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.

blind sided

our candidate got the offer…accepted the job…was told it was dependent on a credit check…

his credit was excellent…no problem!

wellllllll..one of the places that his credit report said that he had worked at wasn’t on his resume…he had been at that company for only 3 or 4 months and it showed up on his credit report…. but he thought it best not to put it on his resume..

we can sympathize with him and understand…but the client didn’t…offer rescinded..

the lesson here is obvious..think twice before keeping a job off your resume..

By Tony Beshara|2008-08-21T20:50:15-05:00August 21, 2008|resumes|

bluffing….no, no, no..

candidate goes into “negotiations” for the job offer…first thing she says is, “Just so you know, I have two other offers.”

hiring authority says, “Oh, great. With whom?”

she stammered and stuttered…she was obviously bluffing

she blew the “negotiation”…

lesson: don’t tell a hiring authority that you have another offer unless you really do…and if you do, tell them who it is with…don’t look stupid by bluffing..

By Tony Beshara|2008-08-18T21:51:19-05:00August 18, 2008|communication, interviewing|

…the funeral

my candidate’s wife’s grandmother died…rather suddenly..he and his wife have to explain to their small children ..4 and 5 years old about death, etc.

our client had scheduled a dinner with the candidate and the president of his company …a semi-final interview…and, wouldn’t you know, the evening right after the funeral…

so my candidate leaves his wife and kids at the family gathering after the funeral and goes to the dinner interview..

needless to say he was distracted and unfocused just enough to screw up the interview…

his mistake was that he should have explained that he had just come from a family funeral and he was a bit unfocused and emotionally depleted…

most people would have empathy for that kind of thing and take it into account …soooo, the lesson: if you are experiencing an emotionally stressful personal issue that is going to impact your being able to interview well…tell the interviewing authority at the beginning of the interview

he did not

By Tony Beshara|2008-08-13T10:18:47-05:00August 13, 2008|interviewing, psychology|

thoughts on references

lately..and these things come in streaks..we have had a “rash” of lessons as a result of references for our candidates that have caused problems or cost the candidate the job..

over the next few blogs, we are going to discuss them..

last week, one of our candidates gave a previous peer as a reference…when the hiring authority checked this reference, the reference giver said that he had not worked with the candidate in over a year…!!!

the candidate had told the hiring authority that he had left his last job last month…so the hiring authority jumped to the conclusion that the candidate was lying about when he left his last job…

we eventually cleared the misunderstanding up…it was true that the reference hadn’t worked with the candidate in more than a year…because the reference was moved to a different department of the company…the employer didn’t hear that, because the reference didn’t make it clear..

remember, hiring authorities are afraid of making a mistake…they will be fearful of the smallest issue or misunderstanding..

make sure your references are “reading from the same page”.,.it took a whole day of calls to other people that worked with our candidate to clear this up…

call your references before they are called by the hiring authority…share with them what the hiring authority is going to want to know…

By Tony Beshara|2008-08-11T07:41:22-05:00August 11, 2008|communication, job search strategies, resumes|

follow up…no matter how long and how many times it might take

my candidate kept following up with the hiring manger, even though they hired someone else…

the hiring authority and my candidate really hit it off, but my candidate just didn’t have anywhere near the experience they needed…but boy they hit it off..

my candidate asked the hiring authority if he could call him back from time to time…of course, the hiring authority agreed…

so at least once a month the candidate called the guy…heck, my candidate was still looking for a job and he figured until he got one he ought to call everyone that might eventually hire him…

seven months later, he got hired by the company..they liked him so well they “created” an opportunity for him

never quit following up…no matter how many times it might take

By Tony Beshara|2008-07-24T21:58:56-05:00July 24, 2008|communication, employers, job search strategies|

odd first impressions…tone it down a bit

you never know how candidates are perceived…

one of our candidates who is a very successful sales person goes to an interview…the hiring authority loves her, but is concerned about her motivation..

why?…well she had, according to him, a four carat diamond ring on (…really only two) and drove a brand new mercedes and wore at least a $500 outfit (…how does he know?)

…he wondered if she was motivated???…oh, brother

the truth is that she was able to afford these things because she is one hell of a sales lady…she also has two kids in college that she supports..

now, i might agree that when you combine the ring, the car and the suit, the hiring authority might have been put off a bit…

lesson:..tone it down a bit…dress professionally, but not over the top..

By Tony Beshara|2008-07-23T22:03:12-05:00July 23, 2008|communication, interviewing, psychology|

always, always, always follow up!

every counselor/coach/recruiter in the world tells a candidate to follow up with a “thank you” note as well as a note as to what the candidate can do for the company..

well, our candidate thought he had a lousy interview so he didn’t follow up with the note…

well, the hiring authority thought the guy was great..couldn’t understand why the guy didn’t follow up..

when the candidate found out that the hiring authority really liked him, he was motivated..wrote the note….too late, the hiring authority thought about it…decided to go after someone else..

LESSON:…follow up…always follow up with a thanks!

By Tony Beshara|2008-07-15T22:05:26-05:00July 15, 2008|communication, interviewing, psychology|

common sense

one of our candidates “rewrote” her resume…left off a three month short gig at a company 2 years ago…she has had too many jobs and figured it would be better to do that..

well, she forgot to “update” her resume on linkedin…so, one of our clients got it…went to linkedin to see what he could find out about her…found the “old” resume and decided not to pursue her..

lesson: keep your resumes consistent…don’t shoot yourself in the foot

By Tony Beshara|2018-07-25T13:39:06-05:00July 10, 2008|communication, resumes|

take any interview you can

i referred one of my candidates to a company…he knew the V.P. of sales, the guy he was suppose to interview with…they had worked together before..

my candidate didn’t like the guy and told me he really didn’t want to go on the interview…after down right cajoling him, i got him to go…”you never know what might happen,” i said

well, he got to the interview and the V.P. marched him into the CEO’s office and the CEO started interviewing my candidate for a position they had just thought about creating..

it was on the same level as the V.P.’s job…

you never know about what kind of position you might be interviewing for…go on every interview you can..

By Tony Beshara|2018-07-25T13:38:48-05:00June 29, 2008|career development, interviewing|

great job, Dave

dave calls me from kansas…thanks me for the information on how to negotiate…says he got the offer he wanted and followed my advise exactly…got $20,000 more in salary than the company wanted to pay…PLUS a car

good job dave…no matter how great the coach can draw up the plays, they still have to be executed properly..

By Tony Beshara|2008-06-23T21:36:31-05:00June 23, 2008|career development, negotiating|