Monthly archive for September 2024

Question

Ask The Headhunter was recommended to me by one of the folks who is helping me in my job search. It’s really been beneficial and I thank you. I hope you can help me with a potentially nasty reference.

I am unemployed due to a “Reduction in Force” at the small start-up company where I was working. I was fired from my job previous to the start-up company. I had the worst boss in the world. I did a great job that everyone (including the boss at one point) acknowledged, but ultimately I was fired.

How should I handle questions in the interview process about why I left that job? I’m not certain, but if they call that employer and ask if I am eligible for re-hire, the human resources (HR) office would say no. Thanks for any help you can give.

Nick’s Reply

Thanks for your kind words about Ask The Headhunter and welcome to the Newsletter. Your question has two parts: how to handle interview questions about why you left a job, and how to deal with a potentially nasty reference. My advice about the first: How much to say about getting fired.

As to the second, your references from the start-up will count for a lot. Pay most attention to those. A Preemptive Reference from someone there could quickly solve your problem.

Companies are pretty careful about giving references nowadays because they can get sued. If you believe your termination was improper, you really should see an attorney. Even if there’s no lawsuit or cash settlement, you may be able to get the company to “clean up” your file. This could mean a lot to you in the coming years.

Is a nasty reference lurking?

While your old HR office might give out nothing more than your dates of employment, a prospective employer could poke around in other corners to find out why you left the job. You might be able to hire a reference-checking service that will report back to you after they make inquiries. In any case, assume the worst and prepare to counter any nasty reference. Your challenge is to produce a couple of references from people you worked with at that company – or people who know the company – who will say good things about you. That will put things into context.

But, you might be able to do even more to de-fuse one vindictive boss.

Get a reference about the nasty reference

I once placed a manager whose ex-boss provided this reference: “He’s a bum. Can’t be counted on, doesn’t do a good job, and I’d never recommend him to anyone.”

My guy got the job because I produced another reference who casually explained that the candidate’s boss was not credible. After providing a good reference, he volunteered, “Oh, by the way. If you talk to your candidate’s last boss, let me give you a word of advice. He’s a kook, and I wouldn’t be surprised at anything he says. He hates everybody who ever left his team.”

You might be able to do something with this, if your old boss is known to others as a backstabber.

The indirect reference

Let’s go back to what to say in the interview about that old job, if it comes up. My advice: say as little as possible. Focus instead on the job at hand, and introduce what I call “an indirect reference.”

How to Say It

“I want to work in a company where I’d be proud to be an employee. I didn’t feel that way about that old company. John Jones has told me a lot about your company, and I’ve checked you out through other contacts. What I’m told consistently is that you value and reward hard work. I’d like to show you how I believe my expertise in XYZ could be applied to make your business more successful and at the same time provide me with the kinds of opportunities that are important to me.”

Make it a matter of trust

It’s critical that you develop contacts like “John Jones” – credible mutual contacts you can cite who will stand up for you. An employer will take you seriously if a trusted mutual contact recommends you indirectly. So, before you interview with a prospective employer, do whatever it takes to make those links to establish your credibility.

That’s how you preempt any negative comments from one bad boss. Make sense? Try it.

Have you ever been nuked by an unfair nasty reference? How did you learn about it? Were you able to deflect it?

: :

Question

How relevant do you really think the required experience is on a job description?

I have almost three years of professional experience in addition to my degree. A company wants to interview me for a job, but it is a managerial position. I do not yet know if that means supervising other employees or not. The job description asks for at least 10 years experience.

They have my resume, which clearly describes three years experience. They called me, so they must be interested in at least talking to me. I really want this position, so I will be reading up at Ask The Headhunter. I have done the “job duties and responsibilities” before, and I feel comfortable with all of it, but I haven’t done it for 10 years.

Is there anything in particular I should stress in the interview? Something that will help them to see I am capable of handling the increased responsibilities? I know that my age is working against me on this one. Do you think I have a shot?

Nick’s Reply

Ah, a case of “reverse age discrimination!” You’re too young! I wonder how many older readers would trade places with you, swapping the kind of discrimination you face with what they’ve encountered. In a sense, it’s all the same, and it’s silly. What matters is not a number of years but the ability to do the job profitably, and that brings us to the question of experience.

Companies often bend their “experience requirements” because these are just guidelines, not written in stone. You may have other qualities that are important to the company.

Preparation is indeed key. I’d start by calling back the person who scheduled the interview. Hopefully, that’s the hiring manager. (If it’s not, you must try and identify the hiring manager so you can talk with them.)

How to Say It

“I’m looking forward to our meeting. Because I want to make our meeting as profitable as possible for both of us, it would help to know a bit more about the job. That way I can show you how I could apply my skills specifically to the tasks you need done. May I ask you a couple of brief questions?”

How to get past the required experience

You should have no more than two or three very specific questions ready, all of them pertaining to the work. For example, “Will this job involve managing people, or only my own tasks?” and “In what way do you want your new hire to improve your operations during the first six months or one year?”

Do not ask general questions like, “What’s the job?” that reveal pure ignorance. (I expect you had a pretty good idea what the job was, or you would not have applied for it.)

Think carefully about the questions you want to ask. Keep them very brief, and make sure you focus on the work and on how you will do it. Don’t try to turn your chat into an interview. Don’t get too detailed. (Unless, of course, the manager expands the discussion.) Thank the manager and reiterate that you look forward to your meeting and to “showing you what I can do for your business.”

Required experience or required preparation?

Once you know more about the position, your next chore is research. Start at the “high level” and drill down. Study:

• the industry the company is in (competition, market, etc.)
• the specific company (history, finances, products, successes, failures)
• the department (study its functions)
• the manager (can you talk to someone who might know him?)
• other employees (tap your friends – do they know anyone at the company?)

For each of these ask yourself, what problems and challenges does each “level” face? How would you tackle these? (It’s okay to speculate and have some fun with this.) What would you need to know more about? What tools would you need?

The business plan

Then, prepare a brief business plan that shows how you’d apply experience you do have to accomplish the tasks in this job. Break down the necessary tasks, and how you’d do them. After all, any job is really a small business unto itself, and it requires a plan. If you lack a skill, that’s okay, but explain how you’d get the help/tools/info you’d need to learn to do it. Try to figure out how your method for doing the work would be profitable to the company. That is, how would it increase revenue or lower costs?

(You don’t need anything as extensive as this outline for a business plan, but it will give you some ideas.)

Employers aren’t good at mapping a candidate’s skills and experience to a job. If you do it for them, the payoff to you can be tremendous because no other applicant is likely to attempt this. That’s the single best thing you can do to “help them to see I am capable of handling the increased responsibilities.”

This kind of approach has been shown to work again and again, assuming you’re talking to a manager who “gets it” and isn’t just looking for warm bodies who will just follow orders.

This article may help: The Basics: The New Interview.

It’s a lot of work, but if you really want that job, be ready to show exactly how you’re going to do it.

Yes, you have a shot. The interviewer won’t get stuck on your age — or on your insufficient experience — as long as you’re ready to control the interview by focusing on the work that needs to be done and how you’re going to do it. That’s what a good manager really wants to see.

Did you have all the required experience for the job you were hired to do? If not, how did you convince the employer to hire you? What is as — or more — important than years of experience?

: :

Question

You advise us not to say too much about why we’re interviewing for a new job, but I had no idea what kind of bias there is against people who’ve been laid off! Almost everybody I know has been laid off at some point, including my last boss, so I saw nothing wrong with saying I was laid off when interviewing. But I see a trend — as soon as I disclose being laid off (just being honest!), the meeting goes south. Then I read this article in SFGATE that says managers and recruiters think you’re damaged goods and “table scraps?” For real? I’ll never say I was laid off again! Please read the article. Are HR people and managers really so stupid they disparage and reject anyone who was laid off?

Nick’s Reply

When it comes to assessing job applicants, yes, most (not all) managers and personnel jockeys (especially recruiters) are pretty stupid. I think it’s because, first and foremost, they’re lazy. After indiscriminately soliciting thousands of applicants via “fire hose advertising” (a.k.a. cattle calls) they need a quick way to reject as many of those applicants as possible. If you’ve been downsized, you must be no good. On to the next applicant, because applicants cost nothing!

This is why employers complain there aren’t enough good job applicants. It’s also why I warn you not to play the cattle-call game. “And now,” says that SFGATE article, “to make matters worse, it seems that some companies view [your] unemployment status as a scarlet letter.”

Laid off? You’re somebody else’s table scraps!

The article goes on to confirm employers’ stupidity. It cites examples of managers and recruiters that:

• Equate being laid off with poor worker performance
• View laid-off workers as “damaged goods”
• Refer to their own laid-off workers as “somebody else’s table scraps”
• Characterize unemployed workers as having so much time on their hands that they “might be shopping around” and are a hiring risk because — heaven forbid! — “they might be interviewing with 20 companies”

That’s just stupid. This tells us that any company that has ever laid off any employees likely did so because it made lousy hiring decisions to begin with! (The article cites Meta’s senior HR executive as an example.)

Employer bias — or stupidity?

So, yes, I’ll say it a fourth time: Those employers and recruiters are downright and obviously stupid because they equate unemployment with being unworthy of being hired.

SFGATE cites the founder of Clutch Talent, recruiter Jovena Natal. She scolds and discounts job candidates who apply to “too many jobs” — and then complains that when she solicits thousands of applicants via job postings, 95% of them “aren’t even close to qualified.”

So who’s stupid?

The SFGATE article hints that large numbers of unworthy laid-off workers are recruiters themselves. How stupid can a recruiter be when their bias bites them in their own ass?

Laid off? What can you do about it?

So the reality is, you were laid off, and you’re being irrationally rejected for it before you even get a chance to show your stuff in an interview. What can you do about it?

Yes, you can try to avoid disclosing that you were downsized. That may help avoid rejection. But it doesn’t really help you get hired.

Stop relying on a system built on stupidity. Go around it. Ignore job postings. Don’t submit resumes. Don’t rely on LinkedIn jobs or on your LinkedIn profile. Don’t subject yourself to being judged on stupid assumptions coughed up by lazy recruiters because you’re applying for jobs impersonally.

Make your job search very personal. Being downsized is much less likely to matter to an employer if you got in the door with a strong personal recommendation that emphasizes what a great hire you’d be. A resume, an application, a profile, and your inanimate database record cannot defend you in the face of being downsized. Only a trusted personal referral can tell an employer that what you can do matters more than why you’re not currently employed.

See How to Get A Job: Get the inside track and 10 steps for personal referrals to hiring managers.

Don’t be stupid

That job you want will be hard work when you get it. So don’t join the ranks of the stupid. Do the hard work now — of getting personally and powerfully recommended for hire by someone the employer knows and trusts. It’s the only way I know to triumph over the stupidity of lazy recruiters and managers. Ironically, the normally-biased employer that hires you will probably benefit more from your efforts than you will!

Has being laid off hurt your ability to get hired? Why do you think? SFGATE refers to specific employers and recruiters with irrational biases against downsized job seekers. Where have you encountered such bias? If you’re an employer, what do you really think about downsized job seekers? Are they really not worth hiring?

: :