Category Archives: Job Seeker Advice

Would You Pay to Interview at a Company You Really Want to Work At? @DawnOfPurple

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I love Nike. I would love to work at Nike. If the right position came along and someone said, “Tim, you can run talent at Nike, but you need to pay $500 to get in front of the right person at Nike”, I go to the ATM and hand that person $500.

Okay, at one time in my career I would have done that to work at Nike, probably not now because I’ve got peeps on the inside!

This is what a new company in the TA space is doing. For a minimum of $20 (they won’t say what the maximum is) you can get a thirty-minute “interview” with someone who works at the dream company you want work at. PurpleSquirrel.io recently launched and it’s caused a bit of stir amongst those active in the space.

Why?

Most of the TA and HR bloggers, writers, speakers, people who pay way too much attention to this crap, etc. Think organizations that prey on candidates are evil. This was the real downfall of The Ladders. When you start asking candidates to pay for something they should get for free, the thought leaders lose their minds.

Also, my tribe (all the folks mentioned above) are exceptional networkers. It’s really one of the main skills we have. We can talk to anyone, about anything, at any time, and we usually do! We’re unicorns in that way. Most of the world does not network like this. Most people keep their circles pretty tight!

This is what Purple Squirrel understands.

Most people actually suck at networking. The problem with this is that most jobs are filled because someone has a connection. My cousin works in marketing at Facebook and he’s introducing me to the director and I have a good chance to at least get interviewed. My girl Celinda works at Nike and I’m hoping she’ll put me in touch with Phil Knight!

You understand the drill. Recruiters don’t fill jobs. Relationships fill jobs.

This is where I think Purple Squirrel might be brilliant. If we already know most people suck at networking, that means most people would probably welcome the help and be willing to pay a little cash for that help. I want a connection to Google, PurpleSquirrel can help you get that connection to Google. It’s like when my mom hired that hooker for my date to homecoming! Well, kind of.

Here’s the main catch, and it’s not spelled out until you really dig into the site. The ‘interview’ you have with your new ‘connection’ at your dream company is not an actual representative of the company. Your new connection does actually work at the company you love, but what they are really giving you is a career coaching session. They might have some hiring authority, but there’s no guarantee and it’s not implied.

You still have a connection at the company you love. There’s value to that, especially if you know how to grow your network, but my guess is you probably didn’t hire a hooker to go to homecoming because you’re great at networking.

I’m all for any tool that helps people land their dream job in their dream company. So, if Purple Squirrel works at helping you reach that goal, then it’s worth every dime you invest. Just know it’s important you understand the rules before handing over the cash. This is one connection into a company that might lead nowhere. So, use your thirty-minutes to your advantage.

I applied for a position at Nike once. Never even got a “Dr. John” disposition letter. I like to believe, as I cry myself to bed each night, they already had someone internally they wanted to promote and the posting was just a ghost, and my rejection email was lost in cyberspace. If only I would have had someone on the inside, maybe my fortunes would have changed!

Hit me in the comments – I really want to know – Would you pay to interview at a company that you’ve always wanted to work for?

Body Language Matters in Recruiting Great Talent

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So, possibly the greatest basketball coach of all time is University of Connecticut’s Women’s Basketball coach, Geno Auriemma.  He currently has a 109 game winning streak in NCAA Division I basketball. Many of his current players have never lost a collegiate game!

You have no idea how unreal that streak is. It’s not like he can just recruit every top player, every year. He might get three or four of the best high school players, but other schools are also getting great talent.

Geno has something that only a tiny few great coaches have. Watch this short video to see it in action:

Couple things about this:

1. He says when he watches game film he watches what the kids on the bench are doing. If you’re at that level of detail, you’re going to be successful! I can guarantee you Nick Saban does the same thing. Tom Izzo does the same thing. Bill Belichick does the same thing.

2. If you’re interviewing for a job, the moment you pull into the parking lot, you better believe your actions are being evaluated, and almost 100% of those actions are body language!

If you hire an Eeyore, you’re going to get an Eeyore. Don’t think somehow they’ll change from the interview. If someone can’t have good body language in an interview, they’ll never have it coming to work and grinding each day.

Most of the jobs we hire for are basically skill-irrelevant. What we truly need is someone who comes to work each day with enthusiasm, is open to learning, has the ability to learn quickly, and plays well with others. I can teach you the rest. I can’t teach you to have great body language. That’s on you!

Dear Timmy: When Should I Leave My First Job?

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Dear Timmy, 

I graduated college a couple of years ago and took a job with a good company. I’m an engineer and I like my job and I like the people I work with, but I’m getting calls from recruiters telling me they can get me a lot more money. My question is, when can I leave my first job so that it doesn’t look like I’m a job hopper? 

Thanks,

I Don’t Want To Look Like A Job Hopper

—————————————————–

Dear Job Hopper, (just kidding!)

Why should you leave?! If you want more money, go ask for more money!

That’s the real issue, right? Instead of having a conversation about your value on the open market, you would rather leave a company and job you like. This makes absolutely no sense, but people do it all the time because they are unwilling to have a conversation that makes them feel uncomfortable!

It’s pretty silly when you think about it. I’m willing to risk a job I like, a company I like, and Coworkers I like for a 10-20% raise. Instead of just going to your boss and saying:

“Hey, Tim, I’ve been getting a ton of calls from recruiters. Each time they are saying they can get me a job making 20% more than I’m making now. You know, or if you don’t you should, I really like working here. I like you as a boss, I like the company, and I like what I’m doing. But, I also would really like 20% more pay! Is there anything you can do to help me?”

Now, it’s critical you do this before you start engaging with recruiters and going out on interviews. Why? Because once you do that, now your loyalty will come into question.

Most organizations are willing to pay you more, but they really only want to pay people more who are 1. Good performers, and 2. Going to stay around. If you’re already interviewing, without giving them a shot to make it right with you, you are basically just showing them you’ll eventually just take off again the next time someone calls offering you a dollar more.

When should I leave my first job? 

That is a very different question than what you are really asking. There’s no reason to leave your first job if all of your career needs are being met. So, you need to ask yourself, about this first job,

  • Am I doing work I like to do? (Not love. Love your family. Don’t love your job. Like your job.)
  • Am I in a position where I’m being developed in a way that will continue to help my career going forward? (Remember, you own your own development. Don’t wait for an organization to ‘put you on a plan’, build your own plan. What you need is an organization that allows you to do this, and supports you to do this.)
  • Do I feel valued by my organization and my boss? (Value comes across in a lot of ways. Don’t discount working with and for people who truly care about you.)
  • Am I being paid at the market for my education, skills, and experience? (Everyone can get paid over the market, but you give up stuff to get that money. Usually, you give up working for good companies and good people.)
  • Does this position, company and location still fit where I want to be personally with my life? (Sometimes your personal life changes where you want to be professionally, and there is not much organizations can do about that in many cases, but sometimes they can.)

So, whey should you leave your first job?

You should leave your first job when the answers to the questions above show you that it’s time to leave. You should not leave your first job because you are unwilling to have a conversation that makes you feel awkward or uncomfortable, in fact, to me that would be the first sign that you’re not ready to leave that first job!

This Job Sounds To Good To Be True!

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When I was 18 years old I packed up my 1979 Ford Mustang and drove 20 straight hours from Grand Rapids, MI to Laramie, WY to go to college at the University of Wyoming. My air conditioning didn’t work, the radio didn’t work well and I had a Rand McNally Atlas (look it up kids) to guide my way.

It took me roughly 4 months to blow through every single dollar I had, then I took that same trip back to Michigan to find a job. One college semester done, and I was dead broke, and I didn’t have parents who were going to pay my way to college. I needed to find a job!

When you’re 18 and have completed one semester of college you tend to think you’re pretty freaking smart, or maybe that was just my personality. My mom did buy me a new suit, dress shoes and a Topcoat (again, look it up, kids). She was a boomer who never went to college, was successful and firmly believed you only needed to look the part to get the part.

Well, I looked a part, but I’m not sure what part that was!

I started applying for ‘management’ positions. I mean I had a suit! Not sure what I would wear on day 2, but certainly, that was a secondary issue. No one gave me the time a day. My previous work experience up to this point was running concessions for the world’s largest movie theater, at the time! That didn’t seem to have much pull with anyone, except one company!

I still remember the call! They were impressed with my ‘qualifications’, could I come an interview? Of course! They were looking for “Territory Managers”, people who wanted to make unlimited income. That sounded like me!

I showed up for the interview in my suit, new shoes, and topcoat. I was excited. I was a bit nervous. When I got to the location there were others in the waiting room. I was dressed way better than everyone else, that had to help me right!?

I got called into a small office. I was asked a few questions by a guy who seemed way to excited to be doing his job. But he must have liked me, he offered me the job, on the spot! Thanks for the suit, Mom!

He then asked if I could start right away? Well, of course, just show me to my office and I’ll get right to work managing that territory of mine!

He then took me to a much larger room where there were chairs against the wall, probably 40, and the entire rest of the room was open. About 30 of the chairs were filled, most by the less-dressed folks, I already discounted in the waiting room. Apparently, they also got hired.

The guy who hired me came in next to ‘congratulate’ us on this great opportunity on selling home cleaning systems to the American public, something the American public desperately needed to pay $1200 for. This would be the best value buy of their lives, and we were lucky enough to be able to offer it to them!

I just got roped into selling vacuums door to door.

For the next 4 hours we were trained on how to sell these vacuums, showed how to get into the homes of the buyer. I got down on my hands and knees in my new suit and broke apart the vacuum home cleaning system to show the ‘Miss’s of the house’ how easy it was to use.

At around 1 pm they unlocked the doors and let us leave the building to get something to eat. I drove home. Called my former boss at the theater and asked if I could come back to work. He said yes. I then began saving to go back to the University of Wyoming to get my degree.

99.9% of the time, the job that sounds to good to be true, is.

Dear Timmy: How Do I Get Into Talent Acquisition?

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I get asked a ton of questions via email. Some are from college students who ask a variety of things. Here’s a recent one:

Dear Timmy,

I’m a college student majoring in communications (editor’s note: why do college kids major in communications? Like 80% of college kids want to major in communications. You know there aren’t real jobs in communications, right!?) and I’m looking to get into human resources, more specifically I would like to work in talent acquisition.  What suggestions, or steps, do you suggest to help me get a position in corporate talent acquisition?

Thanks,

Communication major because apparently I’m an idiot (just kidding, she didn’t sign it that way!)

Here is my response:

If you want to get into straight HR you’ll need to graduate with a degree in HR. As I don’t know of an organization that hires entry level HR pros with non-HR degrees. If you want to get into talent acquisition follow these steps –

Step 1 – Graduate

Step 2– Apply for ‘agency’ entry level recruiting roles.

Step 3 – Do your time in the agency world, at least a year, maybe a bit more.

Step 4 – Apply for corporate Talent Acquisition openings

Here’s my reasoning for the steps above.

In talent acquisition no one cares which college degree you have, they only care that you can recruit. The reality is they shouldn’t even care if you go to college, but most corporate recruiter jobs will require it. Corporate TA departments rarely hire entry level recruiters because they don’t have the knowledge, processes, and capacity to train recruiters, which is why you need to get experience on the agency side of recruiting.

Agency recruiting is known to be very cut-throat and high burnout rate, but I’m only talking about a year or so. Anyone can handle that, and it will give you valuable experience. You might like agency recruiting and you can make a ton of money, but it’s high stress. Corporate TA is mid-level money, with no growth, but virtually no stress in comparison.

Once you get your experience in the agency world, even only a year, you’ll actually be considered pretty valuable on the corporate side of TA. Think of your agency time as your TA internship. You know there’s an endpoint, then you get into the job you want.

When interviewing for agency positions you should never mention that your goal is to get into corporate TA. They won’t hire you if they feel you’re just going to leave. Also, when you interview, most agency folks are only looking to hire two things: high energy, highly money motivated. So, drink three Red Bulls before you interview, and talk constantly about how much money you want to make. You’ll get hired by 99% of the agencies that interview you.

I might be joking a little, but only a little, that’s fairly close to reality. I mean agencies are also known to hire pretty people, so it wouldn’t hurt to be good looking.

 

How to Rehab Your Career in One Step

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I know a lot of people who have had to go through the process of rehabbing their career. You make a bad move for money, or you get fired for some reason that will look bad but doesn’t necessarily mean you’re bad, or you out of work for longer than you wanted to be and now it’s hard to explain. Many, many folks get into these career rehab scenarios.

One of the most common rehabs I see is in college and professional coaching. A major one is in the works know and I think it gives us all a roadmap on how you should rehab your own career. Lane Kiffin was a comet in college coaching! He was a hotshot assistant coach at USC when legendary Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis hired him as his head coach at only 31 years old! A year and half into that job he was fired,

A year and a half into that job he was fired, but it didn’t cost him his reputation on the college level and the University of Tennessee hired Lane to be their head coach almost immediately. Lane spent one year at Tennessee when USC came calling for their head coaching gig and the USC job is one of the top coaching jobs in the country, so Lane left Tennesse for USC.

That’s a lot of movement in a very short timeline! USC-Raiders-Tennessee-USC all in about three years. Lane spent three seasons and two games at USC before he was fired after a game at LAX after being called off the team bus.

So, you now have been given three head coaching jobs, two of which you’ve been fired from, one of which you left in the dead of night after only one season for a prettier girl! Needless to say Lane needed a big time career rehab!

Kiffin’s next move was critical, and he nailed it! If your career is in shambles and you want to fix it, you take a job you know you can flat out kill, at the best company possible, and you stay patient. Kiffin took the Offensive Coordinator’s job (his specialty) at the University of Alabama under the arguably the greatest college coach of all-time, Nick Saban.

Here’s what Kiffin knew before even taking the job. Alabama and Saban are going to win. If your career is in shambles you want to work for a winner. Kiffin would have taken any job working for Saban! Grad Assistant, Quarterback Coach, Receivers coach, academic advisor, etc.! Kiffin knew being on Saban’s staff would immediately elevate him if he just did the job he was hired to do, and was a good soldier to Saban.

He played the part perfectly. Three seasons with Saban, even when he could have left for head coaching job earlier. He stayed patient, he stayed loyal and last week he was rewarded with his next head coaching job at Florida International University. Another brilliant move in rehabbing his career! Make you next big gig one that has almost zero expectations. So, if you fail, no one expected you to do good there anyway, it’s not you, it’s them!

How do you rehab your career in one step? 

Go find the absolute best company and best boss in the world to work for. No matter the job. No matter how low level. And work there under that person until you put enough distance between the bad stuff and the new stuff. Might take a year, might take five years, it’s all relative to how screwed up your career is.

You rehab your career by taking one giant step back, not worrying about the position you get, but really worrying about where and who that position is. Most people do the opposite. They take the first job that pays them similar to their last job, which is usually an awful job where they’ll be set up for failure, and continue the downward spiral of their career.

Falling In Love With Your Job

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Do you know what it felt like the last time you fell in love?

I mean real love?

The kind of love where you talk 42 times per day, in between text and facebook messages and feel physical pain from being apart? Ok, maybe for some it’s been a while and you didn’t have the texts or Facebook!  But, you remember those times when you really didn’t think about anything else or even imagine not seeing the other person the next day, hell, the next hour. Falling “in” love is one of the best parts of love, it doesn’t last that long and you never get it back.

I hear people all the time say “I love my job” and I never use to pay much attention, in fact, I’ve said it myself.  The reality is, I don’t love my job. I mean I like it a whole lot, but I love my wife, I love my kids, I love Diet Mt. Dew at 7am on a Monday morning. The important things in life!  But my job?  I’m not sure about that one.  As an HR Pro, I’m supposed to work to get my employees to “love” their jobs.  Love.

Let me go all Dr. Phil on you for a second. Do you know why most relationships fail? No, it’s not the cheating. No, it’s not the drugs and/or alcohol. No, it’s not money. No, it’s not that he stop caring. No, it’s not your parents. Ok, stop it. I’ll just tell you!

Relationships fail because expectations aren’t met.  Which seems logical knowing what we know about how people fall in love, and lose their minds.  Once that calms down – the real work begins.  So, if you expect love to be the love of the first 4-6 months of a relationship you’re going to be disappointed a whole bunch over and over.

Jobs aren’t much different.

You get a new job and it’s usually really good!  People listen to your opinion. You seem smarter. Hell, you seem better looking (primarily because people are sick of looking at their older co-workers). Everything seems better in a new job.  Then you have your 1 year anniversary and you come to find out you’re just like the other idiots you’re working with.

This is when falling in love with your job really begins. When you know about all the stuff the company hid in the closet. The past employees they think are better and smarter than you, the good old days when they made more money, etc.  Now, is when you have to put some work into making it work.

I see people all the time moving around to different employers and never seeming to be satisfied.  They’re searching. Not for a better job, or a better company. They’re searching for that feeling that will last.  But it never will, not without them working for it.

The best love has to be worked for. Passion is easy and fleeting. Love is hard to sustain and has to be worked, but can last forever.

Recruiting Secret #5

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Everyone wants to know the secret to great recruiting. Candidates want to know how to get into companies. Recruiters want to know each other’s secrets to finding great talent. No one seems to be sharing their secrets, so I thought I might as well fill everyone in…

Recruiting Secret #5

I haven’t read a cover letter to a resume since 1999.

If you are sending a cover letter with your resume, the recruiter that is receiving that letter thinks you’re a moron. If you’re being told to develop and send a cover letter, the person telling you to do that is a moron.

Cover letters died when ATSs began accepting applications and resumes. At this point, even if you are able to upload a cover letter, no hiring managers are ever going to see that, and most recruiters will never read a sentence of it either!

Recruiting Secret #36

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Everyone wants to know the secret to great recruiting. Candidates want to know how to get into companies. Recruiters want to know each other’s secrets to finding great talent. No one seems to be sharing their secrets, but I will!

Recruiting Secret #36 – 

Most hires you will make as a recruiter will find you. You don’t find them.

The secret is to make it easy for them to find you!

There is still a prevailing idea in recruiting, especially on the corporate side, you should make it difficult for candidates to be able to get in touch with and find you. Great recruiters. The best recruiters in any industry, are easy to find.

Are you?

 

Would You Be Willing To Pay For Interview Feedback – Take 2

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“I believe you have to be willing to be misunderstood if you’re going to innovate.”

– Howard Marks

Yesterday I wrote a post called Would You Be Willing To Pay For Interview Feedback that caused some people to lose their minds.  I asked what I thought was a simple question: Would you be willing to pay for interview feedback?  Not just normal, thanks, but no thanks, interview feedback, but really in-depth career development type of feedback from the organization that interviewed you.  You can read the comments here – they range from threats to outright hilarity! Needless to say, there is a lot of passion on this topic.

Here’s what I know:

– Most companies do a terrible job at delivery any type of feedback after interviews. Terrible.

– Most candidates only want two things from an interview.

1.  To Be Hired

2. If not hired, to know a little about why they didn’t get hired

Simple, right?  But, this still almost never happens!  Most large companies, now, automate the entire process with email form letters.  Even those lucky enough to get a live call, still get a watered-down, vanilla version of anything close to something that we would consider helpful.

When I asked if someone was willing to pay for interview feedback, it wasn’t for the normal lame crap that 99% of companies give.  It was for something new. Something better. Something of value.  It would also be something completely voluntary.  You could not pay and still get little to no feedback that you get now — Dear John, Thanks, but no thanks. The majority of the commentators felt like receiving feedback after an interview was a ‘right’ – legal and/or G*d given.  The reality is, it’s neither.

The paid interview feedback would be more in-depth, have more substance and would focus on you and how to help you get better at interviewing.  It would also get into why you didn’t get the job.  The LinkedIn commentators said this was rife with legal issues.  Organizations would not be allowed to do this by their legal staff because they would get sued by interviewees over the reasons.  This is a typical HR response.  If you say ‘legal’ people stop talking about an idea.  They teach that in HR school so we don’t have to change or be challenged by new ideas!

The reality is, as an HR Pro, I’m never going give someone ammunition to sue my organization.  If I didn’t hire someone for an illegal reason, let’s say because they were a woman, no person in their right mind would come out and say that.  Okay, first, I would never do that. Second, if I did, I would focus the feedback on other opportunity areas the candidate had that would help them in their next interview or career. No one would ever come out and say to an interviewee, “Yeah, you didn’t get the job because you’re a chick!”

This is not a legal or risk issue.  It’s about finally finding a way to deliver great interview feedback to candidates.  It’s about delivering a truly great candidate experience.  So many HR Pros and organizations espouse this desire to deliver a great candidate experience but still don’t do the one thing that candidates really want.  Just give me feedback!

So, do you think I’m still crazy for wanting to charge interviewees for feedback?