Oh my!
The graphics are super way-cool, and that's THE message you want to get across. I think you do that really well. Don't want to send you back to the drawing board!
I'm happy to give you more practical suggestions that you can goof around with...
Do you have all the text by itself? If I have it in a chunk I can play with it. I started to re-type it all for that purpose but realized you might already have that.
Yeah I have it. Give me a second to copy/paste.
Are you finding it harder and harder to find good help these days? Well, there is no need to worry any longer. Joe is here to help.
Decode cover letters. Seperate the fact from the fiction. Cut through bogus credentials. Is that reference really an ex-boss or just a loving mother in disguise? Figure it all out with the help of Joe and his Hiring Guide for 2005.
Find the help you need without the rubbish you don't.
Getting Started
You have a mountain of resumes, an inbox full of emails, and you have had to change your phone number three times to avoid the phone inquiries. Are you wondering where to start?
"Garbage in, garbage out," is a good motto to live by and will save you a ton of time.
Unless you have specifically asked for resumes to be emailed, delete your entire inbox. People who email are lazy and you don't want them working for you. Erase your voice mails. These people are just checking out their options and are using you as their next best choice. Scan through the resumes and look for any cover letters that begin with "Dear Sir or Madam," "To Whom it may Concern" or ones that are obviously photocopied. These are form letters and show an extreme lack of imagination. They are merely playing the odds by sending out their resume to anyone and everyone, and should be ignored. You can also eliminate any resumes that are torn, tattered, or otherwise unkempt.
By now you should have eliminated around 75% of your options. Not too bad for a few minutes of work. But you still have a long way to go just cutting down the options. Now it is time to start digging a little deeper.
The Resume
The first two sentences of a cover letter tell a lot about the applicant and are a good way to weed out unproductive employees. Many cover letters ramble on and on about inane things before finally telling you what they want: a job. If they don't tell you, within the first two sentences, why they are writing, they are already wasting your time and will waste countless more work hours as an employee. Throw them out.
Resumes are a bit more difficult to decipher, but there are clues as to how a potential employee is going to work out. The two most important things to look for are knowledge and experience.
Knowledge
Knowledge is one of the most important aspects to take into
consideration when hiring. While finding just how knowledgeable a person is can be a bit difficult, finding out how unknowledgeable someone is can be much easier.
Begin by doing a little research into the school they attended. Schools such as the International Academy of Consciousness (iacworld.org) may have an impressive sounding name, but unless you are in the business of "Projectiology and Conscientiology," which study consciousness beyond the brain, or "investigate psychic awareness and paranormal phenomena as tools to understand the multi-dimensional nature of humanity," you may want to pass on this candidate.
Look for obvious mistakes as well. Are there spelling errors?
Does the first sentence read "Me want job?" If so, place it in
the nearest paper shredder and move on to the next.
Experience
Put on your waders... it's time to start reading the most creatively written part of any resume: work experience.
Here is where common fry guys at the local fast food restaurant magically transform themselves into a "Solanum Tuberosum Manufacturing Specialist." Sounds impressive doesn't it? Especially after working up to an "Order and Accounts Receivable Coordinator." AKA: cashier.
The key is looking at the actual duties performed. Any resume that only gives you a title and not an actual job description is trying to hide something. You should be suspicious of these. It is easy to make up an official sounding title, but much more difficult to fake an entire paragraph about boiling fries in hot oil. If you're not sure, check their references. A simple phone call should clear up any confusion. Act like you are old friends and call at odd times of the day to try to catch potential reference fakers out of character.
The Interview
You've filtered out the rubbish as best you can and it is now time to get serious by meeting your candidates one on one. There is no better way to get a feeling about somebody than by looking them straight in the eye, asking them questions and listening to their responses. Defining what it is you are looking for is good preparation for the interview. There are two main components to look for: chemistry and attitude.
Chemistry
Let's say you are looking to fill a research position. Your first interviewee walks in and in a loud boisterous voice says, "Hey. I'm Bob. I'm the man for this job... hey that rhymed and I didn't even know it. My feet did though... they're Longfellows. HAHAHAHAHAHA." You can tell him right then and there, "Thank you for your time. I'll be in touch." and send him on his way. This is obviously a person who will be a distraction in a research setting. He may be qualified, but what is the point of him being a good employee if everyone around him can't stand him? On the flip side, you may be looking to fill a position as a carnival barker. This candidate would be a perfect fit for that position: loud and impossible to ignore.
The goal is to find someone who fits into the rest of the organization, as well as being qualified for the position. You want the talks around the water cooler to be pleasant, not have everybody scatter like roaches when they see your new employee coming towards them.
Attitude
Attitude and chemistry are sometimes hard to separate when interviewing. Lets use the previous example. You are trying to fill a research position. Interviewee walks in and says, "Hi. I'm Bob. I'm the man for this job." then in a quieter voice, almost to himself, he adds, "Ha... that rhymed." This is a person you want to sit down with.
He is confident in his abilities, has researched the position and wants to work for you. By adding on the, "Ha... that rhymed," but only to himself, he shows the ability to think and act mulit-dimensionally. This is a person with the right attitude and will be an asset to your company. Don't underestimate these people. They are sometimes hard to find but will always be a good hire.
Fill the rest of the interview with any other questions you might have about the interviewee. This is a good time to clear up any possible "creative writing" in their experience section, and a good chance to dig a little deeper to learn a little more about their
knowledge level.
Time to Act
Once you get through the interviews you should have a pretty good idea about whom you want to hire. Hopefully there will be one candidate who is head and shoulders above the rest. This will make your decision easy. If there are multiple candidates that are qualified, sit down, think it over and try to reason out who would be the best fit for your company. Don't wait to long. Candidates who have made it through this kind of filtering system are bound to be hard working and ambitious. That means your competition may be out there wanting to hire him or her as well. It has been a long journey but now is not the time to rest. You need to come to a decision and act.
As soon as your mind is made up, the hard part is behind you. Now all you have to do is make a phone call and offer a fair salary with a benefit or two. In no time at all, your new employee will be walking through the doors ready, willing and able to work. Make sure you point him out to other employees and make him feel welcomed. Of course, he is the product of a Joe's Hiring Guide: 2005 so he should fit right in anyway.
You and your new hire are now ready to embark on a wonderful journey together. Your new hire is bound to make you look like a genius. Your department's productivity, moral and overall enjoyment levels are bound to rise. Make sure to take credit for the hire whenever you can by saying things like, "Did you know that guy, Bob, I hired just broke the overall sales record?" This is a good way to compliment your new employee and make yourself look good at the same time.
Thanks for choosing Joe's Hiring Guide: 2005. Be sure to pick up Joe's other wonderful teaching books: Joe's Guide to Getting the Promotion You Deserve and Joe's 101 Most Effective Ways to Say You're Fired.
What you have:
Quote:Are you finding it harder and harder to find good help these days? Well, there is no need to worry any longer Joe is ehre to help.
Decode cover letters. Separate the fact from the fiction. Cut through bogus credentials. Is that reference really an ex-boss or a loving mohter in disguise? Figure it all out with the help of Joe and his Hiring Guide of 2005.
Find the help you need without the rubbish you don't.
possible revision/ ideas:
Quote:These days, a good employee is hard to find. Did your last receptionist steal all of your plants? Is a week without a new computer virus as rare as a brass monkey's bollocks?
Don't despair, help is on the way. My Hiring Guide of 2005 will provide you with everything you need to know to sift and winnow the wheat from the chaff.
Hire only the best. The Joe Way.
if bollocks is too much, "rare as a blizzard in honolulu."
Oh, great! That took a long time to post, hadn't seen all the rest of it.
Want me to keep goofing around with it? Don't want to take you in an entirely different direction than you want to go.
I'll try to keep it about the same length et all so you wouldn't have to redo the layout.
sozobe wrote:Oh my!
The graphics are super way-cool, and that's THE message you want to get across. I think you do that really well. Don't want to send you back to the drawing board!
I'm happy to give you more practical suggestions that you can goof around with...
Don't think of the drawing board as a bad place to be... just take a look at my sig line.
If I disagreed with you I wouldn't go there, but I think you make a valid point so I don't mind going back at all.
Besides, the graphics are only part of the presentation. A Designer that can help with copy is a double bonus.
sozobe wrote:Oh, great! That took a long time to post, hadn't seen all the rest of it.
Want me to keep goofing around with it? Don't want to take you in an entirely different direction than you want to go.
I'll try to keep it about the same length et all so you wouldn't have to redo the layout.
If you have the time and want to offer suggestions I am more than willing to check them out. But I'm not on a deadline or anything so if you have more pressing needs, I don't want to keep you from them.
How is this for the opening paragraph?
Quote:Did your last hire go out to lunch and never come back? Do you wish the employees that are left would do the same? Good help is hard to find these days, but Joe is here to help. Everything you need to know is inside Joe's Hiring Guide for 2005.
Find the help you need without the rubbish you don't.
That's good!
It will have to do it in fits and starts, but happy to see what I can come up with.
I think that sets the ironic tone much more clearly, and then can be reinforced in the rest of the copy (more silliness, less literal, whole lot of psuedo-science or equivalent.)
One thing that could be fun is to open up an "Employee horror stories" thread and get stuff you can use (or be inspired by) from people's real-life stories (I have one or eleven myself...)
Do you know anything about what sorts of places you'll be more likely to leave these? I'm sure there will be a lot of variety, but any kind of details can help. More service-oriented, more product-oriented, more IT, etc.
Hi there.
It's smooth, it's got more of the silly stuff. Those are both good things. I still worry about it being taken at face value, that it's meant to be actual advice. Maybe a disclaimer somewhere?
Came up with a few but they were dorky. :-?
I'll keep thinking.
What I keep coming back to is that the graphics are the story here -- the copy doesn't have to be too fancy, and if it's worth a few chuckles, all the better. The graphics are what will grab them and impress them.
I think that being semi-serious adds to the humor of it. If they think to themselves, "Is this guy serious?" It will have done its job and gotten their attention.
I don't want to go to silly and have it stand on the graphics alone. Design is an integration of both images and text. Leaning to heavily on one or the other usually isn't a good idea. Of course there are instances when one picture is worth a thousand words, but I'm not sure this is one of them.
Yes? No?
The problem with "is this guy serious?" is that if it's subtle enough that they could reasonably conclude "yes" -- especially from a quick scan -- the chance is high IMO that they'll just chuck it.
They know this stuff, they don't want unsolicited literature telling 'em what they already know. They especially don't want the schmuck trying to get a job from them handing out unsolicited literature to tell 'em what they already know.
So in my opinion, in this context, there has to be a clear and quick wink-wink nudge-nudge, not sure if it's there yet.
But your call of course!
I thought of another way to put it -- your audience doesn't want to have to work. They want to get a whole lot of information past their faces quickly and move on to other things. This is an audience that will be annoyed by subtlety rather than appreciative of it.
Quote:I don't want to go to silly and have it stand on the graphics alone
Personally I think sillier/ broader is very much in keeping with the graphics. A certain bluster and can do! and eager over-sincerity.
I see the current text as being too vanilla for the graphics.
But that's just me!
I didn't read these last few posts, read the first exhibit.
Agreed with Soz, liked the last line the best, and want you to punch it up.
Started writing down spelling errors, stopped at the eighth - just be sure you correct all of those before mailing this baby.
(not that I am such a great speller)
The retro graphics are great, but I think you need to explain why you are using them....
eg. Joe's Hiring Guide combines old-fashioned
work ethics with contemporary know-how....
I might also use a bullet format for your
first page....
Are you finding it harder and harder to find good help these days? Well, there is no need to worry any longer.
Joe is here to help you:
. Decode cover letters.
. Separate fact from fiction.
. Cut through bogus credentials.
. Verify references.
Figure it all out with Joe and his Hiring Guide for 2005.
