Tony Beshara, Author at Tony Beshara Blog

About Tony Beshara

Tony Beshara is the owner and president of Babich & Associates, established in 1952, and the oldest placement and recruitment service in Texas. It is consistently one of the top contingency placement firms in the DFW area and has been recognized as one of the “Best Places to Work in DFW” by the Dallas Business Journal. He has been a professional recruiter since 1973 and has personally found jobs for more than 12,000 individuals. He sits behind a desk every day, working the phone literally seven hours of the twelve hours a day, making more than 100 calls a day. He is in the trenches on a day-to-day basis. Tony has personally interviewed more than 30,000 people on all professional levels and has worked with more than 75,000 hiring authorities. Babich & Associates has helped more than 100,000 people find jobs using Tony’s process. Tony is one of the most successful placement and recruitment professionals in the United States.

“Take this job and shove it… I ain’t working here no more…”

(Johnny paycheck, circa 1977)Candidate comes to my office this week says, “it felt so good. It felt so very good when I told these guys that they could take their job and stuff it where the sun don’t shine. I explained to them that I’d had enough. I just couldn’t take it any longer. There browbeating and taking advantage of me and all the other employees in the company just had to stop.

“Hell, nobody else in the company had the guts to do it… those weaklings. And while I was telling them to stuff it, I enlighten them as to what they could do to change things so they wouldn’t lose people like me. That they ran a disgraceful company and they should be ashamed of themselves. They just sat there and looked so surprised. Those fat som-bitches acted like they didn’t have any idea what I was talking about. What a joke! It felt so good to tell them I was leaving.”

Well that was eight months ago and our candidate is still looking for a job. He didn’t think he would have any trouble finding a job. He didn’t think about what was that happen when he left like that…the kind of reference he might get. In fact, our candidate didn’t really think at all.

He thought he had a job lined up with a friend at church that had given him a “we’re always hiring at our place just give me a call” comment. In eight months he’s only had three interviews and he didn’t even come close to getting the job. On top of having a difficult time in finding a job, he’s really embarrassed about the way he quit. He says that he knows that the people he told what they could do with their job know that he’s out of work and are really laughing.

Here’s the lesson, the matter how mad or frustrated you get don’t tell people what they can do with their job until you found a new one. Bite your tongue. Calm down and endure. Find a job before you leave this one. You never know how long it’s going to take to find a job. The people that this guy told off don’t really care about why he left. They aren’t going to change the way they do things because of any employee leaving.

Our poor candidate is in a world of hurt and most of it he created for himself.

By Tony Beshara|2016-02-19T22:37:28-05:00February 19, 2016|interviewing, Job Search Blog|

… You want how much?

There was an article in last week’s Wall Street Journal about how high salaries haunt some job hunters and eliminate them before they barely get started interviewing. The article claimed that:

Human resources executives say that asking about pay right off the bat helps contain compensation costs, insures that candidates have reasonable expectations and spares recruiters chasing prospects they can’t afford.
Focusing on compensation history “holds down wages because now the jobs are being filled by people with lower salary expectations”… “We have a whole generation of people who are permanently adversely affected.”
Finance chiefs are probably looking ahead and saying they want to keep the escalation of labor costs from going up in a way that will put pressure on earnings.
Employers may feel they can lowball applicants because they believe there is still a surplus of qualified candidates.
Workers over 45 years old take a bigger hit than workers under 35 years old
Some employers hesitate to hire at far below a past salary, concerned that the employee would resent earning so much less. (…and therefore leave or look for another job with a higher salary.)

The conclusion of the article is that when job candidates are asked what they want to earn and then tell a perspective employer what their desire is, they get eliminated.

Unfortunately, what the article doesn’t tell the prospective job seeker is how to deal with this issue. Here are ways a job seeker can deal with this question and keep themselves in contention for the job.

When asked, “What kind of money are you looking for?”, don’t try to guess what’s on the mind of the interviewer. Answer the question by stating something like, “In my last position I was earning $XXXXX. I’m not as concerned about what the starting salary is as I’m concerned about the opportunity in my ability to perform. My experiences have been that if I give good service, the money is going to take care of itself.”
Don’t pay any attention to what a “published” salary might be. Just because an organization publishes a certain salary doesn’t mean they’re going to pay that.
Quit thinking that people are trying to “lowball” you are anybody else. When you deal from a defensive attitude like that you won’t negotiate very well.
Remember to communicate that money is the fourth or fifth reason that people work. The company, what they do, the people… all are a lot more important than just money.
Quit thinking that just because you’ve made a certain amount of money that you “owe it to yourself and your family to get an increase.” An increase may not be what the market will bear. A lateral move or even a step backwards in salary is common in today’s market.
Communicate as much as you can that you are “open” regarding money. You might even give an example like, “In the last two jobs that I’ve had I started out at a lower salary than what I had made before and I wound up getting salary advances because of my performance. Again, I’m not as concerned about the entry salary as I am about the company, the people and the opportunity. If all of those things work well, the money usually works itself out.”

It doesn’t take a mental giant to know that older employees, because they usually make higher salaries, are more likely to take less money in finding a new job than younger workers. But that’s not because they’re older, it’s because they have been making more money. A “younger” candidate making more money than a hiring organization might want to pay will have the same problem.

For a while, companies will try to “contain” salaries and earnings. But as candidates become harder to find and the job market gets better, these companies will have to pay more and increase starting salaries to compete for good candidates. It happens every time we come out of a recession.

A job seeker’s pay history may very well be a challenge to deal with. But if it’s handled the right way, it can become no more than a minor issue.

By Tony Beshara|2016-02-09T09:14:30-05:00February 7, 2016|interviewing, job search|

The Stockholm Syndrome and your job…

The Stockholm syndrome, according to Wikipedia “is a psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending and identifying with the captors. These feelings are generally considered irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims, who essentially mistake a lack of abuse from their captors for an act of kindness.“

Few people want to admit that this syndrome applies to them and their job. At least three or four times a month, I personally, get calls from potential candidates who, upon listening to their story, convince me that they suffer from this syndrome. There are a lot of really goofy companies out there that are run by a lot of goofy people who border on abusing the people that work for them and with them. The abuse ranges from things like taking advantage of people and their willingness to help to verbal and even psychological abuse. Over the years I’ve even known some candidates to tolerate having things thrown at them by their immediate supervisors. (… Don’t laugh, there are still some idiots out there that do things like this and some people are too afraid to look for a job and put up with it.)

At least 50% of the time as these potential candidates tell me why they need to leave where they’re at, they mumbled something along the line of “… I can’t believe that I stayed here and put up with this for as long as I have.” They then proceed to justify their staying in an abusive situation by expressing their “empathy and sympathy and positive feelings toward their captors” even defending why the company and the people that run it do what they do. They just don’t want to admit that they work for idiots and they shall left a long time ago.

Often, these potential candidates have felt that they needed to stay where they were out of loyalty. Often their company is in terrible financial shape and they begin to look for a job way too late. We have to caution them to watch out saying in an interview, “I should’ve seen this coming year or so ago. I mean, the signs were there… I just didn’t want to see them.” A candidate’s business acumen is seriously questioned in a situation like this.

I realize that looking for a job isn’t fun. In fact it’s a job in itself and if you already have a job it’s like having two jobs. No one likes looking for a job. But staying in a work relationship like this is idiotic too. On top of that, it’s very hard to explain to a prospective employer if you stick around that kind of a relationship for very long.

So at the first sign of anything you think you have to rationalize about your employer start thinking about how you’re going to exit. Don’t get caught in the Stockholm syndrome.

By Tony Beshara|2016-01-31T21:43:54-05:00January 31, 2016|Job Search Blog|

Here’s Why You Should Take Every Interview Available to You

most of the candidates that we work with are presently have a job and interviewing is a hard thing to do. Let’s face it interviewing is a pain in the butt and even though it’s a necessary evil nobody really likes doing it. Michael was an exceptional candidate and two years ago we got them an interview that he really didn’t want to go on.

he actually fought us on it. He said he knew the company, they were a competitor, they had a tremendous amount of turnover, that he never go to work for him and on and on. We convinced him that nobody knows anybody like they think they do and he at least ought to go on the interview and talk to them. He even mumbled something like, “well I guess if I don’t go, you won’t get me other interviews?” we assured him that that’s not the case, but he ought to go on the damn interview.

he went. He really liked the guy he was talking to and wasn’t as unhappy with the company as he thought he would be. He went through a number of interviews, personality surveys and corporate visits. He got the offer but turned it down because we found him a better opportunity. fair enough.

Two years later Miguel decides that he needs to look again. His present company had changed hands and were now being purchased by a private equity company and there was just way too much up in the air about what was going to happen. Being good recruiter’s, we began by looking at the company’s we had referred him to once before.

of course we contacted the company he got the offer from a couple of years ago. Things have really changed. They had a new CEO and a new executive vice president of sales.. Sometimes timing is everything. The new EVP had recently let the manager in the Dallas office go and happen to need a new Regional Director.

the EVP interviewed Miguel on his way through Dallas the Monday after we called him. Not only was the EVP thrilled with Miguel’s experience and background, but some of the managers at corporate, whom he had interviewed with a couple of years ago, remembered him as stellar. It didn’t hurt that his psychological testing that he had done before predicted success.

Within one week of learning of Miguel’s availability, our client hired him as a regional director.

Lesson: … Interview with anybody that even might be interested in your skills or experience. Making a good impression. You never know if you might be speaking to them again.

By Tony Beshara|2016-01-19T13:13:28-05:00January 19, 2016|career development, interviewing|

… Gratitude, empathy and understanding can get a great employee

I had a gratifying experience this week. Sixteen people e-mailed me to my personal/business e-mail address that they had been the beneficiary of their employers hiring them in spite of their DWI’s, bankruptcies, misdemeanors and, yes, three felonies. They felt compelled to write about how their employers understood about their indiscretions and hired them anyway. They are phenomenally grateful and realize that their being hired was very rare.

Every one of them told me that they had been rejected a phenomenal number of times because of their mistakes. Everyone expressed the idea that they totally understood why they were not being hired. They might have been frustrated by this, but they weren’t mad. Every one of these people took full responsibility for their mistakes. They ended up going to work for people who had empathy, understanding and the willingness to give them a shot. Most of them went to work at jobs that were well below the level they had before. They realize that, in essence, they were starting all over. Both they and the employers that hired them acknowledged that everyone was getting a good “business deal.”

I personally believe that most employers close their minds to the opportunity of hiring folks with things like this in their background. I’ve tried to argue the wisdom of it to people who simply wouldn’t hear it. They claimed it was their company policy or that they would lose their job if other people in the company found out they hired a felon. When we, as a company, represent a candidate with these kinds of challenges in their background, we first evaluate the quality of the candidate and their experience. We will often represent them and simply ask hiring authorities, before they grant the interview about their ability to hire someone with the respective mistake in their background. If we get the statement “I can’t and won’t do that”, we simply stop.

I did hear from three managers of companies. One of them wrote that he appreciated the post and he personally wouldn’t have a problem with hiring somebody with these kinds of blemishes on their background, but his company would never let him do it. He felt stuck, but he had too many other things to worry about. The two other employers said that they were open to hiring people with these kinds of problems. I have no idea what percentage of our post was read by candidates seeking a job or by hiring authorities, or maybe both. But it was gratifying to get these three folks to respond.

Even our firm will draw the line at representing pedophiles or sex offenders. We will pray for them, but we can’t bring ourselves to place them. But there are lots of folks who can be very good employees, despite their past mistakes.

I didn’t expect to get any responses to that post. To get the 16 supportive emails was gratifying. Especially around Christmas time.

By Tony Beshara|2018-07-25T13:16:27-05:00December 11, 2015|Job Search Blog, recruitment|

…DWI’s, bankruptcy, credit problems, misdemeanors and felonies

Not a week goes by that a candidate represented by our firm reveals one of the above just about the time they are going to get a job offer from one of our clients. My sense is that probably 25% to maybe even 30% of professional job candidates have one of these issues in their background. Certainly, nobody really wants to talk about it and most candidates won’t even bring it up until the issue is either discovered by the hiring organization or they offer it up in the final stages of the interviewing process.

Most of the time, these issues stop the offer. Sometimes they can be worked around by the hiring authority and the company, but they are always problems. There are some graceful ways of dealing with them to minimize their impact but every candidate who has a ding like this knows it’s going to be a problem and they are usually scared to death of its impact.

Unfortunately, felonies are almost always insurmountable, especially in professional positions. Only 10 or 12 times in my 43 years of doing this, have I had a company hire a candidate with a felony in their recent past. The empathetic part of me realizes how sad this might be, but the business side of me realizes why companies can’t run that risk. The situations where candidates with felonies have been hired have usually been in sales environments where they potential employee does not handle cash or money. If you’re an accountant with a felony of embezzlement, you need to change professions.

DWI’s and misdemeanors can often be explained and overlooked by some firms, but it is hard. I suggest people get an attorney to find out how, if enough time has elapsed, these records might be removed from a person’s public background. Everybody has an opinion about how long these things stay on a person’s record. Don’t rely on a friend that thinks they know. Find an attorney that deals with these things all the time and find out exactly what to do.

If you aren’t sure of what is on your record, and it’s amazing the number of people who don’t really know of their misdeeds, run a background check on yourself for around $40 (that is the cheapest service) and you can see what most employers will find. Every once in a while we run into a situation of identity theft as well as the wrong identity being checked.

If there are some of these issues in your background, I’d recommend discussing them with the hiring authority if you think you are going to be a finalist for the job opportunity. And be sure that you discuss them before a background check is made on you by the employer.

Now it is very important and I need to emphasize, very important, that when you go to explain these incidences, don’t be angry or try to justify how you were “wronged” or how you had just a little too much to drink, and you got sassy with the policeman so he decided to claim that you were DWI. The best way to deal with these kind of things in your background is to be remorseful, apologetic and have a “how can we work this out?” attitude. Anything less than a remorseful, apologetic attitude simply won’t fly. I’ve seen felons get hired simply because they presented themselves as remorseful and apologetic. One guy I knew even made it a “positive” benefit.

If a company simply can’t work around the issue, be graceful and understanding. There is absolutely no sense in burning the bridge with the company or the people in it.

Bankruptcies are a bit different. Some companies don’t care; others might. We had a banking client that refused to hire one of our candidates because of a previous bankruptcy. They really wanted to hire the candidate but they had just fired an officer for embezzlement. They couldn’t take the chance. We recently placed a banker that did have a bankruptcy in his background, but the bank hired him anyway because they really liked him. Other than financial institutions, most organizations will consider someone with a bankruptcy. But they better be a really good candidate and sell themselves really well.

“Bruised” credit falls in the same category as bankruptcies. Financial organizations will usually have a rough time with it. But especially since the last recession where lots of people had bruised credit, most firms will overlook it provided the candidate is really good.

Whatever the issue, a candidate is going to have to explain it really well. Again, it’s important for the candidate to bring these issues up before the employer discovers it on his own.

By Tony Beshara|2015-12-09T12:45:10-05:00December 6, 2015|job search, Job Search Blog|

… Your first impression

The recent cover article in Psychology Today summarizes the latest research regarding first impressions. This is one of those topics that people are aware of but they hardly ever apply them to the interviewing situation. The article summarized as follows:

We look at a person and immediately a certain impression of his or her character forms itself in us. A glance, a few spoken words are sufficient to tell us a story about a highly complex matter.
People depend on first impressions to assess a person’s extroversion, openness, agreeability and conscientiousness. Studies have shown that the judgments of these characteristics made after knowing someone for a minute are usually as accurate as those made after knowing the same person for years.
First impressions are almost perfectly accurate 30% of the time.
The presence or absence of physical warmth similarly sways first impressions. Psychologists found that subjects holding a cup of hot coffee as opposed to iced coffee rated the person they met as especially warm and generous.
People who sit at a wobbly table or sit on a wobbly chair judge the people they meet as unreliable.
A person’s face at first glance can form a strong impression. For instance thin lips and wrinkles at the corners elicit judgments of distinguished, intelligent and determined. Persons who were baby faced were perceived as physically weak, naïve and submissive, although also honest, kind and warm.
The more a face resembles the viewers face, the more the viewer is predisposed to like it.
A single piece of highly negative information undoes a positive first impression, but it takes a lot more… like doing something heroic… to overcome a negative first impression.
First impressions are most unreliable when there’s a narcissist in the room. Narcissists are just plain hard to read. They make incredibly good first impressions.
Getting to know people over an extended period of time alters first impressions. But for the most part it takes a long “getting to know you” period to alter those impressions.

A study at McGill University as far back as 1965 found that people decide to hire other people based on the impressions they get of the candidate in the first four minutes.

These facts about first impressions have a lot to do with the interviewing situation. For a candidate, they need to know that it is really important to make a good first impression. Dressing appropriately, looking people in the eye, having a firm handshake and all of the things I’ve discussed in previous blogs about first impressions and the first interview apply. Most candidates totally underestimate the impact of that very first impression. They will give it lip service and say things like, “Tony, I know that… but everybody dresses casually for interviews.”

If you’re a hiring or interviewing authority you want to be aware of the pitfalls of first impressions. Get to know candidates over a period of time, preferably in different environments to confirm, deny or alter first impressions.

Realizing the psychologist’s findings you might want to reconsider going on a job interview on wobbly, stiletto heels or interviewing at a noisy Starbucks after buying the interviewer an iced coffee.

By Tony Beshara|2018-07-25T13:16:58-05:00November 22, 2015|interviewing, Job Search Blog, recruitment|

… “Well, I’ve paid my dues…”

We hear this weekly. There are over 20 recruiters in our organization and each one of us may even hear it three or four times a week. It’s usually stated by someone who is trying to justify getting more money if they change jobs, finding a management job or basically expressing the fact that they don’t want to start all over, let alone take a step back from the level of job they had.

Unfortunately, these folks have some kind of entitlement attitude that tries to justify that someone else ought to give them a promotion or more money just because they deserve it. I had this brought to my mind again this week by a fellow who has been out of work for almost a year, who says that he’s had job offers that were lateral moves to the job he had but that he and his wife know that, since he’s paid his dues he will find a job that is at least a $10,000 “step up” in earnings and, preferably, a management position. With a straight face he was trying to convince me that a job like that existed and he was going to find it. The guy has been out of work for a year. Can you say – delusional?

There’s no such thing as, “I’ve paid my dues!” Every one of us “pays his dues” every day. Our value in the marketplace is not intrinsic. It’s whatever we can get in the marketplace. The marketplace doesn’t give a fig about what you think you’re worth or how many “dues” you’ve paid. The marketplace is going to tell you what you’re worth. Take it or leave it. None of us “deserves” anything.

The idea is for a job seeker to sell his or her skills and experience the best they can. The better their experience and performance, the more the market might bear. Nobody cares about what you’ve done in the past unless it’s an indication of what you can do for them. All a hiring authority or his or her company cares about is what you can do for them NOW. Your value is whatever you can get them to pay.

“I’ve paid my dues…” Cut it out!

By Tony Beshara|2015-12-09T12:48:59-05:00November 6, 2015|communication|

… Reaction to the 99 million out of work

It’s really interesting reaction that we got for the post two weeks ago about why the 99 million people that are permanently out of work are there. Most of the reactions claimed that the article was spot on. And there were quite a few others that voiced the fact that, “I’ve been among the 99 million for years… clueless hiring managers, HR fools and time wasting recruiters treat people such as myself like absolute s—t!” or comments like, “let’s see, bogus job advertisements, cronyism, much cheaper labor overseas, globalization, zillions of H1B visas…”

The numbers of these comments were surprising. This small sampling though, reinforce the idea that for some reason our society is accepting and tolerating this low rate of employment participation on everyone’s part. The major reason, and I do mean major, is that looking for a job is a phenomenally emotionally stressful thing to do. When the job market is tight and job seekers don’t get fairly immediate positive response to their efforts they lose momentum and because they really don’t know what to do in order to get a job they decide that, “there are no jobs out there” and they quit looking. On top of all of this, and this is important, the distance between the hiring authority and the job seeker is greater than it’s ever been. There are going to be 15 negative events for every positive one. Job seekers are lied to, storied, left on hold and simply ignored.The inability for a job seeker to communicate directly with hiring authority is greater than it’s ever been. It’s harder and harder, because of the Internet, because of applicant tracking systems and, yes, people who “review” resumes who know absolutely nothing about what they’re looking for for candidates to actually get an interview. And, on top of that most candidates don’t know how to perform well when they get the interview.

After a while, jobseekers become depressed and cynical about the whole situation. They quit. No one has prepared them for how really hard and difficult looking for a job is. Nobody has prepared them to realize the phenomenal amount of rejection and refusal that goes on in getting a job. No one has said to them, “look, you’re going to have to make 100 phone calls before you get one person to call you back. You’re going to have to get 10 of those calls before you have one of those people interested in speaking with you. Forget sending your resume. You’re going to have to send 180 album before you get anybody to respond. Pick up the phone and call a hiring manager and ask for an interview. You’re going to have to have 14 interviews… to maybe 18 interviews to get a job offer. And that might not even be one you want. It’s going to take 4 to 5 months just to get this far and then you’re likely is not to have to start all over. Are you ready for that?”

Some people get so depressed just upon hearing this, they quit looking and give up. But look, that is the way it is. That is reality. You can believe me now or bleed me later and you can either face it or not. But that’s the truth.

A job seeker just has to keep going, and going, and going and going. They have to develop a systematic approach to finding a job. And they have to approach looking for a job like any other sales process. Making a ton of prospecting calls or ton of prospecting events. Getting in front of as many people as possible to interview and then interviewing extremely well.

If job seekers began knowing that finding a job in today’s market is really, really, really hard and prepared for it, one half of those 99 million people would find jobs. Maybe not the perfect job… but they would find a job.

By Tony Beshara|2015-10-31T22:42:24-05:00October 31, 2015|job search|

“So how’d they find out I was looking for a job?”

Andy, a 20 year veteran of sales, with a stellar track record asks me that on Thursday. He just couldn’t believe that his boss was asking if he was looking for a job. He kept mumbling, “… How’d they know?….How’d they know?”

I explained to him that experience in this profession since 1973 tells me that 98% of the time when a candidate gets “discovered” they got discovered because they told somebody in the company that they were looking for a job. Years ago I used to get all worried for a candidate and counsel with them on all kinds of conspiracy theories as to how the company found out they were looking for a job. But, after a number of years of hearing the real story as to how a candidate’s company finds out there looking to leave, I’m absolutely certain that 98% of the time, it comes from the candidate himself.

In this situation, I had the wisdom of telling Andy that somewhere along the line he mentioned this to someone in the company and it got back to his boss. He was quiet on the other end of the line and then I heard him softly mumble, “… That son of a bitch” and then continued silence. I told him that I bet there was somebody he had discussed leaving with and I bet everything I own that person discussed it with somebody else, who began the conversation with the proverbial, “you can’t tell anybody else but Andy might be looking for a job…” And then that person tell someone else in the same manner and so on and so forth.

In this case, the two people that Andy told where his best friends and he couldn’t imagine them saying anything. But in his heart he knew that one of them did. Now, he was still mad about it, but at least he was man enough to admit that he’s the one that shared the idea with someone else in the company.

He was fortunate that he wasn’t fired on the spot. But he did tell me that his boss, who up until now had been a good friend of his, seemed distant and removed. Both Andy and his boss are very uncomfortable and it’s making it difficult for everyone.

Here’s the lesson: KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT about looking for a job. Tell me, your spouse and then stop! Even if you don’t get fired, and most likely you will be, the relationship you have with all of your superiors is going to deteriorate. It’s just not worth the risk. If you’ve got a job and you’re looking for another one, it’s like having two jobs.

No matter how close your friends are and how much they like you, you can’t afford to get fired. SHUT UP!

By Tony Beshara|2015-10-23T21:08:15-05:00October 23, 2015|communication|