Justin's dynamic application playground

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Imagined opportunities When my thoughts are free to roam, I often think of business / social cause ideas.

Known Opportunities Jobs found online that pass the sniff test for me. Why create responses to the prompt only to inform one employer when I can build the content here to help you see how valuable I could be in a variety of roles?

The tools that exist to match applicants and employers are leaving tremendous value on the table for BOTH parties. This is my form-follows-function attempt to improve on the current state.

I moved my content creation process here, to my blog, so I can evolve the content, using it to develop a more cohesive, well-rounded narrative about my candidacy for work endeavors. My intention is to provide more insight for potential employers, and create the foundations for BetterFit: tools to help applicants and employers more efficiently and effectively matchmake.

My partner and I met on OKCupid and have marvelled at the power of algorithms armed with hundreds of questions and answers to help match complex individuals and make positive outcomes more likely. 

Shortcomings identified with current tools:

Proximity-based searching is missing from most search tools, some of which have zipcode-based search filters, but you have to search one at a time and the results are neither reliable nor necessarily accurate reflections of commute time; what's needed is door-to-door address data. Employers with resumes and applicant data are well positioned to provide this but do not seem to make reciprocal efforts to meet applicants halfway.

Proximity: Like many, I prefer to telecommute. 

Compensation & Benefits: Based on my experience, education, and skills, I expect to earn my six-figure income. I enjoy work and my entrepreneurial, do what it takes attitude make me a good fit for sales and business development roles. I am comfortable having a large portion of my comp come from commission for roles with direct sales responsibilities. I also want to bring other elements of compensation and benefits into the conversation. Being able to bring my dog to work, for example, is a meaningful benefit to me. 

Values: I want to share values with my employer and with my colleagues.

I respect and understand that our diversity is our strength. I do not want to spend the majority of my waking hours working to support the Koch brothers, as an example. Part of the vision for BetterFit is that employee/applicants should be able to add criteria that are meaningful to them:

  • Are you a signatory to the Paris Climate Agreement? Sustainability is an important issue to me; human influence on climate change is real. An employer who is not willing or able to understand, acknowledge, and take action about it is inherently less interesting to me than one where my contributions can support a sustainable future.
  • Do you report to CDP and GRI?
  • Are you a B Corporation?
  • Do you participate in 1% for the planet?
  • Do you have a CSR department and does their website content pass the sniff test? 
  • What are your policies with respect to diversity and inclusion? What do your employees say about it on Glassdoor and in the real world?
  • What do your politial contributions and charitable donations say about you? If you support the HRC and the ACLU, we're more likely to click, more likely to be a good fit for the long haul. 

Nature of work: I want to be able to leverage my humor, creativity, innovation, drive, passion for sustainability, and strategic thinking. I want to use my soft skills, especially communicating in person, over the phone, and via email. I want to help build and improve upon processes. I have enjoyed success in sales roles and would like to be able to help my company grow. I want to be invited or expected to contribute ideas and strategic input as well as execute on a variety of tasks. I spend far too much time thinking about how to improve on the status quo to be happy stamping out widgets on an assembly line. I need to be able to engage thoughtfully with colleagues, and contribute to creatively solving the organization's problems. One of the most active ways I have experienced this is in sales and business development roles, where you are constantly called upon to put yourself in the prospect's shoes and built a value proposition for them, help them justify why they should spend their time and money, make organizational investments and decisions and retrain teams because of the value of the products and services I am selling.

Above are some aspects of my candidacy I think might be interesting to any employer.

Known Opportunities are opportunities I find interesting. For each one I've gone point-by-point addressing the fit between their open position of interest and my skills and experience that make me exceptionally well qualified for the job.