I former co-worker who got caught up in the recent RIF got in touch with me recently. Luckily for him he's already lined up a couple of interviews. Hopefully he'll be back working in high tech soon.
He contacted me to ask if he could use me as a reference. I said OK. He's a pretty good guy. This is the first time someone asked me to be a reference. Maybe I'm getting somewhere in high tech after over nine years doing it, if someone asks if they can use me as a reference. I kind of hope his potential employer contacts me. I'm curious what kind of questions reference checkers ask. I'll post what happens if they do get in touch.
I don't think employers are generally too keen on their people being references for former co-workers. The problem is that once their people talk to recruiters at all, the recruiters know who they are and could start to target them to jump. This is especially bad after a downsizing since you'll be short staffed anyway and hiring someone new to fill for someone quitting is just not very likely to happen. So you'll just be even weaker. I think one of the last things an employer wants after a RIF is for any of the survivors to voluntarily leave.
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Job search tips
I e-mailed a former co-worker who got caught up in the RIF last week. I wanted to wish him well in his search for a new job. We'd worked together on a number of projects over the last five years. I was his team leader on projects for around 2 years. I sent him these tips that I had picked up over the years.
* update your online resume on monster, workopolis, hotjobs, etc at least once a week. Many searchers look for active job seekers and they use the last update time of the resume as a guide. The "update" can be as simple as adding and deleting a trailing space at the end of a paragraph, or reordering some information in a sentence. So the content stays the same but your "last update time" always indicates an active job seeker.
* when a job is posted online, the company generally gets a crush of applications. They often will just look at the first 50 or so to get a shortlist to interview. One thing that I've heard works is to be in the first 20 respondents. This can be done by getting up quite early, say 4-5 AM. Log in to the job sites. If there is a job you match then send your saved resume. That should get you in the top 20 of repliers. That could give you an edge. If there's nothing that's fine, just go back to bed and it should only take around 5-15 minutes total.
* update your online resume on monster, workopolis, hotjobs, etc at least once a week. Many searchers look for active job seekers and they use the last update time of the resume as a guide. The "update" can be as simple as adding and deleting a trailing space at the end of a paragraph, or reordering some information in a sentence. So the content stays the same but your "last update time" always indicates an active job seeker.
* when a job is posted online, the company generally gets a crush of applications. They often will just look at the first 50 or so to get a shortlist to interview. One thing that I've heard works is to be in the first 20 respondents. This can be done by getting up quite early, say 4-5 AM. Log in to the job sites. If there is a job you match then send your saved resume. That should get you in the top 20 of repliers. That could give you an edge. If there's nothing that's fine, just go back to bed and it should only take around 5-15 minutes total.
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