Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter uses the three jokes of recruiting in order to teach an important lesson about job hunting.
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I want to talk with you about the 3 jokes of the recruiting business.
The 1st joke is, “How can you tell a job applicant is lying to you?” The answer is, “Their lips are moving.“
What’s the 2nd joke?
“How can you tell a client is lying to you?“
“Their lips are moving.”
The 3rd joke is, “How can you tell he recruiter was lying to you?” You guessed it – – their lips are moving.
When you basically translate it, what is being said is that everyone is posturing for advantage and the best outcome. Everyone is exaggerating to some degree.
For you as a job hunter. You have to remember that the company may be talking with you about this great opportunity for you to advance when in most cases, what they really want to do is is hire the 4th drone in the 3rd cubicle on the 5th floor of a particular building. You are not particularly important to them.
You may be important to that particular manager, but that manager, when times get tough, may not be they are any longer than you are.
In terms of the recruiter, the recruiter is posturing to engender trust in you. That’s because if you are unsure you may trust their words and allow yourself to take a job.
Now, if we were talking about an investment advisor and they were saying, “Trust me. Give me $50,000. Yeah. That’s the ticket yeah, trust me with the money.” You would be very hesitant. With the recruiter, you need to take your time before giving away your trust.
Finally, I understand that you are trying to get the best of the deal possible and you are trying to position yourself well. Everyone is kind of like 8-year-olds who are visiting their friends’ parents. Invariably, the 8-year-old is on good behavior over there, right? Well, everyone is on good behavior as part of the search process.
Your goal is to get the best information that you can in order to make a good decision for yourself. It’s not to be a good boy. It’s not to be a good girl. It’s to get the best information possible so that you can make a great choice, so that your career advances and you can get to where you want.
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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.
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.
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