Filed under: Executive, General, Legal, Professional | Tags: Recruiter, job search, job, headhunter, irritate
There’s a lot of misunderstanding about how recruiters work and their role in a candidate’s job search. Many of us aren’t entirely clear about how to work with recruiters. But we are clear that a recruiter who detests you can stop your progress.
Here’s an idea. What if you knew five things that would make a recruiter hate you – I mean things that really irritate them – and you didn’t do them? Wouldn’t that speed up your search by eliminating a stumbling block? You bet it would.
Here they are:
1. Act as if you’re the only person they’re in contact with
Everyone knows that the way to get a recruiter’s attention is to monopolize their time, call frequently to make sure they’re on the job for you, and act as if their job is to get you a job, because it is, right?
Wake up. Recruiters are hired by companies to find the best candidates and help their client (the company) fill important positions more easily. I’ve said it before and here it is again – recruiters work for the companies that hire them.
Yes, they can’t get those candidates without having a huge contact list. Yes, you might be the right person for one of the positions they’ve got to fill. Yes, smart recruiters are very nice to work with.
But no, your helpful phone calls and pushy attitude won’t endear you.
The right way to do it is view the recruiter as an extension of the company. They’re the first screen. The recruiter can let you through the gate, but you’ve got to do more than that. You’ve got to give them a reason to champion your candidacy, not just support it.
Tell your story so well that the recruiter is excited about representing you to the company. When I worked with one of the best recruiters in Silicon Valley, she took extra care to get details from the top candidate that she knew would smooth the way for them.
2. Misunderstand your relationship with the recruiter
It’s great to develop a meaningful relationship with a recruiter. The last one you met was like your best friend – your sister, even. You could tell her everything – and did. The job didn’t work out, but, like, you’re buds, right?
Wrong. A recruiter may be friendly, but they are not your friend. You have a symbiotic relationship with them. Together and aligned, you can make wonderful things happen. To do that, be clear that they’re not a relative or friend.
You help the recruiter pay her mortgage, buy gas and put shoes on her children’s feet. But only if you have the skills to do the job and the social ability to fit into the work team and the company.
Don’t call the recruiter at midnight when your boyfriend dumps you. Don’t let them know that you just liquidated your 401K so that you won’t lose your house. Keep the conversation focused on the one thing that is important – being engaged in the process that leads you – step by step – to convince the people in the hiring company that you are the candidate they should make the offer to. Never forget that what you tell the recruiter will be circulated to the hiring company.
Finally, the recruiter is not your therapist.
3. Act as if they work for you
You’re bringing money to the recruiter because they get a huge commission with every placement – in fact, they’re swimming in cash. The more you think about it, you’re really the boss.
Sure. Believe that and call me immediately because I’ve just marked down the Brooklyn Bridge.
What the recruiter earns is none of your business. But for the record, companies are being more and more difficult with how much and the way recruiters are paid than ever before. Recruiting isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s time consuming, the clients are often tough to work with because they need someone excellent yesterday, and they have to sell the client on the top candidate.
Whoa! The recruiter has to sell the client? Yeah. It’s a shock, but there it is. The best recruiters know the people at their client company well, their likes and dislikes. Even though these are smart execs and managers, they want the recruiter to agree with them that Cal Montana is a great move for them – and for the company.
4. Lie
It’s no problem not to tell a recruiter the truth. They’ll never know and there’s no harm in it. Your friend Steve did it, got a great job offer and is working at the company of his dreams.
Lying to a recruiter is the same as lying to the hiring company. No matter when you do it, you’re placing your candidacy at risk. Don’t do it. Ever.
I’ve seen candidates who became employees fired more than ten years after the lie was told. Nothing will be worth it.
5. Be difficult and inconsiderate
You’re doing the recruiter a favor by helping them get their commission. And really, they should be taking your side on this little dispute with the company. So you said you’d call them yesterday and didn’t, so what? They’ll get over it when they get their check.
Attitude is important. In fact, even with more than the desired skills, if the recruiter doesn’t see you getting along well with interviewers and living up to your commitments, you’ll be toast.
They won’t get over it – they’ll get over you.
Every contact with the recruiter is an opportunity to prove that you’re a respectful, bright, capable person who will fit in and do the job. Don’t let yourself be lulled into complacency. A recruiter who sees a candidate unable to step up to the challenges of the hiring process will find a way to axe that person. Recruiters don’t win with clients when the candidate doesn’t stick and isn’t successful. You don’t have anything until you’ve started the job and completed the probation period. It’s critical to do your best all the time.
One candidate I worked with who was in the lead for a great job lost out because she wouldn’t agree to the title the company proposed. Know the ‘make or break’ and be aware of what you want vs. what you need.
Filed under: Executive, General, Legal, Professional, Recent Graduates | Tags: apply directly, headhunter, job, The Jobs Guy
There’s a great discussion going on over at The Jobs Guy about recruiters – with some recruiters participating to add spice. Hat tip to Ken Horst for getting the ball rolling on this.
The topic? Using a Headhunter vs. Applying Direct to a Company.
This is important to people at all levels, in all types of jobs. Here’s my take – do both.
In my experience, you get recruiter love when you’re a match for what they’re currently trying to fill. If they can see you in the spot, you’ve got their attention. That’s great when it works for you. And keep in mind that companies may be pitting 2-3 headhunters against one another in the mistaken notion that they’ll get the opening filled faster. Unfortunately, all that does is provide an opportunity for lots of confusion.
When you apply directly to a company, you control your own destiny. You’re not dependent on the recruiter, but you can be screened out just as quickly if you don’t present yourself as the right fit. Other difficulties? Apply too early in the cycle and it’s tough to get in. If you’re the first or second candidate, they’ll always want to see more and by the time they make the decision, they’ve forgotten a lot of the reasons why they were so impressed with you.
Between the two, I think a candidate’s time is better spent going direct.
Reserve about 10% of your total effort for recruiters and keep expanding your circle of relationships.
Filed under: Executive, General, Legal, Professional, Recent Graduates | Tags: adaptability, adaptable, DARPA, DoD, finance, Godin, HR, PR
Seth Godin talked about market change and having the right tool the other day. His take? It’s particularly important to know what the right tool is and use it when the market changes.
I’ll go a step further and say that organizational need – and customer need – help dictate the tool you select.
In HR, things get done with people. In PR, it’s a news releases, social media, special events. In finance, the spreadsheet is often the tool of choice.
The key point? It really comes down to adaptability.
In ‘Unpacking Personal Adaptability at Work,’ David J. O’Connell, Eileen McNeely and Douglas T. Hall make a case for the importance of the highly adaptable worker:
If indeed personal adaptability is so central to career success, perhaps both individual workers and workplace managers have a role to play. Based on this study, the value of personal learning is clear. This should offer further encouragement to pursue both formal and informal educational opportunities on an ongoing basis. The finding that managerial support is related to personal adaptability raises the stakes for managers. By offering appropriate support to workers, it seems that managers may bolster individuals’ motivation and sense of competence in dealing with change.
The role of HR becomes leading managers to help the workers increase their adaptability.
While adaptability is seldom taught expressly, we learn it wherever we are. It’s called survival. If you’re a soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan, survival is a result of hypervigilent awareness caused by adrenaline and your knowledge of danger. And if you’re deeply traumatized and develop PTSD, here’s how you are helped to adapt:
This vid from The New Yorker accurately depicts how the DoD uses video to train and help people adapt to war based on my experience writing a technical user manual for simulation software used by DARPA and the U.S. Army.
Adaptability isn’t a ‘nice to have’ in any situation – it’s the first tool in everyone’s kit.
Filed under: Executive, General, Legal, Professional, Recent Graduates | Tags: coconut, dangerous, India, jobs, labor shortage
Coconut plucking is one of the toughest, most dangerous jobs in the world.
Cultural and educational changes have caused a serious labor shortage in India.
An NYT article states that free education has changed the way people perceive themselves in the Dalit, or ‘untouchable,’ caste. Having gained an education, there are other choices for employment. And they certainly don’t want their children doing such work.
With 15 billion coconuts to be plucked annually, who will do the work? This is technical labor that requires exceptional skill in climbing, the ability to wield a sharp machete, and choose which coconuts are at the correct stage of ripeness for multiple purposes.
Kerala, bordered by the Arabian Sea in the south of India, is an artistically rich region and the home of a centuries-old famous classical dance called Kathakali. The wife of a former boss of mine spent quite a bit of time there and was writing her Ph.D. thesis on it. Here’s a sample:
Read the piece by Lydia Polgreen and Hari Kumar here.
Filed under: Executive, General, Legal, Professional, Recent Graduates | Tags: job search, Godin, inertia, stuck, Wikipedia
As Seth Godin wrote:
A big car on a wet frozen lake goes nowhere. No traction, no motion.
A small bug working its way across a gravel driveway takes forever. Too much friction, too little motion.
Whatever the reason for being stuck, you can unstick yourself. Alain Robert did, and nothing any of us will face today is likely to compare with being 59 stories up without a safety net or a rope.
Wikipedia states that “inertia means that an object will always continue moving at its current speed and in its current direction until some force causes its speed or direction to change.”
So what’s the force that will move us to change? It’s different for everyone. Here are several to test out:
1. Rewrite your resume. Things have changed, you’ve changed. Incorporate those differences.
2. Look for work in an entirely different industry in which your core knowledge is still an asset.
3. Meet three new people and find out what interests them and what they plan to do next year.
4. Assess your talent and skills. What do you know that other people will pay to learn?
5. Just for this week, take a different path. Drive a new route, talk with people you don’t know.
6. Fill the well. Read a book you wouldn’t normally read. Visit websites at random. Listen to new music.
7. Think about a person, place or thing that makes you feel safe. Recreate that feeling inside yourself.
8. Look for opportunity in two places you’ve never considered before.
9. Find an anonymous way to help a neighbor who is in need.
Filed under: Executive, Legal, Professional, Recent Graduates | Tags: 13 years, ethics, job, Nilofer Merchant, The New How, The Office, William J. Jefferson
The sentencing today of former Louisiana Representative William J. Jefferson to 13 years in prison reminded me that ethics is really at the core of life.
Whether you’re in an office (or The Office), working at home, in academia or government, none of us want to make errors that might put us in a cell.
The lesson is both unique and universal. On the job, be a stand-up person. Off the job, let’s not kid ourselves. We know when it’s an ostrich and when it’s not.
Call out mistakes and take responsibility for them. Too often, peer pressure encourages silence. Nilofer Merchant has a distinctive viewpoint on this in her manifesto No More Corporate Dodgeball. There’s something beyond ethics. ‘Being ethical’ is actually the practice and living of ethics. Merchant explains how. And catch her new book – The New How. You can grab a free sample chapter here.
The $90K in a freezer? That’s how much cold cash the FBI found wrapped neatly in foil to avoid freezer burn in Mr. Jefferson’s freezer back in May, 2006. Personally, I’ve always stashed my cash in the ice box – keeps it crisper, no bank fees, and Franklin never looks like he needs a face lift.
Filed under: Executive, General, Legal, Professional | Tags: HR, hiring, secret, employer
I know what it is. Do you?
Here it comes….
They all hate hiring.
That’s it. Once you know this, you can understand why hiring is so tough for employers. The entire process takes people away from their work. On one hand, it’s an irritant and a distraction. On the other hand, it’s an experience almost as exciting as getting a pony for your birthday when you were 8 (we’ll talk about that tomorrow).
Now you’ve got a leg up on the competition and you can use it to intuit the next move an employer may make.
Here are a few more things about HR you’ll need to know as a candidate.
First, inside companies HR is often seen as a group that enforces rules and impedes progress. HR, along with recruiters, is viewed as a group of killjoys who slow down progress. Never mind that such ‘progress’ sometimes results in lawsuits, unhappy employees and other problems created by people who don’t know all the rules.
Even though HR people prevent chaos, help companies avoid public humiliation and try to get warring groups of adults in different departments to play together without killing one another, their contribution is hard for other divisions to appreciate.
Second, getting people to help out with interviews is like pulling teeth. It means they have to take time away from their current projects. The manager also has to find the right number and type of interviewers – and they have to be from the right teams. Coordinating all of that – then coordinating it all again when you find some worthwhile candidates? Ugh.
Third, a lot of forms are involved, which is irritating. And where forms are, there’s the legal team. They’re even more demanding than HR.
Fourth, while the entire process takes place, work is getting backlogged. Who is doing the work of the employee who is part of the interview team? Likely, the supervisor.
All of this should come as no surprise. Think back to the last time you put your letter of resignation on your supervisor’s desk and remember the pool of fear you saw in her eyes.
They knew your leaving would mean the entire horrible process would jerk into motion. And they didn’t like it.
Remember that the next time you approach a company. And be the solution to their problem.
Filed under: Executive, General, Legal, Professional, Recent Graduates | Tags: HR, prevention, violence, workplace
Whether a violent incident occurs in the workplace, at a nonprofit organization or in a school, it’s important for HR people to know that depression is a key cause.
Pay attention on a general basis when people are undergoing extraordinary stressors such as the death of a family member, credit difficulties, the loss of their home in foreclosure, a serious illness (or the illness of a spouse, child or other relative).
If you have to do layoffs, plan them carefully. Make sure all eventualities are covered.
Review organizational security. Are you enforcing the wearing of badges? Is security or reception making sure that everyone who enters the facility is signed in – with an escort and specific destination – and badged? Do you have an appropriate tracking system? If your firm does government work, is your security appropriate for the work being done? Do all employees and contractors have the needed clearance? Are they current?
Do you have a process for reviewing employees and spotting people who are at risk for depression? Does management spend sufficient time ‘wandering around’ talking with people?
Keep in mind that many mass shooting situations involve men who are depressed. Depression is a burden. You may want to alert managers and have them ask team members what’s stressing them now in both group and individual meetings.
Filed under: Executive, General, Legal, Professional, Recent Graduates | Tags: anger management, APA, Fort Hood, HBR, HR, Mayo Clinic, workplace violence
At one time or another, all of us feel anger.
It’s easy to let it get out of control – especially when it’s coupled with loss and fear.
With the loss of a loved one, a marriage, a job, our home, or even a credit rating, the frustration mounts. We feel unable to control things going on around us and fear sets in.
The key thing to remember is to learn about anger management. Determine what sets you off. This may require looking at some pretty dark stuff inside yourself. Do it. You’re worth it. And working with these issues is what will enable you to stop letting anger control your life.
For the HR mavens – you are the leaders of your organizations. It’s your job to prevent horrific situations like the one that occurred last week at Ft. Hood. Engage senior management – make them listen to you. This may be the most important work you ever do.
Here are three articles that may help:
1. Controlling Anger — Before It Controls You
The American Psychological Association has posted a very good article that includes the nature of anger and how we express it. While anger is natural, generally people deal with it by either expressing, suppressing or calming it. As Dr. Charles Spielberger puts it, ” When none of these three techniques work, that’s when someone – or something – is going to get hurt.”
2. How to Keep Your Temper at Work (And Everywhere Else)
In this blog post at Harvard Business Publishing, Dr. Marshall Goldsmith talks with Mark Maraia about anger. Mark provides a method tested for 20+ years that works to release anger, reject negative emotions and help you move toward positive thoughts.
3. Anger Management Tips: 10 Ways to Tame Your Temper
Any of the tips in this Mayo Clinic article will work – it’s all about practicing them and working to turn the situation around. The information is practical and action-oriented.
