Jose Ruiz

QUESTION:

I currently have a job but I’m looking for better opportunities. I have been sending my resume out and I have sent it to at least 15 companies without a single request for interview. What am I doing wrong?

ANSWER:

First of all: STOP SENDING OUT YOUR RESUME. You might be doing yourself a lot of harm and not know it.

A few things may be happening and there are three things you need to consider before you continue your search:

1) The information and the structure of your resume.

2) Where you are sending your resume and why.

3) The suicide potential of sending out your resume to 15 companies when you already have a job.

I’ll focus on the last one (number 3) because it is the most critical. Very negative things can happen from blasting your resume and posting it all over the internet.

1) You might send the resume to a company for a position just to see what happens, you might do it twice or maybe three times in a few years and then you see a job opening that truly is a perfect fit for you and it matches your career goals. You send your resume again. The company looks at it and thinks “Oh! I know this guy, he sends his resume for EVERYTHING out there. Not focused. Go to the next one”.

I’m not making this up. As a Plant Director I had people send me their resume for an engineering position, an H.R. position and a sales position within two years…and their background was in purchasing! I would never hire someone that lacks that much focus because it is very likely that once I give them a job they will start blasting resumes again.

2) On thing that many hiring managers with access to public job boards will do when they get a resume (I do it myself!) is search for the person in a public database. It can signal if the candidate is an active job seeker which is not good.

3) Once you blast resumes to many companies and you post them all over the internet you better know that they are out there and can come back to haunt you in a bad way. I have received resumes that look pretty damn good and when I pull up my files or search the internet I find the person and SURPRISE! The resume is different. Titles have changed, in one case positions disappeared to cover-up being fired or spending very little time on a job. Assuming I’m still interested in the master of disguise, Can you guess which companies I call first for references?

4) Your current company can find out and not be happy. While they may not immediately fire you it will send the message that you will not be there long so you will likely be left out of promotions, training opportunities and salary increases.

Follow these rules if you don’t want to get burned:

1) Be very selective to where you send your resume

2) Work with private services that don’t provide public paid access to your resume

3) Avoid resume job boards and public sites

4) Keep track of your resume versions and be very careful on how you manipulate and change the information.

About Heidrick & Struggles International, Inc.
The world’s premier provider of senior-level executive search and leadership consulting services. The firm’s executive recruiters and leadership experts operate from principal business centers in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia Pacific. In Mexico, Heidrick & Struggles operates offices in Mexico City and Monterrey. For more information about Heidrick & Struggles please visit www.heidrick.com

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When the markets in Mexico began to first blossom in the early 1980s, the demand for labor from U.S. and other foreign companies in the region were mostly for low-skill, basic assembly operations. The ensuing need for engineers, administrative talent, and mid level management to support manufacturing operations accompanied the boom. But, even while there was demand for all of those skill positions, these individuals where still overseeing basic operations, and essentially, direct labor was a commodity, workers could be chosen right from the street and become productive all in the same day.

As the region became a hub for the automotive industry and specific electronic products like televisions in the late 80s and early 90s, more skills were in demand and training programs were soon set in place by many of the large organizations. However, once they were adequately trained, employees could then jump from one factory to the next, commanding better wages as they went since they wouldn’t have to be trained but would also have an immediate impact on production.

It was a rude awakening to many when many operations began to transfer to lower cost regions like China in the mid to late 1990s, causing the employment bubble to burst.

Today, there is a much greater mix of industries creating an increased demand for more well rounded skills. Some electronic manufacturers do still remain, but far more demanding industries such as biotechnology, medical devices, and aerospace are following on the heels of the automotive industry in Mexico.
Once again, these industries are changing the way labor behaves, putting a higher premium on industry-specific skills and creating a more stable workforce as they see their earnings decrease if they switch from one industry to another.

So, what does this mean for hiring managers? In short, this recent trend creates a more committed workforce who is trained on specific skills that increases their pay. In fact, individual workers are acquiring specific skill sets that are definitely more difficult to market to the factory next door, unless they are also from the same industry. So, for you, this can lead to increased loyalty. However, a drought in technical and engineering talent coupled with a NAFTA visa program is creating a labor market for technically trained Mexicans that extends into the U.S. and Canada. This extension of the labor market for Mexican technicians and engineers is now leveling salaries and benefits which means loyalty comes with a price.

Mexico Indexes Mexico Economy

I was at a dinner party last weekend and in the middle of a conversation regarding the labor market with the current economy I mentioned that hiring has not completely stalled but it has turned very specific. Organizations are trying to fill very specific positions with very specific profiles including profiles that require multicultural backgrounds. Recruiting for diversity teams.

An HR Manager working for a Fortune 500 mentioned that he felt diversity was turning into reverse discrimination. The issue in question was a recruiting process that was skewed towards “Diversity Candidates” and thus was discriminating against “Non-Diversity Candidates”

Reverse discrimination is a discussion that can last for hours specially if there is red wine involved. However it did open up the door to discuss the difference between recruiting for diversity and a diverse recruiting process.

Diversity efforts in recruiting are meant to create a diverse team in the workplace, which is different from a recruiting process that is diverse. It becomes just like any other search where specific requirements are targeted to complement a team. So a recruiting effort to build a diverse team will be a targeted effort.

How the team is structured and the reasons behind and organization’s effort to build a diverse team is a whole different story.

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