What's it like to be recruited? ( by Brace )

This is from my email thread (by Barce), and since it is so funny, I post it to my blog :)


First off, I'm very grateful to my parents for getting me a computer when I was 8. I am not sure where I'd be if it wasn't for that.

I got inspiration from this HN article and did the same. My #s are way higher.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2608900

As an experiment, I submitted my resume to dice, monster and careerbuilder seeking a Ruby on Rails application developer position.

The result:
Monday: 46 calls, 22 voicemails, 39 emails.
Tuesday: 58 calls, 13 voicemails, 42 emails.
Wednesday: 23 calls, 11 voicemails, 34 emails.

I turned off monster, dice and careerbuilder at 11 am on tuesday and I'm still getting calls & emails.

Recruiters were submitting resumes to one particular job twice without my permission. This happened 4 times and is definitely unethical behavior. It hurts candidates b/c you can't interview at these places anymore.

The question I've asked is: how much are you willing to offer?

Most of the jobs are in the 80k - 100k range.

This means that if you got to a startup with no recruiter and are making 120k, the recruiter's company is making 20k - 40k on the sale of you.

The better recruiters have connections to companies mentioned in Techcrunch and these are at the 130k range and up.

The best rates are at Fortune 500 companies, where 200k is market. Heck, you can get an HTML5 / CSS3 position at one and get that rate.

Another question: How long has this job been advertised?

Sure demand is high, but a great job will never be

The technology:
I totally agree with folks who say that Facebook has made us closer, but recruiting technologies and its industry have made hiring managers and candidates farther apart. Someone or a group of people need to create a technology to disrupt this awful industry of selling people.

http://socialrecruitingreport.com/2011/06/02/removing-the-middle-man/

Recruiters are people who are trying to solve a pattern matching problem with crappy tools, but the better those tools get, the more in jeopardy their jobs are.

How I feel? I feel objectified. It's hard to swallow the image of a bunch of douchebags submitting your resume for jobs you never applied for.

I guess this is what it's like to be extremely attractive woman who has just become single. Some of the recruiters are total players and won't leave you alone when moving on would be more efficient and a better bet. Others are really, really bad, and you can tell they are reading lines from a script.

The recruiters I go with work like this:
1. They tell me *their* story. Why are they in recruiting? What do they want out of life?

2. They really listen. This means asking questions like, "How is Javascript different from AJAX?" Or deciding that what is on paper doesn't match what they are hearing, and that you're underselling yourself.

3. They get you lunch for your time. This is totally optional, but very nice.

4. They wrap up the meeting by telling you something about you that you might've not known about. E.G. one recruiter told me that I saw myself as more than just my job and that I like to protect people.

5. They are very efficient without seeming so.


What to do instead:
If finding a job is a pattern matching problem, and you are a coder, then code that regex that brings you the job of your dreams.

You're looking at 20k - 40k more / year if you can just cut out the middle.

A Random Thought on Spiritual Strategy

Sometimes I heard people says “Attack is the greatest Defense”. Yes, I agree with that. However, is that also true for Spiritual world??

If you think you can be a hero and can do all great things alone, I probably will say “No” to you (for the question at the beginning). Because I don’t think God wants us to be a “Spiritual Terminator” in His kingdom. We all are Warriors in His kingdom, but no one will be “the one” warrior.

...

So it implies a team work.

But at the same time, it involves other problem, which is, you guess it right, it is the people.

Let's imagine 2 examples and you can guess what kind of trouble people are making when they are doing the “team work”, each item has chained consquences, just use your imagination :-

Case A:
Let’s say there are 10 people in the group, and there are 10 things need to be done, which way you think is more efficient?

• 10 people doing 10 different things at the same time
• 10 people working on the same item, for 10 times, one by one?

Case B:
The same 10 people in the group, and they need to pick 3 out from the 10 items

• Should a particular person dictate which 3
• or, should all 10 person each cast their votes

So, just use your imagination to think about each options in both Case A and Case B :)  I won't say more here.

...

Probably at the end, team work may be even harder for this community. And eventually, there may be a need to have a “spiritual terminator” coming out periodically in order to give a boost to the community, and each of them will probably burn out easily and quickly.

What do you think about this?  

Dangerous about Outreach as an end goal model

!! The following are just my personal opinions / observations. !! It is not pointing  to any particular groups or organizations, it is just about a potential of making things better for the future.

Definition
Outreach as an end goal model – words by words – means you have fulfilled the goal of bringing a good number of people into the church.  And you think it is a mission completed.

However, outreach by NO MEANS should be an end goal or just one of a particular isolated events of the year.  We are talking about “life” business here, not just bringing a good number of people to the church and that’s it.  Without a series of following ups for those new “outreachees”, we are no different from leaving them on isolated island and let them to play the game of “natural selection” – so at the end, only the fittest will stay.   Let me rephrase it, it means you bring people into church and isolating them??!!

And this actually makes outreach  become a poison for new believers and non-believers.  How?? One’s early experience / observations in the church (or a group)  could determine his perception of “what a church is” for his life time.   So what does it mean??  Perhaps it means we’re blocking God’s hand to touch those people’s heart…  Have you ever heard some people they saw bad things in the church and never went to church again???  Do you think it will be more difficult to outreach to those people who has been to church but had a bad experience before??

So when you think you have completed a “mission”, have you ever thought whose mission you are completing for??

You may not be the one who do both outreach and follow up at the same time, but are those 2 things should be tightly related to each other??

Let me make it more visualize – the dangerous of “Outreach as an end goal model”.  Let us make a “田”, if you know chinese – “田” means a farming field, and inside a “田” is soil.

Assumption for this model:
1) Outreach brings new life to the field.
2) Following up bring those new life to be future workers in the field who will bring other new life.


Detail – yet not very detail
Soil A is the best soil.  With both outreach and following up in shape, there is a eco-system of 1) Outreach – bring new life to the field, 2) follow up – make the new life become the future “workers” in the fields to outreach other new life.  And through this eco-system, there are several side benefits that comes with it.  1) Encouragement; 2) Bringing meaning to your serving; 3) Grow in size … etc.

Soil B is bad testimonial soil. People only do the outreach but neglect the importance of following up.   It means the plants could be die down for whatever reasons easily and they don’t have support.  What does it mean?? With no following up, unless they ask for help, nobody will know or  care what’s going on in their life.  With no following up, it means you bring people into church and  isolate them??!!

Soil C is in grown soil, which is bad too.  In this Soil C model, the church members become so comfortable with their current church life, and do not want to have a change. And this is why Bible said “Now is the harvest time, but where are the workers ?”.  The church will start to ingrown only, and it is the  beginning symptoms of a “no life church”.  No life means no new life, No life means there won’t be next generation leader to revive the church.  So Soil C is a ingrown shrinking land.

Soil D, please, that should never be happening in our community…  That is a social club.

The secret Ingredients to Profitable Internet Business

1) Focus on partners, not competitors.

2) Think locally.

3) Target each customer in multiple segments.

4) Transforming pricing into a dynamic conversation.

5) Make use of the community (platform) to improve customer service.

6) Humanize your company "virtually"

7) Build trust and credential for your products / services.