Career Coach Office Hours: December 20 2022
By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter
I answered questions about job search, hiring staff, management, career transition, as well as workplace issues. Join me at 1 PM Eastern on Tuesdays on LinkedIn or YouTube (JobSearchTV.com channel). You can also message me on Linkedin before the show and I will answer it, too.
My Manager/Boss Found Out I’m Looking!
03:48
What are the introductory secrets of winning job search? Ooooh! Introductory secrets. I don’t screen these in advance. It’s done for me. So the first thing I want to say is everyone is posturing during a job search. You’re presenting yourself as probably having more knowledge and experience than you really do. Recruiters well do I have to say more? I was a recruiter for a long time. I was an honest one. But people tell me a lot of recruiters are exaggerating their claims too and the thing that most people don’t realize are that so are corporate hiring managers. So everyone’s posturing for an advantage during a job search. That’s one of the secrets most people don’t talk about. A second one is very few hiring managers are honest about why it is the person who sat at the desk they’re going to ask you to sit at once you join, why they left. So it’s an important question to ask them. And you can’t sound as though you’re being accusatory. And they probably will say something like, you know, so you asked the question, ‘So what happened to the last few people who were sitting at that desk? What prompted them to leave?’ ‘Well, they left for a better opportunity’. ‘Yeah, but what made it a better opportunity?’ And normally, they’ll give you some fluff. Every once in a while they’ll look you square in the eye and talk to you about the truth. And this can take a lot of different forms. But that’s one of the things that you’re looking for, is someone who look looks like they’re telling you the truth. And they’re giving you some hard stories about the disappointment that your predecessor had as they were working in that organization. So I’m giving you two secrets. I hope you find them helpful.
06:08
Can you get in trouble for suing over not getting hired when there was no interview process after your resume was submitted? Can I get into trouble? Into trouble. Those are the two words there that I think are most important. Can you get in trouble? I don’t know what lawyer would ever take a case like this. After all, you submitted a resume, they weren’t interested in talking to you. Was there anything that indicated that they were committing to talk to you? Probably not. So I’ll just simply say, suing for not getting an interview, I could see a judge ripping you a new a-hole for a frivolous lawsuit. I could see a lawyer say, ‘show us your resume and show us the job description. Now, great. Could you show us exactly how your background fits this role?’ And of course you can’t, because usually, the people who complain about this kind of stuff are not qualified to do this kind of work that they’re complaining they never got an interview for. So I’ll just simply say, can you get into trouble? The answer is probably no. And I have to in all candor say, you’re not going to go through with this. This is just a lot of talk. And no effort is gonna go into it. So just lick your wounds, start getting better, stop applying for jobs that you’re not qualified for. And stop expecting people are going to interview you because you want to be interviewed. And don’t threaten lawsuits when you don’t have the desire or ability to back it up.
Did The Recruiter Want Me to Fail?
08:07
Why do some job search candidates refuse to disclose their salary history? We (meaning the employer) want to ensure that these guys are really worth their market rate and you’re not asking for an exorbitant amount. Yet these candidates think that we are trying to shortchange them. Because you are. You can determine their value without knowing their compensation. That’s a fact. You can figure that out on your own. And the fact that they may be making significantly less than what you’re willing to pay them, well, frankly, you’re proving the point why more and more locales in the United States have made it illegal to ask what a person is currently earning. Because you want to know, and maybe you’re in a location where it’s not a legal question, in which case, it’s quite a heavy penalty if these people turn you in. So I’ll just simply say they don’t want to disclose because they understand how the game was rigged before. You want to give a percentage increase over what they’re currently earning. You don’t want to pay the real value. You’re making this around the idea of whether they’re really worth their market rate or not asking for an exorbitant amount. That’s BS. You just want to do it your way, because you’re afraid to really pay people what they’re worth to you. The fact that a person’s making $80,000 a year, and you’re willing to pay up to 125 for a job, that’s not their problem. The question you should be working on is what would make someone worth $125,000 to you and what do they need to know? what do they need to have done? Now, if they’re a developer, and this is a manager’s job, doing the same work that the developers doing, except they’re managing people, that might be a way that you can justify not paying them the 125. After all, you want someone who’s managed, they’re not qualified to do that, they may be worth on the basis of your organization $100,000, that’s okay. But you don’t need to know their salary in order to determine their real value, their market rate for you. And again, it’s not really about market rate. It’s about what their value is to you and your organization. After all, I’ll use the example, if you were on two interviews, and you didn’t disclose salary, and one firm offers you 115, another one offered your 145. Why do you think that is? They figured out what their what your value was to them. So when push comes to shove, you don’t need to know what they’re earning to figure out whether they’re worth, what they’re asking for. You just need to figure out what makes someone worth a certain amount of money in your thinking, and their salary is irrelevant to the equation.
11:38
If a job says they no longer want to continue the hiring process, should you reach out to them to reconsider? And what do you think you’re going to say that’s going to make them reconsider? I really want to come to work for you? And you start begging and pleading and cajoling. They no longer want to continue the hiring process. Was the position filled with someone else? Did they choose to hire someone else and not you? What are you going to say that’s going to make them reconsider? Give it up. They’re not interested in hiring or not interested in hiring you? Whatever it is, they’re just not interested. Move on, and get to another organization.
12:28
When evaluating a job candidate’s pre-employment background check report, should discrepancies such as inexact start or end dates for a job in the distant past, possibly due to the candidate’s forgetfulness of details, be a cause of failure? I’m gonna interpret failure as rejection. So the answer is no. How many of you remember exactly what month you started a position 10 years ago? Probably not that many people. So the fact of the matter is, when you’re evaluating someone’s background as part of a background check report, the fact that they don’t remember the date that they started or ended shouldn’t be a big whoop. Especially if they said, ‘I’m not exactly sure. I think it was approximately June of 2011. It was around then in my recollection because it was starting to get warm out. If I’m off by a month or two, I’m not trying to lie to you. I just don’t exactly remember when It was that I started. And if that’s an insurmountable barrier, I apologize. I’ll just simply say it’s the best I can do.’
Tough Interview Questions for Managers: What Qualities Are Most Important When Managing a Team
15:15
I finished the fourth round of interviews with the CEO today via zoom. Went well. When should I follow up via email regarding next steps? I think I answered this last week. It looks familiar. Let me just briefly say, when you should follow up, you should have asked in the interview when you should follow up so that this way, you don’t have to play guessing games. So I’ll just simply say if you had the interview on Friday, Tuesday’s fine. And I would message asking, you know, I felt that was a good interview. Do you have an idea of a timeline for an offer or next steps in the process? Just real simple. And if you don’t get a response, there’s a message in that. And I’m not going to go into more detail today. I think it was in Friday’s show. If not, it was last Tuesday’s.
16:29
What are some things you can do to ensure that a recruiter calls you back after your interview? Good question. I think that the most important thing you can do is to do well on your interview. Now, you can leave a message for someone and say, “I had an interview with so and so. It seemed to go very well. They seem to be impressed. Curious to see if that was true and if I’m reading this correctly, or have misread something. Please give me a call back. I’d appreciate it. My number is . . . or send me a text. Either way is fine. But just the idea of you should have asked during the interview when you might expect to hear back from them.
17:31
Does applying location affect competitiveness? For example, for a tech internship because everyone wants to go to the Bay Area. When applying for the same role in another country, assuming the country is rolling out both positions, help in passing resume stage. Location does affect whether or not they’re going to interview you. If the role is to useyour example, you live in the Bay Area, I’m sorry, the position’s in the Bay area and you live in Quebec, your location is problematic for them. They may not want to relocate someone. They may want to hire someone local currently and are not willing to relocate. As a result, I’ll just say yes, it does affect outcomes. It does affect opportunities. And thus, if you expect that someone’s going to relocate you, I believe you’re mistaken. So yes, it does have an effect.
4 Things to Do to Find Your Next C Level Job (And None of Them Involve Writing a Resume)
18:49
What does it mean when a recruiter tells you we put all our candidates through three rounds of interviews? What’s the purpose of doing this? Is there any way to find that who’s eventually hired and what their qualifications were? You won’t get a straight answer. Let me rephrase that, you probably won’t get an honest answer from them. So they’re telling you we put our candidates through three rounds of interviews in order to give you a sense of what the process is like, and how long that might take. That’s simple. What’s the purpose of doing this? To try to be courteous. Is there any way to find out who was eventually hired and what their qualifications were? Yeah, you can ask but I would tell you, if I were in the process of hiring, and I hired someone for this job. I wouldn’t tell you who they hired. What’s the point of that? Knowing the name? Is that going to do anything for you? No, of course not. But it can cause that person some consternation. So don’t ask about who they hired for this because it’s none of your business who they hired. Give it up. Move on. And you can find out what made them the first choice for being hired. Now, if you’re talking to corporate HR, they probably won’t give you an honest answer. They’ll say, ‘Oh, they’re probably stronger than you.’ And you’ll get some sort of a flat response, that doesn’t really tell you anything useful. So very simply, they’re telling you it’s going to be three rounds, because they’re trying to give you a sense of the process and their timeline. Not the best way to do it, but it is what they did. And they try to give you an idea.
21:01
William, thank you. ‘Very honest, and authentic insights.’ I appreciate that. It’s exactly what I try and do. You know, as I said, earlier, people hire me for no BS career advice. And most of what people read or watch on different platforms is bull. As someone, someone was a recommendation for me on LinkedIn this week, and they talked about being able to come to me for advice that was useful and I didn’t have a vested interest in what the choice was that they were going to make. And that was absolutely true. After all, the hiring firm has a vested interest. They want to fill a position. Their current employer has a vested interest, they don’t want to lose someone. There was an agency recruiter involved; they’ve got a fee involved. They don’t want to lose a fee anymore than you want to lose your salary. So yeah, I tried to do this because frankly, very few people do. And I come with real-world experience, because I worked as a recruiter for many, many years. And in doing so, I filled a lot of positions, and I tried to do it the right way for most of my career. So William, thank you for for pointing that out to people. I really do appreciate it. And if you’ve got a question for me, just put it in the chat. I’d be very happy to answer for you.
22:32
What do recruiters look for during interviews with candidates who’ve already been rejected by other companies? The fact that they were rejected by other companies should be irrelevant, to a firm when they are interviewing. Unless, and I remember this vividly from my second interview, when I started as a recruiter. I had been trained and one of the things that you ask someone is where you’ve been on interviews, and I was stunned with his person rattled off 19 places. And they were, I think, the person worked for Borden and they were a developer. And they were interviewing at 19 quality organizations, just like Borden was at that time. And he’d been turned down by all of them. The message that my manager told me to take was, he’s not that good. And that’s the message that they will take if you’ve done a lot of interviews and haven’t been hired. So what do they look for with candidates variety been rejected by other companies? They want to know if you fit what they need. The fact that you were rejected by another firm shouldn’t have any impact on whether or not you’re qualified to do a job for them. And thus, if you’re asked where you’ve been on interviews, the correct response is to say, ‘I’ve been on a number of different places. I haven’t really been satisfied or they haven’t really been satisfied. And I’m still looking for something else.’ ‘Where have you been so far?’ ‘I don’t know that that’s really relevant. I’ll just simply say as I did before, I’ve been to a number of different places. I wasn’t . . . I turned down two offers. I just wasn’t interested in the role involved, or the money was too low. In addition, there are a couple of places that weren’t interested in me’ but I wouldn’t go into any sort of detail about where you’d been on interviews. And if they ask you, ‘So where have you been on interviews so far?’ ‘That’s really relevant. Nor do I want to disclose it. I’ll just simply say, I have not been in a situation where either a firm or I had been completely satisfied with a particular position’ and move on from there.
25:29
I applied for a job online. Two hours after submitting my application, the job was taken down off the site, What could this mean? It means they forgot to take it down. It’s probably that simple. It’s been sitting up there for a while, they feel that they forgot to take it down. You know, remember, keeping their own website up to date may not be the most important thing to them. They have, and not just posting jobs and interviewing and talking to hiring managers. They’re often writing reports, and doing a variety of things other than simply interviewing people. So what it usually means is, the job was filled, and they forgot to remove it from their website, or their applicant tracking system. And the result is, now that you, you commented about it, or applied to it, they were reminded, and they took it down.
How To Spot A Toxic Workplace (Part 1)
ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER
Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter is a coach who worked as a recruiter for what seems like one hundred years. He is hired to provide No BS Career Advice globally. That can involve job search, hiring staff, management, leadership, career transition and advice about resolving workplace issues. Schedule a discovery call at my website, www.TheBigGameHunter.us
He is the host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 podcast in iTunes for job search with over 2500 episodes.
I do a livestream on LinkedIn, and YouTube (on the JobSearchTV.com account) Tuesdays and Fridays at 1 PM Eastern. You can send your questions about job search, hiring better, management, leadership or to get advice about a workplace issue to me via messaging on LinkedIn or in chat during the approximately 30-minute show.
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