Tony Beshara

..I don’t know whether I’m sad about having to write about this or compelled by the spirit to write…

Just a few moments ago I heard a speech by Joe Biden, our vice president talking about character… character… this guy is talking about character?…

Last week, Joe Biden made a television commercial where he stated, “I am a Catholic and I believe in pro-choice”… I pray for Mr. Biden… I pray for his soul… I’m saddened by his comments as I’m sure the 55 million aborted children in this country are also a bit sad…

But to speak of CHARACTER..Character… and to say you are a Catholic and believe in pro-choice is the poorest lack of character I can imagine… character is having your actions be consistent with your beliefs… Mr. Biden is either a Catholic or someone who believes in pro-choice… he can’t be both…

It is sad that so many people in our society disrespect life from conception… I pray for those people too… but for someone who claims to be Catholic, someone whose faith dictates a clear respect for life when it begins with conception and claims to be pro-choice in the same breath lacks character…

I’m sad for us, I’m sad for my children and I’m sad for my grandchildren… when any leader of our country can be so ingenuous and demonstrate such a lack of character, only God’s mercy can save his soul.

Kyle is a great candidate and he’s been very successful with the kinds of things he’s done…he is skillful and has been lucky in the jobs he has had to have caught companies and markets at the right time… unfortunately, though, his success has gone to his head

Our client was interested in Kyle after the first meeting and wanted to pursue him… Kyle’s attitude was, “well, I might be interested and I might not, let’s see what they’ve got…”

He made it through a second and third round of interviews, performing very well… then he starts playing “hard to get.”

The organization tells us they’re interested in making him an offer… Kyle put them off and started saying things like, “well, let me take a look at exactly what I’m giving up in my present job and get back to you about what it’s going to take for me to leave…” our client’s attitude was, “wait a minute! You knew what our offer was going to be all along, as we explained the money in the first meeting that we had…”

Kyle explains to us, his recruiter, that he knows… we’re not sure how he get this ideda.. but that he knows they can make a much better deal with him than they said they would… he then postpones a second conversation that he was supposed to have with them about an offer… he then calls us and tells us the only way he would consider the job would be to get a $15,000 salary greater than what they said they were willing to pay as well as a sign-on bonus of at least $10,000…

Because of our experience, we had two other candidates in the queue with the company, realizing that anything can happen… we explained to Kyle that it just wasn’t realistic to expect the company to do what he was asking, because the market is such that they didn’t need to do that… Kyle’s attitude was, “well I’m that good and that’s what it’s gonna take!”

We explained to the client that we just didn’t think it was going to work out with Kyle.  He hadn’t looked for a job in a number of years, he just wasn’t aware of the reality of this market and he was asking for more than what we thought was fair… we didn’t want to vilify Kyle because we wanted to be sure the door might be opened for him somewhere down the line… Kyle got his nose out of joint and was rather indignant about the fact that our client just wasn’t interested in this proposition… there was no reason for them to be… Kyle was good but he was more of a “legend in his own mind” than he was valuable to our client…

One of our other candidates was offered the job and accepted with grace and style… the lesson is that no one has any intrinsic value… a candidate’s value in the job search is relative to the market and other candidates that might be available… playing hard to get by coming up with ridiculous demands won’t get you hired… get a job offer, do it or don’t, but don’t let it go to your head…

…So Chris is told he’s going to get an offer… he discusses the salary with the hiring authority and he verbally accepts the job… he is told that the paperwork will come in a day or so and he can start work on Monday…

Chris gets the offer in writing on the Friday before he is suppose to start work and decides that he wants to now “negotiate”…

He calls me up and tells him he would like to negotiate now that he has the offer in writing… I explained to him that now is not the time to negotiate… he has verbally  accepted the job, he needs to stand by his word, and besides, I tell him, it’s very rare for an organization to negotiate a salary once you have accepted it and they put it in writing…

Chris decides, since he is a very experienced “professional,” he is going to negotiate anyhow…(so much for my expertise)… so he tries to get a hold of the hiring manager.  He can’t find him so he writes an e-mail back to the HR director at corporate who sent him the offer, and tells her he wants $10,000 a year more in salary… she doesn’t know what to do, so instead of calling the hiring authority, she sends the e-mail requests to the vice president… he vaguely knows what’s going on, as he had spoken to Chris on the phone before Chris got hired and his natural reaction is not only “no” but “hell no”…

The VP calls the hiring authority, his subordinate, and leaves a voicemail of something along the line of, “who the hell is this guy who thinks he can or should negotiate another $10,000 in salary by e-mail with the HR department?” The VP went on to say that the hiring authority should rescend the offer immediately.

I can’t say I blame the vice president or the company… that was a very unprofessional way to try to negotiate a better offer… the lesson is: don’t try to negotiate an offer after it’s in writing and don’t negotiate by e-mail and don’t negotiate with someone in the human resources department and don’t let what you write get in the  hands of a vice president who has no patience with this kind of thing…

Chris was shocked when the offer was rescinded and tried to “recoup” by telling them he’d accept the offer just as it is… sorry, the damage had already been done.

If you’re gonna negotiate, do it before a formal offer is made and do it with the hiring authority, the one who you have rapport with and the one you’re actually going to be working for… and, oh yeah, read the parts of my blog that talk about how to negotiate before you do it…

I really don’t have a lot of empathy for Chris, he screwed it up.

V.P. debate last night…if you snicker, smirk and laugh at people in a debate or an interview…you look like a dumb ass…

you may not get elected…

you certainly won’t get hired…

The debate between Gov. Romney and Pres. Obama Wednesday was a great lesson in body language… no matter who wins the presidential race, it’s obvious that Gov. Romney won this debate…

If you are looking for a job and interviewing you want to pay attention to the things  Romney did… he had a pleasant smile on his face when he wasn’t speaking… not a smirk, but a pleasant smile… he actually looked at and had eye contact with Pres. Obama… he spoke with passion and feeling… he communicated a great mastery of facts (… whether they were accurate or not doesn’t matter) by quoting lots of numbers and in many questions he answered by saying “first… second…and third” communicating certainty… he spoke with his hands open and his palms up, which communicates sureness..he had enthusiasm and animation…

On the other side of the stage, Pres. Obama often looked down and didn’t face his opponent… he smirked… he had no animation or enthusiasm… spoke in monotones and droned on as though he was uninterested…

If winning the job was based on today, Gov. Romney would’ve gotten hired.

One of our candidates wrote about her grueling experience in getting hired in today’s market…we have removed the name of the company..but it is a very good example of how difficult it might be to get hired…

I’ve been interviewing with —– since JUNE for this position. This has been the most grueling process ever.

Listen to what I went through to get this offer, Tony…. I beat out 70 other executives, and it took almost 5 months of discussions to land this role. The hiring manager had me create a Competitive Analysis Document and a “Solutions Summary” of the Application product line to show I know the products. I went through 6 interviews over 5 months, including 3 group interviews lasting almost 2 hours. People just didn’t seem to want to make a decision. They kept saying they were afraid of making a mistake.  Last week, I went through my 4th background check in 18 months. This was the most intense background check I’ve ever experienced. I actually had to climb in the attic and dig out my W2 forms because they wanted all my tax returns from 2007-2011. In addition to this, they pulled my credit report (which is perfect), requested that I give them copies of every offer letter since 2007, they wanted contact info of each hiring manager at every place I’ve worked and they called them in lieu of references to try and dig up some dirt. I actually felt a little “violated” on Friday as they kept asking for more and more information. I guess they were OK with everything I sent because the offer letter I received today is to join the most coveted team at —–

well…nobody said it was gonna be easy!

Chad was a really smart guy… undergraduate degree from an Ivy League school and an MBA from UT Austin… with honors,  I might add…

But he was really smart in the interviewing process… he knew when to show he was smart and when to let the hiring authority look like “the smartest guy in the room.”

When asked questions about his history or business questions, Chad had the right answers… his experience, background and smarts were clearly well beyond most candidates…

The hiring authority was a very opinionated executive vice president…. very opinionated… and there were some questions  he asked Chad, inconsequential ones, where the answer could be more of an opinion than “correct”… Chad was smart enough to answer the question by saying, “you know,  I have seen a number of different positions on that subject… what do you think?”… Wonderful!

Chad was smart enough to know when to answer and when to make the hiring authority feel “smart.”

In fact, Chad said, coming out of the interview, that he got the executive VP to do most of the talking… and the “talking” was mostly about the executive VP and his opinions… and, by the way, the VP told us he thought Chad was one of the smartest guys he had ever interviewed…

And he was!

Ed…a candidate interviewed with one of our clients…the hiring authority told me he was the best prepared candidate he had ever interviewed…i asked Ed what he did…here are the steps he took:

Tony,

I appreciate your assistance in my obtaining a position with ——–. In response to how I prepared, please see below.

Review of company website, review their collateral, press releases

Search internet for any information on the company, their market, their competition

Search specific websites for any information on the company: Industry sites as HIMSS, HISTalk, EHR intelligence, KLAS, You Tube, other
Research financial info from Investing Business Week, Bloomberg Businessweek other

LinkedIn Contacts, Bios, company info. Work any connections

All of the above leads to links to more links, etc.

Contact my industry contacts CEOs, CFOs, CIOs other sales reps etc to learn if they knew of the company and its products

I type up all appropriate info and prepare a ‘bulleted’ list of items to discuss or refer to. I always try to site something I learned about them from my own research, especially if beyond their website

I take a folder to the inteview with all my research info, their brochure, white papers, my resume, my references. This is usually numerous pages.

Read the info you send me on JSS (www.thejobsearchsolution.com)

Now, Ed did a great job of delivery in the interview…it does no good to have all of this information without practicing delivery and doing it well…

Good job, Ed!

The best candidates… “A players” take notes during their interviews… not copious ones… but a few key words as they go along in the interview. After the interview they write a summary of everything that went on in the interview.

It will not come as a shock that in an hour to an hour and a half interview, even the people involved in the interview won’t remember the same things. (Read my blog post about “inattentional blindness.”) A hiring or interviewing authority may repeat the things that are important to them one or two times and unless the candidate writes it down, the odds are good the candidate will not remember what was important when the second interview rolls around a week or so later. Even if one’s memory is good, remembering more than one, two or three issues a week or so later isn’t likely.

Often times a candidate will review their notes about the interview a day or so later and have an epiphany about some of their experience and background that relates to the particular issue that was discussed. Writing the interviewing or hiring manager an e-mail something like, “I was reviewing my notes about our interview the other day and it came to me that…..” a few days  after an interview always looks impressive, especially if the message is of business value.

Reviewing these notes before other interviews after the initial interview gives a candidate decided advantage. So, take good notes. Write good summaries.

I had a candidate a few months ago who got called back to a company he interviewed with five or six months earlier. For all kinds of different reasons, they never hired anybody and they wanted to speak to him again. One of the comments the hiring authority made as they went to make him an offer, was that they were very impressed with the fact he remembered almost every important issue they had discussed six months earlier. It was easy. He had taken good notes and written good summaries.

What makes these notes and summaries even more important is what a candidate goes through on second, third or fourth interviews with the same guitar. Different people in an organization will emphasize different things. It isn’t uncommon for different levels of management to see things differently.

Tim was a perfect candidate… his 20 year history of success was exactly the kind of leadership our client needed… he was the VP candidate for a position our client has been trying to fill for some time… our client, the EVP   interviewed 10 candidates over a three month period of time, and once he interviewed Tim, he claimed that Tim was “perfect” for the job … after three personal interviews with the EVP,  and establishing a very strong personal rapport, Tim flew to the corporate office where he interviewed with three VPs and the CEO… the interviews could not have gone any better and the EVP told Tim he wanted to hire him…they even discussed what an offer would look like… a $200,000 base salary with total earnings at $400,000 provided Tim and the people in his region if they made quota… Everyone was excited and the EVP said he would be in touch with Tim in the next few days…

When Tim hadn’t heard from the EVP in two days, he called the EVP to ask where the situation stood…the EVP explained that their CEO wanted to speak to one other candidate because the CEO had only interviewed Tim and the CEO wanted to be able to say he had a choice…the EVP explained to Tim that he had nothing to worry about, he was the EVP’s choice and, after all, Tim was going to be working for the EVP…

After two more days of not hearing from the EVP, Tim called him again… both Tim and I were sensing that something was wrong…the EVP ‘t didn’t return his call and didn’t respond to emails…when Tim finally got him on the phone, the EVP explained to him that there was nothing wrong, the CEO had an emergency with family and wasn’t able to talk to the second candidate… being a good recruiter, I discovered who the second candidate was… I knew the guy… in fact he was a candidate of mine a  few years ago… it was comforting to know that although he was a very good candidate, he had nowhere near the capabilities of Tim…in fact the other candidate had actually worked for Tim a number of years ago …he is a really good guy but nowhere near the caliber experience  as Tim… both Tim and I were certain Tim was a much better candidate…

A week later, our client hired the other candidate… even though the candidate was not as good, strong or as accomplished as Tim,  he still got hired… it turned out that the CEO had not been at the company a very long time…the EVP, in the past, had hired just about anyone you wanted to…Maybe the CEO wanted to make it clear that he was now running the show… maybe they really didn’t want to hire as much of an A+ player as they claimed…

When the EVP called Tim to explain that they hired the other candidate, Tim had the courage to ask, “I know who you hired, he used to work for me… he’s a good guy but he’s nowhere near as accomplished and experienced  for the job as I am… can you tell me what made the difference? You had told me I was the guy you wanted to hire, what happened?”

The EVP tried to explain the decision, but none of it made any sense… there is no way anyone could explain it in rational terms…I am sure the guy they hired will do an okay job… but his experience and skill level is not of the same caliber as Tim’s..

Most of the time when a candidate doesn’t get hired it is because he or she doesn’t interview well,  isn’t qualified, etc. …this was one of those rare instances where Tim could not have done any better..

The lesson is that just because a candidate is “perfect”… just because he interviews impeccably… just because his references are next to perfect… doesn’t mean that he’ll get hired…