as long as were talking about things to do or don’t do, let me mention a few things that have happened:

One of our candidates got fired because he posted on his LinkedIn profile that he was always open to new opportunities. He couldn’t believe that it happened. We explained to him that it’s perfectly legitimate for a company to fire anybody who’s actively looking for a job. His claim was that everybody does it. That may be a good excuse when you’re 10 years old, but not as a grown-up. My sense is that they were trying to get rid of him anyhow. Point is, don’t broadcast or advertise that you are looking for a job or you’d entertain the idea.

… Along the same line, one of our candidates got fired when his company found out he was looking for a job because, are you ready for this, he sent his resume through his office email….over a dozen times. Duh! What’s even more amazing, he was pissed about it. He called us and asked if they had a right to do that. And this was a mid-level manager with 15 years of experience and an MBA. Go figure!

A number of years ago two guys came to our organization to look for a job. They were both looking to leave their company and wanted to do it at relatively the same time. We warned them that it was not a good idea to look for a job “in tandem” by comparing notes, talking about the interviews they were having, etc. Even though they thought they were helping each other, we explained to them that that kind of thing could eventually put them in conflict with each other. They rocked along in their job search for five or six months, still doing the same thing, informing each other about each other’s interviews, comparing notes and so on. Then all of a sudden one of them was promoted to be the manager over the other. And the very first thing he did was fire his previous peer. Friendship aside, the new manager had to protect his new department from turnover. He knew his friend was looking for a job and was intending to leave. He couldn’t afford to keep him around. End of job…end of friendship.

Two months ago one of our candidates was bragging to an out of work friend of his about the interview he had with one of the firms we had lined him up with. His “friend” went to LinkedIn, found someone he knew at the company, called and eventually reached the manager that our candidate had interviewed with. His “friend” interviewed and got the job. He was even so bold as to tell the hiring authority that he was a friend of the first candidate he interviewed and then he was really a better candidate than his buddy. He obviously convinced the hiring authority  and got the job.

A few months ago, one of our clients was checking the reference of one of our candidates in order to hire him. He got into a very deep conversation with one of our candidate’s references, found out that the reference was more qualified than our candidate and eventually hired him instead of our candidate. (Now there’s really nothing anybody can do about this kind of thing. But it simply demonstrates that there really isn’t much loyalty in human nature when it comes to hiring the best people.)

The lesson is that it isn’t so important to distrust people when you’re in a job search as it is to avoid putting people in a position to where you have to worry about trusting them. Human nature will always prevail. As Teilhard de Chardin stated we are all, “spiritual beings acting human.”