EdgeLink Blog

In Our Busy, High-Tech World; Communication Reigns as King

2010-04-15T09:54:00.000-07:00

We’ve all seen the reports that employers are signaling plans to increase hiring in 2010. In fact, there’s a renewed sense of optimism out there that’s invigorating. According to CareerBuilder and USA TODAY’S latest nationwide survey of employers, 23 percent plan to increase their headcount in the second quarter, with more than 1/3 of that increase predicted to be in IT-related jobs. And with reports that rapid technology growth is one of the top five trends impacting the job market over the next 10 years—the tables are turning for those of us in IT.

With the economy poised to turn around, there are many things that have to happen to be ready to meet the needs of this changing climate. But what we have determined to be a critical component—in fact the foundation of all of our work—is strong communication. It’s one of the most critical pieces in everything we do.

I realize “communication” is a fairly broad term. What I’d like to share with you here are three simple tips we’ve found to be most helpful in ensuring top-notch communication with our clients and candidates; ultimately leading to a successful working relationship all the way around.

1. Commit to open communication. We have found that open, back-and-forth dialogue is so important. Be up front about this expectation at the beginning of an engagement. For companies hiring—share all details of a position right away. If you think there’s an aspect of the job that won’t be attractive, don’t wait until the 11th hour to share it. Knowing everything up front is critical. If you’re looking for a job, be honest with your preferences. Sometimes it’s the simple things like the hours of an opportunity or the commute that become major factors in a decision. Knowing all details on both sides of the table can avoid common experiences like these:
• “I would have taken that position if it were for $10,000 more”; or
• “The candidate we’re looking for also needs to have XX skill set,”; or
• “The commute is too long—I am only willing to drive 30 minutes to and from work.”
2. Determine the best mode of communication. There are many tools for communication these days, so determining preferences will save time and create a smoother process. Is your preference e-mail? Text or instant messaging? Cell phone? All of the above? Knowing how to reach your contact is important, especially during a time when people expect instantaneous feedback.
3. Remember relationships are important. The irony of communication is that while it’s critical to the success of any relationship, it’s really easy to let it become impersonal with the ease, speed and convenience of electronic communication. Don’t forget to pick up the phone or meet in person now and then for a live conversation. We have found that even though schedules are busy and time is limited, extra efforts like taking someone to lunch or scheduling a brief 15-minute update are appreciated and go a long way in helping make our suggestion in tip number one (commit to open communication!) easier to do.

We all have stories where we know if we had communicated a little more effectively the outcome would have been different in a positive way. At the end of the day, our job is more than sourcing candidates and churning out resumes. Anybody can do that—it’s such a small piece of the relationship between a company like EdgeLink and our clients and candidates. For win-win-win situations, we believe in the value of communication.

What works for you? Any successful communication strategies for keeping open dialogue between clients, candidates and/or vendors? We invite you to share!

2009-07-16T16:02:00.000-07:00

EdgeLink Amazing Race!

On Friday EdgeLink conducted its annual “half yearly” offsite meeting which gives us an opportunity to discuss our progress as a company half-way through the year. We take this time to discuss financials, accomplishments, challenges, as well as important company initiatives to focus on for the remainder of 2009.

After the meeting we had a team building event that was unlike any other we’ve had before. We decided to hire someone to organize an “EdgeLink Amazing Race” day to emulate to popular TV reality show. This competition included breaking up into teams of 3 or 4 and then racing to each marked point before your opponents do. Once you arrived at your next point your team would be required to perform a specific challenge in order to receive the clue for your next location. These challenges ranged from riding a pedicab through an obstacle course, eating a humongous glazed donut from Voodoo donuts, walking through the Keller Fountain, riding the OHSU tram, finding a random dog to jump through a “hoola hoop”, and many others. The finish line was at the Waterfront Park on the Willamette, and we followed that with happy hour at Paddy’s Irish Bar on 1st street. Here are a few pictures to highlight an incredible day!

For Internal Reference Checks, Keep the Salt Handy

2009-06-18T10:46:00.000-07:00

There’s no arguing that references are an essential part of the hiring process. They offer valuable insight into a candidate’s workplace accomplishments and character. At EdgeLink, we conduct a thorough reference process when screening candidates, vetting their resumes and track records with former employers and educational institutions.

All that said, there is one kind of reference check (whether it’s positive or negative) that you should consider with a few extra grains of salt. It’s the informal, internal, word-of-mouth check many employers conduct by asking their own internal team members whether they know the potential candidate or have friends who have worked with the candidate.

Polling your internal talent to get the “street’s” perspective on a potential hire sounds like a great idea at first. You may learn insights directly from former colleagues and get an in-person perspective on the individual’s performance and workplace personality. But what may seem like a no-brainer, no-cost vetting effort rarely yields the most reliable insight. Here’s why:

Fair critique requires perspective.
To give a fair analysis of a candidate’s job performance, the evaluator needs perspective. While colleagues have day-to-day contact and often collaborate, they are not mandated with the task of measuring, critiquing and improving each other’s performance. An individual, who may seem to be extremely busy and hardworking, might turn out to be very weak at final delivery and execution when management takes a bottom-line look. On the other hand, some of the most productive employees try as they may, might not be achieving the standards required to be truly excellent in a role.

Supervisors who are responsible for the individual’s job performance not only have clearer insight into the work and results delivered, they have a personal stake in their employees’ success. That added stake adds more weight and more insight.

The less emotion the better.
People spend a lot of time in the workplace. It can be hard to get along with everyone, but it is also a place where strong friendships and loyalties are built. It’s hard to ascertain whether a word-of-mouth critique of a candidate is tinged by personality conflicts, shaded by the devotion of friendship or objective enough to yield real insight.

How reliable is the grapevine?
Few will argue that many misunderstandings occur through grapevine communications and second-hand accounts. As the degrees of separation between former colleagues and industry acquaintances increase, the chances of misinformation and misunderstandings clouding references rises as well. That must be factored in when gathering internal references.

You must account for change.
This final point is true with all references—people change. At EdgeLink, we know that the reference checks we conduct are excellent for fact checking: hiring and exit dates, work accomplishments, career paths across an organization, educational background, test results and workload. However, when it comes to workplace character (work ethic, team building skills, professionalism, etc.), we have learned that people change—sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse.

Just recently, in fact, a client refused to interview one of the IT consultants EdgeLink had recruited due to a poor internal reference. One of the client’s staff members had worked with the candidate years prior and had not been impressed by his workplace professionalism. EdgeLink, on the other hand, had conducted extensive interviewing and reference checking and felt certain this candidate was a great match for the job as well as a highly professional technologist.

EdgeLink convinced the client to give the candidate a shot and encouraged the staff member who gave the reference to join the interview process. The client ended up loving the candidate and the internal staff member was also impressed by the interviews. The candidate was hired and has been a productive and valued team member ever since. The lesson: We all have our career high points and low points. Allow for the possibility that people can change in numerous ways, especially when significant time has passed.

So what do we at EdgeLink recommend? A ban on internal reference gathering? Absolutely not. We just want to remind business leaders and hiring managers to proceed with caution as you gather staff feedback prior to interviews and testing. Consider the reference information provided, the source and even structure interview questions to address any information you have learned.

Above all, don’t base a hiring decision on internal references alone. You run the risk of missing great hires or, even worse, hiring and investing in professionals who have great internal connections but turn out to be poorly suited to their new roles. Make informed hiring decisions by tapping into a rich portfolio of candidate information and conducting a thorough, neutral interview process.

Hiring in a Recession Is Easy, Right? Wrong!

2009-05-05T15:45:00.000-07:00

You know that we like the bright side of every situation at EdgeLink. In fact, we pride ourselves on making opportunities out of every challenge. But when clients ask us if the recession has made recruitment easier, we don’t dress up reality. Hiring top talent today is even harder than it was before the downturn began.

It’s counterintuitive but true. The growing numbers of job seekers have certainly resulted in a deluge of resumes across the desks of hiring managers everywhere. Quantity is up. The quality of candidates applying, on the other hand, has not skyrocketed because employers are holding tightly to their best performers and top innovators. Whether you have 30 resumes or 300, your ratio of qualified, sought-after candidates versus unqualified candidates remains the same as it was a year ago.

Should the fact that those towering resume piles (or bursting inboxes) only contain a few outstanding hires prevent your business from raising hiring standards? Absolutely not. Downturns are as much about opportunity as they are about challenge. They offer opportunities to advance far beyond the competition, opportunities to surpass customer expectations and opportunities distinguish your business from those paralyzed by recession fear through innovation and market leadership.

A business staffed with skillful, bright, committed and hardworking team members is one that can take advantage of the opportunities the recession presents and continue to build upon them well into the recovery. So we at EdgeLink enthusiastically encourage you to raise the recruiting bar and use the following tips to modify your recruiting strategy in order to find and hire the best of the best.

EdgeLink’s Recession Recruitment Strategy Tips

— Adjust your Clock. Be prepared for a longer hiring cycle. Remind yourself and business leaders that a great hire is a much sounder bottom-line investment than a mediocre hire that can fill the job but not fulfill high expectations.

— Be Finicky and Fast. If the cover letter is submitted and is weak or the resume has holes that give you certain pause, move on. Committing to finding the best hires means being willing to letting go of the average ones right away.

— Increase Interviewing. Even with the industry resources and state-of-the-art resume analysis tools we use at EdgeLink to identify talent, we are dramatically increasing our candidate interview numbers. Our interview rates have more than tripled since first quarter of 2008.

More interviewing is essential today because a greater numbers of applicant resumes will line up with your required profile in terms of skills and experience. Only a smart, efficient interviewing process will allow you to identify cream of the crop professionals who have the essential soft skills (communications, professionalism, team orientation, etc.) and character traits (intellectual curiosity, passion, drive) your business is seeking. To increase interviewing efficiency, EdgeLink suggests:

— Using short, pre-screening phone interviews to eliminate any problem candidates. If resources and time are short, work with a third-party recruitment partner like EdgeLink that has the technology, team and track record to quickly and successfully identify the very best candidates.

— Developing and using one standard, simple questionnaire for each position. Ensuring standardization of the questioning will make comparisons easier.

— Setting strict time limits and letting the candidate know why—the applicant pool is very big. By limiting the time to make an impression, you heighten the importance of each question and challenge the candidate to rise to the occasion.

— Integrate passive recruitment efforts. The best candidates in the marketplace are in jobs right now—succeeding at other companies. If you want to employ the best of the best, your recruitment strategy will need to include passive candidate recruitment, which requires networking and some headhunting on behalf of your recruitment team.

— Build a Bench. Even if you are not hiring right now, it’s a great moment to build a bench of enthusiastic potential hires you can turn to when a position opens up. Continue general recruitment efforts and keep an eye out for outstanding professionals at networking and industry events. Be sure to include your recruiters and recruiting partners in all bench-building efforts and make sure they are updated to essential changes, such as evolving technology platforms. The better informed your recruiting team is the better your hiring results will be.

As always, recruitment is an important challenge. However, in these tough economic and job market times, it’s a very good one to have.

EdgeLink celebrates 5 years

2008-04-09T16:22:00.000-07:00

On April 3, 2008 we had a VERY successful Open House event at our EdgeLink office to celebrate EdgeLink’s 5th Anniversary and to say thank you to our clients and consultants.

We enjoyed:
· savory food
· amazing music
· a fun game and prizes
· great conversation with everyone!

Thank you to all who attended and we missed those of you who were not able to make it. Look for additional EdgeLink events in the future.

Here are some pictures from the event …

We're #3!!!

2008-02-28T13:14:00.001-08:00

Oregon Business Magazine’s annual awards ceremony for the “100 Best Companies” was held on Tuesday, February 26th. We are very pleased to announce that EdgeLink received the honor of being #3 best small company in Oregon to work for! Thank you to all the outstanding talent who make EdgeLink a great place to work and to all our clients who make this venture so rewarding!

EdgeLink 2008 Kick-Off

2008-01-21T11:53:00.000-08:00

Last week we held our annual kickoff meeting at Big Al’s in Vancouver, WA and it was unlike any bowling alley we’ve experienced. Check it out at http://www.ilovebigals.com/

It has everything you could ever want in entertainment, such as bowling, billiards, an arcade. Flat panel TV’s are everywhere; it's a great sports venue.

The first half of our day was spent discussing our past year of success as well as our vision/goals for 2008.

This was also a great day of team building (see pictures) as we played EdgeLink style “Family Feud.”

Later we dressed up into costumes and competed in the bowling lanes. Prizes were given to best overall theme, as well as individual and team scores!

When push comes to shove I guess you can say we are a bunch of crazy individuals! Here’s to a successful 2008!

Dos and Don’ts of Face-to-Face Interviewing

2007-11-01T15:11:00.000-07:00

Here are a few “common sense” tips I give to people that apply to most interviews (regardless of the level of the position):
1. The most asked question by interviewers is "Tell me about yourself and your background." Your answer to this question should be well thought out. You know it’s coming, so be prepared.
2. Be honest; don’t just say what you think the interviewer wants you to say.
3. Be direct. Don’t ramble. If you get off track, bring yourself back to the “specific question” that was asked. If you talk too much, the interviewer will want to get rid of you as soon as possible. However, if your answers are too brief, you may leave your interviewer unsatisfied and/or irritated. Find the balance.
4. Don’t take a trip to “negative town” when discussing your reasons for making a job change. If you start bashing your current employer, executive management's decisions, your immediate manager and the work culture, people might think you had something to do with it! Instead, simply focus on the areas that YOU can control, such as your areas of growth, career path and goals. This is always safe territory.
5. Good eye contact is essential. Look your interviewer in the eye, especially when THEY are talking – but don’t stare.
6. Show your passion/energy/drive by explaining WHY this is the career path you have chosen.
7. Prepare a list of questions that specifically apply to the person/company you’re meeting with (it's okay to ask the same questions to different people – to ensure continuity).
8. When you sense the interview is winding down, let them know you’re confident you can do the job – and you want the job.
9. Collect their business card – so you can send a thank-you note.
10. Have fun and smile.! :)

The results are in!

2007-06-26T13:35:00.000-07:00

On June 21, 2007, the Portland Business Journal held its annual “100 Fastest-Growing Private Companies” award ceremony at the Portland Art Museum. EdgeLink was honored as #47 on the list at this year’s even. We would like to offer a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has helped, supported and partnered with us over the years. Thank you!

Was Your New Year’s Resolution to Find a New Job?

2007-01-19T11:47:00.000-08:00

How are you doing on finding that next great job or assignment? An article in the Journal of Clinical Psychology shows how many of us keep our New Year’s Resolutions and for how long. The survey reveals a decreasing percentage of people who keep their New Year’s resolutions as time goes on:
- past the first week: 75%
- past 2 weeks: 71%
- after one month: 64%
- after 6 months: 46%

How can you better the odds and not be discouraged by those statistics? Take some, or better yet, all of the steps below and increase your odds of achieving a new job in 2007.

• Take action today! Even if the action is a little step like updating your resume or making a networking call to a recruiter.
• Take time. While taking action today is key, remember changing jobs takes time. Just as for most of us our first date was not the person we would marry, so the first job interview/offer may not be the “one.”
• Look at your passions. List what you love in your current job, what you are good at, and seek a job with those ingredients.
• Talk to people. Talk with family and friends about your passions and desire to change jobs. Talk with the recruiter that calls or call them (use them as advisors like a doctor or lawyer). Call professors or colleagues you took classes with in the past. They are great sources of information and connections.
• Seek ways to enhance your skills. Take a part-time job or consulting job where you can develop new skills, volunteer for a non-profit where you can gain experience or take a class at the college or university in town.

I feel blessed to work for EdgeLink which is the best place and job I have ever worked. I am using my skills and passions, and I found this job through networking after leaving a “bad fit” job. There is hope for a great job and there are great places to work.

Here is to wishing you the best year yet, and may you find an amazingly fun job in 2007.

Resources and References:

How happy are you at work? Take a short quiz at the following site:
http://www.fabjob.com/tips213.html

Auld Lang Syne: Success predictors, change processes, and self-reported outcomes of New Year's resolvers and nonresolvers, by John C. Norcross, Marci S. Mrykalo, Matthew D. Blagys , University of Scranton. Journal of Clinical Psychology, Volume 58, Issue 4 (2002).

EdgeLink Open House a Huge Success

2006-06-02T14:52:00.000-07:00

EdgeLink held its first open house/client appreciation
event on June 1. Attending the soirée were about 90 of our closest client/friends from the Portland Metro area. Delicious food, drink and of course great conversation was had by all.

In the fun department, attendees had their pick of helping to solve a group “word link” puzzle, or participating in an underlying word association game, which made a fantastic ice-breaker.

Door prizes included gift certificates to great Portland places including
OMSI, Stumptown Coffee, Powell's Books, Portland Beavers, McMenamins, Clark Lewis, and the Portland Rose Festival. A huge, heartfelt thank you to everyone who showed up. Maybe we should make this an annual event!?

Cheers!

Honesty is the Best Policy

2006-05-25T17:36:00.000-07:00

There are frequent conversations amongst the recruiters in our office about why an applicant wasn't hired for a particular job. Obviously, we want every candidate we represent to go out there and knock the socks off a potential employer during their interview. However, we’ve seen recurring themes of candidates shooting themselves in the foot instead.

One way this commonly happens is through the “fluffing” of one’s skills. In other words, when an applicant wants a position so much, they are not truthful or forthright about their lack of experience in certain areas. What the applicant often doesn’t realize is that this practice is self-sabotaging.

An interviewer can almost always tell when an applicant isn’t being realistic about their experience or is afraid to admit that they don’t know something. And if the truth isn’t evident in initial conversations, it most certainly will be uncovered during the technical interview.

So, job seekers, bear in mind: It’s okay to be human. Often an employer will favor someone who can admit his shortcomings over someone who is afraid to reveal that he lacks certain experience.

FUN AT WORK!

2006-01-27T11:26:00.000-08:00

Are you kidding me? When was the last time you had fun at work? Fun in the workplace seems to be a requirement here at Edgelink. Not only do we work hard, we play hard too. We set our goals on a weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly basis. When we achieve those goals we are rewarded with a FUN day! We strongly believe this promotes teamwork, a drive to be the best in our field, and an overall positive work environment.

Our most recent fun day, which took place on January 13th, 2006 (that's Friday the 13th), for example, the Edgelink team ventured outside of the office for our yearly goal setting meeting and then when the clock struck noon, we put on our bowling shoes. Wait, not only did we put on our bowling shoes, we (being the highly competitive lot that we are) made every aspect of the rest of the day a contest. Starting out, we split into three teams. Each team then created a team name and complimented that with “fabulous” costumes.

To take the bowling competition up a notch or two, we added the challenge of bowling each frame in a different fashion. What I mean by that is; one frame was granny style, another time we pushed the bowling ball with our feet and so on. I am sure that you get the picture. Oh, you should see the pictures!

We had contests for the best form, best score, best style and best team score. My team was the winner of the highest score, so I have to say, “Go Team!”

All in all, healthy competition is always fun, especially when it is done the EDGELINK way! How does your company celebrate success?

What's up with QA?

2005-10-06T15:16:00.000-07:00

We have noticed a recent staffing “up-tick” in the area of software quality assurance. After such a long dryspell within this area, it appears that all the technology companies in Portland decided simultaneously that it’s time to start recruiting and hiring QA Engineers. Now, that’s great news if you’re a QA engineer and bad news if you’re seeking to hire a QA engineer. Unfortunately, it seems to me that QA is often one of the first things to “get the boot” when things get tough, and therefore puts more pressure on software engineers to develop “quality products.” This appears to be one of the many sacrifices that companies make when things get tough financially. Consequently does this mean that companies are beginning to make enough profits to justify pumping up their quality? The sudden surge of quality assurance engineers to be hired in the market appears to be a solid indicator in the optimism of the economy.
One of the challenges (as recruiters) we face is locating available QA engineers, and due to the fact there has been minimal hiring in QA over the past two to three years there hasn’t been much “draw” for people to get into the field, thus resulting in our current shortage of talent. I’m excited to see things picking up in this area, but how do we keep up with the recruiting!?

These are my thoughts and I’m curious to hear if anyone has any other thoughts or theories to the situation?

It really is a small world after all

2005-05-23T09:56:00.000-07:00

Already home to industry leaders in test and measurement, printing, semiconductor, and display technologies, it is no exaggeration to say that Oregon's "Silicon Forest" is a world leader in industrial microtechnology R&D. Now, Oregon's business and policy communities are working to add nanotechnology to the region's industrial mix.

We're talking about atomic dimensions. The ability to directly manipulate atoms and molecules, to someday manufacture products beyond our wildest imagination.

With advanced R&D and manufacturing infrastructures in place, Oregon is an ideal location for collaboration between the high tech industry and research institutions to take on challenges of such "small proportions."

ONAMI (Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute) is a collaboration between leading Oregon educational institutions, federal research institutions, and major industrial players. ONAMI is working to advance applied nano and micro technologies in the Pacific Northwest. Some of the first products we might see soon from their efforts include, greatly enhanced performance in semiconductors, small power sources, distributed sensors, portable electronic devices, medical diagnostics, and drug delivery systems to name a few.

What incredible products do you predict will come from this effort? We’d love to hear from our readers on this subject.

Some predictions miss the mark . . .

2005-04-01T12:30:00.000-08:00

From Popular Science, circa 1955.

Job Tips Article by EdgeLink's Jeff Miller

2005-03-30T17:28:00.000-08:00

Check out Jeff's article in the Business Journal:

http://portland.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2004/10/25/focus5.html

This article was meant to educate and inspire those who are a little unsure about what to expect when searching for that next great position. Job hunting can be an enjoyable experience, just remember to get your story together, and get the word out there! Happy job hunting everyone!

Jeff Miller

Online Searchers for Job Seekers

2005-03-30T17:27:00.000-08:00

Recently there have been several new "job search engines" emerging onto the web scene. Search engines like Indeed.com, SimplyHired, and WorkZoo.com claim to make job searches on the web an easy one stop shopping experience. Recent press has given them the initial kudos (see New Times Article below). Have you tried these tools yet? Are they next big search tools or just hype?

- - - -

The New York Times
E-COMMERCE REPORT

Online Searchers for Job Seekers

By BOB TEDESCHI
Published: March 28, 2005

We're Blogging Now!!!

2005-03-30T17:15:00.000-08:00

Hello and welcome to the inauguration of the EdgeLink blog (version 1.0)! It is the goal of this blog to become a destination for technical professionals as a place to express viewpoints on the state of things in the technology market and exchange professional ideas. Our target audience is the Oregon/SW Washington area (or those who want to come to this area).

The EdgeLink team members will be adding content to the blog relating our observations, as well as advice for hiring managers and job seekers in the local high tech industries. From time to time, we also plan to have “guest bloggers” who will add their voices to the mix.

We encourage you to participate in our discussions by posting your comments to the blog topics. Suggestions for future topics to share with the blog community are also welcome. Email your suggestions to blog@edgelink.com.

Please add this site to your favorites or bookmarks and visit us frequently. Or subscribe to the RSS service if you wish.

We look forward to blogging with you!