Michael Zipursky | FreshGigs.ca - Part 8

Author Archives: Michael Zipursky

Proof? Formal Education Is Overvalued

There has been a back and forth going on for years between those that believe that formal education is one of the greatest keys to success and those that our proud to point out all the exceptions to the rule.

Let’s look at an interesting fact:

90% of CEOs heading America’s top 500 companies didn’t graduate from Ivy league schools, that’s according to an article in the Wall Street Journal titled “Any College Will do”. The Canadian pattern is likely much the same.

VentureBeat summarized it nicely by saying:

“…the majority of chief executives at the most successful companies — like Intel chief executive and University of San Francisco grad Paul Otellini, and Costco chief executive and San Diego City College grad James Sinegal — were not Ivy League grads.”

Okay, those examples give some cred to the idea that you don’t have to graduate from the best schools. But what about graduating at all?

Here are 7 people you may have heard of before that didn’t graduate from college/university and went on to run ‘successful’ companies:

  • Bill Gates
  • David Oreck
  • Phillip Ruffin
  • Paul Allen
  • Richard Branson
  • Felix Dennis
  • Michael Dell

Thoughts anyone?

HR + Social Media at Impact99

On November 7th at the Evergreen Brick Works HR and Social Media will come together at the Impact99 Conference.

“This 1 day conference focuses on helping businesses and employees better understand and leverage social media in the workplace. You’ll be instructed by 20 of North America’s most respected social media coaches on what you need to know in each of the top social media platforms.”

For the full agenda, list of speakers and to register visit: http://www.impact99.ca/toronto/home.html

Get Ready For CreativeMix

Feeling Creative? If so, and if you’ll be in or around Vancouver on November 3rd, be sure to check out the CreativeMix conference.

Dubbed “a professional development conference for both emerging and established creative professionals, entrepreneurs and artists.”

Speakers
The speaker lineup includes an advertising agency founder, an investor/entrepreneur, festival and games producers, a photographer and others.

Networking
There will be plenty of time for networking before, during and after this event. And there looks to be quite a bit of learning to to be done too!

Date/Time/Location
CreativeMix starts at 9am on November 3rd and will be held at the Roundhouse Mews in Yaletown.

Special for FreshGigs.ca Members
FreshGigs.ca members can get 10% off the price of a conference pass by using coupon code: FRESHGIGS

Details
For full details visit: http://creativemix.ca

Your Years of Experience Don’t Matter Anymore?

How important is experience when you’re going after a job or landing a project?

Most employers ask that you have 3, 5, 7, 10 years of experience.

What if you only have 1 or 2 years? Should you still apply for the job?

According the book Rework (I’ll be sharing some interesting tid-bits from it) once someone has 6 months on the job they should have enough “experience” to understand what needs to be done.

After the 6 months, it’s not how much or how long they’ve worked that is important, but rather how good of a job they’re doing at it.

John has 10 years experience but he’s slow at his work and takes too many breaks.

Jen has a year of experience. She’s a real go-getter and works not just hard, but smart too.

Who do you want on your team?

What will it be?

Time in or Results out?

Is the Cover Letter or Resume More Important?

Michelle, an experienced recruiter shared with me how critical the resume is. How she detests resumes that are made to look all creative – it makes it harder to scan and find the key information.

Todd, who works for a large technology company, told me his company doesn’t even read cover letters until after they’ve scanned in all the resumes and done keyword searches on them – they only look at resumes that have that magical number of keywords that tell them the person could be a good fit.

The founders of 37 Signals, in their recent book Rework say that resume’s are pretty much useless. That it’s all about the cover letter. The resume doesn’t say who you are, it doesn’t tailor itself to the job. The cover letter is where you can speak to the employer and tell them why you’re different, why it’s worth their time to meet with you.

So who is right? Maybe they all are.

The fact is, if you want to increase your chances of getting hired you need to create a killer resume that showcases the skills and experience you have that is relevant for the job you’re going after. Plus, you need to have a personalized cover letter that communicates your passion for the job and why you’re a good fit for it.

Want that job? Increase your chances and cover your bases.

Do both and do them properly.

12 Things Hiring Managers Look for in Job Applications

FreshGigs.ca recently conducted a poll of Canadian Human Resources managers to find out what they look for in a resume and cover letter.

Below is a list of the top 12 things you should be including in your applications:

  • Needs to be well written
  • Error free
  • Focused on skills and accomplishments
  • Demonstrate what value you can bring to the table
  • Personalized message and greeting
  • Tailored to the specific job (not a copy and paste message)
  • Presentation, look and feel of materials ie. Personal Branding
  • Selling your strengths
  • Promotions received and increased responsibility
  • Wide variety of skills
  • Transferable skills
  • Industry experience

Freelance Camp Vancouver Is Coming!

Well folks it’s that time again. On September 10, 2011 Freelance Camp Vancouver will be hosting its annual “Unconference” at the Network Hub in New Westminister.

This promises to be a great event and FreshGigs.ca is happy to be a supporting sponsor.

Here’s from the official press release on the event:

Experienced business personnel and successful local freelancers will be sharing their stories as well as insight on how to grow a freelancer’s business. This is a true UNconference, the schedule is created the morning of when the attendees arrive. We start the day off with guests pitching to be presenters for the day and the freelancers vote on who they want to hear speak.

Topics from landing a freelancer’s dream project to dealing with the nitty gritty details of doing business will be discussed. The Freelance Camp is the opportunity to make connections with like-minded people across many fields. Over 130 people attended last year’s event, including freelancers from Victoria, Kelowna and Seattle.

Over 130 professionals attended Freelance Camp last year. If you’re interested in going be sure to register soon. The even only costs $10 and the proceeds go to charity.

Details and registration here: Vancouver Freelance Camp and on Twitter at @604freelancers.

Biggest Job Application Mistakes

I recently spoke with 20 HR professionals and asked them:

“What are the biggest mistakes you see candidates making when applying for jobs?”

Every professional should take 2 minutes right now and read their responses.

Mistakes made:

• Speaking very negatively about employers or co-workers. Candidates who speak objectively, even about tough employers, demonstrate more credibility.

• Forwarding his/her resume to multiple employers at the same time via the “To” or “Cc” field. Each application MUST be personalized.

• Grammatical errors.

• Resumes that were not up-to-date (contain out of service phone numbers). These errors show the person lacks focus or isn’t diligent in ensuring the quality of their end product.

• Receiving resumes without cover letters. It’s like walking into a meeting without saying hello and trying to get down to business. Cover letters are an important part of the process.

• Being too personal in an interview.

• Making little to no effort to demonstrate their knowledge about the actual position they are applying to or the company itself.

• Embellishing one’s title, accomplishments and length of service at a prior job in order to obtain a higher position, and assuming those details will not be checked.

• Note: 33% of resumes contain embellishments. That doesn’t mean it’s okay to do. It means too many people are doing it!

• Likewise doctored or fraudulent credentials such as educational degrees/diplomas or training certificates, driver’s license abstracts, etc.

• Not recognizing the organizations name when you contact them. Candidates who had absolutely no idea who we were when we contacted them to discuss their application.

• No excitement or passion shown in their resume, cover letter, and/or the interview.

Want a Job? Be a Pro!

Looking for a job and landing one are two different things.

Want to find one? No problem, we’ve got plenty of them.

Want to land one? Be prepared to work for it.

Applying for a job doesn’t require a great deal of manual labour or time. But you’ve got to approach it the right way.

Far too many job seeking professionals take the lazy copycat approach.

They go to apply for a job, paste in some pre-written text and hit ‘send’ so often it’s like their finger’s got a nervous twitch.

Here’s the problem…

Employers, business owners, and entrepreneurs aren’t dumb. In fact, they are usually quite a smart bunch.

And while you may think it’s a numbers game, the more applications you send out the better, that’s not always the case.

“I got an email the other day from an applicant. He didn’t even bother to include a message in the body of his email. Just his resume!”

That quote comes from an employer I spoke with. What do you think your chances are of landing that job? I’d say….hmm…..none!

If you want to stand out from the crowd and increase your chances of landing a great gig, here are a few steps for you to follow:

  • Research the company before you apply. That way you can sound knowledgeable about their company when you apply. Including a few mentions of their business, market, products, etc earns you brownie points!
  • Write a personal message for each job you apply for. There’s nothing wrong with using pieces of a previous message. Just don’t slam the whole thing in their each time.
  • Make sure your message focuses on how you can help the company fill the needs they have. Remember, they have a Continue reading →