Advice for recruiters

Like a lot of people, whenever I'm looking for my next project I'll often times work with recruiters to find my next gig. Some folks, especially in the tech world, tend to shy away from working with recruiters because they've had so many bad experiences with them.

I don't mind working with them by default, because if they can help me find a project to work on that I would enjoy, I'm more than happy for them to take a cut of the pay. I simply look at it as a commission that I might otherwise have to pay a sales person.

Sure, I'd rather have companies come directly to me or find these opportunities myself, but I'm only one human and there's no way I can know about all the great opportunities out there - nor can I expect everyone to know who I am.

The problem though is that a LOT of recruiters are absolutely terrible at their jobs, and only a few are really great at it. This surprises me though because there seems to be a really great opportunity for people who are genuinely interested in working in that profession.

The problem most recruiters (and recruiting agencies) have is that they haven't changed the way they're doing business. Most of them seem to think that their job is to cast a wide net, pull in a bunch of resumes, sort through them, and pick out the ones they think their client may like.

The problem with this approach is that they're simply acting as middlemen. The value they're bringing is acting as a collector and a filter. I suppose this is still working a little bit right now - but it won't for much longer.

I had two completely different experiences with recruiters recently that have had me thinking about this a lot. One recruiter brought me into their office to talk about a project with a company in Chicago. After a pretty good conversation, he brought in the "account rep", who is the person that manages the relationship with the client and she started looking at my resume.

I should point out that I never only send someone my resume. In fact, I try not to send a resume at all but sometimes I give in. When that happens, I always send a link to my bio so they can check out my blog, the apps I've made, my company, my podcast, etc. Admittedly, my resume is probably pretty terrible, and it likely reflects my belief in their value.

The first thing she said was something like: "you know Andrew, when I look at your resume I get all confused. I mean, the first thing I see on here is 'founder' and I don't know - that says entrepreneur to me and my client needs a project manager - not an entrepreneur."

Apparently, never-mind the fact that the company I started was a project management company. She went on to show me an example of a resume she worked on for what their client would want to see. IT WAS AN 8 PAGE RESUME!

So I asked them, you know that link I sent you, did you click on it? Answer: no. So you haven't seen my blog? No. You haven't looked at the companies I started? No. You haven't seen any of the applications I've made? Nope. Not the Android one? No. Not the Rails app? Nope. How about Duarlander, you know, the application testing service? Nope, not that either. Did you take 20 seconds to even Google my name? No.

So you mean to tell me that you brought me out of my office, into your office, losing an entire half day of productivity to meet with you and you didn't even take the time to get to know me at all? Yep, that's right. Keep in mind, this isn't a hiring manager with 1,000 other things on their plate. It's their job to find people for their clients.

That is a bad recruiter, they insulted me, and it's what almost everyone in the industry does.

Contrast this with another person I've been working with, and who's project I'm joining. Before even speaking with me, they talked to someone else that I've worked with, they checked out my experience, they looked at some of the applications I've made, and based on that, they thought I may be interested in, and be a good fit for, their project.

Turns out, they were right. It's a great project and I'm thrilled to be working on it and it's going to be really interesting for me.

So here's the lesson I think a lot of recruiters should take. Don't think of yourself as a recruiter; think of yourself as an agent. Can you imagine a sports agent representing a ball player without knowing their batting average, or on-base percentage, or number of home runs they've hit?

Of course not.

If all you're doing is shuffling resumes around, you are becoming more irrelevant with every minute that passes. And, by the way, you're doing a huge disservice to the company's that have hired you.

But, if you're getting to know some great people, understanding what their interests are, and matching them with opportunities that they'd be interested in that they might not otherwise know about, you'll rise to the top as the rest of your industry crumbles.

Out of order

I've been thinking lately about the steps we (often) go through when we want to learn something new. It's the way our schools educate our kids, the way we prepare for jobs, and sometimes learn new hobbies. Usually it goes something like this:

1) Decide you want to do something

2) Learn how to do it

3) Start doing it

I've realized that these steps are out of order though - at least for me, and probably for a lot of other people too. Instead, I think it's much better to flip the second and third steps. Decide you want to do something, start doing it, and you'll inevitably learn how to do it. Sure, you'll mess up a buch along the way but who cares.

Want to learn French? Do you really need to take a french class - or would it better to just start communicating with some friends that know the language and watching some French movies here and there? Want to learn how to build a website? Sure, you can get a book about HTML, or you can start building a website on Blogger and go from there. Want to be a better writer? Start a blog and get to writing.

I think a lot of us use the need to "learn" something first as an excuse to not actually do anything. So if that's the case, forget about the learning and just start doing it. You'll learn.

Four months ago, I didn't know Ruby on Rails. But now I have two Rails applications to my name. I still wouldn't say I know it, my code is a mess in many parts, and certainly don't consider myself a programmer. But I'm learning - because I started doing it.

So if there's something you want to learn, but you're finding that it's just not happening, maybe it's because you're thinking is out of order.

Decide you want to do something, and then start doing it. The learning will come from that.

Introducing Notifire.me

I'm really happy to announce today that I'm launching a new web application called Notifire. It's an add-on to the web-based group chat software Campfire by 37signals, and it's a great way to add live chat support to any website.

So, what does it do?

The best way to see it in action is to check out the video at http://notifire.me/videos, but it's essentially a way to constantly monitor a Campfire chat room and get an IM or SMS text notification when someone enters the room. The IM includes a link to the room so you can just click on it and immediately begin chatting with the person that entered.

Why this app?

A little while back I started looking for an easy way to add live chat support to my website. There are a lot of solutions out there, but they're all really robust solutions for larger companies that are almost more like call center clients - tracking when people are on and off line, who's available, routing IM's, etc. These are fine, but they're more than I really needed, require yet another chat client, and are usually at least a couple hundred dollars per year.

Campfire makes it really easy to set up a public chat room, but I would sometimes forget to open that room in a browser window. Or, if I had the window open, I would miss the little sound notification that appears. And that's really the "problem" I set out to solve. All I really needed was a slightly better notification for when someone entered a public Campsite room.

Notifire does exactly this, and if I do say so myself, it does it brilliantly.

The technology behind the app

There is one portion of the application that constantly monitors your campfire chat room. When someone enters, it sends an IM or SMS message by leveraging Tropo, an absolutely awesome single API by Voxeo that lets developers integrate Voice, text messaging, and "normal" Instant messages (Gtalk, Yahoo, AIM, MSN, Jabber and even Twitter) into their applications.

Basically, Notifire constantly monitors the room, and when someone enters the room, uses tropo to actually send the message to people that have been set up to receive them.

Behind the UI design

This is the second Ruby on Rails application I've built, and I'm really happy with how it's turned out. (If you follow this blog, you know I've been leading software projects for years, but just recently started learning Rails). I purposely made a very minimalistic user interface on the application, because the idea behind this app is really to make your existing UI's (IM client and Campfire) work just a tad bit better for you.

This isn't to say I didn't spend time on the UI. In fact, I spent a lot of time trying to get the main page of the app where a user sets up a robot (a room monitor) just right. I worked very hard to only show relevant information to the user, while also not requiring them to move in and out of a lot of different pages.

I also borrowed heavily from some concepts that I love on the iPad - that sometimes the best way to tell a user what to do is with words - not graphics. I'm certainly not the only one to notice this - and there's been a bunch of discussion on the web about it. So, I challenged myself to create a UI that used only words and text fields. No graphics allowed. (John Gruber wrote an article about studies that Apple has done on UI design that I wanted to link to but couldn't find. Know where it is?)

Special thanks to Voxeo

I was only able to build this app because of the great team over at Voxeo, the company behind tropo. Voxeo has been a client of mine for years, and I've always really loved working with them. When I told them about my idea and the app I wanted to make they loved it, and played a huge part in helping to make it happen.

The whole thing with tropo is that it helps developers make their applications better. Because Voxeo wants people to use the Tropo platform, they're happy to help developers with their apps. A guy named Mark Silverberg was assigned to my project - and working with him was just awesome.

I know I'm not exactly impartial. I have a relationship with Voxeo that goes back over five years. They were one of my first clients when I started Ideal Project Group and they remain a customer today.

But I wouldn't put it on my blog if I didn't mean it. The gang over there is great, the technology is awesome, and if you're a developer looking to add voice, sms, or IM's to your apps, you should really check tropo out.

It's version 1.0

The hardest part about launching an application is doing so knowing that some bugs are going to pop up. There are a few more tweaks that I'd like to make, and there are some things I know need to be done slightly better. Specifically, I want to add some javascript to one page to make activating a robot a bit smoother that it is now. We've also got to work a bit more on constantly maintaining a stream to Campfire. It's working great, but there are occasions where a connection has been lost and not restored. We're working on perfecting this - but I still felt the app was ready for a release today. In the meantime - trust notifire - but verify it's working every now and then.

I'll be working hard to fix any issues that pop up, so if you check it out and notice anything funky, please send me an email at andrew@idealprojectgroup.com.

A final word

Anyone who has read this blog knows that I'm a huge fan of 37signals. I recommend their products often, I've read their books, and they've inspired me in a lot of ways. I've listend to Jason Fried give talks about business, I've watched videos of Ryan Singer teaching web design, and I've taken to heart advice given to developers by David Heinemeier Hansson.

Because of this, part of me is worried that my application will just look like a cheap knock-off. As if it's just me trying to copy them and failing to do so. I hope instead though that people see an application that was inspired by them, but is still very much me. And, if introducing this product helps tell more people about their products that would make me really happy - because it'd kind of be a way for me to say thanks.

What this project represents to me is that very often the best way to make something new or better, is to simply connect a few things that already exist.

By connecting 37signals, tropo, and popular chat networks, I truly believe that I've introduced one of the best ways to add live chat support to a website.

I hope you like it.

Remembering Cameron

Two weeks ago marked the one year anniversary of the death of my cousin Cameron, who was killed in a tragic bus accident down by Eastern Illinois University.

My family is very close, and his death has obviously had a huge impact on all of us. At about 11 years my junior though, our age gap was just beginning to close, and so my personal relationship with him wasn't particularly close. Certainly not in the way that his good friends or siblings are close to him.

I've always had a soft spot for, and been close to, his parents though. His father, my mother's brother, was the youngest of my Aunts and Uncles. When we were growing up he was always goofing around, cracking jokes, and basically acting like one of the kids.

A couple years ago, I asked him one thing that he knew now that he wished he knew at my age. His answer: he wished he would have known how fast the years between 30 and 50 go by.

I've been thinking about all of this lately because it represents the paradox of our lives. On the one hand, pretty much whatever we're doing probably doesn't mean all that much. Not when compared to the relationships with those that we're closest to.

Yet, at the same time, whatever we're doing matters a lot. Because it's what we've decided to do with the limited time that we do have. And to waste this, to "muddle through" with anything, is a complete waste.

How many people are still spending two or three hours a day in a car just so they can sit in front of a computer? How many people are settling for "careers" that make them miserable and steal time from their families? How many people aren't taking a chance because they're afraid to fail, when all failing means is that they then get to try something else?

When Cameron was alive, he had the generosity to register as an Organ Donor. As a result, when he died, countless lives were changed. His heart, lungs, liver, kidneys and other organs all went on to save others. And of course, that meant that still others didn't lose someone they might have otherwise.

How would we live our lives if the heart that was beating in our chest was that of someone else's child? What would happen if we lived that way now?

All us are prone to getting stuck at times, to losing some direction, and are tempted to settle for mediocrity. For me, the only way I can honor those that I've lost, is to remember that the time we have is extremely short, to take the lessons of loss seriously, and to remember them constantly.

So remember, whatever you're working on, it doesn't matter. But also, it matters a lot.

If you're not already registered to be an organ donor, you should be. It takes only a minute and you can do it online at http://donatelife.net.

Podcast Episode Seven - Interviewing a new author

In this episode of "What can a project manager learn from x?", I interviewed Tracey Bianchi, author of Green Mama - The guilt free guide to saving the planet.

I'm really grateful that Tracey joined me on the podcast. 

We had the opportunity to talk about the creative process involved with writing the book, the path she took to get the book published, and some of the main things she learned along the way.  You can check out Tracey's website at TraceyBianchi.com and follow her on twitter at @traceybianchi.

As always, you can check out the podcast in itunes or listen directly on the site by using the player below.

Thanks again Tracey.