Job Search Blog

You’ve got to know when to hold ’em
Know when to fold ’em
Know when to walk away
Know when to run

—Kenny Rogers, 1978

The subject comes up daily on the part of candidates about how long they should keep pursuing an opportunity when they don’t hear from the hiring authority… and I have to admit that even as a professional recruiter since 1973, I’m never quite sure of when to keep pushing or when to “fold ’em” and move on to another deal…

I often think that candidates give up too easily and stop calling or e-mailing a prospective employer too soon.

I know it gets frustrating to think that you are being considered for a job or told that you are being considered and then never hear from anyone..It is an emotional strain more than anything else…

So here is what I recommend… never take it personally …it is simply a business deal… most of the time they don’t  back to you when they say they are  going  to isn’t because of a personal issue with you, there’s a lot more going on than hiring… now I would call and leave a message as many as 10 or 12 times… e-mail 10 or 12 times… being proactive…

Make the  phone calls very nice and the e-mails very nice… never get mad or angry ..after that if  you don’t hear from hiring authority then I would tell you to “fold ’em”…

In case you haven’t caught on already, the hiring process never goes as fast as people tell you it will… by gently and nicely reminding them of your candidacy by email and phone… encourage them to call you back, but don’t take it personally when they don’t… just remember to be nice…when they call you back you will be pleasantly surprised

Recruiters and job placement people… some professional and some not so professional…talk and write about the “instant look” which refers to the kind of candidate that has an immediately attractive, personal appearance… a handsome guy, good height weight ratio, well-dressed… the female with an attractive face and figure, well-dressed and an expensive business suit… most of us know exactly what I’m talking about…

Studies show that these people and their immediate “instant look” impact have an advantage, at least an initial advantage , in the interviewing situation… I know it’s unfair and I know it may not be right, but that is the way it is…

But what if you’re like the vast majority of us that don’t have that “instant look” …we are boomers, slightly if not mostly overweight that even the most stylish clothes can’t hide, thinning hair… if we have it all… wrinkles that even make us look even older… How do we overcome the fact that we don’t have that “instant look?”

First thing to do is to recognize that you can’t be what you’re not… don’t try to dress or look 35  when you are 55 years old…try to lose weight if you need to…get on an exercise plan…dress the  best you can, realizing that overweight people have a decided disadvantage in the interviewing process… wear cloths that fit you, not that barely fit or accentuate your weight gain… dress professionally and understated… dark , solid color suit, white shirt or blouse…loud suits… even “colorful” business suits… are not good at interviewing situation…short hair for the men and hair pulled back for women…conservative all over the place… very understated jewelry for women… practically no jewelry for men…keep everything very simple…I’ve written in this blog specific instructions about dress, but suffice it to say you can look professional even if you don’t have that “instant look”

The most important thing you can do to overcome the lack of the “instant look” is to be able to interview very, very, very well … that means really knowing what your features, advantages and benefits are, knowing exactly why you are an outstanding employee and be able to communicate extremely well… even a great image… that “instant look”… may give a candidate an initial advantage but it dissipates real quickly if the candidate doesn’t sell themselves in a perfect manner…

I’m continually amazed at how poorly candidates… even accomplished sales candidates… interview… interviewing well takes lots and lots of practice… you can’t wait for a job interview and think you’re going to perform well without practicing interviewing… what you say and how you sell yourself in an interview can overcome any image issue…

Chad and Marc are two excellent sales engineer candidates… both had good engineering backgrounds and ability… our client company is one of the best in the country at what they do and they are expanding… they called us needing two sales engineers and were grateful to us for referring both Chad and Marc…

Chad and Marc both went into the initial interviews realizing that these were excellent opportunities and they both sold themselves really well, at least Chad did… from the beginning of our effort with Marc, he copped an attitude that “these guys need to come to me… I’m really good… I’m gonna play it cool… I’m gonna play hard to get…I’ll get a better offer that way”

We explained to both candidates that they needed to sell themselves at every step of the way… ask for the job and reminded them that they had nothing until they had an offer… Chad did exactly the right things…but Marc didn’t… Mark didn’t close the initial interview by asking “how do I stack up with the others that you were looking at” and “what’ll I need to do to get the job”… he didn’t send follow-up interview e-mails to the initial interview and authority for two days after the interview and, instead of doing what Chad did, which was call up the initial interview and authority two days after the interview and ask about next steps, Marc “played it cool” and waited for us to be told by the initial interviewing authority to arrange follow-up interviews with him…

Marc did the same thing after the follow-up interviews… he never “closed” the people doing the interviewing… and followed up two or three days later… he also kept reminding them that he had “other opportunities he was looking at”…

Interestingly enough, Marc was probably a better candidate than Chad, but he just wasn’t selling himself the right way… last Friday the company made offers to both Chad and Marc… Chad negotiated a great offer and accepted the job immediately…Marc told the hiring authority that he wanted to think about it two or three days and then he would let them know…in spite of  his arrogance, the company still wanted to hire Marc… sometimes talent can take you a long ways

Marc told us that he had no other offers, no other prospects for offers, that he really wanted the opportunity but he still wanted to “play it cool”… we advised against this, but Marc insisted that he was doing it the right way… on Monday afternoon following the Friday the hiring authority made the offers, the hiring authority called us and said that they decided to resend the offer they made to Marc… it just plain bugged them that Marc handled the interview he process the way he did… we tried to explain that some candidates just do that kind of thing, etc. and we tried to salvage the deal… the truth is that the way Marc handled the situation really has nothing to do with his ability to do the job or effectiveness…

the hiring authority just couldn’t be convinced… and we understand…Marc was absolutely furious… he couldn’t believe that the company would rescind the offer the way they did… he then mumbled something about suing them… absurd!

The lesson is, don’t “play it cool”…this is a real painful lesson and it’s really sad…Marc called us two days after this came down and asked if he should call the hiring authority and ask if he can be reconsidered… the hiring authority wouldn’t return the three calls Marc made to him… Marc claims he’s learned his lesson and he will do better the next time…

A wise person learned by experience… a wiser person learns by others experience…

one  great way dealing with the emotional strain of having to look for a job… especially if you are looking for a job full time and don’t have one… is to keep a daily journal recording the activities of the day as well as  your feelings and thoughts about how your day went. You don’t have to be out of work for very long to realize the vast array of emotions you experience even on a daily basis… you can go from feeling great about an interview you’re going to have to feeling lousy when you get a call canceling the interview an hour later… the ups and downs are drastic

By keeping a journal of not just your activities but also  your feelings and thoughts you can begin to objectify as well as release a lot of the emotions that you are experiencing… psychologists have proven that journaling relieves stress..

Journaling is really easy to do especially with today’s technology… I use a ‘speak to text’  software to actually “write” by talking into my computer… your journaling can be done at the end of every day and serve as a summary of the day… your journal entry doesn’t have to be long or short …it just gives you a chance to emote and document your feelings on paper or, in the computer… journaling is a great way to relieve tension and have you feel like you “get it out of your system”… a weekly review of your journal will remind you that lots of positive things happen even during a difficult time… in case you hadn’t noticed,  negative events have a lot more impact than positive events… we have a tendency to focus on the negative ones more than positive ones… it’s simply human nature…be sure to journal about at least one positive thing even if most of what you might write is negative… look back for insights that you might gain from previous entries and track your progress

So get yourself a speak text software and start journaling about your job search… you’d be surprised how the reflections and insights you gain in reviewing your journaling will create a sense of well-being…

Nick is a seasoned professional… 20 years of solid experience and really knows what he’s doing… he also follows instructions and teachings very well too…

Nick had an initial interview with the executive VP on the phone and he detected by the questions that the executive VP was asking and seemed very much of an analytical  guy… and sure enough when Nick did his research he found out that the guy had an undergraduate degree in engineering from MIT and a master’s degree in engineering from Caltech…

So what is next to when he gets into a face-to-face interview with the executive vice president he brings a whole “analytical” presentation of himself complete with charts, graphs and boatloads of numbers proving that he is excellent at what he does… the executive VP told me that he had never, in 25 years of management, had a candidate make as good a presentation of himself as Nick did…

Nick hasn’t gotten hired yet, but he’s well on his way to an offer…

I teach in my courses and in my books the fact that you need to analyze the way the hiring authority “sees” the world and if you can make a presentation to the hiring authority in the manner in which they “see” the world, you’re better off… now it may not always be as clear a situation as Nick ran into, but most candidates never even give any thought to the way the hiring authority “sees” the world… the executive VP came out of engineering but was now in general management… “you can take the boy out of engineering but you can’t take the engineering out of the boy”…Good for Nick!

Linda was an outstanding candidate… solid skills, worked eight years for the premier organization in her field and a fantastic track record… she had been passed over for a promotion and knew she needed to leave…

She was making top dollar and, since she’d been in her profession for eight years, she knew what she wanted and  the landscape of her business…

We got her an interview with one of her competitors that she was very pleased with it… we got her another interview with another firm she claimed to know… she said, “I don’t want to go on that interview… I spoke to two people that know the regional director and he’s absolutely awful to work for… I never run into them in the marketplace… it sounds like they want to pay less than what I’m making now…I’ve been taking too much time out of the office to interview and my management is going to start being suspicious… I just can’t go on the interview.”

We explained, “Linda, you got to go on every interview you get the chance… you don’t know enough about these companies, even if they are a competitor of yours, you don’t know anything about the director, you’ve never met the guy… you have no idea what kind of money they will pay until you sell yourself to them and give them good reasons as to why they ought to hire you!”

After  five minutes of downright arguing , Linda agreed to go… but she said, “I’m only going because I’m afraid if I don’t, you won’t get any more interviews!”

The company had interviewed 17 candidates over the past six months and not found one that came close. After a two-hour interview with four different people, including the CEO Linda got offered the job and accepted… and by the way she got a $10,000 a year base salary increase…also, the director turned out to  be awesome…

Go on every interview you get the opportunity for… you never know what might happen.

One of the attributes of our new Pope, Pope Francis is that of humility… we don’t see a lot of humility in the world today and it made me think how that attribute of is a great lesson for both job seekers as well as hiring authorities…

Often candidates think that when you sell their features and advantages and benefits to a prospective employer they have to be less than humble and that’s not true… you can still be really good at what you do but present in a humble way… and that’s the key

If you are a job candidate and a have particular skills and attributes that have made you successful, it’s imperative you present those to a prospective employer… but the way you do it, with humility, makes all the difference in the world

Prefacing your features/advantages/benefits presentation on yourself with comments like, “I’ve been very fortunate to be blessed with gifts and I’ve tried to hone them…” or “I’m grateful for the attributes  God has given me, they have been benefits to the companies that I’ve worked for and would be for your company too…” or “I was a little bit better than average in my accounting skills, but fortunately one of my mentors pushed me as well as disciplined me to carry them to the highest degree…”

Make humility part of your skill set… using words like “fortunate… blessed… grateful” etc. will make all the difference in the world

Most people don’t recognize how many interviews, on average, it takes to get a job… if you ask most people, even professionals, they  speculate that it takes four or five initial interviews to get a job offer… well, the truth is that it takes 14… then you read it right… 14…

That’s 14 initial interviews to eventually get an offer that you would like to accept it… this average is based on the 2012 statistics of our recruiting firm… we place professionals in Sales, accounting, engineering, banking, IT… everything except healthcare… the range of these numbers are seven interviews for the people in IT to 18 interviews for people in sales

Most people aren’t aware of just how difficult it is to even get 14 interviews or how long it takes… it could take months… even a year… this number may change as the economy gets better… but you need to be aware of it…

This means that if you were a job candidate you need to take massive action to get interviews… you can’t rely on sending resumes over the Internet, or on friends to help you, or family… you got to pick up the phone and call as many people as possible and get an interview… you got get 14 of them to get a job

…i often talk about the fact that much of the hiring decision is based on the question of “do we like you?”..the answer amounts to 40% of the hiring decision..most hiring authorities won’t admit to this, but they decide this way..

this week the CEO of one of the companies we work with…a $500 million company…started from scratch by the CEO..on its way to $1 billion… shared one of his hiring criteria…he said:

“after we decide we think a candidate can do a good job for us, we ask ourselves ‘would we want to be in the duck blind with this guy..(or gal)’…if our answer is ‘yes’ we are likely to hire the person.’

now, if you have ever hunted ducks for any length of time, you get exactly what the CEO was saying…most of us duck hunters know that the time you spend in a duck blind isn’t shooting ducks..(i wish) it is quietly waiting for them in the rain, sleet, snow and cold…now the folks you are with in the duck blind make a tremendous difference in the success and enjoyment of the hunt…being in a duck blind with someone you really don’t like or don’t want to be around is absolute a-g-o-n-y…it is absolutely a-w-f-u-l…even if you don’t duck hunt, think about the kind of person you’d like to be within one foot of in a dark, cold, wet, rainy 10 ft. by 3 ft. box quietly waiting for ducks for 4 or 5 hours…when the ducks don’t fly, you are gonna talk with the folks in the blind…and what if you don’t like ’em???

get the picture???…think about it..that is about the quintessential ‘do we like you’ test…’would you want to be in a duck blind with this person’….brilliant!!

so, just know that the folks you are interviewing with are asking themselves and each other, ‘would we want to be in a duck blind with this person?’

I interviewed 10 to 15 professionals week… folks who have anywhere from 5 to 25 years experience in their chosen field… in my face-to-face interview with them, among other things, I asked them if they know what they are selling to a prospective employer… most often I get a blank stare or I get some insane answer like, “the fact that I need a job”… (I won’t even address this!)

I then ask, in a very kind way, again, “what are you selling to a prospective employer?… What makes you a good employee?… What’s going to set you apart from the 23 other folks a hiring authority is going to interview?”

Often, candidates say things like, “well, I’m just a really good employee!” So, I ask, “what makes you a good employee?”… Often they’ll say something like, “well I’m just a hard worker!” It’s clear that most often, even the most experienced candidates really don’t know what they are selling to a prospective employer…

Successful candidates need to be able to qualify and identify specific attributes, performance and track record that set them apart from other candidates… these don’t have to be miraculous, mesmerizing, superhuman feats… they can be simple, straightforward quantifiable facts that show you are a hard worker and a good employee… the best candidates have a 30 second, “elevator pitch” about why they’re a good employee and why they ought to get hired…

So, if you are a job seeker, have you sat down and written out ten or fifteen quantifiable, provable, factual aspects of your history that make you a good employee?

Do you know what you’re selling?