Jay Wren – Page 66 – Be in the Top 1% in Mindset – Leadership

The Top 6 Soft Skills

Soft skills help workers become more successful and enable them to help other workers become more successful.

The Top 6 Soft Skills

Soft skills help workers become more successful and enable them to help other workers become more successful.
According to the United States Department of Labor, these are the most important soft skills:

1. Communication

Communication skills enable people to say things in a way that other people can understand them and enable people to understand the things people say in response. Obviously, team members and team leader become more effective when they understand each other.

2. Enthusiasm and Attitude

Enthusiasm and Attitude are skills that help workers enjoy the job more. Furthermore, your enthusiasm and attitude can help coworkers enjoy their job. Developing these skills is an ongoing process to keep a fresh, positive point of view.

3. Teamwork

Teamwork skills enable workers to respect the work, ideas, and opinions of other workers. For example, in a YouTube video titled “The Myth of the Genius Programmer,” two Google engineers talk about the value of teamwork at Google. They explain that the success at Google comes from the understanding that no one person has the answer for everything.

4. Networking

Networking as a skill has many elements. A person must develop the confidence to contact and interact with other people. Additionally, the skill to connect face-to-face and to network direct through the Internet enables a person to have a career with more opportunities and more support.

5. Problem Solving & Critical Thinking

These skills are is important to making decisions and to working with others. Furthermore, people with these skills can see the value of their ideas and the value of the ideas of the other members of the team.

6. Professionalism

Ending on the most powerful skill, professionalism is the combines all the other skills into creating a person who thinks and works in the best interest of the company and the other workers.

Should I Call the Recruiter?

“Should I call the recruiter?”

This question is a common among applicants.

Occasionally I read career advice columns in which career coaches write, “Do not to call recruiters. They will call you.”

Well, no, recruiters may never call you. Here is how recruiters conduct searches. First recruiters contact the qualified applicants they already have in their database, especially those people who are most recently active. When recruiters have contacted the qualified candidates in their database, they get on the phone and call other people who are already in their database and ask these people for referrals to qualified applicants.

Recruiters do use job boards and membership sites. The most successful recruiters use these sites as a last resort to find people for a search. The reason is that hiring companies are using job boards and membership sites as well. The likelihood for recruiters to find people the hiring companies have not already found on the Internet is small. Therefore, the best recruiters are not using membership sites and job boards as their sources of finding applicants.

Of course, nearly every recruiter is a member of LinkedIn. The main resource LinkedIn gives a recruiter is to develop a larger database of people the recruiter can use for ongoing business development. For a recruiter, LinkedIn is similar to a blood drive for a blood bank. The resources recruiters develop on LinkedIn come into use for the long-term development of their business. Hospitals must continually replace and add to their sources of blood. Recruiters must continually create new relationships as people come and go over a career.

A piece of bad advice is to email recruiters instead of calling recruiters.

The reason that every search firm in the country has a phone number on the company website is so that job seekers and hiring managers can call the firm’s recruiters. Check out the company websites for firms that do every level of search from entry-level to c-level and boardroom search. You will find a phone number.

The advice from career coaches about not calling recruiters is bad advice, especially if you need a job fast. In the job market, you are like a patient in the hospital. If you need blood, you go to a hospital. If you need to work with recruiters, pick up the phone and call them. Find out which ones you like and trust. Build relationships that you can use your entire career.

How to Get a Job Fast

Is it important for you to get a job fast? Then you will want to do the things that will help you get a job and avoid the things that are a waste of time.

Use a job board to find jobs. The job board at JayWren.com has thousands of job listings.

Use a real search engine like Google or Bing to find jobs fast. Some job boards do work as search engines, but they list the jobs posted on their site first and bury the other jobs on the back pages of the search results. Why waste your time with a job search engine so biased against your need to find a job fast?

To use a search engine like Google or Bing to find jobs, enter phrases that include the word “jobs,” the type of job, and the location: jobs for mechanics Chicago or jobs for accountants New York City.

Try changing the wording to get slightly different results. For example, instead of “jobs for mechanics Chicago,” add the word “in” to create a search that reads “jobs for mechanics in Chicago.” Varying the wording will help you find more jobs fast.

Some other results, you might try these formats: nurses Dallas jobs or computer programmers Sunnyvale.

You can try using job categories instead of titles: Nursing, accounting, computer programming, etc.

Contact people you know. Another way to find jobs fast is to contact the people you already know. As I discussed in the article, “Your Know Network,” online resources are so powerful, so compelling, so easy, and so addictive that I take for granted the value of the network of people I know.

Contacting people I already know is so much more effective than contacting new people. I have an established relationship with the people I know. The people I already know will more likely trust me. They are more likely to be helpful. The bond is already established.

Therefore, to find a job fast, make a list of people you already know. Go Beyond LinkedIn.

Ask for referrals. Every time you speak with person, ask them to help you with names of other people who can help you. Add these names to your database of contacts and schedule a call to those people.

Ask for help. If the people you are contacting work for companies where you want to work, ask them for help in getting a job at that company. If the person is willing to be helpful, ask for an introduction or even an endorsement.

Announce your job search online. If you want to find a job fast and confidentiality is not important, list your current position with your job title and add, “Seeking a new opportunity.”

Do not publish your phone number or your address on your public profile. Identity thieves can use that information to harm you.

Publish an email address on your public profile. Consider creating an email address specifically for your job change. Include your name in your email address. That way, when people see your email, they will know that it is from you. In addition, the address will be easier for people to find in the email address book.

Put your phone number on all letters and emails. One of the most annoying things for hiring managers and recruiters is to get an email from an applicant they need to call and have to go open a database file or resume to find the phone number. If you want to find a job fast, do not waste people’s time by not giving them information they need in the place where they need it.

To find a job fast, subscribe to my newsletter. I write about finding a job and building your career. I have placed 100’s of people with dozens of companies. The information I give you will help you become successful in getting a job and getting promoted.

Tips for Using Social Media to Get a Job

There are varieties of surveys on the Internet about what percent of job seekers use social media to find a job. The problem with these surveys is that the people who take them are heavy Internet users who voluntarily take time to take surveys. The surveys do not come from employers. What these numbers really show is what percent of the people who actually spend a great deal of time on the Internet get their job through social media.

Based on what I read on the Internet, these surveys show that close to 30% of the job seekers in the surveys use social media in their job search. That number means that 70% do not use social media in their job search.

My advice to job seekers is that you do a terrific job of putting a highly polished profile on the bigger social media sites. Hiring companies and recruiters do search these sites. However, I recommend that you also work very hard using some alternatives to social media.

Direct applications with hiring companies
Your own professional network
Recruiters who have a network worth your time
Job boards
Professional organizations
Trade shows and conventions

When you do use a social media site, scan it for people at companies where you know there are job openings or where you would like to get a job.

Before you attempt to connect with a person, do your home. Learn about them from their online profile. Research the company where they work. Build a database profile that you will help you make an effective contact and that you can use for future reference.

You can create a folder full of document profiles. You can create an email address book. As a recruiter, I have never found that either of these shortcuts gives me effective control over my networking and relationship building.

I recommend that you use contact management software. I have always used Act! Contact Management Software. There are other contact management applications, including free ones. How well these applications work depends on three things:

The amount of detail you want to include about each contact
The number of contacts you want to store
The amount of money you want to spend

Here is the information I put into my contact management database.

Professional
Company
Contact Name
Street Address
City, State Zip
Company Phone
Office Direct Dial
Company Website
Company Job Web Page
Department
Title
Email
Referred By	Example, LinkedIn, friend, confidential referral
Name of Office Assistant

Home
Street Address
Home City, State Zip
Cell Phone
Home Phone
Family Names

Education
School Name
Graduate School

Skills

Social Media
LinkedIn Profile
Facebook Profile
Twitter Page
Website

Employment

Contact History

I use the same profile for clients and for applicants. Some applications separate the databases for hiring companies and networking contacts. For my purposes, that step is not necessary. Since recruiters do not recruit people from companies where they place people, the name of the company is all I need to know to distinguish the type of contact I am reviewing.

Your contact management software should also help you schedule tasks, record your contact history, and send and receive your email.

Recruiters play a role in the process for some job seekers. The usefulness of a recruiter varies greatly with the type of job. For example, retailers get most of their clerks from their storefront walk-in traffic or their website. Job boards help people find jobs. Some people find their jobs through direct referral. Some companies pay their employees for their referrals. Many people find jobs by applying at the website of the hiring company.

The point is that as a job seeker, you should use social media. You should start with a highly polished profile that will attract hiring companies and recruiters. At the same time, you should limit the time you spend on social media sites, because 70 percent of the jobs come from sources other than social media.

Is Your Desk Killing You?

Standing at work burns calories at a rate that adds up to running marathons. By contrast, endurance athletes who sit at work damage their health as though they were smoking.

The solution for many people is to stand at their desk.

There are desks specifically designed for people to stand while they work. Of course, not everyone wants to buy a new desk. Not everyone can buy a new desk. There is the cost of a new desk. There is the inconvenience of moving out the old desk and bringing in the new desk.

In addition, most desks for people who work standing up are usually little more than desktops for a keyboard, monitor, and mouse. On the other hand, conventional desks have drawers. These drawers prevent clutter and help workers organize their material. They also give cubicle workers some control over the privacy of their stuff, personal and professional.

Desks with drawers also do offer a degree of security. With some desks, workers can lock their drawers when they are away. Locked drawers protect privacy and keep at least honest people honest.

Standing desks are in some ways like exercise equipment. People buy exercise equipment in hopes of maintaining a long-term exercise program. I know I have. However, have your ever found that you use exercise more often when you first buy it? The good intentions we have when we buy exercise equipment does not always last after we bring it home. Therefore, test using desktop stands before you replace your desk with one where you must stand.

I do stand at my desk. I put a stand on my desktop. Desktop stands are convenient. I can use the stand or move it aside when I do jobs that I do better sitting.

Desktop stands are easy to create. All you need is a box. You can also buy desktop stands. They reasonably priced.

For over a decade, I have used a laptop while riding an exercise bike. For some reason, riding an exercise bike and using a laptop is an easy routine for me to follow.

I set up my first bike with a keyboard on the handlebars. I set the mouse and laptop on the kitchen counter next to the bike.

This method worked great for yeas. However, the bike was in the way for everything except exercising.

Recently I bought an inexpensive bike that has a desk. The bike weights 33 lbs. It folds to take less space when I am not using it. The bike fits into in a spare room I use for a home office. I also put a small television in that room. On some days, I ride the bike two or three times a day. Sometimes I ride for 15 minutes. Sometimes I ride for 45 minutes. I can read email and write articles I am riding. When I have finished my email or other work, I catch up on the news and sports while riding my exercise bike. For me, the point is that I actually do use the bike when I have a laptop and television to keep my mind busy, and I benefit health wise from riding the bike.

I enjoy using treadmills. According to fitness trainers, treadmills burn calories. Some people view them as poor substitutes for running outdoors. However, you cannot use your laptop while running in the park or down the street. You can buy treadmills with desktops. There are also ways to fit a keyboard or perhaps a laptop on the handlebars of a treadmill.

Before you invest in a desk or exercise equipment, check online for used desks and equipment. You will find slightly used desks and exercise equipment for pennies on the dollar. There are also outlets that sell used sporting goods. There is an old saying, “Never pay retail.” Desktop stands, stand-up desks, and exercise equipment are certainly categories where you should shop first for used equipment.

Disagreeing Without Being Disagreeable

Learning how to disagree without being disagreeable is sometimes a matter of understanding different types of people.

Some people have a short temper. I had a partner who had a short temper. He would snap at people. Shortly after he lost his temper, his anger would pass. He realized that his short temper hurt him in his relationships. He developed ways to back away from situations until he could calm down and think things through. To gather his composure and deal with things with he was not in the heat of the moment, he would simply ask, “May I get back with you later?”

If the person would press him on the matter, he would simply say,” I need to get back to you.” Then he would sit quietly or change the subject. He would go back to the discussion when he had time to think about what he wanted to say and could say those things calmly.

He learned a way for him that would allow him to disagree without being disagreeable.

When I am dealing with a person with short temper, I know that when they start to show emotion, I can help keep things positive when I give the person some time to think through a discussion.

Some people are needy. Sometimes when someone comes to me with a problem, I try to listen and think about what the person is saying. Sometimes people just need someone to listen to what is going on with them. I may disagree with everything the person has to say. However, if they simply need me to listen to them, getting into a disagreement may have little point.

I may simply say to the person, “If I were standing where you are standing, I suppose that I would feel the same way.”

Another thing that I can do is let the person talk out their feelings and change the subject. If they ask for my opinion, I can do what my partner would do. I would simply ask to get back to the person later.

Some people have hot buttons. When people have a hot buttons, they go stop flying the plane and go on autopilot. It is as though the person is playing a recording. This type of behavior is especially true in discussions about politics, religion, and sports.

I actually had an affiliate who was a sports trivia expert. He had intense feelings about sports teams and athletes. He would invent issues about players and teams and question me about them. I had never considered these issues. I had no interest in these issues.

I found that my life was easier and more productive when I did not speak with this person. I broke off the relationship.

When dealing with a person’s hot buttons, I find that disagreeing but not being disagreeable is just not possible. I just try not to push the person’s hot button.

Some people are bullies. In a volunteer program, I worked with a man who had learned to bully people verbally to protect himself. He was insecure about himself physically. He grew up in a familiar that was a member of a religious minority. He felt different from other students in school. He found that he could intimidate people through his personality. He would criticize the performance of the other volunteers. He would take over projects and manage them with authority whether he had that authority or not. When a person stood to him for his behavior, he would apologize. Then he would behave the same way again.

The bully developed a sense of entitlement over his role in the projects he managed. He would not rotate out of these roles. He would not make room for other workers to rotate into them.

After several years, the service committee for the volunteer group ended the behavior. First, the committee voted to put specific people into the jobs that the bully had taken over without authority. Second, two of the committee members took it on themselves to meet with the bully over his behavior in one specific incident. The incident occurred during the transfer of the bully’s responsibility to another volunteer. During the meeting with the bully, the two members explained that his behavior was not isolated and some members had left the volunteer program over his behavior.

The bully is still with the volunteer organization. He occasionally resorts to his old behavior. However, working with this volunteer organization is important to him. He quickly responds when he becomes aware that he is repeating his old behavior and steps away from projects where he has caught himself out of line.

Sometimes people are hungry or tired. Dealing with disagreements when people are hungry or tired is never a good idea. Emotions are greater. Minds are less clear. People are more likely to make bad decisions and behave poorly. People can damage relationships for the long-term.

There is a reason people say, “Things look better in the morning.” In the morning after breakfast, people are neither hungry nor tired.

10 Reasons People Change Jobs

Just because you are unhappy with your current job does not mean that you should get a new one. There are reasons to stay where you are even though you might be happier somewhere else.

Companies increase vacation time and other benefits with time.
Marketability increases with a stable employment history.
Seeking a new job is stressful.
Starting a new job is stressful.
Changing jobs does not guarantee that you will be happier.
Changing jobs is stressful.

As a recruiter, I need to know why people want to leave their job, because that information tells me what they would be seeking in a new job.

People change jobs, because they believe that a new job will give them things they cannot get where they are working now. For example, I left Polaroid Corporation, because I wanted to control where I live and I wanted to tie my income to my performance.

1. Location: Job seekers want more affordable housing, better climate, more appealing culture, safer conditions, better schools, a different lifestyle, or to live closer to their family.

Changing jobs and changing location takes planning and careful consideration. Both changes are stressful. Being able to interview in a different location from where you are working is difficult. As an applicant who is in a different market, you are less competitive than applicants who have the same credentials but do not have to travel to interview or move to start to work.

Some job seekers I have worked with have scheduled vacations and then tried to schedule interviews around their vacations. The better approach is to schedule interviews and then take vacation time to make those interviews. Employers conduct interviews based on their hiring needs not based on the vacation schedule job seekers.

2. Financial needs and wants: You are making less money than you need or want. As your life changes, your expenses change. You get married or divorced. You have children. You replace your car. Your household expenses increase. Your interests change. You have new things you want to do. You want a better lifestyle and more disposable income.

If you have a job, protect it with continued hard work. In your spare time, begin to research how you can find jobs that fit your skills and that pay more money immediately.

3. Fairness in the workplace: You are making less money than your coworkers who are doing the same job and have the same experience. Discussing your income with your coworkers is risky. Once you tell one coworker the amount of your income, you have enabled that person to tell other people your income.

You might take care about discussing your income with your coworkers. You might also take care about discussing the income of your coworkers with you supervisor. Some companies have policies against employees openly discussing their income inside or outside the company.

Companies can legally base income on the following factors:

Pay grade or range
Starting salary based on experience, prior starting salaries, and tenure in current job
Performance

The best way to get the most money for your work is to negotiate effectively when you join a company to negotiate effective when your go through a performance review.

If you find that your company is simply unfair, you have a good sign that it is time for a job change.

4. Promotion: You know that you can handle greater responsibility. You supervisor may even tell you are able to do bigger things. However, even when your responsibilities change, you move laterally.

Before typing up your resume to find a job that has greater opportunities for promotion, do two things. Look at the structure of your company. Is the structure deep in layers of management or flat with few layers of management? If you are in a large company with a 5-to-1 reporting structure, your opportunities for promotion are greater than if you are in a company that has dozens of people doing the same work and reporting to one person.

Look at your contribution and your skills. Is your job performance greater than the performance of your coworkers? Are your skills better than the skills of your coworkers? If not, focus on making yourself more competitive. Do a better job and develop your skills.

5. Work-Life Balance: I had a supervisor who would say that when he and I were gone, our company would still be around. He was correct. While I give 100% of my time and energy to my job during the workday, I try to remember to give 100% of my family time to my family.

All workers have to set their own priorities work-life balance. If your job prevents you from work-life balance that is best for you and your family, you have a sign that it is time for a job change.

6. Company changes: Even companies that continue to grow year after year change in terms of their quality as an employer. In addition, companies go through downsizing, takeovers, mergers, and closings. Knowing whether to change jobs before your job disappears is obviously important. The timing may depend on the circumstances. In some cases, employees get severance packages from company acquisitions.

Company financial issues should set off alarms that you need to start looking for another job. Companies do fail to pay the money they owe, including the money they owe their employees. When your company is late making payroll, bonus payments, reimbursements for business expenses, fails to pay its share to your retirement or other benefits programs, you should try to understand why.

7. Physical safety: Some of the noblest professions in the world are physically hard: Farming, construction, fishing, military, firefighting, para-medicine, policing to name a few. Clearly when you are in a job that puts your safety at risk you might consider a job change. You might develop skills that enable you to do safer work.

8. Abuse and Discrimination: When you are a victim of abuse or when you are the target of racial, sexual, political, or religious bias, you are dealing with difficult problems.

I recommend that you speak with mentors, professionals in the area of discrimination, and perhaps with an attorney. Race, gender, politics, and religion run deep in every culture, even within subcultures. Before you charge at the people who have harmed you, consider the issues for the long-term good of your career.

I had a former client whose company fired her. She was a terrific person, and I had trouble understanding why anyone would treat her the way this company had treated her. She was the only woman in a non-clerical role in the field sales department. The company hired a man to replace her.

In her anger, she said that she was thinking about suing the company for wrongful termination. I suggested that she perhaps speak with an attorney, but carefully consider whether suing the company was in her best interest. She got professional advice as well as advice from her friends and her terrific husband.

Shortly after she left that company, she went to work for a company in a job with even greater responsibility than she had at the company where she lost her job. Where she had been traveling before, she became a director in the corporate headquarters at her new company. Her job required little or no travel. She and her husband had two children. The quality of her life improved over what it had been in her previous job. She worked at that company for 20 years. She avoided the pain of a lawsuit and moved on with her life.

The person who fired her at her previous company soon lost his job, as did the general manager of the division of the company where she worked. She was fortunate. I recommend that anyone seek excellent guidance before on issues of personal discrimination.

9. Ethics: You find that you cannot do your work, because you have ethical conflicts with the role. You feel that you cannot trust your company and its management for the products they make or services they offer. You find that you are in a position to lie or represent managers who lie. You have concerns for your reputation.

10. Relationships: Despite your efforts, you cannot get along with your supervisor or your coworkers.

Before moving on to the next job, make a list of your personal values. When you work with people who share your values, you will find you have fewer conflicts.

Then do some research on the Internet. Using social and business networks, you can learn a great deal about the people at a company. When preparing for an interview, ask people you trust what they know about people and the culture at the company where you are interviewing.

How to Turn Down A Job Offer

12 Reasons Why Junior Military Officers (JMO) Should Avoid Recruiters

As a junior military officer, I progressed from pay grade O1 to O3 in thirty-six months. As a recruiter, I have placed 100’s of men and women. I made a fee for these placements. I have helped many more people network their careers and got no fee for my help. The best recruiters want to help people first and make money second. The best recruiters also make the most money. For a partial list of my clients, click here.

12 Reasons Why Junior Military Officers (JMO) Should Avoid Recruiters

Based on my experience, I recommend that junior military officers transitioning from military service to civilian careers avoid recruiters.

The information in this article will help anyone decide whether to use a recruiter. The point of this article is to help job seekers avoid trading their marketability for the sake of a potential connection with a recruiter’s client.

There are great recruiters in all types of industries. There are also incompetent recruiters, unscrupulous recruiters, dishonest recruiters, and any other negative type of recruiter you can imagine.

I have no intention of praising or condemning recruiters. In this article, I take a critical position to look at the value and lack of value of recruiters. I have focused this topic on junior military officers as the basis for taxonomy. I want to examine where recruiters help job seekers and companies and where recruiters are more self-serving than they are a service to job seekers and hiring companies. Junior military officers make an ideal classification of job seeker as a basis to create taxonomy for employment service companies.

Countless recruiting firms place military officers. These firms make a lot of money putting military officers into civilian jobs. What is the harm in junior military officers working with third-party recruiters when making a career transition to civilian life? I will let you decide. I list twelve things to think about in this article. You will find other things discussed in articles on the Internet.

Junior military officers do not need recruiters

Google search. You will see articles from Forbes, Harvard Business Review, CNN/Money, Business Insider, and others explaining why so many leaders have gone from the battlefield to the boardroom.

The second issue is the nature of applicant pooling.

If highly marketable applicants go to a job fair and everyone at the job fair has equally strong credentials, the applicants have eliminated any advantages they have in the talent pool. If junior military officers engage recruiters who specialize in placing junior military officers, these JMOs have gone from sharks to shiners. They become one in schools of fish that mesh together with little personal identity. Do you want to lose your identity in the job market?

Recruiters do not find jobs for people.

Recruiters find people for jobs. The difference is that hiring companies pay recruiters 20-30% of the first year’s salary. The job seeker pays the recruiter nothing. If a job seeker paid a recruiter $10,000 to $30,000 or more to find the job seeker a job, the relationship would be very different.

Working with recruiters takes time.

Members of the military and job seekers in general have other, sometimes better resources that take less time.

For example, junior military officers and other veterans have job search help that is not available to nonmilitary job seekers. Using Google search and enter the phrase “government programs for jobs for veterans” or other similar wording in Google search.

On LinkedIn, job seekers can search the phrase “junior military officer” or search the names of branches of the service. In the results of the search, the profiles of former military officers include the name of the companies where these people work today. Using that information, job seekers can search job boards for job listings with those companies. Even better, job seekers can make direct application to the companies where the former military people work.

Nearly every company has job listings on their website. Sometimes companies list jobs under a tab on the website menu. Other companies list their jobs in the “About” section of the website.

Recruiters charge the hiring company a fee.

Job seekers who connect with hiring companies through a recruiter cost 20-30% more than job seekers who come to the company directly.

The extra cost is in the recruiter’s fee. When the hiring company has two equally strong applicants and one costs 20-30% more the first year of employment, the hiring company will hire the less expensive, equally qualified applicant.

Recruiters present the jobs that they want you to take.

You need to look for jobs that are in your best interest. Most recruiters do have your interest in mind when they refer you to a job. They do not want you to take the job and then quit. However, recruiters can only show you the jobs they have to fill. Some will put a persuasive hard sell on you to push you into taking one of those jobs. These recruiters behave like cattle herders. Their real interest is just getting the cattle to market.

The better approach is to plan your career. Make a list of the answers to these questions.

With this approach, you will end up with a job that you want and enjoy.

Confucius: “Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life”

The seventh issue is employer perception.

If you find a hiring company and show that you offer solutions and opportunities that the company needs and may not have without you, you become a different person from the person who came in with the rest of the herd in the recruiter cattle drive. I had one client who hired two-dozen people from me. The best person she hired was a person who came to her directly and presented a business plan to improve her company’s customer loyalty programs. She hired this person for a job that did not exist before he came to her company.

Recruiters who specialize in placing junior military officers have no special industry-specific value.

For example, I have close to 40,000 connections in my database. Some of my connections are CEO’s and business owners I have known for over a decade. These people are all in the consumer products industry.

Occasionally, highly marketable people contact me who cannot get where they want to go through my network. I let them know that my network just does not offer the value they need for their career.

Junior military officers have distinctions similar to the distinctions of graduates from the top ten universities. The JMOs have credentials that are not industry specific. A recruiter in this process adds no value.

However, once junior military officers gain industry experience, working with a recruiter with dynamic connections in that industry offers real benefits to the JMO and any other job seeker.

Recruiters cut applicants from the process based on the recruiters’ perception and convenience.

In the process of referring applicants, recruiters base decisions on their perception of what the hiring company will hire. Recruiters also stop referring applicants when they believe they have the job filled with the applicants they have already sent to the hiring company.

Recruiters contribute little value as career coaches to junior military officers.

I have 100’s of articles on this website on how to write a resume, how to dress for an interview, how to interview, how to negotiate job offers, and other job-seeker topics. I add more articles weekly. To find a helpful article, just enter any subject in the search field at the top of this page.

You can also find information on these subjects on other great websites.

When you interview, you should prepare by researching the company and the people you will meet. That information is on the Internet.

Rather than spend your time over at the corral with the recruiter, take a few minutes a day to research the things you need to know for your job search.

Working with a recruiter guarantees the job seeker nothing.

Recruiters have contracts with hiring companies. The terms and conditions of these contracts guarantee certain conditions to the hiring company. When applicants use a great deal of time in emails, phone calls, and perhaps personal interviews with a recruiter, the applicants expect to get interviews through their effort. However, the recruiter guarantees applicants nothing.

If you have plenty of time to do the things that will really get you a job and still want to work with a recruiter, certainly contact a recruiter. However, do not expect any guarantees of anything.

Recruiters work with your competitors too.

Recruiters will ask you for referrals. They will ask you for information about the companies where you are interviewing. Giving recruiters this information hurts your chances of getting interviews. Because the recruiter is working with your competitors in your job search, any information they ask from you about your connections or your job search efforts is a conflict of interest.

If a member of the United States military gives information about our military to a foreign nation, even an ally, the person compromises our national security. If a member of the military of a foreign nation even asks a member of our military a question about United States military operations without a need and clearance to know that information, the foreign military person is behaving suspiciously. Yet some recruiters will probe for competitive information that benefits them and works against the job seeker.

In conclusion, there are great recruiters in all types of industries.

There are times when some people just will not find a job without the help of a recruiter. There are some circumstances where recruiters serve themselves and not the job seeker. Junior military officers are mature, intelligent, and marketable. They can find a job by applying directly to hiring companies. It is in their best interest to do so. However, once junior military officers gain industry experience, working with a recruiter with dynamic connections in that industry offers real benefits.

“The World’s Noblest Headhunter” in San Diego, CA.

Illegal Job Interview Questions

I am not a lawyer.

It is illegal for an employer to base a hiring decision on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. However, employers must verify that all employees are eligible to work in the United States.

If you are interviewing for a job and the employer asks you a question about one of those factors, you may find yourself in an awkward spot. You can always ask the interviewer what the question has to do with the qualifications of the job. You may also ask yourself whether you want to work for a company that would ask you any of those questions.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is the federal agency that oversees employment discrimination. (1)

“The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is responsible for enforcing federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate against a job applicant or an employee because of the person’s race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information. It is also illegal to discriminate against a person because the person complained about discrimination, filed a charge of discrimination, or participated in an employment discrimination investigation or lawsuit.”

The guidelines from The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission specifically list the laws pertaining to the factors that are illegal requirements for consideration for employment. (2)

“Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII), which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin;

The Equal Pay Act of 1963 (EPA), which protects men and women who perform substantially equal work in the same establishment from sex-based wage discrimination;

The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), which protects individuals who are 40 years of age or older;

Title I and Title V of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, as amended (ADA), which prohibit employment discrimination against qualified individuals with disabilities in the private sector, and in state and local governments;

Sections 501 and 505 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which prohibit discrimination against qualified individuals with disabilities who work in the federal government;

Title II of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (GINA), which prohibits employment discrimination based on genetic information about an applicant, employee, or former employee; and

The Civil Rights Act of 1991, which, among other things, provides monetary damages in cases of intentional employment discrimination.”

However, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) requires that all employers verify their employees’ legal status to work in the United States. The specific method of verification comes from the requirement of all employers to complete the following form for all of its employees. (3)

“Form I-9 is used for verifying the identity and employment authorization of individuals hired for employment in the United States. All U.S. employers must ensure proper completion of Form I-9 for each individual they hire for employment in the United States. This includes citizens and noncitizens. Both employees and employers (or authorized representatives of the employer) must complete the form. On the form, an employee must attest to his or her employment authorization. The employee must also present his or her employer with acceptable documents evidencing identity and employment authorization. The employer must examine the employment eligibility and identity document(s) an employee presents to determine whether the document(s) reasonably appear to be genuine and to relate to the employee and record the document information on the Form I-9. The list of acceptable documents can be found on the last page of the form. Employers must retain Form I-9 for a designated period and make it available for inspection by authorized government officers. NOTE: State agencies may use Form I-9. Also, some agricultural recruiters and referrers for a fee may be required to use Form I-9.”

DISCLAIMER: I am not an attorney.