Tony Beshara

I found a 1965 study at McGill University that found  hiring authorities made a decision about their hiring or not hiring a candidate in the first four minutes of the interview… That was 1965 and the study was trying to encourage hiring authorities to spend more time interviewing properly…

I contend that inspite of all the literature, coaching, teaching, training and ‘management development to help managers do a better job of interviewing and hiring, the four minute decision is still not far off from reality…

No manager or hiring authority is ever really going to admit to this reality… what this teaches a job seeker in today’s market is that you’d best make a good impression in the first four minutes of an interview… what you say, your body language, etc. sets the tone for the interview…and may decide on your being hired.

interviewing takes practice… most candidates don’t practice enough… interviewing doesn’t come naturally…

So, how would you evaluate the first four minutes of your interviews?

One of the most difficult challenges in a job search… especially in today’s market is maintaining a positive attitude. Unfortunately, the majority of things that happen to job seeker are negative… in fact, my estimate is that there are 15 negative things that happen for every positive.  It is very easy to get what Zig Zigler used to call “stink’en think’en”… Just the emotional strain of having to find a job can put people into a negative spiral.

I suggest that job seekers… or anyone, for that matter… be constantly reading positive, motivational books and listening to positive CD’s… here is a list I recommend…some are old “classics” and some are relatively new… 15 to 30 minutes of this kind of reading every day makes all the difference in the world…

Acers of Diamonds by R. Conwell
As a Man Thinketh by James Allen
Awaken the Giant Within by Anthony Robbins
Beyond Strength: Psychological Profiles of Olympic Athletes by Steven Ungerleider & Jacqueline Golding
Blink by Malcom Gladwell
Devotional Classics by Richard J. Foster
In Pursuit of Excellence by Terry Orlick
In the Zone: Transcendent Experience in Sports by Michael Murphy and Rhea A. White
Inner Athlete by Dan Millman
Inward Bound by Alexander Everett
Man’s Search for Meaning by V. Frankl
Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz
Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren
Selling the Invisible by Harry Beckwith
Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
The Achievement Zone by Dr. Shane Murphy
The Book of 5 Rings by Miyamoto Musashi
The E-Myth by Michael Gerber
The Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallowey
The Intention Experiment by Lynne McTaggart
The Job Search Solution Tony Beshara
The Laws of Spirit by Dan Millman
The Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman
The Richest Man in Babylon by G. Clason
Talent Is Overrated by Geoff Colvin
Outliars by Malcom Gladwell
Drive by Daniel Pink
Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely
Wooden onLeadership John Wooden
Willpower by Roy Baumeister and John Tierney
Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihaly
Great by Choice by Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen
How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer
Willpower Roy Baumeister and John Tierny
Nerve by Taylor Clark
Subliminal by Leonard Mlodinow

Spiritual books, like the Bible, the Koran, the Bhagavad-Gita, Tao Te Ching, books of prayer, etc., are also essential.

I would recommend “Horatio Alger” type stories, like the story of Helen Keller, Colonel Sanders, or any inspirational stories that talk about lessons people learn by living and succeeding in a terribly “unfair” world. Stories about people overcoming a fear, insurmountable odds to triumph in the end, inspire us all.

RECOMMENDED AUDIO CD’S

Norman Vincent Peal,  Anthony Robbins, Phil McGraw (Dr. Phil),  Dennis Waitley, Brian Tracy,  Zig Ziglar,  Wayne Dyer,  Dan Millman, Steven Covey and Michael Gerber

In www.thejobsearchsolution.com, I provide a guided imagery session that gets tremendous results for the users…I received two emails this week from users who credit the session to not only their interviewing well but actually getting their new jobs…

Their emails reminded me of how important it is for job seekers to envision success throughout the job search…that means running movies in your mind of getting interviews and performing well on those interviews…it also means ‘replaying’ all the negative things that happen…not getting the interview…not doing well on the interview…anything that needs to be ‘replayed’ in a positive way…and done immediately after the unfortunate result…

The majority of things that happen in a job search are NOT positive…there are probably 15 less than positive events for every positive one..face it, looking for a job in today’s market is emotionally and mentally challenging…

A job seeker has to be constantly ‘replaying’ with positive thoughts and ideas…they have to ‘overlay’ all of those unfortunate, negative events.

…lately, I’ve been running into some small issues that could make a big difference in getting interviews … so, pay attention.

Make sure your phone number is on the top of your resume, easily found next to your name and e-mail address…three or four times a day, I get a resume with a phone number of the candidate at the bottom of the resume or the bottom of the first page of the resume…twice last week,  I received resumes with a phone number, name and e-mail address literally written along the side of the resume so you actually had to turn the page horizontally to read the phone number…  be aware that your resume is “scanned” by the reader…  if the reader sees something it likes, you want your phone number to be so accessible they can dial you up immediately… don’t make people search for your important contact information… they’ll simply quit and move on to the next resume if it’s too hard…

Your voicemail… make sure you confirm the number of your cell phone AND your name with your recorded voicemail message… you want to be sure that people know exactly who they are reaching…be sure to record your voicemail message in a quiet place…not while driving…not while in a Starbucks … not only is it unprofessional, but the caller may not call back if they can’t understand exactly who they’ve reached…(by the way, many of us keep resumes for specific types of people for many years… from my own experience, if I call a phone number that is more than two or three years old and I’m not sure the phone number is of the person I’m trying to reach, i.e.  they don’t state their name in the voicemail message,  I may not leave a message and simply hang up…)

Leaving a voicemail… make sure  the voicemails you leave for people you’ve interviewed with are also direct, to the point and short… remember that most hiring authorities  have near full voicemails and they have their finger on the delete button to eliminate as many of them as they can…while hearing your voicemail, they’re focused on either one of the ones previous to yours that is highly important or an important one they are  anticipating… you need to be sure they can remember the message you leave so they can call you back…( for the best script you could use in leaving a voicemail, go to www.thejobsearchsolution.com.)  Also, when  leaving a message be sure to state your call back phone number twice and do it s-l-o-w-l-y so the person listening to it gets a chance to grab a pen and write it down … the reason you state it twice is because, especially from a cell phone, there’s often distortion of one or two of the digits you’re speaking … and it certainly doesn’t hurt to repeat your name twice, once in the beginning of the voice mail and again at the end … again, compensating for distortion

These are little things but they may keep you from getting interviewed.

Evil exists…it is just as mysterious as God’s love…we don’t really quite understand it..we never will

…pray for all departed souls…pray for their families..forgive..pray for the soul of the shooter…

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen.

The interview with our candidate seemed to be going well… the hiring authority was interested because the candidate had done exactly what they wanted and they were pleased.

The salary range the company had was $80,000-$85,000 a year and since the candidate was only making $73,000, it was going to be good for everyone.

We had discussed money with our candidate and explained that with the salary range of the company and them offering him $80,000, while he was making $73,000, it would be a nice bump in earnings… in the initial part of our presentation of the job to him, he agreed…

But when he got into the final offer stage, he got greedy and literally told the hiring authority that when they made him an offer, he had done his research on the Internet and was worth a $90,000 salary…

Our client had offered $80,000 thinking they were giving him a very generous raise and when he came back with this comment, the hiring authority was taken off guard… the hiring authority  said “well, the best we can offer is $80,000 because that’s what the job is worth… this is a very good company and you would do well to be here.” The candidate stated again that since he found his value on the Internet was $90,000, he was going to stick to that figure.

We are still trying now to patch this thing together. In this market, it is unlikely that anyone is going to go from $73,000 a year to $90,000 a year just because a salary survey on the Internet says the person is worth $90,000. The hiring authority didn’t know whether he was disappointed in the candidate because the candidate was  passing up a good opportunity or that the candidate was foolish enough to believe a salary survey on the Internet was going to be his reason for wanting that much of a raise.

Our candidate did a poor job… he got greedy… he thought that since the  interviewing process had been going so well, a $17,000 salary increase was in order.. and his reasoning, “well I saw on the Internet” made it even more awkward.

We are still trying to get these folks back together… trying to get the candidate to understand that no one has any intrinsic value… what you are “worth” is what you can get on the market and that going from $73,000 a year to $80,000 a year is not only reasonable in this market but an excellent opportunity especially with such a quality company.

Our plea to the hiring authority is to beg for forgiveness on the part of the candidate for this lack of experience and changing jobs and negotiating a salary… we tried to chalk it up to inexperience and ignorance.

The lesson is that to go into any kind of negotiation and say something stupid like “well I saw that I’m worth $$$$ on the Internet.” isn’t going to get you very far.  No salary survey on the Internet should have anything to do with your getting a new job. Negotiate in good faith, but be smart about it. No hiring authority is going to pay any salary because of an Internet survey.

…not a week goes by that I don’t hear this..usually comes at the debrief by a candidate after, even knowing the salary range, tells the interviewing authority he wants a ridiculous amount of money over and above what is reasonable..it usually is preceded by a comment like, “well, the interview was going so well…I knew he wanted to hire me”…(another really poor read!)

Somehow many candidates think the money relative to a job has to do with what they tell people they want..in fact, the first really bad sign is when the interviewer “doesn’t bat an eye”…he or she is thinking, “is this guy nuts?”

Lesson: don’t tell anyone in the first few interviews what you “want” regarding money…tell them what you are presently earning or what you have earned in the past and that you are “sure the money will work out if the opportunity for both of you is a good match”…then leave money till the end…just share with them what you have earned in the past..adding, “money depends so much on the job, the challenge, the people and so many other things…if everything else is right, the money will take care of itself.”

I review 200 resumes a week and send 100 of them to clients to help my candidates get interviews… I’m often amazed at the misguided titles that many people put on their resume… these may very well be the titles of the jobs they have but are often grossly misleading… often a Regional Vice President is an account manager…an Account Manager is a salesperson… a Customer Advocate is a customer service person…a Business Development Manager can either be a lead generation type person or a person who increases sales with already existing customers…

Most people imagine that their resume is getting read word for word and line by line… it’s not… it is getting “scanned” along with, on average, 118 other resumes…

Resumes are reviewed and scanned online… the resume reader, who often doesn’t have any real, firsthand knowledge of the job… looks for names of companies they can identify with, dates of employment and titles… if they don’t “like” what they see, or can’t recognize what they are told to look for, they move on to the next resume… if they do like what they see they’ll often save the resume in a file or print it out to be read later…

You want your resume to be read, not just scanned, so be sure that the titles you have are commensurate with the job you’ve done… never mind what your company calls you, you do not want your title to keep you from getting interviewed… so if you are a salesperson, no matter what your title, Regional Director, Account Manager, Territory Representative, etc….title your job “sales”…If your title is  Controller, Assistant Controller, Finance Manager, etc. but really you are an accountant, change your title to just that, “accountant”…

If a resume reader is looking for a first line salesperson, accountant, customer service person, etc. and they see the word “manager” in the title, they will say to themselves, “I’m not looking for a manager, I’m looking for a first line employee,”  pass on the resume and move onto the next..

Just be sure that your titles don’t stand in the way of your being interviewed… if your title communicates any ambiguity, change it.

Mike was an excellent candidate for our client… a small, $150 million company that is poised to grow…Mike  had been interviewing for a vice president position and doing well in the process…

However, as he gets closer to an offer and what has been a fairly long process, he proposes to our client’s executive committee that when he comes on board he brings with him two managers from his present firm as well as two subordinates… Mike made a very simple process much more complicated and he snatched defeat from the jaws of victory… in short, he made everything way too complicated and lost the opportunity…

At first, this suggestion got our client executives excited…suddenly, they started thinking how far along they could be within a short period of time with Mike and his “team”… but then, they got to thinking that they ought to interview all of the members of Mike’s team… now, Mike had to share with some of the people he was working with where he was trying to go to work, the kind of job, etc… now Mike’s company had been sold and everyone who worked with and for him was looking for a job,  so the fact that Mike might be going to a different company was no big deal and, at first, the prospect of everybody working together as they had done before was quite exciting…but it started getting really awkward…one of Mike’s subordinates started thinking he could do as well at Mike’s job as Mike could do…

I advised Mike that this whole thing was a bad idea… I had seen this before, and it rarely works out… Mike assured me that this was a brilliant idea and it would catapult my client to the next level and Mike could be a real hero…however, Mike was looking for a new job and should have left it simply at that.

After the initial euphoria of this idea, the management team of our client, among other things, started wondering about how it would work… they started interviewing the two managers who worked with and for Mike… not only did that get more complicated but some of the client’s management team started pushing back on the idea because they didn’t care for one of the managers…and one of Mike’s subordinates intimated during the interview that he felt he was as good as Mike was and maybe they should consider him for the VP job…the one Mike was interviewing for..(..some kinda loyalty, huh?)

Mike’s idea eventually created a monster… the client wanted to hire Mike but now worried  that if the rest of the “team” didn’t come, maybe Mike wouldn’t… the management team of our client felt that especially one of the  individuals on  Mike’s “team” really wasn’t what they wanted and then became afraid of hiring some and not others… the process went on for another two months and, needless to say, it got way too complicated and our client, as much as they liked him, decided not to hire Mike or any of his team…

The lesson is that, no matter what level of manager you are, don’t try to sell yourself along with a group of others to a new company… now, if you want to go to work for an organization and then over a period of time bring on people who  have worked with you before, that may work… but trying to secure a new position yourself and bring other people with you at the same time makes things way too complicated and it will likely lead to disaster…

Don’t snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

If you’re looking for a job, you need to read what I’m going to write here twice, because what happened the other evening  just made your job search that much harder… the majority of the American people did not help you…

It is obvious that the majority of the American people care more about the government doing for them than you’re getting a job… they care more about “free stuff” than they care about you getting a job… they care more about their hedonistic contraception than they care about you getting a job…

We’ve now created an environment worse than before where people who are doing the hiring, the vast majority of which are small companies, were afraid and now are absolutely scared to death… they are worried about the fiscal cliff and the fact that their taxes are going to go up, there medical costs are going to skyrocket and there’s going to be more regulation than ever… that’s what big government does…

I hope I am wrong, but I smell a deeper recession coming along and it’s going to be even longer before we come out of it.

At least half of the businesses in the United States are considered “rich” by Mr. Obama and the Democratic party… those companies, 42% of which are “chapter S” corporations, where the money from the company flows to the individual who owns it, are going to see their taxes rise, first by the expiration of the Bush tax cuts and, secondly, by the intention of Mr. Obama to raise their tax rates to almost 44%…

Poor people don’t employ other people… poor people don’t hire… 50% of the business owners in the United States are considered rich by this government and the government is going to penalize them for doing so… on top of being depressed and defeated by the election these business people are wondering if they will hire at all… (and you don’t have to be a small business to have this fear… in the past three days, very big companies like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Boston Scientific and others have laid off thousands of people.)

So, if you are fortunate enough to get an interview, you need to be aware that the person you’re interviewing with is afraid for their business and afraid of making a mistake in hiring… they’re not going to hire that many people anyhow and they’re only going to hire when they absolutely have to…

That means when you interview you have to really go out of your way to explain to the  hiring authority that you are not only the best candidate for the job, but you are also the safest candidate… the one that is the least risk… the one who is going to protect them, protect their money, and take ownership of the job you could get with them as they take ownership of their business… you’re going to have to be an almost perfect candidate… you’re going to have to sell yourself to be the candidate they cannot live without… you’re going to have to interview better than you ever have before…

The election made your job search 10 times harder than it was before…

Looking at things from the bright, from my own personal practice and my company, we are fortunate to be in Texas… every time California has an election like it had and raises taxes the way they have, more and more companies will be moving here to the Lone Star State… when New York does the same, their companies also move to Texas… God bless us all… all of us know we are fortunate to be living here.

it is clear that the majority of the people in this country don’t care about you getting a job… kinda sad.