September 2014

People should always accompany their online job activities with other methods of looking for opportunities, utilizing a combination of strategies. One of them involves literally, physically and actively approaching companies and company managers on your own behalf in-person, with all that entails. Handshake-to-handshake, face-to-face and eye-to-eye, is hands-down the best way to go, anytime you can facilitate such an event. But if you’re only going to passively wait until you are invited as a result of your online activity, well, then you’re missing the whole point. I recognize that for many people this concept is foreign to them. Imagine; there are people with whom I speak, for whatever reason, who act with incredulity and react viscerally, opposed to such crazy talk and very often they’ll respond by telling me they absolutely refuse to sink to the level of going and begging

During the 22 years during which I have been a headhunter or, more categorically, a direct-search recruiter, I have been watching with studious interest the standardization and streamlining of hiring processes. Let me be clear: the processes, and the rules you are told to follow, serve only to benefit companies, not you. Most of the advice you read is presented by those very same people telling you what and how to do it to fit their vision of what’s best for you. It’s rather like asking the prison guard what your rights are from the confines of your cell. That is because you, your concerns and your interests, are not their priority. That which differentiates you from everyone else is a distraction, by and large they aren’t interested. They have a script, a list, a ritual they follow and to

As you read this, if you are looking for a job you will no doubt get depressed, however, that is not the intent but, instead, to jar you out of your walking coma. More about that later -- if you are someone who does not look very often or regularly at the job portals and postings, you won’t notice; but if you do, it is increasingly frustrating. There are jobs, but fewer and fewer are the good jobs that people want. You can get a job, anytime you want. You likely don’t know this, but I have known for years large companies post jobs they have no intention of filling through outside sources. I’ve been told this directly and recently in conversation, by a member of human resources responsible for recruiting at a well-known pharmaceutical company. There was a very good