Down and Dirty Job Hunting Tactics that Really Work
By Getta Jobb
Published by Getta Jobb
Copyright 2011 by Getta Jobb
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Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1…….Ethics and Other Considerations
Chapter 2…….Resume Writing 101
Chapter 3…….Making Sure Your References Pass the Fact Checking Process
Chapter 4…….Own that job interview!
Conclusion
Introduction
This book will teach resume writing and job hunting strategies you won’t find in print anywhere else. You’re going to learn secrets that employers would rather you not know, ones that will put you in control of the hiring process.
We’ve all been told that managers only want to find good, honest, reliable people who can do the job. All too often this isn’t the case, however. Hiring decisions are made every day that are based on office politics, favoritism or outright prejudice. Chances are, you’ve already been turned down for a job based on something other than your qualifications.
Maybe the interviewer didn’t like your accent, your age, or some other irrelevant factor. Maybe they wanted someone thinner, prettier, or who shared their religious or political beliefs. The world of work is a brutally cold and unfair place.
The good news is that you’re not helpless. This book will teach you skills and tricks to even the playing field.
One of the many things you will learn is how to successfully stretch the truth on resumes and cover letters, as well as on job applications or in interviews. Most people fib a little anyway when they’re job hunting, now you’re going to learn how to do it right.
That’s why I emphasize the word “successfully.” Too many employment seekers make common mistakes when fabricating information. They fail to get the job they want and often their clumsy attempts at deception are easily detected by the interviewer. This can cause great embarrassment and forever cut off avenues of opportunity that would otherwise lead to exciting and profitable careers.
We’ll start out by discussing the most common objections people have to getting creative on their resume, including moral issues. Then we’ll take a crash course in resume writing. You’ll benefit from this chapter, even if you tell the complete truth when job seeking.
We’ll see what lies to tell, how to back them up with convincing, although fictitious, references, how to connect with a hiring manager on a personal level, and how to ensure that the transition into your new job goes smoothly. We’ll also discuss the limitations of falsifying resumes as well as mention the handful of professions in which you should NEVER misrepresent yourself in a resume or cover letter.
You’ll also learn how to size up the person conducting the interview, even before you meet them. You’ll know how to fly under their mental radar and influence their thoughts. You’ll discover ways to push the buttons in their minds, making you the person they offer a job to.
This book’s intended audience is quite large. Are you looking for work? Are you currently employed but not totally happy where you’re at? Would you like to know what to do in case you’re ever fired, laid off or if you quit? If so, then you should read it. Think of it as a buffet of ideas. Use what you like and leave everything else.
Knowledge is power, as they say, and in these pages you’ll find information that will tip the odds in your favor, when and if the day comes that you’re seeking work. So let’s forge ahead to the next page. A better life waits for you, if you have the ambition and courage to seek it.
Chapter One: Ethics and Other Considerations
Let's begin by tackling the most common concerns readers are likely to have about this book's subject. When the topic of putting bogus information on one's resume or cover letter comes up, a number of ethical objections arise. In this chapter I'll address those, showing that in many cases it’s not only morally permissible but even noble to do so.
Some Cold, Hard Facts
Once upon a time in the United States, work-related matters were fairly simple. Men generally followed in their father's footsteps , often apprenticing in the same office, factory, farm or shop that he did. When they reached a certain level of mastery, they assumed a vocation they would occupy the remainder of their productive years.
Women had significantly fewer opportunities. The most common path was to work in a relatively menial role until they met the man they would marry. Their post-nuptial lives revolved around homemaking, tending children and, in many cases, working alongside the husband in the family farm or storefront.
For both genders, life was routine and predictable. Savings and thrift were strongly emphasized, as there were few social programs available to assist those who fell into poverty. Economic realities forced unhappy couples to remain together, making divorce a rare and expensive option. As a whole, society was highly stable. But prospects for individuals to follow their personal desires were quite limited.
That world began to die as early as the 1920s. Technological innovations like the automobile, the telephone and the radio brought the far corners of the nation and the world closer together. World War II vastly accelerated this process, as women were recruited to fill factory jobs while men marched off to war.
But it was the post-war era that drove the final nails in the coffin of the old ways. The 1950s brought the interstate highway system and the 60s introduced women's liberation and the dissolution of traditional gender roles. A period of mass inflation in the 1970s wreaked havoc on the purchasing power of the middle class, necessitating the flow of wives and mothers into the workplace to help make ends meet,
Easy access to career training, the Internet, and multi-national corporations destroyed the last vestiges of the old world. Life in the 21st century offers unparalleled opportunities to the average Joe or Jane for education, careers, travel and personal enrichment. But such changes have come at a cost. Today's workplace is less secure and more competitive than ever before. Recent economic downturns have made this even more true.
We all like to believe that the positions in help wanted ads will go to the most qualified persons. That's a pleasant fantasy, but it's rarely the case. With a glut of job seekers to chose from, employers are free to pick and choose based on whatever arbitrary standards they like.
Imagine that the XYZ Company has an opening for a receptionist. Let's also assume that the person who does the hiring is a 45 year old male who fancies himself a ladies' man. He has total freedom to choose whichever applicant he wants, for whatever reasons make sense to him.
Three women apply for the position. Two of them are highly experienced secretaries with college degrees. They're also middle aged and overweight. Both have young kids at home.
The third has taken a handful of courses in office procedures, but has only worked as a waitress. She's 21, buxom and blond, and wears a short skirt to her interview. Her skills are none too abundant, but sufficient to do the job. Who do you think will be hired? Bingo. In such situations, cleavage trumps a college degree every time.
To show how universal this sort of thing is, let's look at the same scenario once more, this time changing a few details. The hiring manager is now a woman, a self-described feminist in her early 50s. Her last husband, a college professor, left her for one of his female students.
Three women apply for the job, just like last time. Two of them have been out of college for a few years, but both hold degrees in business and are well versed in Microsoft Office. They've worked in professional settings since graduating, are intelligent, and have impeccable references. I should also mention that neither has a shortage of male admirers.
The third applicant has short hair and masculine features. She wears no makeup and prefers pants to dresses. She's fresh out of a six-month training program at the local career center, where she learned filing, typing and basic computer skills. This makes her qualified to do the job, although she's far from a stellar candidate.
The manager has total freedom to hire whomever she pleases. Who of this trio of applicants will get a call back after their interview? Correct.
Think that Education Gives You an Edge Every Time? Think Again.
Let's explore a couple of other hypothetical situations. Rob Bell is a laid off computer engineer who's applying for a job repairing PCs for $15.00 an hour.
The pay is a big drop from his previous salary of $80,000.00 a year. But, he's desperate. He needs to bring in some money to keep his kids from going hungry.
Rob has worked on computers since the 1970s and knows them backwards and forwards. He has replaced hard drives, upgraded memory and processors, even removed viruses and spy ware. Back in the good old days when he was employed, he even set up a home network and built the computers his two teen aged children now use.
Rob is one of four people applying for the position. The other three are 20+ years his junior. One holds a high school diploma and certification in PC repair and networking, the other two are gamers with associate degrees who build PCs on the side as a hobby.
All of them can do the work, but Rob dwarfs the other candidates both in terms of experience and knowledge. So he proudly lists his master's degree in electronic engineering on his resume, along with pages of professional certifications in computers and electronics in his cover letter.
The hiring manager reviews his application papers, along with those presented by the others. He recalls that he can only pay $15.00 an hour, and that company guidelines specify that anyone with a technical degree must start at a minimum of 40K. Whose resume gets trashed? Right again.
Let's look at one more example, just to see how no one is safe from something like this. Once again we've got a job opening. This time it's an architect. Two men apply. One is named Howard Roark. He has worked in building design for almost three decades, and has drawn up plans for homes as well as factories, shopping malls and office complexes. His knowledge and abilities are superior to 99% of the others in the field, although his training came from drafting classes taken in the military plus self learning.
The other applicant is named Peter Keating. His abilities are middling, but he has a degree in architecture from a prominent university.
The hiring manager is constrained in whom he may hire by company guidelines. They require successful applicants to have a degree. Guess who gets the job? Not the best person for it, that's for sure.
The point is that, when it comes to hiring the right candidate for a job, honesty is not only not always the best policy, sometimes it's downright counterproductive. If this runs against what you were taught by your parents or in Sunday school, then I'm sorry, but it's still true.
Fabricating material on an application, resume or cover letter wouldn’t help in all the above cases. But it would in some, as well as many other situations that take place every day. Had Howard listed a college degree in his qualifications, he not Keating would have gotten the job, to not only his benefit but the company’s as well. I’ll show you how to do just that, and get away with it, in a later chapter.
Still not Convinced?
As little sense as it makes, there are probably still some out there who insist that a job seeker should always be totally forthcoming on their resume. “An employer deserves to know exactly what he’s getting; besides, lying is a sin!” they may proclaim.
Tell that to Joe Mascario. For two decades he worked as a forklift driver at a warehouse that shipped work uniforms across the country. He was loyal and devoted to doing his best. He assumed that the managers were men of honor, who truly cared about him and the other employees.
Then one day he was talking to a female coworker during lunch, a single mother of three named Sally. She seemed very upset and Joe asked her what was wrong.
“It’s Doug, my supervisor,” she said, her voice cracking as tears came. “He makes me – do things to him. I get called into his office two or three times a week. He pretends it’s to talk about my job performance. But when the door closes he starts.”
Joe’s face tightened as he listened to his friend’s story. “I swear, Joe,” she said, “if I didn’t need this job to feed my kids I’d kill him. But I can’t be out of work.”
“Why don’t you go to his superior?” Joe said.
Sally looked up at him, her expression a mixture of sadness and disbelief. “How can you have worked here all these years,” she said, “and not know the truth? Joe, they all do it! Larry Platt, the general manager, has molested every girl in the office! He has them terrified that he’ll fire them. With his family’s influence he could make sure they never work in this state again.”
Joe decided he would look into what Sally was telling him. He checked with some of the other ladies. Most refused to discuss it, but a handful confided in him, confirming what Sally had said.
Joe had a friend who worked in the state employment office, and he contacted him about what was going on. Several months later, after an extended investigation, Sally’s boss and several of the managers were terminated. Larry Platt, however, emerged unscathed. He found out that Joe started everything. A few weeks later Larry fired Joe for clocking in 30 seconds late, although Joe is rarely tardy and hasn’t missed a day of work in five years.
What will happen if Joe lists this employer on his resume and Platt receives a call about him? Will he say, “Joe’s a fine man and terrific worker. I only fired him because I was sexually harassing my female staff and he ruined that for me?”
If you believe that’s what would occur then you may as well stop reading now. You’re beyond help. If, on the other hand, you agree that in this world things aren’t always black and white, then read on. I’m going to teach you a set of skills that you will find handy in your struggle to survive in this cold, hard world.
Whether you like it or not, you’re surrounded by idiots and assholes who would cut your throat just for the joy of watching you bleed. Knowing how to protect yourself from them is no sin. Learning how to stretch the truth a bit on a resume or cover letter is part of that. Now, let’s get into the nuts and bolts of how it’s done.
Chapter Two: Resume Writing 101
There’s a right and wrong way to do every task, including telling fibs on your resume. Handle it properly and you could end up with the job of your dreams. Screw it up and you will not only fail to find work, you could shut the door to any future opportunities with that company.
Fortunately I’m an old pro at it. I’ve been writing resumes for over twenty years and have never told the entire truth on a single one. In fact, most have featured significant deviations from reality, ones that were never caught. Now I’m going to share my vast knowledge with you, O seeker of gainful employment.
Let’s start with something very basic. In order to get hired you must offer something a company wants, which leads to the question below.
What do Companies Want?
The short answer is that they want the same thing you want: money.
Greenbacks
Scratch
Coinage
Lettuce
Cheese
Bank
Call it what you will. It’s why billions of people get out of bed every morning, put on clothes they don’t want to wear and venture out into the elements to start the car, catch the bus or train, hitch a ride or walk. It’s why they spend hours a day in a place they would rather not be, doing something they would prefer not to do.
Simple enough, but the trillion dollar question is: how can a company get money? If you rule out the Tony Soprano approach then there’s only one way. They must offer people goods or services that those customers value more than the bills in their pockets.
That’s where you come in. Whether you’re assembling toasters, deep frying pickles or performing brain surgery, you’re creating a utility (a little economic terminology there) that the company can then sell.
If, on the other hand, you’re a telemarketer, salesperson or one of those people that give out little slices of pizza in the food stores, you’re involved in the marketing of those goods to prospective buyers. But whichever role you fulfill, you’re helping the company to become wealthier.
In exchange, they agree to share some of that wealth with you. That can be a salary, an hourly wage, commissions or bonuses, or even benefits such as a 401k or health insurance. That is your bottom line, the profit you gain from your job, minus costs for travel, clothing, equipment, or what have you.
“Not just anyone can do this.”
That statement applies to every task out there. Even scrubbing toilets or asking “do you want fries with that?” requires a certain level of intelligence and manual ability. Aware of this, companies hire selectively, making job offers only to those whom they believe can fulfill the duties inherent in the position.
That leads us to the Golden Rule of Resume Writing. Memorize it. Paste it to your forehead. Write it on a note and stick it to your bathroom mirror. Put it in your phone greeting. Ready? Here it is: