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.

…the ‘stop gap’ job

i’m asked every day about the wisdom of taking a ‘stop gap’…’put food on the table’ type job..it is a very tough question..

on the one hand, folks need to eat…you can’t blame someone for doing what they have to do by taking a ‘get by’ job and continuing to look for a more professional job commensurate with what they had before…

here are some challenges with a ‘stop gap’ job…even if you can find one…

they get in the way of interviewing for a better job…can’t tell you how many times a candidate has said to me, “well can you change the time of that interview, tony…i have to be at my ‘get by’ job then”…

interviews…good interviews are hard to come by…OK…but the last thing a candidate wants is to miss one because of a job they aren’t going to keep, but have to in order to put bread on the table..it is frustrating and…if it happens too often, most recruiters won’t run the risk of getting this candidate an interview, only to be told that the candidate “can’t make it” because of their ‘stop gap’ job… there are too many qualified candidates that are looking for a job on a full time basis..

another challenge is that candidates start comparing a good job opportunity with their ‘stop gap’ job…they’ll say things like..”well, i’m making almost that much now in this ‘stop gap’ job…so if i can’t get more than what i was making in my last real job, i’ll keep this one until i find exactly what i’m looking for…” or they get picky about the location of the better real job interview, or the kind or size of company or all kinds of other things that keep them from interviewing…

a ‘stop gap’ job often creates a “fear of success” mentality… it happens when the candidate sets their sights so high about the real job they want, they never can seem to find it, because they get unrealistic about what kind of jobs are really available and they become so comfortable with their ‘stop gap’ job they use it as a crutch…they are always going to try to find a “better” job that only exists in their imagination… they never really have to leave their ‘stop gap’ job because they can’t find what they really want in a new job…

‘stop gap’ jobs e-l-o-n-g-a-t-e into months …even years…it is hard to convince a hiring authority that you are serious about your career when you explain that you have had your ‘stop gap’ job for eighteen months r two years…

this happens a lot…it isn’t intentional…candidates take these kind of jobs with the intention of leaving for a real job…but time passes and all of a sudden they see that they have been on the job eighteen months or two years…now they really have a ‘gap’ in their professional resume…it is really hard to explain…and most hiring managers, forgetting how difficult this market is, won’t believe that the candidate was really trying to leave the ‘stop gap’ job…

one tip is to take a ‘stop gap’ job that allows a lot of daily time to interview….an early morning shift at Starbucks…an evening gig as a waitstaff person at a local restaurant…even a night shift janitorial job…anything that leaves you free during the day to search for a full time, professional job…

take a ‘stop gap’ job if you must…but be aware of the challenges

By Tony Beshara|2009-09-24T20:28:38-05:00September 24, 2009|job search|

…give it time

…candidate we placed six months ago calls…says that everything was fine and going very well…

he called us two weeks into this job to say that he wanted to quit…he was overwhelmed…didn’t like the people…the job…nothing about it…

he needed the job, but at that point he was ready to quit…

this happens quite a bit…candidate gets a new job…really doesn’t know what he or she is getting into…a bit afraid …overwhelmed is a good way to put it…so, couple of weeks into it, they are ready to go back looking for a job..

our advice was to hang in there for a while…give it 90 days or so…unless there is something that is so awful that one can’t live with it, give yourself a chance…have no expectations..just go to work and see what happens..

once the new employee got over the fear of being new, everything worked out…

give it time…it doesn’t always work out…but give yourself a chance..

By Tony Beshara|2009-09-21T21:35:49-05:00September 21, 2009|Job Search Blog|

…another pretentious approach to forget

one of my candidates was “coached” by…guess what..a career coach to tell people that he wasn’t really looking for a job, he was looking to be a company’s “problem solver”….

oh, boy!…silly and pretentious

don’t do that…don’t try to be unique by being coy or silly..

if you are looking for a job, you’re looking for job…great…then proceed to tell them why they ought to hire you…what you can do for them …today…

keep it simple..effective and forceful…but simple

go to my on line program to learn how to do it perfectly… www.thejobsearchsolution.com

By Tony Beshara|2009-09-16T21:43:17-05:00September 16, 2009|Job Search Blog|

…”but i was making $130,000 three years ago!”

great candidate…top performer every place she has ever been…took two years off to have a baby…fair enough…now needs to find a job…

no way of her knowing that the market is really tight…she figures, like most top performers, that there is always room for a winner..

we don’t get that many interviews because: 1. the market is tight ..and 2. she has been out of the market for two years…

after three months and only three interviews, we get an offer…$90,000 salary plus commission…she said that she was probably going to turn it down because …”i was making $130,000 three years ago!”

well, it isn’t three years ago and this is a much different market… she eventually accepted the offer…it is a great company and she will have a great future..

lesson:..what you made three or four years ago was three or four years ago..the market is different now..no one is intrinsically worth any amount of money

By Tony Beshara|2009-09-12T21:45:18-05:00September 12, 2009|Job Search Blog|

…backdoor references…beware and be ready!

…it happens at least once a month in our company…a candidate looses out on an opportunity because of a “backdoor” reference who “threw them under the bus,” as the saying goes..

a backdoor reference is a “reference” from someone who supposedly knows you, but you don’t provide as a business reference..someone you might have worked with or for in the past, or, as is the usual case, someone who knows someone, who knew someone, who knew someone, who thinks they know you..

here is the problem with “backdoor” references…if someone implies to someone else that you, for whatever reason, aren’t a good potential employee, and you don’tget hired…that person is right and the person or firm considering you will never know if they were right or wrong because you didn’t get hired…

unfortunately, it is human nature to be negative about stuff like this…and it is rather sad…some people feel “big” by diminishing others…even if they don’t know what they are talking about…i once had a candidate get a bad reference from someone who knew somone, who knew someone, who knew somone who played golf with my candidate….one time!…yea, you got it..this was a third or fourth hand negative testimony from someone who had no idea what they were talking about…

if you have been in any profession or industry for any length of time, and you are looking for a job, you’d best expect that a potential hiring authority is going to find at least one or two “backdoor” references regarding you…even if they are distant…best hope they are good references

there isn’t much you can do about this …if you have burned some bridges in your career, try to mend them…if you think some folks you use to work for don’t like you, make sure you have some stellar references to offset any negative ones that may be uncovered…

most of life isn’t fair and this is one of the most unfair aspects of looking for a job

By Tony Beshara|2009-09-10T21:55:45-05:00September 10, 2009|Job Search Blog|

…”but i never hear back from them…it’s sooooooo mean and rude”

we hear this almost daily…sometimes even about oursleves…people send a resume…have an interview..or even two…then don’t hear from the employer or interviewing authority…..ever…not even a “buzz off”…”you suck”…”wouldn’t hire you if you were the last candidate on earth”…nothing…nada…even after they say, “we’ll be in touch”…(i have had employers tell my candidates that they were going to call them with a job offer, then never do it)

we shouldn’t excuse rude behavior, but your getting mad or upset about this kind of treatment simply won’t help you get a job…

it is almost impossible for hiring or interviewing authorities to get back to every candidate whose resume they review or they interview…simply impossible

lesson: pray for them…they are covered up with work..maybe they are rude…maybe even mean…maybe insensative…we could go on and on…but it won’t do any good… they have tons of candidates to choose from and to speak with…and besides, they are running a business too

they are, as Teilhard de Chardin stated, “spiritual beings acting human”…forgive and dismiss …spend your energy finding another interview

By Tony Beshara|2009-08-31T21:52:22-05:00August 31, 2009|communication|

…another career coach advice..”don’t act like you are looking for a job”

…i read ’bout every book on finding a job i can find…new one on the market “Get the Job You Want Even When No One’s Hiring”

now, being an author and wanting people to like my books, i am real flexible and forgving about most errant stuff about finding a job..

but this guy actually tells you to act like you aren’t looking for a job when you interview

go ahead, do that…other candidates, especially mine, will eat your lunch…that is the biggest piece of terrible advice you will ever get…it is clear that this guy never found anyone a job, or if he did it was an accident..

By Tony Beshara|2009-08-17T22:03:29-05:00August 17, 2009|interviewing|

…”I never expected it would be this hard”

We hear this daily…candidates that are finding out that it is sooooo much harder to find a job than it was in the past…

A recent survey I read stated that the average professional thinks it takes 60 days to find a job when they are out of one…try an average of 180 to 220…They found jobs in the mid 2000’s or mid ’90’s…it was easier then…

We placed a sales candidate today who accepted a base salary of $85,000…she told us four months ago that she wouldn’t take less than $100,000 base…since her last base was $135,000 in spite of the fact that she was on maternity leave for one year and had taken the last year off to be with her baby…

Times have changed…it was no where as easy as she thought it was going to be…and she was lucky that we could find her a job…It is a very rough job market…take nothing for granted…

By Tony Beshara|2009-08-11T21:58:16-05:00August 11, 2009|psychology|

…”Do you have any questions?”

One of our candidates was eliminated because he was asked this question…in a phone interview, no less…He said, “I guess I don’t …you have told me everything I need to know.”

Oh, my…not good…first of all, always have decent, intelligent questions about an opportunity…if you can’t really think of any…and you can if you try…ask the interviewing authority about themselves…”tell me, why do you like it here at ABC Corp.?”…” I have heard a lot about you and your success here, how have you done it?” If you can’t think of any business questions…ask them about their favorite subject….themselves!

Secondly, an interviewing authority doesn’t care about what you need to know…they care about what they need to know…so keep that phrase out of the conversation…So you say, “Damn that is really picky!”…you are right…it is…even unfair…what is even more sad about this particular situation, is that our candidate was exceptionally qualified…a top performer…

In this market, where companies and the hiring authorities in them think that there are hoards of quality candidates available… (There are hoards…but not necessarily qualified)… you have to interview almost perfectly…Every interview guide and coach teaches you to have one or two questions to ask…our candidate had been one of our client’s top competitors…he could have had a dozen questions…He thought he had done so well on the interview that he didn’t have to ask any questions…very sad

By Tony Beshara|2009-08-07T22:17:51-05:00August 7, 2009|interviewing|

…Mangled metaphors & misapplied analogies

Can’t tell you the number of very educated candidates over the years that in their speaking become fond of metaphors…which is OK . Except they mangle the metaphor…
They say things like “pass mustard” instead of “pass muster”…”took off like haywire”…instead of “wildfire”…”preaching to the congregation “…instead of “preaching to the choir”…In the last week I have had four different candidates tell me they wanted to “hit the ball running,” “give their best foot forward,” or said, “I’m living fat on the hog” and “the cream will rise to the crop”. I could go on, but you get the message…we have all heard folks do this at times…we are amused and kind of laugh But in the interviewing situation, they can be disastrous…especially if they are repeated…repeatedly…they are distracting and, in most cases, don’t reflect well on the person being interviewed. Soooo, practice interviewing…if you have a tendency to mangle your metaphors or misapply your analogies, have someone help you or get yourself some broadband and google a few…if you are going to lose a deal, don’t let it be over something so simple to correct.. So, keep your “nose to the ground” and your “ear to the grindstone”…practice interviewing…watch the pictures you describe…

By Tony Beshara|2017-01-25T10:32:41-05:00August 3, 2009|interviewing|