I want to believe that my LinkedIn profile is good enough
and I would be the first to say any profile can be improved upon, but there is
no perfect profile, we are just trying to project our best selves.
However, I get barraged with lots of
emails from recruitment and talent acquisition specialists, though I am left
wondering what the specialism is, as it is becoming obvious to me that they
neither read nor assess my profile before proposing totally unsuitable roles
that do not fit my experience, expertise, location, or remuneration
requirements.
It would seem their professional
acumen is vying for a world record in some sort of whack-a-mole exercise of
flooding prospects in the hope that one or a few might be hit hard enough to be
responsive.
Interest me, engage me
Too many times, I am asked to forward
my CV on scant job information, they, thinking I would be interested when they
have neither interested nor engaged me.
If you are contacting me, I would hope
you have first read my profile and the embedded CV, your specialism coming to
the fore by treating me as a professional, through reviewing my experience,
roles, responsibilities, and broader profile, rather than as a mercenary for
hire.
Then, interest me with a useful job
profile along with the associated remuneration range - cut to the chase with
the view that we do not want to waste each other's time.
If I am interested, you will get a
response and we can have a discussion about the role and the prospects.
Recruiters need to get better, the slap-dash approach is becoming an annoyance,
hence this post.
I can imagine that
not many recruitment consultants would have the time to go through my curriculum
vitae (CV) in a professional quest to know their candidate, it makes me wonder
if they devote any time to knowing their client too. Maybe, it would take time
for the recruitment industry to adopt the due diligence activities of the
financial institutions to ‘know your customer’
(KYC) as part of anti-money
laundering (AML) requirements and regulations.
Now, I raise this
because, if the recruitment consultant that called me this morning had bothered
to KYC by reading my CV and before that, KYC by fully appreciating what their
customer requirements along with details of the opportunity being offered, we
might have had a different conversation along with my offering some grudging
respect to a professional cohort that rarely works hard enough to earn it.
Know the location
It transpired that
this recruitment called me about a job in Marburg in Germany, I asked
there exactly Marburg was, she didn’t know (KYC) and eventually found it was
near Frankfurt, between Bonn and Frankfurt, she said, but it has no relation to
the former.
I know a bit of
German geography and places, it is indeed near Frankfurt am Main to be
differentiated from Frankfurt
an der Oder on the Polish border, for there are many same name towns in
Germany that need to be qualified by their regions, else you might end up
hundreds of kilometres away from your intended destination.
One must make that
point; if you are a recruitment consultant seeking to place a candidate abroad,
do the research, find out about the place, the history, the cost of living, the
interesting things. Sell the place as you sell the opportunity. Don’t appear
stupid, it is annoying.
A chilling discovery
The offer was not
exciting though, you don’t take me from an exciting English city and plonk me
in the middle of a provincial German town for a pittance, though it does have
centuries of interesting history and recent notoriety. It did not occur to me
in these Coronavirus times until I checked that Marburg is an eponym for the Marburg virus which was
first described in 1967 when German workers were exposed to tissues of infected
grivet monkeys. The Marburg
virus is in the class of the Ebola virus, they are both haemorrhagic fever
viruses.
Obviously, I found
myself going down this rabbit hole, in search of why grivet monkeys that are
native to a region of East Africa were leaving infected tissue in provincial
Germany. Then for the grace of absolution, the entry for the hapless grivet
monkey does not cross-reference to the virus. They must have edited their Wikipedia
entry to remove the stigma.
Going from my
reaction, I began to understand why for posterity reasons, the new Coronavirus,
first identified in Wuhan, China, ended up with the name COVID-19 rather than
the Wuhan virus, for a sudden irrational thought somewhere in the future, might
unwittingly taint any desire to be anywhere near Wuhan for anything. Much as we
somewhat identify many other diseases that are eponymously named. [List of
eponymously named diseases – Wikipedia][Science
Magazine – WHO rules for Naming Diseases]
Don’t waste my time
Then, back to the
crux of this blog, I wrote two blogs yesterday, one about recruitment agents
and the other about the Coronavirus, there are links to my blogs from within my
CV if it looks interesting enough to the reader.
In the case of the
recruitment agent who had not done her homework and was completely out of her
depth matching my profile to the requirements, if she understood either, a little
more attention to detail rather than shuffling papers and manning a phonebank
to earn commission might have achieved more for her, probably not with me, but
with someone who might have seen the Marburg role as an opportunity.
Finally, if you are recruiting
for an architect, don’t suggest the remuneration of a technician, it is a waste
of time for both parties. It is not arrogance, just a bit of self-respect, many
candidates are not hungry dogs jumping at any bone tossed at them and
recruitment agents need to begin to earn their commissions by really putting in
the work.
We are a churning
marketplace that shifts through bit parts of being customer, seller, or
product, we could even be a shop or shop window.
Like in a bazaar, we
are flipped like fresh fish, then poked, and prodded to determine if we are of
the quality to be served for dinner at home or in a restaurant. Nowhere is this
of particular import than where you are on the job market seeking an
opportunity for which you are first qualified and able to deploy your expertise
and experience whilst at the same time you try to discern whether that prospect
sets you up for the new when the project ends.
Don’t recruit like a
brute
The engagement with
recruitment agencies is at times a battle of wits, some of whom have just
passed your profile through an ineffective and crude mangler without paying any
attention to the detail therein.
There are times I
have suggested I am a technical prostitute on the market for punters and
patrons that take my fancy as much as they might be interested. Yet, it is not
for anyone who comes or anything that goes. Discernment and discrimination are
paramount, for there must be a good fit with the recruiter than engages you to
represent your interests for which they will earn a fee if you accept the
opportunity as even as they work to meet the requirements of their client.
Work for your keep
What irks me most is
those who don’t do their homework at all, getting the basics of what we are
about before calling and setting out to useful detail what the prospect
portends. For instance, if you bring me an opportunity on mainland Europe, have
answers for the concerns about Brexit and if relocation issues might be
constrained for all sorts of reason. Then, already do an analysis on
comparative cost of living to remuneration for taking someone out of their
comfort zone abroad.
It is an insult to
call me to match or offer than the same rate I am on in the UK where I have my comforts,
accommodation, life, and friends as if you are doing me a favour. Much as I
like adventure, I will not be fulfilling a role at a cost to myself just because
you are persuasive or enthusiastic. I have been dealing with recruitment agents
for decades, you are probably new to this game.
The market trumps all
I guess the funniest
question I have had to answer is whether I have other offers I am considering.
Let this be understood without any equivocation, I am on the market until
contracts and agreements have been signed and delivered. Unless you are paying
to keep me off the market, I have no obligation or allegiance. There are times
I have gullibly trusted the word of a stranger and lost time and opportunity
when the supposed arrangement fell through.
As a free agent, the
decision for what I will do and where I will go is ultimately mine to make, if
your sales patter does not sell, it would not be bought. It is not for me to become
sentimental for what I have not obtained a binding and legally enforceable
contract for.
In the end, I also must
believe in myself, my reticence to apply for certain roles where I am well
qualified and can grow to fill the opportunity is a battle of self-assurance
and growing self-esteem. In my doubts, I hope a little voice of faith just
urges me to do step out, step up, like someone I love would say, step on it. I
will rise to the occasion.
Attending
interviews are almost a stress elevating activity that one wonders how to scale
that hurdle in a market where the employer has choices.
As it transpired, from the interviews slots on offer, the first was selected and the round of questions began with as vague as possible enquiries about experience that answering questions were difficult.
Much as interviewers are already in the system, the need to school them in proper interview technique might be missed and in the process what might appear as an excellent performance on telephone might not be a demonstration of the wealth of experience.
Whilst the CV is quite clear on the particular skills on sale, the questions seem to ignore that context though it has been reviewed before a shortlist elects to engage you in discussion.
Breaching the gate
The sometimes insurmountable are questions that derive from everyday practical experience of the interviewer, which may never have been encountered by the interviewee. Some solutions are never needed until one is met with a problem demanding that solution amongst many.
Nothing can
simulate enough the demands of some of these questions and the lack of use
depreciates in the memory, to fleeting, unsure and seemingly badly delivered
answers belying a sense of lacking in confidence.
One cannot afford to be fearful, at the same time one just needs the chance beyond the gate to prove that one is much beyond the conversation had before.
The question is,
how do you breach that to allow a greater conviction of who and what you are?
Gathered strangers
of situation and circumstances from all walks of life seeking new relevance in
the world of work.
Under the tutelage
of some who for reason and opportunity find a calling in what they do as
opposed to what they could do if they cared little.
Yet, they are all caught in the maelstrom and spectrum of ability that ranges from the talentless in other departments to the talented in company, the impartations sometimes useful or sometimes useless.
Tumbled by slumber
Forms ruled the day
as time fillers and occupational activity, but one whose slumber interrupted
his ability to keep pace was sent to his bed with much agitation, his bad luck,
a result of his not being able to keep his eyes open.
Maybe he should
have declared Human
African trypanosomiasis as a condition, but he did not look African,
probably he was a somnambulist and the course leader might have been a bit
lenient, but the class being held back meant progress was too slow to retain any
patience.
There is no shame is saying you have sleeping disorder, there are therapies and help available to those who recognise their frailties, but that is by the by.
Interesting insights
The discussions, lively, funny and humorous, the time passed with periods of boredom helped along with engagement and banter, sometimes skirting the risqué but never offensive – friendships can grow from this.
Why do you want this job?
What skills do you possess that makes you the right
person for this job?
Apparently, those
two questions are essentially the same question phrased differently and can be
asked at different ends of the interview with the interviewer expecting similar
rather than different answers.
In closing
However, one should
hope that interviewers are not rigidly schooled in particular expectations
without the flexibility to assess the total person beyond the rote of function
and conformity.
A few more hand-outs, the polishing up of the marketing literature and the mandated requirement was completed to satisfaction with a certificate to boot.
Here is to better
luck, favour and good fortune in the next endeavour.
At a government
mandated training course this morning where the disconnect between all related
departments became so apparent that it was laughable, the dead
hand of government protocols landed with a thud before us.
The question was
whether any of the participants knew why they had to attend the course on
advice and instruction of their advisors, for literally all the answers given, none
was close.
Persuade to dissuade
The referral office
was just ticking boxes without knowledge of the reasons to tick boxes, as each
answer ranged from helping to write CVs, finding work for long-term unemployed,
interviewing technique tips and useful preparations for work.
Surreptitiously, part of the purpose of sending people for this course is to frustrate them off the welfare roll and at least one of the attendees disappeared the moment the group broke up for the first break session.
To the market with the marketable
However, in the
midst of the mundane and rudimentary, there are nuggets of wisdom, clues as to
how people can alter their outlook and mind-set, leading to gainful employment.
Fundamentally, a CV
is marketing literature; it is the means of selling yourself to the market. A market
seeking talent and expertise you may possess.
The CV should create enough curiosity to excite interest, but it should never be overloaded such that there are no discussion points to give depth and detail to the ability and personality of the person.
The demeanour to project
We rise to challenges
thrown our way in everyday walks of life but that boldness and confidence with
which we effortlessly tackle problems seems to be lost at interview.
It is important to
act naturally, being oneself rather than trying to impress thereby giving rise
to nervousness, one of the factors indicative of poor interview technique.
Blessed at the font of the double page
The advice whilst
useful could be quite prescriptive as preferred fonts being Garamond or
Verdana, set headings providing uninspiring structure, page setups with set
margins or that a CV must never exceed two pages with the employment history
restricted to five years except for security or artistic roles.
For information
technology roles, the suggestion is to use LinkedIn to document the other roles
or have a webpage containing that detail.
Some things
Avoid clichés like ‘hard-working’ or ‘customer service skills’ in the profile because people are expected to be hard-working regardless, and customer service skills are innately functions of a person’s respect for others, acting courteously, politely and with a friendly disposition – you either have it or not.
Besides all this,
forms, yes, many forms filled to the point of distraction but with the
challenges, opinions, reviews, assessments and the ideas, it really was not a
wasted day. Another day of observation and participation is set for the morrow.
The Fridays come with a regularity that
breeds more concern than relief. It is usually not the end of a working week
but the end of a week when innumerable applications have been successively and
promptly followed by rejections for all sorts of reasons.
Qualified and experienced as I am, the
tales of rejection get more incredible by the day you almost want to let out a
nicely phrased expletive of annoyance and anger with that element of a put-down
to say you are none too pleased.
However, one must exercise restraint
because these people - recruiters are essentially the gate-keepers to the jobs
I am looking for, they are the three-headed rabid and drooling dog retained as
sentinel by companies that do not want to get involved in the minutiae of
negotiating the quality from the quantity before they are presented
subjectively with people the recruiters think might be suited to the role.
A collision course
The hurdles I am presented with daily
range from my being expected to be a Jack-of-all-trades, my being too
qualified, my not being exposed enough to bleeding-edge technologies or even my
not being able to drive.
Having worked in international
organisations of well over 10,000 users, sometimes as many as 60,000 seats,
there is enough work of specialism involved that one cannot be spread too thin,
rather, you have knowledge of what you need from other skills or teams.
Obviously, it will be difficult to
conceal a career spanning over 2 decades doing amazing stuff and much as one
has done the mundane, if you are offered the knowledge cheap don't assume I am
so driven by greed to jump at the next best opportunity, some of us are still
bound by old-fashioned principles of keeping to contracts, doing our best and
standing as exemplary gentlemen - if only some people will believe the best of
the few than the worst of the many to include the blameless.
Bleeding-edge technologies are fun for
the great features they bring and over time we who have experience have mostly
contributed to how things have eventually turned out, be it office software or
back-end systems, each progressive upgrade has brought glee and fun - we would
most likely test the products through beta but rarely get to use the products
in production until the business has exhausted the software and hardware cycle
they are in.
Back-end delivery systems might be easy
to deploy, the front-end is however fraught with more difficulty and that is
for reasons of user awareness and broader support systems to accommodate
issues, then there is compatibility with legacy system or if you are ahead of
your customer base but have to share media and data with them - considerations
you should not be dealing with long after you have put out your new toys and
found out that no one else can play with you.
People like me pre-empt this all the time
and plan transitions that will benefit the business rather than grind it to a
halt.
Wizened with time
People like me bring much more to the
table, beyond ability we have awareness, discernment, understanding and
experience that comes with constant application, recognition, adjustment,
review, remodelling and solution.
A good deal of this will not show in a
CV, it comes expressed in discussion, usually at interview. It is possible that
we are selling ourselves so short that the one glance at our CVs without
certain buzzwords or keywords puts us out of the running in favour of those who
have perfected the sell but will not have the goods to deliver.
So, as we approach every Friday, I wonder
again how well I have done or how badly I have let the week slip away once
again - Thank God for everyday but for a while, I have not expressed the
worker's relief of – TGI-Friday.
Putting yourself
back on the market for a job after a break can be a daunting experience. Having
accounted for your absence you are left with how to make recruiters interested
in your skills, all acquired over time and packaged as experience.
Sometimes, what
your CV was so good at doing at a certain time of your career may today be
doing a less effective job and this requires that you have other people
critique and review your CV – an experience that could be quite bruising but
helpfully frank too.
Malleable CVs
The mistake many of
us make is to turn our CVs into tablets of the law delivered from the mount
when they should be as flexible and directional as a wind vane, catching the
blast of the air and showing where it is going.
One truth I
realised so recently was that your CV is not a one-size-fits-all for the jobs
on the market, each time you have to skew your experience to match the
opportunity which will allow the recruiter to immediately see if your skills
match an opportunity on their cards.
For so long my CV
was more suited to my professional network, it worked in the hands of people
who already knew me, my work ethic, my abilities and potential. As one expert
in the field put it, I had a social CV – that was a tough indictment.
Engage with the familiar
He went on to say
my CV was telling stories that very few will have the time to read if I was not
already known or somewhat recommended. With the competition on the job market
and the attention spans that last less than the times to skim of the top page of the CV,
one had to radically change the complete package to elicit better responses –
my CV had to begin to target people who will only notice me from familiar
things they see on my CV.
For that to happen,
I needed things I have for long considered anathema in a CV but for the
recruiter and manager are crucial – keywords, buzzwords, jargon, spiel and
clichés.
The conservative
mind in me with the well documented use of prose and language was now being
asked to pedestrianize my CV for the lowest common denominator to order to have
the eyes, then the ears and hopefully the role at the end of it.
Motivate interest with motivation
Another aspect I
cannot say I am good at but I find is literally mandatory for when applying for
a job in the Netherlands is the motivation letter or what the English will call
a cover letter.
My friend offered
these basic tips, if you know about the company; flatter them, then be excited
about the role, tell them why you are well suited for the role using words or
paraphrases from the job description and do not forget to include other virtues
you might have boasting of your abilities and talents.
Use the active voice
and ask them to call you providing your number within the letter, but even
before the letter might have been read, call them too and ask questions that
will compel answering services to pass you to the principals.
These are
extraversion attributes I will have to cultivate, difficult as they might seem
at first, it is war out there and you just have to be more than prepared to
take the market on and work the system.
And much else
Along with this,
position yourself for opportunities, show flexibility and broaden your view by
including yourself in what you have the aptitude to attain rather than limiting
yourself because you have not mastered a skill.
Much as you might
want to tell a lot about yourself in your CV, leave space for the imagination and
the desire for the recruiter to want to learn more about you by meeting you.
Between writing and speaking
One particularly
fundamental lesson I took away from the review of my CV was to write about all
my strengths but only talk about my weaknesses or vulnerabilities if the issue
comes up.
HR departments on
sighting a chink in your armour will most likely give you a wide berth than
find ways to accommodate you.
As my preconceived
thoughts about CVs got jettisoned and consigned to the scrapheap of the
ineffectual, I can only hope that my new marketing literature, having excised
the superfluity of the inconsequential will present interest, engagement,
acceptance, consideration and contract.
It has recently become apparent that the wealth of professional experience and the almost enviable record of impact and radical change that has somewhat been the hallmark of my career over 23 years was no more turning heads as much.
Times when one would turn down opportunities because the people had put you through an interrogation of waterboarding and asphyxiation whilst waiting for a better opportunity that always eventually came have somehow passed.
My first job
My very first job was in a brewery just after secondary school, by arrangement of my father who was the Chief Accountant, I went for interview where the test of my knowledge of chemistry and physics for a laboratory assistant’s job put my pride at stake and obviously the reputation of my father where if I performed badly, it would reflect badly on both of us and possibly any other recommendations for employment my father makes.
They were impressed and on the way back from the interview, I had by reason of the moving vehicle fallen asleep as I was wont to leaving the driver to a reckless manoeuvre that had a laden truck ram into us from behind and still had us at fault with no eye witnesses.
I did start work on the following Monday but there was no time to reflect on how well I did, but by the time I left, I observed that the end of the line in the loading bay had some cartons of beer poorly packed, with broken bottles and in one instance there was a cockroach in a ready-to-go delivery.
Shaking it up
I suggested to my manager a quality checking procedure that meant randomly selecting 12 cartons at different times of the day to check for the quality of the contents, checking off a worksheet which fed back into the system to improve quality through all parts of the beer-to-bottle-to-carton process.
Each subsequent job where I have been allowed the latitude, I have been a change and improvement agent, just because it happens and just because it benefits the organisation and it was just a matter of course which when looked back on is radical in its effect and wonderful to behold.
Somehow, I have never been there long enough to reap rewards before another scheme called on my skills to do something simple and realise something complete, the knowledge passed on to the extent that one becomes too expensive to keep on – in any case, at that time, my work is usually done and pastures anew await.
Putting letters to the skill
Today, my marketing literature reads well but does not pass the muster because there are no letters validating basic knowledge even though the words speak of extensive experience from three countries supporting global enterprises in complex environments.
So, something needs to be done to get my stuff beyond those filters that prevent that first call, the contact, that chat, that interview and that job.
The joy of study for an examination was rekindled and I dusted some books, refreshed my knowledge on some obscure features and watched simulations of some activities and I prepped my system for some practice.
Having fun
I chuckled and laughed in the library as I watched the expression of the thinking that went into some processes, the apparently complex stuff being made simple and easy to grasp and understand.
I was having amazing fun preparing for an examination that I plan to take very soon and pass well, I would immediately update my curriculum vitae and send it out to those who matter with the hope that it would begin to percolate to the top.
Twice before, I scheduled three tests for the same day and did brilliant clearing the full certification in weeks, couple that with experience and a return to helping others in forums I have long been passive on and well, the makings of a bigger profile loom.
I am enjoying this and well, I am not throwing in the towel for what at certain times had me in the top 10% of experts in my field. I am even thinking of going back to university but there are pressing needs that need to be in order to chart that course confidently.
The fundamental lesson really is one has to change to remain relevant or the threat of irrelevance when not heeded to with radical change will leave you out.
Reading a Facebook status just now made me reflect on an aspect of my life that I have somewhat tried to leave behind but find is almost always in the centre of my existence.
She wrote, “All of us have a thousand wishes. To be thinner, have more money, a new phone. A cancer patient only has one wish, to kick cancer's ass. I know that 97% of you won't post this as your status, but my friends will be the 3% that do. In honor of someone who died, or is FIGHTING cancer, post this for at least one hour.”
I can well appreciate that many would chip in with sympathy and empathy with a comment in support of those fighting cancer, it is however hardly the whole story.
Recovery is a lot more than recovery
I find that my recovery period is long, hard and very present from the physical and physiological condition that requires quarterly check-ups through my blood tests and inspection of the scarred areas that bore the cancer lesions to challenges of life in making a living and remaining relevant in the workplace.
It was the reality of this that compelled me to go back to work within 6 weeks of chemotherapy and it was not an easy task at all but with all the bills and the risk of losing my home looming something had to be done because welfare support could only go so far and it had yet to kick in then.
What made me cope with the thrust and pressure of work after literally 11 months of illness and out of the job market was the accommodation that allowed me do a 32-hour week with Wednesdays off, but each day for the first few months was the force of the will and mind over the capabilities of the body – it was patently against medical advice but circumstances can so seriously dictate the decisions you make especially if you are single and dependent on the goodwill of friends who have stuck closer to you in times of adversity.
It dogs you for change
Recently, I had the opportunity to apply for an interesting job but that 11-month gap in my CV needed explaining and much as many are fascinated by the story of a cancer survivor they are not necessarily on the mercy mission to allow someone who had gone through such an ordeal to complicate their work schedules.
I also find that my CV is in need of a radical review where my once very strong technical skills now have to be relegated for soft skills of business analysis, project management, risk profiling and managing change in the enterprise all of which were core areas of expertise that allowed me do what I needed to do for the organisations I have worked for.
This is where a good 23 years of business savvy needs to come to the fore like no other time before and where I should probably seek some help in ensuring my closeness to this matter does not compromise the real message of my abilities.
Winning wars and fighting battles
However, the matter of fighting cancer is that of battles that are won each day against all sorts of prevailing circumstance with wars that endure for long with that hope that you are maintaining the upper-hand.
The pills have their hours, bills have their demands, the tills need to be ringing and the wills remain strong because this fight will never be over but we can find the might to make light of the fright that can readily blight the prospect of a bright future.
Until you have been there, these shoes are not the easiest to walk in on the rocky paths strewn with thorns and the swampy forests that harbour creatures that could so literally take your breath away.
LinkedIn* is more or less the professional networking site that allows for people to keep tabs with people one has somewhat interacted with in professional life.
For a person who has been self-employed most of my working life and has worked in many organisations, LinkedIn offers a forum to keep tabs with people I have worked with and also allows one to keep abreast of the careers of those same people.
Most recently, I tapped this professional network for job opportunities after having been out of work for almost a year and that mostly due to serious illness. I was glad to find that many of my ex-colleagues responded with sympathy and help which eventually lead to a job.
Self-referencing resource
I have also found that the LinkedIn profile can serve as an adjunct to a curriculum vitae (CV) because it can contain information that would not necessarily appear on a CV for instance, it can be a self-referencing portal if an employer reviews the profile finds people you have worked with and probably knows those people or organisations and make qualified assumptions or deductions of the prospect.
A slightly more subjective but useful function in LinkedIn is the recommendation feature, it can be interesting and indicative of the views ex-colleagues have of a person, hence, it is important that the writer and recipient pay particular attention to the construction, content, context, intent and import of the recommendation.
The recipient is given the opportunity to edit and recommend to the writer changes that would reflect better in order not to have the opinions misconstrued by other readers.
Understand before acceptance
Where English is used but not the mother-tongue, it is even more pertinent that the matter be reviewed by an English speaker before publication. I have at least in a number of cases had to decline recommendations that were subject to unfavourable interpretation even though the intentions were noble and generous – such however should not be enough to allow a recommendation or it would be the equivalent of shooting oneself in the foot.
I was completely mortified when I read a recommendation posted on a LinkedIn profile, I was half persuaded to highlight that the intention and the meaning were at complete variance. However, on reflection, the writer might well have meant what he wrote and the recipient none the wiser about the nuances and pitfalls of the gentle English putdown has proudly published this damning assessment of abilities sandwiched in passable praise.
The short recommendation
“Person is a great consultant with a lot of knowledge from everything. Doesn't bother helping you with all sort of things. Really a great team worker and a nice colleague.”
Three short sentences that speak volumes that are either lost in translation from a Dutch context or are a good excuse to use language as a deficiency to castigate in the most unfair light.
Person is a great consultant with a lot of knowledge from of everything. Either way, the knowledge from or more correctly, the knowledge of everything could easily read as a Jack of all trades and a master of none. The more charitable turn of phrase would probably have been a very broad knowledge of technical concepts – giving it a more specific frame of context. Whilst Dutch allows for verbosity and generalisations that could be easily contextualised, English is not that forgiving.
Does he bother or does he mind?
Doesn't bother helping you with all sort of things. This is the damning part because it reads like he doesn’t mind helping you in every way but it says he is the most unhelpful person you can find regardless of the situation presented to him.
It might be that the writer thought bother was synonymous with mind; in some contexts ‘Are you bothered?’ or ‘Do you mind?’ could be interchangeable but definitely not here. With Google Translate to Dutch the meaning did not carry as well until I modified the sentence to read as “He doesn't bother helping you with all sort of things.”
Dutch requires that the object and subject are very explicit in a sentence, it is not that good with implicit references and so this passed the censorship of the recipient when it should not have gone any further.
Can he really be?
Really a great team worker and a nice colleague. This would leave one almost wondering what the writer was trying to say after the first two sentences and it might well allow one to consider the possibility of a Freudian slip. Malevolently, this was the sweetener to the bait, obfuscating the intentions in the second sentence.
You might call it pedantic but recommendations are read with a greater attention to the detail rather than the general idea of what the writer is trying to convey – this recommendation has in my opinion torn the professional reputation of an otherwise knowledgeable and great consultant who is a nice colleague to shreds.
To think this recommendation has been published for over 2 years might well mean the damage is already done.
As for my opinions of the recipient, I could not possibly comment any further. The advice is, never accept wholesale a recommendation you do not fully understand and comprehend regardless of the good intentions of the benevolent writer.
Over 20 years of work experience, I have done many things and worked with people. Today, I decided to tap on the network of people I have met in my working life and ask for their assistance in finding a job.
Some of them I have not spoken to in a very long time, but somehow, I felt seeing my message might remind them of their experiences of my expertise, work ethic and abilities and hopefully, they might just rekindle that with offering me a job or recommending me to other recruiters in their network.
The text of the letter follows and I just thought, if I could not use my professional contacts, my blog, my social networks and any other connections to find work too, what are those networks for if they are not also part of life itself?
The letter
I have overcome adversity and now I seek opportunity, opportunities I hope and believe you all as ex-colleagues at work or at school, who I have worked for, worked with or helped at work can offer – I address you all.
I do have an extensive curriculum vitae but that only contains some basic truths of my work experience and maybe what I have achieved before, I definitely cannot put in another section talking about how I fought cancer or how you liked or hated working with me, those are life experiences of a different significance.
However, having come out of that situation, I need to get back to work and want to get back to work – I am speculating and hoping that with the recall of experiences you have had working with me you can help me with assignments or know people who have assignments that you believe I can tackle with the ability, expertise and professionalism you remember me for.
I know this is an unusual message to send to you all but if I cannot tap on the wonderful experiences and network I have had in the last 20 years in this critical but necessary time, then I might have failed to have any impact in all the workplaces where I have been given the opportunity to work, serve and maybe change for the better, all with your help.
I have attached my resume [My LinkedIn Profile here] for your perusal and hope that very soon occasion will warrant being at your service again, I can also be contacted on number provided.
Thank you and the very kindest of regards,
Yours faithfully,
Akin Akintayo
So, all I have to do now is wait and I will keep you posted as to how it all turned out.
Yesterday morning, I got a call from a very enthusiastic recruitment consultant who found my CV on a jobs board and thought my experience and skills-set would be useful and suitable to his client.
This consultant had placed 37 out of a 100 technical staff with his client, so he probably had a good idea of who and what his client needs.
An hour later, he called me deflated stating some technical person had seen my CV and somewhat “trivialised” the context of it.
However, this consultant was not about to give up on my prospect, he asked me to write an email to him explaining how and why my wealth of experience should not fall into the pigeon-hole I had been placed in.
I have reformatted that email into my blog format and here it is.
What I am about
Below, you will find my cause and purpose, my views and drive, what makes my work-life exciting and in the end, it is a simple expression to any organisation to give me a job that can change your organisation for the better.
There are things in here, specific to my CV that I have left in place, parts of it might be a bit technical, but the thrust of it is that I try to put a fully human dimension on the use of information technology for the benefit of that organisation.
If you do have an interest as regards my being employed by your organisation, please leave a comment or send an email to forakin at gmail dot com.
Meeting that challenge
Dear Recruiter,
Thank you for our conversation yesterday and the enthusiasm you showed in my skills which unfortunately were not appreciated by the people who reviewed them. I have decided to take up the challenge of explaining why it is myopic to consider my activities in "Desktop Deployment" trivial and why it should be seen as beyond just the desktop or just deployment.
It is a bit of a long email, but it is difficult to put this kind of thinking in a CV or relate this easily without the convenience of an interview, I hope you will have the patience to read it through and let me know your views either by reply or a phone call. Thank you very much for your time and the challenge.
My experience
Now, it is quite easy with simplification to look at a person's career in terms of the tools the person uses to perform a job, but anyone can use tools, but it is a talented artisan that can produce objects of amazing value, worthy of commendation and admiration.
Indeed, for more than 13 years, I have used Microsoft SMS 1.2/2.0/2003 and now Microsoft Systems Center Configuration Manager 2007 to manage environments, the smallest being BT/Infonet with just about 1,500 users and the largest being over 40,000 users in ING Bank.
Seeing things from different ends
Whilst the Mission Critical vision appears to view things from the backend to the user and mission critical pertains to what keeps a business running from day-to-day, I have extended the vision of how I use my tools to understand how 1 user or 40,000 users can connect seamlessly to their organisation and access the mission critical applications they need to perform their duties to make the organisation competitive, profitable and leader in whatever field they are in.
Critical to this observation is that SMS (I will use this broadly to encompass all tools to do with software control & deployment) is used to deploy software, applications, utilities, tweaks, patches & updates to user's systems which might be online, offline, in-house or some remote place.
For this software to deploy consistently to achieve close to 100% success rates, you need uniformly configured systems, this boils down to understanding the range of hardware (desktops, laptops & devices) in your organisation, deploying a basic common framework of the operating system, handling the common and different software requirements of the user, streamlining your application pool and being able to manage that from the centre whilst touching each and every system in that organisation.
The power of position and responsibility
Just as downtime in the mission critical application systems can shutdown a business, I appreciate even more that as an SMS administrator; I can shutdown the business if a poorly packaged application is deployed to user systems which can be up to 40,000 users.
Hence, suddenly, my responsibility is not just being a plain postmaster of deploying applications, I need to know what those applications contain, who is repackaging those applications, what operating systems we have out there and if they are manageable - if not, find a consistent approach to the management of these systems.
Influencing the chance for good change
I cannot allow changes to take place in the back-end systems in the weekend that might affect the way users access those back-end systems on a Monday morning because the back-office people thought their change was minor, but we have a major situation because it is easy for the back-end engineer to think locally to their big-expensive systems (mainframes, enterprise databases), when I have to think globally about the effect on 40,000 employees who need critical access to these back-end systems.
You begin to realise the kind of planning that needs to go into serious enterprise desktop deployment or rather, management, if it is work consistently and produce results that do really reduce the cost of ownership at the desktop and reduce the overall cost of IT from service calls and management costs and so on.
What I am about - again
That is the value of my 22 years in IT and my 13 years in enterprise desktop deployment, I am not just a technician, I am a facilitator, a collaborator, an enabler and an unquantifiable benefit to any organisation that entrusts that kind of job to me.
I was employed to do a quick and dirty job of desktop deployment in Canon in August 2006, I left after 2 years having changed that organisation in ways that no one realised till I pointed it out; in the process a whole new department was created to handle the issue of the "user experience" of connecting to the organisation with minimal issues.
The structures I put in place allowed for one of those weekend backend changes halting the business to be redeemed with SMS because we could deploy consistently, verifiably and successfully an essential patch that got everyone reconnected before noon on Monday.
Engaging all communities
In that two years, everyone began to realise any change was global; it affects something, if not everyone; communication is essential because people need to know how changes might affect them; technicians have to be customer friendly because the user satisfaction helps company productivity; architects need to liaise with administrators but user feedback is the best knowledge resource to determine if your solutions are really working; if not, seek advice and change the situation to a working situation.
In short, to be blind-sided by the simple concept of desktop or deployment is to miss the whole point that users are key to keeping an organisation running and whilst the mission critical team is critical, without users being able to connect to the mission critical systems [through their globally deployed but individually configured desktops, laptops, devices with the adequately distributed software] you have no mission critical solution.
Seeing things from different ends - again
I look up the organisation from the eyes and hands of the user, 40,000 of them in some cases to affect and effect change because I touch each and every system with my tools, others look at their servers and if they are up, they think everything is OK - welcome to a new perspective of what the desktop really should mean - managing the user experience with whatever tools, skills and abilities you might have.
If you have read this far, thank you for hearing me out, I do however wonder if this makes me suitable for your organisation, I'll say any organisation that wants the mission critical environment to be consistently accessible to the user environment should consider having me on board.
