Job Search Solution Blog by Tony Beshara

Dealing with people is obviously one of the most fascinating business “ventures” anyone can experience. Over the last two weeks, we had two extremes that are worth sharing because of the lessons they might give us all.

The first had to do with an accounting candidate who came to see us. He was working on an open ended contract engagement with an oil and gas firm and even though he had been there for a while, he knew that it could end at any time. And after all, he knew the oil and gas business is really rough right now. He was a very qualified candidate and had really good skills. But he was incredibly afraid of interviewing. When we would go to getting an interview for him, he would think of all kinds of reasons about why he shouldn’t go or couldn’t go or did not like what he heard, etc. It was all an indication that he was really just plain more afraid of interviewing than anything else. He was scared!

Most recruiters, after two or three attempts, usually drop a candidate like this and move on to one that’s more cooperative about going on interviews. Most of us in our organization have been doing this a really long time. Our average recruiter’s been in this business for 16 years and most of us had previous corporate business experience before we got here. It’s a nice way of saying we’re older, have patience and understand how emotionally difficult it is for many people to change jobs.

We received an opportunity for a permanent controller position. The company was not in the oil and gas business but was willing to consider any kind of good experience. Among a few other people, we called our candidate and, as in the past, he started giving us reasons as to why it wouldn’t work, that he didn’t fit and even though he was scared that he was going to lose his job at any day, he really shouldn’t go on the interview. Our recruiter convinced him that he owed it to himself, no matter how uncomfortable it would be, to at least go on the interview and speak with the employer. We literally pushed him into the interview.

We explained clearly to the hiring authority that the candidate was reluctant out of just plain fear. It took repeated attempts to get him to even go on the interview and we constantly reminded him how unstable his present job was. In spite of all of our coaching, the candidate finally interviewed in as much of a meek and humble manner as possible.

However, from the beginning of the interview, the hiring authority loved the guy. He was easily the most qualified candidate and, believe it or not, the best cultural fit. The employer, amazingly enough, was just as meek. Despite the candidate’s resistance to even looking for a job, our client substantially increased his salary, gave him a promotion in title and let him give a three week notice rather than a two week one.

The candidate was profusely thankful and acknowledged that if we hadn’t really pushed him hard to go on the interview, he would’ve never gotten the job. We are so pleased for him.

The other situation that came about in the last two weeks came about regarding a candidate we were representing. She has been selling IT project consulting services for a firm that sold to a Chinese company. The buyer was not interested in the IT consulting division of the company they bought and let our candidate go.

She was a fantastic candidate. She had been selling consulting services for more than seven years, had a book of business with a little better than $4 million per year in revenue with a 23% margin and no non-compete restrictions. In other words, she was totally free to take that business with her wherever she went.

Of course, at first, this situation was just too good to be true. But it was. She had a list of the clients that she had been calling on and selling to and even the amounts that they had paid for consulting over the last three years, as well as proof that she had no non-compete agreement.

Okay, so it’s a recruiter’s dream. I will admit that this kind of thing doesn’t happen very often. This is still a tight market but you would think that anybody in their right mind would at least interview my candidate. I called a number of the clients that I’ve worked with before, but also spent some time cold calling competitors of this candidate.

One of the firms that I called, I had never called before. I spoke to a regional director who was very nice, but he explained to me that her company really avoided paying recruiter fees and that he wasn’t authorized to do so. I’ve heard that a few times in my career (probably thousands). I calmly asked him if it wouldn’t be a good idea to ask his management if it would be a good idea to at least speak to a candidate who could bring (most) of $4 million revenue stream with a 23% margin for a potential investment of a $25,000 fee? There was a long pause and he ended the conversation by saying that he might do that. I told him I would call him back in a few days, but that I was getting this candidate quite a number of interviews.

Two days later, just to see what would happen, I called the guy back. He was, again, very nice, but rather sheepishly said that he had talked to the owners and they didn’t think they would be interested at this time. (Ironically, I have had candidates come to me from this company and the company is having a very difficult time in their Dallas office. According to this candidate, they need all the help they can get here in Dallas. Any revenue increase here in Dallas would be a blessing for this firm. And yet, they’re not interested in almost immediate revenue. Go figure!)

I got the candidate four interviews and two offers within 10 days… (I wish they always worked out that way). The point is that it never ceases to amaze me how seemingly astute business people will adopt a principle regardless of the circumstances that could potentially make them a lot of money. I’m not really sure that the manager I spoke with ran the idea up the flagpole. It’s hard to imagine how any company in their right mind would not at least talk to a candidate who might have this kind of potential. It costs nothing to talk. The investment of $25,000 to get $3 or $4 million worth of revenue – who wouldn’t do that?

Both of these situations probably don’t have an impact on the greater world. They prove that people are absolutely fascinating. It’s one of the motivations of why folks like me keep doing this.

I love this song. I sometimes listen to it over and over for about a week…even watch the video. I can’t really say it’s inspiring, but it’s certainly amusing. I’m reminded of it often when we experience people, both candidates and hiring authorities, doing things that no one wants to really admit. From time to time, I like to report on them so that those of you out there who experience them can take heart to know that you’re not the only one who runs into crazy things.

It was Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ, a French idealist philosopher and Jesuit Catholic priest who wrote that “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” And my interpretation of this is that, “We are spiritual beings acting human.” The hiring process has a tendency to bring out some of the most “human” foibles, because it’s such an emotionally strained process. And the reason that I report on them every once in a while is to have our readers not feel so lonely when it happens to them. So, when you think “Why does this just happen to me”, you can be comforted that this stuff happens to lots of folks. Well, maybe not everybody, but lots of people. For solace, here are some things that have happened in the last month. (For some reason, we all have a tendency to think that businesses in the United States are pristine bastions of business acumen. They aren’t.)

• Over the last month we had a CEO of a $1 billion company tell a vice president candidate that he would have an offer to him in the mail. He told them this twice. It never came.
• Candidate tries to engage in a discussion of Black Lives Matter
• A regional sales manager candidate (not ours… thank goodness) just plain doesn’t show up for the job he’s supposed to start on a Monday, three weeks after he accepted the position. The client called and has to start interviewing again. This has been going on for six weeks. They were in a hurry!
• Candidate accepts two offers on a Friday and tells us that he’ll show up at whichever job he decides about over the weekend. (One was our client and one was not.)
• A $4 million company comes up with an interviewing and hiring process: an initial interview with a recruiter….. a half-hour zoom interview with the hiring authority…. a two-hour “committee” interview with five managers (two of whom have absolutely nothing to do with the job)…. a scheduled corporate visit to Houston a week or two after the committee interview…. and they expect to have at least three finalists before they make a decision.
• Client company interviews one of our candidates last February and loves the candidate. But tells us that they have “adopted” a new method of hiring and they have to compare that candidate with at least seven others. It is now almost July and they haven’t interviewed anyone else because of restructuring, Covid, etc. (and still have the guts to ask if the candidate is still excited.)
• Hiring authority hires the candidate but sets a starting date either the middle of September or 1 October and implies that he expects the candidate to stop looking for a job.
• At least two candidates in the last week have outright told hiring authorities that they can make more money on unemployment than they can on what the company was going to pay, so they’re going to pass the opportunities up. (These are, supposedly, professional candidates in a gruesome job market.)
• Since our client couldn’t really decide if our vice president candidate could do the job or not, they offered him a temp to perm position for 90 days…and expected him to take it. This was after he told them that he had two other offers with base salaries between $250,000 and $300,000. (Why would anyone pass up a permanent job opportunity on that level for a temp to perm job?)
• After a three-week interviewing process that was going quite smoothly, the V.P. candidate was offered the job by the human resources manager. At the time of the offer, they informed him that he would have to spend three months in the corporate office once he began the job. (In a distant city) This had never been discussed during the whole interviewing process…at all. Obviously, the candidate was shocked, and it really spooked him. Fortunately, the CEO spoke to the candidate and informed him that three months in the corporate office was not something they had in mind. He wasn’t quite sure where the person who offered the job came up with that idea. We sure had to do a lot of damage control.
• Regional manager candidate goes through four weeks of pretty brutal interviewing with a very first-class caliber software vendor. He outruns and out interviews nine other candidates through a series of grueling one-on-one and group interviews. The VP, after discussing the offer for almost a week, finally offers the candidate the job on a Friday and tells the candidate he absolutely needs to know by the following Monday. The candidate tells him that everything looks good, and he’ll call the VP on Monday. The VP begins to get a little nervous and texts the candidate on Saturday that he would like to get an answer from the candidate by Sunday evening. The candidate doesn’t see the text until Sunday morning. Unfortunately, he’s going through a very difficult divorce and is in the middle of an all day argument with his soon-to-be ex-wife (they are still living under the same roof). Instead of calling the VP, he texts, “I will have to call you tomorrow.” The VP gets nervous, texts the candidate that he wanted to hear from him Sunday evening about accepting the job. The candidate, still involved in an all-day hassle with his soon-to-be ex-wife, doesn’t respond. Sunday evening, the VP rescinds the offer and tells the candidate, in a text, that they’re going to hire the number two candidate. The candidate is devastated. The candidate becomes absolutely furious with the situation. He’s already under emotional stress with his soon-to-be ex-wife and now loses a really good job because of a terse text, on his part, and not responding to the VP Sunday evening. His claim was that, “He told me to talk to him Monday morning…” Well, the VP changed his mind and the candidate should have called him, NOT communicated by text Sunday evening. The candidate claimed that since he was so emotionally distraught by the argument with his soon-to-be ex-wife, he wouldn’t have been in a position to speak coherently. The VP hired the second candidate.
• But, then again, there was the client I reported about two weeks ago who interviewed eight people, had three back, checked references, had one back and hired that person and did it all within 10 days. Salvation!

As you can see most of these crazy things were actions by companies, hiring authorities, people who are supposed to have their act together. Most people imagine that the majority of a recruiter’s problems are with candidates. It’s simply not so. The people running companies do just as many crazy things as individuals who are applying for jobs.

Billy Currington was right!

Thirty six and a half million people filing for unemployment, the impact of CoVID, states and cities going broke, terrible social unrest and most hiring authorities have no idea whether they can hire or not. It’s a very confusing time and every day that I speak with people, both candidates and hiring authorities, in the trenches, it’s hard to come away with an exact assessment of where we’re going. It is just plain confusing.

Years ago, I started compiling a list of books that transcend time and are “must reads” for anyone who strives to be, not just externally, but internally successful in this life. In fact the “internal” success is what’s most important. How we grow on the inside is more important and everlasting than how we grow on the outside. Our external “treasures” will come and go, and definitely “go” with our final gasp of air. But how we grow on the inside is permanent and everlasting.

There are, so far, about 100 of these books that I’ve found to be, personally, absolute classics. I try to reread them at least once every two years or so and, am now, beginning to recommend them to our grandchildren. (I just sent As a Man Thinketh to our oldest nine-year-old grandchild) Okay, so they won’t be old enough to really understand most of these books for quite a number of years, but at least they will grow up, hopefully, understanding their lessons.

I recently finished Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankel for probably the 10th or 15th time. I’m on the phone each and every work day making and receiving between 100 and 150 phone calls from candidates and employers. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve experienced seven recessions and each one of them always seems to be the worst. It does get hard to listen to all of the stories and things that are going on in the world of employment.

I can’t blame people for being downright depressed about everything that’s going on, not only with losing their jobs or having to lay people off, or both. It’s confusing and challenging times. It was kind of ironic that I was reading Frankel’s book right after the pandemic started. In case you haven’t read the book, it is the story of Viktor Frankel, a Jewish/German psychiatrist who experienced and survived the concentration camps of the Germans. He developed a psychological theory based on his experience called logotherapy.

What prompted all of this to come together was that Frankel made the observation as to why some people survived the concentration camps and why many didn’t. Every time I read this book I am stunned by what human beings can do to other human beings. It is just as shocking every time I read it as it was the first time more than 40 years ago. It goes without saying that most of the people in these concentration camps died because of being murdered, starved or dying of illness. It was horrific.

But the major lesson that this book teaches and has to be reinforced today and especially applicable to all of us trying to survive this economy, as well as a social turmoil can be summed up in this quote;

“We who lived in the concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms… to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

      “And there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate.”

In other words, we have a choice in our attitude. If we take action on our attitudes, we simply survive better than others. Likewise today, we can work on our attitude, no matter how difficult our circumstances are. Some of us will come out of all of this mess better off and some will not.

Having done this since 1973, I guarantee you that the people who see whatever happens to them as a blessing and take massive action based on what they need to do will grow for the better. Frankl reinforces the fact that none of this is easy. It’s all a matter of attitude.

We find in our profession that people make things so much more complicated than they need to be. You ask most people how long it usually takes a company to fill a position, they will tell you, on average it should take 45 to 60 days. You know what the real average is… 180 days. So, you ask yourself why and the reasons are that nobody wants to really admit that they are terribly indecisive about hiring, don’t really know how to go about doing it, rely on opinions of others who might have hired someone once or twice, depend on people who really have no skin in the game, who really don’t care, internal recruiters, and other myriad of things that nobody will admit to, the biggest being procrastination and indecisiveness.

Most managers in companies are not really hired because of their ability to hire people. Controllers are hired because they are good at accounting and (assumed) good at managing accounting offices. Lots of managers get promoted in companies because they been around so long the leaders and companies are afraid if they don’t promote them, they’ll leave. (As though being at a place for a long time has anything to do with the ability to lead). Engineering managers are hired because they manage engineering departments. Think about it. Very few managers are hired because they know how to hire people really well. So, most managers just plain aren’t very good at it.

But every once in a while we run into someone who has a phenomenal amount of confidence in themselves and their ability. They have enough confidence in themselves to call us and say, “Look, I’m really good at running this company, but I need to hire a director of customer support. How should I go about doing it?” Instead of acting like he knew what he was doing when he really didn’t, as many hiring authorities do, he simply asked, “How should I go about doing this? “How refreshing!

He gave us the parameters of what he was looking for and was very gracious to give us every bit of detail that we asked for and needed. We told him that we would come up with seven or eight really good candidates and he could interview them Wednesday afternoon or Thursday morning. We sent him a bunch of resumes that he could look over or screen. He simply relied on us, based on our experience, to come up with the candidates that would be good.

Three of us went back into our files and discovered eight exceptional candidates, seven of whom had experience in exactly what the company did and the kind of experience that the president wanted. He interviewed four of those people on Wednesday afternoon and four more on Thursday morning. He called Thursday afternoon and said that the next Monday and Tuesday (this last week) he wanted three of the people back to talk to four of his managers. He brought two of these people back last Wednesday for three hours each and one of them back on Thursday for three hours. He said he was going to give us a call Monday and tell us the person that all of the managers and himself thought would be the best candidate, bring them back in on Tuesday and get them hired. If that person doesn’t take the job he was comfortable with the fact that one of the others was capable of doing the job also. He spent Friday checking everyone’s references and we expect to hear from him this Monday.

Now this guy’s organization is really good. All of the managers, four of them including the president, had been with the company for a very long time, they had a lot of confidence in themselves and, most importantly, they were all reading from the same page. Nobody had a big ego. Nobody felt politically inclined to get his or her way. Every candidate commented about how congruent all of the managers were. Everyone was real down to earth, knew what each one of their roles was and made every candidate feel welcomed and, most importantly fairly interviewed. We can’t tell you how much of a difference this kind of group of people makes in the interviewing process. Most hiring processes get derailed because different people in the interviewing process want to put their egotistical imprimatur on the hire. This may not come as a shock, but my estimate is that at least 45% to 50% of the time interviewing managers barely communicate with each other about what they ought to be looking for. These guys were totally different.

Hiring people, especially managers, is like bench pressing 500 pounds…it is hard but it’s really simple. And we do the hard part. There is no reason to believe that the rest of this won’t go as simple as it has up until now. Every one of the candidates would like the opportunity for the job. They are all extremely qualified and it’s going to be a difficult decision for the president. But it will be simple.

I started my 47th year of this profession last month. On many days I feel like an absolute rookie. The longer I do it the more I learn. But I’ve never really understood why most organizations can’t keep hiring this simple. Kudos to our client!

This was a question one of my candidates was asked this week. It’s really hard to believe that a candidate would get asked a question like that. What’s a candidate supposed to say?

The candidate, who is a minority, had sense enough to say that, “he really didn’t know much about it.” And then he very wisely shut up. Over the past years I’ve had candidates get asked what they thought of Trump, Hillary, all kinds of political stuff, their religion, their race, the fact that they were older …younger…female…etc. It’s absolutely amazing that an interviewing authority would be so brazen and/or stupid to ask a candidate about things like this when the answer should have absolutely nothing to do with getting the job or being hired.

So, what should a candidate do? They should do exactly what our candidate did… shut up! Whatever a candidate believes or thinks, the candidate cannot afford under any circumstances to answer the question either the way they really think or the way they think the hiring authority wants to hear. The candidate has to remember that they are there to get a job, not to make a political statement

.Any employer with any brains would know not to ask these kinds of questions. But it happens every day. There is a tendency for candidates who get the sense that the employer might feel the same way they do about certain things, runs their mouth off and starts making a public statement about their thoughts and their views. Even if it may appear that they agree with the interviewing or hiring authority the absolute best way to deal with these questions is to SHUT UP and simply say, “You know, I really don’t know very much about it.” And then say absolutely nothing.

No job candidate can afford to get in any kind of political, racial, social, religious or any controversial discussion with any potential employer. It just isn’t smart. Now if the candidate gets the feeling that the hiring authority or interviewing authority, in their estimation, is a wacko and doesn’t agree with anything they believe, they don’t have to go to work there. Now much of this depends on how badly they really need a job. But even if the job seeker might agree with the interviewing or hiring authority, it is still best to stop and direct conversation, if they can, back toward their qualifications and their ability to do the job.

It is really easy… really easy to fall into this trap. If you’re a job seeker you shouldn’t do it. There are a few organizations that we’ve worked with over the years who, during an interview, very politely stated that they were a very Christian organization and conducted a prayer meeting every morning and asked if the candidate was comfortable with that. Some candidates were not. But it was asked in a way that if a candidate wasn’t comfortable with that practice, then it was an indication that they probably wouldn’t take the job or go to work at the company. That was fair enough.

I mentioned a few weeks ago about one of the companies we deal with where foul language runs rampant throughout the whole company. But, they explain to a candidate before they get hired that everyone in the company is a toilet mouth and that if they aren’t comfortable with that kind of an environment they shouldn’t consider going to work there. They even tell us before we send the candidate that the company, from the CEO on down, is full of foul language and if the candidate is not comfortable with that kind of an environment, don’t even send them. Even that’s fair enough. (Kind of stupid, but fair enough. Interestingly enough, they are a very successful company. Isn’t free enterprise a miracle!)

So, the lesson is really clear. Any hiring or interviewing authority ought to have sense enough not to ask stupid, insane, ignorant questions. But that doesn’t keep it from happening. A job seeker has to be prepared to answer those kinds of questions by saying they really don’t know very much about it and then saying nothing more. This takes personal discipline. A job seeker has to remember that they’re not on an interview to save the whales, convert the world or any kind of global, social goal. They are there to get a job.

Now, if the candidate is so uncomfortable with such stupid, innane questions, they don’t have to go to work at the company. And I’ve had many, many candidates over the years decide not to pursue a company or an opportunity because they felt very uncomfortable about the questions they were being asked in the interviewing process. It is certainly their prerogative.

But if you’re a job seeker, don’t express any opinions about anything that don’t have something to do with your qualifications and your ability to do the job.

(I know that many of you might think, “Why are you even needing to write this?” Well, the reason is that this stuff happens more than most anyone will admit and it’s my job to help people through the process of getting a job and hiring people regardless of the insanity.)

Edward has been a regional sales manager for an organization that I’ve done quite a bit of work with. He’s been with the firm for 10 years and because of Covid was in “lockdown” for about six weeks and then all of a sudden lost his job. It was a cutback due to the virus. So, he calls me and says that he is looking for a job. He is a good guy with some decent talent and a good track record…only two jobs in 20 years. So, he comes in to see me and we begin our job search. A day or so later he calls me and here’s how the conversation goes:

Edward (the candidate): “Tony, I decided to postpone my job search. I’ve been speaking about it with my family and we decided that since my wife works and I have 20 weeks of severance as well as then I can go on unemployment, I’m going to postpone my job search until then. She has a job so I can stay home and be with the kids all summerAnd not start looking for a job until I have to.”

Tony: “well, I understand, but how is it going to look to an employer when you go to interview a number of months from now and you’re trying to explain to them that you are a passionate, committed hard worker, but since you had 20 weeks of severance and lots of unemployment you decided to postpone looking for a job. You are looking for a regional director or vice president position. They are hard to find to begin with, but how do you think it’s going to appear to a hiring authority that you took 20 weeks off and collected unemployment because you could? How committed and hard-working does that appear?”

Edward: “well, I never really thought of that. I did earn that 20 weeks of severance. Let me talk it over with my family and I’ll call you tomorrow.”

(Next day) Edward: “well, I spoke about it with my family and even though I’m looking for a base of at least $150,000 and I’ve been earning in the $250,000-$300,000 range, we decided that I should take the time off, be with the kids and let my wife work.”

Tony: “Edward, think about this. You are going to be out of work for more than five months simply because you can afford to do it. When you go to look for a job, you’re going to have to explain what you’ve been doing for the past five months and then if you even hinted that you took advantage of unemployment you will not look like somebody that really wants to go to work and go the extra mile. Does that make sense?”

Edward: “well I’ve been working so hard for the past 20 years and I’ve never really taken much time off. Besides, I’m really good at what I do and the fact that I took that kind of a break really won’t of fact my finding a job.”

Tony: “Edward, I really like you and your good guy, but you have no idea what you’re talking about. In your eyes and anyone else you might know, you might think that you are really good and really special, but there are literally hordes of first and second line managers that you’re going to wind up competing with. And you’re gonna try to explain more than five months being out of work because you are ‘so good at what you do’… no, no, no, it isn’t going to work that way. People are going to think, ‘if this guy can afford to spend five months at home without working, what’s gonna happen the first time he doesn’t like something here? I’ve got four other candidates who are just as good that haven’t taken advantage of a ‘free lunch.’ I don’t think we want a hire Edward.’

Tony: “Edward, take a couple of weeks off…bank your severance, but whatever you do don’t take five months off and think that somebody is going to appreciate it. They are not. Unless it’s a close friend of years or someone you know, this kind of thing will kill you when it comes to looking for another job.”

Edward: “well, that’s what I’m going to do. I know my worth in the marketplace, I’ll give you a call then and I’m certain you’ll be able to place me.”

I understand Edward’s point of view. He’s been with two companies in 20 years and he has no idea what the market is over, much less, when it will be five months from now. When he tries to explain to someone that he took five months off, just because he could, they are not going to think that he wants to work very hard or that he’s committed to working at all. He’s going to try to justify doing it because, “I’ve never really taken a lot of time off…this was a chance for me to do it… I could stay home with the kids…my wife works….” Blah blah blah, he is going to have a really rough time.

So, if you’re a job seeker, really think about the consequences of what you decide to do. I haven’t heard this since the mid-70s, but I had a candidate the other day and told me he didn’t want to go on an interview because with his unemployment and the extra $600 that the government was paying him, he could make about as much money in base as the job I was presenting to him. The government is thinks that it is doing everybody a great favor by giving them an extra $600 a week for whatever time you are going to do that. They are not! When people can make more money on unemployment that they can in the workplace, somethings drastically wrong. How does a person think that’s going to sound to a prospective employer? It’s not going to sound very good at all.

Here’s the message! This is a difficult employment marketplace. It’s going to get more difficult for quite some time. Think about the consequences of what you do and how you’re going to explain them down the line to a prospective employer. When everyone’s unemployment runs out and they’re all competing for the same jobs, and employer is going to have more people than they can imagine to choose from. Any action on your part scratch that any action on the job seekers part that makes it appear that work is not a high priority will make their looking for a job a whole lot more difficult than they might imagine.

Take a lesson from Edward.