In the November 29, 2011 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter, a reader who’s run a business for years wants to know whether it’s true that the self-employed are unemployable. I was on a discussion forum today where the consensus is that you’ll never get hired if you’ve been self-employed. Is that true? I have had my [...]

In the November 22, 2011 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter, a successful executive who took time off then worked as a consultant says headhunters won’t touch him. What’s up? I was an executive with a financial services software company for 20 years. I joined when it was a start-up. After the company was sold, I took a [...]

In the November 15, 2011 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter, a job hunter who tries to take a personal approach to an employer is told to “go tell it to our website” in order to comply with federal rules: Nick, this is a new one to me. Do we really need to apply online for positions [...]

New Jersey is the only state where it’s illegal to publish job ads that exclude unemployed people. Is that because New Jersey has especially stupid employers, or because New Jersey is the first state to recognize that there are too many employers everywhere that behave stupidly? Does it matter? Here’s what matters: The company that [...]

In the November 8, 2011 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter, a seasoned professional takes employers and recruiters to task for demanding detailed references too soon: I’ve noticed a disturbing trend lately: Recruiters are asking for detailed references before I even meet them or decide I’m interested in the job. They want multiple references before they’ll even [...]

Suppose that every time you applied for a job, some guy in a little room checked an Excel spreadsheet and notified the employer: “No interview for this guy. He’s a bum.” It’s already happening. Several years ago I published a series of articles about identity theft via job boards, including a report about Monster.com’s troubling practices [...]