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“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

Job Search Solution Blog by Tony Beshara2023-06-12T09:52:10-05:00

…….. if you are the job seeker, no matter how passive or aggressive please stop:

…. Keeping your voicemail full, so when I call you I can’t leave a message

….. Texting me as though you think I’m on my cell phone all day… I’m not…Most of us that are true recruiters… on the phone all day… aren’t paying attention to their cell phones. They don’t have time

…… Having a third of  your resume taken up with your picture… Your “summary”… your “objective”… stupid bullet points like “great communication skills, both verbal and written”… anything on your resume that doesn’t tell me in a quick SCAN…(NOT read) who you work for, what they do, what you did and how well you did it… I’m going to spend 10 seconds on scanning your resume and it needs to tell me “why would my client be interested in interviewing this candidate?” remember, YOUR RESUME IS SCANNED, NOT READ

…. Having no picture on your LinkedIn profile

… Having your picture on your LinkedIn profile looking like you are trying to get a date

… Having a picture on your profile to communicate anything except “I’m a professional”

… Having circles, boxes, quadrangles, octagons, charts and graphs, maps, instructions on how to put together your kids latest toy…on your resume

… Having your phone number “hidden” somewhere at the bottom of your resume in such small print that I can’t read it

… Trying to communicate with me exclusively through LinkedIn, so that I have to “view message” every time I go to communicate with you. I will stop doing it after I tell you to email me

…. Only being available at certain narrow times during the day

…. Telling me that you can’t come interview with me in my office because you can’t afford to take the time off, but that you’d be willing to take time to go interview with an employer. (I’m not anymore wild about interviewing you face-to-face anymore than you are about interviewing me face-to-face, but I really have to do it if I’m going to represent you well.)

… Not stating your name on your voicemail for your cell phone…. you’ll feel really stupid if three years from now I have an excellent opportunity for you, call your cell phone and, not being sure it’s you, hang up…tell people who call you who you are in your message

….. Having a ridiculously stupid email address that is anything but professional… i’mastud@gmail.com will not get a positive response

… Using an @aol account… you will appear to be old

….  Anything political anywhere… or any political discussion… (Years ago I was on the Dr. Phil Show a number of times with Elizabeth Warren… She was a kook then and she’s still a kook… I’m embarrassed that she is an Okie like I am, but I don’t discuss it… At least I was born in Muskogee and, yes I’m an “Okie from Muskogee.”)…. Yes, I can get away with this because I’m not looking for a job

… Telling me that you really need a job and then not returning my phone call

…. Not telling me that you found a job while I’m trying to get you interviews… No problem, but please just tell me

…Going totally silent when I tell you I have an interview for you…and then when you need me 3 years from now, calling me and acting like w’ere old lost cousins… best of friends, etc.

…Being extremely rude to me when you are an employer and then, of course, drastically changing that tune when you need a job. (Of course, I’m never going to say anything about it, but I do remember it.)

 

By |February 22, 2020|Job Search Blog|

…so, what’s the market like?

I get this question especially at the beginning of every year. I’m on the phone four and a half to five hours a day making and receiving more than 100 calls to candidates and employers and I gotta tell you that the market is, as Jim Rohn used to say about what the future is going to be like, “just about the same as it’s ever been…It’s up… and then it’s down.”

People have a tendency to think that since the unemployment rate is so low that there are all of a sudden 100 jobs that they will automatically qualify for. We had a candidate a month or so ago who had been selling insurance for the past few years come in and tell us that he wanted to make $100,000 selling software, “because, I hear the market is really hot and that people are really hard to find.” Oh, brother!

From a candidate perspective, there are more opportunities out there than there have been in the last few years. But employers are just as careful and just as picky as they’ve ever been. They may not have as many people to interview, but they are still in the mode of, “what are you going to do for me today?” Every candidate is going to have a challenge in the interviewing process. And they still have to interview very well. They have to provide really good reasons as to why they ought to get hired.

There has always been a tendency for candidates, no matter how often they change jobs, to think that the work world can’t live without them and that every company out there in the universe would like to hire them. They have absolutely no idea how difficult it is or how long it will take. Their spouses, relatives, the people they work with and most everybody they know are always telling them how wonderful they are at what they do (… for all kinds of different reasons) so they think the rest of the world thinks that too. They don’t! There is still at least 12 to 15 qualified candidates for every opportunity and candidates need to be aware of that. The idea like the insurance salesperson had, of “where’s my job?” just isn’t real. It never has been.

From the hiring authority point of view, they are as relatively unrealistic as they have always been no matter what the market or the economy has been. There is a tendency to think that, “we are absolutely wonderful people to work for and everybody in the world wants to come to work here.” There is a tendency for hiring authorities to think that just because they have a job opportunity they can hire just about anybody that they want to for the same money that they were paying two or three years ago (that same money that they were paying the person that just left).

We spend a lot of our time trying to set expectations for our hiring clients. We try to explain that the market isn’t anywhere near what it used to be when they hired the last time, that they aren’t going to see as many candidates as they used to by just snapping their fingers and if they drag interviewing out over any length of time the number of them is much more finite and they can easily come to the point where they aren’t getting any at all. (We have one national client who has been looking for their only national account sales rep in Dallas for 18 months. The CEO is, by many standards, ridiculously picky as well as mercurial. The word on the street is so derogatory it’s hard to even get anybody to interview with them.)

And on top of all this, many companies are still stuck with the same salaries that they have been paying the other people in the department, which are usually 3 to 5 years old. Candidates are seeing salaries greater than that and expecting increases from the jobs they are leaving or the jobs they had. This is probably one of the biggest challenges we and our company clients have. Whenever the economy advances at even a reasonable pace, the salaries candidates expect increase also. So, if a company has a whole department at salaries they hired them in at 3 to 5 years ago, even with generous raises, they are still behind the times.

And please don’t give me that stuff (like Perot Systems used to say they insisted upon) that, as a policy, people are not going to discuss their salaries or earnings. That’s about the dumbest thing any group of managers should expect from anybody. And, yes, the nightmare of present employees coming into a manager’s office complaining that the company just hired somebody in their same job for $5,000 a year more is a reality. To avoid this problem many companies simply lower the amount of experience or quality of experience of the candidates they interview and expect to hire.

So, candidates have more of an advantage than they had three years ago. Employers have a harder time finding good candidates than they have before, they have to pay more and they can’t take as long to hire people as they used to.

It’s up… and then it’s down!

 

 

By |February 14, 2020|Job Search Blog|

…the power of BAD and the job search/hiring process

The Power of Bad…How the Negativity Effect Rules Us and How We Can Rule It …This is a great book written by John Tierney and Roy F. Baumeister. It points out that the majority of people look for the “bad.” They claim and prove that “bad is universally powerful!” They bring up the phrase “the negativity effect.” They go on to prove that we are much more conscious of negativity then we are of positivity. They reveal the “negativity bias” and prove that bad is much stronger than good. They point out that 80% of the people who are exposed to a terrifying event do not experience posttraumatic stress syndrome. But we emphasize the 20% that are negatively affected. They point out how the power of bad inspires virtuous behavior and why hell is such a common believe in religious practice.

They cite the fact that our fine-tuned sense of bad is debilitating. This is the power that governs our moods and guides our decisions. It drives news and shapes public discourse. Even though the past quarter-century has been extraordinarily peaceful by historical standards we think we have witnessed more battles and bloodshed than ever before. The rate of violent crime in America has plummeted but most people think it’s gone up because we see so much of it on television and in the the public media. The steady diet of bad news makes people feel helpless and therefore negative.

The truth is that we are richer, healthier, freer and safer than any of our ancestors could ever hope to be yet we don’t enjoy our blessings and we think we are in terrible shape. The authors say that we prefer to heed and vote for the voices telling us that the world is going to hell. (Here’s an interesting side note. They cite the fact that the number of people killed worldwide by Al Qaeda and ISIS and their allies in the past two decades is smaller than the number of Americans who died in their bathtubs. But as the authors say, we see victims of terrorism over and over on the screens but not victims of bathtub accidents.)

I could go on and on, but I’m sure you get my point. It is an absolutely fascinating book and it proves that we have a tendency to look for what the authors call the “crisis crisis.” So, you ask, what does that have to do with interviewing and getting hired?

Well, here is what it has to do with the interviewing and hiring process. Interviewing authorities are going to look for more of the negative in your candidacy than they are going to look for the positiveI can’t tell you the number of candidates that I interview weekly who come out of interviews thinking that they absolutely nailed it. They claim that they did an absolutely phenomenal job and that everything went just about perfectly. And then I talk to the interviewing or hiring authority and they mention some very small part of the conversation and use it to cast doubt on the candidate.

Just this week, one of the Presidents of the firm I sent a vice president candidate to said to me, “You know we talked for an hour and a half and I really like the guy. I like everything about him. I like his mannerisms and I like the way that he would get along with the people that work here. I like his accomplishments and I think from a character point of view he would fit into our company really, really well. But, you know there was something I really didn’t understand. Back at one of those jobs that he had, I think he said that they brought somebody in over him. Now I’m not really sure what happened and if that’s true. But why, if he was the vice president of sales, would they bring somebody in over him if he was doing a really good job. So, it made me wonder, maybe he’s not the leader that I think he might be. I mean…if they brought somebody in over him…why would they do that? I think I understand that’s what happened.”

One hour and a half’s worth of positive exchange and the president was concerned about something he thought he understood and began his negative bias concerns. It turned out that he totally misunderstood the candidate and the other person that was brought in the company was brought in for a totally different reason. The candidate, apparently, didn’t explain that very well. The candidate has not had a chance yet to explain it clearly to the president of this company.

The moral to the story is that both candidates and hiring authorities need to be aware of the “negative bias” syndrome that we all have a tendency toward. Hiring authorities especially are just plain afraid of making a mistake. There is a big tendency to look at and focus on all of the negatives. Candidates have a tendency to focus on all of their positives not realizing that the hiring authority or interviewing authority is going to lean more toward remembering and over emphasizing the negative issues. In this case, one slight misunderstanding is now a hurdle that the candidate has to overcome.

If you’re a job candidate you need to analyze everything you say in an interview and everything you’ve done in the past and ask yourself if it can be a topic of negative bias. Some of the things many candidates think are absolutely positive turn out to be the very things that cost them the job.

Remember… the power of bad outweighs the power of good. It does no good to curse this issue. Both sides of the desk need to be aware of its impact.

By |February 7, 2020|interviewing|

….mamba lessons

like many of the people in the country, I mourned Kobe Bryant’s passing this week. He’s the same age as one of our sons who played basketball at LSU and successfully played 10 years overseas.

But always struck me about Kobe was his work ethic. Many of you may not know it, but what if we all worked like and practiced like Kobe: and

  • He’d show up to practice at 5 AM and leave at 7 AM…. In high school
  • After practice he makes some of his high school teammates play one-on-one games to 100
  • Once with the Lakers is coach found the 18-year-old Bryant shooting in the dark gym two hours before practice
  • he was always the first player in the gym even when he was hurt
  • when he broke his right wrist, while it was in a cast he would practice dribbling in shooting with his left hand
  • he once played left-handed because he injured his right shoulder
  • He even practice without a ball
  • he once held a workout from 4:15 AM to 11 AM refusing to leave until he made 800 shots
  • he was all about improvement, even in the tiniest ways
  • he decided to lose 16 pounds for the Olympics in 2012, citing the need to keep knees pain-free
  • he scored 81 points in a game
  • he iced his knees for 20 minutes three times a day and did acupuncture so he wouldn’t get hurt
  • he eliminated sugar from his diet and only a lean meat
  • he used to watch film of himself at halftime
  • he went through super intense workouts on game days
  • he taught himself to play Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata on piano by ear
  • he co-called business people and entrepreneurs to learn about them and their secrets to success
  • he texted business leaders at all hours of the day… Even 3 AM to pick their brains

What if we all worked like that. How successful would we all be?

When Kobe met God, and God asked him, “Kobe, I gave you all kinds of gifts. Did you use them to the best of your ability?” I’m certain that Colby was able to say, “yes, God. I did.”

So the lesson is simple. Life is very short! And, when God asks us if we really used all the abilities that he gave us, what will our answer be?

By |January 31, 2020|Job Search Blog|

….. forget the trendy look

This is especially for guys, but you gals can listen up to. It is short and sweet:

WEAR A DAMN SUIT TO AN INTERVIEW….

SHAVE (in spite of what you think and what the trend is, that fuzz on your face looks stupid)…

POLISH YOUR SHOES. Ladies, follow the same appropriate advice.

Dress like you are going to the bank to borrow $1 million.

Three times this week I had three candidates, what were really good for the respective jobs I was referring them to, get eliminated because of the way they dressed and the first impression that they didn’t make. One guy wore a plaid sport coat over a blue shirt with dark gray pants and a T-shirt under the blue dress shirt. Along with the fuzz all over his face, it totally turned the hiring authority off before they got started.

I don’t care what the trend is, I don’t care what your spouse thinks looks cute…like your bow tie or your wraparound dress exposing your cleavage… a hiring authority isn’t going to like it.

It’s amazing that I even have to write about this. But three good candidates lost before they even got in the game.

By |January 24, 2020|Job Search Blog|

…why can’t folks be like Vincent?

Leonard, one of our esteemed clients, needed to hire an assistant. It was rather a senior assistant with the base of close to $90,000 and it was a very important position for the company. He called us last November… yes you heard it right, last November. Leonard tells us that he needs to hire somebody immediately and he is in a big hurry.

We tell Leonard that we can have him some good candidates at the end of the week of when he called. But Leonard says, “no let me look at the resumes and I’ll get back to you. I really want to interview as quickly as possible, but let me look at the resumes.”

We call Leonard for almost a full week…we don’t get him on the phone. A week or so later Leonard calls and tells us he’s really desperate to hire this administrative assistant, but he hasn’t really looked at the resumes yet and get back to us in a day or so. Three or four days later Leonard calls and says he’d like the interview four of the eight candidates that we had sent him. Two of the best candidates that he was interested in speaking with had already found jobs. One person had decided to stay where she was. So, he decided to interview the one of the four that he had left. She went and spoke with him.

Then, at the tail end of the week before Thanksgiving and Leonard says, “well I don’t want to make a decision just based on one interview, I’m going on vacation the week of Thanksgiving, can you line up some other candidates for after Thanksgiving?” We tell him that we can certainly do that, but he would be better off to just let us lineup five or six candidates that he should interview in one, or at the most two days and then he can make a decision. Leonard says that might be a good idea, but he wants a look at the resumes first. We tell him that it’s better for us to just send him the candidates and if he doesn’t like the candidates we send him he can start over. He says that he will “think about it.” We start arranging candidates to get interviewed.

Leonard gets back from Thanksgiving and for a whole week we can’t get a hold of him. He sends an email and says he is traveling for the next week and a half and that he’s going to have a rough time interviewing anyone but he is desperate to hire somebody because he’s having a number of other administrative people do the work of the person that he needs to hire. They are complaining.

By this time, we’ve decided that it’s not really worth much more of an investment of our time and effort, but if Leonard needs to see our candidates we will certainly comply. The week before Christmas, Leonard calls and says that he serious and he desperately needs to find somebody and needs to do it quickly before the first of the year. He says that he is looked at the resumes and that he’s picked four he would like to speak with. Every one of them had found a job.

I really don’t need to go on much beyond this but to tell you it is now January 17 and Leonard is still looking to interview a group of candidates. I will admit that he has spoken to two of them in the first week or so of January. I really don’t know if there are still available, but the point is that Leonard is 2 1/2 months or so into trying to find a good employee and he just can’t seem to do it.

Vincent is the vice president of a company out of Europe. We didn’t place them in the job, but he has been a candidate as well as client of ours for a number of years. He calls us three weeks ago and says that he needs to hire a salesperson. He says to lineup our best candidates over a period of two days. He calls on a Wednesday. He interviews nine candidates over the next Friday and Monday (No resume review, just tells us to send him the best candidates we’ve got.)He picks out two candidates that he really likes and has them back for indepth interviews. The next Monday he has them interview three or four people in Europe via Skype. He decides to hire one but is unsure of the second one. He hires one of the candidates and says that he would like to interview a few more. Notice that he has done all of this within 10 days of when he called.

The next week, Vincent interviews four more candidates, and likes one of them a lot. He has her call and visit with the people in Europe within the next three or four days and hires her. Vincent hired two people…two excellent people within three weeks. Now, how simple is that.

If people were more like Vincent and less like Leonard our fees could be half of what they are. And, people like Leonard would have a much easier life.

 

By |January 17, 2020|Job Search Blog|
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