May 21, 2015 – Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter's Blog

Ask The Big Game Hunter: First Job. Changing Jobs Again Quickly. (VIDEO)

April 21, 2017May 21, 2015 by Jeff

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter answers a question he received on quota.com about changing jobs quickly after taking your first position.

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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.

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.

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Hedge Fund Brainteasers: The 10x10x10 Cube Brainteaser

June 24, 2015May 21, 2015 by Jeff

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter shares another interview brainteaser with you.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter has been a recruiter for more than 40 years.

Follow him at The Big Game Hunter, Inc. on LinkedIn for more articles, videos and podcasts than what are offered here and jobs he is recruiting for.

Visit www.TheBigGameHunter.us. There’s a lot more advice there.

Email me if your firm is trying to hire someone.

Connect with me on LinkedIn

Pay what you want for my books about job search

Trying to hire someone? Email me at JeffAltman@TheBigGameHunter.us

Do you need more in-depth coaching? Join my Coaching program.

Want to ask me a question via email, chat or phone ? Reach me via PrestoExperts or Clarity.fm

Influence, Hiring and Retention

May 21, 2015 by Jeff

Respectfully, you are mistaken if you believe that people join your firm because you have a “great opportunity.” Almost every firm I know makes that claim and, in fact, most opportunities are pretty ordinary.

They amount to little more than plugging a square peg into a square hole for a few dollars more per week after taxes.

Yet people accept this all the time and it begs the question, “Why?”

“What causes people to accept the same tedium at a new organization for what often amounts to a few dollars, rupees or euros in additional wages after taxes?

The answer is actually pretty simple and comes right out of Sales Training 101 Circa 1975:

Sell the sizzle and not the steak.

In this case, by selling the brand your firm represents in the marketplace, you are able to create the idea of hope, opportunity and desire that so many aspire to.

But the next question is once they are there and they know that they are basically doing the same job for a different manager, what keeps someone.

That answer is also pretty simple and goes back to my MSW (Masters in Social Work) days when I was reminded that people are social animals who operate in relationship to other social animals. Your biggest grouch and grump and your biggest introvert are social animals who will still with you because of relationships with others.

Without doing things to bind people to their group, department, manager, peers or organization, many people lose the feeling of being a part of something bigger than themselves and have little to hold them with you.

It is like the story of the platoon or military unit who will do amazing things because they feel the power of the relationship with the other men and women.

Unless your managers do positive things to create loyalty, trust and relationship, unless such behavior is part of your corporate makeup, your staff will be tempted by the next ad they see on the web promising Nirvana or the next recruiting call they receive from a recruiter offering a fantastic opportunity if only they accept this job offer.

These subtle influences often do more than an extra few thousand dollars to solve your staffing problems.

Getting Clear With Your Recruiting Vendors

May 21, 2015 by Jeff

I frequently listen to junior people in my office gather requirements from clients about jobs they are going to fill.

Sometimes they take the job description orally; sometimes, they receive an email that outlines what the firm is looking for.

Too often, they make a mistake.

They forget to ask you what the interview process will be like.

I don’t mean the names of the people who will be doing the interviewing and I certainly don’t mean the specific questions either (Although if you want to tell me the questions, I won’t stop you).

I am referring to what the people who will be involved with the assessment process be looking for when they evaluate someone.

Now before you say, “They are looking for someone who is qualified to perform the tasks associated with the job,” and before I say, “Bull,” let me give you some examples.

A not-for-profit that wants to know if the people they interview for finance or tech jobs “have a heart.”

The manager at a consulting firm who arrives as the last person to interview senior technologists and asks them to define terms in their resume.

The firm that rejects a temp for an assignment because the job applicant who met someone for five minutes could not remember the person’s name that was said one to them and referred to them as “The Benefits Lady.”

Do you think these scenarios allow someone to be evaluated for their qualifications? I don’t.

So when you speak with a third party recruiter and provide them with a job description, PLEASE provide them with a description of the interview process will be like and what each will assess for, not so I can prepare the job applicant. I want to know this so I can do my job more effectively and qualify the people I refer to you better.

Hiring Smarter

May 21, 2015 by Jeff

The hiring process in most organizations is broken– it is like much of America today– processed, Pasteurized and homogenized into no little value except to give nimble competitors a huge advantage.

Here’s what usually happens.

A manager submits a job specification to HR and it is written into an ad and/or put out to recruiters, retained or contingency, who run around trying to fill the job.

Managers then interview with dumb questions that do little to evaluate or truly assess. They re-evaluate the spec in their mind but never communicate changes to the people, both internal and external, who are beating the bushes to support them.

All the while, they are asking questions that come from some industrial psychology playbook but ultimately involves looking someone in the eye and guessing whether they can do the job and fit into the organization.

Meanwhile, candidates can search Google or buy my books (or almost any job search book) and defeat what most employers are trying to find out about them. As a matter of fact, many websites offer the answers to many professional questions that your firm is probably asking.

I could go into this diatribe with examples galore from what I have heard from managers who complain about the process instituted about HR and from HR professionals who complain about interview incompetence by hiring managers.

Does this all make a lot of sense to you? Continuing with systems like this sure doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. The solution doesn’t involve throwing out the system except those that are required for government compliance.

There is a simple to implement solution that will allow your managers to hire with greater certainty and hire people with more drive and motivation.

What is a firm to do?

Contract-to-hire or Temp-to-perm.

According to a recent survey, there are now six job applicants for every available job. In two years the tide will probably turn and you may lose your leverage with unemployed labor.

By offering them a contract-to-hire or temp-to-perm offer (I differentiate a contract-to-hire as being a skilled professional; a temp-to-perm is someone who might be an administrative role) you will have a very motivated worker who will have to prove themselves prior to being hired and your firm will be protected against a bad hire.

If the person doesn’t perform, let them go! A client told me about a mistake they hired recently who just couldn’t deliver what they said they could. The employer is now are on the hook for unemployment insurance and have to start from scratch interviewing.

With a contract to hire, they could have continued to interview as a fallback, just in case.

Plus you can put them on the payroll with one of your existing consulting vendors and let them make a few dollars free. They’ll love you for it. Just make sure there is no conversion fee when you switch them to staff!

Direct Sourcing Your Next Hire

May 21, 2015 by Jeff

“Hi!

“My name is Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter. I’m doing a search for a client, a hedge fund based in Chicago, which is trying to hire two people for full time positions on staff doing Blah Blah Blah Blah.

“I had been in touch with you in the past at a time when you were aggressively looking for a position. I thought I would (give you a call/drop an email to you) to see if you might be available and might be interested in such a role.

“Is this a good time to speak or would it be better if we spoke later in the day?

I have started many many thousands of calls in this way in an effort to recruit someone I have been in contact with in the past.

If I knew this person was not quite right but might be in contact with or know someone who could fit the role, I would change my presentation slightly . . .

“I’m not calling to recruit you but to ask if you might point me to someone who you used to work with at Blah Blah who might have this background; I’ll keep your name out of it when I call them.

Finally, are you collecting email addresses from people you are interviewing or qualifying so you can re-contact them? I’m not speaking of stealing candidates from recruiters in such a manner.

When you are interview someone by phone or in person, collect their email address, add it to your data base and contact them when a position opens that fits their experience. This is a simple technique that third party recruiters have been doing for the almost 40 years I have been in recruiting.