Category Archives: Job Seeker Advice

The 12 Steps of a Recovery Passionate A**hole!

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I wrote a post a while back titled, “The 5 Things HR Leaders Need to Know About Developing Employees“. In that post I had a paragraph:

When I was young in my career, I was very ‘passionate’. That’s what I liked calling it – passionate.  I think the leaders I worked with called it, “career derailer”.  It took a lot for me to understand what I thought was a strength, was really a major weakness.  Some people never will gain this insight.  They’ll continue to believe they’re just passionate when in reality they’re really just an asshole.

I then had a reader send me a message and basically said, “This is me!” And I was like, “That was me too!” And then we kissed. Okay, we didn’t kiss, but it’s great to find another like yourself in the wild!

The reality is, I’m a recovering Passionate Asshole.

What’s a “Passionate Asshole” who are asking yourself? Here’s my definition. A passionate asshole is a person who feels like they are more about the success of the company than anyone else. I mean everyone else. They care more than everyone! And because we care so much, we treat people poorly who we feel don’t care as much as us!

Passionate assholes truly believe in every part of their being they’re great employees. You will not be able to tell us any different. They are usually high performing in their jobs, which also justifies even more that they care more. But, in all of this, they leave a wake of bad feelings and come across like your everyday basic asshole.

You know at least one of these people. They’re usually younger in the 24-35-year-old range. Too early in their career to have had some major setbacks and high in confidence in their abilities.

Here are the 12 Steps of Recovery for Passionate Assholes:

Step 1: Realization that your an Asshole, not the best employee ever hired in the history of the universe. This realization doesn’t actually fix the passionate asshole, but without it, you have no chance.

Step 2: You understand that while being a passionate asshole feels great, this isn’t going to further your career and get you to your ultimate goal.

Step 3: Professionally they have knocked down in a major way. I was fired. Not because I was doing the job, but because I was leaving a wake of bodies and destruction in the path of doing my job. You don’t have to be fired, demotion might also work, but usually, it’s getting canned.

Step 4: Some you truly respect needs to tell you-you’re not a good employee, but an asshole, during a time you’re actually listening.

Step 5: Find a leader and organization that will embrace you for who you’re trying to become, knowing who you truly are. You don’t go from Passionate Asshole to model employee overnight! It’s not a light switch.

Step 6: Time. This is a progression. You begin to realize some of your passionate asshole triggers. You begin to use your powers for good and not to blow people up who you feel aren’t worthy of oxygen. Baby steps. One day at a time.

Step 7: You stop making bad career moves based on the passionate asshole beast inside of you, telling you moving to the ‘next’ role is really the solution to what you’re feeling.

Step 8: We make a list of people we’ve destroyed while being passionate assholes. Yes, even the people you don’t like!

Step 9: Reach out to the people you’ve destroyed and make amends. Many of these people have ended up being my best professional contacts now late in life. Turns out, adults are actually pretty good a forgiving and want to establish relationships with people who are honest and have self-insight.

Step 10: We are able to tell people we’re sorry for being a passionate asshole when find ourselves being a passionate asshole, and not also seeing the passion within them and what they also bring to the organization is a value to not only us but to the organization as a whole.

Step 11: You begin to reflect, instead of reacting as a first response. Passionate assholes love to react quickly! We’re passionate, we’re ready at all times, so our initial thought is not to think, but react decisively. You’ve reached step 11 when your first thought is to no longer react like a crazy person!

Step 12: You begin to reach out to other passionate assholes and help them realize how they’re destroying their careers and don’t even know it. You begin mentoring.

I know I’ll never stop being a Passionate Asshole. It’s a personality flaw, and even when you change, you never fully change. But, I now understand when I’m being that person, can usually stop myself mid-passionate asshole blow up, and realize there are better ways to communicate and act.

Hat tip to: Kyle Brown (a fellow Self-Identified Passionate Asshole)

Want to make more money? Be an extrovert!

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New research out of the University of Copenhagen finally puts to rest the age-old argument around what’s better: being an extrovert or being an introvert? I have friends who are on both sides and super successful in their careers, but it’s still one of those things where if you are one or the other, you usually believe what you are is the best.

Well, in terms of lifelong earnings the data is pretty clear you want to be an extrovert! From the study:

One striking result is how much the trait of conscientiousness matters. Men who measure as one standard deviation higher on conscientiousness earn on average an extra $567,000 over their lifetimes, or 16.7 percent of average lifetime earnings. Measuring as extroverted, again by one standard deviation higher than average, is worth almost as much, $490,100. These returns tend to rise the most for the most highly educated of the men.

For women, the magnitude of these effects is smaller (for one thing, women earned less because of restricted opportunities). Furthermore, extroversion is more strongly correlated with higher earnings than is conscientiousness, unlike for the men.

Yeah, that’s a half of million dollars! That’s life changing money for most people!

Here is something else that came out of the study that I thought was fascinating, people who are ‘agreeable’ by nature, actually make less money!

It may surprise you to learn that more “agreeable” men earn significantly less. Being one standard deviation higher on agreeableness reduces lifetime earnings by about 8 percent, or $267,600. In this context, you can think of agreeableness as meaning a person is less antagonistic and more likely to consider the interests of others. You might have thought agreeableness would be correlated with higher earnings but alas not.

So, here we are as HR pros telling all of our employees who want to be leaders they should be more ‘agreeable’, put the interests of others above your own, etc. What we are really telling them is “hey, here’s how to ensure you’ll make less money in your career!”

I think we see this in our world today. We tend to want to believe we all want ‘servant leaders’ when it comes to someone leading us individually, or leading our companies. But, for the most part, most of our great leaders we can point to, male and female, are still overwhelmingly extroverted and mostly directive in their style of leadership.

One last thing that came out of the study is that being smart and being extroverted is not correlated. Why does this matter? Well, being smart does correlate to higher income as well. So, when we go try and select great employees we tend to just look at intelligence. Which is necessarily bad. If you are going to try to increase your talent, starting with smart people is never a bad idea, but in the long run, it’s more than just IQ:

Another interesting result from the data is that IQ and conscientiousness are not very well correlated. That implies that finding ideal workers isn’t so easy. The quality of openness, however, is moderately positively correlated with IQ, so you might expect that the smarter workers are more willing to experiment and try new things.

So, do you have to be extroverted to make more money? No, but it’s easier and more likely if you are. If you’re introverted, by nature, it wouldn’t hurt to work on your outwardly extroverted self. We all have the ability to be extroverted and introverted in certain situations. The key for earning more income is being extroverted in a professional setting.

Okay, my introverted friends! Tell me why this research is complete B.S.!

How Can You Become a Great HR/Talent Professional?

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I met an aspiring HR college student recently. The question was asked, “Tim, how can I be great at HR?” I told them to buy my book and read my blog and that’s really all there is to it! Just kidding, I said something after that as well! 😉

It’s a great question that ultimately has very little to do with HR or Talent Acquisition. To be great at HR, or anything, rarely do you have to be great at that certain skill set. For some things, it’s important: doctor, lawyer, accountant, etc. But most professions you can learn the skills, so it’s about these other things that I told this young Padawan:

– Go deep on a few things. The world needs experts, not a generalist. Don’t kid yourself to think being a generalist is really what your organization wants. People say this when they are an expert in nothing. Be an expert in something and a generalist in a bunch of stuff.

– Don’t be super concerned with what you’re going deep on, just make sure it interests you. While it might not seem valuable now, at some point it probably will be. I’m not in love with employee benefits, but someone is and when I need help with that I’m searching for that person.

– Consume content inside and outside of your industry. Those with a never-ending appetite to learn are always more successful.

– Connect with people in your field outside of your company. We are in a time in the world where your network can be Pitbull Worldwide! Use that to your advantage. There is someone smarter than you a thousand miles away just waiting to help you.

– Just because someone older and more experienced than you might think something is unimportant, don’t give up on it. We all get used to what we are used to. Older people think Snapchat is stupid and it might be, but it also might unlock something awesome in our employment brand. Experience and age are super valuable until they aren’t.

– Constantly make stuff and test it. Some it will fail, most of it will be average, some of it will be awesome. Give yourself more chances for awesome! Don’t let someone tell you, “we tried that three years ago and it didn’t work”. Cool, let’s do it again, but this time change the name!

– Take a big chance early in your career. Find a company that you absolutely love and just find a way to work there in any position, then be awesome for a couple of years and see what happens. Working for a brand you love is beyond the best career feeling you’ll have.

– Don’t expect to be “HR famous” overnight, but the work you do right now will make you HR famous ten years from now. Do the work, fall in love with it, the fame will come down the road. “I want to blog and speak just like you, Tim!” Awesome, I started doing this a decade ago. Let’s get started right now!

– Don’t discount social skills in the real world. You can be the smartest most skilled person in the room, but the one with a personality is the one people will pay attention to. This is a skill that can be learned and constantly improved upon if you work at it.

– Spend time with Great HR and Talen pros. No one is really hiding their secret sauce, you just aren’t asking them questions. The key in spending time with others is not asking them to invest more in helping you than you’re willing to invest in making it happen. I get asked weekly for time from people who rarely are willing to help me in return.

Okay, as internships are concluding for the summer let’s help these aspiring professionals out! Give me your best advice in the comments!

Rehabbing Your Career In One Easy-ish Step! #8ManRotation

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It’s been a while since I written about HR and sports! It’s one of my favorite things to do. There are so many great sports stories in our lives that give us great insight into possible solutions we can actually use in real life.

This most recent example comes to us from the land of the NBA (National Basketball Association). Right now in the NBA, it’s the offseason where all the big trade deals and free-agent signings happen. You might have heard of a little-known player, Lebron James, going to the Los Angeles Lakers! This post is not about LBJ!

This post is about a player coming off a bad injury, DeMarcus “Boogie” Cousins, who played for the New Orleans Pelicans last year, and, before the injury, was arguably a top 25 player in the NBA. His numbers last year were 25 points per game, 12.9 rebounds per game, and 5.4 assists per game! Those are giant numbers.

He tears is Achilles tendon and he is becoming a free agent this season. So, he’s got a problem.

No team wants to really give him a long-term contract, because that is a bad injury and they aren’t sure how he’ll come back, plus he won’t really be ready until January, so he’ll miss part of the season. He’s only 27 years old, so he is fairly young, but big guys don’t have a great track record of coming back from this injury.

So, what should he do?

He signs a one-year, veteran mid-level exemption contract for $5.4 million. Which sounds like a lot, but in reality, he’s probably worth $20 million+ per year for 4 or 5 years if he’s not injured.  He signs this contract with the NBA Champion Golden State Warriors, who already have the best roster on the planet!

Why?

This is about rehabbing his career and rehabbing his image.

Boogie hasn’t been known as the best player you want to play with or coach. Golden State is known to be the best “team” in the NBA, in that they have mega-stars who take on roles and play within the system, and they win, and they have fun doing it. Boogie needs a place that will let him come back slowly, and not have huge pressure on him to carry a team. He also needs some of that Golden State shine on his personality to show other teams he can play with other stars and be coached.

Most people would not have done what Boogie is doing!

Boogie could have gotten more money and probably multiple years, at a discount, from some teams that are struggling and willing to take a risk on a potential superstar if he comes back strong.

Most people would have taken the longer contract and more money, but that’s not how you rehab your career!

If your career is at a bad spot there is really only one great way to rehab yourself. You got to work for the best brand/organization that you can, at whatever position they’ll hire you in for, even if that means you take a huge pay cut to do it! In a great organization, you’ll be able to move up quickly, or move to another organization and continue your path back up.

Boogie going to Golden State isn’t about winning a championship or signing a long-term deal with them. They don’t have the room for the level of deal he’ll sign. It’s about a short-term stop to rehab his body and his image, so he can sign a mega-deal next season. Be willing to put yourself into the best organization for less money, and long-term it will pay off for your exponentially!

The ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ Internship Program!

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I’m a kid of the 80’s! Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller, Pretty in Pink, St. Elmos.

There was one other movie from that era that stuck with me called “Can’t Buy Me Love”, starring a very young Mc Dreamy, Patrick Dempsey, and a very young, Amanda Peterson. Of course this was a favorite of mine because well let’s just I indentified with the main character!

Quick story line – Patrick Dempsey plays a nerd-type, nobody in high school who just wants to be one of the popular kids. Basically, the same plot line for every teen movie ever. He mows lawns and saves all of this money. He asks Amanda Peterson’s cheerleader character to be his girlfriend and he’ll pay her, believing that’s all it will take to make him popular.

She does it. She does the makeover on him. It works. It works too well. She really falls for him. He gets cocky. His world falls apart. He gets the girl in the end! God, I miss the 80’s!!!

The concept of ‘buying’ popularity is both brilliant and stupid. In high school, popularity is a valuable currency. If you have it, it’s awesome. If you don’t have it, you want it, but it’s not something that is very transferable. The key is association! If you’re in with the popular crowd or the right people or person, you can catch their popularity exhaust.

So, what’s the “Can’t Buy Me Love” Internship Program? 

Here’s what I’m thinking. If I was a college student, right now in the world, I would pay the right person, at the right company, to be their intern for the summer!

Stay with me.

Two kids graduate from a B-level college, both with a degree in business, both will similar GPAs. Kid #1 did summer internships with local organizations, mid-sized companies, good brands locally, solid stuff, nice resume. Kid #2 also did summer internships, but her internships were with Apple, Amazon, and Google.

Which kid are you going to hire? Which kid will get a job faster? Which kid will get the better offer?

Kid #2 – will get better everything!

So, it would be to the advantage of every kid to get the best internships possible! But, we know getting the best internships possible are super competitive and hard to get.

Next question: What is an internship, really?

An internship is an experience someone obtains that will help them obtain the next experience. That internship is basically validated by the organization, and more specifically, by the person who manages the intern.

How much would it cost me to get a manager/director/vice president at a major brand to let me ‘shadow’ them for the summer? $2,000? $5,000? Let’s say it’s for 10 weeks, and I’ll do anything this person wants me to do to help them, and I’ll show up every day and stay as long as they want.

Whatever it would cost, that money would be coming back to me 10X or 20X over my career when I hit the market looking for a job with “Giant Brand Experience” on my resume as an intern, with a reference from my ‘internship’ supervisor to back it up.

The “Can’t Buy Me Love” Internship Program!

But, instead of can’t buy me love, it’s really I Can Buy Me A Great Resume! Don’t hate the game, love the hustle! It comes down to how much are you willing to invest in your future? You were willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on that education. Don’t you think it’s worth a few thousand dollars more to separate your resume from the pack?

Food for thought, kids.

The Talent Fix – My new book is now available to purchase! If your organization is having trouble hiring, this is a must buy! 

Talent Fix Review: My mom says it’s her favorite book that I’ve written!!! (I’ve only written one book!)

Purchase The Talent Fix now! 

How Long Should It Take a Candidate to Make a Decision on a Job Offer?

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When you make a candidate an offer, how long do you give them to tell you they want the job or not? 24 hours? 3 days? 1 week? Immediately?

For two decades I’ve been in the camp of a candidate should be able to tell you ‘yes’ or ‘no’ immediately, or you (the recruiter and hiring manager) did something wrong in closing! But, I think I’ve changed my stance on this, if “fit” is really important for the position, your culture, etc.

Here’s the deal, if job and/or company fit is really important to your organization. The candidate should take as long as they need to, to make sure that your organization is the one for them. That might mean they need to finish up other interviews, do more research, go through counter-offers, etc.

So, if that takes two or three weeks, so be it. The fit is critical for you and you actually want the candidate to take their time with this decision.

I feel so strongly about this, I think you should actually make candidates wait 72 hours after you offer them the job, to give you an answer! Yes! You won’t accept an acceptance from them until they’ve taken 72 hours to really think about the job, the new boss, the organization, everything!

Why wait 72 hours if they already know!? 

A ‘cooling down’ period will give them some time to get through the infatuation period of getting the offer! It will give them some time to really think about your job, their current job, other jobs they might be considering. This time is important because too often, too many people get that offer and at that moment everything feels so awesome!

After a couple of days they come down from the high of being desired by you and start to think clearly, and all of sudden you’re not as pretty as you looked two days ago, or you’re even more pretty by playing hard to get.

But what if a candidate gets cold feet by this technique? 

That’s a real concern especially with historic unemployment in many markets and fields. If you force a candidate to wait 72 hours there is a good chance someone else might come in an offer them a job!

Yep! That actually would be awesome if that happened, because then you would really know! Do they love you, or did they just fall in love with someone else!? Remember, this isn’t for every organization. This is only for organizations where fit is critical to your organizational culture.

If a candidate gets cold feet by another offer or by waiting 3 days, they don’t really believe your organization is the one for them. They don’t believe what you have is their dream job or organization. Also, if you get cold feet by having them wait, you don’t really believe fit is important!

So, how long should it take a candidate to decide if your job offer is right for them? 

There is not one right answer. Each of us has our own internal clock to make those decisions. If you force a candidate to decide immediately upon offer, that speaks to your culture. If you let candidates decide on their timeline, that also speaks to your culture.

In a perfect world, I still believe if the process works as designed, and everyone pre-closed like they should, both you and a candidate should be able to make a decision when the offer is placed on the table. But, honestly, how often does our process work perfectly?

Hit me in the comments with what you believe is the proper amount of time you should give a candidate to decide whether or not they’ll accept your job offer?

“In Transition” Isn’t Helping You Find a New Job!

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I know you’ve seen this on resumes and profiles over the past few years! Someone is looking for work and they title their profile “In Transition”.

Quick – without taking five seconds to think about, be honest, what do you think when someone says, “In Transition” on their resume, cover letter, LI profile, etc.? Put it in the comments!

My guess is, like me, it’s not positive. If it’s not positive, you should remove it from your profiles immediately!

When I read “In Transition” my immediate thought is “why are you in transition? Must not be good! No one wants to be in ‘transition’!” A ‘transition’ can mean many things when it comes to your career. Some of those are positive, but I think the collective will see most of the reasons as negative.

I think the reason I read “In Transition” in a negative light when it comes to talking about careers, is that for me it makes me believe you don’t really know what you want. I’m not ‘in transition’, I’m making a change and this is exactly what I’m looking to do.

Reason’s you might be ‘transitioning’ in your career and now you are looking for another job:

Potential reasons for transitioning:

  • Retirement from your current role (which many will take as a negative because of age bias)
  • Completely switching careers (could be a positive, if you’re willing to start at entry level income for the career you’re choosing to go into)
  • You got fired
  • You got laid off/company closed
  • You had your own business, that has ended, now you’re finding your next gig
  • You took a leave of absence for personal reasons (FMLA, went back to school, child rearing, aging parent, etc.)

So, I’m on record saying that using the phrase, “In Transition” isn’t good for someone seeking a job.

The bigger question than becomes is there a good phrase for people who are out of job and want to get a job that TA pros won’t immediately believe is negative?

I’m not sure there is one, especially if the real reason you’re transitioning is negative! That seems obvious, but you would be shocked at how many messages I get from people ‘in transition’ that are wanting my advice on how to say ‘positively’ they were fired.

My advice is usually to tell the best version of the truth you can come up with, and try to back up that version of the truth is a lot of people who will give you a positive work reference. Ideally, from the place you just left, even if that last job ended in a termination for performance.

What experienced TA pros and hiring managers realize is that not every termination is really do to actual poor performance. Sometimes it’s just a simple personality conflict between the manager you worked for and yourself. That isn’t great, but it’s better than you just couldn’t do the job!

Here are some phrases I might use instead of “In Transition” –

– “I quit my last position because…”

– “I retired from my last position and I’m looking to work “X” number of years in “X” type of position…”

– “I haven’t worked in “X time” because…, and I’m looking for…”

– “I got laid off from my last position…” (This one seems easy, except so many people now use this when they were the only person laid off, but everyone else kept their jobs! That’s not a layoff, that’s just a nice way to get fired! So, you better be able to back this up because great TA pros will find out the truth!)

– “I started my own business. It failed (or it succeeded or I decided it wasn’t for me). I’ve got the entrepreneurial bug out of me and I want to help an organization succeed in the following way…”

So, what do you think TA leaders and pros? Does “In Transition” scare you off of a candidate?

 

The Talent Fix – My new book is now available to purchase! If your organization is having trouble hiring, this is a must buy! 

Talent Fix Review: My mom says it’s her favorite book that I’ve written!!! (I’ve only written one book!)

Purchase The Talent Fix now! 

Career Confessions from Gen-Z: What Social Media Should You Use to Recruit Gen-Z?

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Like my Gen-Z counterparts, social media has been a part of my life from a very young age. Unlike many of my fellow Gen-Zer’s, I may have less Twitter followers than one of my parents, but I like to think my knowledge of social media is up with the rest of them.

Social media branding can be a make or break asset for companies. Too much advertising can make you seem old-school or unapproachable, but too little activity will make you seem irrelevant. It is absolutely vital to create a brand through social media in order to appeal to Gen-Z. Here’s the lowdown on each major social media platform and how to use them for the greatest success:

  1. Twitter: Twitter allows for the greatest interaction between you and your potential employees. I recommend to maintain a large and active Twitter presence and do your best to interact with people or current events/trends, rather than posting only ads about your company. (Look at Wendy’s Twitter interactions for an example).
  2. Facebook: While Facebook’s influence is still the largest of all other platforms, Gen-Z is not the most active on this site. We may all have profiles, but we are not as active on this as other sites, like Twitter and Instagram. I would keep a steadily active presence, but focus your Gen-Z branding efforts on the other platforms.
  3. Instagram: This one is tricky. Although it’s my favorite social media site, the little interactivity amongst users makes it difficult to recruit. I would focus your video content here since Instagram and Instagram stories are widely used for short video clips and it is an easy way to find a Gen-Z following.
  4. Snapchat: All I have to say is STAY AWAY. Please do NOT try and recruit people on Snapchat. Not only is it awkward, it is not the place people go to in order to look for a job. The only feature that is usable for recruiting efforts is the stories feature, and I would recommend using this on Instagram instead.
  5. YouTube: Like I said in my last article, go crazy on YouTube. Get that video content going and go share it on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter etc. Utilize YouTube to the best of your ability and it may result in big success.

While I may not know a lot about HR, I know a lot about social media and Gen-Z. Social media can seem very daunting, but all it takes is a little effort and a little personality. Try to be different. It will be evident if you are making an attempt to brand yourself over social media and Gen-Z will realize that. We’re not all social media crazed monsters like our parents want you to believe. I promise.

Let me know what you think about social media branding in the comments! What’s working for you? What isn’t!? 

The Email Every Employee Wishes They Sent After Leaving!

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Please raise your hand if you have ever drafted an email that you desperately wanted to fire off to your entire organization, or leadership, only to delete it, so to not ruin your career? I know most of you have because sometimes, in HR, we get to deal with those poor souls who didn’t have the willpower to push ‘Delete’ and instead pushed ‘Send’.

In the HR business, we call those employees ‘Former Employees’!  I’ve coined a name for those emails I like to call them ‘The Lotto Email’!  It’s the email you would feel comfortable sending the moment you return from picking up that overly sized Powerball check you just won.  You now have I-Don’t-Give-A-Sh*t money and you’re completely unfiltered.

I don’t hold out hope I will ever win the lottery but I imagine the email might look something like this:

Dear Fellow Employees,

I’m Rich Beeatch! (click here for context)

That being said I’d like to say a few things before not packing up any of this crap in my office and leaving forever.  To make this easier for you to cut and paste and send around later, I’ll bullet point this out into chunks – USA Today style – because I know most of you are slow and lose attention quickly:

– Mr. CEO – I know you think it’s probably adorable how you make comments about every woman in the office’s ass behind closed doors, but it’s not, it’s creepy. Just like you.

– Mr. CFO – You’re an accountant, calm the f@#K down, you’re not that important. Just tell us how much money we have and go back to being boring.

– Mrs. HR – Nobody likes you. This is just confirmation. BTW, everyone lies on your engagement surveys because all the managers use them as weapons, so it’s easier to lie and make you feel like what you do actually matters. It doesn’t.

– Mrs. COO – The CEO constantly talks about your ass. Hope that makes your meetings going forward more comfortable.

– Mary – I’ve always wanted to tell you that you are drop dead gorgeous, but your low self-esteem keeps you married to a complete asshole! I’m better than that. I won’t be that asshole. Here’s our chance, walk out of here with me Jerry Maguire style and let’s do this. Otherwise, I’m probably 5 drinks and 2 hours away from making some really bad decisions at a strip club.

– Ted – You’re a douche bag, everyone hates you.

There’s a bunch of other stuff I could to say – but really the only thing I really want to say is: I’m Rich Beeatch!

See you in the parking lot, Mary.

Former Employee

Obviously, this wouldn’t be ‘my’ letter because I’m the President of my company!  My letter would be a lot of thanking everyone for everything and I’ll see you around if you’re ever in the South of France on a large yacht. Plus a bunch of positive stuff and how valuable each and every employee was to me personally.

Follow by – “I’m Rich Beeatch!”

The Reason You’re Being “Ghosted” After Your Interview!

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Dear Timmy,

I recently applied for a position that I’m perfect for! A recruiter from the company contacted me and scheduled me for an interview with the manager. I went, the interview was a little over an hour and it went great! I immediately followed up with an email to the recruiter and the manager thanking them, but since then I’ve heard nothing and it’s been weeks. I’ve sent follow-up emails to both the recruiter and the manager and I’ve gotten no reply.

What should I do? Why do companies do this to candidates? I would rather they just tell me they aren’t interested than have them say nothing at all!

The Ghost Candidate

************************************************************

Dear Ghost,

There are a number of reasons that recruiters and hiring managers ghost candidates and none of them are good! Here’s a short-list of some of these reasons:

– They hated you and hope you go away when they ghost you because, conflict in uncomfortable.

– They like you, but not as much as another candidate they’re trying to talk into the job, but want to leave you on the back burner, but they’re idiots and don’t know how to do this properly.

– They decided to promote someone internally and they don’t care about candidate experience enough to tell you they went another direction.

– They have a completely broken recruitment process and might still be going through it believing you’re just as happy as a pig in shi…

– They think they communicated to you electronically to bug off through their ATS, but they haven’t audited the process to know this isn’t working.

– The recruiter got fired and no one picked up the process.

I would love to tell you that ghosting candidates are a rare thing, but it’s not! It happens all the time! There is never a reason to ghost a candidate, ever! Sometimes I believe candidates get ghosted by recruiters because hiring managers don’t give feedback, but that still isn’t an excuse I would accept, at least tell the candidate that!

Look, I’ve ghosted people. At conference cocktail parties, I’ve been known to ghost my way right back up to my room and go to sleep! When it comes to candidates, I don’t ghost! I would rather tell them the truth so they don’t keep coming back around unless I want them to come back around.

I think most recruiters ghost candidates because they’re over their head in the amount of work they have, and they mean to get back to people, but just don’t have the time. When you’re in the firefighting mode you tend to only communicate with the candidates you want, not the ones you don’t. Is this good practice? Heck, no! But when you’re fighting fires, you do what you have to do to stay alive.

What would I do, if I was you? 

Here are a few ideas to try if you really want to know the truth:

1. Send a handwritten letter to the CEO of the company briefly explaining your experience and what outcome you would like.

2. Go on Twitter and in 140 characters send a shot across the bow! “XYZ Co. I interviewed 2 weeks ago and still haven’t heard anything! Can you help me!?” (Will work on Facebook as well!)

3. Write a post about your experience on LinkedIn and tag the recruiter and the recruiter’s boss.

4. Take the hint and go find a company who truly values you and your talent! If the organization and this manager treats candidates like this, imagine how you’ll be treated as an employee?