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Solving a Rubik's cube does not demonstrate anything but an ability to memorize. It's a formula. That doesn't make it less impressive, but it's not problem solving skills, it's memorization.
(Yes, I do know how to solve one, though I'm out of practice. I used to have it down to under nine minutes back in the day)
Is FedExing a resume requiring the signature of the person whom you'd be working for (assuming you know or can find out) a crude method yet?
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Don't forget that \"bosses\" within the same field often know and talk to one another.
\"Hey Bob, did some douchebag send you a resume via homing pigeon?\"
\"Yeah, I'm sending that douchebag my drycleaning bill -- damn pigeon pooped all over me.\"
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Speaking of jobs, I've got a question for my fellow consumerist readers.
So I'm currently grossly underpaid, I took my current job to get my foot into a specific industry. I've been with the company for 4 years and now I'm ready to get what's comming to me. I've been interviewing and one of my recruiters told me that what I'm asking for in salary is rediculous because it's a huge markup over my current salary. My argument is that what I'm asking is (without a doubt) the going market rate for my profession and job title.
What do you guys think, does the fact that I took a job that is significantly underpaying me a curse that should limit me from getting true market value in my next position?
Thanks guys.
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@Wormfather: Remember that you can always ask, and the worse they can say is no. In fact, you don't even have to be honest about how much you are currently making, because they can't verify it.
Recruiters are NOT working in your best interests. Always remember that.
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I think it depends on the job you're after. If you're doing advertising, marketing, sales, or the creative fields its OK to be a little creative or offbeat (while still being professional, etc.). It just depends on the field and the job.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-1504-100x100.png\")
I love the chicks who send me their modeling pics when they apply for sales jobs.
@ Wormfather: Unfortunately, I think it will. At the very least, you'll have to work very hard to find a company that agrees that your experience and current salary position are out of skew enough that they will want to pay you more than their formula says they have to.
In my personal experience, I worked as a Management Consultant for a couple of the Big Six. I was hired at the low end of the salary range because I did not have the \"right\" experience or University name on my diploma to warrant the higher pay scale. Once I was hired in, however, I was doing exactly the same work as my higher-paid peers. Since all future pay raises were percentage raises, I always lagged behind my peers, even though I was rated the same or better than most of them.
When I jumped from one firm to another (via a headhunter), I was able to get a major bump in salary, but alas was still under my peers! I wanted to be paid commensurately but was told that they would not hire me under those conditions. (Something about \"distorting the formula\").
Unfortunately, head hunters do not work for the job seeker. They work for the company searching for talent. Consequently, they are not really looking out for the job hopper's best interests. They will \"negotiate\" a salary of just enough to fill the space without giving away more than they have to.
The only way to get what you think you deserve in this structure is to hire your own employment agent/attorney to negotiate on your behalf. Since this is not feasible for the vast majority of job seekers, your second best option is probaby to map out a strategy of ladder climbing. That is, figuring out which companies and which positions will look best on your resume, maximizing your jump \"bump\", doing a rock-star job in that position, and then planning on jumping again in 18-24 months.
Of course, the key phrase here is \"rock star job\". If you are not as good as you think you are, you'll find yourself stuck in the career lint trap for the rest of your Dilbertesque days.
There have been several studies that show how two identical workers earn vastly different salaries after ten years of equal career progression; the only difference is that one stayed loyal to one company while the other switched jobs every 24 to 30 months.
Good luck on your quest!
@FatLynn: Depends on what your interests are. If the person is a n independent recruiter (does not work for the company you're looking to work at) and your only interest is getting a job with the highest salary, then yes that's what recruiters do because they are typically paid by a percentage of they salary you will receive.
If the recruiter works for the company their job is to hire people for the lowest salary possible.
And yes, they can't verify your current salary so you can just make it up. Or you can say it's none of your business.
When applying for a job at the NSA, you should send your resume in the most complex cypher you can devise.
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@Wormfather: Don't tell them what you're making now. Let your resume (and interviews) tell them what you're worth.
@AnnC: Nope, not true. They want you to get a high salary, but first and foremost, they want to close the deal.
A difference of 5K to you may only be $500 to them. If you are holding out for a 75K offer, and the company offers 70K, the recruiter will tell you to take it. They would rather seal the deal and their relationship with that company than worry about $500 more.
Now, they will tell you that they earn more when you earn more, but that is secondary to just getting the job done.
@AnnC:
You can do the \"nunya\" bit, but a very high percentage of recruiters won't talk to you. I'm subscribed to an email list and this very topic came up. The consensus: \"If they won't disclose their current salary, don't bother working with them.\"
It's cruel, but that's the way the system works. Oh, and some employers will ask for a W2 to verify your income.
>>...\"a cover letter with an electronic key chain and a note saying, 'The only noise you'll hear out of me are the ones generated by this letter,'...\"
Leaving aside the subject-verb agreement problem in the note, what exactly does this mean? Was it a musical key-chain? Did the key-chain contain a recorded resume? This one needs more explanation, but it was unfortunately quoted verbatim from the original article.
We may never know :(
That Rubik's Cube thing WORKED in \"The Pursuit of Happyness!\"
How about this method? Detailing specifically what you've done for other companies and clients to save or make them money, and how it would apply to your potential employer or client.
If someone confidently sent me their rez with that information and pursued me in an assertive yet respectable way - I'd have more respect for the no-nonsense approach than a gorilla suit.
james...
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I remember one story about a McDonald's resume that pretty much treated every question as a joke, the standard \"Sex:_Yes, please_\". The guy got the job, but then again, its McDonald's.
Wow, I'd never hire someone who thought a silly gimmick [from a movie??!] was a good way to get hired. Do they think hiring managers are that gullible?
Never tell them what your current salary is, it weakens your bargaining position and strengthens theirs. If they ask for a W-2, tell them no. You are negotiating for what you are worth to them, not what you were worth to someone else.
@Wormfather:
I have the same issue/fear -- I did the same thing to get back into an industry I'd left to pursue other passions and now I'm told I can't be hired at the rate (I believe) I'm worth. I've started using a salary range on my salary history in hopes of giving myself some more leverage.
Has this always been going on? I don't remember this tactic being used 5-10 years ago.
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My solution to great disparity between market rate and my salary (this was in the dotcom days, I had signed on at a startup as a woefully underpaid programmer in order to get my foot in the door) was simple: I lied to recruiters about what I made. I told them I was making 10% less than the average for our area, when in reality I was making 45% less. I got offered all three jobs I was sent on interviews for and they all offered salaries at the middle of the going rate range.
Of course one of the key factors is I really was qualified for those positions at those salaries, I was just getting screwed by my employer because each promise that \"Oh, we'll normalize your salary to industry standard in the next raise cycle\" was then abandoned with \"Oh, well, we don't want to give you too big a raise all at once.\"
I was afraid of hearing that, but it is what it is.
@revmatty: That's exactly the situation I'm in I'm making about 30% less than I should be making. But I'm with out a doubt qualified for the positions I'm seeking, I've already turned one offer down based on the fact that I'm not willing to dump one crappy paying job for one that slightly less crappy.
At the end of the day, it's now just what I'll be making in a year, what I make in the next job will have a big impact on what I'm making in 10 years and although that difference is only $15K right now, scaling foward that difference could explode to $35-45.
I may have to use ColdNorth's plan.
You are so right about the W2 part.
I had a buddy who worked in human resources, and it was a strict policy, they wanted to know your previous salary and for you to prove it with your tax form.
Me and her argued this one over, but her point was, if the applicant didn't like it, they were free to apply elsewhere, and she would hire someone who could deal with it.
Ironically, she got alot of kudos for adding \"innovations\" in the hiring process, and thus improving the productivity of new hires.
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aleksey vayner should have read this...impossible is nothing
I had a friend tell me once, about how her company received a pie in the mail. It was some big blueberry affair, but there was a slice missing.
The next day some guy comes in with, you guessed it, the missing piece of the pie. From what I understand, the company was not impressed, but they did get to eat some free pie.
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@Wormfather: don't tell anyone what you make, especially the recruiter, interviewer, manager. when asked what my current salary is i simply reply \"competitive\" don't be an ass about it, just smile and say you don't discuss what you make at your current company. ask them what they have budgeted for the position. ask them what they are willing to pay. get them to make the first move. granted this is not always easy, but since i started doing that years ago, i've always gotten a nice raise when i've changed jobs. but i am in high tech so that could have something to do with it.
i once had a recruiter ask me what i made and i said that i don't discuss that. he got really made and started yelling at me over the phone said \"if i can't trust you to know what you make how can i trust anything on your resume\" which was a load of shit. i simply replied \"i don't think i can work with your in my career search, i wish you the best of luck. have a nice day\" then hung up.
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The only answer I've ever given when asked how much I earn is to state quite simply that salary constitutes only part of my overall compensation package. There are medical benefits, stock options, bonuses, retirement contributions which all impact the final compensation number. In the end I will be the one who decides whether the total compensation will be adequate for my needs.
If they have a problem with that, do you really want to work there anyway?
However, if you are truly concerned, tell them that you currently are being undercompensated for your skills and state the salary you believe you should earn. If they believe you are skilled then negotiate a contracted increase schedule that runs outside of the normal yearly review crap that will get you there within a year or two. You can remind them that the only other method would be to job hop and you are really not interested in pursuing that method as it benefits no one.
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I recently got a new job and my boss can't stop bragging about my resume. I got bored one day at my old job, so I started working on it, and I incidentally made one of the lines that described my duties at one of my jobs very alliterative. So I kept the theme going.
Every single descriptor of my past jobs used alliteration. Some of the lines were stretching it, but it worked. It got the attention of my boss and it got me the job. He said it's the best resume he's ever seen.
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RBF, could you post that resume somewhere? I'd love to see it.
I just rely on my ridiculously good looks. Works every time.
I do not do HR work, much, but I do investigative work all the time. Without fail I have always been able to call in employer to verify that a person works there and how much they make. I use the script which includes a name drop of who I work for, government, and within talking to two or less people I get what I want to know.
I am a straight and narrow, no nonsense, made of wood, civil servant who dresses and acts like a one would expect. So no tips about extra attention from me, sadly...
@rbf2000: I'm dying to see this... I think it's worthy of an entire article on Consumerist!
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@Wormfather: So here's the great part: Who cares? If you don't get a job somewhere, you're still comfortable in this current job. If you don't get it ONLY because of your salary requirement/current salary, then I agree with the others: Lie.
I've never been asked for a W2. Don't worry about that. If they do... Then..... There's more places out there!!!
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Maybe something like sending a resume via homing pigeon (don't laugh, it's been tried.)
Really? How could it possibly work?
I mean, the thing about homing pigeons is, they go home. To their roost, where their nest and mate are.
You can't whisper an address in a homing pigeon's little ear and have it fly off there instead. The only place it's going to go when you let it loose is home.
\"Ms. Shapiro says a job hunter in a gorilla suit once dropped off his resume at her office at a construction company. Then, she recalls, he burst into a song describing why he would make a strong candidate. 'The receptionist said he couldn't come in, but he kept running around with balloons and calling my name,' she says. 'Everyone thought it was my birthday. The CEO came out. It wasn't cool.\"
I got an idea. Come out then maybe the CEO wouldn't have.
Don't hide behind the receptionist. That is for all who do.
I knew a guy who supposedly interviewed at an advertising firm. To follow up on the interview, he went to all the grocery stores and bought out their bananas. He then crated them up and sent it to the firm with some cheesy note about \"going bananas trying to get the job\" or something along that line.
When he didn't get a response (positive or negative), he called up the firm. The receptionist said something like, \"That was you that sent the bananas? Yea, you gave our whole office a really bad fruit-fly infestation.\"
He didn't get the job.
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@LTS!, @Wormfather: For my next round of job-hopping I really want to take a tough line over salary negotiations without outright lying. (There's a first time for everything...)
When it's an independent recruiter I have no qualms saying, \"market rate\" or something equally vague. When it's HR and they can ask for your W2, it's usually much harder.
One job website recommends throwing the question back. \"How much do you make?\" \"So, are you making a job offer? If not, I'd like to discuss compensation when we've reached that stage, not earlier.\"
Also a friend told me she got 25% more than she was previously making by simply phrasing her answer a certain way. \"I make under 80k at the moment\", could mean anything from 40k to 79k.
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@shoegazer: \"I make under 80k at the moment\" That's brilliant. I need to remember it next time I'm job hunting.
@shoegazer: Seriously, where was your comment yesterday. I went on my second interview and the Director of Finance cornered me.
Him: So what are you looking to be paid?
Me: A competitive market rate
Him: Well give me a number
Me: Well, how much is bugeted for the position?
Him: [chuckle and evil laugh]
At this point he took out a wand said some crap about being a wizard and the next thing I knew I had disclosed my figure.
Awww man, and I thought that my gorilla outfit idea was unique! But seriously, what happened to good old fashioned networking?
A reply from Churchill to Roosevelt when Roosevelt walked into a room while Churchill was naked might apply to the photo above:
As you can see, we have nothing to hide from you.
@Wormfather: Yeah, that's how they got me the last time.
\"Tell us what you maaaake.\"
\"No!\"
\"Is it a number between 40 and 50?\"
\"Yeeeeees...\"
And the next thing I knew they sent me an offer letter with the words \"Non-negotiable\" written in Blood. Well, ink.
All's well that ends well, they just called me with an offer of exactly what I said I wanted. Why does that make me sad?
I like to use the old Sharon Stone, Basic Instinct approach. You know the one. It's weird though, here I am, a 30-something guy who's never been hired.
\"I had a buddy who worked in human resources, and it was a strict policy, they wanted to know your previous salary and for you to prove it with your tax form.\"
That's an excellent strategy for HR, depending on the type of employee you're looking for. You weed out the ambitious and free-thinking.
I was reading one of the Microsoft blogs and the blogger, an HR manager, mentioned that one applicant sent a life size cardboard cut-out of himself with his resume printed on the back. It certainly got their attention.