Job Search Solution Blog by Tony Beshara

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.