It’s an employer’s market? Really?

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that this economy has not made an “employer’s market.” It certainly isn’t an employee’s market… just check the job listings on your favorite tech company.

But, one of the things we’re struggling with the most, is finding people to work for MechaWorks. Part of the problem is, we’re tough with qualifications. You can’t just want to blog, or want to do stuff, we do need people that have experience. Oh, and good writing skills.

I can’t tell you how many job requests we have to pass over, because someone just can’t write. If you don’t use good grammar, punctuation, and just plain basic writing skills… how in the world do you even expect us to ask for a resume?

Oh, and please, have a resume. I know blogging seems cool, seems like you don’t need a resume, but we’re a professional company. We need resumes. A big part of a resume, is ensuring that people don’t have a prior conflict of interest… or worse, an ongoing one. I care much more about making sure my staff won’t get sued, than what they’re doing right now. Having resumes helps make sure MechaWorks is protected, just as much as the staff is protected.

So, one thing I’m working on is improving how MechaWorks asks for jobs. To be honest, I think that’s one area where I’ve glossed over a bit. If anything, it will make sure applicants don’t give us the “I can has Jobs???” email. (And yes, we’ve actually come close to getting those over at MechaWorks).

What does this rambling post lead to? Where’s the point? Okay, I’ll tell you. In this economy, it’s just a bad job market all around. Don’t think that employers are feeling great in being able to find lots of qualified people… we’re not. We’re having trouble finding qualified people. But, part of that is because that, as the economy gets tougher, we have to be more careful about who we hire, and what our goals are.

2 Responses

  1. Steven Goldfein
    Steven Goldfein January 22, 2009 at 7:14 pm |

    Do you send responses back to everyone, at the very least letting them know that you recieved and read their message?

    Reply
  2. Christopher Price
    Christopher Price January 23, 2009 at 1:16 am |

    No, as with most job systems, we receive a lot of applications, and then have to filter them based on the criteria… we tend to always resist sending out automated replies (we get a lot of those, it becomes annoying).

    Reply

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