The thinking is valid… to a degree.

Here is what they are trying to say, and my take:

Google is the new resume: Why use the boring old two page document that no one likes?  Instead, I should be able to Google you and see how amazing and qualified you are.

Here’s my take: The search results for someone on Google have a long ways to go before they will replace a resume, for many reasons:

• A resume is a succinct document that summarizes your career and qualifications, and should be customized for the industry, job title or company.  Google results are hodgepodge results, thrown together by a search engine, and not controlled by the candidate.
• A resume is accepted by the people making the decision, or weighing in.  The format is common and familiar.  If you have to run someone by 10 people, are you going to forward their Google search results and let people figure out what is good and what to ignore, or are you going to forward their resume?  Everyone knows what a resume is, and how to read it. Not everyone knows how to sift through search results.
• A resume is part of the ingrained (defined: Firmly fixed or established; difficult to change.) hiring process. When has HR even moved fast on anything, much less something as ingrained as the resume?
• Even if a candidate could control the Google search results (see Vizibility if you want to attempt this), many people don’t have anything that will come up when you search for them… which goes to the next point….

If you aren’t on Google (or LinkedIn), you don’t exist: Recruiters and hiring decision makers and influencers look for talent on search engines, mostly Google.  If they search for, for example, a project manager in Seattle who is certified and has 20 years experience in a certain industry, and that matches you exactly, but you don’t have a good Google presence or a LinkedIn profile that comes up, you don’t exist, they wont’ find you, and you will miss out.  In short, you don’t exist.

Here’s my take: Recruiters are not as shallow and simple as this. Many recruiters I know are networkers who spend more time on the phone and hanging at industry events. If they are looking for you, they will ask their network, who are hopefully your colleagues in your company and other companies in your area.  You’ll be harder to find, but that’s the challenge a recruiter accepts.  If everyone was easy to find in a Google or LinkedIn search, the value of a recruiter would be diminished.  Valuable recruiters specialize in finding the hard-to-find talent… whether they are online or not!

Will technology replace the resume?  Perhaps, eventually, but not anytime soon.

Cover letters are kind of hard to write.  Maybe they are more of a pain, really, than they are hard to write. And anything that is a pain to job seekers is questioned… “waa, waa, do we really need to spend more than 3 minutes on this thing?  Waa…”

It seems that if we have to take more than a few clicks to do something in our job search, it’s a waste of our time.

Not true with cover letters.

Let me share an experience I had this morning.  It was with a LinkedIn introduction, not a cover letter, but the concept is similar.

I got a LinkedIn introduction request from someone who I didn’t recognize.  Turns out, I have a reason to recognize the name, but it had slipped my mind when I saw the introduction request.  The person was asking for an introduction to a really big name at a big organization.

I sent it on to my contact, who would forward it to his contact.  I wasn’t able to write a very strong “you must forward this on, this is a great person who isn’t going to waste your contact’s time.”  But I forwarded it on anyway.

My contact immediately wrote me back and said “I need more information before I forward this on to my contact, who I have to be careful with. ”  In other words, people are cautious about what they forward on… if there is something that might affect your brand, or your relationship with your contact, would you send it on for a stranger?

NO!

The original introduction was vague.  Here are two things that would have added a lot to the request, and put the request in context:

1. “Hey Jason, remember me?  I am the person who ___________….”  Even if you think you are close to the person you are communicating with, it’s always helpful to remind them of who you are and why you have a relationship (where you met, etc.).  It never hurts to add this information, which can help remind me of why we are talking.
2. “I’d like to talk to Ms. XYZ because _________ and __________.”  The reality is, I’m not in a position to be the gatekeeper.  And if I pass on something without substance to Ms. XYZ, do you think she is going to trust what I give her next time?  In this case, there was someone between me and Ms. XYZ, and as another gatekeeper, he wasn’t going to pass anything on unless there was a real reason.  I can’t tell you how many times people want to get on the phone just to chat and pick my brain. My contact wasn’t going to allow an introduction to get to Ms. XYZ just for a brain picking… or else he would risk his relationship with Ms. XYZ.

This is the exact same thing I’ve heard from people who get resumes.  If you send a resume in without some kind of context, and something to set you apart, or explain something that you can’t really explain within the boundaries of a resume, you end up in the pile with a thousand other undifferentiated resumes.

But when you use a cover letter to explain a little more about you, or why you are so perfect for this job, or to add context to your application, you are filling in the blanks for the recipient.

Will it be read every time, by everyone who touches your resume?  Not necessarily.  But it could mean the difference between which pile you go into (the No pile, the Maybe pile, or the Short List pile).

Take the extra time to prepare a customized cover letter, and don’t risk it.

Because of my raw blog posts over the years, I’ve said I was “unemployable.”  That is, if a potential employer saw stuff I have written, they might think I wasn’t going to be a good team player (or something like that).  I’ve been very outspoken on workplace and hiring issues.

If you came to me and said “I’ve been working for myself for 15 years, but want to settle down into your company,” what am I to think?  I am quick to judge, like pretty much everyone (even you)… I might think:

Wasn’t good enough to make it on your own?

Is your business dying, and how much of the blame falls on you?

Are you looking for less responsibility, and to slow down?  Because we are ramping up!

What are you hiding from me?

As someone who’s gone from corporate to self-employed, I feel that a self-employed person has “tasted of the forbidden fruit,” and going back to a cubicle day job would be almost impossible, if they were successful on their own.  There might be scheduling issues (”but I’m used to being able to go to my daughter’s dance recitals whenever I want!!”) to money issues (”I just made this huge sale and all I get is a $200 bonus?? Before, I would get all of the profit!!”) to working-with-others issues.

Am I right?  Perhaps not!  Those assumptions are judgmental, and might not be accurate at all.

BUT THAT IS THE PROBLEM WITH STEREOTYPES, JUDGEMENTS, ETC.

They happen based on a lack of information.

So, let’s go back to the “can you go from self-employed to hired” idea.

Can you do it?  YES YOU CAN!

But you have to help the interviewer/hiring manager understand you can, and get through their own preconceived ideas (which may or may not look like my issues above).

Want a second opinion, and some meat?  Go check out Ask the Headhunter’s post on this.  Nick Corcodilos puts it very plainly, and the comments below are very, very interesting. His post is titled: You’ll never get hired if you’re self-employed

What better place is there?

If you get together with family and friends at Thanksgiving, you have a great opportunity to spend time with people, and help them help you in your job search.

Make it clear what you are looking for, and how they can help you, and ASK FOR HELP.

You should know how to easily communicate what you want, and how they can help you.

YOU MUST NOT APPEAR DESPERATE, or hurt.  Okay, since you are with family, you can be honest.  But realize, before they introduce you to their network, they are going to want to know you are confident, competent and professional, and you won’t appear hurt and wounded to their network.

When you go into the gathering, if someone doesn’t listen or respond the way you want them to, don’t worry about it.  Your family relationships are more important than any poor reaction you might have.

When you get someone’s attention, and it turns to your job search, keep the jargon and cliche out of your talk. You know what all the titles and certifications mean, but many times they don’t.

Go, have fun, be yourself, renew relationships.  And when the time is right, let people know how they can help you.

And then…. FOLLOW-UP!  Follow up Monday or Tuesday… and then continue to follow-up.  Be professional about it, but don’t assume that since they didn’t follow-up that they don’t care.   The follow-up is your responsibility.

Email is a powerful tool.  Just like a knife, it can be used to do good or bad.  Know the power of the tool, know the rules, and you can get value out of it.  Make mistakes and you can ruin opportunities, or even a career.

Here are the four “unforgivable” email grievances that Brazen mentions (click through to see Jessica’s commentary):

1. Be very, very careful when using the “important” flag. I have hardly ever used it, and usually when someone else uses it on me, it is not important.
2. Don’t use read receipts. They were designed to let you know when people got your email.  That is just creepy, by today’s standards.  And how many times have you seen someone recall a receipt… which just makes you more interested in the email in the first place?
3. Be careful how when you use Reply All. It should be used sometimes, and other times it should NOT be used.  Learn when, and stop doing it all the time!
4. Stop the thread back and forth. How many times can you say Thank You, or something else that doesn’t need to be said more than once?  People are busy – send what’s important, and hold off on the rest.

What do you think bad email etiquette is?  What’s missing from the list above?

If you are a job seeker, you could essentially become blacklisted by the recruiter, his firm, and their contacts.

Recruiters are networkers.

They talk.

If you lie, they can find out.  If they find out, they will question everything else you’ve told them.

Check out this Recruiting Blogs post by Craig Watson, titled If I could turn back time… or recreate history…

Craig tells the story of a candidate he was representing that had LIED.

Craig was disappointed, because he should have gotten a nice commission from placing him.

I’m sure he was embarrassed, as the real story started to unravel.

I’m sure he was angry that the candidate put him through that, and made him look bad (to a degree).

Do you think Craig would want to work with, or recommend that candidate, ever?  If someone asked about that person, will Craig give a hearty reference?

I doubt it.

It’s better to just not lie. Especially to someone who should be in your corner (the recruiter).

This is from the HR Technology Conference, so it’s not totally about job search, but there was a lot of talent management talk, for sure.

Chris talks about video interviewing (with a shout out to my buddies at @HireVue – I hope you get to do an interview through their system, which is very cool stuff).

Check out this quote (from his post):

“Will need to rethink how we think about talent. In next 5 years, will have 5 retirees for every 1 entrant.” – @jasonaverbook

There’s in Chris’s post – if you are interested to see what HR thinks about, at a strategic level, check it out!

Networking is supposedly how you are going to land your next gig.

What if it just doesn’t work for you??

Read her post here.

Her points include:

Walk in (to companies).

Have someone call on your behalf. Much better to get an introduction than try a cold call.

Spread the word. Talk to everyone “who likes you!”

Use the call-email-call-call strategy. I haven’t heard of this before but I like it!  You’ll need a good job search CRM like JibberJobber.com to organize and manage this!

Send more than a thank-you note after an interview.

If someone else got hired, call the hiring manager. I LOVE THIS.

If networking not working from you, my experience tells me you aren’t doing the right things enough.

Read her post here to get her entire viewpoint.

In the comments, Marc Miller kind of defends them:

What I found is when people work for large companies like IBM and Dell (two major employers here) the environment is totally consuming. They put there heads down and work and work and work…

I agree. Work is all-consuming. I was consumed in all of my jobs.  But I didn’t network because I didn’t get it, not because I was consumed.

Knowing what I know now, which is how important a real network is for my career, I would absolutely make time to network.  Whether it is within a company or in the community or somewhere else, I would definitely make the time.

Not just because I don’t want to be “that guy,” but because I know that I need my network ready to help me, and between those times of need, I want to help them.

If you disappear between job searches it is only because you don’t understand what networking is, or how to network.  If you did, you would make the time to do it.

His brother was the hiring manager, and I knew I had the “in” I needed.

During the interview I could tell the job was mine…. if I wanted it.

By the end of the interview I knew that while I could do and enjoy the job (I had already been pursuing JibberJobber, what would become my main revenue stream), I wasn’t the RIGHT person for it.

The right person was a guy I had just met that had years of experience in what they needed. I met him at a network meeting for professionals in transition.  We talked just long enough for me to like and trust him.

And so I recommended him for an interview.

And they interviewed him, and offered him the job.

The job that would have been mine, if I wanted it, went to someone else.

I wasn’t making any money at the time, and I could have used that job, but I gave it away.

How did I feel about it?

GREAT!  I felt GREAT!

Giving is a big part of networking.  I never thought that meant giving someone else a job.

Other job seekers are, in a sense, competition.

What did I get from that other job seeker?  Not even a thank you.  Really.  He never came back to me and thanked me, even though I told him about the interview.  He just disappeared.

That’s okay, though. I know that I did the right thing.  And one day it will come back to me. I didn’t give the job away because I wanted a “thanks,” I gave it away because it was the right thing to do.

Who is your competition in your job search, and how do you treat them?