Job Search Solution Blog by Tony Beshara

I had two candidates in second interviews for the same position. The first one was a stellar candidate with a great job history and great potential. But in the second interview, he did not ask any questions to the hiring authority. He answered those questions asked of him, but did not appear interested in finding out anything more about the position.

The second candidate asked:

• What is my competition like?
• What do I need to do to make it clear that I am your best candidate?
• Are there any concerns about my experience that I need to make clear?
• What, in your eyes, might be concerns about hiring me?
• What, in your eyes, are my greatest strengths relative to this job?

She asked strong, hard, confident questions.

She wasn’t afraid to lose..she got hired!

Mary had been a candidate of mine since 2002. She is absolutely stellar and always has been… top performer in every place she’s ever been. For all that time she has worked for large companies…really large companies. I would call her from time to time when really good opportunities came up. She always made a lot of money and there never is as many of those kind of jobs as everybody thinks.

She never really relished the politics of big companies and always managed to do really well. Most success in our profession is timing. It’s simply catching the right person at the right time in their career. It’s a high-volume business, making lots of calls and talking to lots of people and getting down the timing of supply and demand. If you talk to enough people and do it intelligently, sometimes it just works out.

One of our clients is a fairly small software firm that’s been around for 10 years. But the technology is phenomenal and they have hit the market at just the right time. They have less than 100 people in the company but their trajectory is phenomenal. The folks that run it are absolutely first-class and are about as good as it gets. They needed a salesperson who had been extremely successful, so, I called Mary.

She had been at a very large software firm for the last year, and although she was doing well (as she has done in every place she’s ever been), she was a little disappointed. The five people that she was hired with in the new group her company was building had all left, and her management was wondering, out loud, what they were going to do with her. The timing was right.

She agreed to meet with our client, but was very afraid of it being a very small company and she kept saying that in the interviewing process. She had just never worked for a small company and had heard all kinds of stories about “small companies”. I kept sharing with her, as I’ve written here before, that the size of the company has nothing to do with success or lack of it; it has to do with the people.

Mary is the kind of person that everyone would want to hire. Even after she met with all of the managers in the company and agreed that they were as good as I said they were, she was still dubious about a “small company.” But, she thought the perceived risk might be worth it, so, she joined.

Talk about make my day! Mary called me on Friday and said that this was by far the most impressive company that she ever worked for in the 30 years of being in the workforce. She said it was a phenomenal opportunity and she was so glad she joined. She claimed that they had better ideas, better resources, better managers than three of the largest software firms in the world that she had worked for. She called to simply say she was about as happy as she could be, and was thrilled with everything and wanted to thank me for helping her overcome her fears of a small company.

Not all of the placements we make work out quite this way. After all, it took me 20 years to find this lady the right opportunity. But when someone of her caliber calls, and is so grateful for the service that she got, that joy goes beyond the business transaction. She not only made my day, she made my week. Since I know the CEO, receiving the note about how grateful Mary was to be associated with their company gave me great joy.

What fun!

Juan had been through six corporate interviews with one of our clients. They were being phenomenally careful and have put him as well as three other candidates through the ringer. It was one of the most important jobs in the company, traveling internationally, and establishing the company’s presence around the world. So, admittedly, it was understandable that they were being so careful.

According to the Executive Vice President, all three candidates were really equal, and it was going to come down to one last interview with the CEO. All three candidates were to spend about one hour each in a video call with the CEO. Before the final interview, I can’t really say that our candidate, Juan, was ranked one, two or three. The direct hiring authority told me after the interview that Juan was a pretty distant second. But Juan got hired.

Here’s why. The CEO asked Juan what impressed him about the company. Juan revealed to him that he had spent six hours doing an online tutorial concerning the software products the company developed. He explained to the CEO exactly how he would introduce it to the countries he was going to be responsible for. That sealed the deal for Juan.

It was a little thing, but it made a really big difference. The company is thrilled and Juan has a phenomenal new job.

I placed Suzanne 15 months ago.

She called me and said, “You know, Tony, I really like this job and I really like most of the people that I work with. I’m doing well and I’ve gone beyond the expectations of the owners. In fact, I won rookie of the year award and am pretty happy.”

“But when I first got here, my then boss said that he had discussed it with one of the owners that if I hit a certain sales number in my first six months. I would get something like an $8,000 bonus. He never put it in writing, but said that he had discussed it with the owners and would do it. Well, I hit my number and waited and waited and the bonus didn’t come. After about a month, I emailed my boss and reminded him of what he had promised. He wrote me back and said he would ‘ look into it’ and I didn’t hear a thing about it for another month.”

“A month later I wound up reporting to a different manager. She has been with the company for a long time and is well-respected. Since she wasn’t involved in the agreement, I wrote my previous boss, current boss and the owner that was involved asking them when I could expect the $8,000.”

“Now, keep in mind that I made about $180,000 last year. It isn’t that I need the $8,000, but it’s the fact that nobody seems to be concerned about it. After I wrote my previous boss, my new boss and the owner, the owner wrote back and said he’d look into it. The more I think about it the madder I get. I don’t want to quit over $8,000, but I wanted your opinion. I’ve been owed the money now for nine months and nobody seems to care.”

I explained to Suzanne that it wouldn’t be a good idea to quit over this issue. She’s doing well and although this is an irritating situation, it is not disastrous. She agreed and made it real clear to me that she didn’t call me to suggest leaving. I think she wanted to simply vent and there are very few people she could do that with. We agreed that it would be a good idea for her to press everybody a little bit more about getting the $8,000.  It’s nine months overdue.

I hear things like this all the time. I’m always amazed at how management and lots of organizations upset their employees over even minor promises that they don’t live up to. I place salespeople and, for instance, I hear a lot that companies often don’t publish sales commission programs for the year until three or four months after the year has started. Salespeople are expected to do their job, not knowing just how they are going to be paid. It frustrates them to no end. This kind of thing doesn’t cause good salespeople to leave, but if you pile this issue on a lot of others, it sure makes some very unhappy. And it’s a needless irritation.

Suzanne hung up the phone, admitting that she just wanted to vent. She appreciated me listening. But she’s still irritated over the $8,000. It isn’t the money itself. It’s the idea that she was told that she was going to receive the money and nobody seems to care.

These are the kind of things that will eventually cause good employees to leave. It’s really unfortunate, because it’s so simple to keep from happening.

 Had a great VP of Sales job provided to me from an executive VP who I placed 25 years ago and he remembered me.  It’s a good job, a front line management position with seven reports, the company is phenomenal and the growth and earnings potential are excellent.

I call one of my candidates, Don. Here’s how the conversation went:

I explained to Don what the opportunity was and how it would be good for him…the company…the job.. the executive VP…the works!

Don: “Tony, I am just absolutely so covered up. I can’t do any kind of interview. I got my kickoff meeting coming up that I need to prepare for. I know I need to leave this lousy company that I’m at. I hate the place, but I’m just so covered up I can’t interview anywhere. It sounds like an okay job, but I just am too covered up to give it any time today.”

Tony: “I know you’re covered up, good people always are, but we’ve been looking for a new position about six months now and we haven’t found but one interview since then. Positions like this at the money you make are really hard to find and you owe it to yourself to speak to these people. It’s only going to be 30 or 45 minutes of video call and you owe it to yourself to at least talk to the guy.”

Don: “I know these things are hard to find, but I’m just so covered up with all the things I have to do I just can’t take the time to do it. And I’m going to get a bonus at the end of this month and I probably won’t leave here even though I hate the place until then.”

Tony: “Don, you owe it to yourself to at least talk to the guy…even if it’s for down the road.”

Don: “Well Tony, I’ll do it for you because you’ve been trying so hard to get me interviews. I’ll make you look good. But I’m just too covered up and stressed.”

Don has the interview. Don calls me.

Don: “Wow Tony, you were right. That’s one of the best guys that I’ve ever interviewed with. It’s a great job and it fits me perfectly. We talked for an hour and he’s moving me to the next level of interviews. I really like him and he says that I would be one of the top contenders. It’s a $20,000 better base than I’ve got now, the company was just taken back private and it’s going to be going public in three to five years. There is lots of stock and the job is perfect. I’m anxious to go to the next level.”

Moral: NEVER pass up an interview!

One of my candidates who studied my online program, www.thejobsearchsolution.com,

was one of four finalists for a V.P. of the West for a company..he goes into the executive interview video with the CEO, the Exec. V.P. and two other V.P.’s…he makes a presentation of what he would do in the first 30-60-90 days with a plan modeled after what the program taught him…one advantage of zoom interviews is that you can interject PowerPoint tight screens, which he did.

He gets the job…turns out he is the only candidate that did anything like that….$180,000 base and with bonuses he will make $400,000…not bad for simply following instructions.