Archive for the 'Stuff I worry about' Category


Resumes: Job hunting suicide

Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

The Wall Street Journal reports that you’re screwed if you’re looking for a job, in Your Resume vs. Oblivion. A guy at IBM who sells the systems employers use to process incoming resumes says that 90% or more of employers use sophsticated technology (“which can cost from $5,000 to millions of dollars”) to scan resumes. So [...]


TheLadders’ Marc Cenedella: A dirtbag with money running for office

Monday, January 23rd, 2012

Who would have thought? This isn’t even worth commenting on: Under the Name of a Senate Hopeful, Blog Posts on Sex and Drugs from The New York Times. It seems TheLadders CEO Marc Cenedella is getting ready to run for U.S. Senate on a Republican ticket. My favorite parts: “Until recently, a Web site, blog.theladders.com/rock, [...]


Recruitomatic & The Social Jerk (Or: Why you hate recruiters)

Thursday, January 19th, 2012

This week we started a “pound Nick with questions” thread — and you’ve been pounding! Great questions and topics — and pointed insights. A recurring theme on that thread is recruiters — the inept, the inane, the ones who waste your time, and the ones who leave you frustrated and angry. (There are good recruiters out there, [...]


Half-Assed Recruiting: Why employers can’t find talent

Monday, November 14th, 2011

In the November 15, 2011 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter, a job hunter who tries to take a personal approach to an employer is told to “go tell it to our website” in order to comply with federal rules: Nick, this is a new one to me. Do we really need to apply online for positions [...]


Employer Fined for Stupid Recruiting

Monday, November 14th, 2011

New Jersey is the only state where it’s illegal to publish job ads that exclude unemployed people. Is that because New Jersey has especially stupid employers, or because New Jersey is the first state to recognize that there are too many employers everywhere that behave stupidly? Does it matter? Here’s what matters: The company that [...]


Big Brother & The Employment Industry: “All your employment are belong to us!”

Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011

Suppose that every time you applied for a job, some guy in a little room checked an Excel spreadsheet and notified the employer: “No interview for this guy. He’s a bum.” It’s already happening. Several years ago I published a series of articles about identity theft via job boards, including a report about Monster.com’s troubling practices [...]


Washington Post: Monster.com is no joke any more!

Friday, September 30th, 2011

Gimme a break. The Washington Post reports: Monster.com finally vindicated. Say what? Two reseachers, UC Santa Barbara’s Peter Kuhn and UC Denver’s Hani Mansour, asked this question in a study they conducted: Do job hunters who “use the Internet to look for work” spend less time unemployed than job hunters who don’t use the Internet? Guess [...]


How can I find out whether a job board is the real deal?

Thursday, August 25th, 2011

In the August 30, 2011 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter, a reader asks: Have you ever heard of JobSearchSite Inc., dba NOW? It sounds good, but how do you check on them to see if they’re the real deal? My reply: In this edition, let’s try an experiment: Video. Hope you enjoy it.   There are so [...]


Rude Employers: Slam-Bam-Thank-You-Ma’m

Tuesday, August 9th, 2011

Rude employers who don’t bother to follow up with job candidates after interviews, even after promising a hiring decision within X number of days, are a staple topic on Ask The Headhunter. And it’s no wonder — job applicants are fed up with, “Hurry up and submit your application! Hurry up and fill out the forms! [...]


LinkedIn’s New Button: Instantly dumber job hunting & hiring

Wednesday, July 27th, 2011

I don’t know who I feel more sorry for: Job hunters or employers. LinkedIn has introduced a new button that lets you instantly apply for a job — no resume, no cover letter, no effort. It’s instantly dumber for everyone concerned. (From Mashable: LinkedIn Launches Button That Lets You Apply for Jobs.) The last thing job [...]