Comments on: Turn down the volume

By: Nick Corcodilos

Nick Corcodilos — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 17:02:51 +0000

@Chuck: Sometimes I talk (write) too much. Thanks for summarizing my point! What many don’t realize is that most of what I teach about job hunting comes from learning how to sell consulting services. Once you strip a job hunter down to what matters – proof he or she can do the job – you see what a job interview is all about.

By: Chuck Ulle

Chuck Ulle — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 03:37:13 +0000

Nick,
Good presentation of a consultative selling technique. When I started working for my last organization I wanted to be a good new employee, so I went along with the status quo. The modus operandi was simply “show up and throw up”, meaning assume you know what the client needs and wants, show him everything you can do (like a trick pony) and help them decide which of your available solutions fit their need.

You’ve described the optimal process, listen, uncover, probe, listen and understand what the problem is and then figure out how to solve the it.

I became more successful when I threw out my pre canned demonstration and went with meetings and lunches to learn about the need.

This program should work just fine with job hunting.

By: Frank C. Gravelyn

Frank C. Gravelyn — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 23:02:17 +0000

I absolutely see the point you are making about the efficiency exhibited in this story, and agree with it. My question would be about how hiring in this way might raise questions of discrimination, and not fit well with organizational diversity plans.

By: JB King

JB King — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 21:22:42 +0000

I’d generalize the expertise in hiring and job hunting as really this is having a need and meeting that need. This isn’t any different than if someone needs an accountant, doctor, electrician, or plumber or any of 101 skills that people may require assistance with at some point in their life. While not everyone has their own personal accountant, there is a method for how people go about finding those with the desired expertise and then see if there is a connection or a fit.

In a way this seems to be a basic skill for modern times as not everyone wants to do everything for themselves. How many people can say that they built their house, farmed all the food, did all the plumbing they use, and built their own vehicles? That should seem like something very very few people would even try to do. Thus, you need to know who have those specialties that make life good, whether that be doctors or lawyers or massage therapists even.

While this may seem like common sense to me, I wonder if others would see it this way or not. There are times where I wonder how people got to be so risk-averse that they would rather stay in the ignorance rather than take the small chance of learning something that could radically affect their standard of living. Imagine the person that gets introduced to how to use the web and Google and discovers this massive world out there and becomes much better and happier with their hobbies because of people who share those hobbies give tips, suggestions and encouragement in doing more or better stuff.

By: Nick Corcodilos

Nick Corcodilos — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:44:29 +0000

@JB: Expertise. You make several very good points, but that’s one of the big ones. Let me play devil’s advocate (it’s not hard, because people have said these things to me…)

“It’s easy for you because you’re a headhunter and you’re supposed to be an expert.”

Everyone should become expert at hiring and job hunting. Because consider: I make a placement and earn 25% of the salary. The person getting a job makes 4X that. So, who has the bigger incentive to become expert at this?

Is there a reason why a person cannot have the kinds of contacts JB refers to?

By: JB King

JB King — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 18:34:15 +0000

What happened seems rather clear to me. You found out what John really needed and then went and found it. You were paid for your expertise in knowing that handful and narrowing it down to just one person for John to meet. While it may be easy to say what you did, there is some expertise in doing it well, as opposed to just doing it.

At times I do think there is this mistake of crossing a line for both those wanting jobs and those offering jobs. The shotgun approach of sending out tons of resumes tends to not work that well as there isn’t anything special in that resume if it is going to hundreds of people. Similarly, companies seem to want to find someone with minimal effort on their end. If they put up a want ad they may get a deluge of resumes that doesn’t necessarily help as the resume is only part of the story. In the cases where I got a job, there was something to be said for having little competition which may be because I used recruiters at times or because of the channels I chose. Thus, conventional wisdom is a bit of a crock from my experiences.

If you went and searched through the resumes on say TheLadders.com I think then you may have had too much volume to handle. Though that is where such jobs are supposed to be found, right? Yeah, right. I’ve read some of your comments about that site before and don’t use it and likely never will as I see it like I see monster.com but with an entrance fee that just makes no sense for me to pay. I’ll find other ways to find jobs and you know what, those have worked for me.