Job Search Blog

Our client had just let go a VP after only four months on the job… and that’s a big deal for a $50 million company… the guy had made two or three major mistakes with one of their larger customers and it was plain the guy wasn’t going to make their company better… so they fired him.

They called us and, over a period of four weeks, interviewed a number of very qualified candidates… after a number of lengthy interviews they came to the conclusion that Joe, one of our candidates, was the most qualified to do the job so they sent Joe to visit with the CEO

Everyone in the company was so afraid of making a mistake, they were thinking of all kinds reasons that it “wouldn’t work” with just about every candidate we presented… including Joe. The CEO was no different and felt like, even though Joe could do an excellent job for the company, he wasn’t as charismatic as they might like. So, the CEO decided to pay a retained search firm to do a nationwide search for possibly a more qualified, more charismatic candidate. They explained their situation to Joe in a very business, but kind way. They did not tell him it was his charisma they were concerned about. They simply told him they felt like they needed to talk to other candidates.They made it clear that the answer wasn’t “no,” it was just “not now.”

Joe wasn’t wild about the decision but he had a good job and although he was disappointed, he was smart enough not to burn any bridges. After four months of the “search,” at least they admitted they hadn’t found any candidate better than Joe, so now they are ready to engage with Joe again.

We don’t know if Joe will get the job or not… hopefully he will… he should, because he is very qualified. Here is the lesson. When Joe was told that he was not going to be hired, he didn’t get upset or pissed off or let his pride get in the way by saying something stupid like, “okay you guys, forget me as a candidate…” Joe was smart. He was very graceful about being told “no.” He wrote everybody in the company whom he interviewed with that he understood about them wanting to do a nationwide search to compare and then expressed the thought that if they didn’t come up with a great candidate he would love to still consider the opportunity.

He left the door open for them to reconsider him. By being graceful and smart he gave himself an advantage. Most candidates wouldn’t have done that. They would have “taken their ball and gone home.” I guess there’s a chance that Joe may not take the job even if it’s offered…and it hasn’t been offered. But the point is Joe was smart enough to leave the door open even though he was faced with refusal… at least for the moment.

Good job Joe!

Love is patient…be patient with yourself and all the employers who didn’t hire you
Love is kind…be kind to all of those people who shun you, who wouldn’t interview you or turned you down
And is not jealous…of those that got hired instead of you
Love does not brag…when you are close to getting a job offer
And not arrogant…graceful and understanding when you’ve found a job
Love does not act unbecomingly… if  you don’t get the job that we were counting on
It does not seek its own…hope that everyone gets hired
Is not provoked…when you are postponed, told one thing to find out another thing happens
Love does not take into account a wrong suffered…when you are led to believe we are going to be hired or simply forgotten by the people you interview with
Loves does not rejoice in unrighteousness…life isn’t fair…get over it
But rejoices in truth…and sometimes only you know the truth
Love bears all things…the ups and downs of the job search                                                                                                                                               Believes all things…you know you will find a better job
Hopes all things…for better interviews tomorrow
Is grateful for everything… “In whasoever state I am, therewith be content”
(with apologies to St. Paul)

I spend a lot of my time explaining to people that, even though they think the market is getting better… and it is… most folks are still having difficulties getting interviews and performing well on those interviews because hiring authorities and the companies they work for want as many immediate results as they can possibly get. What this means is that the idea of hiring the “best athlete” we hear about in theory doesn’t really work in practicality.

I have candidates, daily, explain to me that they know they can do the job they see me post or send to my contacts. They  are convinced they would get the job because they have been successful in every job they’ve ever had. The truth is that they probably can do the job but there’s a difference between being able to do the job and being able to get it.

What it comes down to is that the candidates who are getting hired are the people who can most accurately prove they can provide immediate results for the company they are interviewing with.

Either directly or implicitly, hiring authorities want to know “what can you do for me… today… right now… not next year, not the year after… but right now.” The candidate who can communicate the most confidence in being able to provided quick results is usually the favored candidate.

I know this isn’t necessarily “fair.” I see hundreds of candidates who would make excellent employees lose out to “lesser” candidates because the lesser candidates interview well and communicate, “I can make your company better or more profitable… right now!”

So the lesson is, the more immediate, positive impact on an organization you can communicate you will have the better your chances of getting hired.

Often, when people are laid off or let go from their job and all of a sudden find themselves unhappy, they express their depressed state by letting themselves go and quit the little disciplines that used to help them feel good about themselves and increase their self-esteem. On top of being mad and angry, they all of a sudden have all kinds of time on their hands as well as being fearful of the daunting task of having to look for a job.

Rather than begin a massive action plan of looking for a job, they rationalize “taking a small break.” They start sleeping in ever day, postpone job search activities and literally get lazy. They delude themselves by thinking they are looking for a job by searching the Internet in their house slippers and pass the time of day “getting ready” to look for a job.

The little disciplines of life that used to help them with their self-image are eliminated and open the door to self-pity.

We all know how emotionally devastating and downright debilitating being laid off or fired can be. Even if you have a job you don’t like or you know can end at any moment due to the erratic economy, your emotional state is low. This kind of low emotional state can lead to some pretty unfortunate results.

This is a time in one’s life when a person should become even more disciplined than they were before. My experience has been that if people are self disciplined when times are difficult they rebound from the emotional strain faster. I’ve written before about routines and rituals in the job search and how important they are to effectively rebound.

An emotional blow like being laid off or fired and being faced with time on your hands in a depressing state perpetuates the problem.

So, some of the things you can do to rebound quickly is to “double” the personal disciplines you had when you were employed. Get up every day at exactly the same time, make your bed, be disciplined about dressing in your business “uniform” for job search activities. Cleaning up your garage… on Saturday morning… never when you should be interviewing… makes you feel better about yourself. Keeping your car clean and tidy makes you feel good when you get in it and drive.

These little disciplines will help in maintaining your self-confidence. That kind of self-confidence will carry over into the discipline of getting more interviews and performing well on those interviews. You’ll feel better and you’ll do better.

118…average number of resumes received for every job posting

16…the average number of employees in an American company

7.5 million… business establishments in the U.S.

16..the average number of interviews it takes to get a job offer

60 months…projected length of this ‘jobless recovery’

7 million…decline in the number of jobs in U.S. since December of 2007

1 in 10…the number of Americans who move annually, down from 1in 5 in 1985

20%…proportion of men in the population not working today, up from 7% in 1970

23%…drop in rate of new businesses creation since 2007…resulting in 1.8 million fewer jobs

21 million…jobs needed by 2020 to return to full employment in the U.S.

1.5 million …estimated shortage of college graduates in the workforce in 2020

40%…proportion of companies planning to hire that have had openings for 6 months

58%…employers who say they will hire more temporary and part-time workers

refer to the “Stockdale paradox”…further explains these stats

Twice this last month, TWO of my candidates were eliminated because their Linkedin profile did not agree with their resume…there were jobs on their profile that weren’t on their resume…  

I really don’t know what to say!…. how you say…s-t-u-p-i-d?

I might as well mention here, that a week ago, I had another candidate who was discounted for an opportunity because his Linkedin profile was not very robust… he had no picture of himself… few contacts…and  no recommendations… very little of anything. The CEO of the company I presented him to said, “well, after 20 years of experience, I can’t believe he wouldn’t  have a more robust Linkedin profile. I’ll pass on him.”

You don’t have to agree with any of these issues. The first one is inarguable. The second one is quite unfair, but that’s what happened. I don’t subscribe to the idea that Linkedin is the be-all and end-all  in a job search, but, likewise, it can be too understated.

In 1999, a professor of psychology at the University of Illinois, Dan Simons, and a colleague, Chris Chabris published the result of a study on selective attention. They coined the phrase “inattentional blindness.” They asked subjects to watch a video of six people passing two basketballs. One team was dressed in white shirts and the other team was dressed in black shirts. The subjects were instructed to count how many times the three players wearing white shirts passed the basketball while ignoring players wearing black as they passed their own ball. In the middle of the video, a person wearing a gorilla suit walked into the picture, beat its chest and walked off. They found that 50% of the subjects failed to notice the person in the gorilla suit.

This phenomenon has often been cited by attorneys questioning witnesses to a crime. It is been proven over and over that at least 50% of the time, the viewers of  an activity, especially a fast moving activity, like a crime, don’t remember seeing what was right in front of them.

So how does this affect your interviewing? Well, it’s really quite simple. You need to be aware that any interviewing or hiring authority has a number of key issues they are “watching”  for. These issues can range anywhere from looking for a particular type of experience all the way to trying to avoid someone who has had too many jobs, lives far away from the place of employment, or doesn’t have a degree.

Candidates can do the same thing. They will often tell us they want to “avoid” one or two particular issues they think had something to do with the “bad experience” they just had at the company they are leaving or have left. For instance, candidates who had to leave a small company for any reason tell us they want to go to work for a big company with stability. They think there is more stability in larger companies than there is in smaller ones. Candidates simply want to avoid what they think just burned them.

What happens to both parties in situations like this is that they will focus their attention so much on what they want to try to avoid that they miss the “gorrilla.”

I can’t tell you the number of interviewing and hiring authorities who have missed understanding a very important part of a candidates experience or background… the part that could really help them… because they got hung up on focusing on one or two aspects of the candidate  they were concerned about. We have candidates who will get so focused on one or two issues of a company, a job or a hiring authority that they miss important qualities of the company.

As a candidate, you need to realize if you have any risk factors like being out of work for an extended period of time, having had three jobs in three years, being fired, etc., a hiring authority is going to automatically focus on that issue and there’s a good chance they will not see the qualities or experience that make you a good candidate. By knowing this, you will be able to emphasize those strengths and qualities so that the hiring authority will see them.

Know what your risk factors are  in the eyes of the hiring authority. Realize they may get so focused on those, they don’t see the reasons you are a quality candidate. Don’t be a victim of inattentional blindness.

This past week, I just finished listening to Great by Choice by Jim Collins… probably one of the best business books I’ve read in a long time… and I read just about everything anyone suggests.

It reminds me that if you are any kind of professional you know you need to be reading books that relate to your profession all the time… leaders are readers… I’m often blown away by people who are supposed to be professionals who spend their time reading fiction or not reading at all… we all have to be “students” of our game

It also reminded me to emphasize the fact that if you are a candidate looking for a job, you’d best be reading one or two business books that relate to what you do… somewhere along the line, one of the interviewing authorities you speak with is going to ask you what business book you’ve recently read and, “how has it had an impact on you and your profession?” If you don’t have a really good answer… I mean a really good answer to this question, you’re going to be caught flat-footed… and worse, if you act like you have recently read a book just to look good and then get asked to describe it in detail…if you can’t, you will certainly be eliminated as a candidate…

What are you reading?…how has it had an impact on your professional life?

Just read advice by a well known author and career adviser…he advises people who are looking for work to “target the top 10 firms you’d like to work for” and agressively pursue them for a job. He communicates the idea that just because you want to work at any organization…they also want you.

Unfortunately, this kind of advice gives people all kinds of false hopes about the reality of this job market. Unfortunately, reality… especially in this market… is not like in the movie Field of Dreams, “if you build it… they will come.” Just because it might be nice to work at a particular place has got nothing to do with the reality of finding a job there. Just because you might think it would be peachy to work at a particular place has nothing to do with the reality of them hiring… let alone hiring you.

If people are naïve enough to believe something like this, they quickly find out the real world doesn’t work this way. Unfortunately, they spend a lot of time and effort before they are deflated and disappointed by reality.

My suggestion would be to target 200 companies… 300… anybody who might  listen. Please don’t put your faith in the “Top 10.” If you are an absolute rockstar in your profession, you… or your agent… might have luck doing this kind of thing. If you are like most of us mortals, you’re going to need to go after more organizations than that.

I’m often amazed when I ask candidates who have been looking for a job, especially for some time, “what are your ratios?” They look at me with a stare and then mumble something like, “What do you mean?”

I say, “I mean, how many calls do you have to make to reach a hiring authority? How many hiring authorities do you have to speak with in order to find ones that are interested in interviewing you? How many of those interviews do you have to go to and get invited back for second and subsequent interviews? And how many second and subsequent interviews do you have to get to get a job offer?”

Continuing with their deer in the  headlight stare, they ask something like, “why would I want to know that stuff?” “Because,” I answer “if you want to work a ‘system’ of finding a job,  you need to keep track of all your numbers. You need to know exactly how many cold/warm calls to hiring authorities you need to make in order to get an interview. You need to know how many interviews you need to get in order to get second and subsequent interviews…And you need to know how many of those second and subsequent interviews you need to get in order to get a job offer. Ultimately, you need to know how many phone calls you need to make in order to get a job offer.

If you approach finding a job in this way, it truly becomes a “numbers” game. All you have to do is focus on the numbers. It’s certainly easier to control making a number of phone calls than it  is to ‘get a job.’  The thought of ‘getting a job’ is overwhelming. The thought of making 150 phone calls is a lot easier to deal with and a lot easier to control.

This is what I mean when I state, “if you manage the process, the result would take care of itself.”  If you make the right number of calls and say the right thing, you reach a certain number of employers…if you speak with that certain number of employers in the right way, they will grant you an interview…if you interview well and establish your value to enough  employers, you will get job offers.

The quality of your interviewing is irrelevant unless you get enough of them.

Do you know your ratios?