In the end, job searchers need to do their best at the impossible task of representing their full set of skills, personality and body of work in 2 pages. They need to be as flexible as they are comfortable with in communicating with potential employers. Recruiters and hiring managers need to remember that they are dealing with human beings who have made themselves very vulnerable by providing their life story in the hope of finding a new or better job. A job change is one of the biggest life transitions that we go through. Remember that these are humans, and treat them as such.

They were saying how difficult it is for older folks to find IT jobs.

They mentioned computer desktop jobs actually include aspects that are considered part of the computer server support jobs, but the compensation is at the desktop support level. I have seen this.

They also mentioned the unrealistic job requirements lists. I have encountered job details with 90+ items. I pasted a few into Excel to count the lines. Insanity!!!

Today I am having difficulty finding relevant jobs on the job boards because I have applied to so many jobs per day. Yesterday I applied to 36 jobs.

I rewrote a resume today because “James I suggest we spoon feed because I know this hiring manager” [ … ]

Yesterday on Twitter I posted the screen image of the pronoun question. It was seen 73 times with 2 interactions. Context: I only have 148 followers.

My comment was “From a job application, “What is your pronoun?” with a screen image snippet.

I wish had a functioning crystal ball or something better than, do you remember the Magic 8 ball?

The resume with the title “James-Garrigan-Resume-Brief-2Pgs-5Jobs.docx” is very popular, but some folks are at a level that I cannot comprehend and thus believe it is the full job history.

I even state at the end, for more details see …

During the morning I sent the following to a recruiter.

Good morning [ ],

I could reduce the quantity of information because based on experience, with the exception of recruiters, few people read resumes.

Most folks do not even view the last job. I know this is true because the answer to the first and most popular question I am asked is clearly indicated by the end date of the Kipany job.

I could expand some other items and state the obvious. Sometimes I feel like I need to “spoon feed” the information to folks and/or leave a trail of bread crumbs.

Once again I know this is true because for example last week a recruiter sent criteria to me that a client stated I did not meet. The recruiter agreed with me because I replied back with multiple excerpts from my resume under each of the “missing criteria”.

I am open to suggestions.

Maybe I need a vacation from the job search.

Last week I caught three people in lies.

A recruiter scheduled a call for 2:00 pm. At 1:57 pm LinkedIn sent an email message which stated the recruiter was reviewing the job application.
The call never occurred at 2:00 pm so later in the day I sent a message stating “I am still available”.
The reply from the recruiter, “sorry, but I was informed in the morning that the position is no longer available”.
And I replied thank you for the update. I have nothing to gain by stating the obvious.

Here is another one. A recruiter submits my information for a position and later in the day I was told I was rejected. I decided to ask, which requirements do my skills not meet?
I receive the list and my resume specifically mentions 4 out of the 5 required skills. So I called the recruiter and he said he would reach out to the client again.
This morning I sent an email message to the recruiter that includes the four requirements and the relative lines from my resume with yellow highlighted text to provide more detail than was included in the resume.

I now receive fake invitations for job interviews.

I know they are fake because the email address is admin@ … and when I ask for information to authenticate the message I do not receive a reply. The potential origin of the messages has a simple Internet site.

Today I had someone call and try to extract personal information from me.

The caller was not able to provide the job title he claimed I applied for …

I refused to provide a high school graduation date and the person terminated the call.

Last week I requested a copy of job requirements via email three times before a call and I never received it.

I had another interview that required three attempts to obtain a dial-in telephone number. The person wanted to do the call from a computer. I don’t have that capability and I prefer the reliability and clarity of a land-line phone. The funny part was I had to ask the person to call from a landline because their computer connection was so poor.

Today I told someone I am not available during a block of time “reserved” and of course the person scheduled the call at the same time.

Or

I have had seen several jobs with nearly 100 requirements, last week one had 93 and another had 97.

For the 97 one, the recruiter asked for my thoughts, I replied, the client has high expectations, his answer, welcome to my world.

Unfortunately with regard to “the employer know how you will make their lives/business better” the world is too “goofy”.

In other words a positive aspect to one person could be a negative aspect to another person. There a lot of psychological aspects to consider.

For example I could say, which is true, “As per a CFO at a major International Bank I was the hardest working guy in IT”, but if the person that is reviewing candidates is in IT and is a less ambitious person then I will not be considered.

From the TV show Cheers, “It is a dog-eat-dog world and … I am wearing milk bone underwear”.

In addition most of the folks that review resumes do not have any of their feet planted in reality.

Last week I had a call from a 28 year old “A Community relations specialist” , not “HR”, not “internal recruiter”, not “talent acquisition” – and she wanted to know do I feel “good”, what are my hobbies and that was their initial criteria.

Silly me, I thought perhaps I might be asked about aspects of the job and my related skills.