Day: September 27, 2016

Why Did You Leave Your Last Job? – No BS Job Search Advice

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Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter discusses how to answer this tricky interview question.

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I want to talk with you today about one of those tough interview questions that are designed to help you hang yourself. The question is, “why did you leave your last job?” And as they asked the question they try to make it seem like you should tell them intimate details of your life that are completely inappropriate to talk about an interview. They act like they want you to confess.

Playing on that, there are two scenarios. The first is, if you got laid off, you you are not obviously going to say, “I was the least productive person in my organization so that was easy for them to choose me.” Obviously that’s not the right answer from your vantage point; from there’s they respond by saying, “okay. Thank you very much.”

In that situation, you talk about an organization was struggling financially and across-the-board cuts and, unfortunately, based upon seniority you are either (A) the least experienced person amongst your peers or (B) one of the more expensive people in the department and they decided, quality of work be damned, they could take out one person and save the money out of that department or three people and they opted for the one. That’s one approach.

Again, if you got laid off to you the most junior, that’s easy. They took a seniority approach. “I was the most junior person in the organization. You is not an issue or my work because all my reviews were terrific. Ultimately they chose me.”

If you are in a situation where you were not laid off, where you had a choice, this is a subtle one.

As you listen to this, remember, I believe in acting over the course of an interview. Thus, you want to act like you are agonizing and going back in time to think about it. You then say something along the lines of, “this was not an easy decision for me. I have gotten frustrated because they saw me as someone who could run this department, be very good as a programmer… Whatever it is… I didn’t want to sit in the same job for the next 20 years of my life. It became real clear to me that that was going to be the case where was. So, after speaking with my manager and he being very clear that this was the plan for me, I decided that, although I like my job, although I like the work I was doing and like the people, I had to think longer term. I start to go out on interviews and organizations saw me very differently. They saw me as someone who had a huge upside. It wasn’t that I was going to come in and do the same thing repetitively, organizations spoke about how they would do career development for me to help with my growth.” That becomes a different approach.

The second scenario is when you were let go, when you had a rough situation he decided to look at other opportunities.

Using myself as an example, I left a firm at one point where I was a top performer. I came to realize I wasn’t getting the support that I wanted or needed to do what I do. Management kept reducing tools and I kept reaching into my own pocket to pay for things. Eventually, I paused and asked myself, “if I’m going to keep doing that, why, if I’m going to be paying for this stuff myself, why am I giving management such a large percentage? If I’m going to do that, why give management such a large percentage of each sale that I do?” So I decide to hang my own shingle up.”

Did you notice what I was doing? I was painting a situation with the story so that it is understandable from the audience’s standpoint.I’m not acting bitter in any way. I’m not speaking harshly; I just decide to explain it in a very forthright way.

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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

The Change It Had To Come – Job Search Radio

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I learned something a long time ago– you can swim with the flow of the river or swim against it. If you decide to swim against it, the likelihood is that you will drown.

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I want to talk to you older workers for a second about something that I know you know on one level is happening but on other levels you deny how it’s going to affect you and it winds up costing you your career. That is the notion of change. Let me use my career as an example.

When I started recruiting in the 1970s, the hot technology was COBOL. Ultimately, what happens is that things changed “in different technologies became the “hot technology.” Those technologies changed and new things replace them. This is an about the hot technology and what is hot in the market; it is about the need to adapt.

I remember when COBOL was becoming passé and people were starting to use minicomputers, programming languages are completely irrelevant now. They were recruiters who were saying, “there are no COBOL jobs and I have these great COBOL people,” and they didn’t adapt.

If you look at your field, the one that you’re working in now, and the changes that you’ve seen over your proof career or long career, you’ll see that things have changed.

You can argue with them and say to yourself, “I don’t want to have to learn this stuff,” and concede the fact that your career will come to an end because there are people who will want to learn that stuff, who do want to become involved with those things that are new, and desirable. It’s not like you’re going to be the best and that new thing, but you need to get some experience with whatever that thing is that is the new thing in your field.

You need to keep attending conferences. You need to keep paying attention. Reading trade publications, understanding what the change is how to adapt with it, and making the change, as well.

For you, unless you do this, let’s skip ahead a few years. There will be some version of recession. When firms start evaluating who to cut, unless you have adapted, you are an expensive item to. That’s true especially knowing the old stuff.

You always have to learn “new.” You always have to adapt, or else, otherwise, I’m going to start calling you “Dino,” for the dinosaur – – a legacy in your division. An old timer. The person who they tell stories about or jokes about at the office as the person who missed the opportunity to be on the cutting edge. Who missed out and made the decision that cost them their career.

There are so many instances I have seen of people who made this mistake, who hang on for dear life. The truth is if you learn the new stuff,, even if they do cut you (after all, there’s no guarantee that they won’t), you can find another position or contract work during the down times because you know the new stuff and you have experience with the new stuff.

Stay up-to-date with your field. Make sure your current and, if there are so many things that make it hard, to the best! Just don’t get stuck in the mindset that says, “Something else.Ugh,” and started to whine about it. No one likes a whiner, no matter what the subject is. Don’t become the office complainer.

Adapt. Spearhead the change. Encourage other people to adapt as well. You will wind up being a survivor.

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On this show, I offer career advice, rather than pure job search advice is designed to help you have a long and prosperous career

Do you … Read more about this episode…

Can I Apply for Another Job Now If I’m on a Contract?

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[svp]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trw434XeE6k[/svp]
The assignment will end in a few months. I don’t want to be unemployed when it is over.

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Can apply to another job right now, If I’m on a contract assignment? The assignment I know will end in a few months. I was wondering how early can I apply for another job so I will not be unemployed when the contract ends?

This is the dilemma of being a contractor. You know you’re making decent money but all good things come to an end. The same is true with full-time jobs; I’m not here to debate that. I I will answer this question.

So, number one, do the terms of the contract specify what happens if you leave now? Almost all contracts for IT professionals and other professionals allow you to break the contract with two weeks notice, three weeks notice, four weeks notice, some version of notice. So read the terms of your agreement to find out clearly.

Now what I read there was that the assignment is due to end in a few months. There is a difference between two months and four months in the answer.

So if it’s four months, I suggest waiting for a little while, maybe three or four weeks, and then starting. If it’s two months, act now.

If it’s three months, probably now because job hunting takes time and the statistical probability is that you are not going to find the job instantaneously. Let me define that for you.

You send out a resume in the seas part, the earth opens up. I hand reaches up to you and says, “ Here my child. We have a job for you.” It doesn’t work that way.

Usually, you go on multiple interviews over the course of some period of time (usually two months but it can be longer) and the result winds up being that you need to start now if you need something in two months or three months. Four months, you wait a little bit because you know it takes time.

Employers usually want to interview multiple people before choosing someone and you want to get the lay of the land too so that you have a sense of what’s out there that fits your needs and will pay you the money that you want and deserve.

So, again, the answers I always are, “It depends,” because there’s always missing information two answer more explicitly. So again, 2 to 3 months. Start now. Over three months, wait just a little bit so that you benchmark it to 2 to 3 months

[/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