Clue Wagon » After the Interview

7 Things You Need to Know About References

Kerry Scott — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:00:28 +0000

Employment verification and reference checking are two different things. Employment verification means contacting your former employers and verifying your title, salary, and dates of employment. Checking references means calling people and asking whether you were a good employee. Nearly every company I’ve worked for conducted employment verifications, but only a third or so checked references. Some people feel that it’s a waste of time to call the people you list on your application, because of course they’re going to say nice things about you. Duh. That’s why you listed them. Occasionally you get one who goes rogue, but not often.
Calls don’t mean you’re getting the job. Lately I’m hearing about more and more instances where companies are checking references for two or more finalists, instead of just the one they intend to hire. I think this stems from the idea that there are so many good candidates out there that employers can now be extremely choosy, and can take their time in making a hire. I had a company recently call me about someone who worked for me in my last job. The call was about 25 minutes long, and they apparently called her other three references as well…so they invested about two hours. In the end, they picked their other finalist (which is their loss, because this employee was one of the best I’ve ever had, and they are idiots for not hiring her, because she is a star). Be excited when you hear that they’re calling your references…but not too excited.
They can call anyone they want, whenever they want. I chuckle when I hear candidates saying something like, “They called so-and-so and asked about me. Isn’t that illegal?” Of course not. It’s not illegal to ask someone about you. Nobody needs permission to say, “Hey, you worked with Joe, right? What’d you think of him?” That release you sign on the back the application is designed to protect the reference-giver, not the reference-checker. It’s mostly used for the employment verification, not the references (because most companies aren’t going to give out your dates of employment/title/salary without written permission from you). Since the references you give them are almost always people you’ve lined up to say nice things about you, any smart hiring person is going to want to use her own contacts to find out more about you. The higher up the position is, the more likely they’re going to ask around. If you haven’t sucked or treated people poorly, you probably have nothing to worry about.
They can ask anything they want. Companies and individuals can decide what they want to answer…but the hiring company can ask anything. It’s illegal to use the answer if the answer indicates your membership in a protected class (religion, national origin, etc.), but it’s not illegal to ask. The person giving the answers can also say anything, as long as it’s true. If you got fired, they can say so. If you were late 32 times in six months, you can say so. If you quit by telling the supervisor to f-off and throwing your ID badge at him (true story), they can say so. Negative references are not illegal, as long as the information is true.
Bad references are not as common as you think. I occasionally hear from people who think the reason they haven’t gotten a job is because their former boss is badmouthing them. It’s possible that this happens, but I have never, ever seen a case where a former supervisor has preemptively called around and said that an employee was bad. Never. I’ve had bad references occasionally, but they’ve never been unsolicited. The bad references are not super common either, because nobody wants to get sued, and even if what they’re saying about an employee is true, to have to prove it in court is an expensive, time-consuming venture. Bad references happen, but they’re not nearly as common as people think. It’s far more likely that you didn’t get the job because there was another candidate they thought was a better fit.
You need to make sure your peeps are reachable. It’s up to you to know how best to reach your references. That means you need to check in with them BEFORE you hit the reference stage, and ask them how best to reach them during the next couple of weeks (cell phone? work phone? email? any vacations coming up?). You should also let them know the name of the company and what the job entails, so that they recognize the call when it comes. I don’t typically answer my home phone if I don’t recognize the number, but I will dive over my kids to pick it up if the caller ID shows that it’s a company that has recently interviewed someone for whom I’m providing a reference.
The web is a reference. I’m pretty sure everyone who reads this blog is smart enough to know this already, but just in case: employers will Google you. If they can look at your Facebook page, they will. They’ll read your tweets. Whether employers SHOULD do this or not is a separate issue, but trust me, they do. If you’ve said stupid things, stop saying them, and delete them where you can. Use the privacy settings (especially on Facebook). Make sure the username for your favorite amateur porn site isn’t the same as the username for your email (another true story). The web is a bad place to say and do things you don’t want potential employers to know. You don’t need to hide who you are, but you do need to exercise some common sense.

DISCLAIMER: This is not legal advice. I am not a lawyer. You should only take legal advice from real lawyers whose real lawyerhood you have verified with the Bar Association in your state. Don’t take legal advice from from some blog you found on the internet. Duh.

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Why You Shouldn’t Customize Your Resume For Each Job Opportunity

Kerry Scott — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:24:18 +0000

Something came up in the comments of this thread that I’d like to talk about further: the idea that you should your cover letter and resume for every job opportunity.

I see this advice posted fairly frequently, and I always wonder what those people are smoking. Then I hear from job seekers who say they are spending a couple of hours crafting a response to each job posting (aside from the online application itself, which can’t be helped). I’m always shocked when I hear that. It just seems nuts to me. If I spent a couple of hours on each cover letter/resume bundle, I’d be depressed and crabby…and that depressed crabbiness would probably show in the finished product, in my interviews, and in my interactions with my family and friends. That’s bad.

Here’s the part I don’t get: What are you all customizing exactly? Because the cover letter should be 4-5 (short) paragraphs at most, and since the first and last paragraphs are standard stuff like contact information. That leaves you a couple of (short) paragraphs to customize. You definitely should do that, but there are only so many things you can say, and after a few months of job hunting, you’ll have said all of them. This part should take 10-15 minutes, tops. If it’s taking longer, you’re probably just stressing yourself out, which isn’t going to improve the end product one bit.

As for customizing the resume….well, here I’m completely stumped. If you have equal experience in two or more fields (like, say, you’ve worked a couple of years in retail and a couple of years in HR), you can have two different resumes for each of those fields, so that you can look for jobs in both. I can see why that would make sense. But to change the resume itself for each opening seems unnecessary to me. Your experience is your experience, so how can you change it that much? That’s what the cover letter is for—to draw out how your experience applies to this particular position. That’s the entire purpose of a cover letter. Doing so on the resume as well means you are sending them a version of yourself that’s based on your guess as to what they’re looking for. You’d have to be a pretty good guesser to make that worthwhile.

Your resume should be focused on presenting your experience in the best possible light, not in a light you think they might want to see. Even if you happen to guess right (which is unlikely), it’s creepy to receive a resume that looks like a copy-and-paste of the job description. I always wonder about the authenticity of the ones that look like such a direct match that they can’t possibly be real.

Unless you’re applying to one of those long-shot, way-out-of-your-field opportunities, I suggest sticking to a (short) customized cover letter and the version of your resume that best reflects your achievements in the field that applies to the position. The time you save can be better spent networking, and the energy you save can be spent keeping your spirits up so that you can continue to plug away at finding a job. It’s hard enough not to get sucked into the abyss of depression and self-flagellation when you’re job hunting without torturing yourself by investing a couple of unnecessary hours in each opening. Better investing that time will lead to more opportunities, and that’s a better return on your investment.

If you’re one of the candidates who does this, enlighten me. What are you customizing? How long does it take you to apply for a job (aside from those heinous online applications)? Do you feel it’s worth the investment?

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6 Things You Need To Know About Unresponsive Employers

Kerry Scott — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 19:35:56 +0000

Last week I posted about candidates who are angry with companies who don’t respond when they apply and/or interview with companies. The comments were interesting, and I started to reply…but it turned into a list.

First, let me be clear: Every employer should respond to every resume submission, and follow up after every interview. While it’s not as automated as candidates seem to think (because most companies actually do not have these fancy applicant tracking systems you keep hearing about), it’s not that hard to set up an email auto-reply for resume submissions, even if you’re just using Outlook or something. There’s no excuse for not doing it. As for companies that don’t respond after an interview—well, that just blows my mind. It’s not physically possible to interview so many people that you can’t send them a canned rejection email, at the very least.

This list, then, isn’t meant to make excuses for these people. There’s no excuse. They should always respond. But there ARE some things you should be aware of:

Stuff gets lost. If you didn’t get a response to your resume, it’s possible that it’s because they didn’t receive it. It happens. That’s one more reason it’s up to you to avoid depending entirely on technology to get the job.
Your spam filter might have eaten it. When I was recruiting full-time, I’d get at least one angry phone call/email a month from a candidate who was mad because she’d never heard from me after applying or interviewing with us. Each time I was mortified, and each time, I checked my “Sent” folder to see if I’d sent them something. In my 14 year career, only once did I find that I’d failed to send the candidate the email (and that was because I’d spelled the email address wrong—duh). Before you fire off a letter to the errant employer, check your spam folder.
The recruiters lost their jobs months ago. When companies stop hiring, they often lay off all of the recruiters. Most of the recruiters I know are out of work right now. The HR people you’re dealing with now are often not recruiters, but HR generalists (people who handle stuff like sexual harassment complaints, terminations, people who can’t get along with their managers, etc.). I only know two HR generalists in the whole world who actually like recruiting. They’re often doing their regular job in addition to the recruiting job…and they also don’t always know how to work the applicant tracking system, if there is one (that’s the big database your resume goes into). This is pretty much a recipe for a bad candidate experience. I’m not making excuses for them, because having a sucky job is not a license to be rude. I do, however, think that’s part of the reason that so many people are being treated poorly by companies right now.
The worst part of recruiting is the managers (at least a few of them). I pretty much loved everything about recruiting. The only thing I didn’t love was working with incompetent hiring managers. Every so often, I’d get one who just couldn’t be bothered to actually fill the job. He’d insist on running an ad, and we’d get all these resumes, and then he’d sit on them. And sit. And sit. And I’d bug him daily, and weeks (even months) would go by, and this idiot keeps saying, “I’m too busy to look at the resumes.” He won’t let me just pick some and screen them—no, only he can do it. Then, when we finally get to interviews, he can’t make a decision. We’d agree up front that we’d make a decision within a week of the last interview, and this guy couldn’t do it. By then he’s not returning phone calls, so I’m stalking him in person…only he’s “too busy” to decide. People always think it’s the HR person who is responsible when they’re not getting an answer back. That’s just not always the case.
HR people don’t hire. Hiring managers hire. The hiring manager is ultimately responsible for filling the job. HR people do not hire anyone. They’re in a service role, serving the managers by helping them hire effectively. That’s why when you’re following up after the interview, you need to do so with both the HR person AND the hiring manager. If the HR person is the problem, the hiring manager needs to know that you’re not hearing back (in the same way that the store manager needs to know if a cashier treats you poorly…because that HR person serves the hiring manager). If the hiring manager is the problem, the HR person needs to know so that she can shake things loose and get the process moving. But if you’re directing your anger at the HR people, save some of the person who is actually responsible for filling the job: the hiring manager. Hold them accountable as well.
If you have a bad experience, speak up. Tell your friends. Companies who treat candidates like crap need to be held accountable. I knew one person who had an experience so bad that she wrote to the company president (and really, the circumstances in that case were so extreme that he really needed to know). The worst offender got fired as a result, and she deserved it. It’s very easy these days to share your experiences, good or bad…and companies who haven’t figured that out yet are in for a rude awakening.

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Angry Candidates of the World, Unite!

Kerry Scott — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 18:37:37 +0000

This week Laurie Ruettimann from PunkRockHR spoke at mediabistro. She was supposed to talk about work/life balance, but apparently so many of the attendees were out of work that it turned into a discussion about job hunting. One of the things she said she learned was that when people don’t hear back from a company after submitting a resume, they blame HR.

Then Alison Green from Ask a Manager had a post about how it annoys her (and everyone else) when companies don’t get back to candidates after interviews. In fact, she’s looking for a programmer to make her Ask a Manager You-Suck-As-An-Interviewer Automatic Letter Generator dream a reality. I’m pretty sure she’s serious too. Soon, pissed off candidates whose interviewers have stopped returning their calls will have an outlet for their frustration. (UPDATE: It’s here. I have no idea how it got done that quickly. Make sure you read the section marked “Important” on the right before you use it.)

So apparently, this whole thing about unresponsive companies is the topic of the week, and I’m curious. Do you expect a response to every resume you submit? Is an auto-reply okay, or are you looking for some sort of personal one-on-one response to every submission? What are your expectations after an interview? If you interview for a job, and you never hear from them again…do you blame HR, the hiring manager, or both?

What are your expectations when it comes to communication throughout the hiring process?

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Can People Really Ask My Potential Boss for a Job When Giving a Reference?

Kerry Scott — Wed, 27 May 2009 19:13:27 +0000

Photo by Rick

A reader writes:

I just got a new job, and the company asked for and checked my references. This is weird in my business since it’s a small community in a niche market and everyone knows everyone. So you just casually ask your friends what they know of a person. But in so doing, they also told me that a couple of my references pitched THEMSELVES in some way to the person who was calling for info on me. Not for my job, per se, but for jobs relating to my presence in the new gig. I had asked all of my references to speak on my behalf beforehand (if called upon) so I was shocked by that.

I had heard that it’s possibly illegal in some cases for a past employer to comment on anything outside of yes/no answers on factual information like “did they work there from x to y dates”. May not be true outside of being sued civilly for saying something that equated to a person not getting a job.

On the first part: Although it can feel a little weird if you don’t see it coming, this is actually pretty common, especially in a tough job market. Getting a job involves networking, and giving a reference is am act of networking. I’ve had lots of people try and work the conversation to their own advantage when giving references, especially for higher-level positions. If they’re trying to get YOUR job, well…not cool. Not cool at all. For other jobs though…well, why not? As long as they’re doing no harm to you, I wouldn’t sweat it too much. I do think it would have been nice if they’d told you they were interested in working for the same company, but some people are tacky that way.

I find it interesting that they actually checked the references you gave them, especially since you’re in an industry where asking around would likely be far more productive. That might tell you something about their culture. I’m also amused that they told you this happened. That sounds a little like a guy who comes home from the bar and tells his girlfriend, “Yeah, chicks were all over me the entire night” in a misguided attempt to rattle her cage. I don’t know what the tone of the conversation was, but it’s an interesting choice.

On the second part: It’s not illegal for a past employer to give a bad references. It’s true that someone can sue you for giving a bad reference, but pretty much anyone can sue you for pretty much anything. As long as what you are saying is true and well-documented, like “We terminated him because he was tardy 67 times in one year,” you are okay*. Truth is an absolute defense. That said, it’s very expensive to defend yourself, so most companies only verify dates of employment, title, and salary. That’s also why they tell supervisors not to give references; people sometimes sue the individual who gave the reference as well as the company. It’s just not worth it to most people.

* DISCLAIMER: I am not a lawyer. I’m an ex-HR person. That’s not even close to being the same thing, because lawyers make more money and don’t go around telling you not to wear flip-flops to work. Also, only idiots take legal advice from some blog they found on the internet. If you get sued, “The internet told me it was okay” is not a good defense. So before you go around talking smack about someone you used to work with, talk to a real lawyer, okay?

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Hate Rejection Letters? Bet You Can’t Top This.

Kerry Scott — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 11:00:58 +0000

This is apparently a real rejection letter that Disney sent to a woman in 1938.

All rejection letters sting, but to get one from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs that says you can’t work here because you’re a girl…well, yeah, that would suck.

(Click here for a larger version—it’s a little small, I know)

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Meet the Blow It Out Your Ass Guy

Kerry Scott — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 11:00:51 +0000

About eight years ago, I was recruiting sales managers for a major corporation. These were good jobs with good salaries (low six figures). We were in a mild economic downturn then, so I had an abundance of candidates. I had one candidate who had applied a couple of times, and his resume and cover letter looked great, but he didn’t have the right experience for this particular job. I liked the experience he did have though, so I put his resume aside to keep an eye out for opportunities that might be a better fit.

About 10 days after he’d applied, he emailed me to follow up and inquire as to whether he would be interviewed for the job. I sent him a note back saying that we were looking for someone with X and Y experience, and that while I understood from his resume that he didn’t have that type of background, I was keeping an eye out for other opportunities for him.

About 10 minutes after I clicked “send,” I received the following reply:

Blow it out your ass.

I went back and read my note again, to see if maybe I’d sounded snippy in my haste to respond-nope. I chalked it up to job-search frustration, took him out of my “keep an eye out for other opportunities” pile, and made a note in the database.

About a year later, I saw a post on an HR forum. It was from a corporate recruiter, and she said she had gotten the same reply to a rejection letter. Eight or nine other people had chimed in to say that they’d gotten it as well. We compared notes and, lo and behold, it was the same guy. He had applied to hundreds of jobs (maybe thousands—who knows), and when he got a rejection, he sent the same one-line retort. He became known as the Blow It Out Your Ass Guy in the HR community.

Job hunting can really make you crabby. Try not to let it turn you into THAT guy.

Tales of the Cluefree appear pretty much every Friday. Past stories are here.

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6 Reasons I Hate the LinkedIn “Recommendation” Feature

Kerry Scott — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 10:00:21 +0000

It’s public. Some things just aren’t meant to be done in front of the whole world. When I’m checking references and the person I’m talking to cannot think of a single constructive thing to say about the candidate…well, that’s just not credible. Because the reviews you read on LinkedIn are public, though, they tend to be devoid of anything that really tells you who this person really is or how he’ll fit into the organization. “Fit” is a key reason that reference-checking is important, and universally glowing reviews don’t help at all in that regard. When recommendations are given in some sort of live, interactive format, the questions and answers can be more honest. In the long run, everyone is better served when the candidate gets only the right job.
It dilutes your reference pool. Most people only have a few colleagues they use as references. There are only so many people who know and like you well enough to be entrusted with a task like this. Most companies, though, will want to talk to people other than those who have already written letters of recommendation in some form or another. If you’ve used your best references for your LinkedIn profile, you’re going to have to scramble to get someone to give the real references when the time comes.
It doesn’t allow for cross-examination. When I conduct a reference check, I ask the person exactly how they know the candidate. Sometimes, I find that this person who is all set to tell me about how Jane is great at her job has never actually worked with her. When I’m reading an online reference, I can’t determine exactly how these folks are connected, and that dilutes the reference-giver’s credibility. In fact, I’ve recently seen some references on LinkedIn written by people I know, for a mutual acquaintance. I know for a fact that these people not only don’t work together, but they’ve never met in person, although the references are written in such a way that they strongly imply that these people are co-workers. Actually, they’re friends from an online message board. Now, those are great relationships, but it’s not cool to lead people to believe that you have seen someone’s work firsthand when you haven’t.
It’s easily forged. I know of another someone who actually created fake profiles of people who didn’t exist, and then posted recommendations for himself under those fake profiles (incidentally, this same person “bought” stuff from himself on eBay so he could give himself good feedback–he’s apparently a real piece of work). Really, how would you know that Jane Doe is a real person, that she really worked with Joe Blow, and that she thinks he’s a rock star accountant? Ever hear about the author who got caught reviewing his own books on Amazon or the Whole Foods executive who gave himself rave reviews on the investor message board? It’s just too easy to game the system. That can be done by phone or email too, but it’s at least a bit more difficult (and that’s why I call or email references at work and verify that they at least work at the company they say they do).
It’s sometimes cheap and spammy. I’ve seen some recommendations where, if you look carefully, you can see that the person doing the recommending essentially copied-and-pasted the same recommendation for multiple people. That might be okay for, say, providing feedback on eBay auctions, but that is not how intelligent professionals provide thoughtful feedback on a colleague’s strengths. Tacky.
It leads to drama. I admit it: I’m stingy with references. I won’t stick my neck out and give someone my personal recommendation unless I think they were pretty fabulous. That means that the number of people I’m connected to on LinkedIn vastly exceeds the number of people I would personally endorse. While I’m not connected to anyone who has a “DO NOT HIRE” mark in my mind, there are people I haven’t worked with in years, or people whose work I didn’t know firsthand, or people who I think might be right for some organizations, but not others. That’s part of the problem with mixing recommendations with networking—the size of those two pools is quite different and that’s how it should be. If I start publicly endorsing some of the people I really would recommend to everyone, without reservation, I’m going to have hurt feelings among those whose work I just don’t know well enough to do the same. You wouldn’t stand up at a party or in a meeting and say, “Hey, everyone, these are the five people I like best in this room.” Why do that online?

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Should I Write a Thank-You Note After the Interview?

Kerry Scott — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 15:52:39 +0000

YES! You would be amazed how few candidates do this, so you’ll really stand out if you send a thank-you note after a job interview. I can’t think of a time when I’ve seen someone actually lose out on an opportunity because they failed to send a thank-you note, but I have definitely seen cases where a company was on the fence about someone, and the thank-you note made the difference.

Thank-you notes don’t have to be mailed in fact, I prefer to receive them via email, because then I can easily forward them to the others involved in the hiring process. It’s also faster, and time is of the essence after the interview, because you want it to get there before they make a decision. If you’ve interviewed with multiple people, it’s great if you can send a personalized note to each one. A lot of people find it hard to come up with something different to say, though, especially if there was a large cast of interviewers. In that case, it’s okay to send a group email.

Thank-you notes don’t have to be long. This is one of those things where, for the most part, you get credit just for having completed the task–anything else is icing on the cake. Here’s a sample of a very basic thank-you note:

Dear Kerry [yes, it's okay to use the first name once you've met them],

Thank you so much for taking the time to meet with me about the HR Director role at XYZ Corporation. I enjoyed meeting you and learning more about your plans for 2009, and I am very interested in the position. Please let me know if you have questions or need additional information from me. You can reach me at jane@ihatespam.com, or at (414) 555-1212.

Thank you,

Jane Applicant

Ideally, though, if you’re fairly comfortable with your writing skills, it’s nice to tie in what you learned in the interview with what you think you bring to the table in terms of skills. Here’s a sample of a more comprehensive thank-you note:

Dear Kerry:

Thank you so much for taking the time to meet with me last Thursday to discuss the HR Director position. I enjoyed meeting you and learning more about XYZ Corporation.

I am particularly excited about your efforts to streamline your recruiting process. As you know, I worked with ABC, Inc. in a similar initiative last year. We were able to go from an average time-to-fill for sales jobs of 87 days to 32 days. We also reduced our cost per hire from $2,307 to $923. Aside from the expected benefit to the organization, we found that we significantly improved our reputation as an employer-of-choice in the Duluth area, which made future recruiting efforts much easier. I’m confident that many of the techniques I used at ABC would be effective for XYZ Corporation as well.

I’m very interested in this position, and I would welcome an opportunity to come back and meet with you and Jim to explore it further. You can reach me at jane@ihatespam.com, or at (414) 555-1212.

Thank you,

Jane Doe

One more thing: Be sure to get a business card from each person who interviews you. It can be really hard to remember all of those names after a nerve-racking interview, and even harder to figure out how to spell them or what the email address might be.

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