In his book, The 48 Laws of Power, Robert Greene (e-book edition, p. 237), provides a great description of the game of chess:

Chess contains the concentrated essence of life: First, because to win you have to be supremely patient and farseeing; and second, because the game is built on patterns, whole sequences of moves that have been played before and will be played again, with slight alterations, in any one match. Your opponent analyzes the patterns you are playing and uses them to try to foresee your moves. Allowing him nothing predictable to base his strategy on gives you a big advantage. In chess as in life, when people cannot figure out what you are doing, they are kept in a state of terror—waiting, uncertain, confused.

Of course, in a job interview, you are not facing an opponent but rather individuals who you want to become your confederates. Yet, there are similarities to a chess match:

The most difficult part of a job search is patience. You have to wait for a response to your application. You have to wait for a response to your initial (phone) interview. You have to wait for a response to your in-person interview(s). And you have to wait for the job offer. Perhaps serving in the military is a great preparation for conducting a job search as, at least based on my experience, most of the time you just sit around and wait!!

Being able to foresee the steps in the process is crucial. If you expect that there will only be one interview, and it turns out you will have to have multiple interviews and a test, you will become disheartened. The solution is quite easy: Ask! There is no reason in the world for the process to be kept a secret. If you know what to expect, you can prepare, most importantly, psychologically. The key to getting a job offer is confidence. Confidence is an emotion. If you are projecting depression, because you don't like the hoops through which the employer is making you jump, you might be confident you can do the job, but you won't be confident that you want the job. Employers can read emotions so, as your emotions are the most important thing you bring to an interview, you have to protect your king - confidence!

Finally, note what was said about patterns in chess. The analogy in interviewing is that different interviewers will ask you the same question(s). Then they will compare your answers. They don't have to be word-for-word identical, but if they are different, you can forget about getting an offer. In that case, you have lost your king and are checkmated.

How to create an resume for a internship? What are the do and don't and hiw to I create a cover letter?

References

by Bruce Hurwitz

Many, if not most, job applicants are worried about being able to provide positive references. Ironically, more often than not, my clients (employers) have not asked for references. When I protest, the response is always, "No one provides a bad reference." Not true! It happens.

Some applicants want to be proactive and include references on their resume. That's a mistake. Here’s why:

1. By definition references will know of possible candidates for the position for which the applicant is applying.  The employer or recruiter can call them and ask if there is anyone they would recommend for the position they are looking to fill without mentioning the applicant whose resume they received.  Why would an applicant want to give an employer/recruiter an avenue to find additional candidates?  And what does it say if one of the names the reference provides isn’t the applicant's?
2. It is foolish for an applicant to provide names of references until the applicant knows they are interested in the position.  Imagine if the applicant sends out 10 resumes, and the recipients of five call the references.  The references will begin to think that there is a problem and no one wants the person.  If the applicant, after meeting with the employer and their staff, decides they want nothing to do with the company, the references will have no way of knowing that the applicant turned the employer down and not the other way around. They will also be curious about why they are being called without notification from the applicant.
3. Accordingly, it is crucial that prior to giving out the names of references, the applicant, now candidate, actually wants the job and that they have the ability to (a) confirm that the reference is available (they may be on vacation, at a conference, have a family emergency, etc.) and that they remember the candidate. (I once had a former colleague have an employer contact me for a reference, and I did not remember her!)  Additionally, the candidate has to prepare the references so they know what to emphasize when speaking to the employer/recruiter.
4. Finally, if the employer/recruiter asks for references, telling them that they will get them in a day or two because they first want to make certain they are available, shows that the candidate is a professional and does not want to waste the employer’s/recruiter’s time.  (There is nothing worse than calling someone for a reference and the person does not return the call.)  It, the request for references, is also something they can be added to the thank-you email so the employer/recruiter knows that the candidate did not forget the request.  Then, the next day, they can follow-up with a second email with the names of the references, a brief blurb about how they know them, their contact information, and, to show that they are considerate, their time zone.  You don’t want someone on the west coast being called at 9 AM Eastern time.

I honestly cannot think of a single reason to include references on a resume.  After all, it takes up space that could be better used focusing on the applicant’s accomplishments.  No longer is “References available upon request” included on a resume, because it is a silly statement of the obvious.

For the record, ideally references are former supervisors.  Secondarily, if supervisors are not available, colleagues will usually suffice, especially those higher on the organizational chart. Board members and major clients/customers may also be acceptable.  In the case of older candidates, persons they have helped to advance in their careers are ideal, as the interviewers may consider older candidates a threat to their position. Knowing that they have a record of helping younger colleagues should allay those fears. Personal references should never be given.  There is no need to provide more than three references.

References | Employment Edification (wordpress.com)

Efficient Candidate Vetting

This is the final in a series of eight articles, geared towards recruiters but which provide important insights for job seekers.

If any recruiter ever claims that they have not been conned by a candidate, they are either a novice in the field, totally unaware, or a liar.  (Of course, they may just be lucky, but I doubt it.) 

Just as there are professional students, individuals who arrange scholarships to continue their studies so they never have to actually get a job, there are also professional interviewers.  These are individuals who interview brilliantly.  They convince everyone that they are the best possible person for the job.  Any red flags, such as length of employment, they can easily explain away.  They are masters of their trade.  The problem is, they are terrible employees.

So why do these charlatans get away with their cons?  It’s simply the fault of the interviewers.  They so want to fill the position that they forget the basics.  It’s almost like a person with a horrible disease clutching at straws to find a cure.  They are great targets.  But recruiters must not be targets, they must be recruiters.

So, what red flags must be allowed to wave from atop the flagpole like Old Glory?

If the candidate can’t hold a job, you don’t want them.  And if they don’t include dates of employment on the resume, it’s a sign they can’t hold a job and you don’t want them.

If the candidate's references are LinkedIn recommendations, you don’t want them.  There are no negative recommendations on any LinkedIn profiles.  Why?  Because the owner of the profile controls what appears on their profile.  No one is going to post a negative recommendation.  Moreover, many people trade recommendations.  They simply cannot be trusted.

If there are discrepancies between the candidate’s LinkedIn profile and resume, it is not necessarily a red flag but is a topic for discussion.  What is a red flag is if the candidate’s behavior on Facebook, X, etc. is less than professional, while totally so on LinkedIn.

If the candidate is not available during regular business hours to be interviewed by the recruiter, you don’t want them.  If they can’t meet with the recruiter, they won’t be able to meet with the employer.  Moreover, if they can’t figure out how to take time off in the middle of the day to interview, even if it is a video call which they could take on their phone in their car, that pretty much tells you everything you need to know about their ability to cope with predictable situations, not to mention the unpredictable.

If the candidate’s voice mail message is unprofessional, that can be a red flag.  They obviously have not prepared for a job search where a professional image is everything. If they do not prepare properly when, in essence, they are their own client, the probably won’t prepare well when the client belongs to the employer!

When conducting a video interview, and there should always be a video interview, note where the person is.  If they are in their car because they are at work, fine.  But if they are home, pay special attention to the background.  If they are using a background image or have blurred the background, they are hiding something.  That’s a red flag.  If the room they are in is messy, it’s safe to assume that that is how their office will be.  True, they might know where everything is and therefore, from their perspective, there is order.  But, still, impression is reality and employers do not want clients or prospective clients to think their employees are disorganized.

Finally, look carefully at the candidate’s resume.  Even if they have kept their jobs for a good length of time, and have no gaps in their resume, it is a definite red flag if the candidate has not really advanced in their career.  If they have not increased their responsibilities and authority, it is best to pass on them.  They have no ambition.  A person who does not grow in their career will not contribute to the growth of a company.  Clients want to grow or, at least, not stagnate, which is what the candidate has done in their career.

By identifying red flags, a recruiter can eliminate unattractive candidates and focus on candidates who have the potential, not only to be hired, but to remain on the job a significant period of time.  At the end of the day, that is what the recruiter wants.  No recruiter wants to have to honor their guarantee that a candidate will stay on the job a minimum amount of time.

Bruce Hurwitz 7:35 am on April 4, 2024  

The Thank-You Email and the Most Important Question to Ask in a Job Interview

It is funny the things we remember seeing on television when we were children. For example, I remember a Nobel Prize laureate being asked, “To whom do you credit your success?” He replied, “My mother. When my friends returned home from school, their moms would ask them if they had given the teacher good answers to her questions, my mom would ask if I asked any good questions.”

It is my firm and sincere belief that the questions you ask in a job interview are actually more important than the answers you give. When you ask a question, it is an opportunity to show how well you prepare for meetings and, specifically, how well you have researched the employer and the interviewers.

The most important question you can ask is focused on the after-interview phases of the hiring process: the thank-you email. A good thank-you can rescue a fair interview; a bad thank-you can ruin a good interview.

Here’s the question: If I were to get the job, what would I be able to do to make your life easier? Ask every interviewer and write down their answer. This also means that at the start of an interview you need to get the email address of all the interviewers. (If someone says, “Just write to so-and-so,” then that’s what you do. But let’s assume that everyone provides their email.)

The thank-you email tells a great deal about the candidate. It shows if they were listening during the interview, and whether or not they understood what they were told. It also shows if they are able to send unique thank-yous to everyone and not some generic letter that could relate to interviewing for literally any job. Lastly, it is proof that they can actually write a professional letter.

The thank-you, which must be sent within a couple of hours of the interview, should be relatively short and go something like this:

Thank you for interviewing me this morning for the XYZ position. [Now you are going to remind them of why you are the premier candidate for the position.] Having done X, Y and Z, after hearing your insights, I am even more confident now that I will be able to not only fulfill your expectations for the position, but exceed them.

That paragraph will be relatively the same for everyone. Here’s where the uniqueness comes in:

I heard you when you said that you need me to do X. I understand that that will help you with Y. Just to remind you, as I said during the interview, I have no problem in that regard because…

Then a generic ending on the lines of, Thank you again for having taken the time to interview me. I look forward to hearing from you. Sincerely… will suffice.

The “I heard you” paragraph shows that you were listening, understood, and are onboard to be the interviewers’ partner to help them achieve their goals. Who would not want a new hire like that?

The Thank-You Email and the Most Important Question to Ask in a Job Interview | Employment Edification (wordpress.com)

By: Bruce Hurwitz, Ph.D.

Everyone has things that bother them. They are annoying and every so often a person has something they want to "get off their chest." As you may have guessed, I have something I want to get off my chest.

Occasionally, someone calls and asks if I will be their mentor. It is an honor. That said, I am rather selective because I do not want to waste my time or the prospective mentee's. When I start to interview them, and they realize I may not agree to their request, they then make a fatal mistake: They offer to pay me. When I tell them that mentors are not paid, they tell me about friends who actually pay their "mentors" for their services. I will now tell you what I tell them.

Mentors do not get paid. They help a person because they want to help them advance in their career, not to fatten their own bank accounts. A mentor's "payment" is the satisfaction of seeing their mentee succeed and advance.

Business consultants are paid. They too want their clients to succeed and advance, but they want to be paid for their advice. First and foremost, they are in it for themselves. There is nothing wrong with that. It is not immoral, indecent or illegal. It's perfectly fine. It's just not mentoring, it's consulting.

If you want someone to advise you out of the goodness of their heart, someone who is only interested in your advancement, get a mentor. If you want your very own employee (after all, if you pay someone they work for you!) hire a business consultant.

In this episode of the Paralegals on Fire! Podcast Show, Ann Pearson discusses the concerns paralegals have about their jobs being replaced by overseas virtual legal assistants and AI. Ann provides actionable strategies to protect paralegals’ job security and increase their value in the legal profession. 

You are worth more than $15 per hour! (paralegal-bootcamp.com)

By Bruce Hurwitz, Ph.D.

The adage used to be, "Everyone is in sales." Today, "marketing" has to be added. It does not matter what position you hold in a company, even if you are working for yourself (either as a job seeker or a business owner), whether you like it or not, you are in marketing.

So are green grocers. (I wonder if the PC Police have outlawed the term!?) When they place their produce on display, they have awaxcoating on them (the produce not the grocers!) to preserve, protect and enhance their appearance, in other words, to make them look good and slow spoilage. Job seekers need the same (primarily looking good, but also not spoiling!).

I am not referring to clothing, accessories, or evenresumes, a topic which I have previously addressed. The wax, so to speak, for a job applicant, should be their online presence.

On July 12, I will be writing about LinkedIn's Social Selling Index, which is the gauge of how well someone is promoting themselves on LinkedIn. For now, suffice to say that individuals will not get their dream job if they are the best kept secret in town. But beware, if you are in the public domain, you are leaving yourself open to ridicule. If you can't take criticism, and feel the need to respond to every comment someone (usually a someone who is jealous) makes, it might be best to stay out of sight.

That said, there is an alternative to expressing your own opinion. Being a source of important information for your profession is enough. You don't necessarily have to write posts or long-form articles opining on different subjects. Simply sharing articles with your network will get you noticed.

Posting articles that you have written on LinkedIn or a blog on a different platform, and linking to them on all social media accounts, will get you noticed. You want your online reputation to be that of a consummate professional. As a recruiter, I had one candidate whose LinkedIn presence was the definition of professionalism. Then I saw his Facebook page. It was dedicated to attacking a politician who will remain nameless. He, the candidate, went over the deepend. He was a raving lunatic. I could not submit him to my client because I did not know who would show up, the professional or the lunatic.

For my part, the only thing I post on X, Facebook, Instagram, etc., are things I post on LinkedIn. The same should be true for any professional, not to mention a job seeker. No one should want a prospective employer thinking that they suffer from some sort of split personality disorder.

The important thing is to have employers run after you, not you running after them. And the only way for that to happen is if you create an online persona which makes you look like the personification of professionalism. Once you have done that, you will be able to wax poetic.

(5) How to Market Yourself | LinkedIn

The Quickest Way to Lose a Job Offer

Years, alright, decades ago, I had a job interview. I arrived 10 minutes early, as I always did. I introduced myself to the receptionist, told her who I wanted to see, and sat down to wait. I waited 25 minutes and then returned to the receptionist, told her I was withdrawing my candidacy, wished her well, and walked to the elevator.

Apparently, I did not see her do it, the receptionist had called the person with whom I had the appointment and told him I was leaving. As I got to the elevator, the man ran up to me and asked me where I was going, not why I was going. I told him a job interview was a two-way street and I didn't want to work for someone who keeps people waiting. (Yes, I arrived early but I left 15 minutes after the scheduled time for my appointment.) It's rude, shows bad time management skills, and was not what I was interested in.

As this conversation began, the elevator doors opened. A woman who wanted to get out kept the doors open. She listened to the conversation. She introduced herself. She was the company's CEO. She apologized to me. I thanked her. She told the man I was supposed to meet with to meet her in her office.

The next day, my phone rang. It was the CEO. She told me that she had fired the guy who had kept me waiting and asked me if I would reconsider my decision to withdraw my candidacy. I told her I couldn't as I had already accepted another job. You see, from their office I went to get something to eat and then had a second interview, where I was not kept waiting, and they made me an offer on the spot.

I had heard of employers keeping candidates waiting to see how they would react. I never understood the rules of that game and cannot explain them. On a few occasions, I was kept waiting, but someone would come out, explain to me that there was a problem, apologize, offer me something to drink, and ask me to be patient. I would always thank them, decline the drink, if I had a time limit I would tell them, then I would patiently wait, usually reading something I had brought with me. Unlike in the previously related story, these people were polite and professional.

Then there are the candidates who arrive late. Usually, that ends a candidacy. There is literally no excuse for being late. If a candidate is late for a job interview, it is safe to assume they'll be late for client and staff meetings. Why bother with them? (That's more of a statement than a question...)

An acquaintance once related to me that a friend of his was having a problem. He owned a Starbucks franchise at a local airport. The position for which he was hiring required the employee to be on the job from 11 PM to 7 AM. Usually, new hires showed up for a few days but then were either constantly late or quit. He had an epiphany. To solve the problem, he interviewed candidates, not at his office in the city during regular business hours, but at 3 AM at the restaurant. If a candidate showed up for the interview, he was confident they would be at work, on time, and not quit. He was correct.

There is an exception to every rule and there is one for having to be on time for a job interview. A candidate of mine lived in Brooklyn. The client was on Long Island. If traffic was good, and it never was, it would take at least an hour and a half to arrive. She left four hours early. After half an hour, being stuck in traffic half that time, she knew she would be late. She called the person with whom she was going to meet. (Never go to an interview without the contact information of the person with whom you are meeting!)

If she had called an hour before the interview, there would not have been an interview. But since it was clear she had left with (usually) more than enough time, the client was happy to tell her to call to reschedule when she returned home. She also told her to get off the highway as soon as possible, as the road was blocked all the way to their offices as that was the site of the severe accident which was causing all the trouble.

She rescheduled. The interview went fine but not great. There was another candidate who was a better match. But that candidate arrived 10 minutes late and did not apologize. They gave the job to my candidate. Draw your own conclusions!

While we work with everyone, our mission is to promote the hiring of veterans and first responders.  Please consider us for all your staffing, career counseling and professional writing needs.

How to Raise Health Issues in a Job Interview

By: Bruce Hurwitz

Twice this happened to me:

I was invited to speak (the first time at a local university and the second at the New York Public Library) on conducting a successful job interview from the perspective of the applicant. The question that was asked was simple: How to raise the issue of a medical condition for which the applicant will require a “reasonable accommodation,” which, according to the law, an employer must provide to an applicant suffering from a medical condition.

I’ll use actual examples:

One employer was located on the second floor of a “landmark building.” Landmark buildings are building which, for whatever reason, local authorities have designated as “landmark.” This means no changes can be made to the structure without government approval. And when I say “no changes,” I mean “no changes.” In one case, the owners could not even change door knobs without official permission!

The applicant for the position with the employer on the second floor used a wheel chair. He neglected to mention that when the employer called to set up an initial interview. If he had, he would have been informed that there was no elevator. It was most assuredly not a “reasonable accomodation” for the employer to install an elevator or a chair lift leading to the second floor (even if by a miracle, and it would have taken a miracle) the government would have approved it. Needless to say, there was no interview.

But that was an extreme case and, frankly, a foolish job applicant.

The other cases I dealt with were simple. These concerned veterans. Most people think their problems are greater than they really are and veterans are no different. One had been shot in the knee and needed to sit at a desk that would enable him to stretch his leg out. Another could not tolerate bright lights and needed to wear sunglasses indoors. And a third could not sit with his back to the door. None of the employers for whom they were interviewed cared. The “accommodations” which they required were perfectly “reasonable,” and were immediately granted. The same thing was true for those dealing with a mental health issue and needed to be able to call their mental health professional occassionally or at regularly scheduled times. (One employer said to a candidate in that situation, “Don’t worry about it. You have to be crazy to work here!” Everyone laughed and, by the end of the day, he was hired.)

At the speaking engagements I previously mentioned, the director who invited me to speak at the university, and my two co-panelists at the Library, all advised that persons requiring a “reasonable accommodation” should raise it once a job offer had been made. I vehemently objected. Here’s why:

Just as job applicants learn everything they need to know about a company’s decision making process from what they experience being an applicant (and, hopefully, becoming a candidate), so too do companies learn what they need to know about an applicant, especially their values, from how they behave during the interview process. That’s why there are multiple interviews and multiple interviewers.

Let’s consider the situation when at the end of the process, when an offer has been made, the candidate (who has advanced from being just an “applicant”) surprises everyone by announcing that they require a “special accommodation.” If the employer, in my opinion, is smart, they will immediately withdraw the offer. Why? Not because of the applicant’s needs but because of the flaw in their character. If they waited until literally the last moment to provide what is called “material information” about their needs, it is safe to assume that they will surprise potential clients, at the last moment, with information they, the potential clients, required at the start of the process to reach an informed decision. No one likes surprises, not potential clients, not actual clients, oh, and yes, not employers! (And in this case, the employer may rightly suspect that the applicant was setting them up for

While we work with everyone, our mission is to promote the hiring of veterans and first responders.  Please consider us for all your staffing, career counseling and professional writing needs.