No B. S. Job Search Advice Radio

Why Are You Putting Up With It?

by

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter draws from his own experience to talk about the decision to change jobs.

[spp-transcript]

I want to talk with you about the decision to change jobs and draw upon my own experience. On two occasions in my career, I was working for organizations for 10 years or more. I was clearly entrenched in these organizations, very comfortable despite some of the nonsense that existed there.

We all know every organization has nonsense – – people of personalities, they have moods. You live with them for a long period of time and some of those times of frustrating.

In the most recent instance, I was associated with the firm for more than a dozen years and no matter what I did, the matter what I said, there was a lengthy period of time I was hitting my head against the wall in frustration. Still the idea of changing jobs didn’t come to mind.

It one more instance (the details aren’t important) for my wife to interrupt me one day and ask, “Have you thought about changing jobs at all?” Ultimately, I decided to start my own firm

Sometimes, you just have to listen to what someone else tells you or ask you and pause and ask yourself a question, “Why not?” What’s keeping you there? What’s so good about this situation that you want to go through all the frustration you go through?

I’ve been in sales for a long time and much of my income comes from commission. For those of you were not in sales, is it worth the salary that you are getting to experience all the frustration that you’re going through?

Why are you accepting this? Who are you trying to please in all of this?

When all is said and done, ultimately, let them make the right decision for yourself. However, if you are noticing that there are more days than not when you are referring to things that can best be described as “nonsense,” when no matter how are in Africa making success is not available to you, sometimes that’s because the market that you’re serving, sometimes that’s because the systems that your operating (i.e. the company rules and regulations that get in the way of you obtaining the success that you want), why are you putting up with it?

My encouragement to you is to stop for a second and think or have an ally available because (like in my case, my wife) who, in a very simple way, asked “Have you thought about changing jobs yet?”

Then, think about it. Why not? Why not change jobs? Why tolerate the mediocrity of your current situation, your lack of contentment and happiness that comes with your current role?

[/spp-transcript]

Do you think employers are trying to help you? You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell as they think you need to know to take the job they after representing so they collect their payday.

The skills needed to find a job are different yet complement the skills needed to do a job.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter has been a career coach and recruiter for what seems like one hundred years.

JobSearchCoachingHQ.com is there to change that with great advice for job hunters—videos, my books and guides to job hunting, podcasts, articles, PLUS a community for you to ask questions of PLUS the ability to ask me questions where I function as your ally with no conflict of interest answering your questions.

Connect with me on LinkedIn

Executives–Be Careful With Those Metrics!

by

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter points out how executives need to be careful when discussing metrics on the resume and in an interview.

[spp-transcript]

I picked up a great job search tip from Perry Newman (www.perrynewman.com) when I interviewed him for Job Search Radio recently.

Perry pointed at something that I’d forgotten and that I had not been emphasizing when speaking with people– if you’re a veteran professional, if you are an executive or at a C level for an organization, you have to be careful with the metrics that you reveal if you work for a public corporation.

If you provide real numbers, sometimes those metrics are way too revealing you are disclosing information that may not be public yet.

However, if you speak in terms of percentages instead of real numbers, they are not at risk of an employer looking at you and thinking, “Gee, that was confidential information I was just told.”

That information might give them a competitive advantage to your firm and reveal too much about your current employer and cause them to have an advantage in certain negotiations and in certain situations.

Again, for use in executive, you have a fiduciary responsibility to your current organization. You cannot cross that line. Firms will listen to you and wonder whether you will do that to them, too. You don’t ever want to be in those circumstances.

[/spp-transcript]

 

Do you think employers are trying to help you? You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell as they think you need to know to take the job they after representing so they collect their payday.

The skills needed to find a job are different yet complement the skills needed to do a job.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter has been a career coach and recruiter for what seems like one hundred years.

JobSearchCoachingHQ.com is there to change that with great advice for job hunters—videos, my books and guides to job hunting, podcasts, articles, PLUS a community for you to ask questions of PLUS the ability to ask me questions where I function as your ally with no conflict of interest answering your questions.

Connect with me on LinkedIn

Keep Your Résumé Up-To-Date

by

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter discusses the importance of keeping your resume up to date even after you start a new job.

[spp-transcript]

Right now, you are aggressively looking for work but I want to plant a seed with you. You’re going to find a job; it may not happen as soon as you like but you are gonna find a job.

Normally, in human nature seems to suggest that you exhale deeply and relax and you stop being open to other things.

If the recession has taught you anything it is that you need to be prepared at all times because you never know when you’ll need to look for work again.

Even if you’re happy, you never know when you’ll find the right opportunity land in your lap with someone calling up and saying, “I’ve got this great opportunity; we talked for a few minutes.”

My encouragement for you is to maintain an up-to-date resume. Every three or four months, sit down with yourself, take about 30 to 40 minutes, and jot down some notes about what you’ve accomplished during the previous three months.

This serves a couple of purposes. First, if you remained with your organization for years, great! During that time, you will get reviewed. Sometimes people are reviewed by new hiring managers or new managers have just taken over a group and don’t really know what the person has done over the year.

Some people freak out under those circumstances and panic. They are ill prepared for the review meeting and this will allow you to be prepared. Again, it’s a habit. Set an alarm in your phone or in Outlook. Set it up in a way that every few months you sit down with yourself, write down what you’ve done and update your resume.

Next, if you get that proverbial knock on the door on the shoulder that says, “I’ve got a great opportunity,” you aren’t starting at that point trying to construct a resume you might be busy or anxious.

Again, someone’s knocking on your door or tap you on the shoulder; you don’t want to stand be writing the resume because love other things on your plate. Better to be ready at that point because you’ve been doing your homework assignment and have treated yourself like a business of one, looking out for your interests, just like your employer is looking out for their interests.

You always want to be ready for that tap on the shoulder so that you are not then taking a few days to write your resume and risk losing out on an opportunity.

The fact of the matter is, if you say you’re going to take a day or two to write that resume, the next person who is called may not be taking a day or two. They may be getting in the door ahead of you, creating a great impression and locking you out of an opportunity.

Do yourself a favor. When you lay on this job, set up an alarm in your phone, in Outlook, or whatever system you use to remind you that every 3 to 4 months you take the time to update your resume so that it is no big production when you need one.

[/spp-transcript]

 

Do you think employers are trying to help you? You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell as they think you need to know to take the job they after representing so they collect their payday.

The skills needed to find a job are different yet complement the skills needed to do a job.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter has been a career coach and recruiter for what seems like one hundred years.

JobSearchCoachingHQ.com is there to change that with great advice for job hunters—videos, my books and guides to job hunting, podcasts, articles, PLUS a community for you to ask questions of PLUS the ability to ask me questions where I function as your ally with no conflict of interest answering your questions.

Connect with me on LinkedIn

Bring Your Tablet

by

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter suggests bringing your tablet to an interview especially if you are in a creative field.

[spp-transcript]

 

Do you think employers are trying to help you? You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell as they think you need to know to take the job they after representing so they collect their payday.

The skills needed to find a job are different yet complement the skills needed to do a job.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter has been a career coach and recruiter for what seems like one hundred years.

JobSearchCoachingHQ.com is there to change that with great advice for job hunters—videos, my books and guides to job hunting, podcasts, articles, PLUS a community for you to ask questions of PLUS the ability to ask me questions where I function as your ally with no conflict of interest answering your questions.

Connect with me on LinkedIn

Want to Convey More Information? Here’s How.

by

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter explains how to give more texture and information in your resume without making it too long.

 

[spp-transcript]

I want to give you some no BS resume advice to help your resume stand out, particularly if you are veteran professional, a person with a lot of experience and want to talk about some of the things that you’ve accomplished in greater detail than what resume would normally afford you.

Convention (and I think it’s a smart one) is that resumes to go longer than two MAYBE 2 1/2 pages under special circumstances. I don’t believe in one page resumes you are a novice or looking for an entry-level position.

I want to help you get more texture into your resume if you are someone with more experience.

Let’s say your manager, a director, a VP or a C level professional, and you are submitting your resume for possession. You want to talk about what you’ve done but you also understand that you need to keep your resume to particular length what do you do?

Hyperlinks.

Since you are submitting your resume through an electronic medium anyway (it’s not like you sending a piece of paper anymore), what you can do, for example, to use an example from IT, his let’s say you work on a project and want to go into more detail in your resume will allow space for, underneath the project name that you work for, including hyperlink that can go to the video that you created for you too, a more detailed description of what it is that you stepped into we took over the project and the things that you accomplished,.

You can tell stories and video. You can tell stories and text.

Obviously, this needs to be well written and/or well acted. You may need to do these a couple of times and have people look at it before submitting it to organizations.

But why not use the power of the web? Why not use the power of mobile to connect the document with more detail about the work that you’ve done?

As I’ve said before, stories are extremely powerful. Think of how you describe this project or this task that you’ve been did in an interview. You would share a lot of texture about it. You would describe what it is that you stepped into, what you accomplished, the money you saved for your firm, the money you earned your firm, the technology utilized, the numbers of people who report to you… All the story for this project would be told.

It will be a lot of space to use an individual document but if you’re using video, if you’re using a podcast, you can use a service like freeconferencecalling.com or freeconferencecall.com to record an audio to share with the firm, to talk about what you stepped into. A printed version of this would work as well.

So, again, it has to be well-prepared and well-rehearsed, as well as well-executed for it to work.

[/spp-transcript]

 

Do you think employers are trying to help you? You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell as they think you need to know to take the job they after representing so they collect their payday.

The skills needed to find a job are different yet complement the skills needed to do a job.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter has been a career coach and recruiter for what seems like one hundred years.

JobSearchCoachingHQ.com is there to change that with great advice for job hunters—videos, my books and guides to job hunting, podcasts, articles, PLUS a community for you to ask questions of PLUS the ability to ask me questions where I function as your ally with no conflict of interest answering your questions.

Connect with me on LinkedIn

Describe a Database in 3 Sentences

by

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter explains how to answer one of those tough interview questions: describe a database in three sentences to your eight-year-old niece or nephew.

 

[spp-transcript]

Is one of those tough interview questions, because I think it has some validity in testing whether you can break down a relatively complex idea into something simple.

So the question is, “Describe a database to your eight-year-old niece or nephew in three sentences.”

Got that? In three sentences you have to describe a database.

The way I would answer that question is by relating it to something they already know and are familiar with.

A database is like a closet. Instead of clothes and toys, it stores information in the database. People store information in a database like you would put toys or clothes in a closet.

What that does is relate the image to something they already know, they describe what is being put there (it’s not close you toys, it’s information) and uses the analogy of the closet.

[/spp-transcript]

 

Do you think employers are trying to help you? You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell as they think you need to know to take the job they after representing so they collect their payday.

The skills needed to find a job are different yet complement the skills needed to do a job.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter has been a career coach and recruiter for what seems like one hundred years.

JobSearchCoachingHQ.com is there to change that with great advice for job hunters—videos, my books and guides to job hunting, podcasts, articles, PLUS a community for you to ask questions of PLUS the ability to ask me questions where I function as your ally with no conflict of interest answering your questions.

Connect with me on LinkedIn

Don’t Tip Your Hand

by

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter talks about the behaviors you may have that tip off that you are looking for a job.

 

[spp-transcript]

If your job search mode and you are working, there are signals you may be sending you that you don’t want to send out that will reveal to your boss that you’re looking for a job.

When I started off in recruiting many years ago, the joke in my office was that, when a recruiter came to work in the suit, we knew they had an interview. If they took the long lunch hour, we took that as a signal.

Since many interviews are now being done by phone, the long launch our is a less reliable indicator that it once was. After all, everyone has an excuse for the occasional long lunch. It used to be that you took a half day or common late one morning and would be dressed in a suit.

Now the signals are less obvious and more subtle. You are quieter at meetings. The productivity is going down. There are personality signals you send off.

We’re once you are passionate and enthusiastic about what you are doing, now you are more withdrawn.

My reminder for you is that, for however long you remain in this job, to go out there great guns. There are several reasons for it beyond not revealing that your job hunting.

In the future you may need these folks for references and, from the standpoint of providing you with great references, you don’t want the last memory of you being how you goofed off or pulled back. You want that memory of you going great guns, all-out like your hair is on fire, conducting yourself all in until the very last, until the moment you gave notice and beyond.

That’s the number you want them to have because you’ll never know where you run into people again or when you might need them as a reference again.

Don’t get lazy. Don’t get despondent. Don’t pull back from the current workplace. Always go all out what you’re looking for something else.

[/spp-transcript]

 

 

Do you think employers are trying to help you? You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell as they think you need to know to take the job they after representing so they collect their payday.

The skills needed to find a job are different yet complement the skills needed to do a job.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter has been a career coach and recruiter for what seems like one hundred years.

JobSearchCoachingHQ.com is there to change that with great advice for job hunters—videos, my books and guides to job hunting, podcasts, articles, PLUS a community for you to ask questions of PLUS the ability to ask me questions where I function as your ally with no conflict of interest answering your questions.

Connect with me on LinkedIn

Two Tips for When You Have All Day Interviews

by

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter offers two important tips for when you have an all day job interview.

[spp-transcript]

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter is a coach who worked as a recruiter for what seems like one hundred years. His work involves life coaching, as well as executive job search coaching and business life coaching. He is the host of “Job Search Radio,” “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” and his newest show, “No BS Coaching Advice.”

Are you interested in 1:1 coaching from me?  Email me at JeffAltman@TheBigGameHunter.us and put the word, “Coaching” in the subject line.

Do you have a quick question you would like me to answer? Pay $50 via PayPal to TheBigGameHunter@gmail.com  

JobSearchCoachingHQ.com offers great advice for job hunters—videos, my books and guides to job hunting, podcasts, articles, PLUS a community for you to ask questions of PLUS the ability to ask me questions where I function as your ally with no conflict of interest answering your questions.  

Connect with me on LinkedIn. Like me on Facebook.

You can order a copy of “Diagnosing Your Job Search Problems” for Kindle for $.99 and receive free Kindle versions of “No BS Resume Advice” and “Interview Preparation.”

Don’t forget to give the show 5 stars and a good review in iTunes

If you want to know how to win more interviews, order “Winning Interviews.” You’ll learn how to win phone interviews, in-person interviews, the best question to ask on any interview and more.

Finding Alumni on Linkedin

by

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter explains how to find and connect with alumni from your school on LinkedIn.

 

[spp-transcript]

There is a little used tool on LinkedIn I want to bring to your attention. If you go to network, there is a drop down there, they will be several choices including, “Find Alumni.”

On Facebook, many of your early connections may have been people you went to school with. On LinkedIn, we only tend to think of professional connections yet there are people you went to school with who could be very helpful to you.

Once you get to the page for it, what you’ll find are three categories: where they live, where they work and what they do. You can also specify when those alumni went to school. The default for me was 1994-1998 (when I returned to scholl and received my Masters). If I want to, I conclude people with no dates. Obviously, you can make it more recent or older as you see fit.

Think of people you went to school with or alumni from the University, particularly if you are younger, as a great resource. If you are younger, you can contact older ones; if you are older, you might want to hire some of the younger ones.

No matter, don’t ignore alumni from some of the universities you attended, even if you didn’t graduate from there. These are people who know people who can help you find work.

[/spp-transcript]

 

Do you think employers are trying to help you? You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell as they think you need to know to take the job they after representing so they collect their payday.

The skills needed to find a job are different yet complement the skills needed to do a job.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter has been a career coach and recruiter for what seems like one hundred years.

JobSearchCoachingHQ.com is there to change that with great advice for job hunters—videos, my books and guides to job hunting, podcasts, articles, PLUS a community for you to ask questions of PLUS the ability to ask me questions where I function as your ally with no conflict of interest answering your questions.

Connect with me on LinkedIn

Do You Want the Best Résumé You Can Write or . . .?

by

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter poses a dilemma for job hunters . . . Do you want the best resume you can write or the best resume?

 

[spp-transcript]

Do you want to use the best resume you can write or do you want to have the best resume?

99.9% of the time there’s a big difference between what you can write and what a professional can write. You may be the best person at what you do and when a friend comes to for advice about it, you can recognize there an amateur by comparison to you. A professional resume writer is like that for you.

They can construct a great basic resume. The neck to be able to write a resume for every single job you want to apply for. They are, you can tweak the resume that they construct two-tailed for the job you’re going to apply for. They will give you a good basic resume to be affected far more often and be far better than what you can do.

It will take them a lot less time and you can tweak it a little bit once you get it back from them to make it perfect in your eyes.

When all is said and done, do you want to write the best resume that you can do or do you want to have the best resume?

If you want a few recommendations of resume services, email me at thebiggamehunter@Gmail.com. I’ll send an email to you with a few recommendations of services that you can use.

[/spp-transcript]

 

Do you think employers are trying to help you? You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell as they think you need to know to take the job they after representing so they collect their payday.

The skills needed to find a job are different yet complement the skills needed to do a job.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter has been a career coach and recruiter for what seems like one hundred years.

JobSearchCoachingHQ.com is there to change that with great advice for job hunters—videos, my books and guides to job hunting, podcasts, articles, PLUS a community for you to ask questions of PLUS the ability to ask me questions where I function as your ally with no conflict of interest answering your questions. JOIN NOW BEFORE THE PRICE INCREASE ON SEPTEMBER 5TH

Connect with me on LinkedIn