June 2013 - Tony Beshara Blog

… humility in the job search

So you’re asking yourself “what does humility have to do with a job search?… Well it has plenty to do with the job search..it is accepting things in a non-proudful manner… humility keeps your ego from getting ahead of your game… not letting your ego be hurt by the rejection and refusal you’ll experience.

I often get asked… or should I say, challenged… that my recommended approach to interviewing… that is selling yourself really hard… is rather egotistical and downright bodacious… there is a big preference between presenting your skills and your abilities in a humble manner than in an egotistical, in-your-face, “I’m the best you’ve ever seen” manner.

Interviewing correctly… selling your skills and your abilities in a balanced manner, takes practice… on the one hand, you want to sell yourself forcefully but on the other hand you don’t want to come across as egotistical or too proud… outstanding skills and attributes can be presented actually with humility…. it is a fine art.

Another application of humility is the acceptance of a large number of rejections and refusals you will experience… this is one of the hardest parts of the job search process… never hearing from prospective employers when they tell you they are going to be back in touch with you, being ignored and even being treated rudely are things that most job candidates have a hard time getting used to… and that’s where you can apply humility.

Your humble reaction to this kind treatment makes a big difference… if you take things personally and spend time ruminating over how you were treated etc., you will expend a phenomenal amount of emotional energy that does you absolutely no good at all… if you accept these kinds of treatment with humility, you are left with more energy to be focused on getting more interviews and selling yourself really well… humility frees up emotional energy to be directed in the right way.

By Tony Beshara|2013-06-30T22:03:28-05:00June 30, 2013|Job Search Blog|

….michael responded perfectly…brilliant!!!

Michael had been on six interviews with one company… just like we talked about last time, a company that was full of doubt and uncertainty and fear… he gets down to the last interview with the hiring authority’s boss who is the last step… the hiring authority did a good job coaching Michael about what his boss was going to be looking for… in fact, he “overcoached” just a bit… he gave Michael so many “watch out for this” that Michael, who up until this point had been stellar, poised and confident… all of a sudden became a little nervous.

When he interviewed with the hiring authority’s boss, he was so self-conscious about getting everything in the conversation he thought he needed to that when he was asked a question he went on and on and on and on… it was like the guy who, when asked what time it was, told the time, how the watch was made and what places in Switzerland would be good to visit.

The result was that Michael didn’t let the interviewing authority get much of a word in edgewise… it so happens that the hiring authority’s boss was also a big talker and he wanted to do most of the talking… guys like that get frustrated when they can’t talk and somebody else goes on and on and on.

Michael was an excellent candidate and so the hiring authority’s boss didn’t want to totally eliminate him, but wasn’t very happy, so he instructed Michael to do a few more due diligence type things and therefore extended the interviewing process longer… at that point Michael called was just a bit irritated because the interviewing process had already gone way longer than anybody thought it would… but here is the beauty of what Michael did.

When the hiring authority told Michael that he really didn’t listen to his boss like he should, that he ran off at the mouth and that he really didn’t give his boss a chance to have a give and take conversation, instead of getting pissed and justifying what he did… which most candidates would do… Michael said “you know, I was trying so hard to do it right… I was trying so hard to answer every question with everything I knew…I ran off at the mouth… I’m really sorry… if I had it to do again I would’ve done it differently”.

As I say, most candidates would’ve gotten all pissed off and justified what they did… Michael however, acknowledged his mistake, asked for forgiveness and moved on to the next subject… brilliant!!!

The hiring authority even commented about how gracefully Michael accepted the criticism… it’s really easy to get defensive in situations like this… Michael showed his professionalism by accepting responsibility for what he did, apologizing and asking for forgiveness… brilliant!!!

By Tony Beshara|2013-06-14T21:54:51-05:00June 14, 2013|Job Search Blog|

… your potential employer… doubt, uncertainty and fear

Every candidate looking for a job should be aware of just how darned afraid of making a mistake companies are… especially if they’ve had problems with a particular position they are trying to replace.

One of our clients is a $200 million services firm… not real big not real small… over the last two years they had two very, very unsuccessful first line managers in their Dallas office… the first one was a local guy who was hurriedly hired by a regional director who, in hindsight, was leaving the company and didn’t really care who he hired… after that guy failed, the new regional director, out of California, tried to hire a new manager using his own “network” … we spoke to the regional director a year ago, he claimed that his company was so good that they didn’t need to pay a fee to our organization and they had plenty of excellent candidates for the job… they ended up hiring a candidate who they moved from the West Coast because, they told us, “there are no real good managers in Texas”…(oh,brother)

Unfortunately, the poor new manager who moved here from California wasn’t given much time to turn the Dallas district around… he knew nothing about North Texas… didn’t even know where LBJ was and probably didn’t even know who LBJ was… companies don’t really know how treacherous it is to move a manager here, who has no idea about the area and expect results quickly… needless to say, it didn’t work out.

The regional director out of California was so “desperate” to find a good candidate this time, he not only used his own “network” but allowed us to refer a number of very qualified candidates…along with saying that he was so surprised that we could come up with such quality candidates who were not in his “network”… (duh!… I mean, we are here and he is in California… if we couldn’t come up with better candidates than he would know, being from California, we wouldn’t have survived since 1952…)

We found them an absolutely stellar candidate and… and this is important to know… since they had made such a poor decisions over the last two years they decided that to make sure this was the “right” candidate they would put him through a number of interviews… and this is where it gets so rather absurd.

Keep in mind this is a first level managers job… certainly an important job and one that would usually require one, two or maybe even three people to interview the candidate… but the past hires had been such debacles they decided they wanted to be “sure”… so after two interviews with the regional director they flew the candidate to the home office… he spent all day interviewing with CEO, the vice president of human resources, the vice president of services, the vice president of marketing, and another vice president of operations who even stated to the candidate that he didn’t know why he was interviewing a candidate, but since he was asked he would oblige… and, oh yeah there was another interview with another vice president whose role the candidate still isn’t quite sure of… at any rate, he went through eight hours of interviewing with six senior managers.

They all seem to think that the candidate is excellent so noooooooooooooooow they are going to send him to California next week for one last interview with another VP … all this for a first line managers job… crazy!

When companies make mistakes in hiring they do all kinds of things to protect themselves the next time around… this gross number of interviews for one candidate really isn’t going to make their decision any better… it’s absurd… but saying so isn’t going to change their approach… if you’re a candidate looking for a job you need to be aware that the people who are interviewing you… especially if they have made a number of mistakes… are going to do everything including a proctology exam to be sure they don’t make the mistake… it isn’t going to do any good to complain about this… it isn’t going to change… fortunately our candidate has been very understanding and is rather amused by the whole thing… he’s a good natured guy and is going to make them a hell of a manager.

Doubt, uncertainty and fear!

By Tony Beshara|2018-07-25T13:21:46-05:00June 7, 2013|Job Search Blog, recruitment|