Career Coach Office Hours October 28 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 (https://youtube.com/@jobsearchtv). You can also message me on Linkedin before the show and I will answer it, too.
Stupid Career Branding Mistakes: Who Knows About You?
04:18
If an employer says they’ve already hired someone else and never calls back after repeated attempts at contact, what should the job seeker do? The answer is they don’t want to talk to you. It’s really very clear. They don’t want to talk to you. They communicated their decision. They chose someone else. They don’t see a reason why they should tell you anything more than that. And yes, I know you’d like to find out what it was about that person that made them choose them. Maybe you could email this person saying ‘I’m sorry if I’ve come across as a pest. All I’m trying to do is learn from you. . . ‘By the way, you can email them or text them, if you have their mobile number, or message them on LinkedIn and say, ‘I’m sorry, I’ve been if I’ve come across like a pest. That isn’t my intention. I’m curious, I want to learn from this experience. What was it about that person that made them stronger that caused you to choose them?’ That’s as much as you can try. So give up the phone calls. They don’t want to talk to you. Try a different way. Maybe get the information that you need by approaching
it differently than you have before.
05:43
Should you trust a recruiter with your resume? So let’s look at the situation. You’re actively looking for a job and they need a resume. Send it to them. You are not actively looking for a job. They’ve called you with something interesting and they want to submit your resume to their client. You can make it very clear to them, ‘I’m only interested in this role or this type of a role. I’m giving you my resume. Please do not send it anywhere without my consent. And usually, they will comply because if they don’t, you don’t have to go on that interview. Right? So that messes them up with the company that they submitted you to. A third situation is, they did cold call recruiting and they said, ‘Jeff, we’re doing a search for a client and your background looks interesting. I want to have a chance to talk with you. By any chance, do you happen to have a resume I could see a copy of?’ ‘Let’s chat first. Let me see about the role because I just don’t want my resume floating around to the western hemisphere. So if it’s something interesting, yeah, I’d be happy to send you a resume but let’s talk first.’ And that becomes the way that you deflect their request for a resume until you’re ready to be submitted for a role. So can you trust them? Well, let’s start off with what are they going to do with it? That could be a problem. And usually, it’s submitting it as though they’re sending it to the Western Hemisphere. They’re not going to really do that, because there’s nothing in it for them unless they get your clearance. So I think you can, but if you’re uncomfortable, you just simply say this is what my background is. Tell me about the job you’re recruiting for? Nope, not interested in that. I don’t see a reason to send my resume. Yep, I’m interested. Need my resume? Sure, but to only send it to this. And if you’ve got something else, then message me about it. Let’s talk. Don’t just give them carte blanche with sending it.
Stupid Career Branding Mistakes: Who Knows About You?
08:14
What do recruiters think about candidates who aren’t looking for new positions, but will engage with the recruiter and use the new position as a bargaining tactic to negotiate and get a raise with their current companies? The key phrase in here is to engage with the recruiter and use the new positions as a bargaining tactic. Is it only on the basis of a phone call or are you going on interviews, getting offers and then using it as leverage? I will tell you that if you ever did that to me when I did recruiting, I would hate your guts forever. Because you would have hurt me. You cost me time, and you cost me the fee. You hurt my client who invested time and had the expectation that you would join and then you didn’t. So, they would hate you for that. And you would have wound up hurting someone along the way. Don’t do this kind of crap. It’s unfair. It’s unnecessary. It isn’t right. If you were hiring, you wouldn’t want someone to do that to you. Don’t do it to other people.
09:31
How do I get a high-end salary as a software developer in India. I’m learning JavaScript and I have about four years of experience in a mix of technologies. So, Sumit this is as much as I know about you. And thus, I think there are people you can speak with in India, who are more senior than you who can give you a sense of what you need to know, and what you need to have done in order to get that high-end salary as a software developer. Now, it always depends upon other variables. It’s not just as simple as they’re trying to hire a JavaScript person. Are you willing to travel? Are you willing to be relocated? If not, are you already in a city where those kinds of jobs exist? Can you work remotely for some of those firms and be paid? Well, usually not. But the long and the short of it is, if you’re looking for something else now, and you want to get something high-end, as a software developer, you’ve got four years, you probably need a couple more years of experience doing more stuff. And I’m not there, and I don’t really have much knowledge of your background, except you’re learning JavaScript. And you have four years of experience in different technologies. I can’t really discern what will be right for you. But I will say that there are other people who you probably know, that can help answer that question specific to you and your experience. And that’s really what you need something specific to you, and the kind of experiences that you have, that will allow you to clean up your background. And by that, I mean, strengthen it in some way so that in this way, you’re marketable as a senior developer, as a lead, and, or as a developer lead which allows you to make more money and have more responsibility. I hope that helps you.
11:52
How do people know when they’re ready to move on from a career? Well, I think the first thing to understand is when people start asking the question it’s time to explore moving on from a career, you’re starting to think about something else. And as such, when people start to think that way, they prefer doing something else, they’re just afraid. And thus, if you’re in that situation, where you’re starting to think, what have you been thinking about doing next anyway? 
Are there people that you can chat with specifically who are doing that kind of work so you have a sense of what it’s really like doing that kind of job? Without that, it’s all speculation and you could be making the wrong choice, which you obviously don’t want to do. So to me, the first thing is to realize if you’re asking yourself the question, you’d like to do something else.
14:14
How can human resources departments stop the revolving door of new hires? I think that the best way they can do that is to teach their managers how to interview because most don’t. They have been learning through trial and error. In doing that, they make mistakes. They misrepresent jobs to people. They do things that cause turnover. They don’t reveal the institutional friction that exists, and thus they disappoint the person who’s going to be joining. As a result, when a manager lies about what someone can expect when they come on board, that causes people to want to leave, right? If the team isn’t inviting to that individual when they join, that causes them to want to leave, right? So everything has to have a path laid out for the new hire so they can onboard, not just simply with human resources, but in the department, as well. I’m also a very firm believer, most hiring managers don’t know how to evaluate. I’m representing someone now who’s up for a job at a large technology firm. I’m gonna keep the name out of it. It has a fairly standardized process and in doing so, they’re trying to eliminate bias from the equation and also at the same time, because everyone’s asked the same questions. At the same time, they want an individual to open up with their personality. A person has to have the knowledge, experience, and such, but also be reflective of the firm and its corporate values. So when hiring managers start interviewing, most of the time they wing it. Thus everyone gets asked different questions and they wind up with lemons. If your firm’s staff is turning over too often, there’s a problem with the hiring and people are being disappointed. It has to be corrected, or else the revolving door continues. Okay?
16:40
Why do my job applications keep getting rejected? The facetious answer is because your background sucks. But it may not. What it is, is that it’s not making a case for why you’re qualified to do the job that you’re applying for. That’s it in a nutshell. Your resume is not making a case that you are qualified to do the job. It may also be that your resume and LinkedIn profile are not congruent with one another. You’re representing yourself one way in your resume, but your profile says something a little bit different. That winds up casting doubt as to whether or not you have the qualifications to do the job at hand. So why is it being read being rejected? Because you’re not making a case that you’re qualified to do the work? It’s really that simple.
17:42
What are the chances of a recruiter not contacting you, even though you sent them your resume? Extremely high. It’ss extremely high that they’re not going to contact you. Why do I say that? Simple. Most of you spam your resumes. You’re not qualified for the positions. You’d like to do the job, but you’re not qualified. You’re interested. You want to do the job if it were offered to you for the right money. But the fact is, your resume doesn’t demonstrate your qualifications for the job in a way that shows that you have adequate experience. That’s really why you’re being rejected.
Branding and Networking for Digital Pros and Others
18:36
They asked me why I didn’t join them after accepting their job offer. How should I respond? In other words, you took a counteroffer. And they want to
know why. First of all, contact them this afternoon. Contact them this afternoon and say I apologize. I was in a rush earlier. I received another offer. I wasn’t out trying to get it. But it’s an offer I really can’t refuse. It’s no reflection upon your firm or the work you asked me to do. Frankly, I’m not independently wealthy, and I need to be paid well. And this firm just knocked that out of the park. I think an own an honest response serves you well. I would do it by phone, rather than by email. Because email in this case is the coward’s way. Don’t develop cowardly skills or cowardly capabilities. Instead, be honest with him about where the other firm just excited you so much that you decide to turn down the original firm’s offer.
19:54
What does it mean if an interviewer does not ask you the question, ‘Do you have any questions for me?’ Does it indicate that the interviewee (meaning the job hunter) is not selected for the job role? Not necessarily. All it means is that the interviewer may have been rushing, and the interview may have gone long. They don’t want to take the time. Maybe it is that you didn’t do a good job on the interviews, and they’re looking at other people. So there’s no way of knowing from your question as to whether or not they’re interested in you, and they just don’t want to take the time right now. Or they’re not interested in you and they don’t want to be rude. So the long the short of it is, I can’t really tell from the question. There’s just not a lot of information there.
21:06
If you are connected with someone on LinkedIn, and you view their profile, you’re connected with them and you look at their profile, will they get to know that you viewed their profile? And the answer is possibly. And I say possibly, because someone with a paid LinkedIn account, can know if someone looked at their profile. On a free account, they can’t. I’m not telling you to downgrade your profile to an unpaid account. I’m saying that this is they can see your profile. They can know who viewed their profile if they have a paid account. Other than that, on the free accounts, either I believe they can be notified of three people. But beyond that, no. So yes, they can see who looked at it. Absolutely.
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 2400 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.
Website: www.TheBigGameHunter.us
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