Job Search Solution Blog by Tony Beshara

There is really no such thing as a new normal. There really never has been. Even when the economy was really strong and things were rocking along famously from an economic point of view there really wasn’t a normal. But when the economy is good and companies are making money and jobs are easier to find we like to think it’s “normal.” And, it’s certainly a lot easier to deal with when everybody’s making money.

I get asked at least three or four times a day what the market is like. This week, I will attempt to describe what’s going on with employers and next week I will discuss what we see going on with job seekers. Here’s what’s happening with companies trying to hire and the hiring authorities:

• Everyone is operating with doubt, uncertainty and fear. Companies are not doing as well as they did. The lockdown, which was a terrible mistake… Just terrible, put everyone in a fearful and psychologically lonely mood. Companies and the people in them were not around each other and had no positive, psychological reinforcement.
• Some companies are still totally working from home. More about that in a moment, but the isolation fuels the “I’m not sure what were doing or how were doing it and even if we need to hire somebody I don’t know how to go about doing it. I can’t seem to get any direction.”
• If companies have taken new initiatives that look like they are going to take a long time to develop to be profitable, they are very often pulling the plug and laying the people off that they hired to initiate them.
• Many employers are laying off and furloughing people (in my 47 years of doing this I’ve never heard the term “furloughed” applied to employees). If they can get away with it, they are spreading the work load those people had around to other people. For instance, many of our clients have laid off or furloughed $60,000, $70,000 and $80,000 executive assistants.They will try to spread that workload around to the other people doing a like job but who are only making $45,000 or $50,000 a year.
• The above situation will apply to sales departments, accounting departments, engineering departments… Just about any department where a company thinks they can save some money. They will often postpone increasing the staff until other people in the department become so disgruntled with having to do the extra work, they threatened to leave or, if they have a phenomenal amount of courage, they do leave
• .Hiring authorities have a tendency in this kind of market to only hire when they absolutely have to. Forget “expansion” positions. They are going the hire only when their desperate and they’re going to do it as economically as they can. For instance, if they had a salesperson at $125,000 base salary, who left or got let go, they’ll try to hire the replacement at a $90,000 base salary and they will only  do that when the territory gets so neglected no one has time to cover it.
• When companies and the people in them do interview, their mantra is “We don’t want to make a mistake, we don’t want to make a mistake, we don’t want to make a mistake, we don’t want to make a mistake, we don’t want to make a mistake etc.” They drag the interviewing process out for ridiculous amount of time, having an innumerable number of people involved in the interviewing process who shouldn’t be and postpone making a decision until a just absolutely have to.
• When they do hire, candidates should expect an elongation process and often, just plain odd endeavors. One of our clients asked six candidates for eight business references each after an initial interview. One candidate was absolutely furious because he lined up the eight references, prepared them for the employer to call them and the employer never did.
• Companies will start interviewing then stop interviewing then start interviewing then stop interviewing and maybe never hire anybody at all. When the economy is like this, it’s not uncommon for companies and the people in them to suffer from “paralysis by analysis.”
• Companies will often let “A players” go out of knee-jerk reaction to the rest of the economy.
• Leaders in these companies will forget that they ought to be interviewing “A players” all of the time… whether they have an opening or not. Again, it’s a knee-jerk reaction of “were not hiring!”
• The doubt about this pandemic causes paralysis.
• Companies are beginning to realize that remote work is a bit of an oxymoron. Many companies are beginning to realize that working remotely is really not sustainable.
• When a company and people in it operate out of “fear of loss” rather than “vision of gain” fear driven productivity is not good. This is especially true when people are working alone.
• Zoom meetings just aren’t the same as being with a group of people. Collaboration in one space is simply deficient. Remote collaboration of a group can take days. Problems that might be easy to solve with a group physically together, can become a logistical challenge remotely.
• Body language and casual personal interaction can’t happen remotely.
• We’ve had a number of candidates get hired remotely and now they’re being trained remotely and they really aren’t feeling an emotional bond to the company and the job. As one candidate said, it’s very antiseptic..
• When leaders are asked in the remote interviewing process about career development and the path to upward mobility, they simply don’t really have any idea how it’s going to work.
• The socialization process that goes along with getting to know people by working with them in proximity and as a group is negligible.
• Most leaders in most companies don’t know how to address promotion criteria.

As I’ve mentioned before, every recession has created its own challenges. I’m certain there will be many other unforeseen ones as our economy evolves.

Next week will discuss some of the issues facing candidates.

Hey, you employers out there… HR people, consultants, administrative folks and even the employers that are doing the hiring (who should be doing the reference checking) don’t ever, ever, ever, ever check a present candidate’s employer as a reference. Even if the candidate tells you that it is okay to check their present employer as a reference…don’t do it.

Unfortunately, one of our clients was interviewing one of our candidates as a finalist. He was a great candidate and our client knew it. They asked our candidate for a number of references, including the name of his present employer. On their form, they asked if the names of the people could be contacted. The candidate clearly filled in a little box that designated that the present employer should NOT be contacted.

Unfortunately, the human resources/recruiter, who, by the way, is very nice and well meaning, did not detect the box. I have to admit that the box was extremely small and it was very easy to overlook. The candidate gave the name of one of the people he worked with as someone who could be contacted regarding a reference. (I still would not agree with this. I will explain later.)

Well, the human resources department called candidate’s direct supervisor, explained that the candidate was applying for a job with the company and asked for an employment reference. OMG! Amazingly enough, the candidate’s present employer gave him an extremely good reference. The guy is an absolutely excellent worker, but he is really under employed in the job that he has now and his present boss knows that. The job is relatively challenging but nowhere near the potential that the candidate has. The new position that we found the candidate is tremendously challenging and, as much as anything else, would double the guy’s income.

Of course the candidate called, really upset. He actually found out about the phone call from one of the people that overheard it, but never heard from his present boss. (They are mostly working remotely and so the candidate’s present boss is not within proximity of the candidate.) In fact, fortunately, the candidate never heard from his present boss about the incident.

The candidate did call our client as upset and as mad as he could be. At first, our client asked, “What’s the big deal? You put that person’s name and phone number on your application.” The candidate explained that he also marked the little box that stated, “do not contact!” Upon seeing this, the person who checked the reference became phenomenally apologetic. The candidate, still upset, couldn’t do much of anything but wait and see if he was going to get fired.

He didn’t! So far, no one said anything to him at all about it. Our client went through with the offer and, fortunately, the candidate has received it.

The apology by the HR person was very “coolly” received. The candidate was obviously upset, but what was he going to do? At the time, he was simply going to have to wait and see if he was going to get canned. After the offer was made, the CEO of our client called the candidate and apologized to him. The CEO was extremely gracious and the candidate had calmed down by then. At the time, he had still not spoken to his direct boss.

So, here are the lessons. If you’re a candidate, you might want to give the name of your present company as your employer, but don’t give the direct supervisor’s name or phone number. Our candidate did the right thing by marking the box, “do not contact,” but, I wouldn’t recommend running that risk. Make it really, really, really clear that your present employer is not to be contacted. And, the best way to do that might be to give your present company’s name but not the name of your supervisor.

This may be obvious to most people, but just in case people aren’t aware, companies can be held legally responsible for causing someone to lose their job. It doesn’t really matter how fair or unfair any of us think it might be, none of us can cause someone to lose their job. We can be held legally responsible. And only God knows the number of lawsuits that have come about because of mistakes like this.

Secondly, a hiring organization should NEVER check the reference of the candidate’s present employer, NO MATTER WHAT. Even if the candidate gives the hiring authority permission to do it, the hiring organization should not initiate that kind of call. Relationships change rapidly between employees and employers. Even if a candidate says that he is on his way out and it’s okay to check with his present employer about a reference, that is going to be a very vague line of defense if the candidate loses their job because of a reference check.

Now, if the candidate thinks that his present employer will be willing to give him or her a good reference, then tell the candidate to have their present boss give you a call and offer a reference. Make a candidate have his present employer initiate the call if that’s appropriate. It’s really simple.

I wouldn’t even recommend checking with the peers of an employed candidate. Relationships can change and no matter how wonderful candidates think their relationships are with their peers, their peers can turn on them in a heartbeat.

I had two sales candidates come to interview with me together a number of years ago. They both worked at the same company and were both upset with what was going on and both decided to leave. Since they were good friends, they decided to come see me together. After interviewing each one of them, I told them both, separately, that it would be a really good idea if they didn’t communicate about each other’s job search with each other just to keep things from getting complicated.

Of course, both these guys thought they knew better and since they were close enough friends, what I told them wouldn’t matter. Well, one of them got promoted to a managerial position and all of a sudden his best buddy, best pal, best friend was his subordinate. The first thing he did was to fire his best buddy, best pal and best friend. He explained it real simply. Now that he had a group sales quota to meet, he couldn’t afford to have anybody on his team that was actively looking for a job. He had his own job to protect as a manager, so he fired his friend.

We all have enough problems with running our businesses. We don’t need to create problems for ourselves. Checking someone’s present employment reference isn’t a good idea.

I just read two reports that claimed the major reason most people aren’t looking for a job was the scarcity of jobs rather than the extra $600 a week that they were getting on unemployment. I’m absolutely certain it’s a case of “confirmation bias.” They were looking for proof that that $600 weekly wasn’t making a difference in people going back to work or trying to go back to work and they found it.

An article in the Economist two weeks ago stated that three quarters of the people in the United States receiving an extra $600 a week were making more money than they were when they were working. I try to stay pretty apolitical in this blog because my experience relates to people finding jobs and people getting hired.

I’ve seen seven recessions since 1973 and I distinctly remember that during the recession of 1973 when I got in the business and during the one in 1986, people tell us that they didn’t want to go on an interview because, “they could make more money on unemployment.”

Well, we’ve been hearing that lately. Our organization works with mostly professional positions. There are 20 of us and each of us interviews 2 to 3 people a day. I heard it twice last week in my practice of placing IT sales people. My associates have also been hearing it an inordinate number of times. This is crazy!

I will admit, jobs are harder to find than they were in the first quarter of this year. We’re in a pandemic and a recession. But this is nowhere near as difficult as it was in 2008 and lots of our candidates are going to work, with or without us. There are jobs out there.

I heard it three times this week from candidates who called me and said that, “Well, now that my $600 a week extra is going to end, I guess I really need to start looking for a job.” This is pathetic. I didn’t say how pathetic it was because my clients might need the skills that these people possess. But the attitude that, “I can make more money by not working than I can working” is absurd.

It isn’t the fact that is so absurd as it is the attitude. All three of these people appear to be “professionals” who have made their money selling with base salaries and commissions. Their claim was that with their unemployment plus the extra $600 a week they could make more money than the base salaries that they had. So, they decided to stay home and now that the money is running out they have decided that they need to find a job.

I guess Congress is going to do something about it. But this attitude sucks. It’s really sad. Imagine what an employer is going to think when a candidate goes into an interview and says, “Well, my $600 a week extra ran out so I decided it’s time to get a job?” Now, obviously some people are gonna be smart enough not to say this. But it might wind up being obvious by analyzing how long they’ve been out of work.

As a society, we aren’t doing ourselves any favors by thinking this way. When we allow our government to lull us into thinking that we are better off relying on them and we are on ourselves, it’s going to take longer to dig out of this problem we’re in.

How much of this is political and how much of it is really the economy? No way to know.

There ain’t no free lunch!

People love stories. Stories sell! So, if you’re a candidate trying to sell yourself or an employer trying to sell your company and your job you really need to have stories about your successes. People always remember stories.

But if stories sell, numbers tell! This seems to be one of the hardest but most simple ideas to communicate to people, especially jobseekers. People love to see and hear numbers. Job seekers who know how to use numbers to their advantage in their cover letters, on their résumés and especially in their interviews, always have a phenomenal advantage.

People always sound more authoritative and sure of themselves when they use numbers to demonstrate their successes. This is especially true when it comes to any individual impact on increase in revenue and/or profits or decrease in overhead.

Getting in the habit of “proving” your success with the stories you tell in the interviewing process with numbers really sets you apart from others. It’s one thing to say in the interview that “I am/was a really good performer.” It’s another thing to state, “I am/was a really great performer because:

• “I decreased bad debt 35%.
• “I was 130% of sales quota this year, 125% last year, and 150% the year before that.
• “I decreased shrinkage 28%.
• “I was able to decrease payroll costs by 10% while increasing production 7%.
• “I saved the company $123,000 in inventory costs.”

I’m sure you get the idea by now. You can even combine stories and numbers by explaining in the story how the numbers were reached. People will remember your story better when it’s reinforced by numbers. When you have the numbers on your résumé they often lead to great stories.

I get between 75 and 100 resumes a day. The gobbledygook and fluff that I see in 98% of these resumes is astounding. Every time I read, “good written and oral communication skills,” I just want to throw up. It doesn’t get any dumber than that. The numbers also need to be significant. “Increasing sales by 2%” is useless. I would also recommend bolding your numbers so that they stand out. 

Remember that your resume doesn’t really get read. It gets scanned. The people scanning the resume are simply looking for three or four things: Who did you work for? (Do I know what they do?) What did you do? (Do I understand exactly the job this person did?) How long were they there? (Simply the dates.) And, How well did they do… What was their performance? (And there is no better way to communicate your performance than by stating numbers.

Say what? Yeah…say LISTEN! I know this is going to sound so mundane and simple that many readers are going to think, “Why would he remind me about this?” Well, it’s because this is probably one of the biggest mistakes both candidates and interviewing authorities make in the hiring process….THE BIGGEST!

This mistake is mostly made by candidates. At least twice this week, two of my candidates failed in their interview almost in the very beginning of it because they didn’t really listen to the question they were being asked. They were so anxious to answer the question, they weren’t really clear what the question was. Unfortunately, in both of these cases this question came in the beginning of the interview when the hiring authority caught on that the candidates didn’t really understand the question. And this was such a shame.

One of these interviews was a zoom interview and the other one was a telephone interview. This kind of thing is especially disastrous with a telephone interview, because the hiring authority can’t see body language, there is a tendency to really misunderstand. What happened was really simple. The employer asked the candidate a question. The candidate really didn’t understand the question but started answering it anyhow. Instead of asking for a clarification or saying something like, “I’m not sure I quite understand what you mean, could you ask me again?” the candidate was afraid of appearing ignorant, so he just started answering the wrong question with (who even knows) the wrong answer.

This was about three or four minutes into the interview. The interview only lasted about 30 minutes. The hiring authority was so hung up on the candidate’s misunderstanding about the question and his poor answer that the employer wrote the guy off in the first three or four minutes.

The second situation of not listening well took place on the part of a hiring authority in a face-to-face interview. The hiring authority got hung up on the candidate’s last two years of experience. The candidate’s previous job had lasted seven years and was the candidate’s major experience that applied to the hiring authority’s interest. The hiring authority, according to the candidate, really didn’t understand what the candidate had been doing for the last two years and started explaining to the candidate that what he’d been doing most recently didn’t have anything to do with what they did.

The candidate tried to bring the subject back around to what he had done for the previous seven years but it really didn’t seem to matter. He claimed that the employer quit listening when he couldn’t get a grasp of what the candidate had been doing for the last two years.

Interviewing and hiring are emotionally stressful events. Even outside of the interviewing and hiring process, we’ve all experienced people who had started to answer a question before the question is finished being asked. How many times on game shows do we hear the host tell the participants to not ring the bell to answer the question before the question is finished. Well, people do that in the interviewing process too.

The key is to relax. If a person doesn’t understand either a question or an answer, they should simply take a deep breath and ask the other person to please repeat their question or answer. Even after that, if the question or answer is not understood, ask for clarification. Except in rare instances, no one is ever going to criticize a person for not understanding…at least the first time.

Everyone would perform better and have a better understanding of each other if they just LISTEN !

 We have a client who called us. Some of their top sales producers are ex-felons. Now, they are not violent ex-felons. They are usually professional people who made a mistake along the way in their life….white collar type crimes and maybe even paid their dues in prison. Some of the best salespeople this company has hired have come from having made a mistake.

It’s so interesting that this company called us because they are looking for salespeople and mentioned in the process that some of the best salespeople they have had been felons. And now, they can’t find any of them. They basically stumbled into the ones that they have hired who have been phenomenally successful. So, they intentionally went out to try to seek the admittedly, rare felon who is capable of doing their job… and they can’t seem to find any of them.

They went online to look for organizations that might help these kinds of people. One place, they said, was in New York but only worked in New York City. The other two or three, they said, either couldn’t be reached or never returned a voicemail or ever called back. The company offers a decent base salary and a hefty commission. They are very disciplined and really don’t put up with much nonsense. It’s inside sales, over the phone, but it is a very sophisticated sell, takes a lot of intelligence and making $100,000 to $200,000 is very reasonable to do. They told us that they have run ads on line and gotten absolutely nothing.

So, they called us. Now they’ll hire other kind of folks with sales experience, obviously. It’s not a requirement that a person be an ex-felon to work at the company. But what struck us as so odd is that this organization is willing to give lots of people a second chance. Now, the parameters of what they look for are very narrow, they give in-depth psychological surveys to see if an individual has the kind of personality that is successful at what they do. They do an extensive background check and, as I say, violent people won’t be considered.

What’s amazing about this and struck us as so odd is that they’re having almost an impossible time even finding these kinds of candidates. Now, we have provided them a number of very good sales candidates for them to choose from. But they are very picky. They are even willing to pay us a fee to find any kind of candidate, even an ex-felon, to fill their sales job.

Why is it so hard to find these kinds of people to hire? Our society is supposed to be a very forgiving and understanding one. We’re supposed to give people second chances and yet this company can’t seem to find hardly anybody to give a second chance to.

The vast majority of people who are employed by this company, according to the manager we spoke with, aren’t ex-felons. But the mere fact that this organization is willing to give a person like that a second chance was phenomenally enlightening. And yet, this firm can’t seem to locate those kinds of people. Now, they will admit that their interviewing and hiring process is going to eliminate most candidates, ex-felons or not. But just the mere fact that they are willing to consider folks who have made mistakes deserves credit. I don’t know if it works out well for them all of the time. I didn’t really get that far with them. But just to find a business organization that was willing to consider people who have made mistakes under the right circumstances this tremendously gratifying.

Where are the ex-felons? If you know of any who can sell and are disciplined enough to work a very strict system, have them call me 214-515-7613.