Want More Job Interviews? Follow These 3 Steps

Here are three common complaints I hear from frustrated job seekers: I’ve sent out hundreds of resumes but I don’t get called in. The interviews I do get are for the wrong positions. I’ve heard that most jobs aren’t even posted, so how am I supposed to find out about them?

If this sounds familiar, take heart. Follow these guidelines to get more job interviews:

Focus on active, not passive channels Applying to a job posting is passive. You essentially cede control of your search to the resume reader. Sure, this is a quick way to job hunt, and you can send out multiple inquiries in a short time. But in this case, more efficient means less effective. In addition, everyone has the same idea so you have more competition when you take this approach.

Networking, on the other hand, is active. You target people who have an interest in what you offer. You craft an engaging message that lets them know you have something of interest. You follow up and manage the relationship, taking an active role in the outcome.

People hire people: 80% of jobs are filled by networking versus 20% via postings. Furthermore, the majority of leads to actual hiring come not from first- or second-degree networking connections (friends and family) but from “weak ties” (third-degree or even more remote connections). As you budget your time for your job search, focus on identifying people in your target career, researching their needs, maintaining connections when you do make contact, asking for helpful information or referrals once the relationship is established, and moving within circles that give you access to the “hidden job market” of positions that aren’t posted.

Make sure that your positioning solves a genuine need If you are not getting interviews for the right positions, at the right level and/or the right salary, it’s not the employer’s fault for misunderstanding you. Assume it is your obligation to convey your value and your expertise in a way that the employer understands. This means translating how your skills, ideas, and experience solve their challenges.

Many job seekers give a laundry list of skills, results or experiences and expect the employer to wade through these and find what is relevant for their needs. This cedes control of your positioning, and it’s too easy for the employer to underestimate your value or dismiss you altogether. Instead, lay out the employer’s situation so the hiring manager can see you understand their business. Then, position how your skills and experience provide what is needed to solve the problem – making money, saving time, increasing profits, streamlining effort, managing details, or reducing stress. The employer is hurting and looking for someone just like you!

Remember that marketing is more than the resume Many employers troll LinkedIn for candidates – will your online profile attract attention? Most employers first “ask around” for referrals – if your network hears about an opportunity, would they know to refer you and do they know enough about you to refer you in a compelling way? Remember the importance of weak ties – jobs are filled more by leads from acquaintances and people you don’t know. So if you were to send an inquiry email to start a conversation, could you get a cold contact to respond?

As you can see, there are many instances where the resume is not your first point of contact with an employer. Yet, so many job seekers spend an inordinate amount of time refining their resume to the exclusion of their online profile, networking pitch, and written correspondence. To get more interviews, you need to ensure that all of your marketing material is compelling.

If you’re not getting as many job interviews as you’d like, which of the above suggestions are you willing to try? What will you resolve to do differently?

Caroline Ceniza-Levine is a career expert with SixFigureStart®. She is a former recruiter in management consulting, financial services, media, technology, and pharma/biotech.

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Facebook Rattles Networking World With ‘Open Source’ Gear

Google solved the problem ages ago, but only for itself. Now, Facebook is building a solution for
everyone else.As far back as 2007, rumors indicated that Google was designing its own networking switches, creating a cheaper and more effective way of moving information across the massive data centers that underpin its web empire, and early last year, the rumors crystallized into the real thing, as photos of a Google switch appeared on the web.


Google still won’t discuss these switches, but it has revealed a similar project, and according to a former Google engineer who once worked on the switches, the company fashioned this new gear because its data center network had expanded to the point where traditional hardware just couldn’t get the job done.


“When Google looked at their network, they needed high-bandwidth connections between their servers and they wanted to be able to manage things — at scale,” JR Rivers told us last fall. “With the traditional enterprise networking vendors, they just couldn’t get there. The cost was too high, and the systems were too closed to be manageable on a network of that size.”


In other words, Google needed switches that could run a new software and new protocols.


‘We aim to produce an OS-agnostic, open source switch that can be treated just a like a bare-metal server when it comes on the network.’


— Frank Frankovsky


Yes, Google’s operation is far larger than most, but nowadays, others are running into the same networking problems, and that includes Facebook. The difference is that when Facebook tackles this sort of thing, it typically does so with an eye for the bigger picture.


Two years ago, Mark Zuckerberg and company turned the hardware world on its head when they launched the Open Compute Project, an effort to improve every aspect of the modern data center and share the results with the world at large. They began by “open sourcing” fresh designs for computer servers and power systems and cooling equipment. Then they did the same with hardware that stores massive amounts of digital data. Then they remade the racks that hold all these machines. And now it’s time for the networking gear.


The idea is to design a networking switch that anyone can load with their own operating system — just as you can load your own OS on a computer server. Typically, networking switches are sold by hardware giants such as Cisco and HP and Dell, and they ship with software specific to the company that designed them. But Facebook aims to separate the hardware from the software.


“We aim to produce an OS-agnostic, open source switch that can be treated just a like a bare-metal server when it comes on the network,” says Frank Frankovsky, the man who oversees Facebook’s hardware design and serves as point man for the Open Compute Project. “We want to break the appliance model that’s used to distribute switches today.”


The trouble with today’s networking software is that it’s not as malleable as it could be. You can’t program networking gear in the same way you can program desktop computers and servers.


Several companies are already developing software designed to provide greater control over networking hardware, and many of these outfits have already put their names behind Facebook’s new project, including Big Switch Networks, VMware, and Cumulus Networks, a company founded by JR Rivers, the former Google networking engineer.


“This is a great idea,” Rivers says. “Today, there’s such thing as a bare metal server — but there’s no such thing as a bare metal networking device, a networking device that arrives blank and you can do whatever you want with it.”


In the past, Facebook has typically open sourced its new hardware designs after completing them behind closed doors. But according to Frankovsky, this new project will be a collaborative effort from the get-go. “What we find works better is to write a charter — the high-level intent of the project — and then allow the community to further define what the actual attributes of the project are,” Frankovsky says.


Rivers tells us he has already discussed many of these same matters with members of the Open Compute Project, but the design of the new switch is still very much up in the air. The plan is to formally start the project next week during an Open Compute meeting at MIT, outside of Boston. Najam Ahmad, who oversees network engineering at Facebook, will lead the project, but a long list of other companies are slated to participate, including Intel and Broadcom, who build microchips for networking hardware.


Big Switch Networks is already offering a generic switch operating system that lets you manage hardware with an open source protocol called OpenFlow, but Facebook’s project will go a step further, embracing any OS.


According to Frankovsky, Ahmad, and Rivers, the project will fashion a switch that includes a simple “boot loader” that lets anyone remotely install software on the device over a network. But in order for this to work, the software must be designed to recognize the boot loader.


Today, you can buy “white box” networking switches from original design manufacturers, or ODMs, such as Quanta and Accton, but the Facebook project aims to create a standard design that makes it far easier for anyone to run the software of their choice.


As with previous Open Compute projects, Facebook’s networking project will share the specs for this switch with the world at large, and — working in tandem with hardware manufacturers — anyone will be free to reproduce the hardware. Facebook’s “open source” server designs are now available from several manufacturers, including Asia-base outfits Quanta and Winstron.


According to Ahmed and Frankovsky, Facebook also plans fashion a device that’s much simpler than the typical switch. “What we don’t want on the switch is as important as what we do want,” Ahmed says. “Today, we end up buying a box that has a lot of features that aren’t applicable to what we do. We want to strip it down to exactly what we want.” Judging from the photos of the “Google Pluto Switch” that appeared on the web last January, Google has done much the same with its networking hardware. But Google’s hardware is only for Google.

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