Career Coach Office Hours: December 9 2022 | JobSearchTV.com
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 and Fridays on LinkedIn or YouTube (JobSearchTV.com channel). You can also message me on Linkedin before the show and I will answer it, too.
Branding Yourself Is Important and Easy
04:54
Should I withdraw my job application if the interviewer wants to reschedule for a third time, despite saying the times were available that looks like a question from the last show, that wasn’t edited out for me. So I apologize. I’ll just simply answer briefly, in case I’m wrong. And I’ll just say, the answer is no, I wouldn’t do that. I would say to them, ‘you know, I’ve scheduled this now, this is my third time scheduling, and I know you’re busy. But I don’t have infinite time available. I work right now. I have a responsibility in my office. I cleared the decks for the conversation and it’s kind of hard to explain twice, why I’m not if I wasn’t going to be unavailable and then available. So if you would just make sure that you can keep this one.’ And if they don’t like it, you’ve learned something about them and when we get to the offer phase, you raise this subject again.
06:09
I fired a respected employee of my company because we had different visions, but we’re now suffering a mass exodus because of that. What should I do as a CEO? If it’s true that it’s a mass exodus, I don’t know what mass exodus means to you, what percentage of people are involved? 10%? 20%? 50%? 50%, I see is mass. That affects the operational environment of your firm and a lot of other things. But my first reaction is to call a meeting of everyone and just talk to them. And in speaking with him, talk with him about your vision for the firm. Is this a change in direction from what the respected employee thought the direction was or was there one vision that they were on board with that the firm had been working its way to for a while, and now you’re changing in a completely different direction but there’s been no explanation to the staff. It’s usually the latter, and you expect them to follow like sheep, and sheep get slaughtered. So this is someone that they liked and respected. And when they go, people get a little freaked out. So you need to rally the troops and speak with them. ‘Say, look, Joan, Jane, Jack, whatever their name is and I, we came to a decision about the direction or I came to a decision about the direction of the firm. And, frankly, where we’re going previously, was not working for us. So I’ve course-corrected applying some of those lessons. And let me just explain where we’re heading to now.’ And then you do a PowerPoint presentation to your team. And if they still leave, they’re not on board with your plans. Good riddance. Replace them with people who are. But the goal from what I can tell is to try and salvage as many people from your team as possible because you think they’re capable, right? So with that being the case, you’ve got to treat them like human beings, and not just simply people who take your orders and follow them blindly. And I suspect that there’s a communications issue that’s at play here that is making them walk the plank in effect and leave. So get in front of this. You’re already behind but get in front of the people heading for the hills, and talk to them honestly and openly about how it was not working previously. ‘And we needed to course correct. John Jane, John, Jack, whatever their name is, wasn’t on board with this. But we don’t have an infinite runway. We’ve got to get out of this and thus, I made a decision. He or she doesn’t like it. I hope you can see the merits of it. If not, I’ll be disappointed. Wish you well, give you references that will be terrific and support your decision to leave. And perhaps you could recommend someone to me who might be on board with this kind of a vision and then go out and hire more people. Okay.
Recession-Proofing Your Career: Can You Help Your Organization to Be More Wolf-Like?
10:34
What happens when you view a recruiter’s profile on LinkedIn? Do they pay attention to that at all in the hiring process? ‘In the hiring process?’ Probably not, except to note that you looked at their profile. Now, ‘in the hiring process’ is a phrase I don’t fully understand. I’ll just say, I know when I did recruiting, and even now as a coach, what I often will do is take a look at who looked at my profile. And I’ll message them and say, ‘LinkedIn shared that you looked at my profile? Was there something in particular, you were looking for there?’ Now, in the case of a corporate or agency recruiter, they want to find out what it was you were trying to find out about, in much the same way as if they looked at yours, you wanted to know, what prompted them to look at it? Obviously, they were trying to fill a position. Maybe you were trying to get an interview by contacting them, but chose not to. Does it advantage you in the hiring process? No, not at all. After all, if you’re not qualified, you’re not qualified. You’re not going to be advantaged in any way, shape, or form. If anything, they’re going to pause for a second and go, ‘Why did this person looked at my profile? They’ve got nothing we look for. And I’ll just simply say, what happens is, since most recruiters almost all recruiters, whether corporate or agency, have a paid account, they have the ability to see who looked at their profile, and the ability to contact you if your profile looks interesting. Conversely, without a paid account, if you don’t have a paid account, you can see, I believe, three people max in whatever period of time it is. And they can see all the people who’ve looked at the profile. So what happens? Nothing in particular, but I’ve laid out a couple of options that can happen if you look at someone’s profile. Okay, let’s go to the next one.
13:05
Do recruiters and HR managers regret not giving a chance to talented individuals or talented candidates and giving employment to undeserving candidates? They don’t spend a lot of time discovering the candidate’s potential and may miss something important. Do they have regrets? Rarely. They’re too busy to have regrets about not interviewing you, let alone hiring you. Remember, they don’t know that you’re talented until they talk to you. If anything, they looked at your profile or your resume and decided you’re not qualified for them. They don’t try to discover a candidate’s potential until they interview you and then interview you, they first want to find out that you’re qualified. If you’re not qualified, they’re probably not going to be interested. So do they regret not giving a chance to a talented person and giving it to an undeserving candidate? Who says they’re undeserving? You? You don’t know about them. You’ve made a decision. They’re undeserving based upon no information other than that they were not you. So cut the crap. They made decisions not to interview you or hire you. Not to interview you because your resume didn’t make a case for why you were qualified. And thus you were rejected. And in terms of the other person being on the undeserving, you don’t know anything about them? You’ve decided that they’re undeserving because they’re not you. So give it up, please, and move on.
Shifting Your Mindset During Your Job Search
15:11
What type of questions do you think gives an interviewee a chance to talk and express themselves more– open questions or closed questions? Why? Okay. So both give you the potential of expressing yourself close, then questions have a reputation for being more limiting? I don’t think that’s true at all. But they have that reputation as though every question is a yes or no question than not. Most of them are pretty specific. And they allow you the opportunity to elaborate upon your answer. open ended questions or tend to be more general, and allow a person to speak. And in doing so, you know, you can talk about a lot of stuff, but I encourage people don’t drone on because people stop listening. It’s one of the things that people don’t realize about open ended questions is that when you answer, if you go over a 1:15 to a 1:30. They stopped listening. If they chewed you out, they stopped caring about your answer, because you should have gotten to the point much earlier. So you can over talk your way out of a job very easily. So again, whatever answer it is a minute, 15 tops a minute 30 to answer questions.
17:28
What is your opinion on why employers don’t hire the right candidate if you are yourself and think you’re a good fit? The answer is they disagree, or they found someone they think is an even better fit. Let me deal with my first answer. You think you’re a good fit? They’ve asked you questions to evaluate your knowledge, let’s say fit. Do you mean fit with the group, not necessarily with the knowledge base? So why do they do this? Again, they have a difference of opinion. Now, remember, you’re not the only person that they’re interviewing. They’re interviewing other people. They may see someone who’s an even stronger candidate, more knowledge that’s relevant. And maybe an even better fit with the team and with the requirements of the position. So either it’s a disagreement, or a disagreement with your opinion about yourself, or they saw someone stronger. And I also want to ask, did you ask them why you weren’t chosen? They may not tell you the truth, they may give you the ‘we saw someone a lot stronger than you for this position.’ Okay. Move on. So that’s normally what happens. And I speak from the perspective of having worked in recruiting for many, many years, and listened to a lot of debriefs from employers after interviews. Interviews where they agonized, or as happened to someone whose question I answered earlier in the week, they were on three interviews, and they got rejected after the third one. And they asked why? And my answer was, because they’re just not that into you. So I’ll just say, sometimes it’s that sometimes they see someone stronger. Those tend to be the two primary reasons.
Tough Interview Questions for Managers: What Qualities Are Most Important When Managing a Team
19:47
How do you best answer the interview question what other organizations are you pursuing? Or are you are pursuing? Let me start off with why they asked the question. So let’s say it’s an agency recruiter, there are two reasons they do it. Number one is, and this is the wholesome one, they want to see where you are in the process so that they can deduce whether it’s worth the effort to try and get you an interview with our client. The less than desirable answer is they’re trying to get leads of organizations that are hiring, so they can go and try and get the requirement to try and fill the job. And that’s the way it is. With corporate recruiters with organizations, it’s the first answer. And they’re also trying to get a sense of where you are in your process. I remember when I was a beginner recruiter, like my second or third week, and I was interviewing someone, and I didn’t know what I was doing. But this person had interviewed at 19 companies, had been turned down at 19 companies. The people in my office said very clearly, this person’s not any good. 19 quality firms have turned her down. And thus, they’re right. This person landed with the kind of ‘D organization’ we never worked with. And as a result, it was impossible to help them land work. So when a person has been on a lot of interviews, they’re less placeable. They’ve probably been to your client. And thus, you don’t want to invest time. Now, on the corporate side, again, how do you answer this? I would answer it by saying, ‘I’ve spoken with a number of organizations and we’re not at the offer stage. I have second interviews with a few of them. And you know, we’re not at the point where we are close to an offer.’ ‘What firms are they?’ ‘I don’t think that’s particularly relevant any more than if I asked you how many people you’ve interviewed so far and who were they that you’d find that was any of my business? Well, I have to politely say, who I’ve interviewed with is kind of irrelevant. And I’ll just simply say if you decide that I’m the right person for you, and Lord knows, this seems like a great opportunity for me, I just want to encourage you to make your strongest offer, because I’m sure that I’ll have multiple offers at the end of the day to choose from.’ So that’s how I would address it. And I also spoke about why it’s asked, and really, there’s no harm that can come to you. But I still would never tell an organization, whether it’s an agency or recruiter, or a representative of a corporation, where I’ve been on an interview, because it frankly is none of their business. But I wouldn’t say it that way. I’d say it exactly like I said to you in answering this question.
23:42
Should a job application rejection letter be mandatory? Why? No. No. Most recruiters, corporate or agency are being spammed with resumes all day long. Seriously, when I when I still had Job Search Radio as a podcast, on my first show, I commented that I asked my guest, ‘you know, I walk in on a Monday morning, and there’s at least 200 resumes in my inbox. How many do you think are vaguely qualified?’ And the answer was two. Two might be vaguely qualified. If I have to respond to 198 people to say up ‘sorry, out of luck,’ well, how do you suggest that go about doing this? You know, if it was there inputted into the system I now have to click checkboxes, send them all in a mass email rejecting them. Meanwhile, more resumes. arriving in my inbox I have to respond to, and I’m getting phone calls from clients. And if this is a corporation, internal clients, or if third party recruiter, corporate clients, and there’s new work arriving, and thus to expect that someone is going to respond back is ridiculous. 198 rejections have to go out, just based upon what I received walking in the door? So, no, I don’t believe so especially since so many people do little more than spam their resumes and say to themselves, ‘I’d like to do that job. I know I’m not qualified, but I’d like to do that job.’ And you think you can assign work to someone so that they respond to you.
My Manager/Boss Found Out I’m Looking!
28:09
I’m interviewing with the CEO in the fourth round today on Zoom. Good luck. Do I address them by their first or last name? Last Name, I assume is Mr. or Ms. Whatever. The answer is, they’ll introduce themselves. And you’ll say ‘nice to meet you. How should I address you in the course of answering questions? Should I use your first name or do you prefer Mr. and/or Ms. Last So and So?’ And they’ll tell you how you can address them. And that’s really the way to go about it. So make no assumptions. I personally when I coach people, or when I did recruiting, I was scheduling interviews for people, I would tell them only use their first name because referring to them as Mr. or Ms. created a formality that I thought was unnecessary. I think the same is true here. And let them make the choice so that this way you’re not offending them by referencing them in a manner that they would not like.
[svp]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS3YxSgdLTQ[/svp]
I Keep Sending Out Resumes, Following Up and Getting No Results
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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