CVTracker Product Details
CVTrack.com
The job campaign is another term for a series of events and activities for you to prepare yourself for networking, searching, and finding new employment. Unlike in medieval times, you have the luxury of seeking your own opportunities for employment, and the job campaign is this sequence of events and activities that dictate what kind of tasks you will be performing, what kind of salary you will be receiving, and what kind of productivity you will be bringing to the world. The standard campaign shown here is based on the fundamental characteristics of a job hunt and breaks down the actions of finding a position into separable activities.
Let's start off with Mr. William Cranby, a 42-year old, experienced employee with many years of hard work and dedication at several firms. His career path has been a bit winding, starting off as a computer technician, he had completed his BSCS and continued onward to recently advancing to a career as an IT Director. Unfortunately, his company took a tumble and went bankrupt, leaving him jobless. He was instrumental in helping out in closing the company doors for the last time. Bill is married, has two kids, and owns a house. He has to make his mortgage and car payments as well as put food on the table for his kids. He will be requiring further income to put his children through college and save enough for retirement. However, the market space where he is most competent is hurting (IT) and he has to look at other options if available.
Bill Cranby realizes he must tap into his personal network to make things work out, and after a short vacation, begins recording data for himself and building his networking tool - the CVTrackerTM. His first tasks are self-assessment of his current situation, what he needs to do to make it to the next stages, what kinds of experience and skills he has to offer, and what he can do about it. He starts off by opening up the CVTrackerTM and reading through this user manual. He's astonished to see that his name is actually in the manual, with all his family data and information!
He starts off by opening up the personal profile screen and trying to see how he can add important data about himself into it. Bill realizes that this is the stuff his resume, his polished presentations, his cover letter material, and basically his marketable self really comes from. What does he have to offer to a potential employer? What, in his background, makes him a viable candidate for any position?
Bill opened up the User Profile screen and selected Education from the XYZ Box. He selected a degree, his bachelor's and typed in the topic and specific time frame he earned it in. Bill then went ahead to working on the describing the three components of his degree using the PARTM system. The first was a description of what he did during his education coursework and an educational hurdle he faced. Secondly, he described the focus or concentration of what he was doing, and finally he elaborated on his solution and how he was able to make it successful. The screen of data that Bill enters is shown below
Bill continues for another 45 minutes entering various entries into the User Profile. He knows that this time is more valuable since it is longer term, and he doesn't have to put in all his entries right away. Bill plans on using several of the entries in his resume and when asked questions at his interviews - plus they record what accomplishments and achievements he has obtained over many years.
After completion of the User Profile, Bill realizes he had better start entering some contact information, since that is the next step in building his network base. He begins with his family and friends and starts off at the company screen, first entering basic company information such as the company name and address information for his wife's workplace as shown. He selects "<New>" from the company selection box, then types in the relevant information and clicks on Update.
Even though Bill will probably not apply to this specific company, he uses it to associate his wife with the database. There may be individuals in Bill's network that are connected to his wife that would be relevant individuals in his job search.
Bill proceeds to the Contact Screen to enter data about his wife, as shown in below:
Entering his wife's data is simple, as she is an administrator at the hospital and works in an operations capacity. Notes about her are entered fairly easily. Most important for this specific contact entry is her contact list. Bill clicks on the Address button to add the hospital's business address as shown.
After entering the relevant data, Bill clicks on Update (with the CD symbol) to store it in the database. He then continues on to mention a particular individual at the hospital's IT department who mentioned they had a position opening up in a few months. He recalled her name as Sarah Faulkner, IT Director at the hospital. She was looking for an assistant IT Director to help manage the IT issues and recent compliance with standards. Bill clicks on the little person icon in the toolbar and enters the relevant information.
After entering Sarah's information, Bill updates the entry and clicks on the Position screen to enter the position data that his wife had mentioned. Clicking on "<New>", he types in the appropriate information describing the position based on his conversation with his wife. The figure below shows the entry for Sarah's position.
Bill doesn't enter an expiry date for the position, and he has basically only entered general information that his wife or he knows about. Bill clicks on Update. After updating field data, Bill can add contact data to the list, so he clicks on the assign button, finds Sarah's name and Sheila's name and assigns them to this position, then clicks on Update again with the screen below:
Now that Bill has completed the entry, he calls up his wife, acquires Sarah's phone number and returns to the Contact page to update the Sarah's entry. Bill makes a phone call to Sarah before typing anything into the CVTrackerTM. During his phone call, Bill and Sarah discuss the position and whether he is a good fit for the position. He outlines his educational and work experience background, by quickly clicking back to his profile screen while on the phone, and reading back some of the details of what he wrote into the profile almost verbatim. Sarah is impressed and mentions that she wants to schedule an interview at the hospital to talk further as she has a meeting to attend to right now. Bill and Sarah agree on a date, which Bill notes for his own record.
Bill returns to the Contact screen and opens up the Contact History for Sarah Faulkner. He has made his first contact with a direct hiring manager and records the entry into the Contact History screen. Selecting the "<New>" row in the contact history table, Bill types in the appropriate data as shown below and then clicks update.
Bill returns to Sarah's contact page and fills in her phone number on the address form and clicks on Update.
So far, Bill has been fairly routine in entering data into the CVTrackerTM. The entire time consumed in typing in the appropriate information was less than 5 minutes, but the overall value is substantial, especially in knowing about his contact base and what is available to him.
Bill realizes that he has to prepare for the upcoming contact interview with Sarah and proceeds to find out more about the position and asks his wife about the hospital. He also begins preparation of his resume for the September 19th interview. Bill fills out the pipeline for this opportunity by selecting the activities he has participated in already on the pipeline screen, and the medium he used, as shown. As soon as he opens the pipeline screen, the last position he worked with (IT Director) is already opened and updated showing that he has made an information contact via meeting.
Bill enters in company and position research and sets them for today. Clicking in the column next to Info Contact, Bill is able to select how he made an informational contact by phone Bill updates the data in the pipeline screen to store it in the position database. The pipeline screen shows the blocks that have been filled in/completed. Not all jobs are found requiring all steps of the pipeline, but it covers the most important steps in approaching and finding a position. Bill has finished some of them (not necessarily in sequence) such as the company and position research through his wife, the informational contact through a phone call to Sarah, and has prepared his resume for the interview. The interview has not been selected as he has only scheduled it, not attended it.
After retrieving some of the company data about
Bill answered these questions about his "Ideal" or "Preferred" company environment and the CVTrackerTM returned him to the profile screen.
Bill proceeded to fill out the profile form for
Bill saw that the indicator showed a match for about 1/2 of
the criteria questions and those that were highlighted were appropriately
highlighted. He wondered if this company
would still be a good fit for him. So
Bill closed the screen and opened up the position screen and clicked Profile. Again, he selected Set Preferences and
selected the options he sought in a position.
He then proceeded to select the specific answers for
Bill returned to the position screen by clicking on Close after updating this data. The resulting display shown below told him some important things.
Bill saw that the indicator was in the upper right hand
quadrant, or the 4th Quadrant of the Company-Position Profiler. This suggested that the job met most of the
requirements he was seeking for a company environment and position
environment. This was important to Bill
in deciding whether he should put in a strong effort to research the company,
do well at his interview, and try his best to land this job. If the indicator was not in this quadrant, it
might not have been such a great opportunity for Bill to pursue as he may
dislike the environment that he would be working in and dislike the corporate
culture. The display also allows for a
comparison of which is more critical in this opportunity, the position, or the
company environments. As the indicator
is above the reddish brown line, Bill knows that he has matched more of the
criteria for the position than that of the company. Had the indicator been under this line, he
would be able to say that the company was more favorable than the
position. It is important to note that
the criteria questions provided in the system are easily editable using the
editor, and a number of templates are provided for your use. These are suggestive only and should not be
construed as factual data, as these are completely based on your assessment of a
company or position and your assessment of your preferences.
Bill continues to find new opportunities, enter new contacts, and also imports his Outlook Contacts file to the CVTrackerTM as he doesn't want to re-enter these contacts. The screenshot below shows an Import screen and what Bill did to import data from Outlook.
Bill selects MS Outlook, then
clicks on Load. This loads in his entire
Outlook contact book without hassles, including the companies and personal
information regarding his contacts. Each
entry is displayed and approved by Bill.
Multiple entities (such as his wife's name) is
asked to be changed or ignored by CVTrackerTM. Clicking on Import downloads the selected
data to his CVTrackerTM
database.
A few weeks later, after entering many new opportunities and contacts, Bill opens up his screen and sees his reminder that he has an interview lined up and decides to review the details of the interview for September 19th. However, Bill forgot exactly where it was supposed to be, so he called up the Keysearch screen to find information about it. He remembers the position was an IT position with something about compliance, but forgot who it was with or where. Bill clicks on a Position search from the drop-down box and types in "IT" in the search text box to find his contact, then clicks on Search to return the result shown
Bill looks at over 27 entries, and decides that it's too much to filter through, so he decides to search again using "compliance" instead of IT. The screenshot below shows the results of the new search.
Bill's search returns one opportunity for the same position by searching the position responsibilities field. Bill double clicks on the Assistant IT Director title under Position by Responsibilities and opens up the position shown below.
The keysearch screen is minimized, and Bill recalls the position more clearly after viewing the screen. He opens up the Contact screen (you may also click on the name of the assigned contacts) and selects Sarah Faulkner to find out what they had talked about and discussed. He opens the screen and reviews Sarah's contact history. He prepares himself for the interview and heads on over to meet with Sarah (and his wife later in the day)
Sarah asked pointed questions about his knowledge of compliance issues and how effective he is with people. He provides Sarah a copy of his resume and recites some of the items from his user profile that he looked over regarding his skills and work experience. These came in handy as he described how he effectively provided key services to many individuals at his former workplaces during a crisis situation. Sarah was impressed and said that she would call him back in the next few days after talking with some others who were in line for the position.
Bill returned home and opened up the CVTrackerTM. He entered in the appropriate information regarding the contact, which modified the pipeline screen as well. He also wrote a thank you note for Sarah and sent it right away by mail. The figure shows Bill's new contact history with Sarah.
Bill's went to his pipeline screen and saw that it was updated it to show his interview data, except for the interview - which he updated as shown below:
Bill added that he gave his resume/cover letter undertook an
interview and sent a follow-up letter the next day. He also showed that he handed the resume
directly, participated in the Interview in person, and sent the letter via
postal service.
Bill decided he had better include the document information for this database entry, especially since he had several different versions of his resume and wanted to make sure he knew which resume went to Sarah. Bill clicked on the document screen. He clicked on Load to load in his "resume082002op.doc" Microsoft Word document and then clicked Add to add it to his document list after typing in the requisite information. As this was a combined chronological/functional resume, he selected 'combined' as shown.
Bill clicked update list to add it to his documents and then proceeded to return to the Contact screen to select Sarah Faulkner. He assigned the document to Sarah and clicked on update.
Bill received a call in the third week of August from Sarah Faulkner, asking him to accept an offer for a position as Asst. IT Director of a 350 person firm. This was a major step up from his last position as IT Director of a 30 person firm with far greater responsibilities.
As shown, the Job Campaign incorporated all aspects of the CVTrackerTM,
it provided for importing data, managing contacts and their history, and
developing Bill's contact base with information that he gathers. Minimal time was spent by Bill in finding
information, looking it up or determining who/how to take advantage of his
network. Through the PARTM system,
he was able to recall his skills and capabilities rapidly, and using Profiling,
Bill was able to determine whether a position opportunity was appropriate for
him. The job campaign example
shown concentrated only on a short term campaign. CVTrackerTM
includes the advantages of Goal setting for longer term campaigns that are
described in Section 5.3. Setting goals
are a critical part of driving yourself to continually search for a
position. Note that the job campaign can
be ongoing whether you are employed or not.
It maintains a lasting contact database and enhances your personal
network. You can review it periodically
to help you assess who you should contact and when to make sure your contacts
are in your loop and are of value to you when you need it the most.
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