Day: September 29, 2016

When Your Current Employer Wants More Than Two Weeks Notice

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Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter explains how to respond when your current manager asks for more than two weeks notice.

[spp-transcript]

I want to talk with you about those instances when you are giving you notice in your current employer turns around and says, “No! No! No! Not two weeks notice. We need four, six, eight weeks notice two months notice! Two years notice!” Whatever it is, it’s more than two weeks.

Here’s how you respond to it. I want to understand that the reason you doing this is that if you agreed to their unreasonable request (and it is an unreasonable request), it has an impact on your relationship with your future employer. That’s where you are going to be for the next period of your life, not with your former employer.

You just very simply respond by saying, “I understand your concern. I want you to know that I’m very prepared to do over time in order to ensure that this is a smooth transition. I given a commitment to my future employer on a particular date. My commitments are important to me; it’s important to them as well and I’m going to be there on that date.”

“If you need me to work overtime or participate in the interviewing for my replacement and assist with the hand off , I can take phone calls, not a ridiculous number of phone calls but I can take a phone call or two when my new job and will be happy to answer the new person’s questions. However, again, I need to be there on this particular date.”

If you work for big or midsized company, you don’t have to worry about this, because sometimes we work for a small firm or the owner is very hands-on you, may have to contend with an owner who says, “What! If you feel that way, get out of here now!” And they throw you out of your job now. If that happens, they obviously didn’t need you for more than two weeks, right? If you want to start sooner at your next employer you can contact them and say, “The person I was working for decided it would be better if I left now and I would like to join sooner.”

“Why did they feel that way?”

“They had an emotional tantrum when I gave them two weeks notice and they asked for four and I said I’m going to keep my commitment.”

That reinforces an ethical quality in the mind of the next employer in 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 

Stupid Interviewing Mistakes: Seeming Desperate! – Job Search Radio

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Being desperate is a turnoff in dating AND it’s a turnoff in job hunting.

On this show, I discuss “the stupid interviewing mistake” of seeming desperate and explain how to correct it.

[spp-transcript]

This one is about one of those stupid job hunting mistakes people make all the time. That mistake is appearing desperate.

Have you ever been on a date with some of you seem desperate? Now, women, you can’t tell me you haven’t been on a date with some of you seen that way to you somewhere in your life?

They just are too (fill in the blank). They are just too much. As a result, I would presume to know how you feel when you’re out with someone who seems desperate. I just know that in situations where I’ve been out with “desperate women,” it hasn’t been a pleasant experience.

Women who appeared desperate, in the male vernacular start appearing like “stalkers.”Act as though they are like stalkers.” I suspect the same is true on the women’s side… Or worse.

Such behavior doesn’t work in dating and it certainly doesn’t work and job search.

When you go to an interview and appears to eager, you start to act, “oh boy! This is great!! I’ll do that!” Eventually the hiring manager takes a deep breath and says to themselves, “what’s with this person?”

So you can appear too eager (it is okay to be accommodating, but not too eager).

So your job is to relax and to deal with your future bosses though they are a peer. In this way, they understand and do you understand what you are capable of doing for them. In this way, they can evaluate and assess you and see how you fit into their needs.

Acting like the obedience school trial, sitting in your chair, leaning forward (did you ever do that one when you were a kid), just doesn’t work. It doesn’t make you more attractive than other candidates; if anything, it makes you less appealing.

At the end of the day, what you seem like his desperate. No one really likes desperate. So, relax. Follow my advice about the single best question you should ask on any interview. Talk with them is an equal and explain how your background fits that which they are looking for. Do it with confidence and self-assurance because part of what your job is on an interview is to put their mind at ease and that you are the solution to a problem that they have.

They need someone to do such and such. You want to talk about how you did it for someone else before. In joining them, you don’t want to do this for the next 30 or 40 years of your life. You also want to understand the upside for you. After all, do you really want to do the same thing for the next three or four years? Of course not.

That’s why you always want to make sure that you ask questions about your potential future. And, if you don’t like the answer, don’t be a shmuck and take the job and then blame them for what is happening to you. It’s your fault then.

So, again, don’t bag and don’t appear desperate.

[/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.= http://www.JobSa

Connect with me on LinkedIn

What’s the Best Way to Apply for a Job When I Don’t Know Anyone in the Company? (VIDEO)

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[svp]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWuKijaMMEM[/svp]
In this video, I provide three different ways to find out who the hiring managers before conceding and applying through HR and the applicant tracking system.

[spp-transcript]

The question I received was, “What’s the best way to apply for a job when you don’t know someone who works at the firm?”

This goes back to the mistake many job hunters made of only thinking that if I know someone who works at the firm, they will refer me and my network has its limitations and yada yada yada. As a result, people look at their network as only the person I know and obviously people you. So you have to remember that that person that you know can introduce you to some and that’s really the key to it.

Now professionally, you can do it very simply; you have a LinkedIn network (You do a LinkedIn network, right?) and you’re looking for the second level connections that you have to see whether or not there are people who you know who can introduce you to someone who already works there.

Barring that, what you do is you can use Google custom search tool that I developed, it’s a simple one LI-USA.info is the web address. What you do with it is use Boolean search and start searching for people using the tool. The idea is (number one) this is searching all public profiles on LinkedIn. Understand if they have a public profile, you can find it.

Number two is you are looking for people who might be in the role or someone who works at the firm who might work in the department who can give you a heads up, tell you who the right person is and give you a sense of what their like so you can reach out to them.

Why would they help me?

I assume if you’re asking the question, you’re willing to go the extra mile; if you not willing to go the extra mile, just apply to the applicant tracking system; but I think that’s the lazy approach.

The smart approach, the effective one is getting an introduction from someone who already works for the firm, who knows the hiring manager. So you can say to them, “look I understand that your firm is trying to hire someone. I don’t know who the hiring manager is. Would you point me to the right individual? I’ll keep your name out of it and reach out to them.”

Or you can say, “I understand firm or perhaps your department is looking for someone and I would love an introduction to the individual but, I know you don’t know me is you might not want to go out on a limb. Is there something that would help you feel more comfortable in referring me to this individual because I don’t want to go through the applicant tracking system or HR. What I want to do is just talk to the hiring manager.”

By doing this repeatedly, talking to different individuals at firms, you can eventually circle back to the applicant tracking system if you really need to. But by shortcutting the filter (the ATS, the HR individual) and trying to get to the manager. Whether you use LI-USA.info, whether you have an enormous LinkedIn network and can get to this individual, however, you do it…

By the way, there is the that the old school way I almost forgot to tell you the old school way. That is you get up, get on the phone and talk to the reception and ask for the person who’s responsible for (then describe the function that’s involved). Then allow yourself to get bounced around to different people who will eventually get you closer and closer and closer to the hiring manager until you actually find them. Sometimes if you call and ask about who’s the person who’s hiring for such and such, then you’re going to get HR and that’s what you are trying to avoid.

You allow yourself to get bounced from person to person. If they have no clue as to where to start, you might try something like investor relations or public relations and ask them. What you’re looking for something that is related but not necessarily the specific area. After all, they might have access to data that can point you to the right person.

[/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