Jeff

Managing a Bruised Ego and Taking Action

by

 

In this video, Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter discusses a few things you can do to manage a bruised ego, particularly if you are an executive.

————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

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

Do you need more in-depth coaching? Join my Coaching program.

Want to ask me questions via phone, Skype or Facetime? Have your job search questions answered.

American Headhunter: Stop Using LinkedIn InMail

by

 

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter reviews TweetMyJobs and discusses its functionality as an app.

 

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. 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.

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. http://www.linkedin.com/in/TheBigGameHunter

Subscribe to TheBigGameHunterTV on YouTube  http://bit.ly/13EP9fa 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.

Want to ask me a question via email, chat or phone ? Reach me via PrestoExperts or Clarity.fm

A Review of the TweetMyJobs App

by

 

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter reviews TweetMyJobs and discusses its functionality as an app.

 

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

Job Fairs: Avoid the Cattle Call

by

It seems like every week, an ad appears for a job fair offering hope to unemployed people that they will get a job. Sometimes, tv news camera crew show the lines outside of people who want a job and hope it lies within the walls of that ballroom or convention center.

Yet the truth is that no one will be hired that day, you will be asked to hand your resume to someone who will put it in a pile with several hundred or several thousand others, you will try to get a few seconds with a recruiter who will trying to get away because there are 20 other people trying to get a few seconds of their time too . . . and that isn’t the worst part. That can happen months later.

A few months later, a recruiter hears about a new job at a firm that attended the fair so they email your resume or try to immediately engage the client top talk about you.

The firm looks your name up in their handy dandy applicant tracking system, sees it, says, “We know that person,” but because they are too busy, never calls you.

A remember: The employer knew about the job and did not search their applicant tracking system for leads. They did not call you or blast out an email. The third party recruiter heard the job description, tried to submit you, was declined the referral and the employer still did not call you because of being too busy and unmotivated (most corporate recruiters do not receive any bonus per hire so they are not going to go the extra mile to call you at night).

You are left in limbo without an interview all because cost conscious employers use applicant tracking systems to lower the expense of agency fees without doing the follow up work of contacting potential employees.

And this is not unusual. It happens every day.

So don’t make your job hunting more difficult than it already is.

DON’T TAKE THE BAIT! DON’T GO TO JOB FAIRS! Share

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

What’s Your Real Problem With Networking?

by

Imagine yourself at a cocktail party with your wife/partner/husband. People are mingling actively. Talking and moving on to different people after a few minutes.

Someone walks over to the two of you and says they are friends of the host. You nod and ask a few polite questions.

“How do you know our host?”

“What do you do?”

“Have you done it for very long?”

And suddenly it happens.

They ask, “Can I borrow $50.”

You’re taken aback, make an excuse for why you won’t lend them $50 and then move on to chat with someone else. As you speak with that person and several others, your disturbance about being asked for money pervades conversations with others and actually keeps you up a night or two later.

“I hardly know them and they asked for money,” you think before eventually going to sleep.

Isn’t this how most people network?

You call or email someone. Maybe you name drop someone; maybe you don’t. Within 5 minutes, you’re asking whether this stranger or old acquaintance knows someone and can recommend you for a job.

Who would refer you? You’re like the guy asking for $50 believing that a stranger will reach into their wallet and give you money.

It’s why I tell people that networking is really about meeting or being introduced to a stranger and building a relationship where when you need one another you are willing to help and support one another. It isn’t about exchanging cards at the networking even and saying, “Call me if you hear something.” It’s about developing a relationship with that person over time.

Some of you may know that I moved to North Carolina two and a half years ago from the New York area. I belong to an international men’s organization and there is a chapter in town; I started to attend regular Wednesday night meetings with some of the men.

Recently, one of them reported that he was having surgery to remove a tumor in his back; he’s self-employed and was going to be incapacitated for several weeks and rehabbing for quite a long time.

After surgery, he put out a request for videos to borrow while rehabbing. A meal train was set up for dinners to be delivered to him and his family.

I was very willing to help and scheduled myself to visit him at rehab several times and deliver dinner to he and his family once out.

That’s the difference– a relationship had built up.

If you’re working, now is the time to network and build up the relationship over time.

If you are looking for work and have been told that networking is the way to find work, be patient, not desperate when you network. Listen and become a friend before you start asking for leads. Help the other person and they will want to help you.

© 2013 all rights reserved.

Who Should I Network With?

by

Everyone knows that job networking is the primary way that people find a job. The statistics I have seen for years is that 20-25% are filled by recruiters, 6% by job boards and the rest are filled by networking.

But that begs the question, who should you network with? Who should you speak with in order to find job leads that can be useful finding a job?

There is an easy answer–everyone! Everyone should know you are looking for a job and what you do. Let your spouse, partner, boy or girlfriend promote what you do.

How about your friends on Facebook and connections on LinkedIn? Sure?

But some of the best networking is done in person with people you have known for years, worked with, played golf with or attended religious services with.

See who will meet you and allow you to pick their brains for ideas. After all, someone who is willing to be an advocate for you can help create the circumstances where you meet with someone who would be interested in hiring you.

And the trick to doing this is doing the little things over and over again until you find the position you want . . . and beyond.

© 2010 All rights reserved Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter

Putting Effort into Your Job Search

by

In an article I wrote for “No B.S. Job Search Advice Ezine” a few months back called, “The 3 Keys to Being a Champion,” I wrote about three important factors that went into being a champion in sports and in life and applied that into job hunting.

I missed a very important one, a fourth key, that I was reminded of when reading “Bloomberg Businessweek” this week, in particular an article about a retail chain called Forever 21. Personally, it was not a store I have heard of but the more I read about it, the more I could see how I had erred in my earlier article.

You see, the founder and his family were immigrants who have worked extremely hard to build this chain from nothing to 475 stores in such a short period of time. They have made mistakes (who hasn’t) but he and his wife arrived in the US in 1981opened their first store while working menial jobs (he pumped gas and worked as a janitor when they opened their first store), but they worked long hours and made and created a family structure geared to what was important to them–making a success of their business,

The fact is few people put in anywhere near the effort in their job search as this family did starting their business, most doing nothing to change their economics, do not work as hard on finding work as they think they do, do not network or practice for interviews, do not seek advice or help . . . let me be blunt.

Most people are far more lackadaisical in their job search than they think they are. as a matter of fact, they display little urgency. They keep spending to the same level that they were before they lost their jobs and, if they are working and trying to find a job, do little more than set up search agents on job boards and apply to ads that are sent to them.

If your career is important to you, it is imperative, it is critical, it is an absolute necessity that you approach your job search with the same effort as the Chang family did when they started their chain.

You have no guarantees that the next company you work for will not close and that your skills will be in demand. Even if you join your next firm as an employee, your relationship with them is as nothing more than a glorified temp dependent upon the success of the business and the need for your skills for your livelihood.

Conduct yourself with urgency and effort and see how much further you will go

Be At The Center of the Universe

by

Branding is one the most important things you can do for your career. Just like a consumer product, branding helps create a place for you in a buyer’s mind that causes them to think of you whenever they make a decision.  

Branding in a job search is not just about finding a job today. It is about creating “the mental real estate” in people’s minds as a go to person in your field.

How important is branding? Let’s go back to consumer products for a moment.

When you go to the store to buy laundry detergent, do you pick up two or three products, read the list of ingredients and think, “Hmm. The chemicals in this product will probably do a better job than the ones in this one. And it has Phenyl-Bannana in it for an extra boost!”

Of course you don’t look at the ingredients. You look at the price, maybe you have a coupon or use the product your mother or father used in their home. You make the decision based upon a host of reasons unrelated to the ingredients because the industry has taught you not to bother.

In job hunting, you can create a similar affect by becoming a knowledgeable go to person in your field online, in trade groups, in networking groups, with friends and colleagues and a host of other places so that when people think of an expert in your subject, they think of you and come to you.

So that when a former colleague hears about an opening in their firm, they think of you as someone who can fill the role.

So that everyone is favorably predisposed to you and they are literally ready to hire you.

Here’s an example of how that works.

You see, “Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter” and come to my website. You read some of my articles from previous editions of “No B.S. Job Search Advice Ezine.” You listen to an episode of “No B.S. Job Search Advice Radio.” You sign up for my ezine, connect with me on LinkedIn and watch some of my videos. Maybe you read a tweet or two of advice or follow me on Facebook. Maybe you order a book or guide from me.

You do this for a while and think, “Jeff really knows recruiting and works hard to do a lot of things for free to help job hunters. Some of what he writes or broadcasts I already know but, heck, it lets me know I’m doing things right.”

And from that comes trust.

And often that means people recommending me for search assignments at their firms.

And sometimes that means they hire me to coach them in their job search.

Creating a brand is not something that happens overnight. It takes time to become the authority but the rewards are enormous.

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

Beating The Applicant Tracking System

by

I understand why companies use them and there is one small benefit to me but generally applicant tracking systems are horrible. They do track who submitted a resume firs but are often misused by employers to claim ownership of candiates in the future and use recruiters as free tickler systems.

By that I mean, in 2012, you are referred or apply for a position and are not hired; in 2017 you are referred by a recruiter for a job and suddenly the company says, “They are in our system,” or “We already know them.” Then, because they are too busy, they never contact you let alone accept the referral from the recruiter who started this off in the first place. Happens ll the time.

So let me teach you how to use these stupid systems to your advantage in order to get better results when you submit your resume.

1. Use the same language they use in their job description in your resume

Many employers use the systems for matching candidates with jobs. Generally they try to recognize key words and phrases. Using the same language as in the job description makes the basic matching easier for the system to recognize so that a human looks at your resume. The corrolary to this is:

2. Tailor your resume to every job you are submitting it for.

You’ve heard the old saying, “The broken watch is right twice a day.” Sending the same resume out over and over will get you some results but will not be as effective as tailoring your resume to the specific job.

3. Don’t cheat

Some people foolishly think that if they add a bunch of kewords in white type, systems will see them as keywords. In fact, most of these systems are designed to recognize this and reject someone. However, this does not man you shouldn’t . . .

4. Beef up your skills section

Using a skills section or accomplishments section at the beginning of a resume that utilizes keywords and phrases from the job description tricks the systems into believing it was recent work.

5. Stop embedding your contact information, using special characters and unusual fonts.

Embedding your contact info annoys both the system and the people who use them Most systems parse your name, address and phone numbers into fields. they either can’t read the embedded fields or do a poor job of reading them. They “mistakes” or failure to parse is kicked out to a human who is thrilled tofix a hundred of these a day.

The same thing happens with usual fonts, borders, shading or characters. Mistakes happen. People have to fix them. Sometimes, they will just hit <DELETE> rather than bother.

6. Spell check your resume

Every day, I read resumes with mistakes in them. That’s one level of problem–sloppiness. The other level is looking at someone who is misspelling keywords and causing systems to not respond to their resume.

7. Get rid of the irrelevant

Who cares what you did when Bill Clinton was fooling around? You probably will never get hired for things that you did 20 years ago and it gives them a way to descriminate. Best to just write, “Prior experience was with _____.”

We re not going to eliminate applicant tracking systems. Government reporting requirements and their connection with onboarding making them useful. We do need to understand how they function and use them to our benefit.

© The Big Game Hunter, Inc. Asheville, NC 2010, 2015

No B.S. Hiring Advice Ezine: May 5 2015

by

Bi-Weekly Hiring Advice from Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter

 

Read The May 5, 2015 Issue

———————————————————————————————————

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