Thursday, January 29, 2009

Resume Hell


Big A-Ha this morning; more like ha-ha-hahahahaha (hysterical ironic laughter)
Like most mornings, after my coffee, exercise, mediation, morning movement and affirmations I sit down in front of the computer for an hour of 'free time', read 'actually working and not just surfing porn'.
The ritual is to first read all the food service related newsletters from the day before, omg - not another one! Then I cruise the job boards and check my search agents from http://www.simplyhired.com/ A great site if time is short because they poll all the other sites from Monster.com to iHirechefs.com and list all the information with links to the original postings.
Right now I have one search agent for Chef jobs in Florida and the other for jobs nation wide filtered by my work experience, would-love-to's and absolutley-have-to-have's. I'm sure that you or someone you know goes through this process as well.
I have a job but it never hurts to check out the market, constantly scanning for that dream position; working for a great progressive company that values their people as their primary assets and actually has programs in place to prove it.
You know a company like Google or Timberland, the shining examples of what's possible if there's a rational juxaposition between profit and personnel.
side dish - I've realized that there are so few of these types of companies out there despite their handsome returns on investments that I've come to the conclusion that if I can't work for one of these industry leaders then it's incumbent upon me to create one. Anyone out there that's ready to put together a world class hospitality company feel free to email me!
Every morning I recheck my resume; is it too short, is it too long, is there sufficent skill shown to make a convincing arguement for a phone call, that kind of thing.
Satisfied, for the moment, I'll choose a couple of postings, do some research and create a skillfully worded cover letter and attach a resume.
Since July of last year I've put out about, conservatively, 350.
I've had two phone calls, 1 in person interview and 1 cooking demo.
Those are tough odds indeed and while the internet may have created a Brave New World for us, it's effectively cut us off from our fellow human beings.
When MySpace blew up a couple of years ago I spent countless hours coaching my girls that the real world did not, in fact, live inside the 22" monitor but out there, amongst the rest of humanity.
'C'mon Dad', they would say as if to imply that the old man just didn't it.
Now I do.
Frustrated at the lack of response my well engineered resumes and cover letters were getting me I realized that my job search should not, in fact could not, reside in there.
And while I have since created a lattice work of presence in cyber space from my profile on Linkedin, my web page, my on line articles and my soon to be published book available from the storefront courtesy of http://www.lulu.com/, all that pales in comparision with shaking someone's hand, looking them confidently in the eyes and sitting down to a connected conversation.
Business, and life, have only ever been about relationships and good as the internet tools are they're just no substitute for a physical presence because as well as I've written my resume it'll never tell the whole tale about who I am, where I've come from, what I've learned along the way and the great and good people that have helped forge who I am today.
Power down the box and get your feet out in the street, there's someone out there looking for you, even if they don't know it yet.

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