The Search Continues... At Work, And At Home

It feels like all I'm doing right now is poring over advertisements. At home, my time is spent alternately between looking at job boards (not as effective as networking, maybe, but networking in another city becomes somewhat more limited before you get there, and you never know, right?) and looking at listings for condos. At work, I'm spending my time trying to find a replacement for me, so there, I'm poring over resumes. It's an interesting experience, being on both ends at once, and I find I've become a bit of a resume snob. (Oh, I would never write a cover letter like that, and just look at that formatting! My goodness.) It's also been an eye-opener in terms of what people actually don't know about resumes and cover-letters, and what I would consider common sense that, evidently, isn't. One lovely candidate called, and told me she had never heard of my company, as she is located in Seattle at present. She had all kinds of questions which could have easily been answered by a quick visit to the company website, which is linked on our ad. Then I wouldn't have had a twenty minute conversation with her about the basics of the company and the job, and would have felt distinctly less annoyed. Google also works wonders, on both sides of the border. While I don't mind answering questions about the job, if you can't even be bothered to look up what products my company sells, don't expecrt me to be too impressed. Another candidate assures me that my interviewing days are over, because she will land this job, and while I admire her determination, I question her assumption, particularly given that she misspelled my company's name. It suggests that her attention to detail is maybe not all it could be. I also truly despise cover letters that are clearly not targeted at all. If you aren't going to target your cover letter for the position you're applying to, why bother including it?

It makes me a bit paranoid about my own applications, as a matter of fact,which is probably all to the good. It also makes me consider the parallels between looking at condo listings and looking at resumes. In both cases, you are trying to determine potential fit, sight unseen; you hope that this next ad will prove to be the perfect candidate; you hope that your perfect candidate falls within your budget, and the next step is an in-person interview. In the case of the condos, though, that in-person interview is presently being deferred to my mother-in-law, since she happens to actually live in Calgary, and I'm very grateful to her for looking, but occasionally question her judgement. Such as when she called to tell us about the two bedroom unit she looked at last night that was, apparently, terribly dirty, smelly,very cramped, and possibly less than safe, and then pronounced it "very cute". I'm hoping that my current supervisor, who will be sitting in on interviews with me, doesn't go the same way, though at least, since I am hiring my own replacement, the hiring decision is more her problem than mine. I just have to find a clean condo, and a stellar employee.