"flawless knowledge or conduct. Many philosophies and theologies have formulated theories about perfection."

Wow! As I get to thinking about this I ask myself, "is this really philosophical in nature?"

When my client says, "The perfect candidate will have a Wharton MBA, a PHD from Harvard and 35 years experience in developing multi-billion dollar text message advertising strategies," is this really a philosophical request best left to Plato, Francis Bacon, or the 17th Earle of Oxford to execute in the real world?

Before I share the answer, let's take the most common request from big companies about what they want their sales executives to have.

It is, today, a great Rolodex.

Many of my headhunter brothers will say, "Oh yes, I agree. A great rolodex is crucial, and don't worry, I will get you a guy with a great rolodex." This great rolodex, it is assumed, will blossom into immediate sales and bottom line profits and everything good and wholesome for the business.

Being 100% irreverent, I would ask the client, "Why?"

They would say. "Because if he has a great rolodex, we will inherit all those names and contacts and we will be able to parley those names and numbers into SALES FOR US, in quick order."

"Really?" I would ask.

Not really answering, they would say, "Well, it doesn't really matter what you think, because without a great rolodex, we won't give him an offer."

Blah blah. On and on it goes. So like I am supposed to, I go and get them what they want, and they hire the guy. But 89 days later, they call and say the guy "overstated his rolodex and has been fired."

Wait a minute. So the rolodex itself must not be just a rolodex of names and numbers, it must actually be a representation of actual relationships with people who will, factually and with no reticence, answer the guy's call when he calls? And then maybe BUY something from him?

Oh. That's a different story.

That's not perfection.

That's not philosophical.

It's actually the wrong place to focus one's attention.

Who was the philosopher who said, "Give the man a fish and he will eat today; teach him to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime"?

Well, the way I see it, if the guy has a rolodex, he better be able to keep it current, grow it, network it like crazy, and then he better be able to do his job WITHOUT it if he has to.

In the old days, we used to fling a phonebook at a sales guy and yell, "START."

Guess what? They did it.

Today, without the intoxicating magic of the rolodex, great sales guys don't make the short list. Unfortunately, some of the best rolodex owners out there don't make it past 90 days on the job

Go figure?

No, go fish.

I have NEVER been involved in such a complete fiasco as the unending discussion of whether you should or should not have a one-page resume.

I want to first say that this is a laborious subject, so I will try to spice it up with some pointed, irreverent comments that are sure to tick off some of my conservative readers.

First...some of the comments I have personally heard:

• Well, Joe Blow (insurance salesman) said I should have a one-page resume
• Well, I read a book and it said you should have a one page resume
• I can't really go into what I really did because if I did, it would take more than one page
• Gosh, I wish I could put my job at IBM on my resume but if I did it would make it more than one page and I was told never to have the resume be more than one page long so I hope people figure out (from Tarot cards or Ouija boards) that I worked there because that really was my best and longest job.
• I'm confused, should my resume be more than one page? I FEEL like it should, but I don't want to break the rules because if I do, I might be abducted by evil agents who will ruin my chances for getting employed.

Is this enough? NO. Here's another one.

• People just don't read resumes that are longer than one page.

I have heard some more, but we can start with these.

There is no scientific answer about whether a one-page resume is right or wrong. It all depends on who you are and how much experience you have.

The first thing to look at here is the PURPOSE of a resume. I will state for the record here and now, the purpose of a resume is TO GET YOU AN INTERVIEW. If the resume gets you an interview, it can be considered to be a good resume. If the resume isn't getting you interviews, then you should probably change it, unless you are a bricklayer hopelessly applying to be a CFO (in which case you should be reading a different article entitled "Megalomania and your Unlimited Target Market."

As someone who has read a zillion resumes, I can tell you that the biggest mistake you can make on your resume is to make it hard to read. Lots of graphics, small fonts, borders, boxes, footnotes and really really creative designs are not a good idea these days for a couple reasons. One, scanners don't like these oddities. Two, it can make the resume harder to read. I have seen many seasoned candidates using a 6-point font so they could get the resume on one page. Big mistake. Resume readers do not like eyestrain. If the resume is mechanically challenging, they might just throw it aside for one that is easier on the eyes. You might say that this is unfair and you are right, but since we want to deal with reality, you need to know the truth. There are LOTS of resumes out there and that is part of the problem these days.

If you are a college graduate looking for your first job, a one-page resume is probably just fine. If you have had a job, you should tell the reader what you DID. Also, in light of the current scanning scenario, more pages is not a deterrent because someone who doesn't care about anything but lunch break will automatically scan your "document" into the database. Once it is in there and searchable, you have accomplished one of the goals of resume distribution.

After the dust settles, remember that the resume must tell your story. If you have a longer story, the resume needs to be longer. And please, put the experience you had with each job under a section for that employer so we can tell WHEN and for WHOM you did WHAT. Resume readers don't have time to guess and most won't call to clarify. They will just move on down the line. Short resumes for people long on experience are not appropriate and the real audience for these short resumes is people with short attention spans and low IQ's. I assure you that if the resume gets into the right hands, it will be read thoroughly. If you have omitted significant chunks of your experience, it could be assumed that you do not have the experience in the first place. Heinous, so when in doubt, TELL YOUR STORY.

Here's an ironic twist.

Guess what group collectively has the worst resumes?

RECRUITERS!

Come on my brothers, get it together.

Oh, and by the way, another important point... Wait! ONO..I have to stop, it's going to be more than one pa--

Steve Eddington

1. Candidate is almost dead or actually dead
2. When you ask the candidate what happened at their last job, they don't remember
3. When you schedule the drug test, the candidate informs you that in 5 minutes he is leaving on a 3 week vacation but would be happy to take the test as soon as he returns
4. Candidate smells like garbage dump or dead bird
5. The candidate says his only reference is his twin brother who lives in Siberia. All other past references were killed in the Civil War
6. Before and after answering a question, candidate says "dude" or "dude-skee"
7. When you ask a computer programmer what languages he knows, he says "all of 'em"
8. You ask a question and the candidate gives you a perfect answer, but the answer is to a different question. You ask again and he says "yup"
9. You ask the candidate to clarify when they went to college and they ask to see a copy of their resume so they can check
10. Candidate comes to interview with a 3-day beard, says his name is Robert, but you can call him "Spike." Only employer listed as "CIRKUS"
11. Candidate says he will do daily commute from Greenland to South Africa

We hope these pointers will help to fully educate all of our staffing friends, as the challenges of turning away good candidates in these trying times become trickier.

Stay tuned for other hints and suggestions from the friendly folks at Electronic Search, Inc.

If you would like to find out more about Electronic Search's unique approach to solving tough staffing problems in an industry that can only be described as "nutty," please give me a call.

Steve Eddington

I have had several conversations with candidates recently and some interesting facts have begun to surface.

One friend said..."I had 13 interviews to eventually get hired."

Another said..."it is a 30 employee company and I have now had 6 interviews...; and I am still going."

I found myself laughing and then started thinking...;

If a person needs to meet 20% of the staff at a firm to be "accepted," what if the company had 5000 employees? How would that work?

Maybe like this...?

(Imagine the green smoke and eerie violin music of a dream)

"Yes, Mr. Jones, you will be meeting 1000 of your potential colleagues before we extend you an offer. With some luck, the interviewing process should be completed in 2 years. After the interviewing process is completed, we will require 6 months to evaluate the responses from the 1000 people and give you an answer promptly thereafter. Be advised that we will not discount the fact that more interviews may be necessary to fully evaluate your credentials. As a convenience, we have set up a web site for the purposes of keeping the information organized and accessible. Certain confidential parts of this site will, of course, not be viewable by you, the applicant, but you will be able to monitor how many of the interviewers have responded positively or negatively. Be further advised that the number of positive responses versus negative responses will not necessarily be the deciding factor in our decision. We appreciate your interest in us and wish you the best."

End of imaginary, dream-like, simulated altered-reality pictogram.

I am not saying that my perverted, cartoon-like vision of the ultimate nightmare will ever really HAPPEN, it is just another example of how the "interviewing and selection" process has evolved over the last year or two.

I am also NOT taking a cheap shot at employers who feel that "multiple" interviews are necessary to really evaluate someone. Sometimes it is necessary.

This is humor.

Factually influenced fiction.

In the old days, I would have a sales person come in at least twice to see if they owned more than one suit. Lots of times, they didn't.

If you find yourself in the endless interview loop, it is never inappropriate to ask how long the process is and what to expect from each interview. The employer should be able to tell you how, and WHY, they do it... or better yet, ask the headhunter.

Steve Eddington

PRESS RELEASE

Electronic Search, Inc. enters outsourcing agreement with local retirement community

In a business move that can only be called dazzling, Steve Eddington, President of Electronic Search, a Rolling Meadows based Staffing company, has announced that they have entered into an outsourcing agreement with Prairie Outsourcing to handle all resume reading.

"It's really a time saver," said Eddington of the service agreement with Prairie.

"We usually spend the biggest part of the day reading and interpreting resumes, but now that this is outsourced to a group of people with nothing but outsourcing on their minds, we are free to perform other core functions, like outsourcing the phone work and flagging unwanted emails having to do with resumes."

"One of the real barriers to getting things done is reading resumes," said Carl Shoe, a senior recruiter at ESI and also a Republican.

"It is one of the things I like the least and it can become quite a distraction when things get busy. Now with Prairie handling the resume reading, I no longer have the time crunch and the piles and piles of resumes to wade through. We just forward them over to Prairie and forget about it until they give us our quarterly report."

"This is going to be a really good deal for us," said Elmer Fueffel, one of the Prairie Outsource employees.

"In our first meeting with ESI, it was very clear that they could streamline their operations with our help. We quickly zoomed in on the major area that screamed outsourcing! and it was the area of resume reading. We typically look for areas where a potential customer is weak, and we hit paydirt with ESI. They will now be free to really buckle down on the things they do best, whatever that may be."

"I feel fortunate that the Prairie contract got inked before the end of the Chinese Newyear," said Eddington. "We had over 100,000 resumes in the files that we couldn't get around to reading and we were getting tired of telling folks that we hadn't read the resume yet. Now with Prairie on board, we can say with confidence that the resume HAS BEEN READ. This is a big credibility booster and really takes the load off. Now we are free to do the real core tasks that recruiters should be doing. The outsourcing trend has really taken hold in businesses and I look forward to outsourcing lots of other areas. Pretty soon, we could live in a world where even the most common tasks are outsourced. The result of this could be tremendously freeing, and quite dramatic for businesses everywhere."

"When it's not your core competency, you just should not be doing it," added Al Bunn, the General Manager at ESI. It all boils down to people doing what they do best and not doing the things that others can do better or more efficiently than them. With the recruiters freed up from the resume grind, I see a whole slew of other tasks getting taken care of, and maybe some day soon, those things could get outsourced as well! Who knows where this could take us!"

Bill Bowser, another senior recruiter at ESI commented, "I can forsee a future in this business where literally everything is outsourced. When that happens, I think I will just have the greatest job in the world!"

When the rest of the world realizes that literally every task imaginable is probably best done by someone else, there will truly be a new world in the making.

Please watch for future articles on this subject, which will hopefully be penned by someone else.

Steve Eddington

President for now

Electronic Search, Inc

Top 10 Ways to Not Become Sick in the Workplace

10) When you go in the office kitchen and see a box of doughnuts, do not eat more than 6 of them at a time.

9) Don't touch yourself

8) Don't touch your boss

7) Don't touch your secretary

6) Wash your hands vigorously after each time that you touch anything but absolutely don't touch anything in the bathroom.

5) Wash your hands vigorously after each time that you touch any person

4) If you happen to be around anyone who is sick, stop breathing until they are at least 50 feet away. If they don't go away, run as fast as you can to a safe place, don't touch yourself, or anyone or anything else and if you screw up and do touch anything, wash your hands vigorously for 2 minutes, making sure that you do not touch the bathroom door or a faucet. If you do happen to touch the bathroom door or faucet, return immediately to the bathroom and repeat the process. Note...if any co-worker is missing for longer than 20 minutes, check the bathroom as they may be having difficulty with this procedure.

3) Don't drink the water, especially bottled water since it all contains pond scum. It is OK to drink any liquid immediately after it has been boiled.

2) Instead of shaking hands, develop the habit of a simple salute (as in the Navy) or a bow, or wear disposable rubber gloves when shaking hands. Note.., do NOT leave the gloves laying around after they have been exposed. If you accidently screw up on this point, go to step 4 above.

1) Stay home and stringently follow the 10 ways to not become sick in the home.

http://www.electronicsearch.com