Has your job search bracket been busted?

March Madness is always filled with competing emotions - joy and jubilation for the teams that win, while sadness and disappointment fill the hearts of the teams (and fans) on the losing side of the equation.  Some handle both sides with class, while others lash out via social media or post-game interviews.  There was even a coach who was criticized for dancing after a victory while his wife was recovering in the hospital from an emergency appendectomy.  Some felt as though he should have been more subdued considering his personal situation.

Although I hope most interviews don't start with a 68-candidate pool, there are some similarities that can be drawn with the idea of a bracket and I want to explore some of the ways to handle both the unexpected "wins" as well as the heart-breaking losses.

First, let's consider how to handle things when an interview ends in unexpected heartache.  You may feel like you prepared accordingly, really presented well and had a great conversation, but ultimately received the "Dear John" letter from the company.  You now have a choice.  You can "shake hands" and tell the company "good game" just as if you had lost the basketball contest.  Or you can pout and head toward the locker room, only to complain to the reporters that you were robbed on a bad call or felt like it wasn't fairly officiated.

Unfortunately I have seen things go very badly when a candidate is told "no", especially if it is final stages.  But you have to look at it from an objective perspective or it can affect future interviews and/or new roles.  Once I had a candidate send a scathing email after being turned down, indicting the hiring manager for not following through on promises to hire the candidate.  My client wisely chose not to reply and start a huge online fight, but it was certainly not the right approach.  Now the candidate looks like a sore loser and will be forever tarnished within that organization.  Additionally those people may end up working for another company and paths could cross with the candidate.  Perhaps not likely, but always possible in this small world we live in today.

What is interesting about the NCAA tournament is that the losses sometimes galvanize a team and they come back stronger the next year.  So if told "no", use it as an opportunity to dig deep, ask tough questions, and maybe even recognize some weaknesses.  Use this momentum for the next interview and learn from the experience.

Now what about celebrating when things go right?  There are many things that can actually go wrong here, believe it or not.  I can recall a candidate going through 10-12 grueling steps in an interview process and was about to receive an offer.  Only to find out some inappropriate ways in which he thanked the team that interviewed him, and they couldn't get past it.  No offer came and the completely capable candidate will forever be remembered with my client as the one that got away.

The other common mistake comes during or after resignation.  Candidates feel empowered once they have an offer and feel like they can talk trash about the soon-to-be former employer during an exit interview.  Or perhaps they go about the resignation itself unprofessionally.  It just shows poor sportsmanship and when you see it happen in March Madness, no one likes it.

With the tournament you expect some bad behavior or poor choices as most of the kids playing are only 18 or 19 years old.  Do you remember what was going through your mind at that age?  You likely thought you were invincible, didn't respect authority, and didn't think the choices you made would impact the rest of your life.  But at some point the players have to understand they are an ambassador for the sport and their university.  A lot has been given to them, and a lot is expected.  The cameras are always on and a little slip-up can cause lack of focus or a fracture in the locker room.

So my advice for today when your job search bracket is busted is to act like you are on national television and anything you do or say could be forever remembered and replayed on YouTube.  Represent yourself with class and positive thoughts.  That way you will never regret anything.

Good luck with all of your bracketology, both basketball and search-related!

How to effectively communicate "I really want this job!"

Whenever I hear a candidate say something along the lines of "I reaaaaallllly want this job - what do I need to do to let the employer know?!?" it actually panics me a little.  There is a good chance that the employer will simply hear that you want "a job" and not necessarily their job.  It is a subtle difference, but could be the tipping point that makes the employer think you are overzealous and not really the best match.

So what is the most effective way to let the employer know?  Here are a few simple ideas:

1) Ask leading questions.  Find out details about the organization and the opportunity and then cater your answers and presentation to those details.  Far too often candidates are asked questions, provide too lengthy of an answer, and then ineffectively project their experience on the job before they even know much about the job.  One of my pet peeves is when I get an email from a prospective candidate that says they are PERFECT for the job, even before talking with me.  How in the world can they know that?

2) Ask direct questions regarding timing, next steps, how many candidates are in the process, etc.  This is also an area where you can over-do it, but far too few candidates get any relevant information out of the employer regarding these topics.  If an employer intends to take six weeks to interview a minimum of ten candidates before making a decision, it does you no good to proclaim to the hiring manager that you really want the job and hope they call back in a day or two.  If you don't have all of the facts, you can't properly manage anyone's expectations.

3) Be objective and don't over-sell yourself.  If you are absolutely convinced that you are the best match for the role, then use undeniable facts and truth.  Not just excitement and emotion once you find out they provide free drinks in the cafeteria for all employees.  When the facts support the emotion, that is when you usually do have a good chance of selling the employer on the idea of you.  If you start with facts, you can even add in a little emotion so that the employer knows you are committed to the process.

4) Use your recruiter to help send the message.  If you actually trust your recruiter (which we hope is always the case with us), then it can be an incredibly effective communication tool.  We get to know our candidates very  well and have multiple conversations with them over the course of time.  Employers know that and often ask us after an interview what the candidate had to say.  If the information is consistent and accurate, we can participate in the conversation to let an employer know the interest level is high.  Then it is not just based on emotion five minutes after an interview.

At the end of the day, it is a wonderful thing that you really want the job.  Employers are not just looking for good technical expertise these days, but also good culture matches and employees that are anxious to have an impact for their organization.  Just remember to balance emotion with fact and you should be in good shape!

Any other ideas out there regarding the best ways to communicate this message?  I would love to hear them all!

Has your search taken an unexpected turn?

Living in the Midwest certainly comes with it's challenges, especially in the winter.  This weekend was no exception as we had an unexpected snowstorm sneak up on us.  We happened to be out of town visiting my grandmothers in Northwest Iowa and woke up on Sunday morning with an inch of ice on our windshield and rapidly deteriorating road conditions.  Our choices were to stay and hope that the roads would clear up, or make a mad dash for the nearest exit just in case it got worse.  We decided to head out and hope we would eventually get ahead of the storm and get home safely.  It ended up being the right decision, even though my children were not thrilled with it as it meant less time at the swimming pool and no lunch out with grandma.

It got quite interesting at the beginning of the road trip as visibility was less than a quarter of a mile.  Our kids were troopers and we ended up having a lot of fun on the way home.  Instead of disappointment, we changed our attitude to gratitude for safety and a memorable trip home.

How does this relate to a job search?  Easy.  I hear all kinds of stories from clients and candidates alike that run into unintended and unexpected road blocks, obstacles, and issues that might otherwise de-rail an interview process or ongoing discussions.  The outcome is 100% dependent upon how you react to the situation when thrown a curveball.  You really only have three choices:

1) Express disappointment and frustration at something that can't really be controlled.  I could have spent the 4.5 hour road trip home on Sunday mulling over how rotten the weather was.  It has already been a long winter in Iowa and this only adds to the misery.  But what good does that do?  I am pretty sure my kids and wife would not have put up with my moaning for long.  Same goes for an interview.  No one wants to hear belly-aching when schedules don't align well or something changes during the course of a search.

2) Do nothing.  One option for us was to ignore the pending bad weather and simply enjoy a little more time at the pool and with relatives.  But it would have been ignoring reality and possibly caused more headache later with an even longer trip home or even road closures.  During the course of an interview if things slow down or change course candidates especially tend to take no news as no news and sit back and wait for someone to call them.  Sometimes that works, but if you are waiting for your phone to simply ring or your inbox to blow up with incoming messages, you may be waiting a long time.

3) Take action and remain positive.  I would be lying if I told you my knuckles weren't white during the first 45 minutes of our trip.  But we had planned ahead, packed snacks, took our time, and took an alternative route home to avoid driving into the teeth of the storm.  When an employer changes the rules mid-interview or a candidate decides to present new information that can be mis-interpreted, do your due diligence, seek some answers, and have a healthy conversation about them.

I will let you decide which is the obvious approach to take when faced with an ever-changing landscape with interviews and opportunities.  You are better off to expect the unexpected and react accordingly when, not if, things go in a different direction than you might have originally expected when entering into the interview.

Another day in paradise - does that sound like your job?

When you think of going into work each Monday morning, do you envision palm trees, cool ocean breezes, and relaxation by the beach?  Thanks to my seven-year old son I do.  Okay, maybe not the cool ocean breezes and relaxation part, but paradise is now a word I use to describe work.  He came with me to my office over the weekend while I cleaned up some emails and as he walked past my colleague's office he simply said, "Wow, that looks like paradise."  Can't say I had ever thought that before, but it did get me thinking a bit.

To provide some additional background, my colleague has some tropical plants and pictures that do have a south Florida feel to them.  What I am pretty certain my son did not indirectly mean to say was that coming into work every day must feel like paradise to me as well.  But I asked myself the question, "Why not?"  I do thoroughly enjoy my job, have fabulous co-workers, am spoiled with a great view out my window of nature and the woods, and have been having fun at work for the past ten years.  Now if only we were near a beach instead of piles of snow from an Iowa winter........

You may not be able to make direct references to your work being paradise, but here are some thoughts to consider going into the new week:

1) Determine if there is any "paradise" in your current role.  If you cannot in any way, shape, or form refer to your work as paradise in some small regard, why are you still in your position?  While we all have to work to pay bills and survive, you should not settle for a miserable experience to achieve that goal.  Take some risks, explore some options, talk to others that you trust regarding your search.  As a recruiter I oftentimes tell a candidate at the outset of a search that you may very well find out that staying put is by far the best option.  But you won't know it if you don't have some conversations.

2) It is all about perspective.  For a short period of time on Saturday I'm sure my son thought it must be really cool to come into my office five days a week.  But every time I ask him if he'll trade places with me on a Monday and come to work while I go to his school, he quickly realizes how good he has it.  Perhaps that is the case with your job currently as well.  The grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence, so take a comprehensive look at your current position and think for a while about what you have to be thankful for.  You might surprise yourself.  If you cannot find much, then it could very well time to consider a change.

3) It is NOT all about money.  One of the first questions we typically ask candidates is salary expectations.  It is a very critical part of anyone's search.  But it should not be the primary motivator for making a job move.  You might make 20% more in a new role only to find out you miss some of your old co-workers.  Or the flexibility you used to have with your old boss.  Or the relative stability of your old position.  Happiness cannot be measured with dollars and cents, so be careful with using this as a main motivator.

What else makes your office or working environment a possible "paradise"?  I would love to hear your thoughts and comments as encouragement to anyone out there looking for some positive energy going into a new week and a new month.

How to best explain career changes

One of the first questions asked when reviewing a resume is why the candidate has made career changes, especially recent ones.  Sometimes it is more evident than others - a relocation from another state for personal reasons, a company closing or being merged with another, a layoff, etc.  But other times it raises some serious questions.  If you have had basically the same position for ten years, but with seven different employers, it will make a person wonder why you have made all of the changes.

Here are a few basic tips to consider when explaining job movement:

1) Less is not always more.  Candidates falsely believe that providing as little information up front is okay as they can answer questions when their arise in the interview process.  Well, what happens if you never make it to interview stage?  Or if you do make it and the questions come up, but it is at an awkward moment in the interview after staring the discussion with some early momentum.  It can derail the conversation if you don't already have some basic facts outlined in a resume or even a cover letter.

2) Keep it positive.  Don't assume your audience knows why you would leave an employer that is perhaps notorious for high turnover.  Or that there wouldn't be a connection to that employer within the group of people interviewing you for a job.  It is a small world out there and only getting smaller.  If you bad mouth a former employer and hope that counts as an explanation for your departure, you are badly mistaken.

3) Keep it professional, but keep it real.  This line gets blurred sometimes when candidates outline details of a personal situation that affected job performance.  I had to chuckle thinking about this while watching a recent episode of "The Office".  There were some office break-ups that really affected the working culture within the office.  While it might make sense at the time, a prospective employer will not want to hear the gory details of a past personal relationship gone bad that led to your resignation or termination.  While on the other hand there are sometimes personal tie-ups that require a change in job or even some time away from the working world altogether.  You do not always need to be worried about what people will think of these situations as they may have been unavoidable and won't impact job performance going forward.

4) Don't blame others for failures.  No one wants to hear about a boss that stifled all of your brilliant ideas and prevented you from being successful.  People naturally want to hear about how you succeeded, and sometimes despite your working environment.  That is much more valuable to a prospective employer as opposed to you alluding to the fact that you'll need someone else to "set you up" in a certain manner as the only way to be successful.  While having resources and support is important, it is much more impressive to have new ideas and the desire for an open dialogue to finding avenues to succeed in the future.

The bottom line is that the vast majority of us will experience at least 3-5 job changes in their career, if not more.  I will never forget a college professor telling me that the average person will have 6-7 job changes after they graduate and before they turn 35.  At the time I thought he was crazy.  Now after ten years of recruiting I have to admit that he was spot on with his assessment.  Which makes this topic a pretty relevant one and something to keep in mind whether in active job search or not.

Contingency search - what is the difference between active and passive?

There are many ways to describe what I do for a living, but there are certain terms that I absolutely detest like headhunter, ambulance chaser, and the lesser known, yet equally offensive "noodle thrower".  By definition the last title is a reflection of some search firms that throw "noodles" or resumes against the wall just to see which ones stick.  What we do is quite different from that and can be better explained by digging into the difference between an active and passive contingency search.

An active contingency search is quite easy to define.  This is a company that is actively engaged both internally and externally with a search firm to fill an open position.  In most cases everyone is on the same page -- human resources, the hiring manager, and our internal team.  A great level of detail is known about the position and we have a lot of confidence in knowing what we are looking for.

A passive contingency search is much more complicated and many companies do not even attempt to wrap their minds around what this would look like.  There are three basic examples:

1) A position that is perpetually open.  The idea of hiring salespeople usually fits into this category.  You can also sub-categorize this into different levels such as a salesperson who can bring an immediate Rolodex, someone who is going to need some grooming, a veteran presence to mentor others, etc.  The bottom line is that a company will ALWAYS look at this profile no matter the situation.

2) A confidential search where a company may be looking to replace an employee.  This can be for performance-related reasons, bad culture match, or simply the desire to move into a different directions.  For this level of passive search, you must really trust the search firm you are partnering with so that the story is consistent and remains quiet until more detail can be shared.

3) An opportunity hire or a projected growth hire.  This is one of my favorites as candidates are drawn to these types of opportunities and companies.  The type of position that may be required in 6-8 months, but the company has enough foresight to plan ahead and find good talent before the need is too great.  

Although these definitions seem pretty self-explanatory, many organizations are hesitant to engage with an external search firm until they have exhausted all internal resources or simply get to a point of desperation with the search.  While we will still engage with a client at that point, it makes much more sense for us to be involved early on in the process.  We might have that "perfect" candidate in other discussions and you could risk losing an opportunity to speak with them if you wait too long.  Or perhaps the external search firm could help you tell the story from an objective third party perspective.

The bottom line is that we are trying to reach trusted adviser status with our clients and when that occurs, it could make a lot of sense to consider more opportunities to work is this passive silo more often.  Especially since the contract I am describing is 100% contingency involves very little up front risk.  Unfortunately there are some search firms that give the titles I described at the outset of today's blog a lot of validity.  But if you can find the right firm, the idea of true partnership should always be on your mind as well.

Would you agree?  Anything to add about the definition of passive vs. active searches?  As always, I would welcome your thoughts and feedback.

How to stand out from the crowd

This weekend I attended the annual Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival for the fifth year in a row.  8,000 bacon-loving people bought tickets for the event in less than four minutes.  Then descended upon our infamous State Fairgrounds on Saturday morning to celebrate all things bacon.  Later on Saturday evening I enjoyed reading all of my friends posts on Facebook - many of whom I didn't even see during my six-hour bacon binge.  It was simply a sea of people meandering from booth to booth to try delicious bacon morsels.

I had tried to dress boldly by wearing a bright, light blue t-shirt with a funny design on the front.  That way if I was separated from my friends, they would know how to find me.  Unfortunately the volunteers for the day were all also wearing bright, light blue shirts.  So much for standing out, I guess.......

It did make me think, however, of what candidates attempt to do in their job searches to be noticed.  We get everything from crazy resumes to bold predictions in an email title of "BEST CANDIDATE EVER" to unique introductions on Facebook and LinkedIn.  Ironically the ones that try too hard usually end up in my deleted folder more quickly than any others.  So what gets my attention, or more importantly the attention of a hiring manager at a company you would like to work for in the future?  Here are three simple tips to consider:

1) Keep it simple, Stupid.  Yes the old K.I.S.S. philosophy.  And no, I am not talking about the rock band from the 70's.  Create a professional resume that clearly outlines your background, but isn't too flashy with twelve different fonts and accomplishments in bold, italics, and followed by ten exclamation points.  If the information is good, it does not require neon lights pointing them out.  A trained eye will be drawn right to them without all of the fanfare.

2) Keep it fresh.  Although you don't want to get too crazy, having a fun and colorful social media or online presence can be a great way to connect with your audience.  Again, just please don't advertise that as your primary method of getting your information out there.  Listing hobbies on a resume is somewhat of a thing of the past.  But the great news is that you can have that information on your LinkedIn or Facebook page.  I love posting stories and pics of me going golfing with my son.  Oftentimes I get people asking me how old he is, how long he has been playing, and ironically if he is better than me.  Not quite, but it won't be long.......

3) Keep it current.  Many people get too caught up about accomplishments from fifteen years ago.  While still important at some point in the conversation, it needs to be relevant.  I tell people all the time that I had some good success stories from my days as an insurance broker, but that was more than ten years ago.  If I approached one of my clients today proclaiming that I could replicate that success in a short period of time, they would likely ask me what I have done recently to prove that.  Have I sold a large account?  How have I kept up with PPACA and other relevant changes in legislation?  If I don't have good answers for that, my past experience won't do me too much good.

What other ways do you think are relevant to "stand out from the crowd" in a job search?  I would love to hear any stories or feedback!