Sometimes more really is better! Rather than focus on just one question from a reader this week, I’m publishing 5 short, in-your-face questions (and maybe contrarian answers) about job search culled from my huge collection. Hope you find one Q&A that gives you an edge in your job search!

Question 1

in-your-face-questionsI’ve been a fan of your newsletter and website for years. I know that networking and making connections is the best way to find the right job. In a perfect world, I’d love to bypass the recruiting machine. Sometimes, though, I come across a job posting that I want to pursue. How do I increase my chances inside the machine?

Nick’s Reply

I love it when readers answer their own questions! Skip that job posting, and go around. Invest the time to triangulate. Find people who work at your target company or who do biz with the company. Ask their advice and insight. Keep it up until someone makes an introduction for you.

If you can pull this off, it’ll pay off because managers tend to hire through trusted referrals — not job postings. The job boards have brainwashed people to think you must fill out the form. That’s nonsense. You only have to fill out the form if you don’t want to do the extra work to stand out.

You can’t increase your chances “inside the machine.” For inspiration and tips check out this article: Ask The Headhunter Secrets in A Nutshell.

Question 2

At this point I can only choose between a contingency recruiter or direct application to the company. This company is ill-equipped to recruit talent on its own, so it has resorted to outsourcing talent acquisition. I have been always told to default to the recruiter. I know for a fact that this recruiter cannot sell me better than I can sell myself! If I apply direct, then I feel that I have a better edge in terms on salary/compensation negotiations. Am I missing something?

Nick’s Reply

You’re missing one thing: This is not about choosing between the recruiter and “applying” on your own. Both are insufficient. The best option is to talk to the hiring manager before you do anything else. First, get to the hiring manager. Then, be ready with what to say.

In my PDF books, I do a lot of “How to Say It.” So here goes:

How to Say It:
“Hi – I understand you have a position open. I don’t apply for jobs unless I know there’s a high likelihood I can bring something to the manager’s bottom line — and that’s rarely clear from a job description. Do you have a couple of minutes to talk about what you need your new hire to actually pull off in this job? If I think I can help, I’d be glad to interview. If I can’t, then we shouldn’t take this any further.”

Only a dope of a manager would dismiss that offer. Of course, if the interview is with a personnel jockey, you may be wasting your time to begin with.

Question 3

With so many different options now when filling out applications, what looks best? Applying via LinkedIn or filling out the application and attaching relevant documents? If a cover letter is optional, attaching it or not attaching it? Attaching extra portfolio pieces to an application, even if it doesn’t call for them?

Nick’s Reply

None of the above. Let’s flesh out my reply in Question 3 and understand the problems job seekers really face.

Automated applications are designed to herd cattle. It’s not only you that’s frustrated with these meat-grinder “applicant tracking systems.” . Check this video from PBS NewsHour.

My advice: Throw out your resume. Don’t use it. It’s a lousy crutch. Instead, pick your target companies and managers. Do the work to get in touch with them. Talk to people that know them. Get introduced. Yes, this is a lot of work — but so’s that great job you want. Why gamble on a database to win it?

To really understand why you face this problem to begin with, you must understand the HR problem: Systemic Recruitment Fraud: How employers fund America’s jobs crisis.

Automated hiring and job hunting are, in my opinion, the biggest fraud committed in our economy. It doesn’t work, then employers blame you for not being qualified enough to make it through the key word algorithm.

Sorry to rant, but your question (not you) reveals just how broken America’s employment system is. Please — go meet people. 40%-70% of jobs are found and filled through personal contacts. Why try an application system that turns you into a cow being herded into a pen?

Question 4

How do you handle those inane questions — “What’s your biggest weakness?”, “Where do you see yourself in 10 years?”, “Why do you want to work here?” — that HR people seemingly have branded onto their brains?

Nick’s Reply

Ah, the Top 10 Stupid Interview Questions.

Try this.

How to Say It:
“I’d be happy to answer the classic interview questions, but with your permission I’d also like to actually show you how I’d do this job for you profitably. Would you please lay out a live problem or task — something you’d want me to do if you hired me — so I can show you how I’d go about it? If I can’t show you how my approach would make your department more successful/profitable, then you shouldn’t hire me.”

If the manager can’t handle that, ask yourself what you’re doing there. (Of course, if you can’t do the above demonstration, you don’t really have any business in that interview, do you?)

Don’t worry about your answers to those Top 10. Just do your best on them. Then move the manager on to what really matters.

Question 5

What advice do you have for job seekers who have “golden handcuffs”?

Nick’s Reply

Make the choice: Do you want what you have more than you want something else? Life is short. Sometimes the only way to find what you really want is to stop doing what you’re doing — and give up the bribe of a high salary that keeps you from doing what’s better for you.

Your employer has put those cuffs on you, so we know you’re already pretty unusual and you know it. No one would have invested in putting those golden handcuffs on you if you weren’t incredibly talented. I think the mistake you might be making is to believe that the one who put those cuffs on is the only one that really recognizes what you’re worth.

No one defines your value — they just buy it. Your value is in who you are and what you can do. My guess is, you can do it again elsewhere or totally on your own. Trust yourself and choose.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this 5-question summer slam as much as I have!

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8 Comments
  1. Nick,

    I love the precision and kindness with which you write like in Q3’s response “Sorry to rant, but your question (not you) reveals just how broken America’s employment system is”

    Enjoy the summer!

  2. Thanks, Pedro! Job seekers catch enough of the blame for HR’s inability to fill jobs. “Candidates just don’t have the right skills!” It’s total nonsense. The problem is that HR doesn’t assess job candidates. It chews on non-nutritious key words. HR “lets the algorithms do it.” HR hasn’t gotten its butt up from its LinkedIn chair in front of a computer display in generations to actually go out and meet the professional community it wants to recruit from! It’s all about diddling databases and playing the job-posting lottery. HR does not recruit. HR settles for who comes along. That’s not how to hire for competitive advantage.

    Meanwhile, HR instructs job seekers to facilitate HR’s ineffective armchair recruiting by telling them the way to apply is with a LinkedIn profile and via ATS online application forms.

    NOT.

    Job seekers aren’t failing. It’s largely on HR, and HR’s failure is dragging down the economy. So I’m calling HR out.

  3. Your Q4 reply looks like you want us to volunteer to solve problems without being paid.

    • @Wes: I never advocate doing free work. In fact, I often warn against it. Please re-read what I wrote:

      “so I can show you how I’d go about it”

      Outline or suggest a cogent approach to the work. Show how you’d go about it. Just enough to hook them. If they press for details, quote them your daily rate and smile. “If you’d like me to work on this until you fill the job.”

      • Excellent.
        This is also an opportune time to inquire about their compensation policies. If they refuse to be upfront, call then on it and ask if they want to you to opaque regarding your skills.

  4. Look at this article today. Here’s a company that hired a North Korean hacker who used an AI generated photo. You can’t make this up. They didn’t even have the guy show his face on the camera.

    So now while people are losing their houses, unable to get jobs good people… North Korean hackers just use fake photos and lie like crazy and HR people are like okay.

    https://www.pcmag.com/news/security-firm-discovers-remote-worker-is-really-a-north-korean-hacker?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR2dCyOvM7gDr4g2-xJMmd2yzdZthRcBkhCpV29zCeu68lawoy_eRXTumfg_aem_exKvnSy2Al57f_x_CzDmHg

    • @Juanita: HR’s automated processes are just begging to be hacked.

  5. Nick, these are all great answers except one.

    I think you completely missed the point and offered a [great and well-articulated ] solution to the completely wrong problem for Question 2.

    The problem is NOT how to get hired by this company that so blatantly cares so little about its employees that it can’t be bothered to invest in doing its own recruiting and hiring even minimally; the problem is that this company doesn’t give a damn about its people and therefore NO ONE should want to work there at all!

    That place will be hellish and abusive and exploitative to all the people it touches. The job seeker who wrote in needs to recognize the sea of red flags waving in front of them from that morass of a “hiring process” and run fast and far from that nightmare company!

    This company desperately needs someone, or else they wouldn’t be prying loose a dime to hire anyone, so they are putting on their BEST face and behavior to woo you. If you “marry” them, things will only get dramatically worse because they’ll have “caught” you and any pretense of “wooing” will abruptly disappear.

    Drop this zero of a company and keep your eyes open for the hero you deserve instead!