Resume Breach in Progress!

"Resume Breach in Progress!"

My Job Here is Done™ Transcript (for general use only – machine-generated and it may not be accurate)

Dave (00:00) I'm the manager. I'm looking for the best talent I can find.

Kelli (00:04) I'm the HR specialist. I have cool secret software that sniffs those people out.

Dave (00:10) I'm the marketing director. I have words and sayings that will attract those very people.

Kelli (00:15) Well, I'm the applicant, and I'm excited about this opportunity. So why don't I just take my clothes off and you can get an early look-see?

Dave (00:24) Hello. Who takes their clothes off when they apply for a job?

Kelli (00:31) You do well, figuratively.

Dave (00:34) Well, hopefully not literally. Danger. Will Robinson Danger resume breach in progress. Danger Will Robinson – Danger!

Intro (00:44) Hi. I'm Dave, and I'm Kelli, and this is my job here is done. If you really want that next promotion or you're a rising star entrepreneur, we have some stories to tell that will absolutely help you. I've been starting and running businesses all my life. And I've worked for the man like a dog for decades. Together we'll share stories, ideas and notions that will help you absolutely. Soar past that cruiser sitting next to you, and if you're grinding forward with your growing business, we know where the landmines are. Let's find them. Hey, it's only about 20 minutes. What do you have to lose? Nothing or everything.

Kelli (01:29) Thanks for joining us today. I'm Kelli …

Dave (01:31) … and I'm Dave, and welcome to the podcast. Before we get started, just a quick reminder that you can learn more about the podcast, listen to all the previous episodes - We're bingeable, you know - and you can read our bonus blog material and interact with us at our website myjobhereisdone.com and on Twitter at myjobpodcast

Kelli (01:51) okay, hold on. I have this vision of people bare ass naked walking around with a resume in their hand.

Dave (01:58) No, they all have all their clothes on, but their resumes are telling people things about them a little too early in the process.

Kelli (02:07) This is the one about applying for that job and how we, as employers and managers, can make it safer, easier and dig this, way. better

Dave (02:16) Way better.

Kelli (02:18) Let's frame the problem because it isn't obvious.

Dave (02:20) On first glance, the job application process for decades is trusted so much that our applicants are willing to immediately give up their personal life story, full job history, dates, names, age, political posture, religious beliefs, info about their children, where their kids go to school, their spouse's name, their sexual preferences, who their friends are. And to boot, a little about those friends, even the crazy ones and so much more.

Kelli (02:48) People don't put all that stuff on their resume.

Dave (02:53) No, you're right. They don't put it on their resume. They're putting it in their resume deep in their resume.

Kelli (03:01) Okay, it's time to clue everybody in, what's the story?

Dave (03:05) Yes, I get it. Here's a real-life example of what I'm talking about. I was doing some consulting for an HR Department that was reviewing a job application. Now, this is a real case. I'm just changing the deets for Privacy here. Let's just say that the name was John Doe. And if you Google John Doe, you'll get a million John Does. But on John's resume, he also listed himself as a technical manager. So the HR guy was Googling John Doe technical manager, which he got from obviously his resume.

Dave (03:36) And that narrowed down the search by a huge amount. Now add XYZ company to the search and voila, better info. And now this guy is getting Google to tell him things about John Doe. And yes, he's found the John Doe that's on the application now.

Kelli (03:55) Oh, I get it - add the school he attended and look on Facebook now. You can see his friends, right? Oh, there's his wife. Her name is Jane.

Dave (04:04) Searching posts. Married in 2000. Very easy to do.

Kelli (04:08) Yes. They go to synagogue together with their friends Jay and Sharon. I bet he's Jewish, but you can't ask that.

Dave (04:16) No, you can't.

Kelli (04:17) But he just figured it out.

Dave (04:18) I think so. Wait. His friend Kevin is talking all about the Second Amendment. A quick glance across his other friends. They all look conservative, including a comment from John agreeing with Kevin, a Republican.

Kelli (04:36) Probably it would seem that way. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Dave (04:40) And here I printed this off from the worksheet.

Kelli (04:45) Oh, she's cute. On Kevin's page. He tagged his daughter Jill. She's 14, and she goes to junior high at Wilson School.

Dave (04:54) Yes. Married in 2000, 14 year old daughter. It's 2020. Now, can we find his high school graduation? Oh, maybe on classmates com bingo, 1995. So let's do some math.

Kelli (05:08) 18, and it's 2020.

Dave (05:10) So 25 plus 18 equals 43 ish yes. So it looks like he's around 43 years old. He's a Republican. He's Jewish. He's married. We know his wife's name. We know his kid's name. We know where he went to school. Can we find out anymore? Look a little bit deeper and found out that he had a little trouble in College.

Kelli (05:30) Oh, Google shows his name on a news story where he got a little out of hand at a College party and was charged with disorderly conduct.

Dave (05:38) Do we want a person in the company who parties that hard? Well, what are you going to do? Yeah, I think we do.

Kelli (05:47) Hey, he's a pilot, too.

Dave (05:49) Yeah. So off to the public FAA airman's database and we find out that he's instrument rated but hasn't had a medical in the last few years. So that means he's inactive. But look at this. He also didn't update his record. Oh, his previous address is right there for us to do more investigations. Do you see where we're going with all of this and all this was manual, new AI resume, screeners, AI, artificial intelligence software being bought to do this work behind the scenes. Now, this could be good or this could be bad.

Dave (06:23) And we're not trying to determine that here today. What we're trying to determine here today is is there a better way.

Kelli (06:28) We put too much trust in resume Privacy these days.  It used to be considered kind of sacred ground if you send a resume to an employer.

Dave (06:39) Yeah, because you were actually, back in the day, sending a paper resume to the employer. The electronic versions are what has screwed everything up. The paper would go into a file cabinet, and it would be forgotten forever.

Kelli (06:52) Right. Purged someday.

Dave (06:53) Technology is an elephant. It never forgets. And now it's out there. We don't know where it is. We don't know whose hands it's in. And as such, we have a new problem that we need to deal with.

Kelli (07:04) And knowing this, do we really want to blast out our resume all over the place?

Dave (07:09) And why do we have to do that anyway?

Kelli (07:10) What good is all that personal information for a first glance at a job?

Dave (07:15) Exactly. So what are you actually trying to do at first glance, you're trying to identify whether or not the candidate is going to have the qualifications for the job that you're looking for, right? You really don't care if it's a guy or gal. You don't care how old, you don't care where they're from. Is this a good candidate?

Kelli (07:33) What about the other side of things like job postings? If you look over most job postings, they're really kind of boilerplate. And oftentimes you can see the person who created it is just filling in the form details.

Dave (07:45) Yeah. And if that's you stop right now, go ahead and do a JD a job description, but then give it to your marketing Department and let them turn it into an Advertisement to help instead of a job posting, we'll talk more about that in a little bit.

Kelli (08:00) So another common thing you see is confidential hiring ads where the company is listed as confidential and not a company name.

Dave (08:09) Do you really know who you're sending your resume to?

Kelli (08:12) No, you have no idea.

Dave (08:14) Now, in a lot of cases, it's probably legit, but this is such a scam area. People can easily post a job on any of these boards. You don't need any special credentials. You just need to have an account. You post a job on there and you make it look attractive, and you could easily farm and harvest hundreds, if not thousands, of applications from people. And literally, you are giving your personal information away and you have no idea where it's going. And actually, you don't even know why you sent it in the first place.

Kelli (08:45) Yeah, that's scary stuff. Who are you sending your stuff to? You wouldn't just freely give out that information to anybody. And yet you do under the guise of, oh, it's for a job.

Dave (08:56) You just hand it on over almost like you forgot that you have private personal information in there and you just give it up. But at the same time, you're scared to death to talk to Alexa because you think that she's listening to you all the time.

Kelli (09:09) I'm not quite sure how to help you with that.

Dave (09:11) Bottom line is, the message here is you really need to be careful about is where you send your resume and how you send your resume into these confidential ads. The employer is going to have to understand that they're not going to get as many resumes. And the job applicants should realize that they may be sending their information into some black hole someplace that they really don't want to send it to.

Kelli (09:32) Then there's job postings that you look at and you don't even know if they're really going to hire for that position.

Dave (09:38) I have to post the job, even though we're going to give it to Sally.

Kelli (09:42) Yeah, been there. In fact, I had the personal experience of going completely through an application process, several rounds of interviews, and at the end they said, well, you know, we're going to actually promote from within for this position, but the person that we're promoting, their position is going to be available, and I couldn't believe my ears.

Dave (10:05) That’s shady

Kelli (10:07) I could not believe my ears. And I was like, really annoyed and thanks, but no thanks to you.

Dave (10:13) The bottom line is this isn't working anymore for business or for the candidates. Technology has changed, and now we have to change.

Kelli (10:21) First, for the employers and our friends in HR and leadership, we'd like to suggest that you are not getting the best applicants unless you change your approach to seeking them out.

Dave (10:31) Many smart and qualified people already know that it's not a good idea to apply for a new job while they have their old one because they feel if it gets out, and it often does, hey may compromise their current position, so they just don't explore. And trust me, these people who are not exploring represent a huge part of the qualified pool you'd really like to meet.

Kelli (10:52) Think about this. Why do you need all that personal information in the first place? Step one is qualifying, right? Well, then the lesson is qualify first, ask who you are later.

Dave (11:03) Yeah. Here's a better way to attract talent and by better. I mean, this is scary better. First write a really good factual job description and then give it to the craziest person you can find in your marketing Department to spruce it up a bit.

Kelli (11:18) You know that one.

Dave (11:20) Let it be different. Let that job description have some personality. Make it so that when somebody is reading it, they feel it was written by a human, not a robot. Robot is online reviewing primary directives. Here's an example that I think will work for you.

Kelli (11:36) Post your next job with a paragraph that goes something like this. Xylophone Enterprises knows how important it is for you to feel comfortable not only in starting your next career step, but also when investigating it. So we do our application process a little differently. We respect your Privacy, and we don't want to know your personal details right off the bat. First, we want to learn about what you do well, how you do it, what type of work you've done in the past and why a change in career now is the right thing for you.

Kelli (12:07) Send us that in a redacted resume. Don't use your name, address or anything that could easily identify you. Don't tell us where you've worked or are working. Now, just tell us what you've done and what you're doing now and how long you've been doing it. If you went to school, where, but not when. If you have any honors, awards or other displays of outstanding achievement, let us know that, too. Just include a reliable email address so we can respond to you after we take a look at your submission, we can get to know each other better after that.

Dave (12:37) Wow, that just makes it sound so easy and accommodating. It takes all of the stress out.

Kelli (12:43) The pressure is off.

Dave (12:44) I feel as if I could send you some information about me now, not telling you any of my personal information and not risking a Privacy leak, not risking anybody knowing that it's me and you get to analyze what I do. Well, to see if it fits your position and it's very nonjudgmental.

Kelli (13:03) If you don't put in the years you graduated and this and that, then you're not going to be sitting around worrying. I'm 48. Is that going to harm my chances of getting an interview? Are they going to think I'm too old? I know they can't ask, but they can figure it out.

Dave (13:18) Oh, we already figured out that they can figure it out. And we've got something to say about that in a minute, too.

Kelli (13:23) So what can an applicant do to help change things?

Dave (13:25) Well, first, redact or significantly limit the information you have on social media and public facing job boards, including LinkedIn. And I know that's going to sound a little strange to you, like. Well, isn’t LinkedIn the place where I should tell my whole professional story? And the answer is yes, you should tell your professional story there. But here's some ideas. Instead of listing a job history where the entries state the company that you work for, I work for XYZ Corporation. Instead, say something like I worked at a large, prestigious marketing firm.

Dave (13:58) Don't disclose the actual name of the employer. It starts to give too much information out way too soon. And Besides that, nobody needs to know - who cares.

Kelli (14:08) Who cares where it is.

Dave (14:11) Linkedin doesn't give a rat's ass. No, the person who is reading it doesn't really care where you worked right now. They will in the future, but they don't need it right now. They just need to know, Are you a fit?

Kelli (14:22) Redact as many specific dates as you can, so not to give away your age. Remember what we learned in the episode, Toss this salad out. We talked about proxy questions that expose things that could discriminate against an applicant, even unintentionally. Go back and listen to that episode if you can.

Dave (14:40) Yeah, this is hugely important, especially if you're an older worker. Why? Because our current benefit system is set up to help discriminate - what? Yeah, our benefits system, our health insurance benefits system

Kelli (14:55) You know, I never thought about that.

Dave (14:56) Today health benefits in most cases are priced on age, right? Not a bracket of 60 to 65. But I mean, you're 62, it’s a different rate than somebody who is 61 right now. I'm not saying that this is happening all over the place, but it can if an employer sees some old dude coming down the road and they know that a 60 year old versus a 30 year old can cost them more than $1,000 additional a month in health insurance, it's discrimination in disguise.

Kelli (15:28) So they're never going to ask, it's against the law to ask. But they’ll get the information in another way. It's going to be a consideration. Let's face it, an older workforce who may be more tenured, experienced and beneficial to hire does cost more. I'm going to leave it right there for now because we both have some very strong feelings about this, but that's for another podcast that will really piss off a bunch of people.

Dave (15:52) Yes, it sure will. Not intentionally.

Kelli (15:54) No, never intentionally.

Dave (15:56) But we're going to say some things that you may not have thought about before.

Kelli (15:59) And that's what's going to piss you off.

Dave (16:01) Exactly. Moving on, try to sanitize everything to the point where more information is needed for somebody to put two plus two together for the answer, help yourself by being a little bit more curious and do the same for your resume. Here's an example for some verbiage on your job profile in Linkedin, Indeed, Anywhere.  My profile here helps tell my background story about what I've done and what I do. Well, a lot of my personal information is left out for now for all the good reasons that have to do with Privacy and personal information, I'm sure you understand.

Dave (16:34) If you'd like to get to know me more, please feel free to introduce yourself in a private DM, and we can kick off a more detailed conversation. Thanks.

Kelli (16:42) So I love that, it sets the stage for what you're going to see in the rest of the job profile.

Dave (16:48) And speaking of profiles on LinkedIn, when you set your profile for recruiters to see that you are looking for a job and you think you are hiding that from your employer.

Kelli (16:59) Guess what? They're recruiting too.

Dave (17:02) Yeah, I think that option is open for work and you can set it for - Hey, let everybody see or only let recruiters/your current employer see.

Kelli (17:14) Darn it.

Dave (17:16) Hey, this is all about getting better applicants. Start off not asking or even expecting personal information, and I guarantee you'll get more qualified applicants and candidates putting their toe in the water. And in this day and age, you're going to need them.

Kelli (17:31) Applicants usually go through a lot of hard work to put together a classic, typical resume and cover letter. But a redacted resume can actually need more thought and the result could be better messaging.

Dave (17:42) Yeah, because it makes you think and because it's a little different. I think you'll tell your story a little bit differently. We have some final thoughts here. This is really important. After you receive any resume, whether it is a classic resume full of personal information and unnecessary stuff or the new redacted resume format, you need to communicate.

Kelli (18:04) You know what can happen a lot of times after you spend the time to submit a thoughtful application?

Dave (18:11) Nothing.

Kelli (18:11) Nothing.

Dave (18:12) Zero, ghosting, ghosted. We spend a whole bunch of time talking to peers, colleagues, and other people in preparation for all of our podcasts. And one of the things that we hear all the time is I put in an application through their system and I haven't heard a word, nothing. Sometimes forever. You don't even know if the system processed your resume or not.

Kelli (18:34) This is a common story.

Dave (18:36) I hear this all the time and it's rude and it's unnecessary. I don't care if you have 200,000 employees and you offer the poor excuse that you get so many applications, we can't possibly acknowledge them all. Bullshit. Fix your broken system. These are real people you're pissing off and they're going to tell ten friends and your reputation management is just dying on the vine by not having the proper systems in place to communicate back appropriately.

Kelli (19:06) If you want the best employees, you have two choices.

Dave (19:08) What are they?

Kelli (19:09) Steal them…

Dave (19:10) You mean like physically go in and pull them out of their chairs. I'm taking you over to my company.

Kelli (19:15) Not exactly but sort of.

Dave (19:19) Lots more money, more benefits.

Kelli (19:21) Dangle the carrot.

Dave (19:22) I'm going to steal you - remote work. That's the big one right now indeed. What's the other way to get them?

Kelli (19:28) Find them by looking and acting like you give a shit from the first impression, which is not the job description. It's what happens after they submit their resume.

Dave (19:37) Exactly. You need to communicate. You need to learn how to make sure that your system, if it's automated or your Department, if it's manual, has a communication strategy to keep these applicants engaged. And sometimes you have to say no.

Kelli (19:52) So how do you say thanks, but no thanks.

Dave (19:54) Well, start by just doing it right. If you just did it, that would be a huge step. People wouldn't be out there going. Okay, well, I haven't heard anything from them.

Kelli (20:04) I still have hope the good news for employers is that you can test this.

Dave (20:09) Yes. All you need to do is redo some job posts. Ask people to send in info without personal details. Use some of the verbiage or a modification of the verbiage that we have up on our website.

Kelli (20:20) For that we'll put it in the notes.

Dave (20:21) Yeah, we'll put it in the notes, and I'll bet you'll get a ton of qualified redacted resumes that will emphasize the hidden applicants really strong qualities. Don't forget to put salary in the post.

Kelli (20:34) Please put the salary in the post.

Dave (20:36) Really? You have no reason not to ,please be upfront with your needs and timeframes. When do you expect to make the hire, disclose that within the entire job posting so that people understand where they're at, how it affects their lives. Hey, they may want the job, but you're going to hire too soon for them to be able to make a move. They may decide to take a pass on it.

Kelli (21:00) But I want to search for a new person before I fire the loser I have.

Dave (21:05) So you got to be secret about it.

Kelli (21:07) So I have to be secretive about it.

Dave (21:09) No, actually, we have an answer to that. You don't need to be secret about it. You should always have a posting that is out there that basically says we are expanding our business over the next year and we are looking for qualified applicants to join our team. We promote from within.

Kelli (21:30) And who doesn't like to hear that?

Dave (21:32) Exactly. And we've got all of these new opportunities coming up. We don't have a target date yet, but we are collecting applications and we'll keep you informed about what's going on with our company. By doing that, you start to get a pool of applicants that are coming in who do not have an expectation that you're going to hire at a certain time, but they're throwing their hat in the ring.

Kelli (21:52) It piques their interest.

Dave (21:54) Absolutely. And as it's piquing their interest, you're also in a position to go looking for the replacement for that person that you need to let go. Or you may find some real gems in there, and you'll be able to do the upgrade of team players because we all know there are A teams, B teams, and C teams, and sometimes the C team players just don't work out. They need to go someplace else where they have a different type of an opportunity. Well, it's in your best interest to always have that applicant pool coming in so you can pick and choose along the way.

Kelli (22:27) I love that idea. And those applicants that fall into that pool are not expecting to hear back from you next week with an offer.

Dave (22:34) Exactly. But if you are hiring, just be clear on whether or not you're hiring now or in the future. That's all you have to do. So this may be a little different than what you're doing today. That doesn't mean you shouldn't give it a try. Technology has changed the way employers approach the applicant, and the applicant should realize also that technology has created a certain problem of Privacy. If we start redacting resumes and using that as our first entry into the job application process, I think we're a winner all the way around.

Kelli (23:07) If you like our podcast, please share the fun and tell a friend about us. Just one friend or colleague who you think would enjoy the podcast as well.

Dave (23:15) And if we can help you implement some of the ideas you've heard in our podcasts. We'd love to work with you. Check out our website. It's easy. myjobhereisdone.com.

Chuck Fresh (23:27) I'm the announcer guy and I sound as good as the story you just listened to. My job here is done is a podcast production of 2PointOh LLC. Thank you and your awesome ears for listening. Want to get involved? Have your own special story to share? Tell us all about it and you might get some airtime just like me. Browse over to myjobhereisdone.com. Squish it all together into one word and look for the My Story link...  Until next time. My job here is done!

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