Ask The Big Game Hunter – Page 26 – Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter's Blog

What’s the Best Way to Get Hired for a Job?

August 4, 2016 by Jeff

Q, Between LinkedIn, job boards, recruiters and company websites, which is the best way to find a position?

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A. The correct answer is none of the above.

I got this question asked of me and started laughing to myself because it indicates that this person really doesn’t know what they’re doing.

You see, ultimately with LinkedIn, yes, you can be a magnet for organizations. You have to SEO your profile. You’ll have to have skills that are demonstrable in your profile. You’ll need a track record of success and keyword optimize your profile page.

Company websites. Job boards. Same issue. You run into the applicant tracking system. Why would you ever want to apply for a job through an applicant tracking system?

Recruiters. Usually, don’t know if this one is competent, do you? You don’t know if they are trustworthy.

All four avenues are not really desirable.

What’s the best way to find a job question? Networking.

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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.

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

Great Job Opportunity But I Don’t Like the Field

August 3, 2016 by Jeff

Q. I was given a job without qualifying experience. Some coworkers are bitter and I realize I have no genuine interest in the field. I don’t fit in and dread coming to work each day. What’s the best way to move on without damaging future career prospects or burning bridges?

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The thing I’m picking up on is the relationship with the coworkers. I can tell from this whether the real issue is with your colleagues And you feel isolated and alone or whether you really are disinterested in your field.

I’m going to give you an answer in two parts.

The first part is if the issue is with the coworkers. What are they doing? Is it really that tragic?Are they isolating you because you’re young and they are not? Speak to your manager if that’s the case and see what they can do to reach out to these people and fix it. Often a shows up in quirky ways. Older individuals tend to look at younger ones, See that you had no qualifying experience and resent you. If this is the case, have your manager step in and fix things. After all, they put you in this situation.

If the real issue is that you are not interested,that’s a different story. You start looking for a job.

[/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 and 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.

Connect with me on LinkedIn http://bit.ly/thebiggamehunter

Why Do Recruiters Ask About The Interviews I’ve Been On?

August 3, 2016 by Jeff

There are many possible reasons that recruiters do this. Some are valid and then there are the others.

I want to answer a question someone sent to me.

Why is it that recruiters ask me about the places I’ve interviewed at?

There are many reasons why recruiters do this.Some of them are completely innocuous… And then there are the others.

Starting with the innocuous ones, they want to find out how active you are in research and whether you had a lot of interviews been rejected by employers and how far along you are in your search.

What they are trying to find out here is have been on 15 interviews and been turned down, been on 15 interviews and are close to an offer. After all, if you’re close to an offer, the likelihood is that the client is it to be able to move fast enough to compete with the offer that you are about to get.So they’re trying to do that kind of reconnaissance right out of the box in order to see if it’s worth their time to begin this process with the client.

They also want to find out whether you’ve interviewed with the client. They would prefer not to mention the client’s name to you proactively for fear that you will steal that information and apply directly.

I know that’s happened to me quite a few times and I now make it a policy not to give away that information so freely because, although you may be trustworthy, and although you may be honest, not everyone is. I know I can attribute more than $100,000 in lost fees to people with stolen information from being been hired by clients. So I’m not forthright about it and would rather hear from you whether you have been on an interview at my client.

They also want to see if you’ve received any job offers yet.

What you like and dislike about the firms you’ve interviewed with. Asking what you like and dislike about firms you’ve met with allows them to learn from your experiences how you evaluate job opportunities so they can apply it to their own client.

The last thing I want to bring up today is that they want to get leads of firms that are hiring. This is one of those slippery situations where firms take that information to go out and get clients and compete with you to fill those jobs. Like job hunters who steal information from recruiters, some recruiters steal it from job hunters.

If you want to avoid that from happening, you can simply say, “well, I interviewed with the financial services firm. I was talking with them about such and such type of position, it seemed interesting but…”

You get the idea.

If they asked which firm it was, you can respond by saying “I prefer not mentioned who it was. No disrespect, I’ve had instances where I’ve mentioned firms I’ve interviewed at two recruiters and they had probably gone out and tried to get the job to recruit for.”

If they start to debate you about this, simply say “I’m not Going to tell you who the firm is. It certainly doesn’t benefit me and I’m not going to tell you the hiring manager is either”

So these are the reasons why recruiters do it. Some are completely innocuous and then there are the others.

Why Do People Post Articles on Their LinkedIn Accounts?

August 3, 2016August 2, 2016 by Jeff

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Why does someone post something on their LinkedIn accounts?

I mean, why should someone share an article or a video?

It’s not like they know something about the subject. So why share it?

People post articles on LinkedIn in order to convey the notion that they have expertise. It’s all about developing a reputation as an expert. It’s a branding statement.

I want to be clear that some people post stupid things; I’ll Use the Example from Facebook of the cat photos. There is no reason to post that to LinkedIn.

There are people who post political stuff to LinkedIn. The post that either.

What you’re using LinkedIn for is to build the notion that you are an expert at something so that people want to reach out to you.

People posted on their LinkedIn account, post stuff in groups, that’s all designed to create the impression that they are knowledgeable in this area.

They share information that conveys the message, “I agree with this,” or, “I know this too.”

Doing so gives the idea of real knowledge.

[/spp-transcript]

The skills needed to find a job are different and 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.

Connect with me on LinkedIn

Would It Be Bad If I Left My New Job After Two Weeks?

August 1, 2016 by Jeff

There’s more to the story that I’ll explain but this is the crux of it. For some reason, the audio is not perfect. I apologize and the content is great.

A person just joined a bank and received an offer from a well-known tech firm to join at a salary 80% higher than the bank offered and with 50% more stress.

He is wondering whether he should stay or go. What would you do?

How do you think I’ll answer him? What you think my reasoning will be?

I have great reasons for him.

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.
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

How Much Would The Recruiter Earn?

July 30, 2016 by Jeff

Listen to my two-minute answer

Q. For someone who took a job at $50000 per year, how much would a recruiter make?

A. Everyone wants to look in the wallet of recruiters. They forget that these people generally make nothing for long periods of time and then make one fee and then nothing again. But let me answer your question.

The recruiting firm, not the recruiter, might earn a fee of as little as 15%, more commonly 20% and sometimes 25% of the individuals starting salary. Thus, using your example, the recruiting firm would earn $7500, $10,000, or $12,500 for referring you to this job if you stay there for 90 calendar days.

Now the recruiter working for them would earn less. Generally, people working on jobs like this are low and recruiters doing contingency work and they might get 30%, 35%, 40% or as much as 50% of the placement fee.

And you have to work there for at least 90 calendar days for them to have fully earned their fee.

The skills needed to find a job are different and 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.

Connect with me on LinkedIn http://bit.ly/thebiggamehunter