Month: August 2016

Job Search Lessons from the Broadway Show “Cats”

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Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter invokes a memory of the Broadway show, “Cats” to remind you of making your answers to interview questions seem fresh.

 

[spp-transcript]

I want to talk with you about one of the mistakes the job hunters make way too often. It is the me a mistake but very experienced job hunters make. It’s the mistake of letting their interviewing get stale.

What often happens is that the job hunter has been on so many interviews and they were asked the same questions repeatedly.

Why are you looking for a job?
Tell me about yourself?
Do you have any questions for us?

Even if you’re in the area with very specialized skills, the question start to get very predictable. The result is that people start to get bored with the interview and get stale.

Understand that from the employer’s perspective, they are only hearing your answer for the first time even if you answered the same question for others 20 times.

Someone remind you of something that I learned many years ago. I used to live in New York. Do you remember the play, “Cats?” The one with the song, “Memories?”

I thought about it one day that in this long-running show (a, yes, the cast changed many times over the years) and that normally cast members and apart for at least a year or so. This performer is saying the same lines, seeing the same songs, night after night. They are performing six days a week, eight shows a week. Their commitment is to make it seem as fresh as it was on opening night. After all, the audience may only be watching the show for the first time and they are paying full price.

You can’t imagine that the actors and actresses have gotten bored by now is saying the same things and singing the same songs over and over and over again.

Remember, your job is to be like performer in a Broadway show on opening night, delivering your lines like it is on opening night, making each performance seem fresh, just like this performer stating, “Cats” so that the audience can see you in your magnificence and applaud ferociously at the end of the performance.

[/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

Is Engaging in LinkedIn Groups Worth The Hassle?

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[svp]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_SEd7w2CcI[/svp]
My answer may surprise you . . . but, then again, I give No BS advice.

 

[spp-transcript]

Is engaging with LinkedIn groups worth the hassle?

The answer is… Not if you go into it with that attitude.

LinkedIn groups unlike your relationship, not a one trick pony. It’s not like you’re going to spend five minutes to get instant results.

If you think of your career has only your current job search. What you need to think of getting involved with LinkedIn groups as being is the opportunity to develop relationships that each of you can benefit over the course of time.

Your attended your attitude about this is like, “(whine) Oh I have to take medicine that tastes bad . . . Yada yada yada.” You are a whiner about it. LinkedIn groups is about creating the relationships where you can both benefit over the course of time.

Now you make it nothing out of it, but like many investments, you get more as of some than others and you don’t know until you start investing it’s the same with LinkedIn groups.

LinkedIn groups are an opportunity to create relationships with people and organizations outside of your current sphere. Anything wrong with that? No!

As every relationship that you’ve been involved with they worth your time in the past? No. You still got involved with, right? Why is this any different?

I’ll simply say if you go into it with this added to of, “it’s a hassle,” “it’s a problem,” whining all the time, it will be worth the time you invest in it. However, if you go into an open heart and the willingness to care for others, instead of with this resentment about having to waste YOUR TIME, doing THIS KIND OF THING, don’t bother.

[/spp-transcript]

 

Do you really 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 http://bit.ly/thebiggamehunter

Add All the Numbers Between 1 and 100

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Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter explains how to answer this tricky hedge fund brainteaser, add all the numbers between one and 100.

 

[spp-transcript]

I love and hedge fund brainteaser questions…NOT!

We can spend a lot of time discussing whether they are valid or not but they are used.

Today’s question is one of those fun ones– a math problem.

Add all the numbers between one and 100 and what you get?

You can’t just sit there and have a mental column in your head and start going 1+2 is 3+3 is six… On and on and on until you get to the answer. So how do you figure this out?

If you think about it, every number has a reciprocal opposite number that adds up to 100. For example, one and 99, two and 98… You get the idea.

When you realize that there are 50 gatherings that total 100, you have 5000 there (remember, there is 100+0).

There is one number that doesn’t have a pairing – – 50. So the answer becomes 5050.

There’s always a trip to the question of interest, especially with the math ones. In this particular case, this is the trick to answering this question.

[/spp-transcript]

 

Do you really 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

Remember to Show This on Job Interviews

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[svp]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMvPDclzvsE[/svp]
There is an extremely large variable that most job hunters forget when they are interviewing for a position. In this video, I use presidential elections to illustrate it.

 

[spp-transcript]

So why should they choose you when they interview you?

Why should you be the one that, when they are finished evaluating all the different people, you’re the one that they scream for?

For now, I want to lay the stage for you and say there are a lot of very competent people who you are competing with. You’re not the only one who can do this job. But the question is, “are you the only one who can do this job in their environment?” Wt hat’s going to make you the chosen one?

I want to look at one of the examples that we can look at successfully competed through a lengthy interview cycle and that’s called presidential politics. No, I’m not going to be talking about the current election. I want to go back in time and look at the election of Barack Obama.

Sen. Obama ran for office, not as the most experienced possible candidate; clearly, Sarah McCain was. But Sen. Obama ostensibly had a year in the Senate but most of that time he was out campaigning. So, he didn’t have any nati experience he. He didn’t have any foreign policy experience or economic experience. He was a state senator in Illinois who often times voted, “Present.” He had a background as a Harvard-trained attorney who practiced for a while. You’ve heard the story of him being a community organizer.

What qualified him to be President of the United States?

Perhaps qualifications are not the key ingredient when Americans elect candidates. Since that is true, we can still look at why he was the one that was chosen over someone who is clearly more experienced than he was.

What some people will say is, “I like his politics and policy ideas better than the other.” I don’t buy that. Borrowing that an unjust point to the fact that statistics throughout the first five or six years of his presidency said so many Americans disagree with his politics. How does this work?

The answer is a good instruction for you as someone who is interviewing and that they like them personally, even if they disagreed with him and they voted for because they liked him. Even as we look at the current election, the way that campaigning is being done is, ” Vote for me. You hate that guy and you should dislike that guy a lot.” Not mentioning names. It’s irrelevant to the equation because the key missing ingredient for most of you is that you are only selling yourself for your competence . . . and competence is only one variable in the equation. There is still likability (sometimes firms refer to that is chemistry I’ll call it likability because that’s the marketing term, the advertiser term used for it).

You want to appear likable to the audience. That sometimes can get tricky because fit, chemistry things like that are rife with the opportunity for bias.

I work on employers about that all the time but, for you as the job hunter, you cannot come across as adversarial. You cannot come across as being “professional,” unless that’s the quality you believe that they’re going to like. Most of the time, a smile, some personality, some off-the-cuff remarks that don’t sound scripted, where you can connect with the interviewer, goes so far in getting hired.

So you can learn this lesson from presidential politics. Likability is a huge variable and why people are chosen. By the way, if we look back in time, Gov. Clinton became President Clinton because people liked him more than the incumbent President. Ronald Reagan, at the time he ran for office, he was not the Ronald Reagan that became the symbol of the Republican Party. He was someone the people liked that made himself likable in the debates with certain off-the-cuff remarks that he made that Americans related to

Look for ways that people will enjoy you, like you and then want you to be around them more every day

[/spp-transcript]

 

Do you really 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

Start You Daily Job Search With Some Cardio

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Listen to this last then two minute audio

 

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

You Don’t Need to Spend So Much Time Job Hunting

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Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter points out what seems obvious — job hunters think they spend more time than they actually do in their job search and tells you how to solve this problem.

 

[spp-transcript]

One thing I know about job hunters is that you think you do more than you actually do. You think you spend all day looking for work when in fact you spend most of the day blowing it off.

I want to help you. I want to help you see how much time you actually spend job hunting on any given day. This is going to be true if you’re working full time and doing this during the evening. It’s a very simple philosophy and one that will help you discover how much effort you are actually expanding versus how much time you spend thinking about job hunting.

What I want to do is keep a log daily in your phone, write it in a notebook on a spreadsheet, I don’t care.! I just want you to record your activity every day to support your job search.

It can be very simple. Looked at Indeed. 8:45 AM to 8:57 AM.

Called so-and-so. Left message about networking.

Did research into organizations the to the kind of work I am interested in.

Whatever it is you write it down and the amount of time you spent doing it.

Give yourself two weeks. Review it. See what you’ve actually done and how much time you’ve really spent job hunting.

This will probably lead you to an aha moment where you realize that perhaps you spend an hour a day doing work related to job search. Maybe it was two hours.

It will beg the question, “what did you do the rest of the time?”

Now if you can get that an hour up to two, if you can get that to up to three, this will be a lot of progress for you folks.

The only way for a lot of you folks to learn how little you did is to keep this kind of a log, tracking the effort that you actually spend, and staring at it and been faced with the data.

Then you will realize, “Gee, I’m not really doing that much. I’m really wasting a lot of time with nonsense.”

[/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

An Advanced LinkedIn Strategy

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Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter discusses and advanced LinkedIn strategy you should be using.

 

[spp-transcript]

Here’s a great strategy for your networking on LinkedIn, for you to be able to target organizations that you would work for.

Let’s say a firm that shoes identified that you want to be involved with, and, yes, you know people on LinkedIn who you can network with.

Here’s the funny thing. Go to the company page and, yes, you’re going to find out a lot of information about that firm. Now look in the right-hand column, scroll down, and look at this section called, “people also viewed.”

What you’re going to find are firms that are similar to it who might be able to use skills like yours. When you click that page, going to be able to find individuals who were in your network who already work for that firm. These are people who you can network with in order to find out more about the company, get entrée into that organization and target that firm.

When all is said and done, people only have, you only have, I know I only probably half a finite amount of knowledge about conscious relationships I have with in particular firms. To expand that knowledge, I need to go to people beyond the ones I can to consciously think of all the time. That’s where this particular function works so well.

That’s what this particular function works so well. It takes you to firm similar to the ones you already know, shows you who you already know at those organizations and lets you do networking.

So, again, go to the company page of the firm. In the right-hand column, and look for, “people who looked at this company also looked at,” and go to those firms and see who you’re connected with at those organizations.

[/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

I Was Late Because of The Application

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[svp]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmQKhCQJ1EM[/svp]
There is a lengthy reason for why the interview started late and the application was a big part of it. Should I be worried?

[spp-transcript]

Do you really 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 http://bit.ly/thebiggamehunter

Forgotten People to Network With

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Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter talks about some of the people many forget to network with When job hunting.

 

[spp-transcript]

This podcast is about some of the forgotten people to network with. People who know you, want to help you but, so often, people forget to network with and ask for advice.

The first category of people that individuals often forget about our former bosses or managers. You know, those people who watch to day in and day out performing your job. These are folks who are senior to you and connected to different folks than you. Perhaps, there networking expertise is something you should model yourself after.

Many of them have joint professional organizations and gotten involved. Many of them continue to have lunch with, dinner with, talk with former subordinates, former managers of theirs. They don’t do it to change jobs all the time but to stay in touch in case they need them.

This is something to model yourself after and a person you should reach out to.

The second category of people that individuals tend to forget about are clergy people. No matter what your religious group, the clergy have connections with (excuse me if I use the wrong term to describe how they might be referred to in your faith) their congregation, their attendees, their participants. They might know some of the professional needs.

To be clear, you’re not going to go to your religious leader and say, “I need a job. Can you help me? Please. Please. Please.”

But you can say, “in case you don’t know this, I’m in a situation room looking for work. You might hear something that makes sense for me and, if you do, please point that congregant to me.”

Another thing, whether it is your former manager or religious leader, you might simply ask whether they have any advice for you. Now the nature of the devices would be different from person to person and whether this is a religious person or a business person. The advice may be incredibly worthwhile.

You may think the advice you would get from the religious leader will fit but it may be the most important advice you receive in your job search.

[/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

Everything Can Make a Difference

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[svp]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIO1_9I1f2I[/svp]

Have you heard the story of the princess who can feel the one pea under their thick mattress? No? How about your experience with a tiny pebble in your shoe.

 

[spp-transcript]

SUMMARY:

Have you ever heard the old fairy story about the Princess who slept on a mattress that was extremely thick and could feel a single he beneath those many feet of mattress? How about have you ever had a pebble in a new shoe that just annoying the heck out of you?

So many things become like that pea or like that pebble and can cause you to lose a job opportunity.

The fact is the things that can annoy a potential employer can be as simple as not liking the font in your resume were thinking you weren’t specific enough at the time they interrupted you for the phone interview.

The thing you need to remember is that everything you do can make a difference in the way they think about you every step of their evaluation process. Even if they decide to offer you a position, they may offer you less and what they might have originally budgeted for because of one of the small annoyances.

Don’t become trapped by forgetting that everything you do and say while being evaluated by a firm can make a difference in how you are seen by them and cost you money even if they hire you.

[/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