The Basics

An employer has little information to base hiring decisions on. Basic communication skills, a little effort, and the ability to tell time, are important.

i know youve grown up with texting which has lead some of u 2 feel its ok 2 communicate this way when seeking a job it is not thx for your attention. When applying for a job take the time to add punctuation and hit the two extra buttons to spell out the word “you”! Young people, I say this with love, “Get your head out of your ass.”

Spellcheck is not a cutting edge technology. Look into it.

If you get an interview, show up on time! Showing up late is an almost impossible thing to recover from.

Your resume

Your resume should not be longer than two pages (ideally, one) , anything more is self indulgence. I’m talking to you, person who managed to drag a high school education and a couple years working at fast food places into a four page document.

Less is more. Never say in two words what you can say in one. This is true of all writing, but is particularly important with a resume, which will be scanned quickly.

The top thing in 90% of the resumes I read is a longer version of this: “Objective: To obtain a job.” When you give someone a resume they’ve already assumed as much. Impressing someone with a resume is difficult, and this is a poor start. Only include meaningful information. Other empty pat phrases commonly found: “Fast learner”, “Team Player”, “Problem Solver”, “Works well independently”

No industry jargon, acronyms, or references to specific equipment. Don’t write, “Fully trained with A54 Inverter”, or “Promoted to A.P. Manager”. Only a very select group of people know what you are talking about, and they probably aren’t screening resumes.

Use facts in place of general statements. “Increased sales by 12%” is much better than “Responsible for meeting sales targets”.

Make it look nice. If you don’t know how to set the margins on a document or get the bullets to line up, get some help. And, unless you are applying to Crayola, a resume is no place for primary colors, clip art, or the Comic Sans font. Keep it simple.

Admin

Keeping hundreds of resumes organized is not easy. Simple things make that job easier, and ensure your resume doesn’t get lost in the shuffle.

If you are going to include a cover letter, put it in the same document with your resume. HR people are only going to save one file for you, or at least this HR person is. Receiving an application with separate attachments for cover letter, resume, and references is time consuming and annoying.

When submitting a resume electronically, don’t send a Word file, create a pdf file. The Word file will look different depending on the version of software being run, and it automatically underlines your spelling and grammatical mistakes. Not good. This applies doubly to more exotic files (.wps .pub .pages), many of which can’t even be opened on most systems.

Don’t name your electronic submission “Resume_V2.pdf”, this is a good way to get your resume lost at the receiving end. The file name should include your first and last name.

Things to consider

Include one phone number and one email address on your resume. No one wants 4 ways to communicate with you, they want one that you respond to promptly. Personally, I’d also get rid of your mailing address, it’s irrelevant in a modern world.

Reconsider applying for jobs with the email address poolboy69. I think these are funny, but not everyone will agree.

The Interview

Career total, I’ve conducted about 150 interviews, and I’ve been interviewed for about 60 jobs. I’ve done phone interviews, conference calls, I’ve been interviewed by four people at once. I’ve been around, interview wise, and here’s the main thing I’ve learned: relax. Which is stupid advise, I know, you can’t make yourself relax. What I really mean, I suppose, is there’s no reason to be stressed out in the first place, because an interview is a mixture of gut feel, corporate psychology, and black magic. It’s guess work, which means you can do everything just right, and still not get a job, so try not to get so worked up.

I’ll throw this in as a practical tip though: Engage your head, then your mouth. Take a moment, think about your answer, and then give it. There’s nothing wrong with a few moments of silence. If you are having trouble here is a trick: “That’s a difficult question. I’d like to think about it. Can we come back to that?” An interviewer will always say yes, and it gives you some time to recover. But it’s like a life line, you only get one.

I’ve walked out of some interviews confident as hell and never got a call back, and I’ve gotten job offers based on interviews I thought I bombed. I now understand that the interviewer probably made a decision about me five minutes in, but felt guilty about ending it so quickly, so they killed time with a casual conversation, which is why I thought it was going so well. My point is that there’s no way to tell. You don’t know what criteria an interviewer is using, what their system is (if any), or how well you are doing, so relax, there’s no right way to do it. Be yourself, that will be the thing someone wants. It’s sort of like dating.

References

Reference letters are ten times better than a list of phone numbers, because no one is likely to call your references. And, you only check them after you’ve made a decision to hire. If you don’t make that cut, no one will every know that your last boss thought you walked on water. References are phoned after a decision has been made to verify it was the right one.

A simple reference contact also degrades quicker over time. Your boss from two years ago might have thought you were awesome, but that will be a vague recollection by now. Plus, you have to keep track of a reference in case they move jobs, or quit. A letter has longevity.

Ask the person if they’d be willing to offer a recommendation for employment. Hopefully they say yes, and then ask about the letter. Offer to write it. They may want to author it themselves, or if you write a decent letter that is honest and doesn’t take too many liberties, I’d bet they would just sign it.

Collect a reference letter from every job you can and offer them at the interview. Personally, I always read them.

The morning after

Should I call or shouldn’t I? Go ahead and call. Ask in the interview when you can expect to hear back, and if you don’t hear, call. If they like you, they still will, if they don’t, what harm can it do. Again, like dating.

Good Luck

The good news, as an employer anyway, is that there are lots of good employees looking for a home. I talked to more people I’d like to hire, than I have jobs for. And, I think the ones I hire are going to like the job. That’s a cool thing.

Job searching is tough. I know first hand. I wish you luck.

So, for obvious reasons, I haven’t written anything at all, except that lame mullet joke. I don’t even have time to get the last word in with my sisters. Well, it will have to do. I’ll try again when I figure out that damn wrap.

Amsterdam, as advertised

The first thing I saw exiting the train station was a square full of blowing newspapers. A lonely apocalyptic scene, except there were people everywhere, and none of them seemed zombie like, I’d know, I’m qualified. It took me a day and a half to realize something strange was going on. The first person I asked said, “You know about the garbage strike, right?” Which made more sense than what I had assumed, so I felt apologetic for my leap. “I’m sorry, I thought maybe it was always like this.”

Garbage will swallow a city in a surprisingly short time

I tried to see beyond the garbage, but it wasn’t a landscape that appealed to me, narrow streets, and two dimensional canyon like architecture. But, the thousands of bikes and pedestrians produced a rhythm I liked, a people centric heart beat.

Plenty of people pour into Amsterdam to party, and it’s definitely a good place to do that. In fact, if letting your hair down is out the question, then Amsterdam is not for you, because there are certainly prettier places. However, if you are a little adventurous there are gems in the city for any taste. I saw some great street dancers, talked to a DJ I liked, saw great acts at a blues bar , and I watched a beautiful couple in a smokey coffee shop pull back from a deep kiss with an enviable mix of adoration and sex in their eyes.

This is a playground for all of Europe and it shows. My random wanderings planted me at a bar with a rainbow of beautiful people. I thought maybe they were shooting a United Colors of Benetton Ad in the place. I finished my beer and got out before someone saw me and started to point and laugh. I went looking for locals, and those I found, I really liked. They confirmed what I had already observed, locals are treated differently, there is a strong sense of community in Amsterdam, the tourists get the tacky candy coating.

The Anne Frank museum was one of the few that held any pull for me. It’s well done. There are hundreds of exihibits weaving throughout the house. The one that captivated me was a small square of paper pinned to the wall. Anna’s father used this tiny map to track the bits of news he got from the radio about the Allied progress.

Anne’s father planned to hide from the Nazi’s. He hid his family and some friends, seven people, for two years, until someone betrayed them, and they were all taken to concentration camps. Nine year old Anne, died in a camp believing the rest of her family was already dead. Months later her father was saved by the Allied liberation. He was the only surviving member of his family of four.

As I stood there, I thought of what it would be like to carry that weight and to look at the pins in that map everyday and hope help had made it to the next town. I think now that it would be a good recolection the next time I feel put out by something in my privileged life.

A coworker of mine was preparing for a public meeting to discuss an environmental clean-up. Being the voice of Big Oil at a public meeting is a nightmare. A mob mentality can take hold, plus you have to deal with the personification of that character from the Simpsons, who shouts, “What about the children?! Won’t somebody please think of the children!?” I thought it would be funny for him to open his comments by asking, “By a show of hands, how many of you rode bicycles to the meeting tonight?” I still think that’s funny.

Oil is our way of life, yes yours too. We have a complex world wide network of infrastructure and technology to find, extract, refine, transport, and use petroleum products. It is the largest single industry in the world and it is woven into every aspect of our lives from how we get our food to why we don’t sit in the dark. I understand the urge to curse the oil industry, but the soapbox you are trying to get up on is plastic, it’s made of oil. This is not an industry problem, it’s a human one.

Do you know how people choose where to buy their gas? Location and price. People buy gas at a station that is on the way to or from work, or they drive a little further to save a few pennies per litre. No one pays more for gas based on the environmental performance of the company selling it.

The BP spill will be analyzed, problems will be identified, guilty parties will be named, new procedures will be put in place, but it’s all sort of irrelevant. We all understand that continuing to get oil out of the ground is not making grass greener and water cleaner, so where does all this indignant shock come from? You and I are the reason men are drilling for oil more than a mile under the ocean, so our hand wringing and finger pointing is disingenuous, because none of us rode bicycles to this meeting.

I had a great time in Brussels and it all stemmed from stepping up to a bar and showing an interest in the local beers, which Belgians are passionate about. When asked for my order at a restaurant or bar, my most common response, when I can make myself understood, is, “What do you recommend?” It’s an approach that produces more than its share of disappointments, but you can’t discover hidden gems on your own.

The place I was in, Celtica, has a good selection of draft beer, it’s ridiculously cheap, and they serve it, and little else, by the bucketful. The next night a customer ordered a mojito, and Alex, the Irish bartender I was about to meet, screwed up his face into a disgusted grimace, and yelled across the bar, “Are you fuck’n serious!?”

On this particular evening though, Alex was on my side of the bar, and when I asked for a recommendation, he piped up at my elbow and ordered for me. I spoke to Alex until the education he was giving me on Irish whisky caught up to him and he had to go home, but before he did he introduced me to Margret, also an off duty bartender at Celtica, the second of four I would eventually meet.

Margret is a straight forward and honest Londoner. About 5′9″, slim, fair skin, dreadlocks, an eyebrow piercing and dark eye makeup turned up a little into a cat’s eye at the edges. She told me she worked the upstairs bar during the recent St. Patty’s day. The upstairs bar in Celtica is just a small ell shaped counter set in the middle of what becomes a crowded scrum on busy nights. The bartender is not cordoned off, people surround on all sides. It’s a ripe atmosphere for drunken louts to make a grab at breasts and asses, so female bartenders are not assigned to this role, except Margret, who requests it. She likes mixing it up with the people, and tells me anyone who grabs her ass doesn’t do it twice, she enjoys throwing elbows. She describes St. Patty’s day with pride, like someone who has stepped into the fray and come out victorious. I liked her a lot.

She invited me over for beers with her and her flatmates the following afternoon. She shares a small apartment with her boyfriend of three and a half years. They were splitting up, so it was an invitation I was somewhat hesitant to show up for. I’m glad I did, all the people I met through Margret, including her boyfriend, were welcoming, generous, and fun.

The two of them told me lots of stories from their own travels, including living in the middle of a dry aborigine village in the Australian outback. I also got their thoughts on Brussels, Belgium, beer, and bus fairs. None of the locals pay that last one, there is a healthy underground economy going on in the European Union, I observed.

I went out drinking later with Margret and her funny friend Greg, another Irishman. We ended the evening at Margret’s for a few sensible cocktails before turning in. Greg put a stop to my plans to walk home. He insisted I “didn’t know Brussels for shit” and that we should share a cab. Fifteen minutes later he lifted his nodding head and observed the cab was not heading toward his house. In his Irish accent, made so much thicker with drink, he yelled, “Hey! Where the fuck’r we going?” Then he turned and looked at me, “Who the fuck’r you!”

I told him my name in the most reassuring tone I could muster, and informed him of the plan we had to drop me off before he headed home. I was prepared to provide additional proof of our time together, but this was sufficient, reality and Greg were now friends again. He just said, “Oh. Right. OK,” and slumped back into his seat. Minutes later we shook hands and parted ways as friends.

Brussels houses the headquarters for the European Union and consequently is home to more languages per square block than I encountered anywhere else in my travels. Many of the cities residents are transplants from somewhere else, or tourists. Standing in a local bar I heard German, Russian, French, English, and I think, Ukrainian just from the people that stepped up to order a beer. It’s an eclectic mix that makes for an interesting atmosphere, and it is this, more than any sightseeing there is, that makes Brussels a place to visit.

Brussels is known for its “frites”. I don’t get the big deal. A fried potato tastes the same in Canada as it does in Belgium. A rainbow of sauces are available as an accompaniment, maybe that’s what everyone is so worked up over.

You can still smoke in bars and restaurants in Brussels, the only such place remaining in Europe, and people take full advantage. Perhaps no one has mentioned this to you yet Europe, but smoking is bad for you. Just FYI. Cigarette butts in the streets are prevalent everywhere I went in Europe but this city dominates. It also excels at honking drivers and beggars with infants and small children, something I hadn’t see before.

The Manneken Pis, smaller than you'd think.

There are some beautiful elements to the city, most of which can be explored on foot in a day. My suggestion is to stop at the famous fountain of the little boy peeing and buy a box of Belgian chocolates at one of the shops you can see from where you are. Gourmet Belgian chocolate is dirt cheap by Canadian standards, and it’s amazing. It compares to the first time I had a girl’s nipple in my mouth. Sample your box of chocolates in front of the fountain, and see how many you can eat before one of the tourists in front of the fountain says, “It’s smaller than I thought it would be.” You won’t get to eat very many.

There are some beautiful parks, monuments, coastal scenery, and commanding views, spread out over a diverse geography, which makes this city particularly difficult to explore on foot, although I wouldn’t recommend a car. The streets are narrow, winding, and filled with fearless, noisy drivers who park and drive wherever a car will fit. The streets are also home to a significant amount of blowing garbage and dog shit, and enough dog shit on your sidewalks to make note of is not an attractive quality. The central harbour area is the busiest tourist area, but as an advertised highlight, it was disappointing. I had good experience with the food at a small local restaurant along the water, and a great cheese shop with a friendly and helpful owner.

First, a note to my family and friends. I love you all but I didn’t listen to your tips and recommendations. Partly because most of it I could read on the front page of a tourism website. “Go see the Louvre,” is hardly an insiders tip. Mostly though, I didn’t want to go on your trip, I wanted my own. And, in my opinion, the best parts of life, or travel, are not reproducible. I can’t have the same experience by standing on the same spot as you, and taking the same picture you did. So, I’m sorry, the promise you extracted from me to find that little cafe you loved was entirely empty, I had no intention of doing any such thing. I was just indulging you while you told your story, and I now ask the same of you as I tell mine.

I thought I would write them, not in the order I visited, but in a “top ten list” approach, ending with Prague, which I loved the most, and which definitely produced the most interesting tales, including a sad story about a death, and a funny story involving great boobs. None of my writing will involve recommendations for museums or cafes, in that respect you are on your own.

9. Marseille – Dog shit. That’s the key reason Marseille is on the bottom of this list. A nice enough city, a little difficult to explore on foot, and while you do, you have to keep your eyes open for dog shit. It’s not like the place is over run by the stuff, but there’s enough dog shit to take note of, sort of like this introductory paragraph, and friends, that’s too much.

8. Brussels – They take their beer seriously in Belgium. I was standing in a bar and a customer ordered a mojito. The bartender screwed up his face into a disgusted grimace and yelled back, “Are you fuck’n serious!?”

7. Amsterdam – My random wanderings planted me at a bar with a rainbow of beautiful people. I thought maybe they were shooting a United Colors of Benetton Ad. I finished my beer and got out before someone saw me and started to point and laugh.

6. Barcelona

5. Paris

4. Berlin

3. Lyon

2. Bordeaux

1. Prague

I had seen a TV program about privacy issues that demonstrated how easily an average person could extract information from strangers by engaging them in a conversation. My new friend brought this to mind because he hadn’t asked me a single question, or paused for that matter, in fifteen minutes. It occurred to me that I could learn a lot about him and tell him nothing about myself, so I did. I figured our time was short, so I should just keep him talking, which proved not to be difficult. This became my Secret Agent Interview Game.

The idea is to build a mental dossier, like an Agent on a secret mission. I just put whatever I can into it. Work, family, hobbies, history, and health are topics people like to talk about. If you like specifics, any innocuous detail is a good starter, like Favourite Breakfast Food. It’s information anyone will readily give out, but it takes practice to work it naturally into conversation.

The easy part is not talking about yourself. People rarely ask more than cursory details in a series of rhetorical questions; name, rank, serial number sort of stuff. The difficulty is in asking good questions to keep someone talking and to steer the conversation in a direction you are interested in, all the while keeping track of it all. It’s just the refined art of conversation, but it sounds cooler if you call it the Secret Agent Interview Game.

It started as a way to pass the time with strangers, but it’s worked it’s way into other relationships. I now remind myself to play it with my wife when she comes home. Ask questions, listen to the answers. It works as a spouse, and I think it will be great as a bartender, or a father. It’s one of the reasons I’d like to have a daughter, I do better with girls. In fact, should I have a son, one of the few sage pieces of advise about women I could offer is just a fundamental of the Secret Agent Interview Game. “Son, do you know how you get a woman to tell you her secrets? You ask her.”

My wife is the one doing the hitting, so it’s OK, you can laugh, this is the acceptable sort of spousal abuse joke.