America’s only online 60-hour job search program!

The Job Search Solution
Tony beshara logo 269w cropped

“I’ve been finding people jobs since 1973, and have helped thousands of candidates find great career opportunities. Let me help you too!”... Tony Beshara

"I've been finding people jobs since 1973, and have helped thousands of candidates find great career opportunities. Let me help you too!"... Tony Beshara

…playing hard to get

Kyle is a great candidate and he’s been very successful with the kinds of things he’s done…he is skillful and has been lucky in the jobs he has had to have caught companies and markets at the right time… unfortunately, though, his success has gone to his head

Our client was interested in Kyle after the first meeting and wanted to pursue him… Kyle’s attitude was, “well, I might be interested and I might not, let’s see what they’ve got…”

He made it through a second and third round of interviews, performing very well… then he starts playing “hard to get.”

The organization tells us they’re interested in making him an offer… Kyle put them off and started saying things like, “well, let me take a look at exactly what I’m giving up in my present job and get back to you about what it’s going to take for me to leave…” our client’s attitude was, “wait a minute! You knew what our offer was going to be all along, as we explained the money in the first meeting that we had…”

Kyle explains to us, his recruiter, that he knows… we’re not sure how he get this ideda.. but that he knows they can make a much better deal with him than they said they would… he then postpones a second conversation that he was supposed to have with them about an offer… he then calls us and tells us the only way he would consider the job would be to get a $15,000 salary greater than what they said they were willing to pay as well as a sign-on bonus of at least $10,000…

Because of our experience, we had two other candidates in the queue with the company, realizing that anything can happen… we explained to Kyle that it just wasn’t realistic to expect the company to do what he was asking, because the market is such that they didn’t need to do that… Kyle’s attitude was, “well I’m that good and that’s what it’s gonna take!”

We explained to the client that we just didn’t think it was going to work out with Kyle.  He hadn’t looked for a job in a number of years, he just wasn’t aware of the reality of this market and he was asking for more than what we thought was fair… we didn’t want to vilify Kyle because we wanted to be sure the door might be opened for him somewhere down the line… Kyle got his nose out of joint and was rather indignant about the fact that our client just wasn’t interested in this proposition… there was no reason for them to be… Kyle was good but he was more of a “legend in his own mind” than he was valuable to our client…

One of our other candidates was offered the job and accepted with grace and style… the lesson is that no one has any intrinsic value… a candidate’s value in the job search is relative to the market and other candidates that might be available… playing hard to get by coming up with ridiculous demands won’t get you hired… get a job offer, do it or don’t, but don’t let it go to your head…

By |2012-10-26T21:20:24-05:00October 26, 2012|Job Search Blog|

…chris screwed it up

…So Chris is told he’s going to get an offer… he discusses the salary with the hiring authority and he verbally accepts the job… he is told that the paperwork will come in a day or so and he can start work on Monday…

Chris gets the offer in writing on the Friday before he is suppose to start work and decides that he wants to now “negotiate”…

He calls me up and tells him he would like to negotiate now that he has the offer in writing… I explained to him that now is not the time to negotiate… he has verbally  accepted the job, he needs to stand by his word, and besides, I tell him, it’s very rare for an organization to negotiate a salary once you have accepted it and they put it in writing…

Chris decides, since he is a very experienced “professional,” he is going to negotiate anyhow…(so much for my expertise)… so he tries to get a hold of the hiring manager.  He can’t find him so he writes an e-mail back to the HR director at corporate who sent him the offer, and tells her he wants $10,000 a year more in salary… she doesn’t know what to do, so instead of calling the hiring authority, she sends the e-mail requests to the vice president… he vaguely knows what’s going on, as he had spoken to Chris on the phone before Chris got hired and his natural reaction is not only “no” but “hell no”…

The VP calls the hiring authority, his subordinate, and leaves a voicemail of something along the line of, “who the hell is this guy who thinks he can or should negotiate another $10,000 in salary by e-mail with the HR department?” The VP went on to say that the hiring authority should rescend the offer immediately.

I can’t say I blame the vice president or the company… that was a very unprofessional way to try to negotiate a better offer… the lesson is: don’t try to negotiate an offer after it’s in writing and don’t negotiate by e-mail and don’t negotiate with someone in the human resources department and don’t let what you write get in the  hands of a vice president who has no patience with this kind of thing…

Chris was shocked when the offer was rescinded and tried to “recoup” by telling them he’d accept the offer just as it is… sorry, the damage had already been done.

If you’re gonna negotiate, do it before a formal offer is made and do it with the hiring authority, the one who you have rapport with and the one you’re actually going to be working for… and, oh yeah, read the parts of my blog that talk about how to negotiate before you do it…

I really don’t have a lot of empathy for Chris, he screwed it up.

By |2012-10-19T21:05:23-05:00October 19, 2012|Job Search Blog|

… body language

The debate between Gov. Romney and Pres. Obama Wednesday was a great lesson in body language… no matter who wins the presidential race, it’s obvious that Gov. Romney won this debate…

If you are looking for a job and interviewing you want to pay attention to the things  Romney did… he had a pleasant smile on his face when he wasn’t speaking… not a smirk, but a pleasant smile… he actually looked at and had eye contact with Pres. Obama… he spoke with passion and feeling… he communicated a great mastery of facts (… whether they were accurate or not doesn’t matter) by quoting lots of numbers and in many questions he answered by saying “first… second…and third” communicating certainty… he spoke with his hands open and his palms up, which communicates sureness..he had enthusiasm and animation…

On the other side of the stage, Pres. Obama often looked down and didn’t face his opponent… he smirked… he had no animation or enthusiasm… spoke in monotones and droned on as though he was uninterested…

If winning the job was based on today, Gov. Romney would’ve gotten hired.

By |2012-10-05T22:10:43-05:00October 5, 2012|Job Search Blog|
Go to Top