A 'Finesse Recruiter'

finesse-
1.
extreme delicacy or subtlety in action, performance, skill, discrimination, taste, etc.
2.
skill in handling a difficult or highly sensitive situation; adroit and artful management: exceptional diplomatic finesse.
3.
a trick, artifice, or stratagem.
4.
Bridge, Whist . an attempt to win a trick with a card while holding a higher card not in sequence with it, in the hope that the card or cards between will not be played.

Thanks to dictionary.com for the above definition! Why, you must be thinking, does this blog entry begin with a definition? Has the blogger decided to become an English teacher? Is he considering writing a book? Has old age finally caught up with him? The answers are simple: there is a method to my madness; no; no; and not quite yet!

A candidate and I were chatting yesterday about a client of mine that he has tried to penetrate for a job for quite some time with no success. We spoke for a while and both agreed that there is a specific opportunity there that he is a strong fit for but no one has noticed this before. When I offered up my thoughts on how to submit him to the right people, he noted that it would take a recruiter with finesse to get this accomplished and he felt I should represent him.

Whether you are a recruiter, candidate, hiring manager, career coach, etc., it is important to think out of the box and come up with artful and subtle ways to do things differently than others. Early in my recruiting career, I saw many resumes of recent graduates from trade schools. They all looked exactly the same at the top: name, contact info, identical listings of skills learned and job desired. The only difference was in work history which for most of them was very limited. When I became a Career Services Director at a school, my first objective was to eliminate the cookie cutter approach to resume writing and help each student find their own identity. This takes skills, working delicately not to offend each student, some artful creativity, a little strategizing, and a discriminating eye.

Recruiters tend to lean heavily on search engines, using keywords to identify qualified candidates. Like everyone else, I do this too. At times, this is simply not enough. You need to strategize, artfully create new ways to find people, listen to your gut to find different tastes in candidate pools, and create customized search strategies. A few months ago, I was charged with the task of locating a new sales manager for a wholesale food company. The first few candidates I presented were not quite right. the hiring party told me what fields might match up well but searching that way was fruitless. I sat down late one night and thought about brand names of products in the fields he mentioned. Within two hours, I identified and contact three terrific people, one of whom got the job!

Finesse is all about doing things a bit less traditionally than most people do. Next time you are presented with a challenging task, do all the basic methods you know of then dig a little deeper and see if you could stir up the pot!

Solitary Man

Movie reviewing (or viewing for that matter) will never become my vocation as I tend to lose interest and nod off rather fast both at home and in a theater. Last night, I saw a new movie starring Michael Douglass called 'Solitary Man.' Thought provoking and disturbing would be the best terms to describe it. Apart from the fact that seeing the star plus Danny DeVito and Susan Sarandon as 60-somethings made me feel very old, I was intrigued by the writers ability to demonstrate how burning bridges could destroy one's life as well as career. Skeletons were popping up everywhere the character went and would not go away.

While this might be taking it a bit too far, I think the message was driven home fairly well. Watch your step every place you go and with whomever you deal with professionally and socially as your past definitely will get numerous opportunities to catch up with you.

Happy Father's Day!

Advice to College Seniors

March 1 will be here tomorrow. Most college seniors will be done with their studies in 8-12 weeks. If you are not heading off to graduate school, I hope you are actively pursuing employment opportunities now! A few things to keep in mind include making sure your resume is ready to go (send me a copy if you wish), your references are aware that they are on your list, and that you have visited your school's Career Services office more than once and are keeping in constant contact with them. I worked in that field for many years and assure you that the students who kept most in touch with me were the ones most likely to find a job before graduation. There are jobs available to you but you will need all the help you can get to find the right one!

Vicious Circle

Unemployed people are facing an unneeded obstacle. If they try to re-enter the workforce by doing contract assignments, they face the risk of either losing unemployment benefits or having to go through the process of filing a fresh claim. This is an unfair burden to place on someone who is is fighting for financial and career stability. It would be great to see our lawmakers at the state and federal levels finds a reasonable solution.

Personal Choices

Working in the staffing field, I talk with people with diverse work experiences and all sorts of philosophies on their careers. From very open-minded hiring managers to those who still think that recession means they will find perfect candidates for 30% below market value to candidates who will do anything to avoid unemployment to those who are collecting their government checks and refusing to job hunt, I hear a little bit of this and a little bit of that each week.

Yesterday, I had a great conversation with someone who has been in the engineering field for a very long time and never had been faced with unemployment until about 2 years ago. Insistent on remaining in his field to keep his career intact and properly provide for his family, this gentleman has juggled contract jobs that require him to at times live in a rented space about 2 hours from home and to live over 1000 miles from his family while commuting home once a month or so. He has never filed an unemployment claim and managed to keep0 plugging away no matter what.

No one has the right to tell you how to manage your career but consider how you stack up against others in your field when making very tough choices! As a recruiter, this is one type of candidate I will always enjoy dealing with as he subscribes to something I had pounded into my head when my career began back in prehistoric (or at least before texting developed) times, do Whatever It Takes to succeed!

Forum for Women Job Seekers

For all women looking to re-enter the job market who live in driving range of Central NJ:

Jewish Family Service is offering a special Job Seekers Support Group For Women Only. This group is for women looking to return to the work force. This group will be held on Friday, January 29, 2010 from 10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. at 150-A West High Street, Somerville, N.J. During this session the group will have an “Open Job Search Discussion” facilitated by Elise Prezant, Career Counselor, JFS. This group is offered free of charge and is open to the entire community. To register, please contact Elise Prezant at 908-725-7799 or eprezant@JewishFamilySvc.org

If you do contact Elise, please let her know that Harold Levin highly recommended this program!

Values

We all are focused on earning as much as possible, hanging on to our jobs in a rather mystifying world, and doing the best we can each and every day. When does this go from be commendable to obsessive and ultimately to unhealthy behavior?

A football coach with a track record of unbelievable success was coaching his team one day in a pressure filled game and had to go to the hospital with significant chest pains. Happily, he did not sustain any serious damage to his cardiovascular system and was able to modify his career before losing his family and possibly his life. No, I am not talking about Urban Meyer, who just announced he is stepping down as head coach at the University of Florida, I am referring to John Madden who suddenly retired as coach of the professional team, the Oakland Raiders, around 30 years ago.

Keep things in perspective as you evaluate your career path during the final week of 2009.