Monthly archive for May 2025

Question

My name is Fxxxx Cxxxx and I am beginning a national job search. I found your information and I want to introduce myself to you. My background is that I have spent 15 years in business with five being in human resources and 10 being in technical sales and general management. I have a Masters degree from Michigan State, international experience in both Asia and Europe, detailed technical sales experience in the ultra-competitive xxxx market, “Fortune 5” experience, change leadership knowledge and new business startup entrepreneurship.

I am willing to relocate at my own expense. I am currently employed. I am seeking to get out of the xxxx business. I believe that there is a massive over-capacity in the market and it will not go away any time soon. I have a broad set of skills all anchored around my ability to influence customers to buy more and employees to contribute more. If you have any questions or would like more information please feel free to contact me at xxx xxx-xxxx. Thanks. Fxxxx Cxxxx

Nick’s Reply

I receive so many “introduction” e-mails just like this one. I believe what you are doing is a waste of time and insulting to employers. (I’m not insulted that you sent it to me, but I’m troubled for your sake.) Think about it. You’re saying to someone you don’t know and who doesn’t know you, “Here are my credentials. Now, you go figure out what to do with me.”

Managers don’t do that. As a headhunter, I don’t, either.

What good am I to you?

You don’t even say what you want to do. Again, you’re asking people you don’t know to figure it out for you. What’s truly stunning is that you have worked in human resources. You should know better.

You tout your sales expertise, but imagine that a sales manager receives the boilerplate e-mail you sent me. What your e-mail really says is, “I sell by sending out canned information to people I don’t know.” What sales manager wants a sales person who sells like that?

Yes, that’s unbridled sarcasm and it’s directed at you. Better that you hear it from me than from some manager who deletes your e-mail because you’re asking them to figure out what you’d be good for.

Is that this what job hunting has come to?

I know the economy is frighteningly uncertain. Companies are scattering their employees to the wind. Jobs are getting hard to find. Mass mailing resumes to companies you don’t know is bad enough. But if sending around random “job hunting” e-mails is a new trend, then I’m putting more filters on my Outlook.

Please, folks. Don’t demean yourselves. Dumbing down your job-hunting efforts will just make you look dumb. The only way you will inspire a manager to call you is if you identify a problem or challenge they are facing, and then suggest how you’re going to tackle it and make the business more successful. If that sounds like consultative selling, it is.

Tell them what to do with you

Consultative selling is a lot of work. But if you’re not willing to do it, why should anyone want to hire you? “Hey, I’d like you to give me a job, but don’t expect me to even know what your business is. Just bring me in for an interview.”

Managers today are very busy, sometimes frantic, trying to save their companies, their jobs, their employees and their own jobs. Why should any manager spend  two seconds reading an e-mail that reveals no interest in, or understanding of, the manager’s business?

Try this exercise: How would you convince a manager — who has no job openings — to create a new job just for you? This is a useful exercise because it requires you to discuss not your credentials, but the employer’s business. How could you apply specific skills to the business so that it would be foolish for the manager not to create new job and hire you?

Take careful aim

For your own good, pursue the jobs that you can add value to. Only you can figure out what they are. But your e-mail suggests one thing: You are hunting for a job aimlessly because you don’t know why a manager needs you. You must figure that out and explain it convincingly.

If you want a job, show an employer that its business matters to you. Entice the manager by showing how you would make the business measurably better. Because that’s how your competition gets hired.

Do you send a canned introduction to employers and wait for a response?

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Question

I am currently involved in two interviews. One is a bit stalled and the other is moving too fast. That is, one employer is moving about a week or two ahead of the other. Both have promise but I would like to slow down the faster-track interview tactfully to provide me with time to assess the other job properly. Any suggestions on how to manage the time line?

Nick’s Reply

Nice work — two deals cooking at once in today’s economy! I’d try the simple approach first. I’m sure your work schedule is very busy. Tactfully explain to the faster company that you are very interested in the opportunity and excited about continuing your discussions. Then beg off their schedule a bit.

How to Say It

“I take my work responsibilities seriously, and I can’t leave my employer in a tight spot during this very busy time. But I look forward to my next meeting with you. Could we schedule our next meeting the week of…? I guess I’m telling you that if you hire me, my job would always come first.”

(That last part might sound a bit smug! Tweak it to suit you!)

You could also explain that you are wrapping up an important project and that you could not start until such-and-such a date even if they decided to hire you and you accepted the job. This slows things down a bit more.

More interviews

Finally, if the company wraps this up quickly and makes an offer, you can put the deal on pause another way. Thank them enthusiastically and, if the money is to your satisfaction, say that. Express your interest, then ask to meet with a couple of other people in the company before you make a decision. I think this is usually the best approach.

For example, if the job is in sales, ask to meet with the operations manager and the finance manager. Explain that before accepting a job, you always check out the departments peripheral but close to sales before you make a commitment.

How to Say It

“I’d like to see how those teams affect and are affected by the sales operation, and I’d like to learn what the company’s other strengths are.”

This shows a breadth of thinking that should impress any smart manager.

Judge the risks

Of course, you could instead try to speed up the slow poke, but I’ve rarely seen that work. Requesting a slight delay is asking for a courtesy; trying to speed things up is usually viewed as presumptuous.

There is risk in all these tactics, of course. The company may be in a rush, or the manager may be put off by your attempt to control the schedule — but you can’t do anything about that. The risk is that they end your interviews. You must decide whether this approach is worth the level of control it may give you.

However, remember that if you get the postponements you ask for, it’s your responsibility to stick to the schedule you are granted. At some point, you will have to make a decision and a choice, and you may never get the offers nicely lined up anyway.

Buying time might be important, but pausing to gather important information before you make a decision may turn out to be even more important. After you explore those peripheral departments you may not like what you learn, and that may lead you to Turn down that job offer.

What can you do when faced with the quandary of staggered hiring processes? Has this happened to you? Is it possible to slow down your interviews?

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Introduction

There are lots of smart, solid HR folks who work hard to maintain high standards in recruiting and hiring. They are progressive and focused on making their companies successful. For example, they do not demand a job candidate’s earnings history prior to a salary negotiation. But the bureaucrats in HR are killing HR’s credibility — and that of the companies they work for. The submission below from an HR manager certainly does not indict all HR workers. Nonetheless it reveals a serious, pernicious problem in the field.

An HR manager’s head explodes

Dear Nick,

I have read your column frequently and am so dismayed that someone pays you to hand out this kind of information — in this instance with potential harm to a lesser-skilled candidate in need of a job.

It’s safe for you as a critic to have an opinion about why an employer may or may not have justification for requiring salary history — but if you’re giving out advice, tell the candidate how to handle the tricky situation — not how wrong the recruiter is — because he/she really isn’t.

Also, legal, illegal, schmillegal, what happens behind the closed doors of the recruiter’s office stays there and if a requirement on the application is salary history and you leave it off — there will be no interview for you.

I’ve been a VP of HR, a recruiter, a labor negotiator and a candidate, so I know from which I speak.

A good and thorough recruiter knows very well that if you employ a candidate at a substantially lesser salary than they earned, especially in a similar position, you are very likely wasting the company’s money and your time because the candidate is looking for a quick fix to unemployment while applying for higher paying jobs while they work for you. That is, of course, unless you’ve mapped out a rapid route for them to increase responsibilities and pay to a level they were at in the past. Someone else has already set the money standard that tells the candidate what they are worth — you’re merely a stop-gap and you have every right to know that before you hire them. Nice-looking people have been known to lie through their teeth to maintain their standard of living — like being able to afford food.

Some employers want the information because they believe that if you made $30,000 in your last job for a like position which for them starts at $50,000, they’d be overpaying and want the opportunity to buy you for $35,000 to start. The HR person who does that gets many kudos for their shopping moxie from their boss and gets to keep their job and go on many more shopping trips.

Your best advice to a candidate caught in the no-win situation of having the hiring manager ask bluntly, “What is your present salary?” or the all-too-intimidating, “What will it take to get you to come to work for us?” — you could suggest a response like this one that also opens the door for a very tricky question you were afraid to ask. The candidate should say to the employer:

“What’s more important is the value of the position to you. This is a great company so I’m sure you have a fair salary range already established for the job and as long as I fit into that range accounting for my experience, I will be happy. By the way, what is the range you’ve assigned to it?”

The employer probably won’t tell you the range, but will see you as confident, diplomatic, smart and perhaps his future right-hand.

I wish you well, Nick.

Nick’s Reply

Thanks for all the evidence anyone needs to justify withholding their salary information. I have no response to you. But I’d like to offer some comments to job hunters.

There is no real salary negotiation if you comply

Ever see an HR manager’s head explode, spewing the bile that drives their hiring process?

1. This is a clear example of a personnel jockey who would tell you there’s no interview if you withhold your salary history. This saves you the agony of working for a company that wants to take advantage of you during salary negotiation.

2. “…legal, illegal, schmillegal, what happens behind the closed doors of the recruiter’s office stays there…” This is the heart of the matter. It’s a tacit admission that in some companies the law is locked out of the hiring process when the abuse begins.

“…if a requirement on the application is salary history and you leave it off — there will be no interview for you.” Show me the law that says a job applicant is required to divulge their private salary history. By implying that behind those doors HR is the law, this personnel jockey reveals no qualms about threatening job candidates. This personnel jockey has the effrontery to brag that extorting salary information from a job applicant is intended to interfere with a fair and  honest salary negotiation.

We have no idea what you’re worth, but this is how we pay less

3. Not all HR folks depend on your salary history to judge you. But some do.

“Someone else has already set the money standard that tells the candidate what they are worth…” Consider the abject failure of the HR person who trusts some other company’s judgment of you as it’s reflected in the salary it paid you. If I were the chairman of the board employing that personnel representative, she’d be fired. Consider what she’s doing. If our company is recruiting someone from a competitor, she’s judging that candidate based on our competitor’s assessment. If we can’t judge for ourselves, where is our competitive edge? (And what if our competitor made a mistake?)

4. The real corruption of HR practices is revealed here: “…and you [HR] have every right to know [the applicant’s previous salary] before you hire them.” No, HR does not have that right. HR may have the right to show you the door if you don’t comply, but HR does not have the right to your private information. When candidates realize they can walk away from an unreasonable interviewer, they often do. Not all candidates are so bold or fearless, but the choice is theirs to make.

5. The arrogance of some in HR becomes clear, too. “Nice looking people… lie through their teeth… to afford food…” That’s a great way to characterize the next candidate who walks in. It’s emblematic of the dismissive attitude that candidates face when they apply for a job and when they negotiate a job offer. But judging from comments here on Ask The Headhunter, many job hunters are walking away from such nonsense.

Salary negotiation: We’ll let your last employer decide

6. So is this merely an HR problem? I think not. It’s a problem in the board room. “The HR person who does that gets many kudos for their shopping moxie from their boss…” for paying a sucker less than the job is worth just because the last employer did the same. I know that many HR professionals will be appalled by the statements this particular HR person makes. But I believe this practice is prevalent enough that it’s a problem.

But the capper is right here:

7. The job candidate is supposed to say, “This is a great company so I’m sure you have a fair salary range already established for the job…” Based on everything this crank has already told us, we know that the “fair salary range” is irrelevant. What matters is the applicant’s previous salary. Even if the salary for the job is $50K, our HR friend is going to score points with her boss by suckering the candidate. The offer will be for $35K because the candidate was making only $30K. Welcome to the workhouse.

See danger for what it is

Does anyone wonder why my readers don’t trust employers with their salary history? “The hiring manager probably won’t tell you the range, but will see you as…” …a sucker to be underpaid? All I see in this HR person’s statements is danger for the job hunter.

This kind of HR policy is why I publish Ask The Headhunter. While salary history can be discussed when and if an applicant feels comfortable doing it (it’s not inadvisable in every circumstance), something big is wrong when a Goliath of a company intimidates the little job applicant and threatens that David will never see a job if David doesn’t surrender his private information. It almost doesn’t matter that many HR operations don’t behave this way. Enough do that the problem is endemic: People generally believe they have no choice when the demand is made, and that they will be ejected if they refuse even politely.

The HR profession has some housecleaning to do. I urge those practitioners with integrity to remove the salary history question from job applications and to stop defending this practice on any level.

It’s time for responsible employers to rid themselves of representatives who abuse their roles and threaten not only the privacy of job applicants but the reputations of their companies. It’s time for HR to judge candidates on their abilities, not on their salary, and to stop limiting job offers because “The HR person who does that gets many kudos for their shopping moxie from their boss.”

Moxie indeed. What executive-level manager would brag about giving job applicants the shaft and then suggest that I should teach them to take it?

Related articles:

Can I change careers without a salary cut?

We need to know your salary because —

Keep Your Salary Under Wraps

Does your company’s HR team require a candidate’s salary history before doing an interview? Why? Do you surrender your salary information when an employer asks for it? If you decline, what do you say?

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