Job trends thus far

Recruitment and job hunting in 2009 was reflective of the economic crises that spread throughout the world. By the time December rolled around, I had visions of WWII and hundreds of candidates jobless, homeless and hopeless. IMM Recruitment candidates are not just "business" to us, they are our candidates, our partners, and our family. particularly those that have studied through us, and in the process walked in and out of our doors so often that they are familiar faces, with life stories we understand and have grown to know. And so it was truly difficult to see so much talent shelved until happier economic times.

2010 has begun and with it, the smiles of hope are returning, companies are calling in fast and furious, looking for the right person with the right amount of experience to add value to their teams.

It seems, from the perspective of recruitment, that companies have taken 2009 to really think about where they want to go, what they want to acheive. Targets have been set and growth areas clearly defined, and with those, comes the need for the right person/people to implement those strategies. Brand Management and Marketing Management specialists were the flavour of the month, with foreward thinking companies looking to position themselves to best take advantage of the upcoming year.

Wether you're an entry level candidate or a senior candidate, we believe this year will quickly make up for lost time in terms of opportunities.

Companies looking to hire staff seem also to have realised that using line management to recruit much needed marketing and sales staff hasn't worked. Personal agendas, abilities or understanding of the recruitment process have proven to be stumbling blocks and we believe we will see companies continue to acknowledge the level of skill required in finding the right candidate. Often, companies know what they want when they see it, but just need a little help drawing up the spec of what they want and finding the right person to fit that profile.

And that's where IMM Recruitment steps in.

If you are visiting this blog for the first time and you are in the job market for a sales or marketing related position, we welcome you to submit your CV to your nearest IMM Recruitment branch. Contact Rabia@imm.co.za for Gauteng vacancies or Isabeau@imm.co.za for KZN vacancies.

Visit http://www.imm.co.za/ for a sampling of current vacancies, or better yet, join us on twitter and let your email box tell you when we have a new vacancy. That way you can select when you visit our site for more information on vacancies. Don't have access to email because you're on the road? Twitter offers you a follow-me option - sign up and our new vacancy tweets will find your cellphone wherever you may be! Look out for IMM Recruitment on Facebook - we'll be up and running soon, so drop us a line- question, comment, or concern.

Happy Job Hunting!

2009 revisited

2009 saw the South African recruitment industry hit harder than we can remember. For job hunters, it's been a frustrating year of submissions and waiting with little or no response from agencies or companies. And yet, somehow newspapers still spoke about the shortage of skills untill very recently.

Just like most other industries, the recruitment industry was hard hit by the economic recession that rippled from overseas into South Africa. Retrenchments and closures made their presence clearly felt.

Perhaps the most frustrating symptom of the insecurites in our industries has been the indecision on behalf of companies. Part of recruitment in Gauteng has always been the fickleness of some industry sectors who just as soon advertise a vacancy as cancel it, change it, or relocate it to another province. However, this past year has seen more freezing, thawing and re-freezing of vacancies than our polar caps. (It's been Global warming of a whole other nature!)

Even well established companies with a vast historical network of client connections have felt this as we commuted through the very rough and extremely choppy seas of the 2009 job market.

Under such tremendous pressure, the already existant trends towards online marketing and recruitment were taken up a few quick notches, leaving unprepared agencies rather bewildered in the vaccuum of no CVs and no clients. For many it was as if suddenly the lights had gone out, and we're not just talking Eskom's cuts which saw it's own share of fits of fury at black screens and pending CV submissions.

Like a falling dominoes game, agencies saw industry after industry wobble reflected in the CV submissions of candidates who would settle for anything remotely similar to what their career of choice is, just to stay employed. It's been a buyer's market for employers, but the latter were simply not buying.

So what do we take from a time such as this, a year such as 2009? IMM Recruitment will certainly prove to have benefitted from this in the long run since, always looking to market trends, we had already predicted the move to online recruitment and began to position ourselves early in the year. We can confidently say that our marketing strategies have reached more companies than in any previous 12 month stretch. Coupled with IMM GSM super initiatives like the re-building of our Association for Marketers and the creation of an every strengthening sales force, the IMM GSM flag has flown higher than before, and with it, IMM Recruitment.

The key in times such as these is to find the strength to weather the storm, and tie down everything that moves, then begin to build the ship for an extended journey. IMM Recruitment is optimistic. We believe that the spices and silk of prosperity are already in view, as more and more companies begin to breathe a little more easy this month, and staff planning resumes.

It is difficult to say just when the clouds will lift completely, but certainly 2010 is a year of promise, judging from what already sits on the books.

If you haven't already done so, submit your CV to IMM Recruitment today. View www.imm.co.za/recruitment for details on a branch near you, and a taste test of things to come.  Stay in touch with our changes and vacancies via twitter, or link up to us via LinkedIn.

As the year end holidays speed towards us all, we wish you a very peaceful and safe year end. May 2010 shine onto your career of choice.

It's Retail time

I blogged about trends in a recent entry, and how industry trends can be seen via the CVs sent to recruitment agencies such as ourselves.

I thought I might blog about the most recent trend, and welcome comments (click on comments below) as to what is brewing..

This week, IMM Recruitment in Jhb has received about 5 cvs from the Retail Industry. And by retail, let me narrow it down to furniture and associated products.

The first CV came from someone in a junior/mid level role from company A. I spotted it because there was no inherent reason for desiring to leave - not associate to pay or performance, that is.

The second candidate hailed from company B -same sector, but this time a National Sales Manager. The third from company C - a Marketing specialist for a competitor of one of the previous companies, and so it progressed into management within these two (of several) big boys. 

This is precisely the trend I was referring to in previous blog entries. Whilst 5 CVs may not be much to go on, I'd be willing to bet this is just the beginning, or the end as the case may be, of a restructuring process within this industry. Perhaps it is restructuring at the moment or perhaps it is looking at retrenchment? Perhaps it is just fine tuning its growth strategy.

I must say that these CVs are not the CVs of "dead weight" employees at all (if there exist such a thing), which leads me to think that maybe, just maybe, they know something we don't? I think I'll wait it out before I go furniture shopping anywhere right now.. perhaps there are new, exciting things in the pipeline? Or perhaps this industry has been hit really hard by consumer's shrinking purchasing power and the workforce has felt the pinch.. whatever it is, let us know!

If anyone out there is in the retail industry or knows someone who is and would like to share an opinion on what may/may not/ is currently happening, (anonymously or otherwise) I would truly welcome the opportunity to further research this recruitment VS industry trends hypothesis... if you'd like to submit an article about the trends you've observed (naturally you'd have to be in a position of some knowledge authority) then do so, and we'll blog it in!


Happy Job Hunting!

We are the Champions

There are two questions that most young graduates entering the job market fear the most. The first is "what are your strengths and weaknesses?" because they simply do not know given their lack of experience and because they need a little help translating their personal strengths and weakenesses into workplace areas for growth or areas of strength.

The second is "Where do you want to be in 5 years." Many graduates and school leavers will giggle at this one and answer something like "I'd like to be working, thank you very much!" Another typical answer at companies is "I want to be in your role." Whilst a candidate may think this is flattering or reflective of ambition, it does not really answer the question.

The question being asked is "What are your career goals?" The interviewer wants to know if their company can help you get where you are headed, because they know that if you know where you are headed, it's only a matter of time, and they'd like to help you get there. If you do not know, then they will understand that you are looking at short to medium terms goals and will reposition themselves to enjoy that particular ride with you.

What every leader has found, somewhere along the walk towards success is that Champions make good companions.

Let's look at this more carefully: A Champion is someone who is a winner, and so one could look at this statement to mean that by associating oneself with champions, one will learn and grow in the areas necessary to become a champion too.  Whilst this is true, the champion I refer to is not this. The Champion I refer to is that individual or group of people who will back the visionary. Someone who will recognise your talent and your vision and because of a particular set of acheivements, skill or charisma, backs you.

In this sense, the Champion can be a referee - if you pick the right people to speak about your performance and if you are diligent in the impression you create with people by taking responsibility and really making a dynamic impact on your current leadership, your referees are your first line of Championship in any job race.

More important than the referee is the champion that truly sees your potential and with whom you retain contact throughout the years - these people will be waiting on the sidelines for a chance to make your dream happen and be a part of greatness. But they cannot exist unless you have a shot at greatness on any level. And greatness can never be a goal in itself - greatness is simply the colour of success, inasmuch as success can be measured by what you've done, who's lives you've changed, what bottom lines you've added value to, and how positiveloy your life has touched those of others. Every person's definition of success is different, but it will somehow involve who, and what you've done, and who and what you've been, in relation to the who and what you COULD do and who and what you COULD be if you arrived at the point where you are the best you that you could be.

The free dictionary defines success in its simple form; "the achievement of something desired, planned or attempted."

Can one really say that one has been successful without knowing where one is going? Can one look back on life and say "I succeed" without having previously estimated what success would entail?

Success, therefore, is simply pie in the sky when it has no Goals or vision attached to it, because it becomes un-measurable. (Ask any marketing strategist.) In order to succeed, then, one needs to have the following:


-Goals (a clear idea of what one will have done/ acheived/ become at the point of success)
-Vision (a mental picture of what life will look like at the point of successs)
-Strategy (a flexible, re-adjusting set of do's and don'ts that becomes the stepping stones towards achievement of the goals so that one's vision is realised.

I have placed Goals before vision because sometimes one knows what one wants before knowing what life will be like if one has that.

Taking this back to career-speak, we embark on our career because we have passion for a particular subject or activity. We want to spend time honing the skills of that craft. Our goals may change or we may shift direction once we feel we have acheived that sufficiently to say to ourself "I succeeded in it" (for measuring of success is personal) and this certainly accounts for people shifting careers. Like sugar dissolving into water, we saturate ourselves with doing that which we love until we are ready to enjoy it or move onto the next glass of water.

So what's your sugar? What's your passion? When you find your passion you find your inner truth, career wise. You discover the integrity of being true to your path and you begin to read ads more carefully, and apply to less vacancies because you know what you want and you are realistic about what you are worth. (read that again)

Let's say you love marketing. You love the idea of coming up with a strategy to put a company on the map. You ache to do the below the line and above the line calculation of steps towards making your company "great". You even worked out what "great" is and how it looks on the bottom line! Fantastic! What happens when you've done that? Do you retire? No.. although you've reached your goal (however long it took - short, medium or long-term), you are only edging closer to success, you are only edging closer to your vision. Vision is tricky because you only begin to get the vision when you start to taste the small successess of meeting your goals.

So take another look at that job ad - will it take you one step closer to your short-term goal (which might be "working in my area of passion - marketing") or will it take you one step closer to your medium term goal (which might be - "making a noticeable contribution to the world of branding") because you've carefully selected the company as well as the job you applied to?

I hope this has made you consider what your goals might be. If you are still having difficulty, take out a pen and paper and answer the following questions:

Short-term goals
what do I love most about my career choice right now?
How can I best excercise that passion? (In the next 3 to 6 months)
What do I do to get there - This is your strategy

Medium term goals
If I could imagine a next step from "you're hired" at this interview/ point of cv submission, what would that be?
- would I be promoted?
- would I take up an add-on study?
- would I grow the department I'm in, and if so, how?
At the next step:
- who do I invisage my network of influence would be (see upcoming blogs)
- what environment/meetings/projects would I be involved in?
What do I need to do to get there? - this is your strategy

Long-Term goals
What do I think my career ceiling will be?
Do I aim to the ceiling or will I be happy to "almost" reach it?
What would "almost reaching it" look like? (- where will I work (type of company), how will I dress/walk/talk, who will my associates/friends/colleagues be,how will I spend my professional and personal time?
Where will I live/work/play?
What do I need to change in my short-term and long term goals to get there?


A successful person asks themselves this about themselves. A succesfull career person asks themselves this about themselves as well as about the current title they hold at work.

A vision without goals is just a pie in the sky - it's Jack never conquering the giant because he's too scared to plant the beanstalk. Similarly goals without a vision mean you'll always be stuck without a map, somewhere between where you are and where you want to be; but you will definately end up where you're headed!!

Happy Job Hunting!

Cruising down the River - The job hunt begins

So you've decided to get into/ back into the job market.

The hunt begins! Job advertisements can be found online and in newpapers.

When going through advertisements, you will find 2 types of job advertisements:
1. those submitted by companies,
2. those submitted by agencies.

The advert is like a map of the road ahead if you apply (and get) the job - so look at the map. You wouldn't go white water rafting without knowing what's up ahead, would you? Get a sneak preview of what your day would be like at any job by going through its advert carefully. Pay careful attention to the duties described in the advert.

Some companies and recruitment agencies simply do not understand the differences between a marketing and a sales role. Therefore, you may see a "marketing assistant" position that reads like a sales job. If so, then it probably is a sales job regardless of the title.

Similarly, whilst some adverts may state "marketing assistant" they may typically be a secretarial position. If it looks like its a PA role, it probably is. (Hint: "Admin", "Office assistance" and "general office duties" are a good indication that this may be the case.)

If marketing is your preferred career, then neither of the above are the ideal place to start.

However...

The important thing in any career is to begin..

In any rafting trip you pack your dry bag carefully, then actually get into the boat. Career wise, you begin  where you can, preferably in a reputable company within which there is room for lateral growth into the marketing role you wish to occupy, or in a company which you believe has a future.

Essentially,you must start somewhere, but you also need to consider what the future will be for your career if you apply and get a particular job. If the "marketing" role reads like a sales or secretarial position, then by all means do some research on the company offering the job- weigh up the non-marketing aspects of the role against the potential for movement into a marketing role in the company advertising. Research the company itself and decide if this is an environment you'd like to start in. You may want to join a small company in which you can grow while they grow, or you may opt to target only larger corporates. It all depends on your career goals.

It's harder to establish if you should apply for a position or not when the advert is an agency ad and you don't know the company in question, but don't just "tata ma chance" - call the agency and ask a few questions about the company for whom they are recruiting. (Know upfront that they are unlikely to give you the name of their client; but they will be able to tell you what the growth potential in that company is.)

Here are a few good questions to ask an agency:

-How big is the staff compliment in the company?
-Does the company have marketing and sales departments or just a sales compliment?
-(If the company has a marketing department) What is the medium term possibility of moving into a more marketing orientated role within the company?
-Does the company have an international presence?
-What industry is the company in?

From asking these questions you will have acheived two things;

Firstly, you will have made the recruitment agent stand up and take notice of you above other candidates. (Intelligent questions from a candidate who knows the value of their education and career choices always does.)
Secondly you will know if this is a company worth working at, even if the role is not perfect. If the role is perfect for your next career choice, you will know if the company is, too. The education choices we make usually come from looking within ourselves to establish what type of job we would be best suited for, so why should our choice of employer be any different? After all, every product has a value - know yours, be realistic, stay optimistic and aim for the best within your range of choices at any given time.

A Career is the journey to your GOALS - Get some

It makes sense to have a targetted, strategic  approach to job-hunting, rather than a blanket "finding me a job" approach. A targetted approach builds a career. A the latter finds you work.

I've often said to entry level candidates "Life should be what happens when you're carving your career, not the other way around." After all, we spend more time at work and with fellow employees than we do with family or friends -so why not be selective?

It's understandable that many people in this current economy cannot afford to be too choosey, but then again I'm not suggesting you sit it out until the best thing comes along - what I'm saying is look at what's on offer at a particular point in time, then choose the best one or two out of your current options, based always on where you want to end up. You have to have an idea of your destination before you take to the water.

Let's take a step back from the job hunt process for a moment.

Consider the statement "Life should be what happens when you're carving your career". You should live while you carve, and you should carve your life whilst you live your work. When relationships fail, we get up and start again. We move on. We "get over" the emotional rubble in our own unique way and only we know what our baggage is. When a job fails, we can walk away, we can begin anew, but the past is recorded in your CV and it is referred back to by agencies as well as employers.The past impacts the present in both instances, and the present choices dictate the destination. This is why it is important to have career goals and let those dictate your choices alongside current employment opportunities.

When you enter a job blindly looking for employment rather than assessing where this particular choice may lead it's like what they call "going solo cat down high water" in white water rafting. (ie. getting into a one person cataraft with a double-bladed paddle in really deep rapids!) You could find yourself struggling down a totally different stream to your intended path, not to mention being toppled over by rapids you didn't expect! (This is where getting the job could be the worse thing that happens.)

Applying to a job you don't really want as part of your career can be tricky - it might be "just a place to start", but it might be a turning point - so choose carefully.

The point I make then, is that at the very beginning we all get to choose a raft among those available at a particular point in time. We all get to chose to either put on the dry suit and life vest, pack in our dry bag and GO or get stuck at the first river strainer and have to wade our way back to the beginning just because we didn't plan ahead.

Job hunting is very much like rafting - it is possible to live a career at the oars, or seated in the back at the stern, holding on and hoping for the best. But take a look at those individuals who have made things happen for themselves. There is one thing that remains constant; they had vision, (they had GOALS) and they kept their eye on the destination, whilst never forgetting the importance of checking the water flow however briefly each time their grabbed the oars a little tighter around a sharp turn.)

To move towards a goal takes drive. A career in marketing requires guts and perseverance as much as any great career. Anyone can get what's "on offer" but goals have to be worked on, strived towards; opportunities must be seized, and every step (and job opportunity) carefully assessed. Successful people, those pioneers or great names in any industry? They didn't just climb aboard with a "woo hoo" yelp and hope for the best  - they took out their charting paper and pondered on their destination first, then they plotted their course; then they picked from the available opportunities at any given time; then they fought the rapids towards their destination of choice. They knew their goals were waiting on the shore - they knew the journey was going to be rough at times, trying, gruelling, and at times it would be scenic and restfull, but they focussed on the prize.

Whilst we can't all be pioneers, we can re-position ourselves if we've lost our career path (as long as we know where we want to end up.) A career is a living, breathing thing - you can't carve a career unless you have a destination in mind; the best you can hope for is a great ride.

It's as simple as this; "tata ma chance" at whatever sounds like something you could do for pay, and you leave your career in the hands of someone (company or agency) who may not share your best interests. Take your career in your hands and you have to assume responsibility not just for your cv and your duties in a specific role, but also for your choice of what jobs and companies you apply to. Luck is only part of it - whilst luck can determine your current opportunities, it is vision coupled with drive that will ultimately determine your destination.

If you started job hunting a while back and are reading this wondering where you went wrong, wishing you'd taken a different career path, it's not too late to re-assess your goals. You may be exactly where you wanted to be. If you aren't, then it's time to shift gears to get back on track with the river path that initially lit that internal fire of passion and dedication to your work.

Gettting back to the nuts and bolts of job-hunting

To summarise:

1. Set yourself some goals (more in a future blog)
2. Read the job ads available daily/weekly for your particular career path
3. When an ad catches your attention, ask yourself if this will get you onto the next platfrom in your career
4. If you aren't sure, then do any job spec checks or company checks that you need to do
5. Call the agency if you aren't sure about applying to a specific vacancy
6. Submit your CV to the company/ agency (remember the well drafted email, subject line and adress)
7. Follow up with a phone call.

Follow up
A follow-up call let's your adressee know that you are serious about being considered for a specific job opportunity.

• keep it professional- how was your weekend/how's work/howzit/ are not appropriate.
• keep it relevant - "I'm calling about the advert in "... -state the advert
• keep it short - say who you are, ask if they received your CV, thank them for their time and say you hope to hear from them soon.

Note: If they didn't receive your CV, re-send it, then follow up again.

Happy Job Hunting!

Industry Trends & Interesting Data

It is not news to most that 2009 has seen the world enter into a recession. Although there will always be a difference of opinion as to how it emerged and where to assign blame for the financial mess that many companies and individuals found themselves in, most people agree to an underlying lack of caution in lending (and spending) being somehow attached to the roots of the main issues.

It is true that in order to prevent this type of situation from recurring we need to understand how it came about, and there are many articles available online that can be used as reference for those readers who are interested in delving into the economic and financial intricacies of how we got to this point. The repercussions have been felt everywhere, from job losses to price hikes, and certainly many companies have scrambled to review their SWOT analysis and their scorecards, seeking to find ways to stay liquid and a general belt tightening from stationary to staff has definately been felt.

For many newcomers to the job market, it has been a stressful time; internships and graduate programmes being the first to feel the axe of company cut-backs. View that alongside the re-structurings that have taken place across industries, head freezes and retrenchments and one begins to see the very tangible effects on recruitment as a whole, not just in South Africa but globally.

The effects of the recession on the recruitment industry have been many; recruitment agencies have battled to stay afloat, some have gone under, and many others have resorted to retrenchment simply because the demand for staff has whittled beneath their billing capacity, which directly impacts on how many agents stay and how many go. In the end, it's boiled down to a numbers game all around.

At a time when our staff are our greatest asset as companies, these same companies find themselves having to decrease expenditure and targetting this same assett. Some companies will begin to restructure, to re-invent themselves, or to really look at the value add of their human capital. Others panic and blindly hack away at their payroll, following only labour law practice (hopefully) whilst trying to secure a fair balance between expense and growth strategy. But there's an assett companies are perhaps not aware of, which is the ability of a recruitment agency to predict what is happening in the very near future within a specific business sector. Suprised?

It's true. Consider this; the moment your employer is under financial or survival threat, do you not feel it? And do you not, then, begin to "put your feelers out" even though you are relatively happy in their employ? It's a human characteristic; that basic fight or flight element to survival that tells you when to resume job-hunting. It is not unique to a human being in say, the marketing field. Following this logic then, it makes sense that the first people who "see" the companies in trouble via the CVs of their staff are recruitment agencies. It's a research angle that I don't think many people have cottoned onto. Perhaps economists should run a survey on "who's panicking" - because we at IMM  Recruitment can certainly tell you (often before it hits the news) when a company is in trouble. Like a ship in a storm, the crew begins to locate the life-boats long before the mast is shot and the hull compromised.

Looking at this from the employer's perspective it also makes sense; when management identifies the need to restructure, it creates the kind of stress in the workplace that can often be felt right down to the caffeteria. Nobody needs to say "they're thinking of retrenching", or "they're trying to get people to resign" (there is always a grapevine or two hanging about, however unfair it's whispers may be) stress among management filters down, through processes, through small cut-backs here and there, and certainly through staff members' body language. All these put "job threat" on the radar of the employee and we, the recruitment agencies, begin to see those threats by reading into the numbers; ie the number of cvs coming in either from a particular company or a particular industry.

Each day, recruitment agencies receive CVs; some are sent in response to adverts, others are motivated by the spoken or unspoken job threats to individuals, and the cumulative effect is that recruitment agencies can often predict what's about to happen in a specific industry quite accurately. This is especially true of specialist agencies such as the IMM Recruitment - our focus is marketing and sales, which underpin to a large extent the growth of a company and even industry sectors. Just as requests from clients in a specific sector tell us what type of candidate is sought after at a particular moment and make for instance, March,the month of Internships in Marketing, so too silence from clients coupled with CVs from that industry's staff speaks volumes to us.

To illustrate, this year January and Februrary were the start of the "banking months"; we knew it was serious when it went past the 30 and 60 and then 90 day mark! CVs came in from bank call center staff, client services staff, marketing staff, and then sales and even middle and senior management. When sales staff in an industry begin to bulk send their CV to us as a recruitment agency, I tune in to the news. Sure enough, something's about to hit. The stream of CVs didn't stop until just recently, which indicates to me that there is a growing sense of renewed stability about to happen among staff members.

2008, by comparison, saw January as "pharmaceutical month" and we were swamped by CVs of all sorts of professionals from BSC grads to chemical engineers looking for "growth". It lasted about 2 months, then settled, at about the same time that the plastics sector began actively looking for sales, marketing, project management and operational staff from a "background in chemistry".

I'll admit I was surprised at SABC CVs streaming in to us in March/April this year, but that was later clarified in the media, too, although I was certainly not in the dark as to why we were avalanced by Eskom CVs around the March mark!

So the next time you're wanting to know if your company is just having a bad month or the problem is in the industry itself, consider calling up IMM Recruitment and asking us if we're getting loads of cvs from individuals in your industry .. you may find some valuable answers without the huge expense of a dedicated researcher!

Rabia

Smile break - CV mistakes

After all the serious blog entries on CV writing and job hunting, it's time to take a smile break!

Have a giggle with us, then check your CV for similar mistakes.


Below are a few extracts from CVs that are claimed to be real. (we cannot verify this, although it would not surprise us; as recruiters we understand that these "mistakes" can happen..)

CV errors to be avoided:


"Personal Information: I'm married with 9 children. I don't require prescription drugs."

"I am extremely loyal to my present company; please don't let them know of my immediate availability."

"Qualifications: I am a man filled with passion and integrity, and I can act on short notice. I'm a class act and do not come cheap."

"I intentionally ommitted my salary history. I've made money and lost money. I've been rich and I've been poor. I prefer being rich."

"Note: Please don't misconstrue my 14 jobs as 'job hopping'. I have never quit a job."

"Number of dependents: 40."

"Marital Status: Often.
Children: Various"

"Here are my qualifications for you to overlook."


Reasons for Leaving:

"Responsibility makes me nervous."

"They insisted that all employees get to work by 8:45 every morning. I couldn't work under those conditions."

"Was met with a string of broken promises and lies, as well as cockroaches."

"I was working for my mom until she decided to move."

"The company made me a scapegoat - just like my three previous employers."


Job Responsibilities (Duties)

"While I am open to the inital nature of an assignment, I am decidedly disposed that it be so oriented as to at least partially incorporate the experience enjoyed heretofore and that it be configured so as to ultimately lead to the application of more rarefied facets of financial management as the major sphere of responsibility."

"I was proud to win the Gregg Typting Award."


Special Notes:

"Please call me after 5:30 because I am self-employed and my emplyer does not know that I am looking for another job."

"My goal is to be a meteorologist. but since I have no training in meteorology, I suppose I should try stock brokerage."

"I procrastinate- especially when the task is unpleasant."

"Minor allergies to house cats and Mongolian Sheep."

"Personal Interests: Donating blood. 14 gallons so far."


Small Typos that can seriously affect one's meaning:

"Education: College, August 1880-May 1984"

"Work Experience: Dealing with customer's conflicts that arouse."

"Develop and recommend an annual operating expense fudget."

"I am a rabid typist."

"Instrumental in ruining entire operation for a Midwest Chain operation."


Now get back to work - job hunting is serious business!

Happy Job Hunting!