Let’s say I’m a typical hiring manager. As a headhunter and corporate recruiter, I worked with hundreds of them, and have been one myself, typical or not.
The only reason I hire is to solve a problem. If I don’t have a problem, I’m sure not hiring someone, because then I WILL have a problem! If you’re thinking that hiring situations are opportunities, you’re thinking from the standpoint of the candidate, not the manager. While, strictly speaking, hiring IS an opportunity, there are precious few managers who see it that way. Hiring comes second only to firing as the worst aspect of management in the mind of the typical manager.
I don’t like problems, especially having to go through the hiring process, which is an additional problem! I’m at risk when I hire! If I make a bad hiring decision, it will be costly to my employer and probably me and my career. So, when I’m hiring do I think, “I’m going to find Superman for this job!”?
No. I think, “Circle the wagons! Kill’em all and let God sort it out. I’ll hire the survivor!”
Brilliant!
Three things go sequentially through the mind of the manager who needs to hire:
“Who do I know or have worked with in the past, who can do this work?”
If you are one of those friends and acquaintances, you’re going to get a phone call from me. Why? I want the warm fuzzies of hiring someone I know, like, and trust, because this negates my risk. I’m personally familiar with your track record. What’s more, you will get that call before I write a position description. I can take advantage of skills you have outside of this particular role, and write them into the position description. Additionally, I’m not concerned by what you may lack in terms of knowledge, because I’ve seen you at work, and I know your capabilities. Once they’re written into the position description, who do you think will get this job? It may look like a vacancy, but it’s not.
Only if the answer to thought #1 is, “No one,” do I move on to thought #2.
"Who do I know who would know someone who can do this work?”
This is not a happy thought, because it means I can’t hire someone I know, like, and trust, but my increased risk is mitigated by the fact that you are referred to me by someone I know, like, and trust. I trust the referral source because we have history together. S/he knows me, knows how I work, knows my likes and dislikes, and wouldn’t refer an idiot or a jerk to me.
Only if the answer to thought #2 is, “No one,” do I move on to thought #3.
“I guess we’ll have to advertise the job. Arrggh!”
Now I’ve totally lost control of the situation. If I’m in a large company, I have to depend on HR to find someone. HR doesn’t really understand me, my work, or what I need, and they’ll hold me to whatever I write in the position description. If I work for a small company, I have to do all the hiring admin myself, and I don’t have time for that!
If your resume gets to me, I’ll spend maybe 10 seconds to check it out. If I like what I see, I’ll spend another 20 seconds on it. If I still like what I see, your resume goes into the small pile—the people I’ll interview. But my risk relative to you is mitigated by … nothing! You could be Goober Smokebreak (a not quite with-it character in my job search book, When Can You Start?)!
Is it any wonder that the interview, if you get one, won’t be fun? This is complicated by the fact that I, as hiring manager, have most likely had either no or really bad training in how to hire, or I’ve been given a set of questions by HR and told to ask these questions, and ONLY these questions, or both. Note the fact that the hiring manager is trying to get rid of you when s/he needs to hire makes no logical sense whatsoever. But it makes perfect human nature sense!
This should demonstrate the value of networking for you. I believe, through experience, that only about one third of jobs can be found online. Another third is vacancies that aren’t being advertised, and the most important third is not vacancies, but problems. Many is the time that, as a corporate recruiter, I was simultaneously handed a position description and a resume by a manager who said, “Hire this guy!”
In talking with someone when hiring isn’t on the table, you have a good chance of being thought of when I go through the above three-part thought process.
Make sense?
]]>This is like complaining that gravity is too strong. You want to be able to jump 10 feet in the air!
People, being human, want to hire people they know and trust. This is why chemistry is the most important aspect of an interview. If I don’t like you, I won’t hire you. I don’t care how good you are. This is simply human nature, and all the employment laws and sensitivity training in the world won’t change it. This is a hard thing to say. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, just that it’s there. You can get farther looking for a job in the world that exists than in the world you want it to be. You can fight it and lose, or take advantage of it and win. Your choice.
Disclaimer: Human nature is frequently used as a defense for rampant institutional racism. It is emphatically not the purpose of this post to attempt to justify or promote the systemic racism that still exists in the US. The founding fathers, many of whom, tragically, had slaves, were still aware enough to call this America’s Original Sin. They were right. It’s long past time to move on!
Now, back to our story.
Think about it. I need an accountant. I have three candidates. One, Susan, is a friend from the CPA firm we both worked for, and I know her to be a good accountant. The second, Fred, was referred to me by someone I know and trust. The third, Ralph, sent me a resumé out of the blue.
Now let’s examine something people looking for a job don’t normally think about. As the hiring manager, I’m at risk. The hiring decision I make will certainly impact my career, and perhaps the future of the company. I would greatly prefer that impact to be positive!
Here’s what will happen.
I’ll call Susan and we’ll do lunch, we’ll talk about what my needs are, and how she can help. I’ll interview Fred. I don’t know him, but I know and trust the person who referred him to me. I’ll be nice, and maybe a bit skeptical. I’ll interview Ralph, whom I don’t know from Adam, and attack, because my philosophy regarding those I don’t know is, “Kill’em all and let God sort it out! I’ll hire the survivor!”
Who will get the job?
Yes—Susan. And Fred and Ralph will go around saying, “It isn’t what you know. It’s who you know.”
This is human nature at work. But it wasn’t who Susan knew—it’s who knew Susan! Who initiated the contact? I did. Why?
Because when I need someone, I go first to the people I know. Then I go to the people they know. Only if no viable candidate appears do I then consider advertising!
I know and trust Susan. We have history together. She has already proven herself. And here is where human nature really kicks in. Susan may not have all the experience I think I need, but she has already shown me that she can learn. This trumps telling a potential employer, “I can easily learn that!” Every time. She may actually not be as “qualified” as either Fred or Ralph, but that becomes irrelevant. She has the ability! She also has the job.
Here’s the point. It isn’t who you know. It’s who knows you! This is the alpha and omega of networking. The worst time to start networking is when you need to get a job. That may not be good news, but it’s the truth. The best time? When you don’t need to get a job. Perhaps right after you’ve gotten a job!
Your goal is to be remembered as someone who the potential employer likes, trusts, and believes he or she can use someday. Trust usually exists only when there is a prior relationship, and is much easier to obtain when it isn’t time-critical. But accomplish this and your name, contact information, and resumé will be filed somewhere that manager can find when there’s a problem! Anyone who has labored in HR can tell you stories of hiring managers coming to them saying, “Hire this one,” before the need has even been posted.
Accomplish this often enough and you will never again complain that it’s who you know. So, sorry about that gravity thing. Get out there and become known!
]]>The hiring manager comes out to greet you. The thought going through the hiring manager’s mind at this moment? “Kill’em all and let God sort it out! I’ll hire the survivor.”
Would it surprise you to learn that this will not end well?
If you don’t prepare for the interview, you’re just asking to get whacked. Preparation involves three steps.
The first step is preparation for all interviews.
In a post on the resume, I allude to the fact that you’re selling ability, not experience. The way to prepare for interviewing (and for writing your resume) is to determine the skill set you are trying to sell, and identify at least three business successes for each ability. Then, for each success, write out (a) what you did, (b) how you did it, step by step, and (c) what the result was. The result should be in terms of revenue increased, costs reduced, efficiency improved, biggest, smallest, first ever, et cetera. You have most likely heard or seen these examples referred to as SARs (situation, action, result), STARS, or some other acronym. In addition to being ammunition for the resume, these stories are the answers to behavioral interview questions: “Tell me about a time when . . . .”
The man who gave me my formal start in the career coaching business says if you have 25-50 of these stories, you never have to worry about another interview.
While you're at it, you'd better identify a couple of failures and what you learned from them. You'll most likely have to discuss one or two of those.
Welcome to the second step: research!
You need to do research. In doing it you may learn something about the organization’s needs, what they are doing, plan to do, what’s working, what isn’t, and so forth. All of this is helpful information. Back in the day, when there was no internet, this kind of information might have been pretty hard to find. No longer!
This is both offensive and defensive strategy. There are plenty of people out there whose first question in the interview might be, “So, what do you know about the company?” If you answer, “I don’t have a clue,” the next question doesn’t matter. The interview’s over!
Now, while I’m all for doing research, I have a real problem with people’s need to show that they’ve done the research.
I spent some time as a recruiter for a high-tech company, and was often astonished to hear a candidate say, “I happen to know that you all are doing a, b, and c,” as though that information was secret. All too often it was either public knowledge or we had stopped doing it six months prior to the interview! So now, how smart do you look?
If you feel compelled to show that you’ve done the research, just say, “In doing research on the company I read that thus-and-so was the case. How accurate is that?”
There, you’ve showed them that you’re a responsible candidate, and that you’ve done research on the company. But you don’t look like an idiot!
When I was about 10 years old, my father taught me how to play chess, and, being the kind of guy he was, saw no reason to lighten up on a 10-year old. Or an 11-year old, or a 12-year old.
It was two years before I beat him. On the day it happened, I was lacing up my sneakers while he set up the chessboard, and I was thinking, “Here we go again. He’s gonna kill me!” Then I thought, “The only way I even have a chance is to evaluate every possible move, and every possible consequence of every possible move, his and mine, every time.”
I beat him that morning, and never lost to him again. (He walked away from some four-hour chess matches, but I never lost!)
What does this have to do with interviewing?
Plenty.
If you are interviewing, you know something about the job. If you didn’t, you probably wouldn’t be interviewing! If you’re an accountant, and the job is in accounting, you know something about the job. There may be information gained in the research phase of preparation that will prompt questions.
You should be able to ask yourself any question the hiring manager could ask you, and have an answer ready.
If you are in a technical field, you can find lists of commonly asked technical questions relevant to your field, online.
While I normally have a very low opinion of college career development services, I have to say that Princeton (https://careerservices.princeton.edu/undergraduate-students/interviews-offers/preparing-interviews) does a good job of preparing students.
So, these are the steps of interview preparation. None of them is easy, all are time-consuming. The lazy or the uninformed will not invest the necessary effort. But because you invested the effort, you’ll win the interview!
]]>Here’s the thought: “I can do lots of things!”
Here’s the irony: it’s true, you can do lots of things. You have a set of skills and abilities that can be used in a large variety of ways. By skills and abilities, I mean basic skills, not just job-related skills. You may be an accountant, but it’s your abilities to analyze and organize things that makes you a good accountant.
These are skills that apply to many jobs other than accounting. But how does this show up in a job search? You see an ad online and think to yourself, “I can do that!” And you may be right. But if the ad isn’t for an accountant, abandon hope of getting an interview.
When you are looking at vacancies, the idea that you can do lots of things works only when jobs are coming at you, and your only task is to pick one. I would be surprised if that’s happening to you right now.
Let’s take time out to look at the dismal hiring process that many organizations conduct.
In an interview there are three critical factors: chemistry, ability, and experience. They’re important in that order. If I don’t like you, I won’t hire you. But if I do like you, and I believe you have the ability to do the work, how much do I care that you don’t have experience doing it? I don’t. Besides in my career journey leading me to this role of hiring manager, I’ve worked with those who have plenty of experience, but no ability!
That makes experience the least important of the three factors. But what do I advertise? Experience! Why? Because experience is a standard, it can be reduced to numbers, which makes it easier to evaluate candidates. But it’s not how I hire!
If my ad requires three years of experience, and you have two and a half truly excellent years of experience, will you get an interview? No. If you have no degree or one other than the one required, but have three years of success in the role being advertised, will you get an interview? No. You don’t meet the position requirements. And if I go to HR and say I want to hire someone who doesn’t meet the position requirements, they won’t let me, because that would be inviting a lawsuit!
Here’s the point: you can’t do a lot of things. You have to do something. As the hiring manager, I’m trying to rule you out, because I’m at risk. This is human nature; If I make a bad hiring decision, bad things will happen to me! When I’m at risk, I play defense, not offense. “Kill’em all and let God sort it out! I’ll hire the survivor!”. Maybe I need a forensic accounting specialist. Can you show me experience in forensic accounting? No. Will I bring you in for an interview? No. So your prime abilities in analysis and organization don’t help you.
So you have to do something. The idea that “being open”—you can do lots of things, only works against you in a job search. The smaller and more specific the target, the shorter the search.
The last time I looked for a job, the search took 10 days. I knew specifically what I wanted to do, and the kind of company I wanted. There were few companies in the Washington, DC area, that did what I wanted to do. Within 10 days I had a choice. I could do what I didn’t want to do in the hope that what I did want would materialize, or I could relocate, and do what I wanted to do. If you have had a family and lived in the DC area, you’ll know how easy that decision was!
The client record for the shortest job search from a cold start is three days, beating the old record of four days. These two clients, working with me, knew exactly what they wanted to look for.
If you can’t find what you want, re-calibrate specifically and go after the new goal.
You can do this. But that unexamined thought driving your search——“I can do lots of things!”— may keep you from success!
Looking at the larger picture, though, you need to be aware of the three serious problems associated with trying to find a vacancy, especially in the online job search:
You’re missing about two thirds of the job market.
You have maximum competition.
You have to look exactly like the job. The one who does that best, wins!
]]>Step One: Know your strengths
You are not selling duties and responsibilities. You are selling success using a set of skills and abilities that are generic in scope. You may be great at improving an accounting, administrative, or IT process, but it’s your ability to analyze that gets you there. It is critical that you identify, clarify, and document success using this skill set.
Step Two: Write an effective resumé
The hardest document you will ever write is your own resumé. This is complexified (I love that word, even if it isn’t a word!) by the fact that everyone on the planet is a resumé expert, no two agree, and the greatest authority of all is someone who just got a job! There are common sense rules for writing a resumé:
Step Three: Choose your targets
To get a great job, you need two things: a list of target organizations and people in them, and a list of people who can get you into them. Organizations: these are companies or organizations that you’d like to find out more about, not necessarily spend the rest of your life with (if you know you want to do that, they should be on the list). Tentative interest works fine. LinkedIn is a good source of people relevant to your company target list. Mention them as people you’d be interested in speaking with. People (second list) are the folks you know, who will refer you to others. Show these people that target list. Remember, you are statistically three people away from talking to someone who could hire you!
Step Four: Learn to network
Networking is not going to everyone you know and asking them to get you a job. Networking is all about developing relationships, and it is those relationships that will produce the job. Once in the new job, you will maintain and increase the network you’ve built, as, like a flowering plant, it will continue to produce if you treat it well.
Step Five: Ace the interview
Employers always, always hire to solve a problem. Your goal in the interview is to convert it to a conversation, find the problem, and, if you want to continue, demonstrate how you have solved that or similar problems before. Do not give power to the hiring manager! Control the interview. Your goal is not to get a job. Your goal is to find someone with the problems you like to solve, develop a relationship, and, if you want, be the solution
Step Six: Follow up
If you leave the interview, sit back and wait for a response, abandon hope! First, send a thank you card within 24 hours—not an email, a card. Interviews are, like networking, about relationships; emails, not so much, and could well be missed. Everyone knows they should do this, but everyone is still rebelling against mom, who made them write thank you letters for birthday and other presents. The card is not about you—it’s about the hiring manager. If possible, the front of the card should reflect the hiring manager’s personality, culture, hobbies, or something of personal interest to that person. This says relationship. A card with “Thank You” on the front says you went to no trouble at all. An email is junk mail.
Second, a day or two later, send a document to the hiring manager that says the things you didn’t think of to say in the interview, and shows or reiterates how you have solved similar problems in the past. Once again, show success—results, not experience. No other candidate will do this. You’ll be a hero!
Step Seven: Know how to negotiate
Americans hate negotiating, and the greatest fear among candidates for employment is that, in trying to negotiate, they’ll cause the employer to withdraw the offer, or at least offend the employer. Many employers know this and are counting on it. I have a good friend with an extensive, high-powered career in human resources, who says, “No one offers you the figure you want. They offer you the figure they want you to accept!” Negotiating is key to success in the job search. If you’re not going to invest in a coach to guide you through the search (though you know you should!), at least invest some time and/or money in learning the strategy and tactics of negotiating. Expertise here will pay itself back many times over!
This is the process that will produce jobs over and over again. It isn’t simple, but it is basic. If you develop and show expertise in these seven areas, I guarantee success! But it doesn’t stop with your getting a job. Now you have to keep it! Or get a better one!
For additional resources on these and other job search/career management topics, check out my other blog posts, or pick up a copy of my book When Can You Start? The Insider’s Guide To Job Search And Career Success.
]]>Every Monday morning I would be sitting in my office when the CEO would walk by on the way to his office, and say, “Oh, Bud! Good morning! Join me, won’t you?” Whereupon I would dutifully make the trek to his office, and sit for the next two and a half hours, while he regaled me with the many ideas (some good, some not so good) he had come up with over the weekend to improve the company and/or it’s business.
After a few Monday mornings like that, I concluded that I could never be an entrepreneur, because I spent my weekends avoiding thinking about work, and this guy never stopped!
Little did I know then that, when it’s your company, you always think about how to improve it, for at least 18 hours per day, every day of your life, whether you feel like an entrepreneur or not.
What does this have to do with your career as an employee? A lot!
Back in the day (not sure when that was, but before my time), corporate managers allegedly considered their employees to be a great asset, perhaps their best. So, when they started laying people off, you knew that they were taking the situation very seriously. You don’t get rid of a great asset, unless it’s an absolute necessity, so they must be serious.
Fast forward to the 1980s, replete with leveraged buyouts onshore and the Japanese eating our manufacturing lunch offshore, and lots of people were getting laid off. Wall Street noticed this, determined that management must be serious, and invested in these companies. Stock prices went up! This lesson was not lost on corporate management, and now, laying people off is the first thing management considers when times are hard. Stock prices go up.
The bottom line? Your bosses are working late into the night, searching for a way to do business without you, because they no longer think of you as a great asset, they think of you foremost as an expense (see my blog post “What are you worth?”). I had a client who had a friend, a sales director for a division of a Fortune 500 company. Although in six months this guy had achieved his quota two times over, he was laid off because “we’re not doing that anymore.” Did they try to find another place to use this star? Nope.
What all this means is that you must think like—or be—an entrepreneur. You are the head of your own company—You, Inc. You may only have one client at a time, but you need to always be thinking about how you can advance your company, provide better service to that client. If you’re thinking of your client as “the man” or “the suits,” you’re just asking to get whacked.
How can you help your client succeed? What does your client need that you can supply? What else do you have in your skill set that your client can use? What have you done lately to help your client? Does your client know it? This requires a totally different mindset than thinking of the people who pay you as your employer!
At this point you may want to read my post, “Track 5 Simple Things to Achieve INSANE Career Success.” It will show you how to manage You, Inc. in such a way as to always be able to talk about what you’ve done, always be ready to find a new client, always know where your next gig is coming from.
Always remember, a career is the best use of your skills today.
]]>So, how does your boss see you?
As a financial investment. Are you a person? Sure. Do you have feelings, goals, etc.? Sure. Do you show up at work on time? Yep. Are you nice? Yeah.
So what?
Are you a financial investment? You bet! You should be making, or at least contributing to making, or saving, your employer a multiple of what you are being paid.
If I’m paying you $70,000 per year, and you’re making me $200,000 per year, I like you! I don’t much care if you’re late for work sometimes or get grumpy on occasion, you’re a keeper! But if I’m paying you $70,000 per year, and you’re making or saving me $30,000 per year, do you think your head might be on the chopping block when ax-sharpening time comes around? You are an expense!
This is a true story:
Years ago, I was the HR guy for a small government contractor that offered an IT service, and there came a time in our development when we got a mainframe Univac computer. We also hired a systems programmer to care for and feed it.
When my boss asked me to interview the guy and tell him what I thought, I went back to him and said, “We don’t want this guy.” He said, “Yes, we do.” I responded, “Look, this guy’s had seven jobs in five years, he’s been fired from five of them, and according to him not once was it his fault!”
My boss smiled and said, “Let me tell you what’s going to happen. We’re going to hire this guy and pay him $50,000 (>$123,000 today), and he’ll wreak havoc with the other employees. He’ll not show up for work. He’ll show up late. He’ll offend people. He’ll cause trouble. But sooner or later that big elephant (the Univac) will go down, and he will take it as a personal challenge to bring it up again, and he won’t go home until he does.”
My boss was right. Everyone got angry with this guy. He wouldn’t show up, or he’d show up late. He did offend people. But that elephant did go down, he did take it as a personal challenge, he found and fixed a bug in the Univac operating system, and brought it back up.
Now, from my boss’s standpoint, what’s this guy’s value? He creates havoc on a weekly basis, is paid more than just about everybody else on the technical staff, and lives in his own world. That’s in the debit column.
The credit column? He kept a $2 million (nearly $5 million in today’s dollars) company alive, because without that Univac we were completely out of business.
As far as my boss was concerned, this guy was a hero!
So, here’s the takeaway. You always need to know your value as an employer’s financial investment. Always. It will let you keep your job. It will get you promoted. It will help you get another job.
If you’re directly responsible for bringing in revenue, it’s easy to monetize your value. But for many, it will be difficult. That said, you still need to find a way to do it. This will require a bit of creative thinking.
Did you keep a client from leaving and going to your competition? That saved revenue becomes yours. Did you establish a system that made a process more efficient? What did that increased efficiency save? Did you do something that brought your employer into alignment with a regulator? What would it have cost had you not done that? Did you finish a project under budget? How much under budget? This means that you must determine the results of your work. It never occurs to most people to do that. But everything you do has a result, and it isn’t your boss’s job to keep track (actually it is, but it’s highly unlikely that he or she will do it!).
This is the kind of thing that will make you money and/or get you promoted. It will enable you to tell a present employer, “See what I’ve done.” It will enable you to tell a future employer, “If I can’t make or save you at least twice what you pay me, you shouldn’t hire me,” and mean it!
]]>Most people would rather chew glass than do this. Why?
First, in the American culture, we’re all pioneers—complete, independent, self-fulfilling, captains of our souls, masters of our ships. We get it done. We don’t ask for help. Asking for help is for sissies.
Well, by its very nature, networking involves asking for help! But if I have to ask for help, I feel demeaned; “I am a worm and no man!”
Second, a substantial portion of the population is introverted. I am among them. Introverts would rather lick sand than talk to people they don’t know.
Third, most people don’t have a clue as to how to go about networking. Doing something you don’t know how to do is, at best, frustrating, and when it involves other people, frequently embarrassing.
What’s the answer?
You will either get a job or not. If you don’t network there is a really good chance that you won’t. But if you know what you’re doing, and do it well, there’s an excellent chance you’ll not only get a job, you’ll get a good job. I learned, and you can, too. I also made mistakes you can avoid.
In another post I wrote about the importance of face time. It was a lesson I learned the hard way. Today’s subject also fits that category—the college of hard knocks.
When I started my last job search, I called my friend Paul.
“Paul,” I said, “I’ve done enough outplacement to know that it’s what I want to do, but I don’t know anything about the industry, I don’t know who the players are, I don’t even know if I speak the language. I’ve got to get out there and talk to some people, and you have to help me!”
“Right,” he said, “that’s just how I got into the business. Call these four people and tell them I told you to call.”
I called the first name on the list. He was the managing director of the Washington, DC, office of America’s biggest outplacement firm at that time. He came on the phone and I said, “Hello Jim, my name is Bud Whitehouse. I was referred to you by Paul Smith (not his real name). He said you might be helpful to me. I’d like to meet with you and get some insight into the outplacement industry, perhaps an evaluation of my skills and abilities and how they might fit in the industry.”
Jim’s first words were, “Paul who?”
I repeated the last name and stumbled through a description of Paul, who he was, what he was doing, and how I came to know him.
Well, silly me! Jim refused to see me, and not in a friendly way. More like I had leprosy. I’d have been better off just saying, “I’m sorry, I have the wrong number,” and hanging up!
Lesson learned. If you have to explain who the person is who referred you, it isn’t a referral!
Contrast that experience with this one.
When I lived in the Washington, DC, area, I had a friend whose mission in life seemed to be helping people who were looking for a job. In Washington, everyone is always looking for a job, so it was a fertile field. All too often his help consisted of, “You should call Bud Whitehouse. He’s a headhunter. He can help you!”
At the time, I was hunting heads in a relatively small aspect of telecommunications, and one day I got a phone call from a 22-year old kid with a degree in French and no idea of what he wanted to do. “Burnett Thompson said I should see you!”
Now, Burnett was a spiritual father to me. I loved the man. I have to say, though, at that moment I wasn’t too fond of Burnett. But I knew what would happen if I didn’t agree to meet this kid. I would get another phone call, this time from Burnett, and I would wind up agreeing to meet anyway, so I may as well agree now and get it over with!
I agreed to meet because I owed my relationship with Burnette the courtesy of meeting with the person he referred to me. If there were no relationship, I would have no compelling reason to meet, and, like Jim, could have said, “Burnett who?”
Networking is not transactional; it’s not about getting other people to do your job search for you. It is all about developing relationships. There are people you will meet with whom there will be no relationship. There are some with whom you will develop temporary relationships, and there are those with whom you will develop life-long relationships.
This brings up my two last points:
In 1969, Elizabeth Kubler Ross published On Death and Dying, a reading requirement for college psych and social science students for years afterward. The book was the outcome of a study she did on the dying, and in which she identified the emotional stages of death, which are:
All people who die apparently go through these stages. I was once in a situation in which death was the only logical outcome, and watched myself with great interest go through these exact steps. You’ve probably guessed I didn’t die. But upon waking up the following morning, I was ticked!
So what does this have to do with unemployment? Plenty!
I’ve been working with unemployed people, including myself, in one capacity or another for more than 30 years, and I’m here to tell you that, if you’re unemployed, you will go through this sequence.
Here’s the problem. Dying people go through these stages and die. But the unemployed go through them again, and again, and again...
Have a good interview and life is great! The drought’s end is in sight! Don’t get the job, and BOOM!!—denial!, rage!, fear/depression!, bargaining!, acceptance!
As a culture, we have come to identify ourselves by what we do for a living. You go to a party and when someone asks, “And what do you do,” you don’t say “I do engineering,” you say, “I am an engineer.” That’s fine if you’re employed, but if you’re not, are you still an engineer? Nope. You have no identity, so you’re dying, or dead, from an emotional standpoint.
It isn’t unusual for a client to say, in reaction to the possibility of their getting the job they want, “I’m not going to get my hopes up…” The reason they say this is obvious: they’ve recycled those death emotions several times before, and don’t want to again. Well, go ahead and get your hopes up! It’s going to be tough to convince someone you’re the solution to their problem when you’re busy damping down your hopes!
What you must understand, and remind yourself often, is this is an emotional reaction to a situation, not reality. There are a lot of unemployed people now, and most likely, more to come. If you are one of them, you cannot afford to sideline yourself based on an emotional reaction, strong though it may be.
I’m certainly no psychologist, but here’s what works for me. If I find that a situation is really getting me down, I major in it. “Woe is me, I’m a worm and no man, a reproach of men and despised by the people!” I play the saddest music I can think of (“The Death of Ase,” by Peer Gynt is really good for this—try it!), and, after about two hours I get really bored with the whole thing, and I’m ready to move on. That beats taking myself out of action for a couple of days, while I assume the prenatal position and turn the electric blanket up to “9.”
This is, indeed, a lousy time to look for a job, and it may get worse before it gets better, but it won’t be permanent. It’s just the rotten part of another cycle. You may be unemployed, but you’re not dead! Companies are still hiring. Go forth and conquer! And never hand your career over to your employer!
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Well, if it wasn’t, it is now! I just made it one. In the world according to Bud, eNetworking is networking online—a process our dearest lethal friend, the coronavirus, has forced us into. (Oh, okay, into which…the coronavirus has forced us.)
Don Miller, a really smart guy, and one I listen to almost every day, says there are four characters for you to choose from, given our current situation: victim, villain, hero, or guide. A victim will sit at home watching streaming reruns on Netflix all day, every day, because his career and life are in flux, he’s miserable, stir crazy, and just wants to curl up in the fetal position and suck his thumb. The villain will embrace Covid-19, and then go cough on everyone he can.
Then there’s the hero. That’s you! Why? Because you aren’t going to be stopped by a virus. You are going to find a solution to the social distancing problem that has seemingly cut your job search off at the knees. You’re a hero! You’re unstoppable!
The guide? That would be me. Teaching and coaching job search and career management skills is what I do.
So, what do you think about eNetworking? Is it the best thing ever? Greater even than Dr. Fauci? Absolutely not! No way. It is an alternative to being the victim, which you, as the hero, will never, ever be. It has drawbacks. I would guess (no data) that it’s about 25-40 percent worse than in person networking, which, according to budmath, still makes it roughly 100 percent better than sucking your thumb.
Here are the drawbacks. In a face to face meeting you get data—body language, personal items on the desk/walls, etc.—that can make forming a relationship easier, tell you how you’re doing, and so forth, that you won’t get much of using zoom, Skype, or other online services. Second, you need a camera. Most laptops, desktops, etc., have them, but they are of varying quality, and I don’t care how good your camera is, on occasion it’s going to make you look funny, especially if you approach the screen with your face too quickly. Third, you have to pay attention to things that aren’t that important when you’re in person.
What kind of things? Read on:
So, what to do?
First pick a room with a solid door that closes, that can be yours, and yours alone, even if only for an hour at a time. It’s best if there is a desk or table to use. I’ve found it best to block all natural light. You will want to have two light sources (lamps) diagonally in front of you, so you get equal light on both sides of your face. It should be warm light, and it’s best if you can adjust the brightness.
Pay close attention to what’s behind you. You may have to relocate some stuff. Professional web folks use a green screen behind them so they can make it look like their talking from their yacht, or their very expensive library. No need to go that far. But you don’t want to be showing underwear drying on a rack.
Find a way to place the camera at roughly eye level as you are sitting there. Set the camera so that it shows you roughly from below the shoulders up. I am terrible at looking into the camera, so I’ve taped a photo of my kids just above the camera to remind me where to look. That may help you. By the way, get a decent camera. You can get a decent one for $60. You can get a better one for around $90. Looking at a blur representing itself as a person is not fun.
When you need to be a face online, find someone else to mind the kids, dogs, Amazon delivery, etc.
These are solutions I’ve had to learn to fix all the mistakes I’ve made. You may make some as well. Go ahead. It still beats sucking your thumb.
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The human brain is an amazing thing. It historically has had one job—to keep you alive. As part of that function it wants you to avoid threats and conserve calories. But sometimes these functions designed to preserve you actually get in your way.
Let’s talk first about avoiding threats. Are you threatened now? You bet! The onset of the coronavirus and Covid-19 are a threat to your health, and an existential threat to your career. As of April 3, more than 16 million Americans have lost jobs to the current pandemic, more than six million in that week alone, and we haven’t approached the peak yet. The St. Louis Fed has predicted that number could ultimately go as high as 47 million, or 32% of the working population. Following the peak, more will lose work to the ensuing recession. And what does your brain want you to do? Watch Netflix for 15 hours per day, because, after all, nobody’s hiring, everyone’s being laid off. And don’t think about what may be happening to your career, because thinking and worry cause you to use up calories. Believe me, your brain’s not helping you. Read on to start taking charge of your career.
US Navy SEALs are famed for being able to do whatever is necessary to accomplish the mission, and rightly so. A major reason for this is that, from day one of their training, they learn to disregard what their brain is telling them about pain and exhaustion, to focus, prioritize what must be done, to execute, and to keep executing. They have learned how to train their brain to support them in accomplishing the mission.
Some years ago I participated in a weekend in Las Vegas, where, among other things I was told that I would break an arrow with my throat, and walk barefoot over hot coals. My brain knew better. At best, that kind of stuff is highly dangerous, and at worst, fatal. Imagine my wonder, then, as I watched myself place the arrow’s tip at my throat, and shatter it by lunging forward (don’t ever try this at home)! Two days later, I walked barefoot over 20 feet of 1,800° coals, without getting even a blister (don’t try this either).
I don’t tell you about this to impress you. I’m certainly not special. My point is this: you are capable of a great deal more than you may currently believe. In World War 2, we did as a nation what SEALs do as a result of their training. Under attack by the coronavirus, we can do it again. If you do what the seals do, later this year you will raise a glass to a hero—yourself, because you accomplished the mission.
Have you ever been stymied by indecision as to what must be done next, and asked yourself, “If I knew what to do, what would it be?”—and identified a solution? This is training your brain to do what you want it to do instead of what it wants to do: involve itself in finding an answer, instead of focusing on the problem. This is what you must do now.
Okay, I’ll come down out of the pulpit now. While the sky isn’t falling, we are in a world of hurt now, medically, socially, and economically. And if you aren’t preparing to get your next job right now, there may well not be one. I’ve been messing about in the employment marketplace for more than 30 years now, and I’ll tell you one thing: it’s the people who know how to get the jobs who will get the jobs. Maybe not the best people. Throughout history, it’s been the people who know how to get things done who are asked to do them.
Lucky for you, all change creates opportunity. But to be the one who gets hired, you must:
Don’t know how to do all this? Find help. I’ve written a book that can help: When Can You Start? The Insider’s Guide to Job Search and Career Success. It’s a guide. Every hero has a guide. Find the book on this website.
Do all this now. A famous movie star summed things up pretty well:
“Try not. Do or do not. There is no ‘try.’”
-Yoda
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Who’s in charge in the employment interview? All too often it’s the hiring manager, who has had little or no training in how to hire, and would rather be having a tooth pulled than be in a hiring situation.
Steven Aitchison gives some excellent tips about taking charge of an interview here: https://www.stevenaitchison.co.uk/5-ways-take-charge-job-interview/. I’d like to take the concept deeper.
This is an abnormally long post. Beware of getting deep cracks in your attention span when reading this. But it is one of the most important you will see, so it’s worth taking the risk of losing you in order to get all this information in one place.
All hiring is done to solve problems. You cannot be the answer to the hiring manager’s problem unless you know what it is, so, giving the hiring manager control of the interview is not in your best interest, because you will not find out what the problem is by answering the manager’s questions.
You must become the consultant and control the interview. The consultant asks questions and probes to determine the issues; doesn’t tell you how great he/she is until he/she knows the problem. In order to find the problem, you must control the interview.
There is a very specific sequence of tactics to achieve the strategy of controlling the interview. I think of these as a series of fallbacks. Keep in mind that there are three factors in the mind of the hiring manager that guide interview success: chemistry: i.e., how well do we get along; ability: i.e., do I believe you have the skills to do the job; and experience: i.e., have you done the job. Of these, chemistry is the most important, because if I don’t like you, I won’t hire you.
So immediately hammering the hiring manager with, “So, what’s your problem,” probably will not give you what you want.
Bullfighters do not win by trying to overpower the bull. They win by taking advantage of the bull’s bulk and inability to change course quickly. So it is here.
When you enter the hiring manager’s office, you are the guest, the hiring manager is in charge. How will you change this?
Most interviews start with the hiring manager asking, “Tell me about yourself.” The answer to this question is what I call the sound bite, a three-part statement about who you are, which I will discuss in another post. Let’s get the process down first.
So, you respond to, “Tell me about yourself,” with the sound bite. Now who’s in charge? As the candidate, you have left me the freedom to ask whatever I want. “I’d like to know your mortgage interest divided by your shoe size.” Obviously, I’m still in charge, and I’ll bet when you were preparing for the interview (another post), you didn’t calculate your mortgage divided by your shoe size. You are now at my mercy.
So, don’t stop talking after the sound bite! Ask a question! “You know, if you could give me a better sense of the kinds of challenges I’d face in this job, and what success would look like, I could do a more thorough job of telling you about myself. What do you expect of the person you hire?”
Now it’s my turn to talk, and I’ve been asked a question. I may answer it. If I do, now you’re in charge. Ask another question! And keep asking them until you know what the issues are.
Unfortunately for you, you’re interviewing with me. “No problem, we’ll get to that. First I’d like to find a little more about you.” Now I’m in charge again.
First fallback: answer a question with a question. My next question is likely to be behavioral. “Tell me about a time when . . . .” I bet you’re glad you read “The Employment Interview Part !!: How to Prepare for the Interview,” and have appropriate answers lined up and ready to go!
“Actually, I had a situation that was very much like that. The situation was this, I did blah, blah blah, and I got this result. Now, help me. How does the situation I just described relate to your situation here?”
Never ask, “Does it relate . . .?” I can respond with yes or no and keep going, and you’re in trouble. Admittedly, it doesn’t take a great deal more brain power to say, “It doesn’t,” but it does take a little more. This is not a game of hours, minutes, or seconds. It’s a game of hundredths of a second, as we politely duel with each other.
Again, sadly, you’re interviewing with me. “I just told you. We’ll get to that.”
Next fallback: stop the interview.
“You know, I’d be happy to answer your questions, but I’m trying to do that in just about total ignorance of what your situation is here, and of what success looks like in this job. In that kind of ignorance, I could leave out critical information, and then we both lose.”
Time out. This is important. What goes through the mind of the hiring manager as he or she approaches the interview? “This could be win-win. I win, because I’m the hiring manager. I’m gonna win! I win because I hire somebody smart. You win because you’re the smart person I hire. Or it could be win-lose. I win. I win because I don’t. hire a dummy. You lose, because you’re a dummy. And by definition, anyone I don’t hire is a dummy. It isn’t going to be lose-win or lose-lose, because I’m not losing!”
This is the conscious, or more likely, unconscious thought of just about every hiring manager in America walking into an interview.
Now you’ve just politely pointed out that if we keep going in this direction, I could lose. I don’t want to lose! At this point the hiring manager starts talking. If not, he/she becomes a jerk. A hiring manager once said to a client of mine at this point in the interview, “I understand that. What you need to understand is that this is my interview and we’ll do this my way!”
Last fallback: terminate the interview. The hiring manager has just revealed him- or herself to be a buffoon. You don’t want to work for this twit. Besides, the chemistry, or rather the lack of it, has just reached bottom.
Most people that I talk to see this process as being really aggressive, but you must understand that the hiring manager most likely has no idea what’s going on. If you politely do what I’ve discussed, they don’t even realize you’re hijacking the interview. In more than 20 years of coaching thousands of clients, I know of only one hiring manager who resisted. What usually happens is that the interview becomes a technical discussion between peers, the chemistry builds, the ability shows, and the candidate wins!
Once you know what the problem(s) is/are, you will know whether or not you’re the right person for the job. If you are, you will respond with, “I think I can help you. Let me explain why.” You will say this because all consultants say, “I think I can help you.” Why? Because upon hearing that, the potential client feels relief! Think what that does for the chemistry!
If you are not the right person for the job, don’t pretend that you are! Say, “You know, I think I’m probably not the person you want for this job. Let me explain what I’m looking for and maybe you could refer me to someone who could help.” You have just earned the hiring manager’s undying gratitude. No one has said that to him before. They were all too busy trying to prove they were the right person! The hiring manager is grateful for your honesty and will move heaven and earth to help. Well, maybe not, but he or she sure will like you better, and may help. That’s better than losing the interview or being hired for a job you shouldn’t take.
So, there you have it—how to control the interview. It is not difficult to do, but it requires a solid knowledge of where you want to take the interview, and lots of practice.
]]>So, you’ve been referred to me by our mutual acquaintance, Bob, and you are now stepping into my office.
How enthusiastic am I about this meeting? The answer most likely is, not very.
I don’t know who you are, I don’t know what you’re doing here, I don’t know that you won’t ask me for a job, even though you said you wouldn’t, and I don’t know what my role is in this meeting,from which there is no escape, as you are blocking my way to the door!
I don’t really believe it’s as bad as this. By the time we meet after scheduling the appointment, I’ve most likely reconciled myself to the meeting. But you may as well prepare for the worst,because everyone you talk to will have these four issues to one degree or another. If you don’t address them right up front, this will be a very short,unproductive meeting.
Just as the employment interview frequently starts with, “Tell me about yourself,” the referral meeting frequently starts with, “So, what can I do for you?” Almost everyone will ask you this, because they really want to know! They have those four issues!
“First, let me say thank you for taking time out of what I suspect is a pretty busy day, to see me. Let me just explain again why I’m here. I have this background (insert your background here), I’ve done these kinds of things, and, while I can tell you more than you would ever want to know about what I’ve done, how I did it, and who I did it with, what I can’t tell you is what’s going on in the business community at the moment, what companies have moved in, who has challenges, who has opportunities, and so forth. You can help me today by giving me some insight into your view of what’s going on, perhaps an evaluation of my skills and abilities, and some suggestions as to where they would best fit. Let me just say again, I’m not here to ask you for a job. I am here to get information that will help me put together an effective job search. Is that okay?”
There are as many variations on this as there are people looking for a job. The point here is that you’ve told me who you are, you’ve told me what you’re doing here, you’ve told me again that you won’t ask me for a job, and you’ve told me what my role is. You’ve dealt with the issues.
Let’s look at a couple of things here. You can use my words if you want, and if you can make them yours. You can use your own words. But there are a couple of things that you must say, word for word.
The first is, “Let me just explain again why I’m here.” One of the issues that you must address is, “What are you doing here?” Most of the population wants to know the agenda for a meeting before the meeting begins. This is a warm, fuzzy way of saying, “Okay, listen up. Here comes the agenda.”
The other thing you must say is, “Is that okay?” at the end of the introduction. To move on to part two,information-gathering, you must get a“yes.” The only way to get one is to ask for it.
Finally, there is the statement,“I’m not here to ask you for a job.” This is critical, because everyone else who came in here saying what you’ve been saying did ask for a job!
It is this statement that causes me to relax, and to be willing to cooperate with you in this meeting. Knowing that you won’t ask me for a job means I don’t have to find something wrong with you(see the posts on interviewing), and we can develop a relationship.
When I role play with clients, their most common mistake is, instead of saying, “I’m not here to ask you for a job,”saying, “I’m not looking for a job.”
Liar,liar, pants on fire! If you’re not looking for a job, why are you here? Do you do this as a hobby? Of course you’re looking for a job! Saying you’re not looking for a job is lethal! If you want, you can say, “I’m in the early stages of a job search. This is the research phase.” But what ever you say, you must promise not to ask for a job, and then you must honor the promise!
So, now you’ve dealt with my issues, and we can move on to part two. I would guess that, properly done, the introduction will take from two to ten minutes, depending on the other person’s desire to interact. We’ll deal with part two in an upcoming post.
]]>Of these three conditions, I believe the one least likely to be met is my having a problem or problems. Does this mean I won’t be a target next Tuesday? Not at all. Problems have an ugly way of sneaking up on us, so you want me to remember you as the solution when I do have the problem.
To set the stage, you have been referred to me by a mutual acquaintance. You contacted me, invoking the third party’s name, told me that our mutual friend thought I could be of some help to you and suggested we meet. You also told me you were not coming to ask me for a job, and we scheduled the meeting.
You have shown up for the meeting,and we have gotten through the introduction (see Networking Part 1). Now it’s on to information gathering.
First we’re going to talk about my industry. Then we’ll talk about my company, then your profile, and finally, my qualifications for one or more jobs. The reason for this progression is my comfort level. It’s easy for me to discuss my industry. It may be a little dicey talking about my company, if you start asking about proprietary issues. If you want to see how quickly the meeting can fall apart, start the process with talking about jobs!
So, beginning with the industry,start asking questions. What are the leading companies in the industry? Which ones are having problems? What’s going on in the industry that’s positive? Is that what this company is experiencing? What kinds of challenges does that create? Is that a problem? How big a problem? What’s going on that’s a threat? Is that what this company is experiencing? How big a problem is that? Where is the industry headed in five years? Is that where you want this company to be?What could keep that from happening? Is that a problem? How big a problem?
Again, all roads lead to problems,because if I don’t have one, I’m not a target!
The same questions apply to discussing my company. But here you must be careful. It will be easy for me to get the idea that you want proprietary information, or that you’re about to ask me for a job. “It looks like I just stepped on your foot,” you will say. “Let me back up a moment. Earlier I said I was not here to ask you for a job. I meant that. If I’m going to put together an effective job search, there’s a lot of information I need to get. The only way I know to get it is to ask questions. When I leave here today, I promise you, I will not have asked you for a job!” That should cause me to relax again.
Next up is your profile (see the post about profiles). Yours will be one of three places: on my desk, on my computer screen, or nowhere. If it is either of the first two, assume I’ve read it. If it is nowhere, you will say, “I had some questions about the profile I sent you, but it appears you haven’t gotten it. I have an extra one with me.Would you like it?”
In fact, you will have two, because if you only have one, and you give it to me, and I start asking questions about it, you’re going to go crazy trying to remember what it says!
Politeness requires that I accept it. If I lay it aside, you will say, “You know, I’d appreciate it if you would take a few minutes and read it. I’ve got some serious questions about it.”
Now I have to read it. There’s going to be a test!
“In reading the profile, is there anything that stands out? Why does that get your attention? How important is it? Should I be emphasizing that more? What else stands out?”
Once all that has been covered, you ask, “Is there anything that you don’t see on the profile, so you throw it away? Why is that important? How can I overcome that?”
There is a potential problem here.You know this document is a profile, not a resume. Do I? No way. To me it’s a resume, and I don’t like it (read the post about the profile and you will understand)!
It is imperative that you stop meat this point, because otherwise I will start “fixing the profile, and you will have lost all control. “This wasn’t meant to be a resume,” you will say. “What I’m trying to do here is show success using the skills that I think are transferable from what I’ve done to what I want to do. I have a resume at home. If you’d like, I’d be happy to send you a copy.”
This should cure me of the need to inflict my extensive resume expertise upon you.
The point here is that you want me to pay close attention to the profile, so that I’ll realize just how great you are. You are also asking for bad news: “What’s missing?” Why are you doing this?
It is my experience that people don’t like bad news. People looking for a job really don’t like bad news! Because of this, most people,consciously or not, avoid bad news to the extent possible. So, it’s only the people who can handle bad news who ask for it. Ironically, those happen to be extremely capable people, so, if you’re asking for the bad news, you must be one of those. You get points for asking for the bad news, so ask!
Next, we want to qualify you for as many jobs as possible.
“Based on what you know about me at this point, what I’ve told you about myself, what you’ve seen on the profile,where would someone with these kinds of skills, this kind of background, fit best in an organization similar to this one?”
What you have just asked is, “Where would I fit in your company,” but you have made it as theoretical as possible.Pay close attention to me, though, because if I’m going to get nervous in this meeting, this is the most likely point. You are walking right up to the edge of asking me for a job!”
“Oh,” I say, “I think you’d be a good administrative manager.” Do you want to be an administrative manager? For the sake of the discussion, let’s say you’re an accountant, so, probably not.
Oh, really? Do you know what an administrative manager does in this company? No, you do not. So your response is, “Fascinating! Why do you say that? Tell me about that job. What kinds of challenges would I face? What kinds of problems would I solve? Take me through a day in the life. How much could I make doing that?”
In the employment interview, you never, ever, ever talk about money. In the referral meeting, you always talk about money! It’s research. It is how you will discover your market value, and the information you get will be a whole lot more accurate than looking up a table online.
“Where else would you see someone with this background fitting?” Keep asking until I run out of jobs, and if I don’t mention what you’re looking for, accounting in this example, you mention it. “What about as an accountant?”
It is in this process that you will find the current highest and best use of your skill set if you don’t yet have a specific objective, or a problem you can solve if you do have a specific objective. Let’s talk for a moment about why I said the “current” best use.
A career is the best use of your skill set today. Given the relentless space of change, it could very well be different tomorrow. A skill set may be used in a great variety of ways. Don not let yourself get locked into something you can’t get out of.
Next, we’ll talk about the third phase of the referral meeting, the close. Stay tuned.
]]>Okay, so we’ve been through the introduction, in which you made me comfortable with the concept and we have agreed on expectations for the meeting, and you have gathered information regarding my industry, my company, my thoughts about your profile (see the post on the profile), and we’ve gotten you qualified for one or more jobs. Now it’s time to finish the meeting.
“This has been really helpful tome,” you will say, “I really appreciate the time and information you’ve given me. I’m curious. If our roles were reversed, and you were the one looking for a job, how would you proceed in a search like this?”
Note that at this point you are telling me you’re looking for a job. So, if you told me at the beginning of our meeting that you weren’t looking fora job, you were just looking for information, you’ve lied, haven’t you? Never, never, never tell the person you’re meeting with that you aren’t looking for a job. You have no reason to be there if you aren’t!
Almost everyone you talk with will say, “Oh, I’d do just what you’re doing. You’ve got to get out there and talk to people!” That’s not why you asked the question. But, what’s going through their mind right now is, “Geez, if I had to get a job, what would I do? Who would I talk to?” That is why you asked the question. Question number two is, “If you were me, who would you want to talk to?” The whole point of question number one is to cause the answer to question number two to surface at about the time you arrive there.
Now, there is one big, very big,problem associated with, “Who would you want to talk to?”
In 2009, after the economy tanked,I gave 51 public talks on job-hunting. As a result, I have well over 700 connections in LinkedIn.
So now it’s apparent to me, the person you just asked, “Who would you want to talk to,” that you expect me to go mentally through everyone I know while you sit there and stare at me! Trust me, that will not happen!
What I will do is say, “Gee, let me think about that, and I’ll get back to you.”
My nose just grew. I just lied. I didn’t mean to do it, and I don’t even realize at the moment that I’ve lied.But I just did.
We finish our meeting, and you go your way. And I go back to my day and my life.
Days pass. No phone call from me.Finally, you call me to follow up. My secretary tells me you’re on the line,and I panic! Guilt. I didn’t do what I said I would do. But then I realize, there’s still time. If I just come up with a couple of people for you to talk with, I can call you back, and you’ll never know I didn’t do what I said I would do.
“Take a message,” I say.
But do I then think about people you should meet with? No, I’ve just bought time. I go back to doing what I was doing before you called.
Days pass. No phone call from me.So, once again, you work up your courage and call me. My secretary tells me you’re on the phone.
This is not good. Now you obviously know that I didn’t do what I said I would do. I can’t speak to you without being embarrassed. Well, there’s a simple solution to that little problem. I will never speak to you again!
“Take a message,” I say. And Hell will freeze before I return that phone call. If I see you in the grocery store, I’ll run for the loading dock!
You have just burned a contact, and it’s your fault, because you asked me a question that was way too big for me to answer, and made me lie!
The “who do you know” question isn’t one huge question. It’s lots of little questions. “Earlier you said I’d be qualified to be administrative manager. Are you responsible for that function?”
“No, Charlie is,” I reply.
“Oh, great! I’ll bet Charlie could be really helpful to me. How could we arrange for me to meet with Charlie? Who else on the management team would you suggest I meet with? What about your CPA firm? What about your attorneys? What about your competition?”
You aren’t bugging me by doing this. You’re helping me think.
Okay, last question.
“Thanks again for meeting with me.This has been really helpful to me. It occurs to me though, as I get out there and talk to more people, and get more information, I’ll wind up with a couple of questions I’ll wish I had asked you. Would be okay on occasion, and again I promise not to abuse the privilege, but if I have a couple of questions, could I give you a call?”
“No problem,” I’ll stay. “Please stay in touch with me. I’d like to know how it’s going.”
With my agreement for you to call,the meeting’s over. It’s time for you to leave.
And that’s the referral meeting.
]]>This is the first of three related posts about networking. I’ve talked about networking in other posts, but it is so fundamental to the job search that it bears looking at from a number of angles. These three posts look at three enormous mistakes that people typically make when looking for a job, presented in the context of “Bud’s Rules.” Break any one of these rules and you are toast. You are dead meat. You are road kill on the highway of life. Are you getting the idea that they’re important?Believe it!
When I was a sophomore in high school, my English teacher, who was also the wrestling coach, informed me that the following year I would try out for the wrestling team. Well, I was a good boy, so I obeyed.
I hated it! Fortunately, my wrestling career was short.
Years later I understood why it was so short. I was wrestling to not lose.If you do that, you will lose. Every time. Why? Because the other guy is wrestling to win!
Why is this relevant? Face it.Looking for a job is not on your list of life’s most fun experiences. No one really enjoys the job search. It is my experience that most people look for a job the way I wrestled: to not lose. They do enough to be able to convince themselves that they are being responsible, but never go out of their comfort zone. Do this and you will lose.Every time.
I tell you this story because the three deadly sins all involve looking for a job “to not lose,” i.e., trying to get someone else to do your job search for you.
Today we’ll examine...
It’s Saturday and you are leisurely driving down the road, when you spot a disabled car on the shoulder, and a nonthreatening person standing next to it.
What’s your first thought? “I should help this person.”
What’s your next conscious thought?“Boy, I really need to get to the grocery store!”
What has happened here? Your first inclination was to help. But your immediate reaction to that was, “I don’t know what’s wrong with that car. I don’t know that person. If I stop, how long willI be there? I might have to take that person somewhere! How long will that take? I need to get to the grocery store!”
Your personal, perceived busyness kept you from going out of your way to help another person.
Well, we’re all too busy! And my busyness takes precedence over your job search every time.
There was a time in our history that people would go out of their way for others. That time has passed. The technologies that were to make our lives easier have made it possible to do a great deal more in a lot less time. We used to wonder what we would do with all the extra time technology would give us. Now we know. We use it to do more work. And when we’re not working, we’re going to work, going home from work, or thinking about work.
We have become so busy that we limit or cut out not only what we find unnecessary, but also what we see around us. It has been said that, in the average day, we are exposed to 3,000 ads.Does this come as a surprise? You bet! We have learned to limit our notice of them, or their access to us. In doing so we limit all access to ourselves. We hunker down and focus on our agendas. So—If you try to get me to go out of my way, I won’t help you. I don’t have time.
Let’s look for a moment at why you were trying to get me to go out of my way.
In all likelihood, you were doing it so you wouldn’t have to go out of your way. You wanted me to do your job search for you. Understand this: No one will take responsibility for your job search. Moreover, you really don’t want them to. In the unlikely event that you do find someone who will take responsibility, they’ll probably screw it up. They don’t know any more about looking for a job than you do!
Stay tuned for Bud’s Rules, Parts 2and 3.
]]>These three posts relate to three serious mistakes people make when networking, mostly in trying to get other people to do their search for them. This does not work.
You’ve been there before. A job hunter buttonholes you at a gathering and gives you a familiar pitch. “I was referred to you by Ralph. Who do you know with a job? I need to get a job. Who do you know who’s hiring? Is your company? I’m looking for some leads and contacts.” You can feel that knot in the pit of your stomach growing as you remember desperately trying to find a means of escape from that most awkward of positions in which your otherwise good friend Ralph has put you. Disavowing any knowledge of Ralph becomes an increasingly attractive possibility!
There are several things wrong with what this job hunter has said. We’ll take them in order.
First, he has grabbed you at a public gathering. Never try to do business at a public gathering. The goal here would be to get permission to meet later, not to get “leads and contacts.”
Second, he has asked who you know with a job. Do you know this person? No. So how likely are you to take the risk of ruining your reputation and perhaps a friendship by referring this character to someone you know on the chance that he won’t embarrass you with a friend, co-worker, or boss, even if you know there’s a job available? Not.
Third, when he approached you saying he’s looking for leads and contacts, it is no doubt instantly clear to you that he wants to use you to get somewhere. Do you enjoy being used? I think not.
Networking is all about building relationships. This is not what is meant by building relationships!
If you have ever been unemployed for any length of time you will have noticed your friends and acquaintances avoiding you in gatherings, and not letting themselves get caught alone in a room with you. This behavior is caused not only by the fact that they are afraid you will pass your bad luck on to them, but also because they are afraid you will ask them to risk their reputation for you.
This dynamic is aggravated by the fact that our work relationships have tended to erode somewhat over the years, in direct proportion to the dissolution of the so-called hiring social contract. Baby boomers seem to persist in the belief, against all evidence, that if they are loyal to their employer, their employer will be loyal to them. The GenXers and Millennials know better.
Why is this a factor? If I don’t owe you, my employer, any loyalty, and you owe me none, what becomes of our mutual trust level? What happens to the margin for error? Whereas before I might have gone to my boss and initiate the candidacy of a friend, today I won’t take that risk.
This is why, when you give someone your resume, their immediate response is, “I’ll be sure to give this to Human Resources.” No risk. No reward for you either! What will that faceless HR department do with your resume? You already know.
]]>These three posts relate to three serious mistakes people make when networking, mostly in trying to get other people to do their search for them. This does not work.
You are meeting with Mr. Big and things are going well, when all of a sudden he slaps himself on the forehead and says, “You know, you need to talk with my friend, Ralph—and I’ll set that up for you.”
Thanking God for causing Mr. Big to volunteer to do your job search for you, you beat a hasty retreat before he changes his mind.
But what will happen next? One of two things:
(1) As you leave, Mr. Big returns to his otherwise busy day and life. Within five minutes it has totally slipped his mind that he said he would contact Ralph. Days pass and you are not blessed with a call from Mr. Big. Finally you call him to follow up, his secretary tells him you’re on the phone, and he suddenly remembers to his horror that he committed to helping you. His response to his secretary? “Take a message.” This is just human nature taking over. Mr. Big, thinking fast, realizes that, if he can just get a few quiet minutes to himself, he can give Ralph a call, and you will never know that he hasn’t done what he said he would do. But when his secretary goes to take a message, does he call Ralph? No, he does not. He returns to what he was doing before he was interrupted. Days pass. No call from Mr. Big, so you summon up the courage to call again. Once again his secretary tells him you are on the phone, and once again Mr. Big responds with, “Take a message.” But now he knows that you know he didn’t do what he said he would do. He can’t speak to you without being embarrassed. There is a simple solution to this little problem. He will never speak to you again. You’ve lost.
OR:
(2) Upon further reflection following your departure, Mr. Big realizes there is no way that Ralph will want to speak with you. In the heat of the moment, in his desire to help, he has overstepped. He has committed his friend and fellow executive to a meeting that will cost him points in the relationship. Does he then call you and tell you he has made a mistake? He does not. He’s too embarrassed, and, busy executive that he is, the entire event soon recedes from his consciousness. He is reminded of it only when you call after several days to follow up. He immediately defaults to the avoidance behavior described above. You’ve lost.
Networking is all about building relationships and reducing the risk of the person with whom you are talking, not about getting leads and contacts. That said, leveraging relationships is an effective way to find employment, and on occasion, to create a job. But in order to leverage a relationship, you must first have one. This means you must devote time and energy to developing relationships. The wise do this over multiple meetings well before they need the leverage. The rest try to do it in five minutes when they needed the leverage yesterday.
]]>When I worked for a Fortune 500 company, I interviewed about one hundred people per month. How many written thank yous do you think I got in the average month (this was well before the internet)?
Two.
I look at employment as a game. If you know the rules and play by them, I give you points. If you don’t know the rules, I don’t give you points. If you know the rules, but don’t play by them,I take points away.
So, I would award points to these two people who clearly knew the rules and played by them. But guess what? Old cynical, skeptical Bud, who awards points and takes points away, got warm fuzzies from those two thank yous!
Everyone in America knows you should send a written thank you after an interview or a referral meeting. But,no, you’re all still in rebellion against mom, for making you write them after your birthday! So, even though you know you should write, you don’t.
By continuing to get revenge on your mother you are missing out on creating a huge advantage for yourself!
Here is Bud’s Rule for sending a thank you: Anyone who will see you gets a written thank you within 72 hours of your meeting.
If they throw you bodily out of their office, thank them for not hurting you too badly! This is all about relationships!
When I did my last job search, I was referred to a nice lady named Judy. We met, and she referred me to the one guy in the company who could hire me.
The next morning I sat down and wrote her a card. “Dear Judy,” I wrote, Thanks for the time you spent with me yesterday. I particularly enjoyed our discussion of hiring trends.” New paragraph: “I’ve called Rick Smith (not his real name) and scheduled a meeting with him for 2:00 next Wednesday. I’ll let you know how it turns out.” New paragraph: Thanks again for your time. I’ll keep you apprised of how the search is going. Sincerely, Bud”
Judy was going to refer me to someone else, but first she had to track that person down. As it happened, I got a job before I heard back from her, so I called to tell her the good news.But before I could say a word, she said, “I got the card you sent me. Thank you so much! It was wonderful!”
And I learned.
Before I get into just how brilliant this card was, let me tell you it was strictly dumb luck. The card I sent was the only one I had—a scene of geese landing in a corn field; full of earth tones, browns, tans, et cetera. Well, Judy’s office was full of dark wood and brass. The card complemented her office environment perfectly.
Let’s talk about what I wrote.
In the first paragraph, I thanked her for seeing me. Right, it is a thank you card, you know. I also referred to our conversation about hiring trends. That is a subject dear to the hearts of people like us. In referring to it, I was recalling the warm fuzzies we experienced in the conversation.
In the second paragraph, I said that I had called Rick. This is saying to her, “I’ve done what you told me to do.” This is much better than saying, “I’m going to do what you told me to do.” I also said we’d scheduled a meeting, gave her the time and day of the week, and said I’d let her know how it turned out.Human nature dictates that she would want to hear from Rick first as to how it turned out. With that sentence, I roped her into the process. She was now my sponsor!
In the third paragraph, I thanked her again and told her I’d stay in touch. This was in response to her request that I do so. You bet I’m going to stay in touch. She is a very valuable connection!
I wish I could claim credit for all this brilliance, but I didn’t figure all this out until after the fact. The card was one I liked; it was the only one I had! Plus, I’m an introvert. I have a terrible time writing to people! I never know what to say. All I can say is that God wrote that card for me! I wasn’t smart enough to do it!
You should be taking away two things from this post. One is that anyone who will see you gets a written thank you. The other is, the picture on the card needs to match the culture of the other person. It isn’t about you; it’s all about them! Again, this is all about developing relationships.
There are other things to be said about sending thank you cards. We’ll address them here: Read Now
]]>The whole point of the thank you card is that it helps build a relationship. If you got along with the person you saw, you’ve solidified the relationship with the card. If you didn’t get along, the card won’t hurt anything! Remember, the thank you card is all about them; not about you!
One thing that makes the thank you card so valuable is that almost no one sends them anymore. So, when you do, the impact is out of all proportion to the event! So, let’s talk about how to maximize success with the thank you card.
The card should be folded, blank on the inside, and have a picture on the front. That picture should be of something the person you’re sending it to can relate to. It should match their office environment, or culture. This can be a challenge, because if you don’t meet in their office, you won’t know what that environment is. And you can’t guess. In one building where I worked, all the common areas of our offices were filled with contemporary cut paper “art” that I loathed. My office had about six pictures of ducks. If you and I met in the conference room, you would have no idea that I liked ducks!
By the way, if you do meet in their office, don’t obsess on what you see. A client of mine was role playing a meeting with my associate in a workshop we were doing. He walked into my colleague’s office, spotted a large brass deer on the credenza, and immediately asked, “Oh, I see the deer there.Do you hunt?” Mark replied, “Uh, no. It was there when I got here.” This prompted the client to go crazy. “You don’t hunt? Oh, hunting is great!” There followed a few minutes on the joy of the outdoors, the feeling of satisfaction one gets in hunting, and so forth. “Venison!” my client shouted. “Do you like venison?” “No,” Mark said. I, um, I don’t eat venison.” There followed several minutes on the delights of properly prepared venison, complete with recipes.Finally, Mark interrupted and said, and it was true, “I’m a vegetarian!”
End of meeting! Get the point?
In our first meeting after he started his search, a client of mine sat down with sort of a smirk on his face.“What’s that about?” I asked.
“I’ve got it figured out,” he said.“I went out and bought a box of golf cards, a box of fishing cards, a box of hunting cards, and a box of historical cards. I’ve got Richmond covered!” (This was at a time when there were fewer women in management positions.) He was pretty close!
Here’s the idea. If you have taken the time and trouble to find a card that appeals to me, the person with whom you have met, I like you.
If you’re a millennial, or a techno-wizard, you probably think this is a bit over the top, and you see no reason to do anything other than send an email.
Well, get over it! There is no relationship in an email. There is also no guarantee that I’ll even see it, because I get tons of email, most of it trash, every day, and I’m really good at deleting it!
I was meeting with a young client and we were discussing a related topic. “Now, you would probably prefer an email,” I said. She looked askance at me and said, “Oh please! I get 200 emails a day! A letter’s special!”
If you meet with more than one person, as in a sequential interview, each person you meet gets a card. And each card says something different, related to your conversation. They will compare them! And if you have said the same thing on each card, that’s worse than sending nothing!
So, this is the strategy behind the thank you card. Finding (and maintaining) employment is all about building and nurturing relationships. This is the first step in developing the network.
]]>The Resume: What IT Professionals Must have at the Top of Their Resume
Let’s review a couple of the rules for resumes.
The purpose of a resume is to get an interview. That is its only role in life. Therefore, whatever is on the resume that helps you get an interview is good (I’m assuming truthfulness here!). Whatever is on the resume, or missing from the resume, that doesn’t help you get an interview, or interferes with your getting an interview is bad.
As the hiring manager, I care less about an endless list of your duties and responsibilities than I do about ascertaining your competence from the resume. So, it is more important to show me that you’re good, i.e., success, than to tell me everything you’ve done. Ability is more important than experience.
As is the case with most rules,there is an exception. There is one profession in which the need to show experience is paramount.
If you work in IT, your resume needs to show me all the hardware and/or software that you have experience with, because if I don’t see the particular hardware/software that I’m looking for, you’re toast.
I’ve had lots of IT clients say, “I can learn that software in a matter of hours or days,” and I expect that most of them are right. But put yourself in the position of the hiring manager for a moment.
You’re scanning (not studying) a ton of resumes to determine who to bring in for an interview. Before you are two resumes that appear to be roughly equal. One resume shows experience using the particular hardware or software you’re looking for. The other resume doesn’t, but shows a successful IT career. So, you can bring in the person with experience or you can bring in someone with no experience, but a good track record. Here is what you’re thinking as you review these resumes:
“So, I can bring in this guy with experience in what I’m looking for, and determine whether or not he’s any good.Or I can bring in this other guy who doesn’t have the experience. That means I’ll have to train him. Training costs money. I don’t have an unlimited budget.This guy might be able to learn, but I’m on down time until he learns. I think I’ll pass on him, and bring in the guy with experience.”
Now, I‘m not justifying this behavior. This hiring manager is just taking the path of least resistance, and what he perceives to be limiting his risk, which is totally consistent with human nature. That isn’t to say it’s the best path, just the easiest. Much of what goes on in hiring today is intended to make hiring easier, not more effective.
So, what does this mean to you, the IT pro looking for a job?
It means that you list every software package you have worked with, and every piece of hardware you have experience with at the top of your resume.
Typically, you will have a summary of no more than four lines that present you as the person you want to be seen to be, followed by a table listing all your software/hardware experience. In this case “experience” means that if you have ever touched it, you have experience.
You must understand that, in a way,you’re saying, “Don’t miss this, dummy!” And the hiring manager won’t miss it.That table will be the first place his eye falls, and if he sees what he wants,you go into the small stack. If not, he will read no further. The alternative,though, is not so good. If you don’t show it up front you’re gambling that the hiring manager will take the time to read the whole resume looking for the magic combination. The odds of this happening are not great. The first thing the manager is likely to do is drop the resume and look for one that does show it all up front.
So, if you want the resume to get you an interview, show them what you’ve got!
To learn even more about successful resume writing, check out my post: Is Your Resume Selling SUCCESS?
]]>And in less than three years you’ll be back out on the street, looking for another job!
This is the American Way of career management:
Relief settles in moments after you accept the new position. Turning your career over to your new employer, you focus on doing your job. But in time, currently about three years and getting shorter, something changes. It could be the economy, the technology, the competition, the business model, your boss, or any of a host of other factors,but something changes, and you’re out of a job, starting over.
Ironically, this has worked for you in the past, because, in the latter half of the 20th century, the economy was always steadily expanding. So, there may not be a job here, but there will be one over there.
If you’re normal, you didn’t enjoy the job search much. In, fact, you probably hated it! In fact, you found the job search so distasteful, that, even as you read this, you are doing your utmost to actively forget everything possible about it!
Great. You have just turned your career over to your new employer, those nice people who will love you, and care for you, and with whom, holding hands and singing happy songs, you’ll most likely walk into a golden sunset!
But that won’t happen. Those nice people you want to love and care for you, having spent money to get you on board, are now staying up late at night trying to find a way to do business without you. And sooner or later they’ll find it!
There was, perhaps, a time when employees were viewed as the organization’s greatest asset. If so, that time is over. Today, the manager’s first thought when having to make a quick impact on the bottom line is, “Who can I get rid of?”
If you don’t invest the time and effort to manage the career you have so fortunately preserved, this will be your story.
Welcome to the 21st century! Wake up!
As you may know by now, the worst time to look for a job is when you don’t have one. The best time? Right now,when you’ve just gotten one. Why? There are multiple reasons, but they mostly center on mindset. I will guarantee you that your self-confidence is higher at this moment then when you had to get a job. You don’t need another one right now. And you’ve just proved to yourself that you have some value by getting this job. So now is the time to get out and about, and start meeting people who could be future employers, either in the company you just joined, or another one.
But if you’re normal, you’ll relax because the pressure’s off, and then get whacked in two to three years because you didn’t do anything to manage success.
Career management isn’t just about getting a job. Guess what? Getting the job is only getting to the starting line. You can’t manage what you don’t have.
I’ll be giving lots of tips regarding how you manage your career successfully from time to time in other posts. Pay attention.
Start by doing these 5 simple things: So You've Gotten a Great Job! Now What?
]]>But wait. What have you done for your new employer lately?
Don’t get the idea that you were hired to fill a vacancy, or because you’re a nice person, or even because you are bright, talented, and can help the company in some way.
You were hired because your new boss believes that you will make him or her look good!
By virtue of being the new guy/gal,and therefore part of the solution, you have bought a certain amount of time for yourself. Depending on your place in the food chain, you have a window of 30 days to six months to achieve a noticeable victory. A noticeable victory is defined as a significant increase in revenue or reduction in expenses, a process improvement that creates a significant increase in performance, or a major problem solved.
If you are able to achieve such a victory, you will have cemented your reputation as part of the solution and bought significantly more time in which to solve more problems. Failing to do so will firmly place you in the ranks of those considered part of the problem, and cause the axe to fall on you during the next layoff. And don’t fool yourself. There will be a next layoff!
The purpose of this post is to put you in control of your departure from the company, rather than your bosses. It is unlikely that you will retire from this company. Change is afoot. If you don’t manage your career, rest assured that those above you will, and you won’t enjoy it.
So, let’s get started.
Go out and buy yourself a blank book—a lab notebook, a diary, a steno pad, whatever. Once a week (presumably Friday or Saturday) you will take a half hour to an hour out, and make five entries in the book:
What you did for your boss is what you did to make your boss’s job easier or to enhance his/her reputation in the company or business community.
What you did for the organization is what you did to increase revenue, reduce costs, or enhance the organization’s reputation. Organization is loosely defined as that part of the company controlled by your boss’s boss.
What you did for the people who work for or with you is what you did to make their jobs easier or more fun, or to help them advance. This could be as simple as bringing in doughnuts or as complex as turning around a failing employee.
Success is defined as increased revenue, reduced cost, increased efficiency, first ever, biggest, smallest, et cetera. This must include numbers:“Reduced shipping costs by 17%.” NOTE:It is not your boss’s responsibility to track your success; it is your responsibility. You may think that what you do doesn’t lend itself to numbers, but success involves change, and change can usually be expressed in numbers. Find a way.
What you did for someone in your network is what you did to further establish your relationship. It might be catching up over a meal. It might be sending a birthday card. It might be helping that person find a job. If you want future jobs to come to you, you must feed and nurture your network.
My mentor in the business, who explained this process to me, said if you go three weeks without making an entry in the book, you’d better start looking for a job, because you’re going to need a new one. Incidentally, if you only pay attention to the first category, the people in #3 will see to it that you fail. If you only focus on#3, the person who is #1 will fire you. You’ve got to pay attention to all the categories!
Here’s the theory. It’s time for your annual performance review.
Here is what your boss has done to prepare for the review: nothing.He/she is vaguely aware that you were there a year ago because it’s your annual review, knows a little more about what was going on six months ago, and is right on top of the last two weeks.
Here is what you have done to prepare: you have religiously made entries in the above categories. You are armed with a year’s worth of things you did for your boss, a year’s worth of things you did for the organization, and a year’s worth of things you did for your fellow employees or direct reports, plus specific, quantified examples of success. Who do you think wins?
This process netted a client of mine a 40 percent salary increase and a transfer to the only part of the company she knew she wanted to work in. Her boss told her at the time that the raise and transfer were due entirely to what she said in her performance evaluation. What she said in her performance evaluation came entirely from her book.
Point made?
]]>If you’ve read just about anything I’ve written, or heard me speak, you know that the resume is good for only one thing: to get you an interview, so there is a simple metric for evaluating the effectiveness of your resume. Is it getting you interviews? In all likelihood—not. There are a couple of big reasons, and several smaller reasons for this.
Everyone looking for a new job seems to be in a frantic search for the perfect resume. I hear, “If I can just get the resume right, I know I’ll get a great job” more often than just about any other search-related statement. I go to job fairs with a big sign that says “FREE Resume Review: Right Here, Right Now!,” and I’m the most popular guy at the job fair.
There is no perfect resume.There are a few good ones and a million bad ones! And to make matters worse,everyone you know is an expert on your resume! One friend says you should have an objective, so you add an objective.Another says you should never have an objective, so you remove it. But I’ll bet those same people are in line to see me at the job fair!
Let’s back up a bit. What is it that you’re selling when you look for a job? Most people think they’reselling experience, because that’s what every job advertised on the Internetasks for, and what every position description requires. But it isn’t how people hire!
In an employment interview,there are essentially three factors: chemistry (how well do we get along),ability (do I believe you’re capable of doing the work), and experience (have you done the work). They are important in that order, because if I don’t like you, I don’t care how good you are. If I do like you, and I believe you’re capable of doing the work, I don’t care that you haven’t,because I believe you can.
This is critical, because it means that what you are selling in the job search is not your experience at all.But it’s pretty likely that that’s what you’ve been selling on your resume.What you should be selling is your ability to solve my problem. The only reason I hire is to solve a problem!
So, how do you sell ability on a resume?
By selling success. If you work in accounts receivable, have you reduced days outstanding? By how much? Have you established a system that improved efficiency? By how much?
If you’re going to get an interview, resume-reading software notwithstanding, it will be because the hiring manager liked your resume. Which resume will that manager like more: one filled with a litany of your duties and responsibilities, or one showing successes in improving systems, reducing costs, or increasing revenue?
The fact is, if I’m the hiring manager in the above example, I have a pretty good idea of what an accounts receivable person does, so filling the page with duties and responsibilities doesn’t win you a lot. What I do care about is how good you are! So show me success!
Trying to sell duties and responsibilities is probably the biggest mistake people make on their resumes.There are many other possible mistakes. One would be that, trying to cram lots of experience into two pages, you use a font so small that it gives me a headache to read it. Give me a headache and you don’t get an interview! Another would be trying to get my attention by using pink paper. (This is less a problem now, because most resumes no longer touch paper.) Pink paper shows you don’t know the rules. Out you go. Hand me a resume seven pages long. I’m not reading all that. Out. Resumes more than two pages long are acceptable if software is reading them, or, in some cases technical (IT) resumes, but as a general rule, one page is fine, two pages are fine, three pages or more are totally unacceptable.
The other major error is more strategic than tactical. It is in relying on your resume to get you an interview in the first place. In doing that you are playing a numbers game that is especially difficult to win.
When I was a corporate recruiter in the days before the internet, I would take home somewhere between 100 and 300 resumes per night to read. I was not trying to rule you in. I was trying to rule you out. Would I take a risk if you looked like you might be qualified? No. Tomorrow would bring another 100 to 300 resumes. Why should I take a chance?
Today, given the ubiquity of the internet, it’s much worse. The odds that your resume will be one of the top 10 I see are not at all good. So, sitting at the computer all day, answering ads and sending out resumes is not the best use of your time!
We’ll talk more about resumes, and what makes a resume effective, in the future.
]]>Back in my early headhunting days,I began to recognize a particular style of resumé that I found very frustrating. It was typically two pages long, with achievements on the first page and employment on the second. It had an objective that was not usually helpful, and, given the format, it wasn’t possible to tell where the achievements were made. It created more questions than it answered. Believe me,when I’m looking at a pile of resumés, I’m trying to rule you out, and I’m willing to spend all of about 10 seconds to do it, questions are not what you want to create.
Over time, I realized that someone was out there teaching people to write resumés this way, and I made it a life goal to hunt them down and kill them.
Fast forward 15 years, and I have just gotten a job with a firm that helps people with their careers. In my first day of training, I am reading the manual that clients use. Turning to the section on resumés, I discover to my horror that I have found them!
My first thought on making the discovery was, “I have to resign. These guys are killing people!” But I had a real problem. I needed the money!
This quandary caused me to think long and hard about what was being taught, and why. After about a week, I realized what was going on. The fellow who invented all the basic tenets of contemporary job hunting, Dr. Bernard Haldane, didn’t call the document a resumé. And he didn’t suggest mailing it to people. He called it a marketing brochure, and taught people to use it in a face-to-face meeting with someone who might help them, either by hiring them or by referring them to someone who might. The document was never meant to be a resumé. But over the ensuing years, the people who ran the company were either unaware or had forgotten the concept.
By the way, in the 1940’s, calling such a document a marketing brochure might have been a good idea. It no longer is. This is the document I refer to as a profile.
The purpose of a resumé is to get you an interview. The purpose of the profile is to be used during a referral meeting. In such a meeting, you are already sitting down with someone, and you can easily respond to the questions the profile will inevitably create. In the ensuing conversation, you start to look pretty smart!
So as part of the job search,especially one that will be primarily driven by the referral process, you need to have a profile.
What does it look like?
The typical profile has four parts:objective, achievements, work history or employment, and education/special training.
The resumé should never have an objective, because 10:30 Tuesday night, under the lamp with a headache, I don’t care what your objective is. I have my own objective—turning a big pile into a little pile. The profile has an objective because in your meeting, you will discuss the objective and how it helps or hurts you in the search. Also,sitting across the desk from you, it’s helpful to me to know what you’re trying to accomplish.
The achievement section contains the results of the work you’ve done to identify what you’re selling (see “What Do You Have to Sell”). Here you will list no fewer than eight, and no more than 12 of the achievements that best support your objective. The number should be based on space requirements. If you’re a new grad or have only a year or two of work experience, you’ll most likely keep it to one page. Do not include how you did them. What you did, and it’s result for your employer are all you need.Remember, the document is supposed to cause questions. Almost certainly, you will be asked how and where you achieved one or more of these results, and again, you’ll start looking pretty smart!
The employment section is a list,most recent first, of your work history. There should be no more than two or three lines describing each job. All the selling is done in the achievements section. Basically, the purpose of the employment section is to show that you haven’t spent lengthy periods in prison. By the way, if you have, you should get in touch with me. There’s hope.
The education section speaks for itself. Your highest level is first. If you are in school, put in an expected graduation date. Otherwise, never put in a graduation date. Don’t put in high school. If you don’t have a degree, don’t put in every course you’ve ever taken in an attempt to show that you really are smart. In that case, don’t have an education section, unless you have special training that is relevant to your work situation.
]]>There’s not a lot of fun going on in hiring these days. Managers hate hiring above all things but firing, and most people would rather eat worms than to be the candidate in an employment interview.
Why is this?
In future posts I’ll talk a great deal more about the interview itself, including preparation for the interview, controlling the interview, and answering the difficult questions, but today let’s stay at the conceptual level to establish a baseline.
Let’s start with the hiring manager. Why talk about the hiring manager?
Because, in what most people see as an adversarial process, the hiring manager is the adversary! The famous Chinese general, Sun Tzu, said, “If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.” So, let’s know the enemy!
As the manager, I am now evaluated on my leadership skills, and the proficiency and productivity of my work group, no longer on my individual technical ability.I am the hiring manager, not because I’m good at hiring, but because I was good at what I did before I became the hiring manager. I have had little to no training, and certainly no good training, in how to hire, but my performance metrics depend on quality hires and leadership (in which, if I am typical, I also have had precious little training). I hire for one reason only: I have a problem. If I have no problems, I’m certainly not going to spend money to hire someone! So, the bedrock foundation of employment is this: all hiring is done to solve problems.Why is this a problem in itself?
As mentioned earlier, as the hiring manager, the only thing I hate more than hiring is firing. Why? Because when I hire, I’m at risk. People at risk procrastinate. Hiring always goes to the bottom of the pile, simultaneously increasing the stress level. What is going through my head? Sure, if I hire a good employee, life will be fine, but what will happen if I hire Dumbo? I know what will ultimately happen to Dumbo, but by the time I can get rid of him, it may be too late for me to recover. What about me? A bad hire could ruin my career! It is this thought that puts me at risk.
This isn’t a new concept. David DiSilvo, writing about hiring in Psychology Today back in 2011 did a good job describing the anxiety of the typical hiring manager. (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/neuronarrative/201102/insights-the-psychology-hiring)
But it gets worse. It is also a fact that we tend to more thoroughly understand what we don’t like than what we do like. When you go to a restaurant, you typically rule out the stuff on the menu that you don’t like, and pick from what’s left. So, when I’m at risk, do I play offense or defense? When I ask the question in workshops, the vast majority of people say defense. Kill’em all and let God sort it out!I’ll hire the survivor! This, in turn, means that when I’m interviewing you, I have to find something wrong with you, so I don’t have to take the risk of hiring you, so I can get on to the next candidate for employment, and not hire them either! Brilliant!
This is not something typically going on at a conscious level in the minds of most hiring managers. But deep down, in places they don’t talk about at parties (I love that line), it is constantly lurking when hiring becomes necessary.
So, I step outside my office to greet you, and we shake hands. Think you’re going to enjoy this?
Now let’s talk about you—the candidate for employment.
Why do you hate interviewing so much? Probably because, as the candidate for employment, it feels like you’re showing up for the interview wearing only an open raincoat and telling the hiring manager, “Take your best shot.”
Very few people go into a job search with their self-confidence intact. The application process intensifies this. If you are like most job seekers, you spend hours per day online, filling out applications and sending out resumes.You apply for jobs you are absolutely certain you can do successfully, and you hear . . . nothing. It doesn’t take long for you to start wondering what’s wrong with you. You can’t even get interviews for jobs you could have done five or 10 years ago!
People take this very, very personally, never realizing that, in pursuing this online path, they are playing a game with the cards totally stacked against them! Enough people find employment this way to seemingly validate the myth that this is how you get a job in the early 21st century.
You must understand something. Technology hasn’t improved hiring. It has just made hiring easier—for the employer. Play this game at your peril!
Okay, more on that later. Back to the subject.
So now, having run that particular gauntlet, you’ve got an interview. But the stakes, and therefore the pressure, have increased now, given the ratio of interviews obtained to applications completed. You’ve got to get this job!
You may have heard that getting a job is a sales process, and you are the product. So, in this interview, you’d better be a nice shiny product that the hiring manager will want to buy!
If you are like most people, you have just shot yourself in the foot. Why? You have just given the hiring manager power that he or she didn’t have until you came along and handed it to them! And now, in what most people see as an adversarial process, you have to fight against the power that you just gave them! And they’re trying to kill you! Brilliant!
This interview is obviously a disaster just waiting to happen. Why?
Read the next post where we talk about you—the candidate for employment HERE.
]]>This is the second segment of several concerning the employment interview. Read part 1a HERE.
It is critical that we examine the interview closely, since it is pretty much a given that you won’t get a job without one or more, and the vast majority of people looking for a job tend to approach the interview from entirely the wrong standpoint.
In the main, when I address the interview, I’m referring to the one-on-one, face-to-face interview with the hiring manager. There are, of course, interviews with others—peers and others in the hiring manager’s work environment or hierarchical chain, human resource representatives, et cetera. There are also panel interviews. I’ll deal with these at other times. I view the interview with the hiring manager as the most critical, because if the hiring manager doesn’t want you, you aren’t getting the job, unless the hiring manager’s boss, who is your brother-in-law, informs the hiring manager that he will, in fact, hire you, and that will present its own series of problems and challenges!
Let’s move on. Earlier we took a look at the hiring manager, and discovered a few things. The hiring manager:
- is not the hiring manager because he is good at hiring;
- has had little to no training in how to hire, and it is likely that any training he has had was abysmal;
- has a problem, or wouldn’t be hiring;
- is playing defense, i.e., is trying to rule you out, not in;
- assumes that he has the power, and is in control of the interview.
Now let’s talk about you, the candidate for employment.
When you were a child, did you do pretty much what your parents told you? Of course you did. Why? Fear! Alright, maybe also respect. But they were a whole lot bigger than you, and were clearly the authority figures in your life. “Consequences” is probably one of the big words you learned early on. Ignoring authority figures, or disobeying them, frequently results in pain!
Then you started school, discovered another authority figure called a teacher, and learned on the first day to do what that teacher told you. Same reason. Then you had a bunch of teachers, and by the time you reached the world of work, you were trained.
So here you are now, grown adult, professional, master of your craft, the candidate for employment.
As you walk into my office to interview with me for a job, what do you discover? Yet another authority figure! Immediately, a little switch flips in your brain, and suddenly your evert back to that student-child, thinking, “If I behave myself, and I please this person, and I answer the questions correctly, I may be rewarded with a job! And I need a job! I need this job!
Standing out in the hallway you were the candidate for employment.Entering my office, you have become the supplicant for employment, the beggar. I don’t hire those.
What has happened here? What has turned the elite, successful professional in the hallway into the quivering mass of insecurity seated before me now?
Human nature.
Upon entering my office and discovering one more authority figure, you gave me power that I didn’t have until you got here and gave it to me. And now, in what most people see as an adversarial process, you have to fight against the power you just gave me!
Brilliant!
This is not going to end well unless you change things.
First, read the book, How to Argue and Win Every Time, by Gerry Spence (I have no financial interest). This is where I got the concept of the student-child. It isn’t about arguing. It’s the best book on communication I’ve ever read. It’s actually one of the best books I’ve ever read.
Second, if you’re one of those who relates to giving power away, read Emily Madill’s HuffPost blog post, How to Stand in Your Power and Stop Giving it Away (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/emily-madill/how-to-stand-in-your-powe_b_9513736.html) as part of your interview preparation.
Third, replace the student-child with the consultant.
If I have a problem in business, I may not hire. I may call a consultant. Who is a consultant? A consultant is someone with knowledge and expertise in a specific area of business.
When the consultant comes to see me, he doesn’t enter my office telling me what he’s going to do for me. He enters asking questions. “What are you trying to accomplish? What has worked for you? What hasn’t? Why do you think it hasn’t?” And so on. The consultant does this to find out what my problem is, because he can’t be the solution to my problem until he knows what it is.
Your salvation in the interview is to be the consultant. You have specific knowledge and expertise, or you wouldn’t be interviewing with me. But you can’t be the solution to my problem until you know what the problem is, and you won’t find out by hoping I’ll be nice to you, and by trying to answer my questions!
We’ll be talking a lot more about how to be the consultant and reduce the hiring manager’s perceived risk in the interview process. Stay tuned.
]]>This is a two-part series on the mistakes people make relative to job hunting. Today we’ll discuss the first two. Later we’ll deal with the other three.
Having spent over 30 years in the employment marketplace, and coached thousands of people through job searches, I’ve seen a lot of mistakes made, and made quite a few of my own. But these mistakes can generally be boiled down to five categories.
Nobody I’ve ever met enjoys looking for a job. Most people would rather lick sand than conduct a job search. Depending on which study you want to believe, as much as 80% of the people who work don’t like their jobs. But only a very small percentage of that number will actually do anything about it, because job hunting is so distasteful.
Which leads us to our first mistake:
So, you’re quite comfortable in that cozy little nest you call your office, or worse, your cubicle? Well, if you don’t believe that your employer is staying up late at night, and is also, at this very moment, trying to find a way to do business without you, I have some oceanfront property in Arizona I’d be willing to sell to you at a steep discount. If there is software, a machine, or a contract employee capable of doing your job, your employer is looking for it. Or it could be as simple as, “We have made a decision to stop doing what your job involves, so you may go. Thank you for your service."
Or maybe you have been let go with a nice package. I am constantly amazed at the number of people who have been let go from a job with six months’ severance, and have waited five months and two weeks to start the search.
There is no worse time to look for a job than when you need one. While it is understandable that you don’t enjoy looking, in a fast-changing, global economy in which lines of business start up one week and close down the next, companies are bought or sold or go under, jobs are outsourced offshore, and technologies are made obsolete overnight, it is NOT understandable that people just hunker down, trying to become invisible, hoping that change won’t sneak up behind them and whack them on the back of the head!
You MUST have a specific career plan and be consciously working toward your next job if you are to succeed in today’s marketplace. It is a common thread among my successful clients that they came to realize that they, not their employer, were responsible for their success, and with my help, charted a course that ensured that success.
On to mistake number two:
For most people looking for a job, the search is a passive process. By this I mean that the search consists of spending the day filling out on-line applications and sending out resumes, responding to the few classified ads they can find, praying for a headhunter to call, and asking all their friends to sponsor them for a job; then waiting for somebody—anybody—to call.
To conduct a successful job search you must have a detailed, proactive, specific plan with unambiguous steps and milestones. The vast majority of people don’t make a plan, because, beyond reacting to web sites, they don’t know what to do.
In depending on the Internet and headhunters, you are missing out on a huge number of possibilities, because these two sources represent only the jobs that have been published (headhunters frequently deal with needs that are unpublished, but as a percentage of total jobs, it’s pretty small). Moreover, asking your friends to put their reputations at risk by sponsoring you for a job is a good way to lose friends, but not a very effective way to find employment!
In Part 2 of the series, we’ll deal with the other three major mistakes people make when it comes to looking for a job.
There are a couple of very common mistakes people make when they prepare to look for a job.
The first problem is an identity issue. You have most likely heard that getting a job is a sales function, and that you are the product. This is not only wrong, it’s very dangerous.
Think of a product. Let’s say a toaster. Okay, if I’m a toaster, I should be a very good-looking toaster; nice and shiny, attractive packaging, so that someone will want to buy me. Now transfer that thought over to the job search.
If getting a job is a sales function, and I’m the product, then I should be a nice shiny product, so that someone will want to buy me.
No single thought could endanger you more as you approach the hiring manager. This belief immediately makes you subservient to that person. In thinking this, you give the hiring manager power that he or she didn’t have before you got there and gave it to them. Now, in the employment interview, which most people see as an adversarial process, you have to fight against the power that you just gave that manager! Brilliant! How’s that working for you?
Here is the truth. Getting a job is a sales process, but you are not the product! The set of skills, abilities, and strengths that you bring to the work is the product. You are the sales representative! You may not enjoy being a sales representative either, but you’ll get a whole lot farther along as the sales representative than you will as the product!
The second problem has to do with what you are selling.
Most people believe they are selling their experience, and it isn’t difficult to understand where this idea comes from. Every advertised job in America asks for experience (except the rare ad for an out-and-out beginner).
In an employment interview, there are essentially three factors: chemistry (how well do we get along), ability(do I believe you are capable of doing the job), and experience (have you actually done the job).
They are important in the orderI’ve mentioned them. Why?
Chemistry is most important, because if I don’t like you, I don’t care how good you are.
Ability is second, because if I do like you, and I believe you’re capable of doing the work, I don’t care that you haven’t.
Experience is last; not unimportant, but least important. If you have any experience at all in the work world, you have probably worked with someone who had 10 years’ experience, but still hadn’t mastered the job!
Earlier I mentioned the set of skills, abilities, and strengths you bring to the job. This is what you are selling. If you’re an accountant with five years’ experience, and you’ve prepared financial statements, I figure you probably know your way around accounts payable and receivable, payroll, and the general ledger. A recitation of everything you’ve ever done in accounting doesn’t interest me. That’s experience. I want to know one thing: Are you any good?
Did you uncover an embezzlement? Did you introduce systems or processes that made things more efficient or that saved money? Did you reduce the time necessary for monthly closing?
These are things that will tell me what I want to know.
So, your job in preparing for the job search is to look back through your career, or your education if you’re a new grad, and find successes. Then attribute the successes to skills like the ability to analyze data, organize work, solve problems, establish systems and procedures, develop productive business relationships, lead others, make presentations, negotiate, et cetera. Write each success down in three sentences:
Why are you doing this? The results will fit neatly into two places: first, your resumé, and second, your head. These are also the answers to, “Tell me about a time when you had a situation like this, what you did about it, and what the result was.” This is called a behavioral question, and you won’t have an interview without behavioral questions.
So, now that you know what you’re selling, and what you’re not, get to work. This preparation is most likely some of the hardest work you’ll do in looking for a job!
]]>This is the second in a two-part series on the mistakes people make relative to job hunting. Today we’ll discuss the final three. Earlier we talked about the first two: not looking for a job when you are comfortably employed, and not preparing a specific, proactive search plan.
The following mistakes are just as serious as the FIRST TWO.
The sin here is not wanting a good resume; it’s believing that the resume will get you a great job if it’s just good enough. People looking for a job go in constant search of the perfect resume style or format as though it were the Holy Grail. The idea that you can develop the perfect resume that you can email or mail out and cause the hiring world beat a path to your door is ludicrous. There is no“perfect” resume. And depending on your resume to get you a great job is You need to understand that when you play the resume game you are fighting huge numerical odds stacked totally against you.
But if you’re going to play that game, keep the following in mind:
1. Most resumes today are not read; they’re screened for key words, so make sure you include appropriate key words.
2. Many resumes never see a sheet of paper, thanks to our electronic age. But if you have to use paper, use good paper, not copier paper. Good paper says you’re good. Copier paper says you’re cheap.
3. It would be wise to save and send out your resume as a PDF file; that way, it’s more difficult for people to change (yes, I am paranoid—but the fact that you’re paranoid doesn’t mean people aren’t out to get you!). At least password-protect it.
Onward to number four:
Surprised?
The American concept of networking is going to everyone you know and saying, “Who do you know with a job? I need to get a job.” This is even recommended by some otherwise seemingly intelligent people in the outplacement and career management fields.
In doing thisyou are asking that person to put their reputation and a trusted relationship on the line, and sponsor you for a job. They don’t know you that well! Your friends and family especially are poor choices for this kind of activity, because they do know you. You are the person they have experienced, with all your foibles and shortcomings. They typically do not know you as a professional. So, even if you are the best int he world at what you do, you’re still their idiot cousin who embarrasses them every time you go out to dinner together.
In trying to get other people to do your job search for you, you not only put them in an untenable position, you give up total control of your search to people who won’t take it! Even if they do take responsibility, they’ll mess it up, because they don’t know what they’re doing! This is a good way to lose friendships, but not a good way to get a job.
Last,
“Getting a job is a sales process, and you are the product.” Almost everyone looking for a job has heard this and believed it.
Think about it.What is a product? When I ask clients that question, I get a variety of answers, but they all center around some sort of package—a toaster maybe. Well, what kind of toaster would you buy? One with some rust on the outside, maybe with some old, hardened jam smears, and toast crumbs inside that fall out the minute you pick it up? No, it would have to be a bright, shiny, high-tech toaster that will wake you up to a beautiful morning accompanied by the smell of coffee and frying bacon. Oh, and it should have really attractive packaging!
Carry the thought one step further. If getting a job is a sales process, and you’re the product, then you have to be a nice, shiny product, with nice features and packaging.
This immediately puts you in a subservient role relative to the hiring manager. You will walk into the interview thinking,“If I answer the questions correctly, and I please this person, I may be rewarded with a job! I need a job! I need this job!” This, in turn, causes your role to change from “applicant for employment” to “supplicant for employment.” Nobody hires beggars.
Yes, the job search is a sales process, but you are not the product. The bag of skills, abilities, and experience that you bring to the job is the product.
So there you have it—five of the worst mistakes you could possibly make relative to the job search.