The Three Be’s of Getting a Job
FreshBooks is hiring developers and designers. As you can imagine, we get a lot of resumes from folks looking to work here. I spend much of my time every day going through resumes, looking for folks we want to interview. And I’ve been doing this for quite some time, so I’ve built up some learning around what sorts of resumes make me want to interview the resume owner.
I thought folks might be interested — whether you’re looking for a job, or looking to hire a developer, here’s some “resume signals” I’ve learned to recognize that help me decide to interview someone. I call them
The Three Be’s
Be Specific: I mean to yourself — what did YOU do? Don’t say, “Built software in accordance with requirements.” Say, “Created interface so component ABC could securely connect to service GHI. Refactored 37 objects to make them conform to RFC 1800.” If you can’t be specific about what YOU have done, why should I try to imagine it for you? Likewise, if you’re reading lots and lots of resumes, look for folks get specific like this. Chances are, they’re excited about what they do, and believe me, there’s a great deal of correlation between liking what you do and being good at it.
Be Relevant: It’s not too hard to figure out what FreshBooks does (hint: invoices are involved). Take the time to figure it out, and then tweak your resume to show us why YOU are right for US. You’d think this would be obvious — that an applicant would want to show their desire for the job, but start receiving resumes and you’ll pretty soon find an endless parade of resumes sent out with no effort to match skills or experience to the actual opportunity. And again, it turns out that there’s a pretty good correlation between people who take the time to learn about your company, and people who will do well at your company.
Be Discerning: “Discerning” is a high-faluting sort of word, but the idea here is to NOT include absolutely everything. Five-page resumes full of thick paragraphs, endless lists of acronyms and long columns of bullets just make you look like everyone else. What you leave out is as important (if not MORE important) than what you put in. If I have to pick through the unsorted debris of your career, guess what? I’m going to miss that one crucial detail that makes it obvious I should hire you.
So those are the three B’s that I’ve found useful in evaluating resumes. If you’re sending yours out and around, hopefully this gave you some insight into what sorts of things an employer like myself might be looking for. If you’re looking to hire a developer or other technical roles, hopefully you’ve got a new set of criteria you can use to manage the incoming stream.
What other criteria have you found helpful?
Copyright © 2000-2009
10:48 am
It’s important to get someone to proofread your resume and cover letter. Unclear writing, typos, and errors make it harder for employers to understand you – or even worse – make you look unprofessional and sloppy because you didn’t take a few minutes to check your writing. Anyone looking at a pile of resumes is more likely to skip one that can’t be reviewed quickly and easily.
For BONUS points: spot the typo in Corey’s post that inspired this comment
11:01 am
@Nicola: “Likewise, if you’re reading lots and lots of resumes, look for folks get specific like this.”
11:16 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Corey Reid and Paul Osman. Paul Osman said: RT @barsoomcore: Looking for a job? Need help hiring? The 3 B's of successful resumes @FreshBooks! http://bit.ly/8o7CS [...]
12:58 pm
I follow a few blogs maintained by people and companies that have interesting perspectives. One of those companies is Toronto-based FreshBooks. Today I read there blog with uncharacteristic disappointment because of a blog post from FreshBooks’ Chief Cat Herder Corey Reid.
FreshBooks is hiring and Corey is lamenting the quantity and quality of the resumes he is receiving. Corey then goes on to describe his formula, known as the three ‘Be’s, of getting a job. With a tragic lack of imagination the three ‘Be’s are; be specific, be relevant and be discerning. Corey’s post carried a tone of tired solipsism that sounded like whining.
The first ‘Be’ is ‘Be Specific’. This is good advice for job seekers and employers alike. For job seekers be specific in your resumes as Corey describes. FreshBooks and Corey should be specific in their role-descriptions. Here’s an example where improvement could be made, let’s examine a FreshBook’s role description for a Software Developer:
“Love the fast-paced and creative environment of a start-up, but could do without the stress and chaos? FreshBooks has been around for more than five years now and has a fanatical fan base of over 900,000 people who use our groundbreaking Web 2.0 application. Whatever “Web 2.0” means.”
As a jaunty up-beat summary it’s OK. But it needs to be specific; what does FreshBooks need from software developers beyond developing software? Software to do what? By when? Create new features? Punctuation matters too; the last sentence needs a question mark. This paragraph was wasted because it fails to inform about FreshBooks intent.
Next comes skill areas and there is nothing specific:”3 years’ experience building online applications” – What kind of applications? Which target markets? Which implementation languages? What architecture?
“Serious SQL chops” – Does that mean I make every SQL query seriously? I know where to get a book on SQL? Does it mean I can formulate arbitrarily complex SQL queries?
The last bullet-point is the worst because it’s a reprimand: “No desire to waste our time because you don’t actually have some of the qualities described above”. Given the prior vague descriptions this is self-serving at best. Here’s a tip Corey; don’t reprimand the people your trying to recruit.
Corey’s second ‘Be’ is ‘be relevant’. Corey deplores applicants who, in his opinion, haven’t matched their skills to the role. Here’s another perspective; beyond the message that FreshBooks does invoicing there is little to information describing FreshBooks’ culture, revenue-model or intent. Without more information candidates cannot fill-in the gaps for a hiring manager. BTW FreshBooks’ 2 minute video is amusing but gives the impression FreshBooks is Facebook. Why not have employees describe why they joined and remain at FreshBooks?
The third ‘Be’ is ‘be discerning’. Discerning means shrewd, astute and selective. Corey’s point is applicants should tailor their applications to aid FreshBooks in identifying relevant skills. The driver for discernment is ‘Five-page resumes full of thick paragraphs, endless lists of acronyms and long columns of bullets just make you look like everyone else.’
If you don’t specify length/pages you’ll get everything because applicants want to present a complete work-history. If you want less volume ask for it in the application process. If you’re seeing similar resumes it means you’re getting consistent responses to your role descriptions. E.g. if you asked for SQL you’re going to see a lot of SQL in the resumes!
Here’s some tips that make hiring easier:
1) Make time to read resumes; all of them! Applicants made the effort to send them to you so you read them. If you see a resume you don’t like contact the applicant and explain how to improve it.
2) Hold a regular open gathering where people can come into FreshBooks, meet employees and talk to you. Think of this as a small scale job fair with one employer. If you have a Friday Beer/Pizza party this is a good venue. Meeting potential hires lets you talk to them in groups so you don’t repeat yourself and makes a relaxed atmosphere. Encourage friends-of-friends to attend. Keep doing this regardless of headcount; always be recruiting.
3) Don’t put reprimands in role descriptions.
4) Avoid adding questions at the end of requirements: “Experience with “Agile” development methodologies (whatever “Agile” means)” because it looks cynical. If you don’t know what it means why is it a role requirement?
5) Improve your job title. Do you want to be recruited by a Cat Herder?
Cory Reid, Chief Cat Herder – better stick with herding cats Corey until you improve your hiring process!
2:47 pm
I think Robert MacGregor’s got something there, in substance. Why expect job-seekers to produce applications of significantly higher quality than the job listings themselves?
For that matter, why expect anything decent from a listing on the “Jobs” page of your website? Maybe you’ve found good candidates this way in the past, but I wonder if job-seekers who will undertake the diligent effort that you’re expecting, are even going to bother with the online-application process. I suspect those people will almost certainly figure out a better way to get an interview.
2:59 pm
One other thought: I’m always a little disheartened when I see “No telecommuting positions”. Puts me in mind of this discussion, on Cal Evans’s blog:
http://blog.calevans.com/2009/07/29/remote-developers/
There are good arguments for and against, but I always think, “If SmugMug, 37signals, and OmniTI can swing remote workers, why can’t [company X]?”
It would open up the talent pool quite a bit. Plenty of folks down here in the States, I suspect, have mortgages they can’t quite afford to move out of at this time.
3:36 pm
Hey folks
Lots of great input here, and I really appreciate everyone’s thoughts. The truth is, when you see this kind of response, you know a few things. One thing is you know people care (which I find humbling, frankly), you know you’ve struck a nerve (which means we’re on the right track) and you know you’ve got a lot to learn (and clearly we do!).
That said, I want to clear something up that it seems I may have miscommunicated.
This was NOT a lament about the state of the resumes we get. We get lots of resumes, of all types. Long ones and short ones. Easy-to-read ones and not-so-easy to read ones. Detailed ones, shallow ones, brightly coloured ones.
And most of them are fantastic, or at least perfectly professional and readable. But not all of the resumes we get are, let us say, of equal “attention-getting-ness”. As I spend a large part of my time reading and comparing resumes, I’ve noticed certain patterns over the years in the resumes I chose to bring in for interviews, and those I chose not to. It occurred to me that this pattern might be interesting — both to people who are sending out resumes and folks who are receiving them. Maybe even helpful.
Sorry if the post didn’t come across as helpful — this was not a jab at the people who apply to work for us, nor was it a diatribe about how hard it is for us to find people. We actually do okay at that, to tell you the truth.
Ben, as far as telecommuting goes — we’ve tried it and it just doesn’t fit with our company’s culture and development process. It works great for 37 Signals, but they’re a very different sort of business than ours. We really need folks IN our office to be part of our team for now, and we want people who will share in making the culture at FreshBooks world class.
Keep it coming, though! I found TWO typos in my original post — who sees the other one?
4:07 pm
A thought on being specific in role descriptions (from Robert’s comment).
The Freshbooks job descriptions emphasize soft skills or technical knowledge that Freshbooks values. Yes, they could definitely do with some copy editing, but there’s ample content to point you in the right direction. Where specifics are lacking, that tells me that there’s an opportunity to sell the value you can bring to the company – value they might be looking for or value they may not have thought of yet. That’s a lot more flexible than needing to match myself to a detailed laundry list.
Why work hard on a resume when the job ad isn’t up to your standards? You do it when it’s a job you want. I’d rather respond to an imperfectly-written job ad for a company with an appealing corporate culture than a detailed, well-written job ad that has all the keywords for “you’re going to be working tons of overtime and will constantly be stressed”.
5:27 pm
@Corey, thanks for the reply. Love the product, by the way (paying customer here) — so you’re definitely doing something right!
@Nicola, I think there’s a sweet spot to be found in job listings, both in level of detail and tone, and I’m not sure the current iteration of FreshBook’s listings has found that spot just yet.
Just a few hints about currently-used platforms and architecture, for example, would be nice to see in the Software Developer listing. These aren’t the kinds of details one can necessarily find out on one’s own.
If, for example, FreshBooks’s current system is a bunch of cleverly-skinned ASP-classic scripts running on Win2K, it might be nice to know that before spending several hours researching, crafting a resume and cover letter, etc. Some developers might run away screaming when they learned that — while others might smell a major revamp coming down the pipe and go all out to try be a part of it.
So you know, that sort of thing.
5:51 pm
Corey – a swift response and thank-you for clarifying your original post.
Folks reading this thread might be interested in this article about crowdsourcing recruiting which could be the future of hiring.
http://bit.ly/47PAnL
Nicola mentioned corporate culture and I agree with her that it’s key to a rewarding work-life. Here’s a link to a PDF file that can help assess an organization’s culture. This can be useful for companies like FreshBooks and job seekers. There are only 6 questions on Pages 2 and 3.
http://bit.ly/4fgwZ9
Using this assessment what company culture does FreshBooks have?
6:24 pm
Hey folks! Great discussion here.
We tweak our job descriptions on a regular basis, and although it might seem unlikely (it certainly did to me), we got notably more congruent results when we took out some of the more specific technical requirements.
We find it’s easier to teach somebody new programming skills than it is to adjust their personality or their cultural needs — not everybody is going to get what they want out of FreshBooks so not everybody is going to be a good fit that way. Folks who really want to work with a very specific skillset are probably not going to enjoy working here — we ask our programmers to be generalists. Plus we like folks who have different backgrounds and can bring a variety of experience to the table.
That said, I feel like it’s not too great a breach of corporate security to tell you that FreshBooks is NOT a bunch of cleverly-skinned ASP-classic scripts running on Win2K. We’re going to do that for our next product.
8:13 pm
@Corey, thanks.
I think your attitude toward technical requirements (”we ask our programmers to be generalists”) is bang-on. If you’re investing in full-time employees for the long haul, there’s no way you want someone who thinks “I’m a PHP coder and everything else frightens me”. (insert language of choice there; I picked on PHP because that’s what I use most right now)
I guess I was thinking less in terms of requirements than of disclosure; some good candidates might like just a tiny peek under the hood.
Seems to me that “corporate culture” has different facets. There’s office hours, dress code, parties, high ceilings, huge donuts, etc. — what you might call ambiance.
And then there’s the technical culture — do you live and die by version control; if so what kind? What do you think about unit-testing? Since you’re a hosted app, do developers and sysadmins ever mix up responsibilities? Is all your data relational or is some/any/all document-oriented?
I guess I’m thinking of things along the lines of the Joel Test, but perhaps with a touch of spec-mongering.
BTW I’m not actually asking these questions here, just giving examples of the kinds of details that might enhance the listings a bit. Then again maybe that kind of thing is better left to the interview.
11:03 pm
[...] Visit link: The Three Be's of Getting a Job [...]
3:45 pm
Hi Corey,
I found this post quite interesting as I am currently in grad school and the topic of job searches often comes up. For what it is worth, many university counsellors and experts provide advice that flies in direct opposition to your post. For example, students are often told that tweaking their resumes to suit every employer is a tedious and redundant exercise that has not been proven to provide any tangible benefit. Also, many students are told NOT to be too technical or specific because the HR people will not be able to understand what you’ve written.
Whether these recommendations are accurate or not is irrelevant. The point is, at the end of the day, there is no guideline, no principle and no rule that applies in all scenarios. I hope neither you nor your readers assume that your post is reflective of what “employers like yourself” might be looking for — it may or may not be. All IMHO, of course.
I’m glad you’ve provided what works for you, and hopefully future job candidates will take notice. Good luck with your search.
-Milan
8:10 am
Thanks, Milan. Great points — I guess the point is, know what kind of job you want (or even which company you want to work for), and spend some time thinking about how to get it. One size indeed does not fit all.
11:29 am
corey, when you say no telecommuting, does that include the occasional work-from-home day? i live in the GTA and think i could be a good fit for one of your roles, but i was just curious if no telecommuting included the odd “yikes! i’m snowed in!” or “i really need a day without distractions to complete this!” i wish you guys were located downtown instead of north york!
12:44 pm
Oh, not at all. Absolutely — the occasional work from home day is no big deal. But we need anyone to commit to being part of our office culture, and we’ve found it just doesn’t work with someone who’s more-or-less permanently absent.
8:46 pm
So did anyone at FreshBooks determine what their corporate culture was?
http://bit.ly/4fgwZ9
Scoring – from the assessment add your scores from each group of questions
A Questions = Clan
B Questions = Adhocracy
C Questions = Market Driven
D Questions = Hierarchy
Here’s a description of the organizational types.
http://bit.ly/ThS8S
I’m guessing FreshBooks’ culture is predominantly a Clan.
On another topic; the job advertisement for Software Developers still contains a reprimand
4:22 pm
This is all highly predictable. We still use an employer/employee model that went obsolete more than 10 years ago.
Employers have become fantastically arrogant. They waste applicants time with pointlessly tedious procedures. HR departments are completely dehumanized, and worse understand NOTHING about the business they’re hiring for, IT, or worse what motivates high-caliber employees.
This process is finely tuned for the drone-population… the mass collection of barely functional mug-holders, clock-watchers, and paycheck collectors that fill up oversized and underly productive corporations.
The misfit is obvious and predictable.
If you want a personalized response from applicants, make a personalized effort to find them. You may think that being in an “employers market” would make things easier, but as Cory has seen it does not… especially in the current H1-B crisis where resumes are copied wantonly, experience completely fabricated, interviews taken by surrogates, and so on.
If you want to filter the seed from chaff, thumbing a giant stack of paperwork is not going to do it.
Neither is the tired old HR rhetoric that anyone who is someone has already grown jaded to.
“XXX Corp needs highly skilled and talented paper-pushers to work in an exciting and innovative environment.”
blah blah blah. When I get a call from someone talking like this, I politely find an excuse to hang up.
4:46 pm
I won’t say you’re wrong, Rich, because I’ve seen that sort of thing myself. But to say that the “employer/employee” model is obsolete is to overstate the case, I think.
I used to make short films with an all-volunteer cast and crew, and I really use exactly the same mindset when managing employees. The truth is, in this market, in this industry, all employees are pretty much volunteers — they don’t NEED the job because they can walk out the door and get a new job that pays just as much. Acting as though you can impose your will on people is crazy.
So I don’t know how employers can get away with arrogance — I certainly can’t imagine being able to hire great people that way. I’m not saying such employers don’t exist, mind you, just I can’t fathom such an attitude. It seems self-destructive.
But I do believe there is still life in the employer/employee model — just not in the old-school Industrial Revolution sense where the employer extracts value from the employee and then returns slightly less, thus exploiting the workers and preparing the world for a proletariat revolution. THAT model doesn’t seem to have worked out so well.
But a model where both employer and employee are receiving value (albeit perhaps in different “currencies”, if you will) is still going strong.
@Ben: missed you last time around — I guess I’ll just say that if you want to know more about the culture or technology at FreshBooks, the information is available to those who look around a bit, and designing our hiring process to select for those who are actually interested in this company seems to work pretty well for us.
And lastly, @Robert — haven’t taken the test but thanks for the links!
10:43 am
[...] Great article on applying for jobs: Excerpts from The Three Be’s, from http://www.freshbooks.com/blog/2009/10/08/the-three-bes-of-getting-a-job/ [...]