55,000 MILES FROM UNITED: There is a new non-publicized 50K offer for the Chase United MileagePlus Explorer card, plus another 5K miles for adding an authorized user AND a $50 statement credit. There are some specific steps you have to take to get the 50K offer, so we’re just going to direct you to the relevant Fatwallet Finance thread for instructions and wish you good luck.
$100 FROM FIRST TRADE UNION BANK: FTUB is willing to give you $100 for opening an online checking account. You get $50 for setting up a direct deposit and another $50 for paying a bill from your account. There’s a $100 minimum to open the account and there are no monthly maintenance fees. (H/T: Fatwallet Finance)
THE GENERAL MOTORS CREDIT CARD: 5% CAPPED: We just received a mail solicitation for this card from Capital One, who recently took over ownership of this card portfolio from HSBC. We were hoping there’d be a new twist to this card, but no such luck. You get 5% back on all purchases, but those rewards can only be used for the purchase of a GM vehicle, and the amount you can use on a vehicle is capped at a fairly low rate. The amount you can use ranges from $500 to $3,000 depending on how expensive your vehicle is. Redemption allowances can be found here if you’re interested.
All in all, not a compelling deal. If you’re not in the market for a specific new GM car in the next year or two, don’t bother with this one.
EMPLOYERS ARE CLUELESS, AND HOW TO HACK THE LABOR MARKET: There’s a great read in the University of Pennsylvania magazine about Wharton professor Peter Cappelli, author of Why Good People Can’t Get Jobs: The Skills Gap and What Companies Can Do About It. Cappelli contends that most companies do a poor job of hiring due to overly-specific job requirements, HR cluelessness, and low wages. This meshes with our experience; a few weeks ago we talked to a “technical recruiter” who didn’t know what data mining or SAS are (and he was recruiting for a data mining position). We talked to another one a while back who was looking to hire a statistical modeler for $30,000 a year (good luck doing that in this country).
The whole article is thought-provoking and worth a read, as is this interview with Cappelli, and there’s also a sidebar with some of Cappelli’s advice on how to get past the resume-screening software. His counsel:
Don’t use headers or footers. They jam most parsing algorithms.
Customize each resume based on language used in the job description. If the description says “CPA,” make sure “CPA” is on your resume. Don’t go too far, though: copying and pasting the job description won’t land you the gig.
Use conventional formats. While fancy fonts, strange layouts, and functional formatting might impress an employer, computers hate them. Stick to a simplistic style and reverse chronological formatting.
Put it in context. Modern resume parsers check the context of buzzwords such as Java or C++, so if you want to seem different from the kid who took one “Java” class in high school, go more in depth about what you know and how long you’ve known it.
Submit your resume in text format. While .pdf might be convenient, MS Word generally ensures the least parsing errors.
Never use graphics. Graphics always hamper the parsing process and generally show up as white noise to the algorithm. White noise is just what you don’t want.
Include your postal address. Your address is often how your resume is filed. If you don’t include it, you might not get considered at all.
(H/T: Lion of the Blogosphere)
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