Jeff

No B. S. Hiring Advice: Recruiting Passive Job Applicants

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This is a simulcast of No B. S. Hiring Advice Radio and my show about recruiting passive job applicants.

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

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

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.

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.

Ask The Big Game Hunter: Re-Launching Your Career

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Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter answers a question from a subscriber about how to relaunched his career after having had a string of short-term jobs.

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 wants 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.

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

The Job Market: May 2015

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Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter, and his views on the job market.

“I have been blogging about the job market in the US and around the world since August 2001.”

What I write is not designed to be political or critical; they are my observations and sense of where we are and where we are going.

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May, 2015

The U.S. Department of Labor said the economy added 223,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate in the US is now 5.4%. Over the year, the unemployment rate and the number of unemployed persons were down by 0.8 percentage point and 1.1 million, respectively.

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for Asians increased to 4.4 percent. The rates for adult men (5.0 percent), adult women (4.9 percent), teenagers (17.1 percent), whites (4.7 percent), blacks (9.6 percent), and Hispanics (6.9 percent) showed little or no change in April. 

The number of persons unemployed for less than 5 weeks increased by 241,000 to 2.7 million in April. The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) changed little at 2.5 million, 
accounting for 29.0 percent of the unemployed. Over the past 12 months, the number of long-term 
unemployed has decreased by 888,000. 

In April, the civilian labor force participation rate (62.8 percent) changed little. Since April 2014, the 
participation rate has remained within a narrow range of 62.7 percent to 62.9 percent. The employment-
population ratio held at 59.3 percent in April and has been at this level since January.

The number of jobs for March was revised downward to 85000 new jobs.


Professional and business services added 62,000 jobs in April. Over the prior 3 months, job gains 
averaged 35,000 per month. In April, services to buildings and dwellings added 16,000 jobs, following little change in March. Employment continued to trend up in April in computer systems design and related 
services (+9,000), in business support services (+7,000), and in management and technical consulting 
services (+6,000).

Health care employment increased by 45,000 in April. Job growth was distributed among the three major 
components--ambulatory health care services (+25,000), hospitals (+12,000), and nursing and residential 
care facilities (+8,000). Over the past year, health care has added 390,000 jobs.

Employment in construction rose by 45,000 in April, after changing little in March. Over the past 12 months, construction has added 280,000 jobs. In April, job growth was concentrated in specialty trade contractors
(+41,000), with employment gains about evenly split between the residential and nonresidential components. 
Employment declined over the month in nonresidential building construction (-8,000).

In April, employment continued to trend up in transportation and warehousing (+15,000).
What you don't know is that in this month, the US BLS added 210000 jobs to its 
numbers that they cannot prove were created by businesses that they can't prove 
exist.

Yes, you read that right. Almost all of the job changes came from a statistical 
adjustment.

And, even with that, all of us in recruiting are seeing strong hiring.

What do you see?

Is your firm hiring or laying off?

Do many of you see evidence of a slowdown in hiring (except in oil and gas) or are things growing?

If you do, email me at JeffAltman@TheBigGameHunter.us

(©) Jeff Altman, Asheville, NC 2015

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter has been a recruiter for more than 40 years.and is the Host of “Job Search Radio.” You can connect with me on LinkedIn and/or follow me 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.

Receive a complimentary subscription to No B.S. Job Search Advice Ezine and/or No B. S. Hiring Advice Ezine at TheBigGameHunter.us.

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

Are you someone at a manager level or above and need more in-depth job search coaching? Join my coaching program.

Want to ask me a question via email, chat, phone or video? Reach me via PrestoExperts

 

Manners

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As a recruiter, I have been puzzled by a phenomenon that has become more profound as the recession goes on. It is something that my colleagues in corporate have told me frustrates them, too. I didn’t understand why it occurred until recently when at a networking group someone explained to me the rationale.

The phenomena—sending resumes that don’t fit a job description.

Each time I post a job description on the web or email it to a referral source, I am always surprised by the number of responses I receive that in no way fit the job. A Partner job in San Francisco for someone from consulting that clearly explains what the client wants yields scads of resumes of programmers in Ohio who work in manufacturing. A project management ad calling for both RUP AND UML always get responses of people with one or the other. A developer ad listing 6 essential requirements and 4 plusses yields resumes with two of the six required skills and an irate call from the submitter saying that I’m wrong and that he fits the job. Another person sends 5 resumes for different jobs that require very different expertise from management to staff level roles in applications and infrastructure.

Why does this happen? There are two reasons that I’ve heard and they’re both pretty similar.

1. Desperate times result in desperate actions. What the heck! Let me send it. I read the ad. I know what it says but they can’t possibly want all that.

2. The outplacement firm told me to send it if I meet 70% of the job description.

They’re both pretty similar. The second one basically puts the blame on advice from someone else for why the resume is sent.Yet, 99.9 times out of 100, sending that resume doesn’t result in an interview, does it? As a matter of fact, it doesn’t even result in a phone call. What it results in is a deleted resume, momentary annoyance on the part of the recipient who, whether a corporate or agency recruiter who you need to ally yourself with, rather than antagonize, and wasted time.

For an agent, the issue of time being wasted impacts their ability to help you and the other 2000 people in their personal data base find work by keeping them from networking to other job openings. For a corporate recruiter, the list of issues is far longer.

But, you say, the outplacement firm my company sent me to when I was laid off said to do it!

What does it matter to them? Do they have to receive and receive the emails or do they have the luxury of creating the mess and expecting someone else to deal with it? And then they say, “Those useless so and so’s never do their job right!” On behalf of all recruiterdom, I’m going to make a request. Please stop sending resumes to jobs where you don’t fit the description.It’s OK to send a resume and say that you’re sending it on an exploratory basis. It’s OK to tell the unemployment office that you’ve submitted it to 20 jobs even if you’ve sent 20 exploratory resumes.

It is not OK to pester people with five calls a day asking if they’ve read your resume. It is not OK to be disappointed if you send in a resume where you are a poor fit. You should be rejected.
It is a better investment of your time to network by phone with a million people but stop calling or emailing with messages that say that you more than adequately meet the job description when you don’t (That was an email today—a Partner position for someone from a consulting firm in Dallas who was in the manufacturing practice, resulted in such a statement from someone from industry and finance. [Yes, he lived in Dallas]).

© 2004 all rights reserved.
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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.

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

Resume Pet Peeves

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I did an interview with JobRadio.FM on the subject of my pet peeves with resumes.

I started off telling them, “Do you know the old saying, ‘A broken watch is right twice a day?’ Well, too many people flip the same resume over and over again to every job ad they see as though all the jobs are the same . . . which they obviously aren’t.”

Instead of doing that, minimally create a single paragraph (and preferably more (to be inserted into your base resume that makes the fit obvious to a reader.

After all, everyone is swamped and no one has time to call on a resume that doesn’t clearly make the case that you are qualified for a job.

Instead of leaving things to chance, it is better to insert information into your resume that makes the case and then highlighting it in your cover email (a cover email is the body of the email that your resume is attached to; do not use a separate file attached to the email; it will never be opened.

Others spoke of:

1. Lack of detailed information about your job title and what your firm does.
2. The use of table formatting in resume (it makes it extremely difficult to re-format)
3, The use of PDF resumes (same issue plus some applicant tracking systems do not import PDF resumes well)
4. People who don’t spell check and grammar check their resumes (MY COMMENT: Some trade terms will pass through a spell checker for example, for years the word ‘novel’ would go through spell check even though the person meant to type ‘Novell”)
5. Resume objectives that conflict with the role being filled or the work the potential employer does.

© 2009 all rights reserved.

Why Are You Spamming Me?

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One of the reasons I like Gmail as much as I do is because its spam filter is extremely good. The spam filter the local ISP provides is horrible and requires that every time I open it, I have to manually create rules that direct future emails from the spammer go directly to my delete files. It is too time consuming, so I’ve switched to Gmail and abandoned the ISP’s email account for me to the spammers.

At work, every day, I arrive to at least 100 and, more often, 150+ emails from individuals whose resumes in no way shape or form reflect the specifics of the requirements of the job description they are applying for.

I wonder why they sent the resume because they are no more than spam to me.

Many people are brought up with the idea that if your resume fits 20% of the requirement, you send it because maybe . . .

Or that if a recruiter does work in a specific field, but the ad doesn’t fit your experience, you send them your resume because they might have something else. This strategy may work with junior recruiters but is frustrating to people like me who have high demanding lives and extremely demanding clients.

So let me explain why this is so troublesome.

On Monday, if I walk in to 100 new resumes, call and speak to each person for 5 minutes, I will take 5 hours qualifying every person. I will have done nothing to help the people who contacted me on Friday who may or may not fit the requirements. I probably won’t actually speak to everyone; I’ll need to leave messages that may or may not be responded to that day. I will need to keep everyone’s resume organized and easily locatable so that when they decide they have the time to call back, I can easily retrieve it which delays my contacting someone from that day’s group of 100 resumes.

And then I will have discovered that the resume was sent speculatively.

I know I am not unique in having this problem. Recruiters I connect with all over the country lament that they spend all day reading one useless resume after another.

So, here’s a piece of simple and EXTREMELY USEFUL ADVICE. If you have the experience that is required of the job, make sure it is in your resume, even if that means adding it to your basic resume.

Do not just include it in a cover letter or cover email; PUT IT IN THE RESUME. Pretend that someone even busier than I will be reviewing it so MAKE YOUR RELEVANT EXPERIENCE OBVIOUS.

By doing that, you will get many more interviews and your resumes won’t look like spam.

©2008, 2010 all rights reserved.

Pair Up or Get a Coach

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I have been coaching people about their job search for many years and helped people with from staff to management to executive positions. If you click the link you just passed, you’ll see that I have constructed several extremely flexible approaches designed to deal with every job hunter’s circumstances and ability to pay.

And understanding that there are many of you who still need coaching and cannot afford the expense of most modestly priced program, I encourage you to find someone to “buddy up who is also looking for work and support one another daily.

Two calls a day. One in the morning. One in the early afternoon.

“Hi! What do you have planned for the day,” is your first call. Your afternoon call is, “What have you done so far? How can I support you completing what you’ve planned?”

You’ll make commitments to one another. You’ll encourage one another and talk with one another. Find leads to help one another and hold one another accountable for your commitments to each other.

You’ll do interview coaching for one another and push one another.

It’s not as good as having a recruiter with coaching experience pushing you but if you can’t swing it, you do what you can to get the next best thing.

 

© 2009 All rights reserved

Headhunting Your Next Job

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When I started my ezine, I did so because I understood that I could only do so much to concretely help someone find a job with a client of mine. My clients want people with certain backgrounds at certain times and unless we have the right timing, your excellent experience may not be useful to them.

So now let’s look at some simple strategies to help you that may not be obvious to you:

1) Develop good professional relationships with people in other departments . When you have an opportunity to connect with someone in another department or group, don’t just treat it as a one time occurrence; use it as a springboard to a good connection taht may result in being introduced to or being hired by your next employer.

2) Get to know the right people . This one is related to the first. people with VP or better job titles may be able to hire you or influence those who can hire you.

3) When people give their notice, make sure to get their personal email address and home numbers. These people are your reference. Your introductions to managers at a new company. People who know you and can recommend you. You need to know multiple ways to connect with them in the future.

4) Cultivate a relationship with an experienced recruiter. I’m biased here. I have 30+ years experience. I have a brain and ethics. Most 24 year olds don’t have any of those things. There are some people, particularly managers who I only hear from when they are fired. Otherwise, I’m treated like vermin. There are people with whom I’ve had contact for years and have hustled to help them get re-positioned because I understand them. And it doesn’t take a lot of time. A five minute call out of the blue once a year goes a long way in my book.

5) Line up your network on the social network sites like Linked In. It’s too late to wait until the last minute.

 

© 2007, 2011, 2012 all rights reserved.

Researching the Company You Are Interviewing With

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Although I prepare people for interviews all the time, I make certain assumptions about interview preparation that sometimes prove false.

I assume that people will have

clean clothing to wear,

dress properly,

arrive on time,

be prepared to speak about your experience,

research the company you are interviewing with,

. . . and a few other things.

This week, I was surprised to hear from a client that someone she interviewed had not taken any time to research their firm.

How would you ever join a company you know nothing about?

And research is so easy these days because of the availability of four tools:

Their website

LinkedIn

Google

YouTube

Looking at a firm’s website is so easy and most firms will, have an “About Us” page.

On LinkedIn on the top of the page, the search default is set to search people. If you use the drop down, you’ll find it also includes a “Search Companies.” Search for the company and you’ll not only find basic information about the firm, but people in your network who work there.

Reach out to those people about the company and about the person you are interviewing with.

Google lets you search for information about a company but it offers something else that is incredible–resumes of people you have previously worked for the company.

YouTube may show information that the firm and others are sharing about the firm.

Walking in to an interview without knowing anything and trying to learn about the company on the interview is ridiculous when a few minutes can pay an enormous return.

© 2005, 2011, 2015 All rights reserved Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter

Facing Tests in Our Belief in Ourselves

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Over the years, most of what I write has had to deal with tactics and strategies for dealing with different elements of job hunting. One area I have neglected is that moment when we all have a crisis of confidence. Sometimes we face it in our job or in job hunting. Sometimes we face it in different places.

A while ago, I faced one after almost losing a deal I was working on for months. The candidate was someone working under an H-1b and was in the US working for less than market wages for a firm and was being hired by a client of mine at more than market rate.

They weren’t “stealing a job from an American.” The client had been looking for 6 months and had not found anyone until choosing to hire this person. There was happiness all around as they filed paperwork for what should have been a routine visa transfer. Then the government decided to request additional information delaying the hire.

This should not have been a big deal but a client needed this person to start by a particular day and the delay caused by a government bureaucrat with nothing else to do was jeopardizing (1) the start of the project, (2) a system being developed on time and within budget, (3) whether my client should go forward with the hire and a host of other ripples in the scenario.

As a headhunter in a global Depression, getting people hired is a challenge and this one hurt my insides. I had worked for months before finding this person only to have the government mess things up.

This weekend, I watched a woman test for a higher belt at Taekwon Do. There are thirty or so intertwined moves required at her rank and I could see a slight limp as she walked to her spot on the mat to test.

Each time she would begin her form, there was some point in the routine where you could see it broke down for her and she would stop and be upset with herself. She would try again only to have it break down for her at some other point.

I stared at my watch several times. Testing is often agony for me. However long the testing is announced for, I have learned through experience to add an hour. This one was scheduled for three hours. Each time this woman struggled with her form, the more likely the prophecy would occur.

But I was being selfish and impatient with someone going through a crisis of confidence and once I realized this, my attitude shifted.

She was brought to the back to be worked with by a black belt. She would come back out and the same thing occurred.

And when she completed the first form, I rose to my feet to applaud wildly at her determination and perseverance.

Then came the second form and the same process happened again. She would start get part of the way through the form before losing the order of the sequence. You could see her kicking herself and feeling humiliated in front of hundreds of people yet again.

The Master spoke with her and gently and lovingly encouraged her, telling a story about himself and that all people at some point have tests like hers. He continued by telling her of one test he did where he blanked out and spontaneously created a completely new form.

And with time, patience, determination and support, she made it.

What happens to you when you have your crisis?

Do you go off into a corner to lick your wounds or do you face the demon, stare it down and move forward?

I am reminded of an old story about how lions hunt gazelle.

Lions love to eat gazelle but gazelle are much faster than lions so the lions have developed a system for hunting them.

In this system old lions lay and wait, hiding in a place where they do not have to run. After all, they would never catch the gazelle. The young lions chase after the gazelle and herd them in the direction of where the old lions are lying in wait.

Just as the gazelle get close to where the old lions are, the old ones stand up and roar. The gazelle are terrified and turn tail and run back in the opposite direction to where the young lions are who have no trouble catching them and killing them. The entire pride of lions is able to feast.

If the gazelle were able to face the fear and run into the teeth of the old ions, they would escape. Fear paralyzes them and leads to their demise.

Go to your roar.

© 2013 Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter, All rights reserved.