Personal Introduction to Job Search Tools

About Me…

It feels odd posting a background piece on myself, both because it comes before I have written anything else, and because I firmly believe that the content of this blog will speak for itself. But I think it is important that you know my background, both to understand my potential biases and to understand from where my wisdom, or lack thereof, comes.

I am Steve Davies, President of PerfectJob Software. I started this company in mid-2007 when I was starting a new job search and was appalled that there was little or no software available to help in a job search. The few applications that I found provided no benefit over a manual system, and certainly weren’t up to the complexities of a modern job search.

If, instead of starting a company, I had gone ahead with my last job search, it would have been the 9th since graduating from college, more years ago than I can count. Of those job searches, one (my first, and not a professional job) I got by walking in and filling out a job application. Two I got through job listings and Want Ads – the precursors to today’s job boards. One I got through the career center at my business school, and four I got through networking. That’s 8, for the 9th I created a company.

My experience, surprisingly, closely matches the statistics about how people find jobs. Most are found through networking. A few are found through just showing up, with a middle group of jobs found through sending resumes in to job ads.

As a youth I had a range of jobs, from working in a cannery (where I learned that working on an assembly line is not for me), worked with the mentally ill (which gave me great respect both for humankind’s resilience, and for the people who work with disadvantaged populations), and a summer as a llama herder (don’t ask!).

My post-college career was spent doing computer programming and product development, both for a start-up company and a medium-sized healthcare company. I had the fortune of being accepted to, and receiving a degree from one of the best business schools in the world. From there I gained practical knowledge from five years of doing strategy consulting with Fortune 100 companies, and spent a year recruiting for a top management consulting company. During the internet boom, I joined an internet consulting company, ran a P&L while they were publicly traded. Most recently I have been developing green energy projects in eastern Europe and former Soviet Union.

Along the way, I’ve learned a lot about recruiting, about job hunting, and about how companies work. I look forward to sharing my insights through this blog, and through the tools that our company produces. PerfectJob is a full job search manager and organizer that also helps you navigate all of the information associated with your job search. Use PerfectJob to manage your jobs search so that you maximize your options and master your search. Download it at http://www.perfectjobsoftware.com/.