The MicroTrain Blog

My exciting, not-quite Pulitzer Prize winning post about why getting a technical certification will get you interviews was just the first part. 

The second part is simple. When Becki the Employer is looking to fill a spot, maybe she doesn't post an opening. Maybe she has a recruiter or headhunter go head hunting. Maybe she doesn't want to be inundated with an excess of resumes, like she was in the first post. 

So Becki is going to spend a lot of money (and I do mean a lot... how's something in the mid four-figures sound to you?) to find a few qualified candidates to interview and choose from. Why would Becki do this? Because most hiring managers know that time is always more valuable than money and look to spend money to save time where ever they can.

So the recruiter isn't going to place an want ad. The recruiter is going to go shopping on job boards. Again, there are a million people with their resume on the Monster/CareerBuilder/Dice job boards, so what does the recruiter do? How can a recruiter find the right match as fast as possible?

You got it: search for a technical certification. Here's an example.  How many resumes will you find if you search LinkedIn with the word "project?" In this instance, searching only in the greater Chicagoland area, you'll find 130,000 people. 

If you search "project manager" using the same criteria, you'll get 87,000 people, so that cuts the list down by about a third.

If you search "project manager" as a phrase, you'll boil the list down to 47,600 people. That cuts the list down by another third, which is nice.

If you search "professional project manager," you'll knock that list down to 27,000 people, which is almost half.

And what about "PMP?" What's your guess? Maybe the search cut the list by another third? Or maybe half?

Nope. That list is only 5,600 people long. That's 4.3% of the original list pf people who said they worked on projects.

If you're a recruiter, that's the first search you do.

Starting to see how a certification gets you an interview? Do you see how a certification puts you on an elite list of candidates? See how a certification cuts a pool of hundreds of applicants down to a dozen?

That's what I thought.

Ask me questions in the comments!!

-James

Yes, we sell training. That's how our bread gets buttered, so to speak. But we don't sell you training like some would sell you a get-rich-quick scheme off of late-night TV. We sell training because that's how you get certified, and certification gets you interviews.

Yes, it's that simple. We sell training because we know that's the fastest way to get you the interview. 

Really? Yes, really. It really is that simple.

How do I know? Let me show you how the job search process works from the other side: that of the employer.

Becki the employer is looking for someone to run projects for her company. Becki knows that with the economy being what it is, as soon as she puts out the ad on Monster/Craigslist/CareerBuilder/LinkedIn, her inbox will get flooded with resumes.

And if history is any indication, 90% of those resumes won't even be close to being the right fit because so many people apply for every job they think they might be even remotely qualified for (they aren't) and even of the ones who look like they might be remotely qualified, 90% of them are puffing up their experience and skills to just look like they are qualified.

If Becki had to read each resume to filter out the clearly unqualified candidates, and then phone screen everyone else to get rid of the ones who are trying to puff up their resumes and just whittle it down to people who might not fail outright, it would take weeks or months to get to those people.

So what's the solution? Becki's going to ask her HR director to go through all these resumes and filter out people who aren't even qualified and try and filter out the ones guilty of puffery. The HR director doesn't know anything about what makes a good project manager, so Becki has to create criteria. "The right candidate has to have X years of experience in Y and..." and explains the criteria. And then Becki says, "And also don't filter out anyone who's certified."

Aha! You have now passed the filter because you are qualified. You aren't competing with a thousand people, you're competing against a dozen people, which makes your odds muchmuch better.

And that's why a certification will get you interviews. It's a "Get Out Of Jail Free" card where jail is the HR Director's stack of resumes.

Comment if you've got questions and I'll answer them!

-James