Ambiguous employment questions...

November 15, 2005 1:17 PM

My question is two part: Employers and HR people (or anyone else with input): You have received resumes from potential hires. All the resumes are standard with Education, Experience, Skills, etc. What are some of the things you wished you knew about the applicant before calling them for an interview? I'm not talking about questions like "Tell me more about your education." I'm asking about the questions that the resume creates in your head that aren't necessarily specific to the resume. Perhaps these are questions that traditional resumes don't cover. Interview are very costly in terms of time. I guess these are the type of questions that if you saw them spelled out on a resume you would have been even more or less interested in interviewing them. Everyone else: If you were applying for a job, what would you want to know before applying that the ad would have left out? I'm not looking for answers like wages. I mean deeper things that go through your mind when applying. Hopefully these questions aren't to vague, I am just looking at this to hopefully be a better hiring guru. Thank for your answers!
posted by ieatwords to Work & Money (19 answers total)

A clear objective is very useful as well as a clear indication of the job being applied for. That can be in a cover letter but can also be put into a custom objective (write a slightly different objective for each job). Something that says why they're a good fit for the job and what they can bring to the job will cut right to the quick.

The one thing that trashes any resume instantly is poor spelling or grammar. Also, I hate it when people put "References available upon request", that's irritating and another step that's likely to see your resume circular filed.
posted by fenriq at 1:23 PM on November 15, 2005

I look for how the individual conveys him/herself on paper but what is of prime importance are examples of their work (I'm in Web Design).

I can tell right away from a person's work whether they are creative. As an employer it's easy to teach someone how to do code. But it's much harder to teach them how to be creative. I don't have time to do that (if it's even possible).
posted by Taken Outtacontext at 1:27 PM on November 15, 2005

It's so simple it hurts - Just tell me why you're interested in THIS JOB with THIS COMPANY, show me you've done a little homework. Use the cover letter to ask me questions, engage me and show me that you are engaged.

Resumes and cover letters with bad grammar or mis-spellings are trashed, because remember - this is supposed to be your BEST effort. The only jobs I have for mis-spellers are warehouse jobs, and those typically don't require a cover letter and resume anyway.

I disagree with fenriq - I see objectives as page fillers and incredibly bland displays that you know how to complete a Microsoft word template. If you really want to tell me something about yourself, tell me how this job fills your real-life career goals, not some trite ambiguous bit of nothingness.
posted by pomegranate at 1:29 PM on November 15, 2005

Things I look for:
- clear English, as opposed to business jargon (good)
- unexplained time periods in a curriculum vitae (bad)
- some indication of your role in past projects (good)
- lists of buzzwords with no explanation of how you have demonstrated them (bad)
- plain layout (good)

Things I wished resumes said, but hardly ever do:
- why you left position x (I don't even know if it's legal for me to ask that in an interview in my country, but it's VERY interesting to me as an employer)
- what you think you'll be doing in five years (will you still be in this position? if you move on, what constitutes progress for you?)
- out of the things you can do and have listed, which ones do you like and wish to do more of?

And what pomegranate said about covering letters.

Taken Outtacontext: in my last (software development) firm, we asked candidates to supply a piece of source code they had written, or a design document, depending on the position.

We also used to have a basic set of standard technical questions. If the answer was "I don't know" (and we preferred "I don't know" to bullshit) we would ask "How would you go about finding out?"

And we would encourage people to ask us questions, and the grounds that interviews go both ways and are also a way for the candidate to establish whether they really want to work with you or not.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 1:53 PM on November 15, 2005

I dislike the term "cover letter," which suggests that it's a secondary, throw-away item, saying more or less "Here's my résumé, bucko."

When I was doing a lot of hiring, the best applicants I saw all used their letters to make a case.

Don't waste this space; you get up to a whole page of text to convince me directly that I should hire you. Why are you interested? Why do you think you'll be a good fit?

The résumé's job is to supply convincing footnotes for the argument you make in your letter.
posted by tangerine at 1:53 PM on November 15, 2005 [1 favorite]

As a prospective employee, I always want to know what kind of person my direct supervisor will be. Are they going to be akin to the Pointy-Headed Boss, or are they just plain crazy? It's very hard to ask that question directly, so I have occasionally asked to speak with others in the same position (potential co-workers) once I'm at the second interview. I would also want to know how long the manager has been in that position, and the likelihood that they will be replaced in the near future (potential for organizational shuffle). I have not had this experience myself, but too many of my friends have started working for a great boss, only to have some pointy-headed, preppy kiss-ass take their place after a few months.

I also want to know about the potential to be promoted. Is there a promotion sequence, or do I have to wait for somebody to retire before I get to move up in the company? I'd like to know this on a practical basis, not some abstract "lots of opportunity for growth."
posted by sarahnade at 2:00 PM on November 15, 2005

Heh, the "objective" spot in the template is a waste of space. Delete it! I have eliminated applicants from the prospect pool based on "objective." If you put down that your goal is to be in college next year or to be my competitor in 5 years, why should I hire you? I would much rather see a cover letter with a goal specific to my position: "I just graduated XYZ school and am looking forward to finding a job as ABC with a small but growing company like yours." Resumes/cover lettrs with spelling/grammar errors do not get called. People who email me resumes I can't open (for goodness sake, PDF!) or email a job inquiry without a resume don't get called. People who don't have a correct, functional phone number on their resume don't get called. People with no relevant experience or who are otherwise clearly not qualified don't get called.

Then I put people through a phone interview. It takes about 10 minutes. It's enough time to learn whether or not they are worth bringing to the office for a sit-down interview, and it lets me examine how they handle themselves on the phone. Phone skills are critical for everyone in the office. I verify that they can work when I need them, that they don't have an inflated view of their worth. I also ask why they are applying for this job, and I ask questions about their current/previous job (what did you like, what didn't you like, why did you leave?). This reduces my stack of worthy applicants by at least half, sometimes more like 70%.

If they make it to a real face-to-face interview, we note whether they are on time and what they are wearing (appropriate?). I ask the bland set of questions that everybody gets asked. There are websites with long lists of possible questions, pick a half dozen that seem relevant and/or insightful to you. My office manager asks questions based on specific resume items or things that have come up in the interview process ("You mentioned that you studied foobarbaz theory while at XYZ school, what can you tell me about that?" or "I notice that you live about 2 hours away, how do you plan to coordinate your commute?")

The nice thing about a team interview is that one of us will often notice something the other misses.
posted by ilsa at 2:10 PM on November 15, 2005

First, Break All the Rules has a great section about hiring for "talent" in the designated position. It suggests ways , even specific questions, on how to screen for the particular talents that will make a prospective employee shine in the role you're hiring for.
posted by mikewas at 2:10 PM on November 15, 2005

What I really want to know (but there's no way to ask ahead of time) is why they are applying. For real.
- Do they want more money, more responsibility, more creativity, a change of pace?
- Do they hate their job and are desperate to leave, or are they just keeping their options open by submitting resumes for appropriate positions?

For younger applicants in particular:
- Are they planning on possibly staying put for awhile, or do they know that they'll be leaving after their girlfriend finishes grad school in two years (or whatever.)
- How realistic is their understanding of how workplaces/offices operate? For example, are they going to be devasted if they propose good ideas that are turned down for not being workable? Are they going to expect a promotion/higher status much sooner than is appropriate?
posted by desuetude at 2:11 PM on November 15, 2005

I agree with sarahnade completely.

A happy employee is a productive employee - make sure that you can be compatible with the person whom you will be reporting to (and perhaps with who they subsequently report to).
posted by PurplePorpoise at 2:37 PM on November 15, 2005

Hmmm, I may stand corrected on the "objective" part of the resume. Maybe I'm thinking of it in a different way though. I see the objective as a place for saying why you want the job you're applying for and what skills you have that qualify you for the position.
posted by fenriq at 3:18 PM on November 15, 2005

If you do web work, I wanna see some URL's, dammit. You'd be surprised at how many resumes we get without any... and they go right in the trash.
posted by ph00dz at 3:20 PM on November 15, 2005

fenriq,

I'm curious, do you find the "References available upon request" bad because you think the references should already be on the resume? Or is it that references are just assumed to be available upon request (i.e., putting it on your resume is a waste of space)?

I remember in both high school and college I had teachers who suggested putting that on your resume. I never did, but I am curious why it is a discardable offense.
posted by BloodyWallet at 3:25 PM on November 15, 2005

The references available thing is just so obvious, and if we get serious about you we expect you to provide three impeccable references who LOVE you and were at one point either your supervisor or responsible for the outcome of your work. The appropriate time to give your references contact information is after the interview. It's a great follow up - "Thank you so much, I learned X&Y at the interview and here's what I can do to assist based on that new info, really great to meet you in person, now I know I'm even more interested, here are my references, if I don't hear from you by Z date I'll give you a call to check in, look forward to our next contact."
posted by pomegranate at 3:58 PM on November 15, 2005

What pomegranate said. Both times.
posted by gemmy at 4:04 PM on November 15, 2005

with my interviewer hat on, I prefer phone screens to cover letters.. I don't have time to read canned garbage that usually constitutes the latter, and the phone gives me a real good opporitunity to actively see essentially how true the letter was and how long it may have taken you to write - if you get my drift.
and yes, objectives are typically trashable.. worthless.

with my interviewee hat on, I prefer short programming tasks to be emailed back rather than sample code (which I likely can't divulge from past positions) or yet another question about late binding in C++. whiteboards are marginally more useful, if only as a thought process tool rather than a coding skills tool -- it really only works (for me) to show the abscence of the latter if you're really bad, it doesn't do much good to prove anything in the positive sense.
posted by kcm at 4:52 PM on November 15, 2005

As a job seeker I'd want to know things like turn-over rate. It turns out at the last job I accepted, two people had been fired before I came in. I would have thought twice about accepting the job had I known that. Why is the employer looking for new employees?

Other things:

Is the position on a big or small team? How long have the people on the team worked together? What's the project roadmap for the next year? for the next five years? (that depends on the job) What is the management style on the team? Micro-management? What kind of software development processes do they follow? Are employees moved around within the company or do they stick to one area?

off the top of my head
posted by furvyn at 5:42 PM on November 15, 2005

When I look at a resume, I hate to see long lists of skills acquired, especially trivial ones. This makes me think the person is compensating. I much prefer to see the projects that the person has worked on. I want to know that they care about what they're doing, and what they might do for our company.

And when I interview someone and ask them about a project they worked on in the past, the critical question is usually what their contribution was. This may lower their comfort level. That's a sign too. I'm not trying to be harsh, just picky about who I want working with me.
posted by A dead Quaker at 6:41 PM on November 15, 2005

As a job applicant, I want to know what other people who've held this job before have done when they've left. How long do people usually stay in this position? How long do you expect me to stay? Where is this organization going -- is it growing, stable, or struggling? How will my job here be different than at another company in the same line of work? What's it like to work here? Is it fun? How do people work together?
posted by croutonsupafreak at 7:42 AM on November 16, 2005