What do The Celtics and College Recruitment Have in Common?

Nothing. It's been over 20 years since the Celts have won a world championship so I wanted to take the opportunity to gratuitously say Go Celts!

So what's going on in the recruitment world this week? Engineering and accounting industries are still hiring like gangbusters according to Robert Half and many other reliable sources. As for the rest of us, we are supposedly not in a recession.....it just looks like one :).

The tip off for me that the economy was in trouble was was last summer when gas prices began their meteoric rise. That was followed by a record year of recent graduates accepting job offers, not necessarily because it was the job they wanted but because they are hard to come by. Our goal is to work with students while they are in school so they can pursue to a career path they love and not 'take the first job they can find' after they graduate.

What do you think? Are we in a recession? If so or if not, tell us how that is impacting your hiring budgets, practices, etc?

Speak Into the Mic

If you haven't read it yet, check out the recent Cheezhead.com post on the topic of audio resumes. Apparently the company JobCircle has introduced a new tool called VoiceIntro, which as a self-proclaimed resume enhancement the product is designed to do just that -- give candidates the opportunity to "introduce" themselves with their own voice via a prerecorded audio snippet.

It works like this... you sign up for the service for free, call a toll-free number and leave a 60-second resume voice introduction. The site even plugs how easy recording your message can be: "You don't need a microphone or fancy recording equipment - just a phone and the ability to talk about yourself."

I don't know about you, but my confidence in this is about as high as it is with video resumes (see my related post). It’ll be interesting to see if this kind of thing takes off. My guess is that it won't... at least not now, not with the "dial-an-intro" phone concept. It screams awkwardness to me. Similar to video, if the resulting audio voiceover isn’t polished and compelling it will most likely undermine the candidate’s efforts. Conversely, if the audio winds up sounding like it’s the guy from MovieFone, that probably wouldn’t do much good either! Both would either tick off recruiters for wasting their time or just get some laughs.

In my former life as a local radio advertising salesperson, I had a boss who drilled this mantra into my head: "it's the delivery, not the leave behind."

You could be the most qualified candidate of them all. Your resume could be absolutely perfect. But unless you record a flawless and genuine message, the audio introduction will only be a disservice... and ultimately you will not sell yourself.

Isn't that the point?

Photo by Duchamp