Take for example the following job search web page from a fairly high profile tech company.

Look familiar? It should if you’ve been looking for a job long enough. Just about every tech company uses a similar (or the same) template, which design and function-wise, is very 2001: lots of HTML and some rudimentary JavaScript. This particular app is run through Hire.com (which is now Authoria). Comparable options are available through Microsoft or any number of sites, such as this. As a potential job seeker, it’s a clunky, repetitive interface, which only encourages candidates to merely upload the same resume (and maybe a cover letter if they feel like it) to multiple jobs and move on.

Some may argue this is all that is necessary; let the recruiting software and HR do the rest of the work. I would argue that it loses good candidates more often than not (which I’ll get into later).

There is hope: sites like JobScore, LinkedIn, eMurse, and to an extent, Craigslist, provide a new way of bringing potential employees and employers together. But alone, they aren’t an optimal solution. New rough economic times call for new technology: this series of posts will formulate what I think a newer, better way of finding a job should look like.

Let us start with a list:

• Omnipresence. There are rumors that I live on the internet. These rumors are true. I may have a physical body somewhere, doing God knows what, but for all intensive purposes, my spiritual presence is on the web. I might even consider transferring my collective consciousness over to the TechCrunch servers if you were to hire me.
• Cheap. I will take that job for peanuts. Honestly. If you guys (and gals) paid me just more than my unemployment, I would take it. Heck, I’d pay you a finder’s fee.
• Connectitude. I have worked for three of the companies on CrunchBase. That’s right, three!
• Knowledge. I know a thing or two. Or three.
• Name dropping. Michael Arrington. Sarah Lacy. Erick Schonfeld. Now I don’t personally know these people, but I can drop their names on command.
• Alpha(beta). I don’t take ‘beans’ from anyone. So those interns should be afraid. Very afraid. But only a few times a year. 90% of the time I’ll be their best friend.

So seriously, you should pick up your iPhones, G1s, Crackberrys and get to emailing me for a good time to interview (which is technically anytime, since I live on the internet). You can reach me at ed@edgutman.com

Many worded resume can be found here: PDF

Sincerely,

Ed “Hired” Gutman

The first phone call I received from the recruiter was curious but standard: background info, et cetera, et cetera. The recruiter didn’t really elaborate what the job he was polling me for was but did send me a (ridiculously basic) worksheet to test my familiarity with some basic web concepts. All I knew is was that it would be an analyst position, which seemed interesting to me. At this point, I’m not very familiar with the aura of the interview process revolving Google, so I go with it. After I send it back, I’m called asking if I’d be interested in interviewing and, naturally, I say yes. At this point, I still don’t know what the job is exactly.

The interviews themselves were pretty straightforward; as I’m driving back home to San Luis Obispo from Mountain View, I get a phone call saying I’ve been offered a job. One catch though, it was a contractor position. Being naive, dazzled by the pretty lights, and unfamiliar with the work world, I dropped my thesis work and took it happily.

The work was far from challenging. It was an exercise in ad nauseum tedium. I have no doubt that at some point the job will be rendered useless by Google’s gains in automation. Nevertheless, this was not what I signed up for. What was so crazy was that my coworkers on that team were a collection of very intelligent college grads. Many were engineers, mathematicians, artists, teachers; all very accomplished, relegated to menial tasks. The promise of full time employment, graduating from our contractor status, kept most of us in check. In essence, this process was a “boot camp”, meant to make Google soldiers out of us.

My manager demanded loyalty and those that succeeded fell in rank and file. No questions asked, do as your told, and you have a job. The management team in general was very secretive and did not elaborate as to the purpose of many of the tasks we worked on. It was when I started asking questions that the problems started to arise. After lots of smoke and mirrors and several interviews later (for the full time position), I pulled out to take a full time job at Yahoo.

There were some great things that happened at Google. That feeling that you were around greatness and working for a product that I deeply believed in was awesome. But, you do pay a price.

It’s funny, I ended up leaving Google because I didn’t believe in the job, but I believed in the company. I left Yahoo because I believed in the job, but was starting to doubt the company.