Austin Employment Web Log

In Gulliver's Travels (1726), Jonathan Swift describes the Laputians, people so lost in their own thoughts that they needed servants (flappers) to bean them with a small bag, on the ear if they were supposed to listen, and on the mouth if they were supposed to speak: Gulliver's Travels, Chapter II The flappers did this, when in the opinion of the flapper , the master was supposed to listen or talk. The novel was biting satire, of course, directed at the legions of court advisers and servants who populated the governments of Europe and shielded the nobles from the rabble, and from reality . Anyone who thinks about it for a few minutes can see the obvious danger in allowing those who wield real power from depending on their underlings for everything...  Oh! silly me, forget I said that. You might be asking yourself why this story is on a blog devoted to employment issues.  I'll tell you why: companies are using software to screen resumes .  That software is calle

This post is like a table of contents for the blog.  There are now over sixty articles here, covering a fairly focused list of subjects: Blog Governance - the rules of the road for this blog   The Table of Context   Comments Opened   Thank you, kindly Job Hunting - articles with specific guidance for job hunting A break in the silence, and a true story   Gig Economy I - Introduction Videos   The Job Hunt, part I: initial preparation for the hunt   The Job Hunt, part IIa: Employee job hunt   Different types of job   The coming gig-based economy   Persuasion, Your Personal Hydrogen Bomb   Highest and Best Use of Skill   I'm older and scared of losing my job. What to do   Ageism and LinkedIn in the modern world   Smart Women Love the Cloud   Learning the Cloud from clear blue sky    The Bell Curve and your chances of success, part II    Some light at the end of the tunnel    On the incredible value of Glass Door    Equity How about a few smaller, scrappier

Notes from the field:   First, some links to comments by people who have actually done remote managing of workers:   10 Essential Tips for Managing Remote Employees   How To Manage Remote Workers Like They’re Right In The Office   How to Successfully Manage Remote Employees   How to Effectively Manage Remote Employees   8 expert tips for managing remote workers Note that many of these contain the same tips - provide good hardware, regular (but not nagging) communication, very clear instructions, clear, objective acceptance criteria for work done.  Web cams and Skype can help a lot. Absolute essentials for remote management:   These are: initial tooling and access, learning curves, written instructions, written acceptance criteria, time constraints . Although obvious, they are omitted or ignored often enough so that there are frequent failures in the use of remote workers, most famously Yahoo! under their final CEO. These failures, likely due to management rather than workers,