A 6-year old's kick-butt cover letter

Yesterday the always entertaining and informative Letters of Note site ran the following letter - essentially a job application cover letter for the position of Director of the National Railway Museum in York, England.

Why this letter was deemed 'notable', is that is was written by a 6-year old. Check the image of the letter, with the full text (with my commentary in parentheses) reprinted below:

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26 July

Dear Mr. Tucker (kid is networked or informed enough to directly address the hiring manager, nice)

Application for director (hiring manager gets what this letter is about)

I am writing to apply to be the new Director of the National Railway Museum. I am only 6 but I think I can do this job. (Acknowledge surface limitation, but immediately discount it, and boldly assert competence and confidence)

I have an electrick train track. I am good on my train track. I can control 2 trains at once. (Demonstrable and relevant skills. Indicates passion for the work as well. Two trains at once in not easy)

[PHOTO]

I have been on lots of trains including Eurostar and some trains in France. (Interest and expertise in the field) I have visited the museum before. (Familiarity with the business) I loved watching the trains go round on the turntable. (Humanizes and connects at an emotional level)

On the other side is a picture of me.

Hopefully I can come and meet you for an interview. (Asks for the interview)

From

Sam Pointon

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To me, this letter is money all the way around.  I will be more than happy to give the 6-year old the interview based on this letter alone. And additionally, the pattern that young Sam followed to describe himself, assert what we was capable of doing, offer some insight to his passion for the work, and to plainly state his case is one that really anyone out there trying to make a similar pitch could do well to learn from.

Sure, you can drop two or three bills with your local resume writer/cover letter coach/career guru to help you wordsmith that just right message, and it might be worth your time.

Or you could take a lesson from a 6-year old that just made a pitch that quite frankly is better than 3/4 of the bilge that crosses most recruiter's desks every day.

Oh and by the way, young Sam did not actually land the job as Director of the Museum. But, he was named 'Director of Fun', a post that sounds in some ways, way cooler that Director could ever be.

The Tech Job Market - Heating Up

Yesterday the folks at Dice.com released their 'The Rising Demand for Tech Talent - Spring 2011' report, which highlights trends in the tech job market, as indicated by job postings on the Dice.com site over the last year.

These kinds of reports from large job boards like Dice.com are instructive; while we can postulate or rely on anecdotal evidence about the condition and situation of certain labor markets, the Dice data provides more quantitative data about the tech labor market that can be used to help explain the actions we see from candidates and employees, and help inform strategies for recruiting, retention, and compensation.

Dice tagged the Spring 2011 report 'Rising Demand', and a closer look at the data justifies that label.

Figure 1 - Tech Job Postings by Position Type

Overall Growth - March 1, 2011/March 1, 2010Nice, overall growth in posted positions of 30%, with stronger growth in Full-Time gigs (35%). More overall opportunities for tech professionals will tend to make filling your specific tech positions more difficult, and also provide even more impetus to your current staff that may have been reluctant (or unable) to seek other opportunities to consider making a move. 

Taking a closer look at the overall numbers, we see increases in tech job postings across most major tech markets.

Figure 2 - Job posting growth by area

DC is still pretty hot. But so is Atlanta

If you are a technical recruiter or corporate tech manager in say Washington or even Chicago and have been wondering why it seems so much harder to fill that ABAP developer spot, maybe you shouldn't be wondering anymore. Markets like Chicago, Seattle, and Atlanta are all seeing significant increased in tech positions (again, as posted on Dice.com). 

So maybe this data is just re-stating the obvious - the tech labor market is improving, it is getting more difficult to find people with the right tech skills in many markets, and those curious recent voluntary departures from your IT staff may all of a sudden make more sense.

But aggregated job board data is not just useful in looking at macro trends in posted positions, these tech jobs are all looking for sets of specific skills, and examining the trends in the kinds of technical skills that companies are advertising for can give us some clues about the trends in enterprise IT priorities and needs in the coming months.

Figure 3 - Trends in Desired Skills

Need for Cloud skills on the riseThe Dice.com data show huge increases year-over-year in the desire of employers for skills in Cloud computing, Virtualization, and JavaScript. Key skill sets and technologies that underly much of the major changes in how enterprise technologies are developed, deployed, and consumed. For those IT pros still clinging to older and more traditional technologies, all is not lost, jobs posted on Dice looking for PeopleSoft skills also increased 66% year-over-year.

Again, maybe not earth-shattering news, everyone knows the Cloud is hot. Heck, when Microsoft is running mass-market TV commercials about 'The Cloud' you know it has arrived. But having some real data helps the recruiter better understand the market, and the HR leader assess what these changing (and clearly improving) markets may mean for workforce planning and strategy. Talent markets are constantly shifting and evolving, if you buy into the whole 'War for Talent' metaphor, then arming yourself with some data is a necessary condition of engagement.

Thanks to the folks at Dice.com for sharing this data, hopefully you don't mind that I re-used much of it here (probably should have checked first).

I encourage you to check out the full report here.

Does that job really require a college degree?

Over the weekend I was catching up on blog reading and this post, Only 20 Percent of Workers Qualify for High Demand Jobs,  on the Perfect Labor Storm 2.0 blog caught my attention.

The post describes a dire-sounding situation, especially for the ranks of the unemployed and underemployed - there areFlickr- bgottsab lots of available jobs, but a shortage of candidates with the requisite education and skills to fill said jobs. From the referenced post:

Today's long-term jobs crisis is not about the current financial meltdown. It is about an accelerating talent showdown. The basic cause is that unprecedented technological advances are ever more rapidly transforming the world of work. This will continue to raise the U.S. talent ante for people seeking employment or for businesses that need to fill high-skill jobs. The U.S. Department of Labor finds that 62 percent of all U.S. jobs now require two-year or four-year degrees and higher, or special postsecondary occupation certificates or apprenticeships. By 2020 we can expect that these talent requirements will increase to include 75 percent of U.S. jobs.

And in the post we learn that it is not just the formal education requirement that trips up many job seekers, it is a more fundamental and structural issue:

Today's long-term jobs crisis is not about the current financial meltdown. It is about an accelerating talent showdown. The basic cause is that unprecedented technological advances are ever more rapidly transforming the world of work. This will continue to raise the U.S. talent ante for people seeking employment or for businesses that need to fill high-skill jobs.

The general slant of the piece, and most of what you read in similar 'companies can't find the skilled employees they need' articles lately is that the US education system, from private elementary schools to online PhD programs is failing, and has not reacted with sufficient speed and aggressiveness to the changing global and national economic conditions, and that it is sending its graduates out to battle unprepared in a market that requires capability and skills that they simply do not possess.

Maybe.  

But there is a part of the equation that consistently bothers me.  In articles like this, and in the discussion that ensues, there is hardly ever recognition of the role and responsibility that the employer bears.  When a new product is developed and fails to succeed in the market, can organizations get away with blaming the consumers? Do we look fondly back on these 'before their time' offerings as nothing more than quirky bits of nostalgia?

When product development comes up with an idea for a product that simply can't be engineered and manufactured at the needed cost/timeframe/quality that the market demands, does the organization and the people involved not see any consequences from the failed attempt?

But somehow in this 'we can't find the skilled workers we need' debate, the corporation(s) seem to get off scot free.  But they are 'selling' something here as well, the opportunity to work, get compensated, and to learn new skills in exchange for an employee's time, attention, and dedication. If they are unable to find an adequate 'market' for this offering, why aren't they held to task (at least partially) as well?

In 'Rework' the co-founders of 37signals advise organizations to forget artificial 'years of experience' minimums, and to drop formal education requirements.  In 'Delivering Happiness' Tony Hseih, CEO of Zappos.com describes in detail a talent 'pipeline' process that allows Zappos to concentrate their external hiring on entry level positions, and though on the job experience and training continue to develop future management and leadership talent.

These successful organizations do not set artificially high barriers to entry.

So I will ask again - does that job REALLY require a college degree?  Or 7-10 years of progressively more responsibility in the specific market and industry?

If there aren't enough buyers for what you are selling, it seems to me that is at least partly if not mostly your problem.

New territories

Whether it is teaching a class, coaching a sports team, or taking on a new professional responsibility, sometimes I think there are two main types of challenges out there.

One - the kind that you are extremely well prepared for, the processes and outcomes are clearly defined and reasonably predictable, and success is to a very high degree linked to effort - the harder, and to some extent longer that you go at it will determine the results.  

The other kind of challenge is new or uncharted territory for you.  The long-term result may be known, but it is certainly more intangible. You may have some kind of understanding of the 'how' part of the task in front of you, but you quickly discover that there is not a set pathway to follow. And long-term success may not at all be tied to how 'hard' you work, it could be that some new type of insight and creativity is necessary.  That may come in ten minutes, or it may not come at all in five years.

But ultimately it seems like the most rewarding kinds of challenges contain elements of both types. With enough predictability and process to support making steady and incremental progress, coupled with a nice batch of uncertainty and excitement that can make the task more challenging and fun.  Some folks will naturally gravitate towards one type or another, but it is pretty unusual for someone to always prefer routine and repetitive assignments, or always choose complex, challenging, and unpredictable jobs.

I am thinking about this blend, and the best way to ensure that organizational job design can be flexible enough to support both kinds of people, and both kinds of roles, while meeting the needs of the organization and people's desires for meaningful work.

Monsters under the bed

Well, not literally under the bed, but on Ebay, Pandora, The Weather Channel, and hundreds of other sites where millions of potential candidates goof off, I mean research important information online. 

What the heck am I talking about?

The Monster.com Career Ad Network.  The Career Ad Network is a (relatively) new offering from the online job board leader Monster.com that gives the ability to extend the reach of the traditional job board advertisement to literally hundreds of sites, generating millions of exposures.

The basics of the process are as follows:

1. Company purchases Job posting on Monster, say for a Java Developer in Milwaukee.

2. Company opts-in to Career Ad Network syndication for a fixed duration

3. Targeted and optimized job ads are syndicated across the Monster network and affiliated sites targeting folks likely to be interested in Java Developer jobs in Milwaukee.

4. Monster helps track not only the sheer numbers of impressions and click throughs, but also how many applications were generated via the career ad network syndication.

How does the Monster technology know just when to serve our example passive candidate a Java Developer job in Milwaukee while they are listening to Radiohead on Pandora? Some little bits of internet surfing magic called cookies that quietly sit in the computer's memory and tell every system smart enough to process them just what the heck you have been up to online.

So if this example passive candidate got ticked off after the last staff meeting and perused a few openings on Monster at the lunch hour this information gets registered in the form of a cookie.  Later that week when said disgruntled java pro tries to unwind with a little Pandora - wham - how about this great new opportunity near where you live and in the field you are in?

What I like about the Career Ad Network is that it provides a way for companies with limited reach outside of their own jobs site to potentially get their openings to a really wide audience, potentially in the millions.  Which ironically, is the same thing I don't like about it, there is no way to ensure that the increased exposure won't be more trouble, in the form of an increase in volume of unqualified candidates, than simply relying on more traditional job advertising.

This week Monster is announcing some improvements to the service that will allow companied to opt-in to Career Ad Network syndication without having to buy 'regular' Monster postings, and improved analytics to track campaign effectiveness.

Overall for companies looking to extend the reach of their job ads, at a reasonable cost, and with no special technical skills required, the Career Ad Network is worth an evaluation. And it is also kind of cool and refreshing to see Monster looking for ways to innovate and improve their basic offerings, as the way people look for jobs changes over time, Monster has to find ways to evolve beyond the traditional job board, in order to better navigate these new waters.

You never know, one company's slacker engineer listening to Pandora all day just might be your organization's next hotshot superstar.

Thanks so much to Kathy Reilly and the team at Monster for giving the great Kevin Grossman fromHRMarketer and I a sneak peak at the new offerings.