Do you feel like everything you know about job hunting and hiring is wrong? Welcome to Ask The Headhunter, where we’re going to poke and prod at our assumptions about job hunting, hiring, and success at work.

For over 12 years I’ve answered thousands of questions from readers on Ask The Headhunter, hoping to deliver a few drops of good advice on these topics. It’s been an easy gig for two reasons. First, the world’s Employment System is so much muck and mire that a little clear thinking and common sense go a long way. Second, my readers teach me and themselves more than I ever could. I try to help boil it down.

Pure and simple, success in any job means you’ve got to identify and meet an objective. (If there isn’t a clear objective, the job is broken.) But, objectives get buried in jargon and they get lost in the muck and methods of hiring. I’m impatient when confronted with muck. So, I’ll reveal my trick — I stir the pot hard till the crud comes to the top. The fun part is skimming it off (and splattering it around a bit), and then we can see what’s underneath. What’s down there is almost always this: What’s the work we need to do so we can produce profit — for the employer and the worker?

Maybe you just want a job; to pay the mortgage; to get along. Maybe you don’t want to get fired. Maybe you think profit is somebody else’s job, because nobody pays you enough to worry about it.

Or, maybe you want to turn your industry on its head with your great ideas, and you expect recognition and money. Profit. Yah, your paycheck should have some profit in it, too. If the work you do isn’t profitable to you, something’s wrong. Something’s broken. I’m convinced it’s the Employment System, because the way we hire and look for work usually promotes mediocrity and develops despair. Bummer. Sorry about that. My first post — and I’ve already splattered some crud around.

So, strap on a rubber apron, and start stirring. Why does HR dump jobs into the Monster pit? How can managers recruit without resumes? Do all headhunters really suck? How can you get past the Top 10 Stupid Interview Questions? Is there a way to get a raise without begging? We’ll cover all this, and, like Vladimir Nabokov claimed about his best book, “much, much more.”