I've been interviewing people to potentially hire at GSS. And I absolutely HATE doing interviews. But I've been putting it off for too long, watching one employee leave while firing everyone else over time, never replacing anyone. Now I'm beyond short-staffed and I'm forced to hire someone like yesterday. Sometimes procrastination pays but, not in this case.
If you read my job posting, you'd laugh your ass off. It's probably one of the harshest job postings you've ever seen. I spell out what I expect from the new person I'm going to hire. I also clearly outline what I won't tolerate including, but not limited to, frequenting Facebook, texting friends all day -- and even threatening them by stating that I watch people like a hawk and lazy asses squandering company time would be lucky to last a week. The way I wrote the posting, I'm shocked that anyone applied at all.
Except I got quite a few applications. Not as many as when we were in a "down and out" economy but a healthy batch for sure.
The problem is, it's pretty clear that most people didn't read what I wrote. They just fire out applications without reading anything using their "buckshot" application process.
It's required that all applicants write me a short cover letter outlining their best requirements. About 80% of the applications did not do this. They were deleted. The other requirement was that they were somewhat local and I specified cities that I would not interview people from. This eliminated another 10% who also insisted that they not read the job posting.
Other people that were eliminated: Anyone writing in all lower case or, even worse, part of their name is in upper/lower case and the other part is in all lower case. I'm a stickler for that.
So...I ended up with about 7 resumes when everything was said and done.
I have a little strategy that I use. I post my job opening over the holidays or the summer because I figure that people who really want to work will apply. This has worked well for me over the years.
Out of 7, only 2 called back. The others apparently didn't need the job. Or want it. Good riddance to them.
One lady came in looking as pissed off as she could be and all she kept asking over and over again was, "What about the 'retirement package'?" and "What can I expect for 'retirement'?
How about nothing, lady, except the door hitting your big ass as you ideally exit my office right now?
She didn't ask a single thing about my company, what we do, what her expected job duties would be. NOTHING. She just kept talking about what I could give to her, like I owed her something. "I want to be paid the same that Disney paid me before I was laid off." And..."I want a retirement PACKAGE and medical and dental and I want sixty-thousand a year...and I want to work somewhere for at least the next 20 years."
Not here, you ain't! How about you get nothing. NOTHING from me, lady!
She should have stayed with Disney. Oh, wait. That's right. They let her go. She must've got too demanding with Mickey and he gave her ass the boot off the Disney Express.
It made me think about this: If only people realized that they can create their own "retirement package" by building their own wealth. Then they wouldn't be in my office demanding/begging for a job to give them those benefits/retirement packages. To me, it's much easier NOT to have to depend on someone else's hand to feed me. As I'd prefer to feed myself and depend on ME for all of my success.
And I'm sure as hell not going to be asking someone else for my retirement package, as I already have my own that I've created and developed over the years.
Maybe you need to start building your own retirement -- or at least a means of financial freedom -- starting right now.
Recently my book agent told me that I should lose the word "retirement" out of any book title I'm considering. He suggested that people -- mostly Americans -- hate the word "retirement" because it indicates something too many years away and only for old people.
So I stopped using the word "retirement" in most of my marketing and especially my book titles. People respond better to "financial freedom" and "wealth-building."
Whatever you want to call it, the end result is the same. You are building wealth for the purposes of replacing your current income so you don't have to work for anyone anymore (hopefully as quickly as possible) and you are building wealth for your long-term financial stability and security.
But you do this on your own for yourself without the aid of some employer assisting you in the process. And if you're NOT doing this on your own, you need to start right now.
See you at the top!
Your mentor,
Monica Main
