Month: May 2015

Researching Your Value

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Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter discusses the mistake too many jobholders me when researching their value.

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 my website, http://www.TheBigGameHunter.us to sign up for a complimentary subscription to No B.S. Job Search Advice  Ezine, pay what you want for my books and guides to job hunting and watch hundreds of other videos about job hunting and hiring.

Connect with me on LinkedIn.

Subscribe to TheBigGameHunterTV on YouTube for advice about job hunting and hiring. Like videos, share and comment.

Listen to Job Search Radio, No B. S. Job Search Advice Radio and No B. S. Hiring Advice Radio in iTunes and other podcast directories and apps.

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

No B. S. Hiring Advice: You’re Fighting Over What?

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Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter makes the suggestion to you about negotiating salaries with new hires.

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

Subscribe to TheBigGameHunterTV on YouTube  for advice about job hunting and hiring. Like videos, share and comment.

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

What’s So Good About Hiring Team Players?

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I was on vacation recently and, as often happens, my mind starts to wander to different things related to my work.

For years, I have joked with people about how meaningless the term, “team player” is. No one asks for people who are mavericks or renegades. Everyone wants to hire, “team players.”

And then the thought hit me.

Why?

Why is being a team player so good that employers write it into every job description?

I did a Google search in my browser.

“What is a team player,” and got a few answers that I thought were interesting.

One defined a team player as being someone who:

  • Enjoys other people’s company
  • Is non judgmental and accepting
  • Is a listener
  • Is likeable
  • Is empathic
  • Accepts other opinions

They sited as examples someone who says

  • “I enjoy motivating people by praising them for their achievements and I accept others’ opinions if even if they differ from mine.”
  • “I enjoy other peoples company and I enjoy discussions with others.”
  • “I think that team work increases efficiency at work.”

Now I understand why in some jobs these are qualities that should be sought after but I must in all candor tell you that there are times where it is important for someone to stand facing the storm and shout, “This is wrong,” or “What you are doing is crap,” and demand that they be heard.

You see, I hold the opinion that too many organizations have doomed themselves to mediocrity through demanding that people be “team players” rather than geniuses . . . or team players who can be “a pain the patootie” when something is seems wrong or mediocre instead of superb.

So while you are interviewing for team players, ask them a few extra questions that lets them know that being “different” or not just “going with the flow” is a quality you want in your new hires.

After they speak with you about what they have done, follow up with this statement and question:

“A lot of people answer that question in much the same way. What makes you any different than the last three people I’ve interviewed for this job?”

or

“Tell me about a time you took a stand for something that turned out well at your last job.”

and, just as importantly

“Tell me about a time you took a stand for something that didn’t turn out as you hoped. What did you learn from it?”

 

You will learn a lot more about the people you interview from their answers and begin to shift your firm’s culture from being one that accepts others opinions in an unquestioning way, where it is important to be likeable and empathetic to one that values excellence, hiring highly motivated and demanding people who want to create excellent products or offer great service to customers, no matter what others may think or them.

 

 

© 2012 all rights reserved.

Handling a 15 Minute Interview

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Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter explains what you need to do when you were scheduled for a 15 minute interview.

 

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 my website, http://www.TheBigGameHunter.us to sign up for a complimentary subscription to No B.S. Job Search Advice Ezine, pay what you want for my books and guides to job hunting and watch hundreds of other videos about job hunting and hiring.

Connect with me on LinkedIn.

Subscribe to TheBigGameHunterTV on YouTube for advice about job hunting and hiring. Like videos, share and comment

Listen to Job Search Radio, No B. S. Job Search Advice Radio and No B. S. Hiring Advice Radio in iTunes and other podcast directories and apps.

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

Tough Interview Questions: Your Boss Thinks an Idea is Great. You Don’t. What Do You

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Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter offers 3 ways to answer this tough interview question, ” Your boss thinks they have a great idea. You think it stinks. What would you do?”

 

 

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 my website, http://www.TheBigGameHunter.us to sign up for a complimentary subscription to No B.S. Job Search Advice Ezine, pay what you want for my books and guides to job hunting and watch hundreds of other videos about job hunting and hiring.

Connect with me on LinkedIn.

Subscribe to TheBigGameHunterTV on YouTube for advice about job hunting and hiring. Like videos, share and comment.

Listen to Job Search Radio, No B. S. Job Search Advice Radio and No B. S. Hiring Advice Radio in iTunes and other podcast directories and apps.

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

 

Tough Interview Questions: Do You Have More, Less or The Same?

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Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter offers an answer to this cute little brainteaser.

 

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.

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

Being Fair with Your Recruiting Vendors

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I work with many clients who are overwhelmed with a schedule that is difficult to lose control over.

They are interviewing people every 30 minute, speaking with hiring managers, chasing those same hiring managers, evaluating, assessing, qualifying potential hires, putting together and extending job offers, checking references PLUS talking to 3rd party recruiters who are incompetent to evaluate talent (this is what they tell me).

It never ends. Every day.

When I qualify job applicants, I ask them where they have been on interviews and where they have submitted their resumes before submitting it to a client.

Recently, I have been hearing more and more companies tell me, “He’s in our system.”

Let me be blunt.

I understand that sometimes a candidate doesn’t tell me the truth or forgets a place or two, but when you start to notice that the client has not contacted the candidate until I attempted to present them, I can see what is going on.

A firm has a contract with a job board and is harvesting resumes and having them input into their system or people are sending resumes and no one looks at the data base until a third party recruiter “tickles” them at which point they actually see the resume for the first time, claim ownership and contact the candidate.

I understand that you are stretched thin but this is wrong.

Be honest and don’t cheat people.

If you have too much to do, hire a contract recruiter to review everything that arrives in your data base daily or hire a firm like mine to review resumes daily that you source from the boards or from other means and either identify possible fits based upon a basic screen or accept a discounted fee for referring someone who is hired that comes from your data base (like having a captive agency working with your data base).

Being fair will allow you to improve your job to hire ratios and get more jobs off your desk which with a recovering economy will become more important over the next 12-24 months.

 

 

© 2010 all rights reserved.

Recruiting Is Not a Factory Process

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As I look at how corporate recruiting has changed over my almost 40 years of experience in recruiting, the most obvious change has been the evolution of the belief that recruiting talent is something that should be homogenized, compartmentalized, controlled, micro-managed and processed. Concurrent with this change is the belief that recruiting software can simplify hiring to the point that it is far more effective with matching, predicting success, candidate communications and a host of other activities.

Anyone really see much evidence of this because the people I speak with tell me something different.

It’s one thing to say, “My data base allows me access to a lot of resumes of people with whom I can communicate with more easily [via email].”

Everything else seems to be so much hocus pocus to help justify high priced software that has limited affect across an enterprise.

And from the candidate side, what are you telling a potential hire when you say, “I know you aren’t actively looking for something else and I know we reached out to you about a job, but we need you to input your resume into our system to proceed.“

I’ll tell you what I take from it . . . your company is like a government agency.

Is that the message you want to convey to people?

© 2010 all rights reserved.

Keeping Older Workers is Essential…

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When I started in the search business in the early 1970’s, it didn’t take long for me to notice that there were very few people in their 40’s who were working in technology (my focal point at the time). I remember asking myself, “What happens when people turn 40 in this business?”

Today, this is no longer an issue as firms have discovered that in the age of labor shortages, older workers are essential to firms achieving success. But a new problem has been created that few firms are addressing.

By aggressively doing things to hold on to the baby boomer generation, Gen-X workers are roadblocked and becoming increasingly frustrated with their increasingly limited advancement options.

And when companies hire people, companies often make the mistake of focusing on the boomer issue of needing to earn more when they could be adding the Gen-X issue–What’s my advancement opportunities with your company. After all, one of the issues they have is being squeezed by the enormous generation of boomers who won’t quit or retire yet and the up and coming explosion referred to as Gen-Y.

What happens to this smart. self-reliant group of Gen-X adults?

So, as you look at your staff, what are you doing to create advancement options for your staff in their 30’s? What are you doing to cultivate their skills.

And, as you look to hire someone in their 30’s, speak to the upside that will exist for them and not just the money.

 

 

© The Big Game Hunter, Inc. Asheville, NC 2010

The Prime Directive: Does HR Lead or Fail to Lead?

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Businessweek carried a terrific column from Jack and Suzy Welsh entitled, “So Many CEO’s Get This Wrong” that describes how HR should function and the mistakes that corporate HR makes.

Responding to a question that points out the HR is often felt in a negative way vs. The Welsh’s claim that it is the most powerful part of any organization, they acknowledge that HR is often marginalized in organizations into the people who issue the newsletter, plan the company picnic or, at the other extreme, “the cloak-and-dagger society.”

They then call for HR to be “the killer app” within a company but acknowledge it seldom is, laying the blame squarely upon the CEO who does not put HR at the table the same way as the CFO.

They recount a story of speaking to 5000 HR executives in Mexico City and asking how many of their organizations were on the same footing as the CFO and getting fewer than 50 hands to go up. They then ask whether the Boston Red Sox would be better run by the CFO or the Director of Player Personnel (as a Yankee fan, I encourage the Red Sox to try the Welsh’s suggestion and report back in a decade or two).

So what do they suggest?

Part pastor (who can hear all sins and complaints without recrimination) and part parent (loving and caring but giving it to you straight when you get off track), they are men and women with stature and substance.

Their job is not to make people warm and fuzzy. The job is to create ways to motivate and retain people; they create review and appraisal systems that let’s people know where they stand and monitor it with the rigor that is invested in SOX compliance. Third of all, they need to be able to confront charged relationships like those with unions, people no longer delivering the goods, or those with egos as large as all outdoors but who have stopped growing.

They exhort CEO’s to elevate HR to the same level of professionalism as is expected of their CFO’s while acknowledging that few organizations are currently pointed in this direction. They ask, “. Since people are the whole game, what could be more important?”

So, what’s the focus of your work? Is it attracting and retaining great people? What are you doing to put systems in place that motivate, inspire and reward (yes, reward) talent. You know, the people you say are at the crux of the organization and its achievements and success.

And what are you doing to support people when they stop growing or stop performing. How do you get them on track or get them out?

© The Big Game Hunter, Inc. Asheville, NC 2012