Tony Beshara

jake really prepares for the interview..he goes into them having done research…an i mean research…he has read every ‘white paper’ written by every expert in the industry…he has done competative research…even called and spoken to the competitors about my client that he was inteviewing with..

he calls customers of my client…looks up Gartner reports..every bit of analysis he can find…prints it all out and writes a summary about all of it..

he writes out three ‘case studies’ of clients he knows of that he would call on to present the client’s service if he were hired..

he does a power point comparrison of ‘where the market’ is for the company’s service…finds analyst’s predictions for the next five years for the company’s industry..

he wirtes a 30-60-90 day plan centered around the BIGGEST problems the comapany has with their customers and how he would help solve them..

by speaking to people both in the company and people associated with the company, he ‘reports’ to the hiring authroity the three biggest internal problems the company has…as well as how he might be able to help solve them

he ‘uncovers’ three new markets the company’s service can be marketed to…writes a plan about how he would approach each of them…

he makes a presentation of himself and all of this stuff in 45 min…using the techniques in www.thejobsearchsolution.com….after which he has an ‘informal’ discussion with my client where he asks 20 questions that he has prepared

my client tells me that in 23 years of hiring people, he has never had a candidate do such a good job of presenting himself and interviewing..
along with interviewing the company

what normally is a two or three week process of interviews with four or five
executives, became condensed into a one week process…and yes, jake interviewed them as efficiently as they interviewed him..

my client hired jake…gave him a $25,000 raise…yea…in this market..he starts the new job May 1st..

oh, the power of the interview…good job jake!

..chris..he is an excellent candidate..10 years in the last place..`150% of quota every year for the past 8 years..as good as is out there…the kind of candidate that needs very little coaching…all i had to do was “point” him and he would do so well in the interviews..and his track record is stellar..his company was sold, so his reasons for looking for a job are good..

well, he gets past three interviews with a great company and they tell him that they are going to fly him to corporate for the final interview..

he had, of course, been going over www.thejobsearchsolution.com every step of the way, so i kinda quit coaching him to do that at the last step..

the hiring authority tells him..”it is in the bag…this is just a formality…no worries…corporate always lets me hire who i want”…blah, blah, blah..

i simply forgot to remind chris to go over the portion of www.thejobsearchsolution.com about corporate visits…and, since it was going oh so well, he bought the idea that “it was in the bag”…

sometimes i’m a lousey teacher…he had done everything right, had momentum, was the only guy going to corporate out of six candidates…i got sloppy..my fault..

he gets to corporate..goes thru six interviews..he adopted the attitude of “since i have the job, what do you expect of me, etc.”…this attitude resonated OK with everyone BUT the Sr. V.P. of Sales…the MOST important interview…

the SVP tells the regional manager that “you can do what you want with chris, but i have my reservations about him… he just didn’t sell me on why we should hire him”

no RM in his right mind is going to hire anyone when the SVP has that kind of attitude…if chris gets hired and doesn’t do well, the SVP is going to say “i told you so”…so chirs didn’t get hired..

chris’ mistake was that he simply didn’t sell himself…no matter that he had 10 years of expereince with this firm’s competitor…had kicked their butt in numerous national accounts…that everyone in the company was thrilled to get him away from the competitor and on their team…he made the assumption that he “had” the job….and the SVP didn’t like it..

i warn about this and many other “watch out fors” in www.thejobsearchsolution.com…but i simply thought chris would know…

i’m a lousy teacher…chris isn’t going to get hired…the company is starting all over to look at candidates…and another problem now is that, since they have seen a quality candidate like chris, they aren’ likely to see one as good..

even after 36 yeras of doing this, i have so much to learn…sorry, chris

when i called james with a great opprotunity, he told me that he knew the company and that he would never go to work for them…he knew the management and didn’t like them…didn’t like waht they sold and besides, he was under a non-compete…and they couldn’t afford him anyhow

the V.P. and hirng authority was a reasonable guy and my candidate’s reputation in that field was excellent even though his ego is gigantic…

the V.P. agreeed to talk to him on the phone…the company had just fired a disasterous employee so this replacement needed to be a sperfect as possible…

after two telephone interviews, the V.P. said that the next step was to come to corporate…but he warned james that he didn’t want him to go to corporate unless he was committed to “take the job”…well, james couldn’t committ to that…

so james took another job with a money guarantee that sounded too good to be true…they were going to guarantee him $250,000 to simply show up…

the V.P. was irritated but understood…meanwhile, i find him another great candidate…almost as good a james…in fact, he was a peer of james at one time…

steve goes thru the whole interview process with the V.P….gets the same instruction, “don’t come to corporate unless you are willing to do the job”…he agrees…goes to corproate..impresses the CEO and everyone else…gets the offer..

he turns the job down..$4500 in travel expenses…a committment to take the job if offered, and he turns it down…

the V.P. is furious…can’t blame him..

it has been three weeks since james had gracefully bowed out…out of some whim (..i.e. desperation) i called james… asking him how his new deal is going..

that day he laerned that his new company had just had their next round of funding postponed…that guarantee he got wouldn’t mean a darn thing if they didn’t get funding…and the woudn’t know for another month…

james was still reluctant to speak with the V.P. who he had turned down…but the very smart V.P. had just hired a V.P. of marketing that worked with james at one time…

the V.P. has his new hire call james…james gets excited… because his reference was excellent and his reputation was so good, he meets with the V.P. and accepts the job…

lesson: …it ain’t over till it’s over…some things are just meant to be

one of my candidates, walt, has had a really rough year…he was let go from his job six months ago…the same week that his wife of fifteen years asked for a divorce..the custody battle has been awful
he is a great guy, but his sales performance over the last three years has been dismal and he has changed jobs three times in three years…that hasn’t helped…
as a recruiter who has to present top performers to our clients…especially in this tough market, it was going ot be hard for me to get walt interviews..
walt, however, understood this…he followed just about every step in our on line program: www.thejobsearchsolution.com …
he would call from time to time and give me a report on how he was doing..
it has been a very long, diffcult road for him..but friday he called and said that he starts his new job tomorrow..
here is how he got it..
he volunteered…along with all of the other things i recommend in jss, last december, walt started volunteering at the local food bank…
he struck up an acquaintance with one of the other volunteers last january..
the other volunteer turned out to b a sales manager at one of the local companies…
he liked walt so much that when a sales job became available, he hired walt..
the company is totally different than walt has been in and the money isn’t as great to start with, but walt is soooo very greatful…

good job, walt!

p.s….walt told me that the one good thing that volunteering did was to get him to focus on others…he was pretty depressed about his own, personal situation…he even told me that in some of the interviews he got in the beginning of his search,  he expressed to the hiring authorities his disappointment about his poor performance on his recent jobs and his devastating divorce…and even the cutody battle….(..NOT GOOD to do)…the volunteering got him to focus on people that were less fortunate than he was…

he felt better and got a new job…

double way to go, walt!

OK…you get asked to show your W2’s to prove that you have earned the kind of money you say you have earned..
over the years i’ve had tons of candidates that claim that is an invsion of privacy…none of their business..blah..blah…blah..
well, it is their business and if you don’t produce your previous W2’s, you probably won’t get hired..
the lesson is to tell the TRUTH about what you have earned…nothing will eliminate you faster than to say you have earned $XXXXX and the hiring authority looks at your W2’s to find out you earned a lot less…

…maybe folks like being unemployed or really like their lousy job…i can’t believe folks simply won’t follow the instructions…even when they are so simple..
we had five candidates go to interview for a position at one of our clients..
only one…one out of five…even after our coaching before the interviews…asked for the job..
hiring authority couldn’t believe it either..only one…
all you gotta do is say, “what do i ineed to do to get the job?”

…i know you are busy keeping the job you have or taking tme off from the part time gig you have
but when it comes to interviews, please, for your own sake, don’t rearrange them with the hiring authority…unless you absolutely have to
we had an excellent candidate that couldn’t make the inteview because of a problem at work..
our client was interviewing five candidates on the same day…when our candidate couldn’t make it and asked to have it rearranged, the employer simply said, “well, lets see how these go…if i see a couple i like, i won’t need to see her”
sure enough, he saw two of the four that he liked…our candidate missed out…
remember…you have a ton of competition…if you miss an interview they may not need to see you ..
don’t loose out this way

shawn goes to negotiate a comp plan as he is accepting the job…he skillfully postpones talking about money until the very last issue..

when the converstion about money came up, he simply said, “lets get a few more things clarrified and then we can talk about money…”

so, he gets a clear understanding of everything  about the job…and then they trun to money…he asks the hiring manager what they had in mind..(he knew all along..just wanted to hear it again)..

after he hears the answer, he states that he can do more than the reqirements…he enumerates all of the value he brings to the company…he reviews his past performance, he reminds them why he is the best candidate…gets them to agree that he is pretty unique…then simply tells them that the job is worth $15,000 more than what they want to pay..and reminds them of the value he brings…

they agree to think about it…he is gracious and not flustered..

keep in mind, he doesn’t have a job now…in fact, he has been out of work for a while…doesn’t even have another offer…or even close to one…

we’ll see what they say…