Construction Marketing Ideas

I have found this blog posting from Michael Kempner, president and CEO of PR firm MWW Group to be revealing and useful in several ways.

http://www.mwwstraighttalk.com/archives/2006/10/some_career_adv.html

His points about sloppiness and typos in resumes (and blogs, like this one) are well taken. I take his advice seriously, and will both watch future entries carefully and clean up some of the older ones here.

I think he also makes a point that reading between the lines for hidden evaluation processes is important for job-seekers, and if you are an employer looking for the best candidates, setting these processes in place will help you in your screening and candidate searching efforts.

For example, in our recent initiative to recruit new sales representatives, I used a multi-stage screening system. I only glanced at the resumes; instead sending an email questionnaire, coupled with links to this blog.

Candidates who failed to answer the questionnaire of course elminiated themselves from consideration. But you may be surprised that I also eliminated candidates who simply answered the questions without communicating/asking questions of me first.

(I provided my email address with the questionnaire; and told applicants they could ask questions and seek clarifications before responding.)

Sales success, of course, is built on the ability to build and develop relationships. The two candidates who bothered to communicate and request information before firing off responses to the questionnaire of course moved to the top of the list when I turned to looking at the resumes to decide whom to call for an initial phone interview.

In the end, we hired both representatives -- even though originally we only had the budget for one. But the candidates who dashed off a response, or who didn't care to follow the instructions at the outset, received no further consideration. Remember, if you are looking for work, read the guidelines and look beneath the surface for hidden tests -- and of course remember that if the answers don't come to you naturally, you are probably best suited for other opportunities.