Try this player
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/ I purchased this book, excellent
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/basics1.htm
The Basics
1. Everything You Know About Job Hunting Is Wrong
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The Basics
You're Wrong
$30,000 Strategy
Job Hunting Skills
Mistakes That Kill
The New Interview
Back to The Basics
America's employment system is broken. It doesn't work. If it did, you'd be able to find a new job without too much trouble. Unfortunately, nowadays it's common to hear job hunting horror stories. There's the fellow who paid a Kansas firm to mass-mail his resume to 3,000 different companies. He's still wondering why he hasn't gotten one reply. Another poor soul has been getting turned down everywhere -- employers tell her she's overqualified because they're afraid she'll leave for a better job when one comes along. Then there's the insurance executive who has been on over a dozen interviews. His goal is three interviews per week. Not one offer yet.
Pretty dismal, isn't it? But look closer. These people all have something in common, something they share with most job hunters. They're following the traditional approach to job hunting. They're playing the numbers. Even the most aggressive of these, the insurance executive who is bulldozing his way into corporations for interviews, is really just gambling. He believes he has to have lots of interviews before anyone will hire him, as though there's a magic number he has not yet discovered.
There is only one job description: Produce profit.
America's Employment System is failing at its mission because American business is focused, more than ever, on work as opposed to traditional jobs. Meanwhile, the Employment System continues to choke itself on the traditional job -- spitting out millions of classified ad pages and online job postings every week, and right behind them the millions of rejected applicants whom they encourage to participate in this insensate feeding frenzy.
Is corporate America's hunger for workers satisfied? Is it done hiring? Many companies in fact aren't looking to fill empty jobs. They are leaving lots of positions unfilled -- attrition -- in an effort to reduce costs.
But don't confuse these "traditional jobs" with work. At the same time that companies are reducing their headcount they are hiring more consultants and more part time workers, and they are farming more work out to subcontractors who operate from home. What companies care about nowadays is getting the work done profitably, whether that means hiring full time workers or using robots.
Understand what managers need.
Managers want one kind of worker: the person who can solve problems and have a positive impact on the bottom line. Managers have less to spend on the resources they need, and they are increasingly measured on how successfully they (a) reduce costs, and (b) increase profits. Is it any wonder managers expect a lot from job candidates? They need workers who can help them address these two problems.
As a job hunter, is it possible to step up to this challenge? Certainly, but you can't offer the value employers need by sending them a cookie-cutter resume that focuses on your history. What a manager needs to know is how you're going to tackle the specific work he (or she) needs to have done. Job hunters on the whole do a terrible job of offering solutions to hiring managers. The most sophisticated workers, who ordinarily produce powerful solutions to problems they face every day on the job, present potential employers with a lame collection of jargon-filled historical data about themselves rather than with real help. Then they puzzle over why a particular manager hasn't extracted from their resumes the justification to hire them.
Personnel jockeys have brainwashed you.
But job hunters aren't all to blame for their zombie-like foraging for work. So-called "human resources experts" and corporate personnel departments spend billions of overhead dollars annually to promote a useless system of attracting, evaluating, and hiring people. They run want ads, solicit resumes, conduct endless man-hours' worth of screening interviews, and pretty much control a company's interaction with its professional community. These personnel jockeys have structured a system that encourages you -- the job hunter -- to keep your eye on the wrong ball. At a time in your life when you should be focused on showing an employer how your considerable talents can profit his company, personnel jockeys guide you into a maze of forms and data bases and meaningless interaction with everyone but the person who needs to hire you.
What does this mean to the job hunter? It means you're dancing to the tune of the wrong piper. Forget everything the personnel jockeys have drilled into your brain about job hunting. Ignore the "rules". They don't work. (If they did, companies wouldn't turn to expensive headhunters for help filling jobs.) Stop posting resumes and wasting hours scrolling through job postings. Ignore the weekly federal jobless claims statistics. Don't go on lots of interviews. Refuse to talk with humps whose job is to tag and file you. Refuse to answer questions like, "So, where do you see yourself in five years?" from clerks who represent companies that don't keep workers for five years.
When you start searching for a new job, place a renewed emphasis on your work and your ability to do it. That's what yields a job offer -- not your resume or clever answers to the Top Ten Stupid Interview Questions.
It's the work, Stupid.
Machiavelli once suggested that the way to succeed in any endeavor is to rely only on those resources over which you have control, and not to count on those over which you don't have control. When you send out 100 resumes, you have no control over who actually reads them (if anyone), who you will eventually meet (if anyone), or about what. That essentially random first step starts you down the road to your own interview funeral.
So what does a serious job hunter do? Start your job search the same way you start your work day: with an assessment of what work (the prospective employer's) needs to be done and with a decision about how best to apply your considerable skills and talents to getting it done profitably.
You win a job the way you do a job: by applying your work skills.
The personnel expert vs. The Headhunter
Most advice that's available to job hunters comes from so-called "human resources experts" and "career counselors". Their advice is academic; they have never earned a nickel that was contingent on winning a job offer for anyone. Whether you win a job offer or not, they collect their counseling fee, and in most cases a salary from their corporate human resources job.
Headhunters earn their fees only when they have successfully won a job offer for the candidate they have presented to the client, and after the candidate accepts the position and starts work. Headhunters' methods must work; if they don't, headhunters don't eat. It's as simple as that.
Time to enter the forest primeval. Whose advice would you rather have along?
Next: The $30,000 Strategy
http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/haresumeblasphemy.htm
Resume Blasphemy
By Nick Corcodilos
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I've looked at resumes every which way, and I just don't like them as a job hunting tool. They're just too static. They get lumped in with all the other thousands of resumes an employer receives and they provide too many reasons for an employer to turn you down. More important, they don't offer an employer any solutions, because resumes are purely historical. Who cares what you did two years ago, if you can't convince me you can do this job now?
So, I've invented The Working Resume™. It doesn't list your academic credentials or any of your prior employers. It doesn't show any of your past experience and it doesn't list any jobs you ever did. No accomplishments, no achievements or awards. (Blasphemous, isn't it?) So, what do you put on it?
A clear picture of the business of the employer you want to work for.
Proof of your understanding of the problems and challenges the employer faces.
A plan describing how you would do the work the employer needs done.
An estimate of what/how much you think you could add to the bottom line.
Now, there's a customized resume! I call it The Working Resume because it requires you to do the job, not just apply for it.
You could use this resume only once, for one employer. You would need all sorts of information before you could write it -- it would take a lot of research, investigation and careful thought. You would have to really want that job and know you can do it. Or, why invest the effort to produce The Working Resume? If the job is worth wanting, it's worth doing.
Sound like a lot of work? Well, so is the job you want. If you're not prepared to demonstrate your ability to actually do the job, why should the employer bother to interview you? (Hint: it helps if you Put a free sample in your resume.)
And guess what? The Working Resume is also the perfect script for your interview -- The Working Interview™, where you provide the employer with just what he or she is looking for: proof of your understanding of the work that needs to be done, proof that you can do the work, do it the way the employer wants it done, and proof that you can do it profitably.
In fact, once you have produced a Working Resume, you will likely have done the kind of research and made the kinds of contacts that will probably make a resume entirely unnecessary -- you will already be "in the door". (That's the point.)
I challenge anyone to write such a resume and send it to me via email.*
Imagine. Any takers?
* This is not an offer for "free resume review services". I will respond only to people who write a Working Resume™ that shows an honest attempt to apply the rules laid out above. If I'm not impressed, you won't hear from me because I simply don't have time to respond to everyone who sends a resume. No offense intended.
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http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/hafreesample.htm
Put A Free Sample
In Your Resume
By Nick Corcodilos
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Your resume probably includes one kind of information: historical data that tells an employer who you are, where you came from, and what you did. It may also list skills that may or may not be transferable to a new job. None of this information tells an employer what you can do for him. The resume leaves it up to the employer to figure that out for himself. That's no way to market yourself. But that's all the information 99% of resumes contain. That's why most resumes get no response from an employer.
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Give before you expect to receive.
It's an old marketing adage that says, give the customer a sample of your product before you expect him to buy from you. That gets the prospective customer hooked. It gives him or her a reason to want more. It also accomplishes the critical goal of proving to your customer how good your product is.
Do the same with your resume. Give the prospective employer a free sample of what you can do for him. This will get the employer's attention, and it will distinguish you as a job hunter whose goal is to do the job for the employer, rather than just to get a job.
What can you offer?
How do you put a free sample of the benefits you offer an employer into your resume?
First, you have to clearly understand what makes your work and abilities valuable to companies in your field. Don't just think about your skills. Think about how you have used your skills to help an employer succeed and be more profitable. But don't put that on your resume; that's just more historical stuff. Just because you helped your last employer is no proof that you can help me. You need to package the information in a way that says to a prospective employer: This is what I can do for you.
Before you can deliver this practical, job-offer-eliciting gift, you need to understand what an employer's needs are. That means understanding the problems and challenges his company faces. And that can take quite a bit of research. Do it. There are no shortcuts to delivering value.
Offer what's needed.
Most companies in an industry face the same general problems. You can learn about these by reading industry publications and talking with key people in the field. You find these folks by reading the articles they write, or articles that are written about them. Call them up. Or, call employees of your target company. Talk to the professional associations the company belongs to.
Dig. Talk to some of the company's customers. Talk to its competitors. You'll be surprised at what you'll learn. Use this information to figure out how you can use your skills to help solve the problems your prospective employer is facing.
Now go back to your past accomplishments. What skills did you use? Make a list of those skills to help you think about them. How did each accomplishment help your company become more successful or profitable? It doesn't have to be a huge difference that you made, but it has to be a difference that contributed to the bottom line. Now take those skills and ask yourself, how would I apply them to solve the problems and meet the challenges of the companies I want to work for?
Offer value.
Create a new area in your resume. Call it Value Offered. Put it at the beginning of your resume, under your name. In two sentences (no more than three or four lines on the resume), state the value you are offering. Be specific. You will probably have to do a separate resume for each company you approach. (It's worth it.)
These are examples of poor Value Offered statements:
"Hardworking, capable operations manager seeking opportunity for advancement." (So's everybody! But, how are you going to advance my company's goals?)
"Strong sales and marketing experience with exceptional communication skills to benefit your bottom line." (But what exactly will you do for my company?)
"I bring great value to any company because I am very good at working with people." (Too general; doesn't address a specific problem or goal of the employer. Claiming you have good "people skills" is about the lamest, most common qualification offered on resumes.)
Here are some examples of good Value Offered statements:
"I will reduce your operations costs by negotiating better deals with your freight vendors and streamlining your shipping department."
"I will increase your revenues and profitability by teaching consultative selling techniques to your sales staff, and by establishing relationships with key opinion-makers in your target market."
"I will increase your profitability by bringing programming projects in on time and under cost. I will do this by using special techniques to help your design team work more closely with your end users."
This is a lot of work; but, so is the job you want.
Get the idea? It takes a lot of work to develop this kind of statement. You have to learn a lot about the company you are pursuing, including exactly what kind of specific help a particular manager needs. (By the way: this might be your current employer, if you're looking for an internal promotion or job change.)
You could spend your time doing the necessary research, and deciding what exact value you will offer a company, or you can spend it emailing hundreds of resumes to companies you understand very little about, and waiting by the phone.
Put a sample of your value into your resume. It's the jewel a hiring manager looks for.
