Perfect Fit for the Position I have heard it over and over about how you are a perfect fit for the position. I hate to tell you that, if you are really a perfect fit for the position, you will almost always lose! WHAT??? Do you actually believe that job description is accurate? If you […]
Evaluating the Job Offer – What is Missing? [Updated]
Evaluating the Job Offer When you get a job offer what is the first thing you look at? The Money! If all you are looking at is the money in the job offer, you may end up very disappointed a few months down the road. I wrote about determining what you want in ‘non-financial’ terms […]
How Long Will My Job Search Take? Longer Than You Think! [Updated]
How Long Will My Job Search Take? I am often asked, “How long will my job search take?” My answer is almost always, “It depends.” I work, primarily, with those in the 2nd half of life—which is code for those over 50 years of age. I tell them that a really short job search is […]
5 Things You Will Never Know About the Hiring Process
Things You Will Never Know About the Hiring Process The reality is when you are looking for a job at a target company you do not know anything about their hiring process. That is unless you have a contact at the target company with intimate knowledge of how hiring is done. What we usually do is […]
You Did Not Get the Job! Now What? [Updated]
You Did Not Get the Job! What Do You Do Now? You just got the rejection notice that said you did not get the job you really wanted. This can be pretty devastating emotionally but you need to maintain an even, emotional disposition. I wrote about this in the post Emotions and the Job Search […]
Is the Resume Still Relevant in the 21st Century? [Updated]
Resume still relevant? When I graduated from college in the late 1970s the resume was not just relevant but it was the cornerstone of your job search. However, that was the 1970s before the Internet existed. In late 1990s job boards like Monster.com started to appear. You could upload your resume to the job boards […]
What is Your Current Salary? How to Answer! [Updated]
What is Your Current Salary? I’m sure you have been asked early in the interview process, “What is your current salary?” If it was up to me, I would have everyone respond indignantly—None of your %^%#(& business! However, that does not work in our current work environment. So, how should you answer the question, “What […]
Probing for Pain Points in an Interview [Updated]
Probing for Pain Points? Probing for pain points should be one of your first steps in an interview. Every business has problems. Your first job is to ask probing questions to uncover those pain points. You do this by asking big open-ended questions to the other party to get them to open up and spill the […]
What I Learned About My Career from Selling a Vintage Fiat
Selling a Vintage Fiat? When I was a young man in late 1970s, I wanted a convertible. I was also cheap! The first car I bought was a 1972 Triumph Spitfire from a woman I worked with at IBM. It needed a clutch and a throw out bearing. I had just received my engineering degree […]