Besides all the great advice and referrals I received from personal contacts, the most valuable resource for me when forming JobSyntax was Guy Kawasaki’s book The Art of the Start.  Guy is currently the managing director of a VC firm called Garage Technology Ventures, and he worked for several years at Apple Computer.  Not only is he a super smart guy and a great writer – but his guidance is not the typical “master of the obvious” stuff you tend to read in advice books.  I recommend it as a must read for anyone who is starting anything  - whether it be a new company, a new project within an existing company – or even a job or candidate search. Now, I just need to move on to Guy’s various other books.

Guy also writes a blog.  Many of his articles are his books repackaged with a few additions – but hey, that works for me.  He’s written a couple articles on the The Art of Recruiting and the The Art of Recruiting: Part II (which is really a re-post of someone else's email), but I think most of everything he writes can be applied to the recruiting market.  Managing your own job or candidate search is like running your own little business.  Competitive analysis, advertising channels, strategic plans, etc – they are all part of the recruiting and job hunting process. And if they aren't a part of your process, they certainly should be.

A few weeks ago, Josh and I were asked to judge the Post of the Week for recruiting.com.  I chose Guy’s post entitled The Art of Driving Your Competition Crazy because, as I said on recruiting.com, “Recruiting is much more than matching the right people with the right jobs; it’s a microcosm of running a business end to end. You have to create your product, position your product, and sell your product, and above all else, you have to know and love your customer.”

So anyway, if you haven’t already, check out Guy’s blog.  I give it two hearty JobSyntax thumbs up.

gretchen