Monthly Archives: December 2013

Over the last few weeks I’ve listened to or read over 100 video or audio recordings and articles about looking for a job, interviewing and negotiating a job offer… at least 35% to 40% of the stuff is absolute junk… in fact, it so bad that if people take the advice they will look for a job for the rest of their life and never find one… the vast, vast majority of this stuff is written by career advisers and counselors, psychologists, retired executives, gurus, and self-appointed authorities about finding a job or managing your career… I have no idea where people come up with these cockamamie ideas but here are a few of them…

I will enumerate them here and over the next week or so explaining how absolutely downright hideous or stupid they are… one thing is for sure, these people never really found anybody a job… since we have free speech in this country, they are entitled to tell you this stuff… but you don’t have to believe it… and you shouldn’t…here they are:

When you are asked how much money you are making, counter that question with a question by asking “well, how much does this position pay?”

When asked about how much money you are making, give a range of the money you’ve made over the last few years.

Have three numbers in mind regarding the salary you will be willing to accept… a high salary, a median salary and the lowest salary you would consider.

Employers want to pay as little as they can get away with

Candidates always want the most money they can get

When given an offer, tell people you’d like to go home and think about it for a couple of days

Never accept the first offer

He who brings up money first loses

Everything is negotiable

Employers always have room to negotiate

Employers always start to offer you a job at the lowest money they can get away with

Never take responsibility for saying “no”… blame your reason for saying no on  someone else you have consulted

Always ask for more money than you want

When interviewing, mirror the interviewing authority

When you go into the interview… keep breathing (… seriously, that is exactly what an interview counselor recommended)

Tell the interviewing authority that you need more money because… and then state the reason why you need more money

When negotiating a salary always wince at the first offer

In an interview, don’t tell people you are looking for a job…but simply exchanging information to see if  there is mutual interest either now or in the future.

Remember, when it comes time for them to make an offer, they really, really want you and so you’re in the driver’s seat

Target the top 10 companies you would like to go to work for and focus everything you can to get an interview with them

Beginning next week  I will discuss these insane statements in detail…

I heard Wayne Dyer speak, asking people, “what do you think about the last five minutes of your day?” It is a really good question… in that mental and emotional state between being awake and asleep… what do people think about…my bet is that most of us usually think of the negative things and the difficult things that happen to us during the day… now I’m no psychologist, but I’ve worked with people for more than 40 years in a very challenging part of their lives, that of looking for a job… and any negative seeds must influence the subconscious during sleep…and that doesn’t help you

This can be especially disastrous if you’re looking for a job, full-time and possibly, looking for a very long time… it can be downright depressing… so try this, as you drift off to sleep think about how fortunate you are… think about all your blessings… release any criticism, condemnation and judgement…think about the challenge of looking for a job as a test of your spirit… your will… your courage… your persistence… sheer determination… think about how lucky you are to be able to live to challenge another day… have faith… pray… trust that God does not send you any challenge  that you can’t meet … be grateful… sow the seeds of peace in your subconscious …

Oh, my… you can’t believe this, you talked to everyone possible, including the janitor…six or seven interviews… took all kinds of personality tests….rubbed your belly, patted your head and sang the Star-Spangled Banner at the same time… And now you are told they’re not going to hire anybody…

You are frustrated, disappointed, and mad as hell!… These guys told you all along you were the person for the job, and now this… it just doesn’t make sense.

Most candidates are mad when this kind of thing happens…they really don’t understand what might be going on…

Hiring someone… no matter what level… is a highly political event… and the higher level the position, the more political it is… They’re all kinds of things going on “behind the scenes” of hiring somebody the candidate may never know… political infighting, one group versus another group, one decision-maker versus another decision-maker… one group or individual really loves you thinks you’d do a great job and another group or individual will nix your candidacy to get even, flex their power or just show others that have the power to do it…budgets get cut, headcount gets allocated to another department or postponed because of a poor quarter… company restructuring, etc…. There’s simply no way of knowing all the reasons and, amazingly enough, you may not even get a straight answer even when you ask..

In spite of your anger and frustration, cool your jets and don’t write the deal off just yet… 99 out of 100 times when this happens, it is not personally directed at you… the decision really doesn’t have anything to do with you and there is an much you can do to effect it… again, be cool and be graceful…

Don’t let your anger show…  something like, “I am disappointed,  I understand these things happen. Is there a chance that if this issue is resolved you might consider me down the line?” Now, there is  part of you that is saying, “Tony, are you nuts! Who would want to go work for an organization like this?” And to that I say, “Cut it out! you know as well as I do that decisions like this can change or be postponed for all kinds of reasons that have nothing to do with you. Even excellent organizations have glitches like this.”

Keep the door open. If the opportunity resurrects itself in the near future it may be good for you to consider it.  into account all factors surrounding the job, but my experience since 1973 tells me that, most of the time, this kind of  glitch has really nothing  to do with the quality of the job or the opportunity. You may think it does, but most of the time it doesn’t. Now, you may not end up accepting an offer for this kind of job if it comes back around, but at least give yourself the advantage of having the “right of first refusal.”

I can’t tell you the number of very, very happy candidates who I placed over the years where the opportunity with the company went away at the last moment and, because they kept their composure, ended up getting the job… even as long as a year later… most are  having a stellar career with the firm…

Every year about this time I and my associates start hearing from candidates that since it’s the holidays,  nobody is hiring…DON’T BUY IT!… I will admit that since Christmas and New Year’s fall way they do, it seems like two weeks are totally wasted.

But don’t believe for an instant that companies aren’t hiring… when they need somebody, they need somebody… employers will often use the excuse of “holidays” as to why they’re not hiring, but the truth is those are the ones who aren’t hiring anyhow…it is true that people are going to take time off in the last two weeks of this month… but many, many, many managers are working and they are going to interview and hire… so,FIND them…

I know, if you’re looking for a job, it’s easier to avoid emotional rejection of having trouble finding a job by taking a “break” during the holiday… please, please, don’t do that… smart candidates are even more intense about getting interviews because they know other people are using the holiday as an excuse not to compete with them… good for them!

Lots of companies hire people in December to start work in your new physical year beginning in January… many of these people postpone hiring to the very last minute and they are now under the gun and have to hire quickly… I talked to a client of ours today who reminded me that he was supposed to hire someone in the first week of November and through all kinds of crazy events like him going on vacation and two of his primary candidates taking other jobs, he is still looking… and he is a little more intent than he had been before because if he doesn’t hire someone to start the first of the year, he is going to lose his head count… there lots of companies out there that are in that situation…

So don’t take your foot off the pedal just because it’s “the holidays”… there is hiring going on… be a part of it!

Our candidate seemed to be a reasonable guy… according to his resume he’d been pretty successful in the places that he had worked… we had recruited him on the suggestion from a guy who used to work with him…

During our face-to-face interview with him,  he started bringing up the names of many of the people he said he knew in his profession… some of these folks he was mentioning where two or three levels above him and two or three were CEOs and senior vice presidents of the fairly large companies he had worked for…

At first, his mannerism was a little curious, but the longer he talked the more he kept mentioning names of these people as though they were his neighbors, drinking buddies and best of friends… to make matters worse, every time he mentioned one of these  people that certainly everyone was supposed to know he did it with a little sly grin on his face followed by a pause in his speech that made you feel he was in the least ingenuous and at the most a liar… it got really old.

We got him the interview with one of our clients and, even after warning him about his name dropping tendency, he did the same thing with the client…

Other than his penchant for name dropping, he interviewed well and has the skills and experience our client is looking for… our client requested that we check his references… the very first reference that we checked was  one of the candidate’s previous managers…

The conversation began in a bit of awkward way… the manager seemed cold and distant and even though he agreed to offer a reference for the candidate, he never seemed engaged or friendly… in fact he was rather antiseptic… he did say that the candidate had done a good job for them, had gotten good reviews and had even been promoted a couple of times… but there was still something there in the conversation that just wasn’t smooth…

After about 15 minutes of this less than warm conversation, I asked the previous manager if there were any personal habits that the candidate had that he wished were different… there was a really, really long pause… I even asked him if he was still on the line and he said “yes”… there was still silence…

I finally broke the silence by saying, “you know this guy seems like a quality guy… his track record seems to be good but he seems to have this annoying habit, that both I and our client picked up on, of dropping names. It’s as though he is neighbors with or friends with some pretty significant folks. Is that the case?”

The manager on the other end of the phone breathed a sigh of relief… he said, “that’s really a problem with him. He acts like he’s bosom buddies with all of those folks and he isn’t. He does good work, but when people find out that he really doesn’t know all of those people that he says he knows, they lose respect for him to the point where they shun him and don’t even want to be around him. He’s not a bad guy, he’s just full of bull crap. Like, he says that one time he had dinner with Pres. George Bush, as though they were personal friends. Turns out that he attended the dinner where George Bush spoke along with 1000 other people who contributed to his campaign. It is just so stupid, but he keeps doing it. So, if your client can live with that kind of thing, your candidate may make a good employee.”

Of course, we reported this conversation to our client… he hasn’t decided whether he’ll hire the candidate or not but his enthusiasm for the candidate has certainly been dampened… my sense is that our client will pursue two of our other candidates… the sad lesson here is that there is just no reason for anybody to name drop like this… it has probably cost this candidate a really good job and it just wasn’t necessary…

People who are interviewing any candidate will make decisions about them based on all kinds of, seemingly, insignificant things…Name dropping is one of them