Career Coach Office Hours: October 11 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.
Hiring? You’re Missing a Huge Skilled Market
02:54 Is it okay to apply to multiple jobs at one time and go to multiple interviews?
4:05 Should you take work advice from a staffing company?
06:02 It has been a week and a half since the final interview. The recruiter emailed me saying that they are interviewing another candidate and a decision would be made in a few days. I felt defeated after this. Does this mean I won’t get the job?
08:02 What are an employee’s rights against abusive bosses and coworkers?
10:19 I submitted my letter of application to a certain company two weeks ago and I have not received any response. Is it good to call and follow up?
11:35 What does it mean when a company’s recruiting team contacts you for interviews but doesn’t have any open positions listed?
12:50 What will you do when your leader talks to you for 2 hours and he sits and you stand?
15:08 Why do interviewers look for the five important characteristics when hiring technicians/technologists?
16:09 Can someone learn how to lead and manage people effectively without having any prior experience or natural talent for it?
18:43 Is getting a job through an IT staffing company worth it?
20:17 I would like to go back to a job I lost, does it make sense to apply at another staffing agency that is recruiting for the same company?
21:27 Do bosses think negatively of employees who leave their jobs to follow their dreams?
02:54
Is it okay to apply to multiple jobs at one time or go to multiple interviews? Yes. Just like they interview multiple people, you can go to multiple jobs at one time and apply to multiple jobs at the same time. After all, there’s no commitment on your part, there’s no obligation to do things sequentially like only applying to one job and only interviewing with one company at a time. The issue for you is, if you were to do something like that, sequentially, you might miss out on some great opportunities. That doesn’t make sense. Because if there’s no commitment from an employer’s part that they’re even going to interview you let alone hire you. So I’ll just simply say, by all means, interview with multiple firms concurrently so in this way you can find the best job and opportunity for you.
04:05
Should you take work advice from a staffing company? Now, I said staffing firm. I associate that with a temp firm. They’re putting people into slots at clients of theirs. You’re on their payroll, or you’re contracting through their firm. And thus, you’re presented as a representative of their organization. Now, ultimately, if they’re giving you bad advice, for example, the wrong way to solve a particular technical problem, I wouldn’t follow bad advice. But I would say that you work for them. And just like any employer, you take direction from them. But if they asked you to do something illegal, immoral, wrong, don’t, don’t do it. Don’t act out, because someone at the staffing firm tells you to do it. I just simply might speak with a client and say to them, ‘I’m being encouraged to do this. My personal opinion is we should do that. Which would you prefer?’ And then from there, let the client make a decision. If they choose your idea, you can tell your employer what the choice is. Now, the caveat to all of this is you should not do something that springs a financial burden on your staffing firm. Because then you’re screwing them. And I’m sure you don’t want to do that. But I’ll just simply say, barring that give the client the choice. To me that makes the most sense.
06:02
Now, it’s been a week and a half since my final interview. The recruiter emailed me to say they’re interviewing another candidate. Then a decision will be made in a few days, I feel defeated after this. Does this mean I won’t get the job now? Now, it means they’re shopping, and then they haven’t firmly made a decision. They see you and this other person as potential hires, and they’re making a comparison. Just like if you went to a car dealership, and you said, ‘I’m looking at a Volvo, and I’m looking at a Subaru.’ Should the salesperson or dealer feel defeated because you’re looking at another car now? So I’ll simply say they haven’t made a choice yet. You’re still under consideration. And good luck.
08:13
What are an employee’s rights against the abuse of bosses and coworkers? What’s in your employer handbook? What procedures are you supposed to follow according to that handbook? Now I want to be clear, if there’s sexual harassment or physical violence being perpetrated by your boss, you get the heck out of there. You file a complaint with the police and you walk out of the office. You get an order of protection if you’ve been sexually harassed. I’m not sure about the best course of action with physical abuse. But I might contact an attorney if there were examples of that. Now, some people will talk about an abusive boss because they press them hard to do work. We’re not talking about that. We’re talking about serious, abusive behavior when I’m answering this question. I don’t know what you mean by an abusive boss, or co-worker. Sometimes, an abusive co-worker refers to someone who says something out of turn, that was critical of an employee. And I would meet with my manager to get that resolved so that you don’t feel compelled to leave. If your manager won’t intervene, then I’d start looking for another job. But your rights are defined in the employer handbook. You can contact your state’s Labor Department. Describe the situation and see whether this constitutes what they would legally consider an abusive behavior on the employer’s part. Good luck with this.
10:19
I submitted my letter of application to a certain company two weeks ago. I haven’t received any response. Is it good to call and follow up? Yes. Now you may not get through. You may need to leave a voicemail. But let’s say you submitted. I don’t know if that was done through an applicant tracking system, or was by email. I would simply, in leaving a voicemail message, say, ‘I uploaded my resume’ or ‘I emailed my resume to you on (whatever the date was). I haven’t heard anything back. I just wanted to express my interest and follow up to see if you want to interview me. If not, my feelings won’t be hurt. I appreciate being told that I’m not being considered. I’m okay with that. I’d prefer to be considered but I’m not going to get into an argument. I might just simply ask where I was perceived as being deficient so I learn from this. But other than that, I just want to make sure you saw my resume, saw my application and I can move on from there. Good luck.
11:35
What does it mean when a company’s recruiting team contacts you for interviews, but doesn’t have open positions listed? It means they haven’t had the time to put it on their website, or post it on LinkedIn, indeed, or any other place for that matter. So it may be a newly open req. It doesn’t mean anything more than when you start the interview with them. I would start by saying, ‘Hey, I appreciate the opportunity to talk about my background with you. Could you tell me about the position you’re trying to fill?’ That way, you know what the target is for the role? It may mean that they anticipate something coming up, too, but it doesn’t mean that . . . There’s nothing really to worry about here or be concerned about. It may just . . . Well, I think I’ve given you the best answer with what I’ve said so far.
My Manager/Boss Found Out I’m Looking!
12:46
What will you do or what should you do when your leader talks to you for two hours, and they’re in a chair, and you’re standing? What does it mean? Okay. Two hours. A lot of people exaggerate about time, but I’m not gonna take it that way. I’m gonna mean literally two hours. So I’m curious why you didn’t ask if you could sit down for a second. Seriously. Why didn’t you ask whether you could have a seat since this was going on for a long period of time? What leader doesn’t have a chair for you to sit in, in their office? Now, maybe they have a really small place. I wouldn’t expect it’s so small that there aren’t two chairs there. But no matter. What does it mean? Well, number one is you either did something extremely seriously bad or they are oblivious to time, and what have you that goes into this with the result being I would just treat it as them being oblivious. And this wasn’t necessarily a power trip. Maybe it was. I have no way of knowing from the question but those are the two things that come to mind.
14:31
Why do interviewers look for the five important characteristics when hiring technicians or technologists? Only five, and I’m not being flipped here. Most firms have fairly detailed job requirements that cause them to look for more than five. But these five characteristics may be the most important things that they’ve determined from previous hires, that would cause someone to be successful. So they do it because they’re evaluating people to do a job who have particular skills and experiences. This firm appears to have it narrowed down to five. I know of firms that have done 10 or more, and the result winds up being that 10 five is no big woop.
16:09
Can someone learn how to lead and manage people effectively without having any prior experience or natural talent? Yes. Do you think eight-year-old boys and girls know how to lead and manage? Of course not. Do you think 22-year-old men and women can effectively meet lead and manage 40-year-olds? 30-year-olds? Do you think they can learn how to do that? Do you think with guidance and mentoring, they can learn? Yes. They will make mistakes. Now, the interesting part of the phrasing is “natural talent.” Very few people have natural talent. They’ve had previous experiences, where they’ve had the opportunity to manage and lead and probably more manage than lead. But no matter. People can learn. People will make mistakes while they’re learning. If you’re speaking of yourself, and you describe yourself in this way, no natural ability or previous experience, understand, everyone makes mistakes. And you will make mistakes while you learn. So I’d simply say if you looked at your current profession, and imagined yourself a few years before, you have to learn how to do stuff, right? It’s gonna be the same thing with managing and leading. So the long and the short of it is yes, people can learn. And they may have had no previous experience for it . . . and they can learn. They can make mistakes along the way that will cause people to resign, and be angry at them, a whole host of things. Maybe they don’t manage their time well and will need to learn how to do time management that guides staff better. But no matter. Yes, people can learn.
Did The Recruiter Want Me to Fail?
18:20
I submitted my application to a certain company two weeks ago. Oh, I think I answered this earlier. I’m not sure. This question got through twice. Excuse me. I’m just looking here. Yeah, that’s a repetition. I apologize. Let me get to another question.
18:43
Is getting through a job through an IT staffing company worth it? As opposed to? As opposed to? I’ll just simply say, if they can help you get a job? Why not? Why not do it that way? You know, what does it cost you? It saves you time. They know what their client needs. You fill the job. Great. But understand, when I see a question like this, I’m starting to think that maybe you think that they work for you. They don’t. They work for an employer who pays them and you don’t pay them anything. So they’re not out trying to fill a job with you. I’m sorry. They’re not trying to get you a job. What they’re trying to do is fill a job for which an employer has hired them to find someone and after they do that and you work there for a period of time, you will get paid or they will get paid and you will have a job. So, yeah, try it. But don’t purely rely on that. Positions are primarily filled as a result of networking. So go out there and start networking with people you know, and people you don’t know.
20:17
I’d like to go back to a job I lost. Does it make sense to apply to another staffing agency that’s recruiting for the same company? Why did you lose the job? Was it performance or they lost the contract, and were removed as a vendor and thus, you lost the job? So without knowing that, if you lost the job, because of performance, going to another staffing agency isn’t going to help you get a job. You failed. You failed, and you won’t get hired, so there won’t matter. But if you lost it because they raised rates, then it’s a different story. Ask your former manager if they’ll take you back from another vendor. So if they won’t, don’t sweat it, okay? Move on.
21:20
Do bosses think negatively of employees who leave their jobs to follow their dreams. Some will. Some won’t because they’ll think of themselves. You’re leaving me in the lurch. It’s like someone being divorced and they didn’t see it coming. They feel hurt and wounded. As a result, they feel ‘negatively’ to use your term toward you. As a result, there are some firms that won’t care. They are used to people leaving. If it happens, you go to a better opportunity. You wind up following your dreams and your passion. You go elsewhere. There is nothing personal. You’re doing something that makes sense for you. So I’ll just simply say, if you’re someone who is in this position, act on it. Follow your dream. Get something that makes sense for you. Work shouldn’t be about drudgery. What it should be about is doing something that engages you and interests you and gives you more happy days than not. Good luck.
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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 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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