Job Search Blog

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

Our client gave us a great job description and requirements of what he was looking for… he told us that the most he was going to pay for the job was $60,000… we referred number of candidates none of whom he was really excited about…

We explained to him we had an excellent candidate who really didn’t have as much experience as he wanted but he really had a lot with other experience that would more than make up for it… after two three-hour meetings with her, he told her he wanted hire her… he told her he was going to call her the next morning with a formal offer…

When he called, she preempted the conversation by saying she wanted to come over and actually talk about the offer face-to-face and of course negotiate… when she got there, he explained that he wanted to make an offer to her of  $65,000 … $5000 more than what he really wanted to pay… and he emphasized that to her…

According to both of them there was a long moment of silence and she said, “I’d love to go to work you, I’m perfect for this job and you are perfect for me and let me explain why you need to pay me $85,000…” she then proceeded to show him  charts, documents and projections as to how she could make the department good enough and bring the job to the level where the $85,000 was fair… it took her 20 minutes to lay it all out and, according to our client, in a logical and, above all, convincing way… She had convinced one of the administrative people to give her yearly budget for the department and using that with some pretty heavy statistical analysis and projections, she showed our client how she was worth $85,000…

He hired her… at $85,000… the lesson?… prove your value!

In last week, I heard three, very professional, very experienced, apparently intelligent professionals give me these answers:

“Well it was just time to go…”                                                                                                             “My boss and I agreed that it wasn’t working out…”                                                                “I’d rather not discuss it…”

I could go on and on… and I only interviewed 12 candidates this week… over the years, I’ve heard the most unbelievably stupid things that people say when they are asked this question… it’s hard to believe that people don’t think before they come up with a reason as to why they are leaving their present employer or why they left their previous employer… They don’t seem to comprehend the idea that any employer interviewing them is going to imagine somewhere down the line the candidate will be leaving them for the very same reason that the candidate gives for leaving his or her present or past employer..

Please, please, please you gotta  remember that a prospective employer is looking for just as many reasons not to hire you as they are looking for reasons they should hire you… in fact, they are more sensitive to the reasons they shouldn’t hire you than they are to the ones that indicate they should…

Ask  yourself, “does this sound like a really good, solid, reasonable business reason for me to leave my present or past job?”… Whatever you say, it’s gonna be heard as, “this candidate is going to leave me for the same reason…” if the reason is even the slightest bit questionable, the candidate is not likely to be considered for the job…

so, even if you don’t know why you were let go in your last position or it is embarrassing to tell people the reason, you’d better come up with some solid, business reasons for your departure… anything that raises an eyebrow will likely eliminate you… even if you got fired, come up with a good business reason as to why it made reasonable sense…

they can be so misleading..to the point that folks won’t read your resume because the titles are either misunderstood or aren’t comenserate with the level of position the resume reader is looking for…

Remember, your resume is not really “read”… it is initially scanned… resume readers have, on average, 118 to 120 resumes  they are reviewing per posting, so they begin by scanning the names of the companies that are on the resume, what the company does and your titles… if they like what they see, they may read the resume in more depth… if they don’t like what they see, they delete the resume or throw it away…

So, make sure that your title on the resume is commensurate with the job you’ve had… candidates tell me all the time, “but my company’s title is vice president”… I don’t care what your company’s title is, you don’t want your title to eliminate you from being considered for an interview… so, if you are a salesperson that your company has given you a highfalutin title of “VP” change the title on your resume to” salesperson”… if your company gives you a title of  “customer care strategist” when what they really mean is that you are in customer service, change the title to  “customer service”

I can’t tell you the number of candidates I’ve worked with over the years who felt compelled to write down the title of the job their company gave them only to be eliminated by resume reader who thinks, for instance, “we aren’t looking for vice president… we’re looking for a salesperson … and throws the resume away… lots of companies for instance, give their salespeople or other non-managers vice president titles to make folks feel good… don’t fall prey to this…you are trying to get interviews not impress

I suggest this kind of thing when a job seeker “dumbs down” their resume… just because you’ve been president or vice president of an organization doesn’t mean that you wouldn’t go to work for another four and a lesser job…

so don’t let  titles get you eliminated…change them to fit the situation

Our faith is full of parables, virtues and teachings that apply to the job search… the other day we heard the Gospel parable of the sower and the seed… it’s in Matthew 13… Every time I hear this parable I think about how it applies to the job search…

Back in those days, farmers hired professionals to scatter the seeds for the next season’s harvest… as the story goes, the sower sows lots of seeds.. some of it fell on the path, and the birds got it… some fell on the rocky places that had little soil,  sprouted quickly but died because the soil was shallow and the sun burned them… other seed fell in the thorns and were choked… And then some seed fell on good ground where it produced a bountiful crop…

The lessons of this parable, when applied to the job search are pretty significant… first of all the sower realized that he had to sow lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of seed… more seeds that anybody could possibly imagine… secondly, he realized that the vast majority of the seed was either going to get eaten by the birds, choked by the thorns  or burned by the sun… the sower knew he could “make up” for all the seed that wasn’t going to make it by sowing a lot more…

Unfortunately, most people in a job search don’t do what the sower did… they sow a few seeds, i.e. send their resumes, make a few calls and then sit and wait and inevitably the birds come along and take the seeds… they then sow a little more seed and then wait and wait and wait and maybe they get one or two interviews .. the interviews don’t go very far, they were planted in shallow soil and got “burned” by the sun… they then sow a few more seeds and wait and wait and wait and those seats get choked by the thorns…

The major lesson for job seekers is that they need to sow hundreds more seeds than they think they should in order to harvest one good job and they need to keep sowing the seeds over and over and over and over, realizing that the sun, the birds and the thorns are gonna get most of them…

As I try to teach, focus on the process… the process of sowing seeds… and if  you focus on the process of sowing  seeds  some are going to fall on fertile ground and you’ll find a job

I know it sounds a bit odd, but we hear this a lot from candidates when we get them in interview… they communicate the idea that they’re not interested in the client we have gotten then an interview with because they never heard of the firm. What’s even worse is that they don’t make an effort to interview well because they somehow think that because they have never heard of the company, the company can’t be any good…This is especially the case when a candidate has been in a particular line of business for a number years and think they “know everybody,” so this new company they never heard of can’t be any good…

This idea simply doesn’t make any sense… but lots of things people believe doesn’t make sense . There are 7.5 million business establishments in the United States… no one knows all … or even most of them. There are boatloads of guys and gals who made a lot of  money with firms hardly anyone ever heard about…

I’ll never forget trying to get a candidate an interview a number of years ago with a small company, no one had ever heard of… Netscape. The candidate refused to go because he had never heard of the company. The second candidate I approached actually got hired and became a multimillionaire because of the stock he earned going to work for this start-up…

So don’t let your knowledge or lack of knowledge of an organization stand in the way of an interview…