CareerLight

John won his new job by raising the standard of interviewing. What did John do?

1. Selected a company he really wanted to work for and studied it.
2. Selected a manager who knows his skills. (John could have spent the year educating and cultivating a manager he didn’t already know.)
3. Did not rely on job-board postings.
4. Did his homework and figured out what problems he could solve for the manager.
5. Avoided a phone interview of low information value.
6. Insisted on a meeting where he could prove his value.
7. Prepared a mini-business plan for the job.
8. Presented his plan on the whiteboard to be judged.
9. “Did the job” in the interview to win the job.

Success Story: I did the job to win the job | Ask The Headhunter® One job seeker's success story is about making the job interview harder, not easier, and on "doing the job" in the interview.

Before responding to an inquiry from a job recruiter, you should "Ask yourself these six questions about the solicitation and, if you like, ask the 'recruiter,' too":

1. Is this solicitation really addressed to me personally, or is it boilerplate that was mass-mailed to a list?

2. Am I being recruited for a specific position, or is this an advertisement inviting me to read a bunch of job postings?

3. Is there any evidence that the "recruiter" knows enough about me to know whether I'm really "a great fit" for this job?

4. Did the "recruiter" mention the name of someone that recommended me, or am I just one of 14,000 matching profiles turned up by an algorithm?

5. Does the "recruiter" reveal that they understand what this job is about?

6. If I'm really the "great fit" they say I am, why isn't this a request for an in-person job interview?

"A good job candidate is worth a lot to a real recruiter, who will take your questions seriously. If you don't get good answers to those six questions, you're not being recruited. 95% or more of solicitations are not from real recruiters. They're from job spammers paid to force feed you job postings. Beware what you swallow."

6 hoops to make recruiters jump through - Ask The Headhunter® Do you want to save 95% of your time that phony recruiters waste when they don't get back to you or contact you about the wrong jobs?