Things to About Employee Buyouts

Things to About Employee BuyoutsThings to About Employee BuyoutsBuyouts are a common method for reducing the number and cost of employees. In buyouts, the employer offers some or all employees the opportunity to receive a large severance package in return for leaving their employment. What Is Included in an Employee Buyout? Buyouts range from four weeks pay plus another paid week for every year worked to the $150,000 that some auto companies have paid their union workers to leave. They can also include benefits such as extended health care insurance and educational and job search assistance. Buyout offers are usually made to non-critical staff. Senior-ranking employees who are close to retirement or cost the company more money than a new-hire would are also common targets. Offering all employees of a company the buyout is more common during rough economic times and significant downsizing. Reviewing a Buyout Offer It is important to review a buyout offer carefully and weigh it against your personal career goals and lifestyle. Some considerations to take into account include Your job prospects and personal marketability. The older you are, the harder it is to get hired. Will the buyout cover your expenses until you find new employment?How close you are to retirement. Will early retirement affect your social security benefits?Is the offer a lump-sum payment or payable over time? If in smaller payments, how stable is the company and can you rely on them to fulfill the promise to pay?Your desire for a career change. Some employees use buyouts to pay for a new college degree or to open their own business. What happens to any personal leave you have accrued? What about any bonuses and other perks you receive? Each situation is different and everyone has unique circumstances that they must consider. It may be best to review a buyout offer with a financial professional as well. The Release From Liability Agreement In return for the severance package, employe es are required to sign a release from liability. This is an agreement between employee and employer that the company will not be sued or held responsible by the employee. The release from liability comes with many different names in different organizations. It may also be called Waiver of all ClaimsHold Harmless AgreementIndemnification Agreement The bottom line is that the employee agrees not to sue the company in return for the buyout funds. Buyouts vs. Layoffs Buyouts are not easy decisions for a company or its employees. They are often offered when there is a critical need to reduce operating expenses and in hopes of avoiding or reducing layoffs. Unfortunately, when too few employees accept the buyout offer, employers are often forced to lay off employees anyway. Sometimes, the employees laid off are people who chose not to accept buyouts. This contingency should be clear when the buyouts are offered so employees know that a layoff is possible. That, too, can factor into bu yout decisions.

5 Job Interview Worries Remote Job Seekers Dont Need to Have

5 Job Interview Worries Remote Job Seekers Dont Need to Have5 Job Interview Worries Remote Job Seekers Dont Need to HaveHave some job einstellungsgesprch worries? Job bewerbungsgesprching is never easy. The stress of being completely prepared, coupled with deciding what to bring with you (are 10 copies of your resume enough?) and what to wear can frustrate an already weary job seeker. Remote job seekers, however, might not have as much to worry about.Many of the stressors of a job interview can be (almost) avoided when youre looking for a remote job. Below are five things remote job seekers dont need to worry about- embarrassing personal body issues, anyone?Five job interview worries remote job seekers dont need to have1. TattoosSure, you love all of your tats, but a potential boss might not feel the same way. While you should always cover up your tattoos whether youre having an in-person or Skype interview, its certainly easier to avoid them being seen during a video interview. Afte r all, the camera will most likely capture your face and chest, and not your arms, wrists, hands, legs, or ankles, where many tattoos can be found. That said, if you have a tattoo in a place that cant be covered up by clothing, just make sure to dab on a little cover-up to, well, cover up.2. Getting s-lostNo matter how well you calculate your travel time, locate parking, and factor in potential traffic, nerves can get the best of you en route to a job interview- and cause you to be late. Thing is, no hiring manager is going to look kindly upon a late job candidate. But when you have a remote job interview, theres no chance of being late for your interview. Unless, that is, youre having tech issues. So be sure to check your Internet connectivity and make sure your Skype or other video conferencing program is working well3. Embarrassing Personal IssuesClammy hands. Bad breath. A gurgling tummy. The list of personal problems you could have the day of your job interview are never-ending . The good thing is that remote job seekers dont need to worry about many of these issues. So if youre nervous about your sick stomach during an interview, your cameras microphone probably wont catch it if its rumbling- or worse. And if youre doing a phone interview, you can simply mute the phone in case youre having a Sean Penn/El Chapo interview moment (travelers flatulence, anyone?).4. Not Having the Funds for the InterviewAsk any job seeker and theyll tell you that job hunting is not cheap. From interview suits to commuting costs to (sometimes) hiring professional services such as resume and cover letter writers, it can cost a pretty penny to find the perfect job. So its understandable if you are super low on the funds youll need to get to and from your interview. Not so when you have a remote job interview. It costs nothing to walk down the hallway to your home office- or any other room in your house thats quiet enough to hold a job interview.5. Missing the Interview (exception technical difficulties)Youve waited for weeks (or months) for this one job interview. And then, blizzard-like conditions paralyze the area where youre going for your job interview. Naturally, the hiring manager offers to reschedule, but you know that if you dont show up, other job candidates might- and might land the job. Whether its a 30-inch snowfall or a sick child at home, missing your job interview is something remote job seekers dont have to worry about. Bad weather conditions are no match for your stellar Internet connection, and you can always have a babysitter, friend, or family member stay with your child for the half hour while youre doing your remote interview.There are many job interview worries thatremote job seekers dont need to havewhen doing their job interviews, which is what makes remote work so awesomeFind more job interviewing tips hereReaders, do you have any job interview worries? What have you found you dont have to worry about during your remote job search? Let us know in the comments

Attract Millennials with your Employer Branding

Attract Millennials with your Employer BrandingAttract Millennials with your Employer BrandingAttract Millennials with your Employer Branding RossheimThe first step to attract the best and brightest Millennialsto your company is to tell a good story. After all, thats what their super-involved parents did for the first 2,000 nights of their kids lives.Rather than recalling a Harry Potter adventure, your book is titled, Why Our Company Offers You the Best. Opportunity. Ever. Heres how to readsChapter 1 Share your employer brand.Small businesses may not know they have an employment brand, but they do, says Cathy Taylor, a recruitment marketing consultant in Aurora, Ill.Taylor is right Whether the image of your company as an employer is defined by old-fashioned print help-wanted ads, a sophisticated all-media campaign or random raves and rants on Yelp and Glassdoor, Millennials will brand you by what they find, and quick.Keep in mind that many Millennialswould rather work in a small comp any than a big one, says Taylor. Even in your job descriptions, use phrases like, We offer a learning environment where you collaborate with a team, where you will be recognized for the work you do. Chapter 2 You have 3 seconds to platzset the hook for Millennials.If your company doesnt make a splash online, Millennials will find an employer that does.First impressions in the hiring process happen long before the first phone call or interview, says Ron Piccolo, a professor of management at the Rollins College Crummer Graduate School of Business.And if you were born before 1980, you likely dont know enough about what will make your companys value proposition a page-turner for Millennials.I recommend that employers identify their most engaged employees and ask them, Why do you come to work every day? says Taylor. The best brand ambassadorswill say they are fulfilled by the work. Trust that they will tell the truth and allow them to tell it.Do keep this in mind If the career pages of y our web site look and behave poorly on smartphones, Millennials will just say, Next. Make sure you have a mobile recruiting strategy in place that meets their expectations.Chapter 3 Millennials can amplify your employer brand.Enough with the cautionary tales. Lets talk about how Millennials as the masters of their own mindset can power up your recruitment of the new largest cohort of American workers.Empower Millennials to be your brand advocates,says Piccolo. Millennials will happily amplify the great things your business is doing through their own social media platforms. The content and method of sharing should be consistent with your messaging which might mean having a menu that gives employees choices of what they communicate and how.Your incumbent Millennial employees can also be valuable for performing reality checks on your recruitment pitch. One branding strategy that can be effective is describing not just the company but its broader social and environmental impact, says Piccolo. The point is to highlight the unique characteristics that define your company brand.Tune in to this Millennial podcast with Ron Piccolo and hear how todays Millennials think about their job search.Chapter 4 Remember where Millennials come from.The final chapter of this primer on employer branding for Millennials is a reminder of where they came from the millions of us who hail from previous generations of business owners. We Boomers and Xers have inherited in the workplace the children we only recently finished bringing up, says Taylor. Its just that theyve always had someone who welches encouraging them, so they expect that.Do your Millennial candidates seem needy? Give them a break, at least until you get them in the interview chair.What attracts young folks today is structure and plan and forethought by a company or recruiter, says Piccolo. The uncertainty of what will happen in their careers can be uncomfortable.Listen on iTunesGet new podcasts subscribe to the https/ /www.youtube.com/ Podcast Feed on iTunes

6 Things You Didn#8217;t Know About Reference Checking

6 Things You Didn8217t Know About Reference Checking 6 Things You Didnt Know About Reference Checking Whats there to know about checking references? A lot more than you might think. Here are six things you may not have known about this very common and very crucial practice1. Reference Checks and Background Checks Are Not the Same ThingDo you do both? If so, make sure youre getting useful insight from each and not just duplicating your work. For example, if you use reference checks to verify employment history, then youre not learning anything new. You could have gotten that information from the hintergrund check.Why do a background check?- To comply with the law (when required)- To verify employment history- To check criminal recordsWhy do a reference check?- To confirm job titles and dates of employment- To learn about a candidates strengths and weaknesses- To better understand the candidates previous job duties and experiencesBackground checks are fairly standard, but the effec tiveness of a reference check will depend on your process. If youre not able to differentiate your reference checks in a meaningful way, then its probably time to rethink your approach.2. More ThanHalf of All Resumes and Job Applications Contain Untruths*Can you tell fact from fiction? Probably not, but former coworkers and managers have firsthand knowledge of what a candidate is like to work with, what theyve achieved, and what theyre capable of.According to a survey of more than 1,000 senior managers, more than one in five candidates areremoved from consideration after their references are checked. Thanks to insight from candidates professional contacts, many employers are spared the expense of a bad hire.(*Society for Human Resource Management)3. Traditional Reference Checks Can Take Weeks to CompleteMeanwhile, your time-to-hire spins out of control. If your company requires a reference check as a condition of employment, then you and the candidate are at the mercy of the referen ces who are in no hurry to call you back.Fortunately, when you automate the process, you can see much better results, including- an 80 percent response rate- two-minute completion times- and full reports (3-5 references) within 24 hours.4. Employers Dont Know What Theyre Allowed to Say About Past EmployeesTherefore, they err on the side of caution. The truth is, in many states, employers are protected from civil liability when providing good-faith references and truthful negative information.But try telling that to a reference who wont plattl up the phone.The answer is anonymity, which is an option in automated reference checking. Providing anonymity is a huge advantage because it boosts response rates and allows references to be honest about a candidate without fear of repercussion.5. Reference Checking Doesnt Have to Be the Last Thing You DoMany companies use reference checking as a screen-in method, which meansithappens at the end of the hiring process with the purpose of moving a candidate forward as long as references dont give the employer reason to reconsider.But what would happen if you checked references earlier in the process? Doing so could help you narrow down a large pool of candidates or identify the best match among top contenders. With automated reference checking, youre free from the time constraints and can check references for as many candidates as you like whenever you like.6. References Are a Valuable (and Often Untapped) Source of TalentIn most cases, employers contact references for one specific reason to get feedback about a candidate. Its a single-serve conversation, and unless the employer is a renowned brand, the reference will know nothing about the company they just interacted with.Dont miss an opportunity to source great talent. As part of the reference checking process, consider asking references if theyd like to join your talent community. Its essentially a free referral program Plus- Candidates tend to choose their best profe ssional contacts as references.- References usually work in the same field or industry as the candidate.- 30 percent of references will opt in, exponentially growing your talent pipeline.Greg Moran is president and CEOof OutMatch.Master the art of closing deals and making placements. Take our Recruiter Certification Program today. Were SHRM certified. Learn at your own pace during this 12-week program. Access over 20 courses. Great for those who want to break into recruiting, or recruiters who want to further their career.

I Was Expecting To Get More Recruiters Calling

I Was Expecting To Get More Recruiters CallingI Was Expecting To Get More Recruiters CallingResume? Check. LinkedIn profile? Check. Everythings keyworded, and youre submitting your information for jobs for which youre perfectly well-suited. Seemed like it should be, if you build it, they will comeExcept all youre hearing is crickets. In this video, lets talk about why that is, and Im mapping out 3 specific things you can do today to get in contact with the recruiters you need.This is just a taste of what you can do to make sure to build the right relationships with the right recruiters. Learn more in our full online program, 5 Secret Job Search Hacks For The Age 50+ Job-Hunter. Im revealing the killer mistake that will make the recruiter automatically ignore you, and were talking about the exact strategy to break into the hidden job market, even if your network is virtually non-existent and you only know 1 or 2 recruiters right now.

Top Resume Summary Examples for Customer Service Choices

Top Resume Summary Examples for Customer Service Choices If youre on the lookout for a position in customer assistance, whether its at a call center or face-to-face, use our absolutely free customer service resume sample that will help you land an bewerbungsgesprch ASAP. To compose the objection section of a customer service resume, you want to figure out the key tasks to be done at work. A top quality sample customer service resume will incorporate numerous suitable key terms and phrases that could contain phrases like customer satisfaction, customer retention, processes or efficiency, based on the particular job. Providing specific examples may make it possible for a possible employer to relate the applicants work experience to possible small business needs inside their company, Stetson states. Lesson Summary Customer service goals are specific targets and guidelines a provider puts into place to guarantee each customer is pleased with the services the business provides. Cus tomers ought to be kept updated and informed about your services. Feedback from customers is essential to measuring customer service targets. What to Expect From Resume Summary Examples for Customer Service? There are a lot of soft skills you should cultivate if you intend on working in customer support. Since youre going to learn how to create a kickass customer service resume. When a customer arrives to you to resolve an issue, you have to have the issue solving skills essential to effectively handle the issue available, regardless of what it is. Committed to remain constantly mindful of customer should make sure a secure and secure shopping atmosphere. The target of a resume headline is to sum up your abilities and experience into a brief phrase that will stick out and show the possible employer exactly what youve got to offer you. If you cant consider anything whatsoever, it may be advisable to try out a career objective, that is the go-to intro for people joining the workforce. An excellent career summary is basically a glimpse of your skill tischset and the value its possible to bring to your possible employer. Finally, it focuses on your ability to offer value to the company. The Lost Secret of Resume Summary Examples for Customer Service Youre going to compose a resume summary which gets many more interviews. As stated above, a career summary isnt a career objective. A great career summary is a significant portion of the career summary for the reason that it adds depth and clarity to your resume. Ultimately, you must remember to proofread your career summary like the remainder of your resume. The resume summary section isnt something which youre able to sit down and begin writing. Unfortunately, not all summaries do what theyre supposed to do. Whilst you write your summary for your resume, attempt to consider what you want them to discuss with you, and what exactly you desire an opportunity to discuss. Dont forget to customize to t he position youre applying for. Due to the immense number of applicants in todays job market, the great majority of companies utilize ATS to scan resumes until they reach a hiring manager. You have to tailor your resume to the work offer. The examples are for different job positions to provide you with a clearer idea of the way to tailor it not only for the work position but in addition the business. 1 tip in earning a questionnaire better is to make it even more engaging to the clients. Resume samples are a beneficial means to direct your own writing. A sample will be able to help you decide what type of content you should include, together with how to format your resume.

The Importance of a Background Check #INFOGRAPHIC - Spark Hire

The Importance of a Background Check INFOGRAPHIC - Spark HireDoes your company, or just you, do background checks on all of the employees you hire? If not, do you ever think about whether or not you should? Well, according to the statistics presented in this infographic from Visual.ly and First Contact HR, doing a background check is way more important than you think.Take a look at the infographic below and youll see that 40 percent of resumes contain false or exaggerated information. Can you imagine? That is frighteningly close to almost half of all resumes coming in. Just the other day Spark Hire was discussing certain ways you can look at and interview candidates to see if they are lying. It may be difficult to think that a candidate is lying to you straight out, but obviously it happens- and quite often, too.Doing a background check on a candidate can not only help you with hiring the right person, but it could protect your company as well. The infographic states that employers l ose 72 percent of all negligent hiring lawsuits. Negligent hires are when the employer is held accountable for the actions of an employee on the fundament that they should have known the employees background before hiring them. When 75 percent of substance abuses are employed, its important to know who you are hiring and the risk you may be taking. Take a minute to look at the infographic below and see for yourself if background checks are necessary for you and your company.

Learn When the Christmas Sales Season Starts

Learn When the Christmas sale Season StartsLearn When the Christmas Sales Season StartsNo official start date exists for retailers to begin launching their Christmas holiday season sales. In fact, each year, different retailers experiment with new types of sales, shopping incentives, and earlier start dates in an effort to enhance shopping opportunities for their customers, both online and in-store. The Christmas/holiday retail sales season is dynamic and continues to evolve. As a current rule of thumb, the unofficial kickoff event for holiday shopping usually hovers around Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. Some larger department stores have experimented in previous years with launching holiday shopping sales on Thanksgiving Day. However, this welches met with a lot of backlash, mainly for not considering the needs of the stores employees. The perfect time for you to start a holiday sales campaign in your geschftliches miteinander depends on two things The nature of your busi ness andthe market you serve. When and Why to Start Holiday Sales Its unclear whether starting holiday sales earlier in the year has any benefits, in part because each business and market is different. There are some obvious drawbacks that do span multiple industries, though. First and foremost, pushing too hard for sales is almost always a way to turn-off potential buyers. Few shoppers want to see a store decked out for the fall holidays before Halloween, especially because theyre still recovering from back-to-school sales and may need a break before they ease into the holiday season. Even the day after Halloween is just too soon for most shoppers and is more likely to lead to eye-rolling and irritation than to pre-holiday sales. If handled poorly, early holiday sales events can end up costing retailers. For instance, temporary or seasonal hires hired on too early can end up costing more if hired earlier in the season when the store doesnt have the additional sales to support t he extra staff. Another issue is taking up store space with Christmas inventory instead of other year-round merchandise that could be selling. If the Christmas items arent selling yet, thats a welcheste of potentially valuable retail space. Choosing the Right Products for Holiday Sales It pays to put some thought into which products and services you discount for the holiday sales season, and when you start offering the discounts. For example, there are many types of products and services that people need to plan for or purchase long in advance of the holidays. This includes travel services, wedding arrangements, and big-ticket items like new cars. Offering a Christmas in July sale for cars, trucks, and similar items make sense. However, offering Christmas in July sales for winter-season clothing and ice skates may not go over as well because theyre not big-ticket and the weathers still warm. Conversely, if you live in a cold climate where people associate the crisp, cool air wit h the ushering in of the holidays, you may find it easier to market winter items earlier in the year than you would in Florida or Southern California where people are less likely to be thinking scarves, mittens, and hats. Keep zeiteinteilung in Mind Timing matters because of your target customers paycheck cycles and year-end pay. Some people only shop towards the end of the year when they get their annual Christmas bonuses. If your target market does not have money to spend earlier in the season, consider offering a layaway plan where shoppers can pay off a large purchase over a number of weeks. And dont forget about the shoppers who do a good part of their buying after the holidays to take advantage of after-Christmas sales. Many people have cash and gift cards to use, and theyre likely to have lighter work schedules which allow them to spend more time shopping than before the holidays. Do Whats Best for Your Business Perhaps the best holiday sales tip for all business owne rs is to aid just following what your peers do. It is always wise to study what the competition is doing but just because someone else started their holiday sales campaigns in October does not mean that it was a good decision, or that it will work for your business.

Tips for Creating a Testimonial Form Template

Tips for Creating a Testimonial Form TemplateTips for Creating a Testimonial Form TemplateTestimonials are a powerful sales tool when handled correctly and customer testimonials are often the most effective type since they are also the most believable. The wise salesperson will gather a group of testimonials for use in convincing prospects to buy. vorstellungsgesprch Your Customers The most effective, albeit time-consuming, way to get testimonials is to interview your best customers, write up a testimonial including direct and accurate quotes, and print it out in a professional-looking format such as a letter or brochure. This process takes some planning, as youll need to locate customers who are willing to help, set up a time to interview them and do the actual writing of the testimonial. Prepared Form The next best way is to have a pre-written form for interested customers to fill out, and then plug quotes from this form into a standardized testimonial template. This method takes up much less of your time and yields faster results, but usually, results in a less effective end product. One method that just doesnt work is sitting back and waiting for your customers to shower you with testimonials. Sad but true, if your product is working well for the customer, they dont think about it. The only time youre likely to come up in the customers mind is when something is going wrong, in which case they are unlikely to shower you with testimonials. Ideally, youll want to collect testimonials from a wide range of customer types. The more connected a prospect feels to the customer in the testimonial, the better, so having a lot of possible samples increases your odds of finding a really good match for a tough prospect. It also demonstrates that your product works well for many different types of customers. Testimonials If your business is brand new or youre selling a new product and dont have many customers, you can get testimonials anyway by handing out fre e samples of your product in return for a written evaluation from the recipients. Make sure to include the information somewhere that you may use quotes from them in your absatzwirtschaft materials. Thank You Notes Hopefully, you already send thank-you notes to new customers right after you close a sale. You can include a request for a testimonial in the thank-you note itself, and youll soon be neck-deep in testimonials. Either suggest that they email you a few lines about their experiences with your product, or include the aforementioned pre-written testimonial request form with the note. If you need to build up a big stock of testimonials quickly, try offering some incentive to customers. It can be as simple as appealing to their pride by telling them their name and story will be featured in your marketing documents, or you can offer a coupon, free gift or another incentive to get the testimonials rolling in.

Meet the Founders Behind Jobscan

Meet the Founders Behind Jobscan Meet the Founders Behind Jobscan I love a good startup story.The odds are always huge on the personal level, because entrepreneurs have to take lots of risks in order to put their ideas to the test. And theyre fully aware that most startups fail.So when I welches on Skype with Jobscan founders James Hu and Michael Lee, to find out how Jobscan worked, I also asked a few questions beyond the technical stuff. How the idea came about, the pitfalls, the lessons Heres a bit of their story. The job search problemIt begins in October, 2013, when James welches out of a job, coming back from Asia. He welches caught in the grueling process of looking for work. He researched how resumes were handled and decided to invest a lot of energy into tailoring keywords. His goal was to convince automated resume screeners that he was a good candidate. But he felt he was spending too much time, for each application, identifying the right keywords to include in his resume. S uch a tedious process Being a techie, he knew this could be automated, so he got to work on what would become the core Jobscan functionality comparing keywords in your resume with those of the job listing.Not only would an automated solution improve his job search, it would also become a remarkable part of his portfolio. Two birds with one stone This was indeed a good project to showcase his technical abilities. So he coded away, by himself.For about two months and a half, he was using his keyword tool and improving it. The idea of sharing his little app became obvious While I was building this, I figured I might as well make it useful to others. Maybe its something I could turn into a service one day.Once it was relatively bug-free (James and Michael like that term relatively), he started telling his friends. And thats how Jobscan was launched. In a remote corner of the web, somewhere, without blogger-magnet startup stunts like chocolate-covered grasshoppers or lying about a yoga v ideo It was just out there, for people to use. And it grew organically. The word got out about this cool new keyword-matching app. (A very decent minimum viable product, or MVP, as its called in the Lean Startup movement in the Silicon Valley.)In the meantime, James found work. And hes not the only one that got good results with Jobscan the feedback he was getting was positive. So he kept going, dug deeper into each ATS, despite working full-time.A year later, James quit his job and focused solely on Jobscan. The website started picking up mora traction and now needed to level up engineering. Enter Michael. A software engineer who spent 8 years with Google in New York. They met during a street clean-up volunteering event in Seattle. (Yes, it does read like something they would make up.)In February 2015, we were looking at a healthy, but still quite small project. And now that James and Michael wanted to see it blossom, they did some serious testing (Why It Works). It allowed them to deepen their understanding of how resumes were processed by computers, and to adapt their tool accordingly. Riding the waveIn the following months, Jobscan was getting more and more attention. Actually, just a few days after launch, they got mentioned on Lifehacker.com. When youre a startup, that stuff really helps. Each month, new users were coming in. Which meant that James and Michael were working hard to improve it, but were also feeling the pressure of running a legitimate startup. Heres JamesWhen you work on something thats not exactly working a product or service that people dont really want, it feels like youre dragging the project along. Youre just hammering away and youre not getting traction. This time around, theres a market force. The product and the users are dragging us along. Its almost like were riding a wave, and the wave is pushing us forward. Thats a nice feeling, but at the same time, theres an obligation. A pressure to keep doing better.James realized that he was surfing that wave while he was employed. Thats when it clicked for him Jobscan had taken off. It wasnt a side project anymore. People were really using itAnd the pressures of a real service were kicking in. The two guys were working very closely together, owning the entire project. For Michael, the main programmer, stepping out of his comfort zone used to mean customer support. But now, he needed to do some marketing and SEO. And had to learn these skills.Also, in the early days, the two entrepreneurs would personally reply to every single email they received. Now, they had extra hands for that. People they needed to hire and manage and payFor a long time, Michael was afraid of the scale of the website. Could it handle the expanding number of users? We were growing month over month in terms of traffic. But I didnt really have the background to know when the website would stop working.That does sound like a big concern when your website IS your productThere were some scary momen ts We got to migrate a couple of times (servers, service providers, etc.). Migrations are fun.To handle all that stress, James even started muay thai (martial art from Thailand). Michael enjoys driving around, something he missed out on in his years in NYC.Now, while this might look like just another tech startup story, its very different when its your story. For example, it wasnt clear from Day One whether this would actually take off. It was an adventure, far from the paths they were expected to walk. A lot of people around them thought that safe jobs at Google or Microsoft were much better than this little side project.What about your 401(k)? And how will you meet a nice young lady if youre working on this all the time? You get the picture.The purpose of JobscanIve asked them about the black hole of resumes that dreadful silence after youve sent one, ten or fifty resumes. Its sort of a hot topic in the job market space, as it deeply resonates with the unemployed. Why dont I hear anything back? What am I doing wrong?James understands both sides of the coinTheres a technical perspective and theres a human element. Ideally, recruiters could get back to candidates, to bring a human touch. No one wants to be rejected by a machine or feel ignored. But at the same time, zugnglich applications have become so easy that it causes a flood of resumes which causes recruiters not being able to respond. And then people apply more Its a cycleThe cycle that leads to the blackhole conundrumOur job is to help people know why the black hole exists and how they can improve their chances.And thats really the purpose of Jobscan. They understand how broken the job search process is, especially the lack of feedback. But Jobscan can help you navigate around the black hole (explained here). Theyve tested the impact of tailoring keywords and they know it works.Theyre quite serious about trying to help jobseekers. As Michael noted We cant solve the problem completely, because theres mu ltiple aspects to it. But we can help job seekers surface their resumes within the applicant tracking systems.And each step forward matters.Improvement and the Seattle Nomads Caf GuideIn the first half of 2015, James and Michael were working out of coffee shops around Seattle. In order to help them choose the right one, they even created a spreadsheet in Google Sheets. But they brought this spreadsheet to another level.They used the spreadsheet to keep track of each venue and its prices, but also its temperature, number of outlets, wifi speed and free parking availability. And you could sort the list according to your needsWhats even funnier is that, when they told me about that spreadsheet, it really wasnt a big deal for them. (Doesnt everybody track the number of outlets in their favorite coffee shops?)I was laughing my head off.The very specific Seattle Nomads Caf spreadsheetIt just illustrates how optimizing and improving is a natural part of their mindset.For instance, theyve r ecently improved how Jobscan tracks skills, distinguishing among soft and hard skills. They also provide more and more recommendations for your resume, such as scanning for measurable results.So what does the future hold for Jobscan?More improvements, of course They pay attention to user feedback and theyre adamant about always striving for a better product. And while the ultimate vision is building the best tools for job seekers, they remain focused on their core service providing you with the right resume keywords to get past resume screeners.* * *If youve been using Jobscan for a while, James and Michael would love to hear your ideas on how to make it better for you. Send them your thoughts at emailprotectedAbout the AuthorRichard Poulin is the founder of Resume Hacking, a website and book series to help job seekers with tailored advice, by profession. One of his big ideas the 3 laws of resume writing.