Making a Match

Networking, online job boards, and recruiting from Florida Gulf Coast University and other business schools are among the strategies CPA David Schultz has employed to find job candidates in the accounting field, which has been strapped for workers. Occasionally he’ll receive an inquiry from someone with experience relocating to the area or résumés from people seeking to jump from in-house accounting positions to CPA firms like his. Or he may put an ad in the newspaper, although Schultz admits that he hasn’t found it to be "terribly productive."

"We were constantly on the hunt looking for folks who could develop into qualified staff," says Schultz, whose firm, Schultz, Chaipel, Redovan, Baker & Co., LLP, in November combined operations in Naples and Fort Myers with LarsonAllen LLP, which has locations in eight states. "Most of the service businesses that I talk to have really got kind of the same issue."
Some companies use recruiters, especially when searching for key personnel in competitive fields. It wasn’t unusual for Dennis Landfried, 37, who has worked in wealth management in Southwest Florida for more than a decade, to be approached about other jobs while he was at Key Private Bank.
"If you’ve been here for a while and have roots, all the other companies chase after you," he says.
"It was strange for me because I really hadn’t entertained offers from outside firms. I was always kind of one that deemed it as a distraction."

So when Landfried decided in 2007 to consider offers, a few interested companies came calling. He was considering a couple of offers when an attorney friend suggested he talk to Joe Catti, president and CEO of FineMark National Bank & Trust.

"He actually picked up the phone and called Joe and put us together. That was a Friday. That Friday afternoon, I got a call from Joe asking me what I was doing for lunch on Monday," Landfried recalls. About 10 days later, he took a job with FineMark.

Gabrielle O’Boyle, 32, who previously worked in marketing for the Ritz-Carlton, Naples, found it takes a concentrated effort to find a job with the pay, benefits and career direction she was seeking in a more creative field. She started with online job sites, such as careerbuilder.com and monster.com, and mentioned to a few friends that she was looking.

"Then I decided to send my résumé to all my contacts, personal and business," she reports. She outlined her skills, noted that she was "open to working in a new field," and asked them to circulate her résumé and let her know of any leads.

One of those who received her e-mail was Nancy Keefer, president of the Bonita Springs Area Chamber of Commerce. "She was looking to fill a newly created event coordinator position and
invited me to interview," says O’Boyle, who landed the job.

"Getting your foot in the door, you need to be a little more clever and creative," she says.

Job Seekers: What Not to Do

Here are a few pet peeves about job seekers that employers we spoke with shared.
1. Send multiple résumés or applications via e-mail or fax. "Sometimes I will have four or five from the same person in the same day, and then it annoys me," says Jeanne Beach, assistant to the president at J.L. Wallace Inc.
2. Make résumé faux pas. The format of a résumé can make or break the potential for an interview. Jane Drasites with Radiology Regional Center, for example, prefers to see résumés in chronological order, with the most recent at the top. She recently received one that started with the candidate’s first job, making her wade through five or six jobs to find the current one.
3. Ignore the job qualifications. J.L. Wallace advertised for a position as a customer service technician and noted such required skills as finish carpentry, yet the company received résumés from people who had customer service experience at Wal-Mart. "We get a lot of résumés from people that no more meet the requirements than my four-month-old grandson," Beach says.
4. Aggressively follow up with the wrong person. Be sure you’re making the right contact. Andrea Emerson, human resources director at SunStream Hotels & Resorts, says although she initially receives résumés, she passes applications along to specific properties and isn’t necessarily aware of where the search stands for a particular position. It makes it difficult when applicants consistently call.
5. Seem oblivious to the company’s mission. Employers say they can tell if job seekers haven’t researched the company. Use the Internet and other resources to make sure the company fits your career focus. Otherwise, it’s a waste of time for candidate and employer.