What Should You Know BEFORE the Headhunter Calls?

It’s tough to play well without knowing the rules. The employment game is no different: jobs may not always go to the best, but rather the best who know how to play the game. For those people who are in roles where positions are usually filled by companies using search firms, knowing how "executive search" works, particularly knowing what to do and what to avoid, can propel you throughout your career.Read the rest

[Delivery Status Notification Failure] First Things to Do When the “Pink Slip” is for You

There are certain steps you should do when you leave a job, and Sam (not his real name) knew them all. He just didn’t follow them.

I thought it was odd when my mid-monthly Life Back West mailer bounced from his work address, but it would not be the first time that an e-mail bounced from a valid address. Odder was the call two week later from a manager from his firm looking for some advice, the type of advice you’d normally get from your Head of Human Resources.Read the rest

Time To Be Greedy: Your “Brand”

This is the first in a series of three posts dealing with “brand.” A post on personal brands (YOU), and “how-to-do” examples will follow this first overview piece. As someone who’s been in the people (and teams) coaching business for over 25 years, and also been directly responsible for hiring thousands of people through roles running large staffing / recruiting operations, I have a pretty good idea why some firms recruit well (and others don’t), and how people can take their best foot forward as either a job candidate or consultant / vendor.Read the rest

[Land of Spin] The Job Hunt: TwitterShouldHireMe.com and Other Tricks of the Trade

Fortune Magazine’s April 13, 2009 edition has an article on Jamie Varon, who built a website called TwitterShouldHireMe.com as part of her job hunt campaign to get – guess who – to hire her. She also writes a blog called “intersected ."  Her Twitter job campaign site apparently has spawned a host of imitators (googleshouldhireme.com, Facebookshoulehireme.com, etc.). [Update: Varon has also just launched a new blog site called "Shatterbox – The Way of Standing Out and Changing the World."Read the rest

[New Rules] Fortune Magazine’s “How to Find a Job” – What’s Working Now

This week’s April 13, 2009 Fortune Magazine (on newsstands now, online in around 10 days) identifies tactics that they believe work in the current job market. Many will sound familiar from readers of the nine-part  “Choose Me” Hire Me! series from the Life Back West blog.

Here are some of the job hunting actions Fortune identified that work:

  • Be thorough and methodical
  • Work your Rolodex
  • Target your search
  • Do your homework
  • Get the word out
  • (Be creative and) Get noticed and get your foot in the door
  • Build your network
  • Offer people intelligence on the competition
  • Fine tune your resume (include metrics and stats)

All of these ideas are really helpful and I think complement the type of know yourself, know your message, and build your network approached advocated by experts such as Richard Nelson Bolles .Read the rest

[New Rules] 5 Landmines to Sidestep When Changing Jobs

Changing jobs in today’s economy is tough enough without adding complexity. But something as seemingly straight forward and simple as moving from one organization to another for a job change can get sketchy if you manage to make some highly avoidable mistakes.

Here’s my take on five things – some may be more traps than landmines  –  you can, and should avoid when changing jobs:

Moving from the frying pan to the proverbial fire : In my experience people are either moving to something (e.g.Read the rest