Hiring (and Looking) in a Down Market

So we're busy and we're hiring. The demand in the market is tight and supply is high. . ..So how do you filter the wheat from the chaff in the technology world? And more importantly, if you are in the job hunt, how do you differentiate yourself? Here are 6 of my thoughts, and I would love to hear your comments below.

#1. Resume
OK, let's talk about the (experienced) resume. I can scan a resume in 15 seconds and typically tell if someone is worth talking to. Here's what I look for:

For Consultants: It's easy. What's their average tenure on projects and have they been called back to a client more than once. If someone has averaged less than a year at a client/project over there career, you have to question them. It typically takes a year to get any large projects implemented and I want to see folks that are there for the duration. It means they're integral . If the type of projects the consultant works on typically take less than a year than I would like to see at least one example of multiple tours of duty. If clients are consultant friendly then they typically are constantly looking to improve and have lots of projects over time. PMs and Architects should have longer than a year tenure on the average. And if a BA hasn't moved up into a PM role after 5 years, or a developer hasn't moved up to into an Arch role after 5 years, they better have a good reason why (and there are good reasons, but they should be able to explain why).

For Permanent Employees: Unless they are passively looking I'm skeptical immediately. I'll tell you why. Great permanent employees at F1000 organizations are still working right now. Great employees of large organizations have not been laid off because they are critical to an organization's success. At this point, companies are trimming the fat. One exception to that is large companies that have completely gone under or have had to lay off regions of folks (regardless of their individual successes). The other exception is smaller companies that have had to significantly downsize.

#2. Resume Summary/Objective Statement
If someone fits the qualities above I look at the summary statement at the top of the resume. How does the candidate describe themselves? Are they selling themselves, or are they talking about what they are looking for? I'm looking for the former and it better be innovative and applicable to my job posting. I don't want to read a cover letter, I want your resume to be your cover letter.

#3. Value Proposition
Next, I want to see a value proposition. Very few resumes have this and I feel it makes all the difference. Contact me if you want an example format. Don't list all your skills, instead, tell me how your skills are going to benefit my company. I want you to draw that correlation (or at least to attempt to) instead of expecting me to.

#4 Experience
When it comes to you describing your experience, I expect you to apply your experience to my job posting. That tells me you get it and you want it. This is a tip for you job seekers too. I'm not talking about lying about your experience. I'm talking about applying your experience to my needs. Again, don't make me make the connection, make the connection for me. More importantly, it shows me that you can take your skills and apply it to any client's problem, and that's really what I'm looking for.

#5. LinkedIn/Plaxo. Are you on it? If yes +1, it means you're in this century and you get it. This is how we connect these days. If No, -1. Honestly, you're out. If you're not on LinkedIn or Plaxo, you are either completely disconnected or you don't care. Either way, you're a dud. We're technologists, get with it.

Oh and if you're on MySpace or Facebook or any other "social" social network, that doesn't count. Get on LinkedIn or Plaxo. I'm a FB addict, but it's for my friends and family, not my work colleagues.

If you're on LinkedIn, do you have a full profile and does it represent your resume? If yes +1. It means you care about your personal brand and you are consistent in what your strengths are and what you believe in. If there are major discrepancies. . ..issues, -1.

Connections, do you have a ton? +1. Do you have a representative number of recommendations +10? You just saved me a bunch of reference phone conversations. Few people will post their name/recommendation on the web, vouching for you, unless you really do rock. I also value client recommendations about 10X as much as colleague or subordinate recommendations. If you have 500+ connections and no recommendations, -10, then I look at you as all show and no substance.

#6. Blog/Twitter: Do you have a blog or an active Twitter account? I don't care if it's well followed or if you update it every week, but if you are posting insightful thoughts every few weeks, you are going to score a ton of points. Again I don't care what your field is, if you show insightful thoughts into your industry or your role, it demonstrates you as a thought leader, and that's what I'm looking for.

So those are a few thoughts on filtering the firefoxes from the internet explorers. Give me your thoughts. How do you find the gold as a hiring manager? And as a job seeker, how do you differentiate yourself in this competitive market? Your comments are much appreciated, and like I said, we're hiring. . . .

Interactive To Do Lists with Yammer

I wanted to pass along a neat little service we've been using that I think has great potential for other SMBs and ultimately, the enterprise. It's called Yammer, and it's essentially Twitter for enterprises. Yammer allows you to create "groups" within your domain (i.e. solstice-consulting.com). You can set it up so certain people have read (sub) and/or write (pub) access to the group. A group is essentially a private queue of tweets (or twitter messages). The nice thing about this interface is. . .the number of interfaces. You can post or receive tweets via an SMS message, an email, the web interface, or even via an iPhone or Blackberry app.

We use yammer as an interactive to-do/status updating service. So we have a group set up for Operations, one for Recruiting, one for Marketing, etc. We assign an administrator to each group. Whenever we have a To-Do for Operations for example, anyone in the company can send a tweet to the Operations Yammer group. I often will just forward ops related emails I get to the operations@yammer.com group. One nice thing Yammer supports (that Twitter doesn't) is threaded replies. So Ops can then turn around and reply to that tweet when it has been completed, or request additional information.

It's a lightweight service with tons of different uses. I'm sure there are similar services out there (or other uses for Yammer). Let me know in the comments below of other suggestions you have, until then, happy tweeting.