Join us at our 5th Annual Staffing Symposium in Seattle, June 3, Amazing Speakers

Hi - We're holding our 5th Annual Recruiting Conference on June 3 in the Seattle area. Our SHRM Staffing Management Association of Seattle (SMA Seattle) group puts on national-conference-quality events each year for <$300.

We have an amazing speaker lineup, including the heads of talent acquisition from Microsoft and Expedia. And one of the best speakers I've ever heard - Penelope Trunk, who will bring an irreverent, funny look at Gen Y.

Details and registration info: www.smaseattle.org

I'll be MC'ing again this year.

Some of our distinguished speakers include:

* Scott Pitasky, Microsoft Corp VP, Talent & Org Capability. Every recruiting leader (and recruiter!) wants to know what the head of global microsoft recruiting is thinking! He's very smart, and an incredible presenter. (He was also a keynote speaker at ERE in March)

* Penelope Trunk, Boston Globe Columnist, Brazen Careerist, Avid Blogger. Take an entertaining and engaging trip with Penelope into the world of Gen Y. She's hilarious, irreverent, very smart, and very, very direct; prepare to be challenged. (One of the best speakers I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot)

* Eddie Pate, Consultant and former Director of Diversity at Starbucks and Microsoft.

* Janel Canepa, Consultant and former HR and Recruiting Leader at i2, Ariba and Cisco Systems. Learn how to stay relevant and engaged in a changing recruiting landscape from someone who has built unbelievably effective recruiting machines in Silicon Valley.

* Kristin Graham, Expedia Sr. Director, Recruiting / Communications. Kristin brings a true product marketing and branding orientation to the way she thinks about recruiting and social media.

Hope to see you there!

John Vlastelica
Co-Founder, Past President, and Strategic Advisor
SHRM's Staffing Management Association of Seattle

The most condescending (and funny) cover letter ever!

A friend forwarded me this cover letter found during a resume search on a major job board. I've deleted a few links to protect the identity, but this is some funny stuff!

Step 1. Recruiters, headhunters, search people, and those with itchy email trigger fingers... PLEASE READ THIS.

NO, *REALLY* PLEASE READ THIS here:
I am looking ONLY for an Agile Mentor, Software Development Lead, Team Lead, or Development Manager position ON THE EAST SIDE (uh... this means Seattle area, in Washington STATE). I am no longer an individual contributor (even though I am really good at it). I only work on Agile teams - that means Scrum or XP or LEAN.

Just to clarify... I don't do VB or Delphi, and no, I won't work on the east coast, midwest, or in foreign countries [except maybe for ONE MILLION DOLLARS]. Also, I am not a DBA or QA person. I probably won't be interested in Java opportunities, and if you even say "perl" I will collapse and evaporate into a pile of dust.

OK now. DID YOU REALLY READ THE ABOVE? If not, go back to step 1...

Please do not contact me unless your job matches the above description. If you don't know what Agile is, please move along.

Now, IF YOU MUST... please contact me via E-Mail only - NO PHONE CALLS. If you resourceful people do manage to find my number (again), I will probably hang up anyway :-)

OK, good, you DO need to email me. Great! Now, I politely request that you please send me as complete a description of the position as possible, mentioning all the specifics you have that tell me why I might be interested. Please no more mails like "we have something we think you'd like, please contact us ASAP!" - those hit the big /dev/null in the sky.

My full resume is a C# program I wrote, and is always and forever online (and updated regularly) at [link] - feel free to bookmark it and/or "save a copy as a word document" from that web site (don't ask me how to do this by the way).

Thanks, and now, perhaps you might want to review Step 1 just one more time... ;-)