive connotations in the job title, otherwise use them in your job description

Other Notes

I'm sure there are other considerations that could improve the resume greatly. I'd love to hear your suggestions. One obvious thing would be to tailor it for the specific job you're applying for. In my brother's case, he doesn't have much to work with yet.

In my case, I have more jobs than fit on the resume, since I like to keep it at a single sheet. I include the most relevant jobs and projects I've done, and reword job descriptions to emphasize portions of my responsibilities that could relate to the job I'm applying for.

A good resume is only half of the package for job application; you also need a great cover letter. With the job I'm currently doing interviews for, I found out who I would be interviewing with initially and directed the cover letter to him.

Job Interview

Today I interviewed for the job I mentioned in "What Am I Worth?". Overall the interviews went pretty well. There were three interviewers, one attending via phone. I certainly did better with the in-person interviewers than over the phone.

The company is something of a cube farm company but I'm optimistic that it'll be a good experience, assuming I get the position. I should find out if I get to have the second and final round of interviews within a week.

I ended up asking for $60,000 per year. I choked and didn't play the 'how much could you offer?' game like I should have. I'll try harder when we move in January. My current position is dull enough that I'll take a non-maximum salary to switch positions.

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Interviews are always fun in a way. I get nervous and a bit queasy, but the task of trying to relate my life experiences to the questions they ask is always an interesting challenge. My resume was prepped to help me this time, as I included several non-work projects I've done in the experience section. In the past I wouldn't have included them since I wasn't paid, I didn't have a manager, and they were relatively short term. They did use technologies tangentially related to this companies offerings though, so it ended up helping.

Expensive Free Stuff

Once in a while you'll get hit with a present that costs money. Dogs are the classic example, and jokes abound about the price of 'free puppies'.

I just graduated, and was given a very nice $400 suit from my inlaws. A new suit though meant that I needed shoes that matched, which I didn't own.

So, last week we went and got some new shoes so that I can wear my suit to a job interview I hope to have next week. I ended up buying a pair of Rockport Wingtip shoes. That set us back $90 which we weren't expecting to spend this month.

On the up side, I now look super sharp (losing 20 pounds had an adverse affect on how my old suit fit), and I feel very confident walking into the interview next week. I also have a $380 net gain.

On the down side, a net gain doesn't help me much financially. It's something I wouldn't have bought myself, and it's not something I will ever derive direct financial value from. Granted, if I can get a higher salary at my new job, it will have had an effect, however my old suit may have been up to the task as well.

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You may question my buying Rockports for $90 when there were other nice looking shoes in the $40-$60 range. The last pair of shoes I bought was a $50 pair of nice leather non-Rockport shoes. They lasted a week before the sole split from the uppers.

My last pair of rockports I got in 9th grade and I still have them and wear them. Even though there's not hope for them for formal use, they've held up superbly and I wear them to work.