JOBSEARCH: a job without an interview

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

http://www.ere.net/articles/db/3D129B2B49624023B18453BAFF93EF41.asp

Blow The Sucker Up?
Challenging our assumptions on finding, enticing, and hiring talent
Thursday, July 12, 2007 | by Kevin Wheeler

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Assumption #4: Each candidate has to be interviewed in person. Interviews are very poor predictors of success or performance. A good behavioral interview may improve the prediction by a bit but still not raise it much above chance. While it is in human nature to want to meet and like a person we are going to work with, this meeting should not be equated with skill or ability assessment. There are hundreds of excellent, legal, affordable tests available for more accurately screening candidates. These tools, combined with a website also designed as a screening tool, can greatly improve your ability to select candidates who have the capability, the motivation, and the skills to perform. It is possible to entirely skip the interview and get better-quality candidates than you do today.

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That’s a stunning concept. Get a job without an interview. That could be web-able!

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JOBSEARCH: Be prepared to “Follow Up”

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

http://www.net-temps.com/adcgi/banner.cgi?ref=crnews&ch=2520&id=crs_2520

Here’s a Powerful Little Job Search Secret
© Written By Jimmy Sweeney
President of CareerJimmy and Author of the new, www.Amazing-Cover-Letters.com

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There are two magical words that can transform your job search. Two words that can land you more job interviews. Two words that can bring you more job offers…

Those two magical words are, “Follow up.”

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My added wisdom to this tip is that you just don’t just “follow up”.

You have to have the paradigm of “follow up” well integrated into your Standard Operating Procedure. When I was “out”, I used Lucht and his workbook as ONE of my tools. (Best 100$ I ever spent.) But, it was changes to my SOP that made it easy to “follow up”. And a log book.

I feel that I have a terrible memory. (It’s probably too crowded with Jeopardy answers from my own good. Name the four states who capital begins with the same first letter as the state? Done!) SO I try to compensate. I was always logging in my “job search book”. Quick what’s the name of the receptionist at the job interview at XXXXXXX on July 17, 1996. Ms. Mary Stein. (I cheated I had that factoid ready.) But, I have decades of that kind of stuff from when I’ve been “out”.

Now I have everything in text files on my notebook, backed up offline. It’s search able and usable.

My SOP is to log everything.

I grabbed business cards and anything that was being handed out. See the trick was to do it contemporaneously. Even waiting until you were out of the building was too late. I used McKay’s 66 to put as much context around the people. Ms Stein was partial to blue flowers having one on her desk and was pictured with one in a photo on her desk.

Does it matter in the grand scheme of things? I don’t know.

Another SOP of mine was to have several pre-stamped thank yous in my attache case. After meeting with any one, I’d “debrief” at a local coffee shop and write those notes. I felt I was especially tricky in that I had different looking ones for multiple interview days. (I actually had five different stock styles.) And, I would compose a “unique” note to each target. I had “stock text” printing in my bag that I copied from generics with things like <insert question form interview here>. But each target would get a customized thank you. In at least one instance, I know that the three targets compared their notes. I didn’t get the job, but did get the feed back that they were impressed. Not impressed enough though to hire me. Argh!

It’s all about having an SOP to follow. Makes it easy.

Another SOP was to send a thank you to the receptionist with something non-generic. On a repeat appearance at XXXXXXXX, the nice Ms. Stein introduced me to the interviewer, as that “thoughtful fellow I told you about”. Didn’t get the job! Argh! But maybe she was the reason I got the call back, and I was just a bad interview. Who knows!?!

Bottom line: Use SOPs that make it “brain dead” simple to follow up.

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MONEY:Monetary Inflation

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

http://www.homelandstupidity.us/2007/07/04/independence-day-3/

From a discussion with a befuddled fool who’s had the wool pulled over his eyes.title

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Author: Ace Duggery
Comment:
You’re a moron. First of all, I had to debate whether or not to even respond to a posting with dozens of grammatical errors. Obviously you’re a very smart person, your command of the written English language shows that. NO matter what you use as a currency, whether it’s a commodity or a piece of paper, somebody will have to control the issuance of such currency. Unless you want a barter economy, do you know what that is reinkefj?, you will never get true value from an exchange and there will constantly be a change in value of whatever you use for currency. If we used gold or silver, or even a note that is backed by such commodities, like the United States used to do, we would have to constantly revalue how much our currency is worth per oz. of these commodities. Do your research, this has happened several times over the course of history. And the reason we stopped using volatile commodities as a peg for our currency is that the prices of gold and silver fluctuated so much that we had to frequently change

Oh…and the dollar has not depreciated 95% since 1970. That is a blatant lie, did you make that number up?

I understand your points, and I even agree with you to the effect that the government, “gooferment”, whatever you want to call it, is, at times, corrupt. This is no perfect society, get over it. No such place exists, has ever existed, or will ever exist. There will always be shortcomings. I am not advocating that we completely ignore these problems, but let’s at least come up with a better idea than commodity backed currency. And seriously what the hell was Ron Paul talking about in the last debate? 9/11 happened because we were bombing Iraq and the middle east? Are you trying to say we “deserved” 9/11 because we were over there fighting against countries in the Middle East?

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Here’s my response:

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>somebody will have to control the issuance of such currency.

No, why can’t we have a free market in currencies as we did before the legal tender laws were passed mandating that everyone had to accept these phony unconstitutional federal reserve notes.

>And the reason we stopped using volatile commodities as a peg for our currency is that the prices of gold and >silver fluctuated so much that we had to frequently change how much the paper backing was worth to the metals.

No, the reason FDR took us off the gold standard was so that he could spend as much as he wanted on welfare and warfare. And the people were to dumb to see the con.

>The dollar has not depreciated 95% since 1970. That is a blatant lie, did you make that number up?

No even the Federal Reserve will admit that the dollar has depreciated.

http://www.frbsf.org/econrsrch/econrev/98-3/3-16.pdf
between 61 & 97 2.39% per year average by the Fed’s own numbers. The math is a little tortured to minimize the impact.

However, other credible sources

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/data/CPIAUCSL.txt
1970-01-01 37.900
2001-01-01 175.600
CPI 175 from 37 looks a lot more than 95%

http://inflationdata.com/inflation/Inflation_Rate/Inflation_Rate_Calculator.asp#results
435.49%

And no one seems to dispute the impact.

http://www.econedlink.org/lessons/index.cfm?lesson=EM168
Costs of Inflation
4. Inflation does reduce the purchasing power of money.
5. Inflation does redistribute income. On average, individuals’ incomes do increase as inflation increases. However, some peoples’ wages go up faster than inflation. Other wages are slower to adjust. People on fixed incomes such as pensions or whose salaries are slow to adjust are negatively affected by unexpected inflation.

>You’re a moron.

You’re right “Putting lipstick on a pig doesn’t make it beautiful and annoys the pig.”

One can’t reason with a “true believer”. If you wish to believe that everything in money is just peach keen, then do so in peace. But, let’s not kid around with the what is the single biggest crime of the gooferment messing with the money. It’s what brings down civilizations (i.e., Romans; Germans; English) and our turn is coming. Quickly.

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Which made me think of an interesting comparison.

If the CPI was 38 in 1970 and 176 in 2001, that’s a 463% increase.

If the S&P500 was 85 and 1394, that’s 1643% increase.

If the DJ was 619 and 11501, that’s 1857%.

So the markets have out performed inflation.

Using my real estate as a proxy, 55 to 350 47 to 335 40 to 350. That’s about 142 to 1035. Or, 728%.

Those are the good things.

Purchasing power has declined. SO a “depreciation factor” would make all these “paper gains” what?

$4559.73 in the year 2001 has the same “purchase power” as $1000 in the year 1970. www.measuringworth.com/ppowerus/result.php

So that’s about 79%!

But, it I think it understates it. For example, I’m paying property taxes on an inflated value. I’m paying capital gains taxes on an inflated value. And, the various taxes are all based on a percentage of inflated value.

Exponential Arghs!

One thing is for sure. You don’t want to be holding cash. Ever!

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RANT: Social Security is such a scam

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

FROM A FELLOW ALUM’S OBIT

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… … died July 16, 2007 in New York. He was 64.

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SO he paid the ultimate “social security tax”. Argh. He paid into one of the most unfair Ponzi scams imaginable. If an Insurance Company offered you such a policy, the executives would all be in jail for theft. Or at least on the various nightly news shows, like “Shame on You”.

For a per centage of your life time earnings,

(Now doesn’t that sound like something you’d expect hear in a movie sequence of a Mafia shakedown?)

you get a modest lifetime disability protection,

(If you are willing to hire a lawyer and spend a lot of money getting it.)

and a less than adequate retirement income

(And they now say social security was never intended to live on … … “barbara streisand”)

that you have to pay taxes on

(That they “promised” would never be taxed … … double “barbara streisand”)

and represents the biggest savings of a poor person’s life

(Economist generally agree it’s a wealth transfer from poor minority men to rich white women!)

that’s ends with no benefit when you die.

(The ultimate in theft!)

Economist generally concede that the most optimistic look at “Social Security Insurance” is that it is a negative 1 to 2 % savings.

In my fellow alumni’s case, it’s nothing but a tax.

What a losing bet!

“Social Security Insurance” is a socialist program that is an absolute disgrace.

At least the gooferment should have the honesty to stop calling it “insurance”.

Argh!

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PRODUCTIVITY: I don’t do Link Exchanges either

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Why I Do Not Do Link Exchanges
Des Walsh
Posted in July 17th, 2007

http://www.thinkinghomebusiness.com/2007/07/17/why-i-dont-do-link-exchanges

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There must still be some courses or e-books where people new to blogging are told to email other bloggers and suggest or request an exchange of links. I don’t know what other explanation there would be for the emails I get on a fairly regular basis, out of the blue, from people I don’t know, wanting me to exchange links.

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me2

“I wouldn’t be a member of any club that would have me as a member” Groucho Marx

I don’t do Link Exchanges.

(No one has ever asked me!)

;-)

Just seems … … so conspiratorial … … so yucky.

I put sites in my rolls that I think are worth your time.

Now, if some one would send me a stack of hundreds, then I’d link to them. Never said I couldn’t be bought. But, I’ve never made a dime blogging. I just do it for the sense of moral superiority. :-) (As Rooster C. Leghorn cartoon character of my yuth says “That’s a joke, son.”)

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