Choosing a career coach

Most of the resumes that I receive nowadays come from job seekers using a career coaching service.  They may receive advise from an outplacement company hired by their employer, or they may have hired someone themselves. 

We have always received unsolicited resumes, but it now seems like using an outside agency is becoming standard practice.  That can be great for recruiters because it allows us to decide whether to hit the delete key with much more accuracy. 

If you want to set yourself apart from the pack and enhance your ability to network, you have to choose the right company.  Here are some things to look for in a coach:

1. How will their presentation of your credentials set you apart from the pack?
2. Do they offer access to networks that they have nurtured themselves?
3. Would you feel comfortable considering a complete change in the direction of you career, if advised by your coach?

Notice, that I do not refer to resume templates, databases, mail merges and other such basic tools.  Talking about those items as differentiators is like saying a telephone and a laptop make you an outstanding consultant. 

If you want to reach a new audience in a new way, you will need a creative, well-connected counselor, who you can trust like you would your doctor.

Contact Jason Sanders

The Art of Laying People Off

A friend of mine recently called to tell me that she had been laid off by a huge beverage manufacturer. She was still in shock when she called, but I heard the first signs of anger developing. She began to blame her boss, became confused at the seeming arbitrariness of the decision, and could not understand why they needed her to continue to work in a demoralized state.


According to Guy Kawasaki's article, "The Art of Laying People Off," this company violated rule #11, if not others.


If you find yourself advising top management about cutting staff, you will definitely want to check this out.


Contact Jason Sanders

Compensation after the Sale of a Business

A lot of companies have been struggling lately, and I expect we will see quite a few of them selling divisions, or even being acquired. As a consultant, you may find your clients figuring out how best to retain valuable talent. As a line manager, you may need to oversee an organization as it is downsized, merged, or phased out. As an employee, you will certainly be thinking about your long-term future with the company.

After you hear the news, you will start thinking about how to make the most of this situation. You will want to insure your clients’, employees’, or your own compensation for a period of time. It can be difficult to negotiate during such times, so seeking advice from an attorney, or career counselor will stand you in good stead.

Take a look at this article for some ideas to consider if you find yourself in this situation:

My Employer is Selling My Division....

Contact Jason Sanders

Hiring Opportunities during Difficult Times

What is your hiring strategy for 2009? If you are holding tight and waiting for the storm to pass, you may want to reconsider. No business stands still. Like sharks, we either move forward and live, or stop swimming and die.


You may be laying people off, or may even see your own job threatened. One suggestion: never, ever, ever, ever, ever ignore your hiring strategy. You may need to reassess your direction, or the types of people you hire. You may not be able to afford additional salaries right now, but there are good reasons why you should keep an eye on growth.


When you plan your next hire, you express your vision for your organization and for yourself. Considering where to go next, how to get there and what kind of help you need keeps you in growth mode. Planning for the future should keep you a step ahead of your competition. It will also give you the strength to make through a down time. Sacrificing for the future is invigorating, sacrificing for its own sake is enervating.


Your emotional connection to your business is critical to your success. Hiring and growth builds those bonds, but there are other good reasons to consider your next hires.


1. Cheap Labor. If you have liquidity right now, you can probably find some bargain stock in undervalued companies. Similarly, if you have the budget, you will find some great deals in the labor market in the coming months. If you have a stable platform, you may be able to make a strong hire. Strategic hiring may increase your top line sales, or cut costs and increase you bottom line. I have already seen an increasing flow of resumes from talented people looking for new positions. Many have expressed the flexibility to consider reasonable offers, instead of pushing for increased compensation. Don’t be too cheap though. You gain loyalty for having hired someone out of a tight spot. This will vanish though, if you take advantage of a new employees urgent need.


2. Upgrades. When times are good, it can be difficult to recruit top talent. The best people are too busy to interview, and may see no advantage in leaving their company to join yours. If your company is stable, you may have something to offer that cannot be matched by more aggressive, riskier firms. I have seen many great employees forsake entrepreneurial ventures for reliable work, given the right economic situation.


As much as you may hate to admit it, your company may not have a stellar reputation among potential candidates. They may view your firm as bureaucratic, less prestigious or lacking growth opportunities. Now is your opportunity to change that perception! If you take advantage of the opportunity to hire star-quality professionals, they will foster new ideas. They will also attract the best people and create an upward spiral of increased capability and quality.


3. Morale. New hires usually come in with an enthusiastic attitude. They challenge existing employees and usually have a passion that may have gone stale in your team. This is particularly true during a recession. People’s fear and uncertainty may take precedence over their dedication and interest in their work.


Perhaps more importantly, hiring energizes the line manager. New team members will challenge and stimulate your thinking. You will also have the opportunity to mentor someone new and foster their success. Managers must motivate their people, and hiring will have that effect if used in the right way.


4. Succession and promotion. If you are planning for future growth, you will need to replace yourself. Someone has to fill your shoes, before you can take a new, more senior role. You may need to make a strong case with your bosses before they promote you in a down market. Successful strategic hiring will show your management that you can operate effectively during difficult times. Even if you cannot bring new people aboard, a slowdown may provide you with a little more time to mentor people, creating the opportunity to move ahead when the time is right.



If this article leaves you frustrated that you cannot do more about your hiring strategy, check back next week.

Contact Jason Sanders

Should I let a recruiter negotiate my salary?

”The more you get paid, the more I get paid, so I am incented to help you get the highest possible package.”

I have had the good fortune of facilitating the hire of many outstanding candidates. Almost any recruiter will tell you that we love extending offers and helping companies negotiate salaries. As a hiring manager or as a candidate, you may be able to get a lot of value from your recruiter throughout the search process. During a negotiation, however, you have an opportunity to make a hire, or secure a new position on better terms by using a recruiter.

Many professionals, who regularly negotiate complex business deals, become shy when it comes to settling on a good compensation package. Even if you are confident in your ability, what can you get out of using a recruiter to help you?

As you probably know, recruiters generally base their fee on a percentage of a candidate’s first year income. When asked about this personal interest, most recruiters will offer you some form of the statement, “My fee is based on your compensation. We are in this together!”

This is absolutely true, and you can use this fact to your benefit.

Using a recruiter allows you to get the best possible deal, while avoiding the need to confront your new potential employer or employee. You can be much more demanding with a recruiter, and if they are good at their job, they will be able to help you without create unnecessary tension. The recruiter will help you test the limits and better understand whether you are getting the best possible deal.

What a recruiter will probably not tell you is, “I am most interested in getting this deal to happen regardless of compensation package.”

Ultimately, recruiters get paid to make placements. They may create a lot more value than that simple transaction, and retained search professionals may receive their fee whether or not they fill a position. Nevertheless, a recruiter loses money or jeopardizes their reputation every time an offer fails to produce a hire.

Once you recognize the recruiter’s is more interested in placing you than in increasing your income, does that mean you should just deal with the company directly? Absolutely not! In fact, you can use this self-interest to your advantage and get a lot more out of the negotiation than you could if you went directly to your new potential employer.

Contact Jason Sanders

What Candidates Tell Me: Simple Hiring Errors and How to Correct Them, part two

You have invested a lot of time and money bringing the best candidates in to interview. Make a great impression by avoiding some common errors. *

Would you rather have them say, “They seem ready to make me an offer after only one interview day, but I am not sure I am ready to commit,” OR “They have offered to have me meet more people, but I don’t think I need to?”

TIP: Offer opportunities to speak with others. Hiring managers that exclude others from interviewing generally do so for two reasons: 1) Pressing business needs require a rapid decision. And to a lesser degree, 2) they want to maintain tight control over the hiring process. Making good hiring decisions and attracting senior candidates takes time. In order to wait for an outstanding candidate, you must have a strong interim business plan. This provides leverage and a greater sense of security. You will recruit better talent, and put yourself in a stronger negotiating position when you decide to make an offer.

Some managers have difficulty giving up control of their interview process. If you are conscious of this tendency, you have probably begun to address it already. Remember, if you are a competent leader, your people will represent you and your organization well. If you feel they create a poor impression, you have a bigger issue to solve before bringing new hires on board.

Would you rather have them say, “I think they are going to make me an offer, but I am not sure if I want the job.” OR “I am interviewing with a number of firms, but this is my first choice if they make the right offer?”

TIP: I believe that no offer should be made without a commitment to accept it. I realize this cannot be the case in every circumstance, but it should be the standard that we try to achieve. You should try to understand your candidate’s true interest level. You want to avoid extending an offer, sitting back and waiting for an acceptance, then getting rejected. Checking your candidate’s interest will help you close the deal, and, if not, will at least give you useful feedback that you can use in subsequent interviews.

Would you rather have them say, “She thought I was interviewing for a manager job, when I am a director already,” OR “They have not told me the level yet, but I am willing to make an investment in the company, if the compensation and responsibilities are appropriate?”

TIP: Get the level right, or don’t commit. Many candidates fall on the line between two levels. You may also find yourself interviewing someone without having fully prepared for a meeting. In either case, do not discuss the title, and keep an open mind. Presenting the wrong level will surely turn off good candidates.You should also discuss the appropriate title with your recruiter. Generally, we are good at discussing information and impressions about a prospective employer. When it comes to talking with a candidate that does not fit neatly, we need strong, clear guidance from clients to avoid miscommunication.

Part three of this article next week……

Contact Jason Sanders

*This article contains actual statements made during post-interview debriefings

Each time one of my candidates goes on an interview, I receive feedback about a client organization, their job opening, and the personal impression they create. I generally hear good things about my clients, but I am sometimes surprised to hear that they make a few very basic errors.

Most hiring managers think of interviewing as a chance to gather information about a new potential hire. They also recognize that they represent their organizations, and want to create a great impression with candidates. If you avoid some obvious pitfalls and follow some basic steps, you will maximize your potential to outdo your competition, and hire the best candidates.

When a recruiter debriefs people that you have interviewed, would you rather have them say, “They didn’t even have my resume and had to scramble to find a copy.” OR “The interviewer asked a lot of direct questions about my background?”

If you have read this far, you are unlikely to make the basic mistake of failing to prepare for an interview. If you simply take five minutes, or even three, you will put yourself in the right frame of mind. Make sure you have a resume, if you have received one. Take a look at it. It’s that simple.

Would you rather have them say, “He barely asked me any questions; he seemed to just want to talk about his organization,” OR “I feel like they have enough information to evaluate whether I am a cultural fit?”

TIP: Ask at least a few well-thought out questions. The biggest mistake candidates make is to over talk an interview. Make sure you do not make this mistake as an interviewer. Prepare some specific questions beforehand, or just have your boilerplate ready. When you interview politely, but incisively, you will leave your candidates with the impression that you are competent and thorough.

Would you rather have them say, “It sounded really great, but I need to check with my friends to see what their reputation is in the marketplace,” OR “They definitely told me about some challenges they are facing, and I think I can help?”

TIP: Provide realistic information, including drawbacks at your company. Certainly don’t dwell on the negative, but tell your candidates that you understand and are dealing with issues that your organization faces. Every company has warts. Painting too rosy a picture will diminish your credibility, and send your candidates away looking for answers. On the other hand, framed properly, obstacles may present interesting challenges for your best candidates to tackle.

Part two of this article next week……

Contact Jason Sanders

*This article contains actual statements made during post-interview debriefings

Passive Job Seeking?

Far too many people take a passive approach to job search, even when they are actively looking for a new position. Specifically, I mean job seekers may apply to specific positions, but many times do not do enough to create their own action.

The Ladders, a website devoted to job seekers, has a very useful article about creating your own position. The author offers some good ideas about how to think about a job search. You should avoid thinking about your search as an application process, and start thinking about it as a sales process.

The Ladders article stops short of discussing how you begin. Yes, change your perception, but then what. I believe you need to create a theme for your candidacy. You can find an excellent article about this step at Marketing Headhunter, Robert DeNiro on Interviewing.

Your next steps will be to set up your sales process, and execute. That, however is for a future post.

Contact Jason Sanders

Beyond the Best Interview Question Ever

I was asked whether a group of interviewers should all use “the best interview question,” if they were interviewing the same candidate on the same day.

I would recommend against such a course of action. This specific line of questioning is an excellent tool. Using it multiple times with the same candidate, however, will not get your all the information you want, and may create a poor impression with the candidate.

If you have the time and capability, I would suggest a coordinated approach to an interview day, directing each executive to pursue a different line of questioning. This will give you more information and create the impression that you have a team that communicates and executes effectively.

Some suggestions for topics:

1. A case study. This does not need to be formalized like you might expect of a recent MBA grad, but it may be theoretical. You could take one of your own client problems, for example, to test critical thinking in a real life setting.

2. Allow the candidate to ask you questions. The types of questions he asks will tell you about his values.

3. A casual conversation, or fit interview. A discussion of topics outside of work will give you information you can use to attract the candidate, and you will begin to get a feeling for how he interacts on a more personal level.

4. Standard career progression. This is very basic but I use it very often as an orienting interview. I simply start from a candidate's degree and work forward. I look for the person's career trajectory and extrapolate what his next step might be. I find this very useful as a recruiter, since it provides me a lot of information that my clients will ask about.

Contact Jason Sanders

Wachovia and what to do with all those excess candidates.

Most hiring companies make the fundamental mistake of managing their pipeline poorly. The inability to reject candidates, and to provide a reason leads to many problems with the recruiting process. One solution is to appoint a person specifically tasked to handle this problem. I suggested one solution in the my article, “The Candidate Advocate.”

Poor candidate management creates a negative impression of your company in the marketplace. If you handle someone’s candidacy poorly, they are less likely to apply to your company again, or buy its products or services. A job applicant requires as good, or better customer service than you would provide a valued client. Any contact you have with a potential customer should be turned to your advantage whenever possible.

Wachovia Bank posts 600 to 800 jobs per week, and averages 10,000 job applicants, declining almost 90% of those.1 This puts Wachovia in the precarious situation of potentially creating 9,000 bad impressions.

Wachovia, however, has introduced a system to deliver rapid feedback to applicants, along with a suggestion that may be helpful in their job search. In her article, “Too Many Candidates?” Leslie Stevens argues that the bank uses this system to create a good impression of their recruiters.

I would go one step further and say that they create a good impression of the bank, overall. This puts Wachovia in the enviable position of making lemons from lemonade. They use rejected job applicants as a way to access new clients for their bank.


Contact Jason Sanders



1 Leslie Stevens, “Too Many Candidates?” ERE.net, September 1, 2008.

Telecommuting

Many bosses worry about their employees living away from their workplace. CNN.com just printed another article touting the fears of bosses about their virtual employees.

In the consulting business, working remotely has simply become a fact of life. Consultants expect their teams at client sites most days of the week. Most firms have put structures in place to ensure the sooth operation of this system.

Here are just a few:

• A strong technological infrastructure
  
• Clearly defined work expectations and goals
  
• Culture building time together
  
• An ability to let go.
  

Let’s face it. Telecommuting is not going away. We need to find a way to manage it most effectively, and imitating business consultants may be a good way to start.

Contact Jason Sanders

The Best Interview Question Ever, part two

If you choose this question as a starting point, you create a theme for an entire interview. If there is time, you should dig more deeply by asking questions that qualify your candidates’ response. In the case of a consulting project, some of these questions might be:

What were the dimensions of the project? How was it sold? How long did it last?

What was the makeup of the delivery team?

What was your role in the assignment?

What was the overall business impact of the assignment? This is a critical question to assess your candidates’ understanding of the connection between their work and the goals of their clients.

Why were you chosen for this assignment?

What challenges did you face and how did you overcome them?

Which elements of the project did you enjoy, and which didn’t you enjoy?

How did you grow as a person during the course of the assignment?

What did you learn from your client, and what did you teach your client?


When you begin with a strong open-ended question, you lead with a very powerful analytical tool. You can gather a lot of information in a short period of time. You also create an anchor, around which to base a longer interview.

This question makes it easy to structure your interview by introducing a theme for the meeting. Preparing interview questions is always a good idea, but even without an organized approach, you now have something to refer back to. If your candidate begins to wander away from the topic, you will be able to steer the conversation, and learn about the candidate’s ability to stay focused at the same time.

The questions you ask are less important than how you listen to the answers. You may find, for example, that a person needs a lot of prompting. This may mean that they have not accomplished much, or it may mean that they are introverted, or maybe they have not interviewed in years and are a bit rusty. Your evaluation must be flexible according to the circumstances, and other bits of information you gather.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, you may find that your interviewee cannot stop talking about their work. Most hiring managers respond poorly to people who talk excessively, and with good reason. While overtalking may make a person sound prideful, the opposite is usually the case. It also shows an inability to rapidly synthesize information, and in the worst cases, may be rude to the interviewer.

This question provides you with a firm grounding to begin, and to guide an interview. You should challenge a person, but also make them comfortable enough to reveal themselves. Your questions, and your style give candidates an impression of what it will be like to work for you. Take advantage of every opportunity to leave a good impression.

Using this question puts you in position to gather information and to ask smart follow up questions. It serves as a kind of interviewing cheat sheet, which helps you get around some of the preparatory work, like reading a resume. Don’t misunderstand me; reading a candidate’s resume is extremely important. If you are caught off guard, however, you can refer back to this question without tipping your hand.

In order to make a good hire, you need to check many different aspects of a candidate’s background, skills, personality, cultural fit and drive. You will need to use different approaches to get all the information that you want. Somewhere in the process, though, you ought to ask this question. You may get more than you expected.

Contact Jason Sanders

The Best Interview Question Ever, part one

I spend a lot of my time interviewing high quality candidates, as you might imagine. Candidates talk with me about their career progression, skills, and experiences. Usually, I am most interested in understanding what motivates a person. That discussion generally provides the most relevant information to screen, and to attract excellent candidates. When you interview a candidate, you will need to balance both objectives in order to make a good hiring decision.

Normally, I spend about two hours total interviewing a candidate. Ideally, these conversations are broken down into an initial phone screen and a face-to-face interview. We cover many topics, including personal ones, and a general career history. But what if you don’t have two hours to spend evaluating a candidate? What if you only have twenty minutes, or maybe only five? How do you get the most information in the least amount of time? In short, what is the best interview question you can possibly ask?

You must accomplish a number of things to make smart hiring decisions. You need to find out about the candidates’ primary skills, their general experience, their ability to synthesize information, their ability to present well and think on their feet, their people skills, and their fit into your organization. In truth, you will never fully evaluate a person until you work together. You can cover a lot of ground in a short period of time, though, using this question:

What is your most significant professional accomplishment?

This question has the advantage of leading to a very short answer, or a very long one. It may put your candidates at ease, or make them sweat. You may learn about your candidates’ values, their self-esteem and their cultural fit. You will certainly learn about their ability to communicate, and think on their feet, or prepare well for interviews. If you listen well, you may be able to sort out sincerity from pretense. You may be able to tell how they view themselves in relation to a team. You may also be able to learn about the person’s overall drive.

You can use this interview question for any level candidate, and use it according to your own style. If you prefer, you may remain silent after asking the question, or you may use it as a basis for many follow up questions.

Next time: How to use this question as the basis for a longer interview

Contact Jason Sanders

How should I use my resume?

Part 3 of a 3 part article

Resumes serve an important function in preparing your career development. The simple action of writing a resume will refresh your memory about your accomplishments and outline a foundation for the future.

When you begin a job search, or if you are approached about an opportunity, it makes sense to reveal your resume over time. There are three basic steps to revealing your career in writing, though they may be combined in any given step. In certain instances, it will make sense to provide all the information up front, or to split it up in one or two pieces.

The divisions are:
1. Brief bio. This could be anything from a sentence, to a paragraph, to a page. It basically tells the person who you are in a very specific sense. It could be a line or two in an email. For example, “I am a twenty-year veteran of multiple SAP implementations in the CPG industry. I have had many different roles, including running all aspects of a multi-year, $50 MM program.” Another might read, “I am the CIO of a $500MM medical products company, with a history of management consulting with a Big Six professional services firm.” You should provide enough information, so that your audience develops a curiosity about you, but doesn’t know your whole life story. If a recruiter has a position in your area, she will call to gather more information, giving you an opportunity for an initial connection. If there is no job that fits your background, you will have saved everyone time and effort.

2. Curriculum Vitae or CV. This is a step-by-step outline of your responsibilities and accomplishments. It should show how you have gotten from there to here. Interviewers will take an interest in how you began your career and the choices you have made along the way. This document includes information like: companies you worked for with dates, your titles, number of people managed, sales or budget numbers, education, article, presentations and personal interests.

This document allows you to communicate information to let a recruiter, or hiring manager develop a two-dimensional, but important impression of you. You may come off as highly educated, or very pragmatic. You may look like a big company person, or an entrepreneur. You may look like a job hopper, or a steady-Eddie. Your ability to guide someone’s impression with your CV is fairly limited, because your career history is generally straightforward. You should aim for clarity and brevity in this document.

3. Project resume. Your project resume gives you the most flexibility to present your capabilities to a prospective employer. You may add or exclude items based on the specific opportunity and the impression you want to create. It is a good idea to keep a running list of your projects to give you a basis for creating shorter versions, as needed.

The project resume may be included with the CV to provide an overall package of information to a potential employer. You may also hold it back to present to the right person at the appropriate time. A resume screener, for example, may not be the right person to share these details with. You might bring this document to an interview as basis for a presentation. It will vary depending on individual circumstances.

This document is also important to give you an opportunity to review your past accomplishments in preparation for interview questions. It should clearly outline business or revenue impact of five to ten projects. It should be about two pages long.

While there are no absolutes in resume writing, a general formula may be helpful. Considering your own brand identity and how you present it, is a crucial part of your job search.

You may find resume templates in my brief article: “How Recruiters Read Your Resume.”

Contact Jason Sanders

What should my resume say?

Part 2 of a 3 part article

A properly constructed resume shows your career progression and highlights your professional accomplishments. They generally fall into these parts, listed in descending order of importance:

1. Job responsibilities,


2. Business accomplishments, such as specific projects,


3. Education,


4. Awards and professional recognition,


5. Professional goals,


6. Personal interests.

Your resume will have various uses and different audiences. You will probably need more than one version to provide an appropriate view of yourself in various situations. This does not mean that you should create different versions of yourself, just different ways of looking at the same person. For example, a recruiter needs some basic information to make a rapid decision about your general fit. You should not provide the intimate details of every project to that person. On the other hand a hiring manager will have more interest in the specifics, but here too you must keep his attention span in mind.

In looking for a new position, you should view your resume as a document that provides enough information to prepare you and your audience for a direct discussion. It should clear the path, not become the center of attention. You will distract your audience, if you create an unclear, lengthy or overly detailed resume.

You may find resume templates in the brief article: “How Recruiters Read Your Resume.”

Next Entry: How should I use my resume?

Contact Jason Sanders

Should I write a resume? YES!

Part 1 of a 3 part article

“Why is it important for me to have a resume, if I am not looking for a job?” For a few reasons:

1. You never know when you will receive a call from a recruiter to discuss an excellent opportunity, and you want to have something prepared. Frankly, this is a pretty weak reason. You generally don’t want to make your resume too available anyway.


2. Your resume reflects your career history and helps you define yourself. Nothing sells success, like success. If you know what you have accomplished, you can relate to others quickly and powerfully. Knowing yourself builds confidence.


3. It will help you set the course for your future. The process of resume writing will create ideas. It gives us the time to reflect, and hopefully provides the opportunity to think about the future. You will also uncover questions about yourself. While this may cause some discomfort, it also creates the opportunity to solicit the advice of others. In the best case, reflecting on your past accomplishments provides you with raw materials to advance your career.

You may find resume templates in the brief article:“How Recruiters Read Your Resume.”

Next Entry: What should my resume say?

Contact Jason Sanders

Candidate! Use your recruiter wisely.

In previous posts, I discussed how to get the attention of an executive recruiter. When you get to a stage in your career where you need to find a new position, one of your first calls will probably be to a headhunter. If you want that person to help you, develop the relationship over time. You can find helpful tips in the post, “Executive recruiters love you!”

Assuming that you have the ear of a recruiter, know what you want out of the call ahead of time. Rule number one: Do not presume that the recruiter has a job with your name written on it! The recruiter probably does not have an open position that fits you, and even if he does, you should never make that assumption. Instead start with something smaller.

1. Gather market information. Flatter us by telling us that we have important insights, then learn what you can about your target market


2. Ask for informational contacts. Depending on your relationship, the recruiter may be open to putting you in touch with someone else in your field. For example, if you are a VP of CRM for a consumer products company, your recruiter may know an expert consultant or author in that field. That person may not have an open job, but they could be a great networking contact.


3. Keep in mind how we get paid. Employers pay our fees, not candidates. Headhunters are not talent agents. We provide a service to our clients, and you are our product. While you might get some mileage out of a long-standing relationship, do not assume that we will market you.


4. Keep in mind how we get paid, part 2. Ultimately, we get paid for making matches. If we have the ability to make a match for a fee, we will work on your behalf. If there is no fee involved, it is unlikely that we will make an introduction.


5. Avoid making the review of your resume the most important reason for the call. It is very easy for us to accept a resume and not call back. The line, “I just want to send you my resume,” lets us off the hook.

Contact Jason Sanders

Headhunters Love You!

If you have good relationships with recruiters, you almost certainly exhibit many, if not all of the following behaviors.

1. You return calls. Yes it is our job to hunt you down, but if it takes more than two or three calls to get you, you may not get called in the future.


2. You have important information. People ask us for market intelligence all the time. Our best source is you, and we are happy to share what we know.


3. You provide referrals. This is a good way to stay at the top of a recruiters call list. Careful to provide quality though; one great call is better than five calls to slog through for one good candidate.


4. You are not afraid to get personal. We ask questions and interview people about their jobs all day long. It is always nice to learn something more about a person outside of work. It is a welcome change to share a bit about our world, if you care to ask.


5. You value our input. Many clients treat us like simple providers of resumes, or bodies or even talent. The best of us, however, have a lot to add based on our experience working directly in your field. We may have market insights, or we may have psychological insights, and we probably have some basis for comparing candidates or hiring companies.


6. You have an outstanding professional background. If you are great at what you do, we want to know you.


7. You change jobs every three to seven years. If you change every two years, you are a job-hopper. At ten years, you have probably become a company man. There are variables, but three to seven keeps you moving ahead and keeps us employed.


8. You are a prospective client. Our best candidates become clients, and vice versa. This doesn’t need to be expressed, though, unless you have a clear need.


9. You return calls. Sometimes it can be as simple as that!
   

Contact Jason Sanders

Hiring Manager! Use your recruiter wisely.

If you are like most hiring managers, you view your recruiter as a source of resumes and interviews. If you want to maximize your recruiter’s effectiveness, you need to help her manage her talent pipeline, and take advantage of her market insights and knowledge of candidates.

The most important thing you can do to help your recruiter bring you great talent is to make clear decisions, communicate them, and take action. Unwillingness to say no to good, but not great, a candidate is the primary mistake that hiring managers make. If you put candidates on hold, you block your pipeline and your recruiter becomes frustrated that you aren’t pulling the trigger on anyone. Or else, he becomes complacent, figuring that you will hire someone, while he moves on to more urgent projects.

As a hiring manager you are very bus, and sometimes focus on your own projects, sometimes to the detriment of your recruiting efforts. In order to help manage the process during a prolonged hiring initiative, you should consider appointing a person specifically to this task. I devoted an article to the discussion of this new position, “The Candidate Advocate.”

Once you have your pipeline under control, you are free to gather the knowledge and insights that your recruiter has to offer.


Next Entry: How a candidate should use a recruiter


Contact Jason Sanders

Headhunters Hate You!

In the course of your business life, you will undoubtedly piss a few people off. Recruiters, by nature, look for the best in people. We make our living by perceiving you in a positive light and representing you to our clients. Like any salespeople with integrity, we want to have confidence in our product. We want to believe in you!

Still, there are people who we don’t just ignore, but who actively avoid. “Hate” may be too strong a word, but you will definitely cause some eye rolling on the other end of the line, if you exhibit the following behaviors:

1. You expect too much. Please don’t call me and expect me to find you a job. As a retained executive search professional, clients call on me to find individuals with very specific backgrounds. Candidates that do not fit our positions may still be valued contacts, but we work for clients, not for candidates.


2. You talk too much. You need to check yourself any time you interview for a new position. Recruiters may have more tolerance than hiring managers, but don’t be abusive. Ask your audience if you are giving them what they need. I would say to pause your conversation every couple of minutes would be a good rule of thumb. You might ask, “Is this helpful? Do you need more or less detail?”


3. You oversell. We want to know that you are excellent, but we also want to believe what you say. Present your credentials to us, but keep in mind we speak with people like you everyday. You need to differentiate yourself, but you can’t fool us into believing you are something that you are not.


4. You don’t listen. Enough said.


5. You say one thing and do another. Don’t make promises you cannot keep and set expectations appropriately.


6. You treat us like “friends of convenience.” You get in touch when you need a job, but don’t help us network. Networking is our life’s blood. Take our call!
   

Contact Jason Sanders

Headhunters Ignore You!

More often than not, I take a proactive role in approaching my networking contacts. I view this as my job as a recruiter and expect a certain ratio of return calls to placed calls. I also expect a certain number of unsolicited calls, and many unsolicited resumes.

We are organized enough to be able to respond to unsolicited resumes, but many firms do not care to answer most inbound inquiries.

If you cannot get the ear of a recruiter, it may be for a number of reasons. Here are some to think about:

1. You call without a direct reference. Knowing someone who knows the recruiter is extremely effective. We make our living based on referrals from others, and most of us will reciprocate.


2. You do not define yourself well. We don’t have time to waste, but we are always happy to have more “inventory.” A foggy presentation, however, won’t do you or us any good.


3. You do not know what you want. If you have a very specific message, you have a greater chance of getting our attention.


4. Your resume looks just like everyone else’s. If you are creative, or have the right help, you have an easy way to differentiate yourself from the start.


5. You do not look like an outstanding candidate. We make our living by knowing the best people in your field. Why are you one of them?


6. You have caught us at the wrong moment. Persistence pays off.


7. Finally, your expertise does not match with our specialty. If you approach a recruiter, you need to know what they focus on.

Apart from our retained search services, we provide counseling to executives actively engaged in a job search. Feel free to get in touch for more information.

Contact Jason Sanders

Hiring Friends

The best way to begin to ensure cultural fit is for someone at the hiring company to know the candidate. This provides an instant reference and provides a high comfort level. Most hires are made through this kind of internal referral.

There are pitfalls though.

The comfort level created can prevent companies and candidates from going through the necessary due diligence. The candidate may not meet as many interviewers, interviewers may have a positive bias toward the candidates, and references may not be checked. This can lead to the dual problems of losing a new hire, and damaging existing relationships.


Have you ever experienced the hire of a professional colleague that didn’t work out?

Contact Jason Sanders

Standardized Testing

I always enjoyed standardized tests. I did well on my SATs and my GREs. Don’t ask for numbers, I’m not getting into a pissing contest.

On the other hand, many of my friends hated these exams. They didn’t “test well.”

One of my clients uses standardized testing for all new hires, including the most senior positions in the firm. They believe so strongly in this method, that they have failed many excellent candidates based on the results.

Despite my own track record and the belief of my one client, I recommend against personality testing in favor of a less rigid approach. I trust a well-constructed interview process, more than I trust an exam. I also think it sends a negative impression to senior executive candidates.

Have you ever undergone a personality test as part of an interview process? How did it work out?

Contact Jason Sanders

Race and Sex

While I have seen many instances of benign age discrimination, I have rarely seen race, gender or sexual orientation used as qualifiers.

There have been exceptions. I can think of a search where a company was looking to differentiate its onshore outsourcing offering, from similar offshore offerings. In this case, the client did not want to hire Indian or Chinese salespeople because the whole the firm competed specifically with companies based in those countries.

I was a bit hesitant about taking the search. I had a conversation with one of my Indian partners, and beat around the bush a bit, in the same way the client did with me. My new partner said, ”Ok, so you don't want an Indian, you are looking for an American, right?” Despite my discomfort, he seemed completely unphased by the conversation.

I have had clients tell me it would be great to have a woman or a minority as a new employee. From what I can tell, though, I have never had a client use race or gender as a deciding factor to hire, or not to hire a candidate.

As far as sexual orientation goes, I can only think of two times where candidates made me aware that they were gay. They shared this with the client. One got the job, one didn’t. Again, I do not believe sexual orientation was a deciding factor in either case.

I hear so much about division in our country, but I just haven’t seen it, have you?

Contact Jason Sanders

So You Think You're Too Old?

Ageism is expressly forbidden by our legal system. So that means it doesn’t exist, right?

In my early days as a cub recruiter, I learned to use age as a qualifier right along with skills, compensation and career progression. We discussed age only in hushed tones, and were suprised to see date of birth emblazoned so prominently on foreign resumes. Age is most important as a component of career progression.

The fact is that accomplishment over time reveals a person’s career trajectory. This trajectory much more important than age, but they typically translate into the same thing. If someone becomes CIO at 40, that person’s ability to accomplish more during their career is greater than the CIO at 55. It also indicates a record of achievement at an earlier age, and hence, better prospects for the future.

It stands to reason, that if you have a search that requires a CIO with five years experience, you will choose the 45-year-old, who now has five years on the job, over the 60 year old, who has the same experience in that role.

Shouldn’t we just be honest about the way we use age as a qualifier?

Contact Jason Sanders

Habitual Job Hopping

Job hoppers are great for recruiters. Every time they make a change there is a fee to be made. But is job hopping good for you?

Surprisingly, it may be. But there are qualifiers.

If you are a programmer or an architect and you want to build your skills, job hop.

If you are a sales person trying to stay ahead of new technologies, job hop.

If you are an aspiring CIO, job hop, but do it smartly.

Most executives resumes that I review have between five and ten different employers, depending on age. This is a good thing. You build skills and open new opportunities when you change jobs.

If you want to advance in your career, you will probably want to change jobs every three to seven years. Leave a number of positions sooner than three years and you will show lack of commitment. At seven years, you may find it difficult to leave, and many recruiters shy away from recruiting candidates with more than ten years at one company; especially larger companies. We used to call these people, “company men.” Their skill sets may be too specific to that company, and their work style may be difficult to change.

What do you think, job hoppers? What do you think company men and women?

Contact Jason Sanders

Euphemisms

As I mentioned in the previous post, no one wants to admit to ba firing. The hiring manager doesn’t want to because your failure is his failure. HR doesn’t want to because it can bring up legal issues. Recruiters don’t want to because it affects their ability to earn money by placing you. And you surely don’t want to.

The common interest in not admitting to a firing creates language that you can use to get around a direct discussion of the event. Here are some phrases used to blur the lines:

• We both agreed that I had completed the job.
  
• There was no more room for growth at that company.
  
• There was a change that made it difficult to remain with the company.


• The company made promises when I joined that they did not keep.


• I made a mistake by joining that company.

Of course, these explanations need to be modified to fit your own personal situation.

What are some creative explanations that you have heard from job seekers?

Contact Jason Sanders

Your Fired! Now What?

Most people I know have faced layoffs at some point in their career. Many have faced more than one.

The number of people that I know, who have been fired, I can count on one hand! How can that be? Have we become a country that supports incompetence and crushes individual competition?
I don't think so. I think we are a country that allows people a second chance. We do this by making each other feel like a dismissal is not a firing.

As a recruiter this is a great thing! How far would we get placing people, who have been fired? Companies, candidates and recruiters alike don't really want to admit to this necessary part of capitalist competition. It makes us all look bad.

So, if you have been fired, lick your wounds and get back out there. Work on your resume and start networking. You will find that most people are willing to accept a reasonable explanation for a recent departure without digging very deeply. Make sure you have good references though. Due diligence is important, even if it doesn’t uncover that one career blemish.

And when you interview, keep in mind that the people you meet probably have all been fired at some point in their career.

Have you ever known anyone who has made a great comeback after being fired?

Contact Jason Sanders

Welcome to Executive Search Insider

Check in here for information about all topics related to hiring and finding a new job.

The first topic for discussion is hiring for cultural fit.

I find that the sooner interviews begin to address issues of cultural fit, the more likely a company is to make good hiring choices. Cultural fit often determines whether a new hire will succeed or fail because noone can thrive in a hostile environment. On the other hand, a supportive environment will foster success even from a less experienced executive.

Here is an article I wrote on the topic: How to Screen for Cultural Fit

What have your experiences been as a hiring manager, or trying to fit into a new organization?

Contact Jason Sanders