Archive for the Q&A Category

Question

I am now working at a company that is loosely affiliated with a large university that happens to have a prominent think tank. I have the right education for a job there. My plan is to leverage my boss’s university connections to get me an internship (or job) at the think tank. How do I go about asking for a personal referral or recommendation?

Nick’s Reply

It sounds like you’re fortunate enough to have a boss who is willing to help you with your next job. Good for you for using a contact to get introduced. While your competition will just be submitting applications, you will be the person who “got hired because they had an inside track.”

I like your approach — go for it. But remember that career change is challenging. Just because a person has the right education and qualifications doesn’t mean they are useful to the employer. You must be able to explain and prove it.

However, I would not ask your boss for a personal referral just yet, because many people are hesitant about giving out names of personal contacts. After all, giving you a thumbs-up to a colleague means putting their reputation on the line.

How to request a personal referral

First, set the stage by demonstrating that it’s about more than just “getting a name.” I’d start by asking your boss for “advice and insight” about the think tank. People often hesitate to make an introduction, but they love to share their thoughts, so start there.

How to Say It

For example, ask your boss about the organization before asking for a favor.

• “Where do the big thinkers at the think tank come from?”
• “Do employees at the think tank all have the same kind of background, or does the think tank hire more broadly?”
• “What skills and education does the think tank look for?”

Then be silent and let your boss talk. Let the discussion evolve and center on how the think tank operates, what skills its people have, and so on. Gradually, your boss will get the idea and the topic will shift to a referral.

The key is motivation

My guess is your boss will interpret your interest and your good questions as evidence of your motivation. When someone looks to me for a professional introduction, I know they’re looking for a job. But what I’m looking for is their enthusiasm and motivation; their level of true interest in the work and in the person or company I’m going to refer them to. If all they want is a job, they’re not going to impress my contact. I want them to impress — that will make me look good. So, take the time to demonstrate real professional curiosity.

If your boss does you the courtesy of introducing you to someone at the think tank, once again, don’t be pushy. Don’t jump in and ask your new think tank contact for information about jobs.

How to Say It

Start by talking shop with the person to establish a professional rapport.

• “What kinds of projects are you working on?”
• “What are you reading nowadays that influences your work?”
• “Which organizations do you think are pushing the state of the art?”

How to Say It

Express your interest on specific, relevant topics, and ask for recommendations about how to educate yourself further. Then follow up with:

• “If I were interested in working for the think tank, what would you suggest I do to prepare myself to be a good candidate?”

(Of course, you should phrase the suggested questions so you’re comfortable with them. Come up with more of your own!)

Step into a professional relationship to get a personal referral

This creates the opportunity to talk to the person again later, after you’ve followed the advice offered and after studying the recommended materials. Cultivate dialogue step by step. By building a professional contact inside the think tank, you will stand a better chance of getting referred for a job. Remember that it’s best to cultivate a relationship first, and to ask for favors later.

Finally, don’t rely only on your boss for those introductions. Check this brief article for tips on making new contacts of your own: Meet The Right People.

How do you ask for a personal referral? How can a colleague or employee successfully request a referral from you? My suggestions are just a start. What would you recommend to this reader?

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Question

I have a client who has a stained record, both in regard to work experience and some run-ins with the law. She keeps getting fired when employers eventually find out. What do you suggest?

Nick’s Reply

It seems you are a career counselor or a lawyer or a recruiter. Some might think your question is a joke, but I’ve encountered a number of people who can’t get or keep jobs due to serious problems in their history.

What you must ascertain is whether your client is truly ready to straighten out her life. When a person is serious about cleaning up their act, they can help themselves by taking a few common sense steps. If they expect they can keep playing games with their reputations, then neither you nor I can help them.

You don’t say what, exactly, this stained record is, so I’m going to assume it doesn’t involve violent behavior or anything that could put an employer or other employees at bodily risk. (Of course, there may be other risks.) But you will have to judge whether this person is redeemable and safe to work around.

I’ll offer some tough-love advice I’ve given to ex-convicts, alcoholics and addicts, people who’ve been fired for cause, and worse. It’s painful, and it’s not easy, but it can work if a person is diligent and sincere. Here’s what I’d tell her.

1. Fess up.

If you have a stained record, you must disclose to the employer your past problems, though you need not do it until you have a job offer. But under no circumstances should you accept a job without coming clean. Failure to disclose is what gets you fired, and every time you’re fired you go deeper into the abyss. The law may not require disclosure, but you asked my advice — this is what I would do to demonstrate I have integrity.

2. Get recommended.

Face it: An employer is right to be worried your problem will become their problem. It takes a powerful personal recommendation to help an employer get over that fear. This means you must cultivate good recommendations — people who will put their names on the line to endorse you.

I said this wasn’t easy. But you must find one or two people whose word the employer will trust. Then have them call the employer to recommend you — don’t wait for the employer to make that call. If you don’t have such references, take a low-level job and perform well, until you’ve made your boss and your co-workers believers who will speak up for you. Then, don’t make your references regret sticking their necks out to help you overcome your stained record.

3. Ask for guidance.

When you disclose your problem to the employer, you must also ask them to tell you what you must do to help them trust you. As long as it’s not illegal, unethical, or injurious to you or others, do it. Your mistakes are costing you. Pay the price and move on. Taking such guidance from the employer makes you partners. Be ready to be judged. Don’t let the employer down.

4. Make a commitment.

Once it’s clear what the job is and what the employer expects of you, look them in the eye and say, “I will make a commitment to you to do X, Y, Z [whatever the job and the employer require], and I will not fail you. If you’re not happy with me or my performance at any time, I will leave without you needing to fire me. But that will not happen. I will make sure you are happy with me and my work. That’s my promise.” Again, the law may not require such a commitment, but it’s what I’d do.

Since your client will also have to explain why she got fired, I suggest she read this article: How much should I say about getting fired? The comments from my readers are even better than the article.

Break with your stained record

There’s nothing magic, fun, or easy about cleaning up a stained record. Your client must take her lumps, be honest, cooperate with an employer, and then deliver on her promises. I wish her the best. My compliments to you for trying to help her.

Some may take issue with the “take your lumps” suggestions I offer. Some might view this as too risky for the employer, or unfair to the job seeker. I believe it’s worth considering helping anyone willing to try to fix their lives, but no one should do anything they think they shouldn’t, even if I suggest it. Use your best judgment.

Have you ever had to recover from a bad reputation, whether you earned it or not? What did it take? Ever take a chance on a person with a troubled past? What did they say or do that convinced you? How did it turn out? What further advice would you offer in this case?

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Question

I’m a federal employee. The mass firings have shaken all of us up. I’m trying to keep my head down and just do my job but it’s nerve-racking. “You have just days to decide to quit and take a buyout with guaranteed pay until September” followed by “Well, there may be no budget to pay you” or “Come back to work, we didn’t mean you.” It’s all a cluster-f*ck! My boss and his boss have convened several phone calls and Zooms and I can’t believe the mixed messages! Our union is on this but I’m wondering if you have any advice on how I could protect myself.

Nick’s Reply

Now that is a tall order! I don’t pretend to be an expert in federal jobs, but here goes.

This newsletter steers clear of politics. But then again, Ask The Headhunter frequently goes head-to-head with HR — and this is probably the biggest HR cluster-f*ck we’ve ever seen.

HR everywhere can and must learn from this.

Where’s the HR management?

The question is, what constitutes HR in this management catastrophe? Is it Elon Musk? Is it the President? Is it DOGE? The Office of Personnel Management?  Does each federal agency have its own HR? Who is authorized to make HR decisions about who gets fired, how it’s done, who is “government waste,” who decides what a severance package is, etc.?

Then we have what you refer to as mixed messages — or what I call the incompetency of people that are running the joint without (pardon me) HR skills, credentials or common sense.

Everyday there are multiple “HR policy” flip-flops coming out of D.C. — though there is no indication this has anything to do with policy, and everything to do with running roughshod over millions of employees without any objectively defined justification or reason. Elon Musk (I love his cars but wouldn’t want him anywhere near my company) may be brilliant in many ways, but managing employees isn’t his strong suit! Evidence of this is in his corn pone orders that read like the beta of a first-gen AI bot wrote them. They’re obviously written by a neophyte to government who is blissfully naïve about the law.

Where is the legal compliance?

Even if every single federal employee was an example of wasteful spending, the law still doesn’t support the ham-fisted actions Musk and his DOGE are taking. Even some of the worst HR departments in the commercial sector have proper procedures for laying off workers, and rarely does it happen so quickly and without due process.

You know how critical I am of HR, but this is a perfect example where someone with an ounce of HR acumen would be welcome — at least to do what most HR execs do, and that’s to worry about compliance with the law.

So we must look at the top-most federal executive in HR, the Acting Director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Charles Ezell, who goes by “Chuck E.” on LinkedIn, a conceit that I’m guessing would get him ghosted more often than not if he were job hunting. And, ahem, 2,059 followers? Really?

As evidenced by his public profile, Chuck E. is all data architect and data jockey — with zero HR cred. There is no mention of HR in any of his skills lists. (He does have lots of keywords, but none in HR.) But why would the top federal HR dog cede key HR functions to Elon Musk? (Maybe because the DOGE pen is all data jockeys, too?)

I could be ranting about any inept, unqualified HR exec but I’m focused on this one because you asked. And, to quote my sainted mother-in-law, I’m impressed. But not favorably.

Prepare for legal action

So what can you do to protect yourself? While a federal job is different from a commercial one, there are still rules and many of the most important ones cross over. This is why the federal government is being sued six ways from Sunday by employees and unions, and it’s why you should gather legal evidence against your employer if you’re caught in this mess. (Please see The 6 Gotchas of Goodbye.)

In case you will need to file legal action, keep a diary of events including dates and times. Save all documentation including e-mails and social media posts.

Then there’s the advice of my good buddy, powerhouse employment attorney Mark Carey, whose clients are all employees, never employers. Coincidentally, Mark just published a podcast titled The Power of Recording Your Boss. Though it may be a bit repetitive, it offers some gold nuggets you can’t afford to miss.

Press RECORD

If you are in a one-party consent state, record phone calls and conversations related to your potential termination and/or to inconsistencies between your organization’s published “code of conduct” and its own behavior.

Such recordings are admissible in court and, according to Mark, can make an employee’s case: “When you record something like this… it’s a direct statement made by an employer as an admission of fact… it’s an admission against interest by an employer… it’s called smoking gun evidence and you can use it.”

One-party consent means it’s legal in your state to record a conversation between two or more people as long as just one party to the conversation (usually just you) is aware it’s being recorded. (This includes Zooms — use an off-camera recorder.) Check this list of one-party consent states; note that District of Columbia is on it. Mark Carey’s podcast provides more information about when you can and can’t record legally.

Use your phone

I’m not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. If your federal job (or any job) is at risk, and if you’re in the middle of being suddenly fired for no reasons related to performance, then this is indeed a cluster-f*ck. Prepare for possible litigation. You’re not powerless in the face of the most powerful people in the world. It may be that your own most powerful weapon to protect your job and career is your phone — just press RECORD.

Are you a federal employee? Did you get fired from a federal agency by DOGE without due process? Did your agency’s HR meet with you to discuss your job? No? What are you doing about it? Have you made any recordings to use in court?

NOTE: I’d like to hear from folks in the HR community, too. What do you say about all this?

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Question

Nick, in various networking sessions we are told that maintaining a positive attitude is the most important thing that we can do when trying to land a job. This is easier said than done for many of us. We can read positive thinking books and things like that. But what do you feel are the most important things that we can do to have a consistent positive attitude? I appreciate your help.

Nick’s Reply

I know it’s very hard to be positive when the media blast us with bad news about the employment market. And it’s discouraging when every time you apply for a job you get a rejection or, worse, you are ghosted. You’re right: Much of this is about attitude. But attitude alone won’t land a job, so I get tired of hearing that kind of advice as much as you do. The abysmal performance of online job boards and automated recruiting won’t change just because you try to feel better about it!

To land a job fix your behavior!

Behavior can be far more important than what a person is thinking. Some of the best research in psychology tells us that “thinking positive” won’t make us behave in more productive ways.

The research actually reveals that changing our behavior is more likely to improve our attitudes, than the other way around.

That is, even if you don’t feel like it (because you’re down and miserable), change your behavior anyway. Force yourself. Or your attitude isn’t likely to change. So, learn how to behave!

Positive thoughts don’t make job boards work better

I know that sounds harsh. But it’s true. Consider the classic job hunter, sitting before a computer screen all day, searching for jobs. You simply have no control because “submitting applications” behavior doesn’t work, and your misery grows.

You can follow the conventional advice to try and talk yourself into feeling “up” while submitting all those job applications, but feelings don’t control the job boards or make them work better!

So, what can you control? Start practicing behaviors that get you closer to the leading source of jobs — personal contacts. (One of my favorite reports about this is from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.) I know it’s hard to make this switch, mainly because of the “ease” of using the job boards.

Change behavior to feel positive – and to land a job!

How can you meet more people connected to the businesses you want to work for? Where do they hang out? What can you say to them? I’ve offered specific suggestions in these columns, so I won’t repeat myself. (For some helpful tips on what to say to “insiders” when you find them, please see this brief article: Interview Me: How to Say It.)

But sometimes, the best ideas come from yourself. Get a piece of paper. Forget about finding a job. Make a list of where you can go (online and in real life) to meet people connected to companies you want to work for. (I like doing this on paper because you can keep it in front of you no matter what else you’re doing.)

Then change your behavior: Go there and talk to them.

Relying on job boards is bad behavior. I think you will find that being with people who do the work you want to do is the best behavior you can engage in when you need to land a job. Talking with them about their work, their employer, about who in the business they like and respect — these are behaviors that will quickly trigger a positive attitude. And your attitude will get even better when your new buddies introduce you to other real, live humans who share your interests — and who can introduce you to your next job.

Does trolling the job boards and applying for hundreds of jobs give you a positive attitude? Is it good behavior? If the job boards get you depressed, how does that affect your job search? What do you think are the best behaviors and attitudes for a successful job search?

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NOTE: There was no newsletter or Q&A column last week due to the onslaught of multiple snow and ice storms in the northeast. Newsletter production was supplanted by 15 hours spent digging out!

This edition is in memory of Bob Stomber, my friend and a founder of the Career Forum job-search group at the Somerset Hills YMCA in New Jersey. Bob was a generous man; generous with his time and knowledge, in his judgments of others, and with his good advice. He put a lot into the Forum purely as a volunteer who never expected anything in return except perhaps friendship. Bob touched a lot of lives and made a real difference to them. I did many presentations to the group at his request and I always enjoyed working with him. Bob was pure class in every way.

Question

You have one the best websites devoted to the job search and career development. I have spent over 25 years in Human Resources working for Fortune 100 companies. One of the many “dirty little secrets” in larger corporations is the pervasiveness of age discrimination. Most people in corporations know it exists but won’t acknowledge it publicly. Do you have any useful ideas for how the older candidate can solve for this?

Nick’s Reply

Thanks for your kind words and for your HR insider’s confirmation of something we all know. In many companies, discrimination against older job candidates is an unwritten policy.

Age discrimination: 3 options

As I’ve suggested before, a person has choices. You can take them to court and sue if you can afford it. But most can’t.

You can walk away and forget about it, which is what most job seekers seem to do. But that doesn’t solve anything.

My recommendation is a sort of Zen approach. Don’t fight the mountain. Go around it.

While some employers are just so biased against older workers that it’s not worth even acknowledging them, some are passively discriminatory. That is, they do it because it’s become habit — but their attitude can be altered. How? By forcing them to focus on how you will help make them more successful and more profitable. That’s a tall order. I’ll give you an example.

Age discrimination: A grey matter

When a Fortune 50 company downsized, they hired me to coach some employees on how to find new jobs. One of these people was 58 years old. He was tired of the age discrimination he faced. He tried dyeing his hair darker. He left dates off his resume and omitted his oldest jobs to hide his age. But he kept getting rejected. John was getting ready to go to divinity school to become a priest.

Here’s what I taught him to do. First, no more games with hair and resumes. No resumes at all. I helped him identify managers in companies he wanted to work for, and showed him how to contact them to discuss the problems and challenges they were facing — but not to inquire about jobs. This yielded some meetings to discuss jobs. (It’s amazing how managers hate to be asked about jobs, but when they get to know you a bit, they want to interview you. That’s why I call this a Zen approach!)

Seeing green

At the meetings, John didn’t wait to be asked about his skills or abilities. I showed him how to map out three challenges the manager was facing, and how to outline three things he could do to help. He presented this as a “mini business plan” for doing the job. He took the initiative to show the manager how his skills and abilities mapped directly to the requirements of the job. The interview turned into a working meeting any boss and employee might have.

The next time I saw him, John was beaming. He had a good job offer.

“I did what you said. Before the interviewer had a chance to process my grey hair, I had him in a discussion about how we could make his operation more efficient and get the job done with less overhead cost. Suddenly he was interested in the ‘green,’ rather than the ‘grey’ on my head!”

(For more about this approach, check a brief audio presentation from a workshop I did for Cornell University business students: “Don’t Get Hired, Get Acquired.”)

Show the manager the money

There’s no magic to this. It requires picking target companies carefully and doing a lot of preparation. You must be ready to discuss the manager’s problems and to suggest ways to deal with them. Age discrimination is indeed pervasive, but most managers are concerned first about their business success. Whether you’re an employee or a job applicant, it’s up to you to focus the manager on how you’ll do the work and how you can help. Show the manager the money.

Does this sound like a method of distracting the manager from any latent bias against a candidate’s age? It is exactly that. But it’s legit because you’ve guided the manager toward mutual success.

Unless the manager is a true age bigot, you’ll win them over with your plan for doing the job. Great hires are hard to come by. Prove you’re one of them, and age — like any other factor unrelated to performance — becomes less of an issue. Or, you can go back to choice number one and sue.

Have you encountered age discrimination yet? It’s so pervasive that if you haven’t, you will. What can you do about it? We discussed 3 options. There are certainly more. How do we help employers get past “the grey” for their own good?

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Question

Are there any statistics about the success rates of the major job boards? Thanks much.

Nick’s Reply

I’ve written about the success rates of job boards many times over the years, but it’s a question that very few people ever ask. And I’ll tell you why people don’t ask. It’s because job boards including LinkedIn actually suck so badly at filling jobs that they don’t want to talk about it. All their marketing avoids it and misdirects you with platitudes.

The job boards design their marketing carefully to imply a high-powered machine driven by AI. What they’re delivering is a ride to nowhere. The rusty euphemisms for “success rates” must have cost these firms some huge marketing salaries!

• “The most used job board!”
• “Highest user engagement!”
• “AI-driven job matching technology!”
• “Used by 83% of job seekers!”
• “We connect over 2.8 million businesses with job seekers!”

Any business that can’t proudly show you it can actually accomplish what you’re paying it to do — at least most of the time — is hiding a big problem.

Here’s what a recent an AI chatbot (CoPilot) reported in response to my query (I added the underlines, italics indicate the chatbox is talking.):

“Are there any statistics about the success rates of the major job boards?”

Yes, there are some interesting statistics about the success rates of major job boards. Here are a few key points:

• LinkedIn is the most used job search engine, with 40% of job seekers saying it’s their primary tool.
• Indeed and Glassdoor are also popular, with 83% of job seekers using online job boards in general.

It’s “their primary tool” and 83% of job seekers use job boards. But how many get jobs that way? (I don’t think the boards work any better today than they did 15 years ago, when employers cited leading job board CareerBuilder as their source of hires 5.3% of the time.)

I followed up with this gripe to the chatbot (I’ve underlined the deepest B.S.):

“But those are not success rates.”

You’re right, I apologize for the confusion. Success rates for job boards can be a bit harder to pin down, but here are some insights:

• LinkedIn: Known for its high success rate, LinkedIn reports that 80% of employers find their hires through the platform.
• Indeed: While specific success rates aren’t always published, Indeed is widely used and trusted by both job seekers and employers.
• Glassdoor: Similar to Indeed, Glassdoor is a popular choice, and its success rate is often tied to the quality of company reviews and salary transparency.
• ZipRecruiter: Uses Al technology to match job seekers with employers, which can improve the success rate of finding the right candidate.

Let’s review the marketing drek the chatbot turned up.

“…Known for its high success rate”? This sounds like Donald Trump citing “everyone knows” to substantiate a patently ridiculous claim. And 80% of employers find hires via LinkedIn? That could mean 800 of 1,000 employers each find one hire per year. Is that success or doubletalk?

“…widely used and trusted…” Evidence? Well, blame the chatbot, which might not distinguish marketing-ese from facts.

“…a popular choice…success rate is often tied to the quality of company reviews…” Really?

“…AI technology… can improve the success rate of finding the right candidate.” Just quote us the success rate if it’s true. But it’s not, is it?

I tried asking another way, in an effort to be fair to any job board that might actually be playing the game transparently:

“Does any job board report how many jobs it fills?”

Some job boards and recruitment platforms do report metrics related to job fill rates, but it’s not very common. For example, platforms like LinkedIn and Oracle’s recruitment tools provide various recruiting metrics, including vacancy fill rates and time to fill analysis. These metrics help organizations measure the effectiveness of their recruitment efforts.

However, not all job boards publicly share this information, as it can vary based on their business model and the services they offer.

Lots of marketing blabber — but nothing about hiring success rates. So I decided to give the big boys a chance. My next four queries asked the same question about each of four major job boards:

“How many jobs does [Indeed, LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter, Glassdoor] fill?”

The responses:

• Indeed doesn’t publicly disclose the exact number of jobs it fills annually. However, it does provide various recruiting metrics and insights for employers, such as vacancy fill rates and time to fill analysis. These metrics help organizations measure the effectiveness of their recruitment efforts on the platform.
• LinkedIn doesn’t publicly disclose the exact number of jobs it fills annually. However, it does provide various recruiting metrics and insights for employers, such as vacancy fill rates and time to fill analysis. LinkedIn’s Hiring Insights reports offer valuable data and trends to help optimize job postings and recruitment efforts.
• ZipRecruiter doesn’t publicly disclose the exact number of jobs it fills annually. However, it does provide some impressive statistics about its effectiveness. For example, 80% of employers who post a job on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. Additionally, ZipRecruiter’s Al-driven matching technology helps connect over 2.8 million businesses with job seekers.
• Glassdoor doesn’t publicly disclose the exact number of jobs it fills annually. However, it does provide various recruiting metrics and insights for employers, such as vacancy fill rates and time to fill analysis. These metrics help organizations measure the effectiveness of their recruitment efforts on the platform.

My favorite bullshit line is ZipRecruiter’s claim that 80% of employers get a quality candidate within the first day of posting a job. Do you think any HR executive that dumped millions of dollars into ZipRecruiter asked about how often it actually fills jobs? But 80% sure sounds good, doesn’t it?

We’re not saying

The highlight, of course, is that these companies have one thing in common: They don’t publicly disclose the number of jobs they fill annually.

They’re part of a highly competitive $11.5 billion online recruiting technology market. Do you have to hire a genius to help you surmise that the boards suck at filling jobs — and that’s why they don’t disclose the most critical number a customer needs to know?

It seems they devote their marketing budgets to making sure you don’t think to ask whether their products actually deliver hires! Your question is so unusual because people don’t dare ask it anymore.

Seeking further illumination (maybe I’m just blind to the wonders of job boards), I looked for other statistics about job boards. You’ve got to read Martin Lunendonk’s 65 Job Search Statistics for 2025. Useful information. Not one word about how well the boards actually work! My favorite items? “80% of jobs are filled through networking.” And “75% of resumes are rejected by applicant tracking systems (ATS).”

My standing challenge to the job boards

Here’s something I’ve never understood. All the boards started out with venture funding. Did any of those venture folks ever ask for audited outcomes analyses of a board’s performance in delivering jobs? We know VC’s want profits — but come on, folks! Don’t you look like horse’s asses when the truth drops like dung on the customers?

Over the past 20 years I’ve given the job boards — individually and collectively — a standing challenge: Disclose your audited success rates. How many jobs do you fill? How many people do you put into jobs?

Nothing doing — no answers. (For an article I was producing for PBS NewsHour, CareerBuilder once told me it fills 57% of all jobs — but declined to show me any data.) Some wags have tried to convince me “it’s not possible to track that information.“ Web analytics software can tell which side of my nose I’m scratching while I’m on my favorite websites. It knows where I am on the web, where I was 10 minutes ago and how much I spend on socks. “HR Technology” can conduct interviews over video and judge your personality by tracking your “micro expressions” and your eye movements.

Gimme a break!

The reason we know job boards suck

The reason we know job boards suck is that none of them will produce their audited success rates in filling jobs. They won’t disclose the metrics because, well, they suck.

Let’s add a challenge to HR executives — maybe one that ought to come from their board of directors: Prove to us this stuff works!  Where are the hiring metrics you use to assess the job boards and ATSes you use?

Don’t agree with me? If you run a job board, skip the euphemisms and distractions and show us your audited success rate metrics and data.

Or go kiss an AI chatbot.

How do you know job boards suck? What do you want to say to the folks who run the major job boards? What could they do to make you believe they’re worth using? What’s your success rate been when using job boards to hire or to get hired?

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Question

I am underemployed at two days a week as a dental hygienist. I used to work part-time in two practices at one time (40-55 hours a week) with partial benefits and health insurance. Now I have no benefits or insurance. I make just a little too much to get state programs. I have been in the dental field for about 20 years. I have my local newspaper’s app on my cell and I check the job listings every day. What can I do to improve my situation for employment and health insurance?

Nick’s Reply

The number of people that are underemployed is often overlooked, so I sympathize. I’m not a benefits or insurance expert by a long shot, so you’ll have to look elsewhere for specific advice about your options. I suggest starting with the Health Insurance Marketplace.

You can keep scrolling the apps on your cell to find a job, but all you’re doing is competing with more people than any dental office can hire. This is a common mistake. We all succumb to what seems the easiest way to find a job, which is to wait for one to come along in the listings. But as you’ve found, that doesn’t work. Please stop for a minute and think.

If you were a dentist, who would you hire? Someone you don’t know who responded to a job listing on an app, or someone who was recommended to you by another dentist or healthcare provider?

Where jobs come from

Hint: Depending on what survey you look at, 40%-70% of jobs are found and filled through personal contacts. So you know what you must do.

Prepare a list of every dental office in the towns and cities near yours. Then prepare a list of all medical personnel you know, no matter what area of healthcare they’re in or whether they work in a hospital or private practice. Now comes the real work. Go through your list of doctor’s offices and research them online. Most will have a website.

Who knows where the jobs are?

Which practices seem big enough that they probably have some turnover? Which seem very busy? Which might need help? (Don’t worry about whether they have job openings.)

Now turn to your contacts in healthcare. You’re not going to ask them for job leads. Ask each of them whether they know an employee or a patient at any of the dental practices on your other list. Since you’ve been in the business so long, you probably also know some of the medical sales reps who come calling at the doctor’s office. Contact them, too — they know loads of doctors. (Get the idea? You could even contact patients or anyone that would know a practice.)

Get personal to get ahead of your competition

In each case, don’t ask for a job lead. Ask about the particular office:

• How long has it been in business?
• Is it respected?
• What kind of place is it to work in?
• What kind of help does it need?

Any information you obtain this way, by getting personal, is probably more information than your competitors have. This gives you an edge and puts you ahead. (Please see Job Hunting With The Headhunter: Go around the system!)

The more you talk, the more you’ll learn. The magic question to close with is this: Would you recommend this office as a place to work? Then: Who would you recommend I talk to, to learn more about working there?

This is how headhunters operate. We talk a lot to learn a lot. We need only one solid tidbit of information, and one solid personal referral, to do business. It’s what you need to get an interview in a good office.

Insurance and benefits

I’m sure you know this already: A full-time job is more likely to get you insurance and benefits than multiple part-time gigs. Loads of employers prefer part-time workers because it lowers their total costs. Often, job postings aren’t clear about whether the job is part-time (perhaps through a contracting firm) or full-time and direct, with insurance and benefits. When you approach via personal contacts you’re more likely to learn the truth sooner — all you have to do is ask.

The solution to being underemployed is to make personal contacts. So start talking to people about the dental offices in your area, and get introduced. It’s how medical offices hire — through trusted referrals.

Going from underemployed to employed with insurance with benefits isn’t very different from starting out unemployed. Am I missing something? Have you ever gotten stuck being underemployed? How’d you get back into the mainstream? How would you advise this reader?

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This marks the 1,000th edition of this weekly newsletter, first published September 20, 2002. Over all these years, one idea continues to permeate all of Ask The Headhunter: To win a job, do the job in your interview. Everything else I write about, and everything we discuss in the Q&A and the Comments section, clarifies and expands on this idea. That’s why I chose reader John Grace’s e-mail about how he won his job by doing the job in his interview.

A reader’s story

I started a new job, and I think Nick would be proud of how I got the job.

In the interview, I did the job. I couldn’t figure out what exactly it was the company did from its website, but a mutual friend had connected us, telling the company it “needed” me.

It quickly became apparent that the company couldn’t explain its business in the interview. They knew what they did, but they spent 10 minutes explaining it in technical jargon. There and then I knew why my contact said they needed me.

I took over a whiteboard and made a very focused argument about why the company needed to be better at explaining what they do (they are a technology company). Before I was completely done, the interviewer said to stop and that he would be back in a minute.

He returned with a gentleman who was introduced as the CEO and I was introduced as “the guy you’ve got to hear.”

Within twenty minutes several other managers came into the room. Two of them asked me how I would solve their current biggest problem. The CEO stood up at the end of the meeting and said, “We’ve got to have this guy on board. Do whatever it takes.”

That’s how I started my most recent position.

Thank you, Nick. Not everyone can understand the idea of doing the job, but the ones that do are great. Those are the people I want to work for. Your book helped me to sell myself that way.

John Grace

Nick’s Reply

There is nothing easy about doing the job in the interview; nor is there any substitute for it. Your resume won’t do it, your LinkedIn profile won’t do it, and being able to answer the Top 10 Stupid Interview Questions won’t do it.

Every situation will require a different approach depending on the business and the job, and on the problems and challenges the hiring manager needs you to address.

Doing the job

The underlying idea is profound and powerful: Do the job to win the job, right there in the interview. But, to what extent and in how much detail? That‘s up to the candidate. If the candidate is not prepared to think fast on their feet like you did, I can’t help them and they probably don’t belong in that meeting because they’re not prepared.

I know: This is a very tall order, and if employers expected job applicants to do the kind of presentation you did, then more interviews would result in job offers and new hires.

But then the job boards, LinkedIn and every ATS company would go out of business. And good riddance, because today’s Employment System is a house of cards. Employers and job seekers alike should step back and let it fall because it has already failed.

Of course, much goes into preparing to demonstrate what you can do. That’s what all of Ask The Headhunter is about. (If you’re new to this, please start with the links above.)

I am honored by anyone who uses my advice to win a job and then shares the outcome. So I thank you, John, for sharing your story and for your permission to share it with others. I would have given a lot to be a fly on the wall while you did the whiteboard presentation you described! Nice work doing the job to win the job. Thank you for your story and for your kind permission to publish it!

Where did 1,000 editions come from?

When I first started Ask The Headhunter, I felt good about sharing what I knew with my readers. After all these years, I find I learn more from my readers than they learn from me. While I’ve produced 1,000 editions of weekly Q&A columns, I’ve actually answered over 50,000 questions from readers since Ask The Headhunter was born. That’s where the article-quality Q&A columns start — I edit the very best of the questions you send me that I answer.

For this enormous archive of Q&A I owe a very special thank-you to one of The Motley Fool’s founding partners, Erik Rydholm, who found my stuff on Prodigy, adopted me and gave Ask The Headhunter a chance to reach a huge audience on The Fool and America Online. I’d been getting around 10 questions a week on the Prodigy forum I started, but on AOL it grew to 50 or more. I asked Erik, “You don’t really expect me to answer every single question anybody asks, right?” Erik gave me the best advice: “Sure! You can do it! Answer every single question you get!” (The rest is yet another story!)

In a lifetime, a headhunter would not encounter all the situations and experiences that ATH readers have reported in our discussions on the website. Thanks to all who have shared their problems and challenges in finding (and filling) jobs — especially for contributing your insight, wisdom and advice in the Comments section every week! What I’m most proud of is the high standard of discourse on our forum!

Are you looking for a better job? Are you interviewing candidates to fill a job? On to the next! And please share your questions so I can get on to the next edition, too! And if you have a story or experience about Ask The Headhunter or about “do the job to win the job,” please add it to the Comments below — especially if it’s from the Prodigy or AOL days!

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Question

I had an interview over the phone since the manager was out of state. Things went okay and then he asked me to put together a 30-60 day business plan for what I would do to increase business. The idea is for us to have a face-to-face interview next (assuming he likes what I wrote, I guess).

I was very skeptical but I went along. I probably didn’t spend enough time or do a thorough enough job because I really don’t think the job is a fit, but we’ll see. I wrote up some really high-level stuff and told him there wasn’t any reasonable way for me to generate a more detailed plan on the basis of a one-hour phone conversation. Of course I thanked him for his time and told him I looked forward to meeting him.

I haven’t heard back and frankly I’m pretty lukewarm on the opportunity, but I just wonder what you think of his request. It seems a bit odd if not inappropriate to me. It also seems like a no-win situation as I’m in no position to write a meaningful business plan.

Nick’s Reply

Is this manager’s request an odd interview strategy? Not at all. In fact, it’s very smart. It’s the interview approach I recommend to both job hunters and employers. Focus on the work. And that’s what this manager was doing.

Some employers want to know what you’re going to deliver. And that’s smart. I don’t mean to offend you, but you blew an opportunity. Don’t worry: you can learn from this. Let’s look at what happened.

Sure enough to do a business plan?

“I probably didn’t spend enough time or do a thorough enough job because I really don’t think the job is a fit.”

That is your key problem. You can’t be effective with the manager’s request if you “really” aren’t sure the job is a fit. And that will sink you in any interview, whether on the phone, in person, or in the form of the business plan this manager requested. This is why I say most interviews are a total waste of time.

It’s because people aren’t really ready to tackle them properly because they’re not sure enough that they want the job.

A business plan you can defend

“I was very skeptical but figured I’d go along. I wrote up some really high-level stuff and told him there wasn’t any reasonable way for me to generate a more detailed plan on the basis of a one-hour phone conversation. Of course I thanked him for his time and told him I looked forward to meeting him.”

This is where you actually took the step that blew it. You tried to fake it with “high-level stuff.” That’s not what a manager is looking for. He’s looking for an honest plan of how you will do the job day one, week one, month one, year one. Now, such a manager doesn’t expect you to be right on the money. You don’t need to provide “the right answer.” You do need to provide a carefully thought out plan that you can explain and defend.

The point is to engage the manager; to show that you are thinking about the key issues. The manager is trying to get you to reveal your thinking process and to engage you in the work. It’s a good opportunity for a job candidate who really wants the job.

But, how can you perform at your best in an interview if you’re not sure you want the job? How can you be sure it’s worth investing the time and effort to do a good business plan? The answer is pretty straightforward: You must know more about the company, the manager and the work. Otherwise, there’s no way to build the self-motivation that would drive you to do the sort of preparation that reveals the savvy and enthusiasm the manager wants to see.

Choose carefully

Avoid the random interview. Choose your target companies carefully — and you can’t do that if you apply to hundreds of companies through those dopey online job boards.

Suppose you applied for 100 jobs and — whoopee! — they all invited you to submit business plans. How could you possibly prepare an intelligent presentation for each of them? You couldn’t. And that’s what you need to reconsider: how to choose your targets.

Engage the hiring manager

You’re asking a very valid question because you encountered a very smart manager. What could you have done after he issued his challenge? It’s only natural that you cannot produce a business plan by yourself, or with an hour’s worth of dialogue! You need more information, just as you might if you were already an employee.

You could have organized your thoughts and figured out what additional information you needed. Then you could have called him back to ask your questions. “I want to present you with a plan I can be proud of — and to do that I need some additional information.” But, that call would have required real motivation. Did you have it? Make sure you do for the next opportunity you develop.

Do a business plan, but don’t work for free!

One caution about all this. Some managers use “the business plan exercise” to get free work from job candidates. It’s rare, but it happens. A job hunter must always judge the integrity of the employer. If you provide the sample of work an employer asks for, make sure you withhold the details of the implementation part of your plan. That is, don’t give them so much that they can get the job done without you. Never work for free.

You can do this

Other than that, my view is that this manager did the right thing. He asked you to show how you would do the job profitably. My guess is that if you can target the right company, manager, and job, you’ll do a good job on this kind of task.

The problem you’ll encounter is that few managers will ask you to do something so meaningful. Your challenge is to offer it even if they don’t ask. Your mission is to educate them about what you can do. In my opinion, producing a brief business plan is a very smart way to demonstrate your worth to an employer.

You can do this. On to the next!

Seriously? You want job seekers to create written business plans for every job they apply to? Yep. Why not? This turns the entire “apply for a job” process on its head. Do you agree?

Next week: In the 1,000th edition of the newsletter a reader shares an example of how to win the job by doing the job in the interview. That’s why this edition is #999.

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Question

Can I hedge job offers? Here is the deal: I got a job offer with company A. I am coming up on the end of the interview process with company B, which I would much prefer to work for. What is the proper way to address this? Tell company B that I have an offer to get it to move faster? Or should I try to push off the company A start date to give B more time? Or, should I just start with company A then, if company B makes a good offer, quit A? I want to be fair.

Nick’s Reply

You want to be fair? What’s that got to do with the interview schedules of two companies? Fairness doesn’t come into it. (If these employers wanted to be fair, they’d coordinate their interviews for your benefit, right? Hardly. This is business.) If you try to control any company’s interview or hiring schedule you may risk any job offer from them.

Hedge job offers by making choices

You have just one binary choice at this point: To accept or decline the offer from company A.

Don’t let fantasies of fairness cloud reality. You have no other offer, and you don’t know whether you will get one. You can reject A and wait for B. If you want the A offer, then accept it and deal with B when and if they make an offer — and you don’t know whether they will.

Sometimes, you must hedge job offers for the good of your career.

Employers hedge job offers, too

Accepting the offer from A does not mean you must stop talking with B — or stop waiting for B. Do you think employers stop talking to other candidates while they wait on an answer from their first choice? Employers hedge job offers because they know people sometimes change their minds, and they wisely want to keep their options open until a new hire shows up and starts work. This hedging explains many of the “unexplained” delays of corporate hiring decisions.

Likewise, the prudent way to handle your situation is to make one choice at a time and to hedge your bets to protect your options.

Deal with the real choice

To hedge job offers is not unethical or unfair. Dealing with each choice as it comes along is simply good business. Don’t let the uncertain future confuse you about what your present choices really are.

Suppose you reject A so you can wait for B, and then B makes no offer. How would you feel? Is that fair of B? Fairness is not the issue at all.

I discuss this at length in Fearless Job Hunting, Book 9: Be The Master Of Job Offers. For a limited time, this PDF book is 50% off, as are all my PDF books. Visit the bookstore and use discount code=ATH50 when checking out!

How would you deal with staggered job offers? Is it unethical to accept an offer, only to drop it if a better one comes along? Is that unfair? Please share your experiences with us — and the outcomes.

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