Simply Hired Blog

Wacky Ways to Get Noticed

By Sean Weinberg

The job market is down and now is the time to get creative. Or as I see it, be willing to do ridiculous things that just perhaps may get rewarded.

More people than ever are competing for the same job that you want and they may be more qualified or simply cheaper to employ so you really need to make yourself stand out.

Here are five stories of people who did just that and it paid off big time.

Every story had me thinking two things: I can’t believe this worked! And darnit, why didn’t I think of this?

1. A lot of people write blogs about the things they love and don’t get anything for it but the satisfaction of spending time writing about their passion. Several years ago, the payoff was bigger. The Museum of Modern Art PR person told my college professor that MoMA hired a man who had been blogging about MoMA to be their social media manager. He obviously already had the interest and capability in the job and he was able to catch their eye, so why not the masses?


2. Social media tactics aren’t limited to blogs, there’s also Twitter. A woman was following Hugh Heffner on Twitter (as women tend to do?) and began responding to "his" tweets on a regular basis. Playboy contacted her and hired her to be their "twitter person."


3. Acting like the organization you are trying to get into is always a good idea. Someone looking for a marketing job got hired by an ad agency for sending a shoe with his resume and a note that read "trying to get a foot in the door."


4. Penn student Alice Lee put together a website to get the attention of Instagram, a company for whom she wanted to work. It was targeted, let the company know she wanted to be a part of it, and made it easy to find her relevant work. As far as I know, Lee and Instagram have spoken but she does not work for them, at least not right now. What I do know is that her stunt garnered a lot of attention and showed what she can do.


5. This one is my personal favorite: like a lot of people Alec Brownstein needed a job, so he took matters into his own hands. He created a Google Adwords campaign for New York City’s top creative directors. When they did a Google search for themselves, the top result was this message, “Hey, [insert name of top creative director], Gooogling [sic] yourself is a lot of fun. Hiring me is fun, too.” It included a link to his website to give the targets an easy way to learn about and contact him.

The lesson here is that now is the time to go big, go weird, and take a risk. Start with the traditional preparation: make sure you have an effective resume (using a tool like RezScore), do your homework and research the company you want to be a part of and what they are looking for, and then... go for it.

If you are creative with what you are good at and can find a way to use it to make a statement, you just might have a chance. 

Sean Weinberg is the COO and co-founder of RezScore, a free web application that reads, analyzes, and grades resumes – instantly. Also the founder of Freedom Resumes, Sean has dedicated his career to helping job seekers write the best possible resumes.

How to Properly Evaluate a Company

By Jeff Pierce

The IT job market is red hot. Truth is there isn’t enough development talent to fill all of the open positions. What does that mean for you? Well if you are a talented and passionate developer with aptitude and drive, it means you can have your pick of opportunities if you decide to poke your head up. The question is: how do you quickly evaluate a particular company? Here are a few tips.

1. Do your research on the company performance. If they are a publicly traded company you can use Google finance to check out their performance over the last 2 years. If they are private, then find out who owns them and what their background is. Do they hold on to companies and build them up or do they shoot for quick profit.
2. Understand what you can about the organization. Use Linkedin to check out how many people are on the development team, how long they have been there, and if there is a lot of turnover. Search online for information on salaries, bonuses or thoughts on working at the employer.
3. If you are looking at a product company, check out the sales team on Linkedin, how long have they been there? If they have a lot of turnover it might be an inferior product or bad strategy. If most people are there longer than 2 years then they are hitting goals and making money.
4. Do some dark reference checking: find someone you know who works there or someone you trust that has a friend working there. Get the inside scoop. Do they treat employees well? Do they foster career growth, do they promote from within? These are all valuable questions.

You may look at this list and think it’s a lot of work, especially if you are looking at multiple opportunities. I argue that you spend a majority of your daylight hours on the job, so it’s worth your time to do due diligence to make sure you are evaluating a company properly.

Jeff Pierce is a Practice Manager for IT Services at eHire, a voracious consumer of information, and a connector of good people with great companies. 

How To Transform From Flustered To Fearless

By Robin Fisher Roffer

On Saturday night my husband and I were hanging out watching a movie at home. Suddenly, he decided to get up and grab a snack. As Steven rose from the couch, he knocked over a glass of water, which spilled on his Mac laptop.  At the same moment, a bat flew out of our fireplace and started circling above our heads.  

Thankfully, our plan to turn off the lights inside our house, flip on the outside floods and throw open the French doors to the garden worked to send the bat out into the night. 

Now we had to attend to the Mac. As Steven worked to dry off his beloved computer, I ran to my daughter’s bedroom to find her magnifying glass. On route through the kitchen, I discovered an army of thousands of ants marching in procession to overtake our cat’s food bowl. Although it was a total gross out, Steven picked up the dish, threw it down the sink and vacuumed up the ants. 

In just a few moments, our wonderfully peaceful evening at home had gone bat-shit and back again.  

When things become overwhelming, we often look for someone or something to blame, when what we should be doing is letting go – surrendering to what’s happening – managing the chaos one step at a time and having faith that things will get better.  

Fearless business leaders don’t ask, “Why is this happening to me?”  They say, “Why not me?” and manage what they can. If you’re prone to trying to control everyone and everything around you, then you may be scratching your head right about now.  If that’s the case, I’ve got some questions to ask you:

• Do you do things for others that they can do for themselves?

• Do you feel resentful towards any of your past bosses, employees or co-workers? 

• Has your need to control created conflict in your work relationships?

• Have you felt utterly exhausted trying to keep it all together? 

• Do you think if you just push hard enough a door will open?

If you answered, “yes” to one or more of these questions, then it’s time for you to move into acceptance of what is and resist believing that eventually everything will be “normal.” Forget normal. It’s an illusion. 

Embrace the moment and move forward fearlessly. Whatever you’ve been handed, you can handle.  Just don’t fight it – go with it. Stop trying to do everything yourself and ask for help. Hire a business coach to prepare your resume, a presentation specialist to sharpen your interview skills, a brand strategist to unearth your value and a talent agent to market your talents. Take their advice and allow them to support you.

When you feel like there’s bats swarming overhead, ants invading your workspace and all your best intentions are being doused with water, do what you can to go through the situation gracefully. Tell yourself over and over that you have the right stuff and don’t compromise who you are for a quick fix. If you stay present and let things unfold, you’ll learn something about yourself -- most likely that you are courageous and honorable. What more is there?

Fearless professionals know that in any difficult situation there is something to learn and chance to grow.  

Robin Fisher Roffer, founder and CEO of Big Fish Marketing, is America's leading personal brand strategist for executive level career professionals.  She's the best selling author of 3 books including The Fearless Fish Out Of Water: How To Succeed When You're The Only One Like You.  Discover Robin's secret formula for igniting your career with a personal brand at 8 Steps To Igniting Your Personal Brand.

9 Ways To Make Life Easier For Hiring Managers

By Patrick Richard

It’s tough to be in HR nowadays. Despite the 8.2 percent U.S. jobless rate, many businesses are struggling to find and hire qualified candidates for high-skill jobs in technology, engineering, healthcare and other fields.

New data suggests job descriptions that are either too vague or too specific may be partly to blame for passing on qualified candidates. But job description miscommunication isn’t the only factor at play; poor or complicated interaction between job seekers and hiring managers also hinders hiring managers’ ability to do their jobs.

To successfully interact with hiring managers, job seekers must approach every conversation from the mindset of the audience. Hiring managers are under an exorbitant amount of stress because a poor hire can hurt productivity, affect worker morale and even result in legal issues. By keeping hiring manager’s needs at the forefront of every interaction, job seekers will make their lives easier, thereby increasing the likelihood of landing a new job.

Make life easier for hiring managers with these tips:

When Sending Your Cover Letter and Resume

1. Ensure your contact information is easy to find in all communications. This includes on your resume, your portfolio website, any attached work samples and your email signature. What happens if a hiring manager prints your work sample to read later, but it doesn’t have your name, email and phone number on it? Do you think he has time to dig through his inbox to match it to a name?

2. Submit your resume in a universal format. Designed resumes are great (especially if you’re a designer), but what happens if the hiring manager can’t open the document? PDF and Word documents are the most ideal for submitting resumes.

3. Be very specific. Businesses, especially large businesses, tend to have more than one vacant position at a time. Sending a cover letter that says, “I’m responding to your online job posting,” tells a hiring manager nothing. Be very specific in your first few lines of your cover letter. Say who you are, what specific job you’re applying for and how you found the job. (Businesses like to know which portals are bringing them the most traffic.) If a network connection recommended the job, go ahead and include his or her name in your letter.

When Interviewing

4. Bring extra copies of your resume. In tough economic times like these, hiring managers receive stacks of resumes daily. And while the hiring manager may not have misplaced your resume, colleagues he invites to ask you questions during the interview may not have printed their forwarded copies, or may never have received your resume at all. Always bring at least three copies of your resume to every interview (including follow-up interviews).

5. Bring a pen and paper. Chances are you won’t need to take notes during an interview. However, hiring managers may ask you to jot a phone number or email down, and if they do, you want to be ready. Bringing a pad and paper to an interview also shows hiring managers that you’re eager to begin work.

6. Come prepared with questions. Hiring managers want you to ask questions at the end of an interview. Job seekers should always ask, “Is there anything else about the position and company I should know?” but they shouldn’t make hiring managers do all the work. Carefully research the position and company and develop a list of questions to ask before you enter the interview. 

When Following Up

7. Send a separate thank you note to every person in the interview. Sending a thank you note is a necessary ritual for the job interview, but the last thing you want to do is send a generic note to the hiring manager, asking him to forward it along to the others who participated in the interview. Before you leave your interview, get the business card of every person in the room. That way, you won’t impose upon the hiring manager to deliver your message.

8. Don’t wait for them to ask for more work samples. If you spoke about a project you completed at a former job in the interview (and you should have!), don’t wait for the hiring manager to ask to see more about that project. Send project specifics to the hiring manager within a few days after your interview.

9. Always attach your resume. Resumes can get lost at any point during an interview process, and it’s not ideal for the hiring manager to go searching for it. Always attach your resume to any email correspondence after the interview.

Are you a hiring manager? What are some things job seekers can do to make your life easier when applying for vacant positions?

Patrick Richard is the president and founder of ShinyNeedle, a job site that allows employers to submit challenges to job candidates and see how they can impact a business from day one, making the hiring process more interactive.

5 Ways To Get Your Swagger On

By Robin Fisher Roffer

So many people I know who once had major success in high profile positions now feel like they can’t get even get a phone call returned.  One former television executive just asked me, “Am I pathetic?”

When you question yourself in this way, you don’t show up, uncertainty does. You may think you’re fooling everyone with the right clothes and your game face, but your insecurity is all they see.

Today’s decision makers want to be reassured that they are making the right choice by hiring with you.  There’s a lot of doubt in the business world and when you doubt yourself, you just add to it.

Here are five ways to step away from self-doubt and career uncertainty:

1. Connect With A Supportive Community.

Community creates contentment. That’s why it’s important not to isolate. When we separate ourselves from our feelings and from positive influences, we sabotage our happiness. To connect with your highest self, get into a group that meets regularly and say “goodbye” to people who don’t believe in you.

2. Move Like Jagger.

To instill confidence, you have to move in a way that tells people, “Pay attention to me. What I do and have to say matters.” Make a list of all of your accomplishments to remind yourself of how talented and valuable you really are and then read that list right before you make an important call or walk into a meeting.     

3. Be Cooperative, Not Competitive.

Yes, you have to stand out from the pack to get a great job or make an awesome deal. Just don’t be ugly about it -- when you throw dirt, you lose ground. You want to be seen as a relationship builder who works well with others and can motivate a team to excellence – someone who can collaborate and co-create with a lot of different personalities.

4. Stop Asking Everyone What They Think.

Let’s face it, you’re not seeking advice, you’re seeking approval. And the more advice you get, the more confused you become. The answers are inside of you.  Listen carefully to your gut and let it guide you to what you really want.     

5. Communicate With Yourself Authentically.

More than ever, people are in fear and they want to be around those with inner strength. Now is the time to know yourself, be sure of yourself and stop apologizing for who you are. If you can’t see past your failures, start being conscious in each moment so you can feel the goodness in you. 

The purpose of all communication is about love, not judgments or manipulation. Check your motivations.  If you’re coming from a place of desperation, scarcity or fear, stop right there and do something to take care of you.  Go for a long walk, volunteer, have a good meal, get a massage or play with your children. You’ll find that through self-care your attitude will improve and the right opportunities will come knocking.   

Robin Fisher Roffer has ignited brands of major corporations like Sony, Time-Warner and 20th Century Fox. For her work, she is ranked on the Top 5 List of Most Influential Brand Gurus in the World. She appears as a career expert on national TV programs such as ABC, Bloomberg and Fox. Learn more about Robin at: http://bigfishmarketing.com/career-blogging.