10,000 Brilliant Ideas

The job hunt is not fun for anyone. You tweak your resume to look hoity toity - synonyming every verb to give maximum punch. You drop your current friendships into the sacrificial volcano of 'business contacts' - and feel like you're doing dirty murder in the process. You spend hours perusing job listings and writing and re-writing cover letters and that ol resume, to look like you are the guy reincarnate who just left the job. The employer side isn't much better. You try and imagine the requirements of this ideal future candidate. You wait on HR to screen the butt-load that come in. You go over the shortlist trying to find that one person who isn't going to be a pain in your side for years to come. You interview and try to size up someone based on 15 minutes, extrapolating interview skills to fork-lift driving skills (or whatever it is). And maybe you feel like a horrible person smashing each candidate's orb of hopes and dreams with your baseball bat of reali...

Employers want someone with skillz, mad skillz. True. But they also want someone they can work with. Someone with soft skills. We all know people who were hired because they looked good on paper, and actually they could do everything they said they could, but they just didn't get along with their boss, coworkers etc. Personality conflicts. Are they unavoidable? Do you just have to hire with your fingers crossed and try someone out for 6 months? You can contact references, but legally in the US about all you can ask is "did this person work for you?" And why in the world would that person give an honest appraisal? What have they got to lose? And chances are, they could be a competitor. And what about the potential employee? There are scads of people that would be great to have on board. But how do you put soft skills on a resume? Well with this new company, you can. Much like microsoft certification, this company certifies people with soft skills. The difference with micro...