Finding the Firm That is Hiring | No BS Job Search Advice Radio

December 13, 2016 by Jeff

Ep 591 Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter explains how to find out the name of the company that is hiring for that job when the Recruiter drops the ball.

[spp-transcript]

I want to help solve the puzzle that some of you have about finding a hiring firm. There is a situation that happened to someone I knew. It was in my coaching program and this happened to him several years ago. He saw a listing from a recruiter, contacted the person the person did not get back to him for 3 or 4 days, even though they said they were getting them the next morning. He called. No response. He did it twice more, without response. He really felt he fit the job and asked me for advice.

I said, “Here is what you do. Sometimes, recruiters are a bit lazy so they will copy and paste job descriptions and turn them into ads. Why don’t you do a Google search, taking some lines out of the job description and see if you can find the position.” Sometimes, the recruiter will change a few of the words so try to start off with a broad sentence, like the 2nd or 3rd sentence, not necessarily the 1st. You try to look at the requirements of the job and take 2 or 3 bullet points, especially if there is lengthy text. There. That entered into Google and see if it turns up something for you.

You can try the same thing with indeed but start with Google as your 1st choice.

What happened for this person is that they were able to find the position and apply for the job and the firm did not hire him! The recruiters judgment was correct. He wasn’t really a fit. However, if you really believe you are and you want to do this, this is the simplest way to get in touch with the firm. See if you can find the third-party recruiter who is sufficiently lazy that all they did was copy and paste the job description and then you can find.

There’s always the advantage of working through the third-party recruiter. And I want to be clear about this. If you can work through the recruiter, you are advantaged. The firm is advantaged… There are lots of advantages for you, including the fact that they are handling all the scheduling for you, they are going to be the ones hocking or pushing the client to see you, they’re going to be negotiating and know the rough edges because I have a relationship with the client and speak to those rough edges and overcome the issues. There are lots of advantages of working with a recruiter.

However, if for some reason they dropped the ball or they make a judgment that you disagree with, this is the way to find that about the job so the you can apply directly

[/spp-transcript]

Do you really think employers are trying to help you?

You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell you as much 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 changes 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

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

What Does It Mean When The Recruiter Isn’t Returning My Calls or Emails? (VIDEO)

November 26, 2016 by Jeff

[svp]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAvCs5PFdf0[/svp]
If I’m a job applicant and the recruiter I’m working with stops returning my calls and emails, what does that usually mean?

[spp-transcript]

The question for today is:

If I’m a job applicant in the recruiter. I am working with stops returning my calls and emails, what does that usually mean?

Well, let me pose a different scenario. If you are going out with someone and they stop returning your calls, texts and emails, what would that mean?

You know what it means. Who are you kidding? You just don’t like it.

Here is what often happens. Job hunters have this mistaken notion that recruiters work for them. They don’t. They work for employers who pay them. You aren’t paying them anything, right? You have to get this notion out of your head that you are working with them. You aren’t working with them. They are trying to fill the positions. Your background either fits or it doesn’t. When they have something that makes sense, they will be in contact.

You can drop them a message every once in a while (that doesn’t mean daily) to say, “I just wanted to let you know that I’m still available. If something comes up.”

Often, what job hunters do because they are “working with the recruiter” is nag and pester the recruiter.

Understand you are getting a message in the behavior in much the same way as in a dating scenario, if someone you were going out with stop returning your calls, you will get a message from that that they didn’t want to talk with you, right?

So, you know what it means. You just have to adjust.

Some people will say you have to work with a lot of recruiters. I have no idea where you are, geographically, or where you are in your career. For most people who do not have unique skills or are not at a leadership level, yes, you do have to connect with multiple recruiters. Recruiters are not pounding on doors to persuade employers to speak with you. That isn’t how the business works.

They are hired by employers and give them requirements for positions that they need to have filled and, if they find the right person, they will be paid for that. They are not getting on the phone to make 100 phone calls to companies just for you using a call was that they have prearranged so that whenever someone walks in the door they call 100 people every single day.

No. They are filling jobs. They are not “placing people.”

Let’s assume that you are a relatively inexperienced person, you do need to be contacting multiple people and, more importantly, you do need to be contacting people who graduated from the school that you went to and learn how they got there current job and whether there might be something of their employer that might fit you. You are trying to work with multiple recruiters and responding to ads. Networking to people that you don’t already know and doing informational interviews, networking, going to networking groups, telling everyone that you know repeatedly that you are looking for work…

It’s not enough to just simply tell them one time, you have to say it multiple times and the people are reminded that you are looking for job. After all, when someone has a cold, do referred your doctor to them? Probably not. People need constant reminders to refer you to things that they care about.

Back your original question. It probably means that they don’t have anything for you right now and leave them alone.

[/spp-transcript]

Do you really think employers are trying to help you?

You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell you as much 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.

Connect with me on LinkedIn

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.”

Another Job Search Lesson from “The Godfather”| No BS Job Search Advice Radio

August 17, 2017November 23, 2016 by Jeff

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter offers another pearl of wisdom from “The Godfather” to teach you about loyalty to your employer.

[spp-transcript]

Do you really think employers are trying to help you?

You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell you as much 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.

Connect with me on LinkedIn

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

You Have to Disclose a Conviction | No BS Job Search Advice Radio

November 22, 2016 by Jeff

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter discusses telling the truth about a conviction on an employment application when you apply for a job.

[spp-transcript]

I want to have a candid conversation with you. If you are someone who has a criminal record, dealt with the rest and talk with you about how to complete applications. I’m reminded of this by recent story from someone who represented for job who told me about a conviction he had years ago and the recent arrest or he accepted a plea deal even though he said he wasn’t involved with what was done, but got caught up in the events and his attorney advised him to accept the plea and know that within 6 months to be expunged from his record.

Now, he’s up for job and has to complete an application and is asked the question, “Have you been involved with a dishonesty that has not been expunged from your record yet?” My advice to him was to disclose it. Write a lengthy explanation for what occurred. Don’t line.

Why? It’s very simple. This is a firm that, like many, does background check and, in doing a background check, if they for the inconsistency with what you told that, namely, you have been involved in such an episode, the reality is that America hire you. If they find that out after you’ve been hired there going to fire you.

I’ve been involved with way too many circumstances where companies have found the outpost employment than a reference, a college degree, a whole host of things are falsified. The criminal stuff is always the most egregious to employer.

Imagine for 2nd you were hired for job and they find out a few weeks after you join that you were involved with some version of crime. They let you stay on board and while you are a stockbroker, for example, you still grandma’s life savings or trade them down to nothing. A lawyer get someone from the firm on the stand and goes, “You knew he was a lawyer and this is what happened! You tolerated.” Your insurance company won’t pay. There out the money. They just can’t accept the fact that someone who lied to them is on board.

In other words, you don’t want to be greeted by security at your desk, holding a box for you have all your stuff and escorted out the door. How do you explain that to your family? How do you explain that you kids or the friends or the parents that you got fired because you lied on an application?

Don’t do it.

If they’re not going to hire you, better off not to get fired after 2, 4 or 6 weeks and have the same result that you’re out of work. Except, that’s worse. After all, how do you explain that to the next employer.

[/spp-transcript]

Do you think employers are trying to help you?

You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell you as much 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.

Connect with me on LinkedIn

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

Learn to Speak “Civilian”

November 2, 2017November 17, 2016 by Jeff

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter speaks to those men and women separating from the military and encourages them to communicate in as way that the civilian workforce understands.

I want to speak with those of you who are separating from the military and have a direct conversation with you about looking for work in the civilian sector.

[spp-transcript]

Do you think employers are trying to help you?

You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell you as much 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.

Connect with me on LinkedIn

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

Turn It Up! | No BS Job Search Advice Radio

November 16, 2016 by Jeff

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter shares some of his observations about working with recruiters and applies it to job hunting.

[spp-transcript]

In my career, I’ve trained a lot of very successful recruiters. I’ve also trained some people who have washed out. I put my best effort to try to help these people. But, when push comes to shove, ultimately, the onus falls on them to follow through a lot of the coaching that I give. Often, the biggest failure is around effort.

Most people (including job hunters in this) say they want to do a hard days work and they want to put in. Best effort. They want to be successful BUT when you examine what they do, they are not working as hard as they think they are. That is true of job hunters, too.

How People Find Jobs

For you as a job hunter, statistically, people are finding work in a number of ways. Consistently, statistics show, the job boards fill between 3% and 4% of all positions. Recruiters fill an additional 20% to 22%. I’m going to combine the numbers because some recruiters use job boards to find candidates. And I will add a little more than that. So, let’s assume that 30% are filled by job boards and by recruiters.

70%, though, is filled as a result of networking. In a recent statistic that I heard, 70% that of those jobs (70% of the 70%) or filled as a result of a network connection to someone that they didn’t know at the beginning of the job search.

Here’s the point. You are not working as hard as you can to find people to connect with and develop a relationship with in order to become 1 of those people in the 70%. What you need to be doing is putting in a “Max effort.” You need to try that much harder, to operate at a much higher capacity than you are now. I’m not saying to work like a maniac. You need to have some fun and there, too. At the end of the day, you need to kick it up some notches. You need to put yourself out there with some people you are not really talking to yet. You need to track these relationships so that, in this way, you remember your conversations, what your commitments are and follow-up… Stuff flows along those lines… When push comes to shove, you have to kick it up. Some notches.

Again, it’s not who applies to the most jobs on the job board. You are swimming in the lake with a lot of hooks out when you’re swimming in job boards. There is a lot of competition with other fish in their for that hook. You want to be out there swimming in streams and rivers that have hooks out there, but not a lot of fish there. This way, you are able to swim up and be able to connect with the organization. In addition, you need to be able to come in with a referral from someone you know.

[/spp-transcript]

Do you think employers are trying to help you?

You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell you as much 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.

Connect with me on LinkedIn

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

Do Job Boards Matter? | No BS Job Search Advice Radio

November 14, 2016November 13, 2016 by Jeff

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter discusses whether you should be spending time in your job search with job boards.

[spp-transcript]

Today, I want to talk with you about whether or not you should be applying for jobs using job boards.

There is an article that I saw online that poses the question, whether job boards matter anymore. The article includes data from the corporate perspective using this 1 firm’s model. What they say is that people found their job listings, 38% found them through corporate websites, 35% through social media links, 23% through an email campaign, 4% throughout the links. Interesting data if you are trying to hire. Let’s break down the data.

They talk about how 61% of social media visits and 95% of social media applications were in the 1st 7 days. In other words, they were able to get out the message a lot quicker using social media. They got more applications more quickly using social media.

Social Media

From the job hunter perspective, social media is a great way to find out about “stuff.” It’s a great way to find out about jobs and companies….It is a great tool when you are job hunting
.
However, I also want to say the job boards are a terrific tool, too. You can call that job board Monster, CareerBuilder, Dice or whatever! You can call it LinkedIn because that has because LinkedIn certainly advertises jobs in a variety of ways and I’m talking about a job board feature here.

All these job boards are going to be morphing fairly soon and aggregating jobs like Indeed and SimplyHired do.

The relevance to you is that despite all the hype in the recruiting world is around LinkedIn, the fact of the matter is that people are ship finding jobs to job boards. They are finding jobs through networking too much higher level. But, yes, they are finding jobs for job boards.

Yes, it is a tedious process. There are a few things that make it better. For example, I did a quick demo with someone at monster.com for a little utility that they have called BeKnown. That operates on Facebook. Once you register on monster and come over to Facebook to look for jobs, what you will notice is that on some of the jobs a picture starts to appear on someone that you are connected with on Facebook who works for that firm or has worked for the firm.

This is the idea of using your network to finesse your way into an organization, having an advocate supporting you in order to get interviewed. They obviously can’t get you hired, but may be able to get in touch with the hiring manager and provide an employee referral that might result from the introduction and earn a commission and, you, an interview and the job.

The Data o Networking is Overwhelming

My advice to you is to use all the tools that are available to you. After all, they all work. As Dave Opton of ExecuNet said on “Job Search Radio,” the statistics are very overwhelming, that the way that 70% of people find jobs is through networking. 70% of the 70% find jobs as a result of introductions to people that they didn’t know at the beginning of the search.

Catch that one. 70% of the people find jobs through networking. 70% of the 70% (or 49%) found a job as a result of someone that they didn’t know at the beginning of the search.

Anything that you can do is going to help you find work. Networking. Job boards. Friends. It all works. Don’t drop anything from your arsenal because job boards and recruiters fill a certain number of jobs, even though networking feels far more.

Just keep working the job boards. Keep working. The technology that’s available to you to find out about leads (like the agents that will deliver leads from job boards to your inbox).

[/spp-transcript]

Do you think employers are trying to help you?

You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell you as much 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.

Connect with me on LinkedIn

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.”

The Job Market October 2016 | No BS Job Search Advice Radio

November 7, 2016 by Jeff

This is my report on the job market for October 2016, as released on November 4, 2016. It is not a political statement. It is simply to report to offer This is my report on the job market for October 2016, as released on November 4, 2016. It is not a political statement. It is simply to report to offer information about the job market in the US.information about the job market in the US.

[spp-transcript]

Let’s talk about the US jobs report for October, 2016 that was released on November 4th.

The good news is that there were 161,000 new jobs created and that the headline unemployment rate went down to 4.9% from 5%. Even the U6 rate, which includes people who want to work full-time but are only able to find part-time jobs, declined to 9.5%. Private sector jobs increased by 142,000, of which professional services were 43,000, healthcare was 31,000, government, 19,000. There was a decline in manufacturing jobs of 9000. The labor force participation rate is it 62.4%

Generally, on the surface, it seems like a decent report for the US economy post-2008 . . . Actually, it is a typical one. Now, let me go beneath the surface, because, when you start digging into the report, there are some interesting stuff there that doesn’t get reported on the news that most people watch, listen to or read.

Beneath the Surface

Part-time jobs with the biggest component of the growth. Understand, that government revises its report, even on the fly. Part-time jobs deleted increased by 430,000. Full-time jobs went down by 103,000. When we think of the word, “job,” we think of full-time jobs. When the government uses the word, “job,” it defines it is someone who worked for at least one hour during the course of the month.

Thus, it seems like what we are doing is creating an “uber economy,” with most of the jobs being created, being part-time positions.

The GDP seems to have grown at its slowest rate in 8 years. 94 million people are not working. There were 238,000 people who had jobs, but couldn’t go to work, because of Hurricane Matthew in the southeast.

Construction jobs increased by 11,000 jobs. Retail slowed down which was surprising, given the holiday season coming up.

In the last period of time (I think it’s an 8 year period), 1 million new jobs were created that employ women and the government reports that 1 million went to foreign workers. One third of students are unable to make payments on their student loans.

I am mentioning all of this stuff because the rosy picture the government tries to paint isn’t the reality for most of us. People seem to be working 2 or 3 jobs in order to pay their bills or not pay their bills so late. So the Labor Department report becomes a mediocre report when you dig below the surface and adequate one when you stay on the surface.

Ahead

I’ll simply say that for you, as a job hunter, you need to keep your head up and not down. My belief is that we are going to be having a recession, probably next year. It could be the year after. That is because recoveries don’t go on forever. They do eventually come down. According to the government, this recoveries been going on for 8 years which is a long recovery. It is a mediocre one from a jobs and economic perspective but a recovery, nonetheless.

Ask yourself, “How long do you think this will go on?”

My encouragement to you is to make sure that your skills are up to date, that you are doing your networking now and not waiting until the very end where it is too late, you are getting involved, making sure that you are learning what you need to in order to make sure that you are marketable in case, and that you are not just simply focused on your job. You are thinking of herself as the CEO of your own business where you are responsible to the shareholders which are your family and yourself,

[/spp-transcript]

Do you think employers are trying to help you?

You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell you as much 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.

Connect with me on LinkedIn

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

Change is Coming | No BS Job Search Advice Radio

November 5, 2016 by Jeff

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter encourages you to anticipate change and get support now.

[spp-transcript]

This is going to be a quirky podcasts for me and an important one for you. Most of the time, I talked about how you can tactically deal with job hunting – – I help you with resumes, I talked with you about how to handle interview questions and negotiate salary, a whole host of things related to job. On this show, I want to go “bigger picture.”

The bigger picture is that, when you find a job now, most of you make the mistake of thinking it’s all over. I’ve got my job. Yippee! I’m done.

What you need is someone to work with you over the course of your career who is someone you can bounce ideas off of. Someone who can give you advice about how to handle professional situations.

You know. A coach. You may think you have that person place, but you really don’t. That’s because you never call upon them. You never reach out to them for advice. That’s what I want to talk with you candidly right now.

If you think your professional circumstances are safe now, you are mistaken. Change is clearly a part of our life landscape. Let me give you perspective for my career.

I started off in recruiting in 1972. At that time, you deliver the resume by US mail. Then, he progressed to the messenger delivering resumes in your local city. He used the messenger service. Then you hired your own messenger. Then, this great thing happened – – the fax machine. The fax machine is limiting the job of the messenger, just like the messenger cost jobs at the post office. Now, obviously, we use email.

Now, we do recruiting, not by waiting for resumes to arrive in our inbox through the mail, not by waiting for fax, waiting for it to be emailed. Now, we are finding people aggressively online using a variety of different tools where we can research people online and find them.

When push comes to shove, in that simple illustration, I probably talked about 9 or 10 different changes, all of which cost jobs. In doing the research, you are impacting jobs at job boards. When job boards came around, did anyone use a fax machine anymore? No. It’s built into the software or PCs and we never use it anyway

the point I’m trying to make is that, in your career, you’re going to need to anticipate the changes in your career. You will need to be proactive in order to position yourself in a way that allows you to stand out from others. This isn’t simply about branding because branding is only one aspect of it. You have to anticipate that the firm you are working for. Could go out of business tomorrow. With the change.

Now, I know a lot of you are thinking, “That can’t happen to me. I work for Megalopolysis, the biggest and most important firm in the field.”

Didn’t the recession teach you anything about safety, at firms? Lord knows, there were millions and millions of people throughout the world who thought their jobs were safe and their careers were well positioned because they work for good firms. These people all went up out on their butts. People at Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns before that… We can go through all sorts of firms where people did great work and, through no fault of theirs. The sand shifted under their feet and they wound up being out of a job. Painfully out of a job.

My encouragement for you is to get someone to sit and talk with.

I’m available and, yes, I do charge for the service but we can do it through LivePerson.com we are a 10 minute session may cost you less than $50. We can get a quote acquainted and set up something quarterly where we talk. You need someone to bounce ideas off of you has the experience that I have, is a subject matter expert around job search, who does career coaching for many many years. I want to help you.

You need a trusted advisor to work with to ensure that you don’t wind up losing going forward. Reach out to me through LivePerson.com where I am a job search and career coaching expert. I’ll be happy to answer your questions. Happy to set up a schedule where we can work together for many years so that you are well-positioned going forward in your career and you don’t get caught short.

[/spp-transcript]

Do you think employers are trying to help you? You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell you as much 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.

Connect with me on LinkedIn

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.”

A Bird in the Hand . . . | No BS Job Search Advice Radio

November 3, 2016 by Jeff

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter tells you a cautionary tale to remind you that a bird in the hand is worth more than two in the bush.

[spp-transcript]

I want to tell you a cautionary tale, give you a warning, however you want to think of it they came from her recent experience with the job hunter. This was a person moving to a new city. He bought a house with his wife, wanted to move to the new location, contacted me because I have a client there, I had a position he was well-qualified for, all sorts of good stuff.

The interview with my client and is about to get an offer. The head of the department that he is meeting with his traveling, so. The job offer can’t get signed off on right away. In the meantime, unbeknownst to me until the last 2nd, he has received an offer from another firm. I contacted him to let him know that my client is about to extend an offer. My contact with that firm gets in touch with him to let them know that he’s getting an offer. All they have to do is get one last signature. They expect to have it signed off on imitator to.

Let Me Fast-Forward

The applicant asked me about my client and whether they are reliable.

“They took the time to call you to let you know this was going to happen. I don’t know this person to be a liar. I would say it is going to happen.“

I gave him my best judgment.

I also want to say I didn’t know he had another offer until after this. He emailed me on a Friday evening to say that based upon what you’ve heard from the HR person is going to turn down the offer he has and wait for my client.

The horrible thing that happened is that the head of the department decided not to sign off on the offer. Now, this person is out of a job and cannot recover that other job offer. He has to find something and he is moved to his new city. He has no income.

Consider that a lesson. What you do instead is 1 of several things. To be clear, I did not ask him to turn down that other offer.

The lesson here is that a bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush.

The way to handle that situation is:

Accept the offer and set the start date a week further out. In this way, you can install a weeks time for my client to have come back. If my client hadn’t, he would have gone off to that original job. Then, if my client came through, he could have made another decision if you thought that made sense. Not my choice. His choice.
Stall the acceptance of the original offer and try to wait for my client. If pressured, ultimately accept, delay the start a little bit… You get the idea.

You don’t turn down offers based upon a hope, awaiting in the prayer.

What you do is turn down offers when you actually have something, not necessarily what in writing, but have the oral offer, when you being told that the offer will be put in writing, etc.. Not before then. Especially in situations like this where he was going to be stranded without a job at the time working really needed to be positioned.

Again, my advice is a bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush. Stall as long as you can. Delay starting as long as you can if that other offer is the preferred job.

If it isn’t the preferred job, it doesn’t matter! In this case, it was. The money was going to be significantly better. The work was going to be significantly better. You get the idea.

You don’t turn down something for the hope that something will come through because, as happened here, sometimes it doesn’t.

[/spp-transcript]

Do you think employers are trying to help you?

You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell you as much 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.

Connect with me on LinkedIn

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.”

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