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.

…a little thing you never thought of

your voice mail on your cell phone….make sure is says somethng like, “this is (your name) leave a message and i will return your call.”

why?…well, when people calling you hear a simple number like “214-823-9999…leave a message at the tone” they don’t know for sure if it is your cell phone…and many people ..especially potential employers…are reluctant to leave a message on a voice mail this way…

three years from now, one of those hiring authorities may pull your resume out of the file and try to call you..they won’t know if you still have that number or not…if they get simply “214-xxx-yyyy ..leave a message” they won’t do it

sooooo, record your name on your voice mail…you are missing some great calls

By Tony Beshara|2008-10-29T21:33:49-05:00October 29, 2008|interviewing, job search strategies|

…till your butt’s in the chair

two weeks ago, one of our candidates got a verbal job offer…$150,000 plus commissions, etc…start date, end of november..maybe december…maybe the first of the year (..almost 3 months away)

i said, “that’s really strange….doesn’t make sense…” …i told him not to trust it…he should keep looking and not stop..he marginally agreed…but he was convinced he had found a job

friday, they call him and tell him the position has been put on hold..we feel so badly for him but there is nothing anyone can do.

lesson: don’t count on anything in this job market…until your butt’s in the chair (…and even then) …don’t stop looking for a good opportunity… keep interviewing…even if you get a written offer…once you start a job…and have been there a while, then shut the process down..

By Tony Beshara|2008-10-26T21:53:03-05:00October 26, 2008|employers, job search, job search strategies|

…snatching defeat from the jaws of victory

candidate is in the finals..down to him and one other.. he is going to interview with the CEO and the president…it is a small, $100 million firm..

so, thinking he can wow them, he comes up with an elaborate “future” plan about how he has contacts to help them expand and double their size by adding lines of products he can bring them…instead of interviewing, he comes across as though he wants to create partnerships for them….bad move..

they agree to pass on him…they were simply looking for a sales person, not a new business….he oversold and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory..

lesson: sell yourself to get the job you are interviewing for..don’t try to make it more complicated than it is

By Tony Beshara|2008-10-21T21:51:51-05:00October 21, 2008|communication, employers, interviewing|

…the risk of relocating for a new job

heard from a recent candidate of ours…he took a new job in Florida …the deal has not worked out and he is trying to get back to Texas…and it is really hard to do

it is hard for him to come interview…he’d love if someone will help him out with relo expenses…he is really in a tough spot…the competition for the kind of thing he is looking for is very keen….

lesson: not good to take a new job with a new company and immediately relocate…as much as no one will admit to this, new jobs do not work out 20% of the time…and you are stuck in a new city with no job or having to look for one and you don’ t know many people…all your contacts are “back home”..

so, if you have to relocate for a new job, commute to it for six months or so to see if it is a good fit…then relocate.., also try to get the company you are going to work for to agree to help you get back home if the situation doesn’t work out…do this before you take the new job…

By Tony Beshara|2008-10-19T21:55:30-05:00October 19, 2008|career development, job search|

…elementary

this seems so elementary, but one of our candidates went to the interview without a hard copy of his resume…the hiring authority didn’t have it on his desk, asked the candidate for one and the interview went down hill after that..

the hiring authority searched his computer for ten minutes… finally found it, had to print it…well, you get the message… bad interview

always, always have multiple copies of your resume with you..don’t assume the hiring authority will have one even if you emailed it…

this week one of our candidates went to his interview…he was confronted by a group of three people in the interview.. he sure looked prepared when he handed out copies of his resume to everyone that didn’t have one..

By Tony Beshara|2008-10-14T21:56:47-05:00October 14, 2008|interviewing|

…monday morning interviews

..DON’T do it…stay away from monday morning interviews…the pressure of monday morning is mostly caused by people’s interruption of their cercadian rhythms that they established over the weekend…they slept later, did fun things, relaxed..and now it is interrupted by monday morning..

if you have to interview on a monday, make it after 1pm or later in the day..

also try not to interview in airports, restaurants, starbucks, at conventions, conferences, social engagements…the day before thanksgiving, christmas or new year’s eve…late at night, i.e. after 7pm

By Tony Beshara|2008-10-06T21:33:21-05:00October 6, 2008|interviewing|

…so, life and interviewing are unfair

..interviewing and hiring are staged, contrived events…they aren’t reality…but, like churchill said about democracy, it’s the worst form of government after all the others have been tried..

candidates complain that hiring authorities ask very unfair questions, that have nothing to do with the job (i.e. “why are manholes round?”…”what is one thing about you, you don’t want me to know?”) …and employers get hung up on one or two answers that aren’t the way they would answer the question..(i.e. define “consultative selling”)…

we have seen candidates and hiring authorities get hung up on the smallest, most silly things that really have nothing to do with a candidates ability to do the job or the quality of a job opportunity…

no sense in getting mad or disappointed about things like this…when they happen, the situations are unfair…not right…just unfair…

but, so is life…get over it and move on…you’ll hardly ever rectify or change the situation…accept what you may not understand …move on..

By Tony Beshara|2008-10-03T21:45:49-05:00October 3, 2008|employers, interviewing|

…the long distance job search

we get a number of calls every day from folks trying to find a job here in dallas from some distant city…it is so hard to explain that unless you are in a very narrow, well defined profession where there a many job opportunities, trying to find a job when you aren’t here is virtually impossible..

what folks don’t realize is that there are lots and lots of people already living here that are competing for those jobs…and if an employer can hire someone already here, they simply eliminate the risk of the candidate not being able, for any reason, to move here after they are hired…

now, if you are an accountant, engineer, or IT professional, you may be able to come to town and stay for a while and find a job before you move..

but if you are gainfully employed and are not in the rare class of candidates that can get hired almost immediately, the idea that you might come to town for one or two interviews, then come back for subsequent interviews..and then do it again if the first opportunity doesn’t work out…simply isn’t practical

even coming to town for a week or two, expecting to land a new job is unrealistic…short of a miracle, finding a job that quickly isn’t likely

By Tony Beshara|2008-10-01T21:11:11-05:00October 1, 2008|job search, job search strategies|

…an offer in hand

got a letter from one of our readers…seems he is getting a job offer in the next day or two from a company and is expecting another one from another company on the 15th…he wanted to know how to stall a decision with the first company so he can compare it with the offer of the second…he asked our advice…so, here it is..

don’t even try this…30% of the time a company says they are “going to make a offer”…they don’t…they think they are gonna, but they don’t…

if you have an offer in hand..call the second company and ask them if they can move faster…if they can’t, make a decision on the first offer regardless of how the second one might appear…a bird in the hand is always best..

if you postpone the first offer any longer than a day or two, they will inevitably think you are “shopping” their offer and will often rescind the offer and go to the next candidate…

in this economy, you can only count on the offer you have in your hand… don’t believe anyone that tells you they are going to make you an offer until they do..

By Tony Beshara|2008-09-30T21:45:31-05:00September 30, 2008|job search strategies, offers|

…i’m getting an offer…no more interviews

…famous words…don’t do that…don’t ever bank on an offer unless you have one…in writing..in your hands..and don’t stop interviewing until you have it..

we can’t tell you the number of tremendously disappointed people we have consoled over the years who thought they were getting a job offer, quit interviewing and never got it…

no company will ever admit to doing this, but we have seen situation where the candidate showed up for their first day of work to find out that there was no job for them…

lesson…don’t stop interviewing until you have an offer in you hands and a start date that is a as quick as you can get it…you never know what might happen

By Tony Beshara|2008-09-28T20:58:59-05:00September 28, 2008|interviewing, offers|