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Career Insight

Your Career Parachute

Career Insight /

⚠️ Candidates! Don’t be fooled! ⚠️ If you accept a counteroffer from your current employer and one of their promises is that they will build a team under you as a way of addressing some of your professional ambitions, please know that there could be another motive in doing so and this could merely be a promotional carrot to appease you for the time being. You’ve already attempted to leave once, and in their minds, what is stopping you from trying again. To mitigate this risk, they will promise to build under you so that everything you know can be transferred to a successor. This is their way of ensuring the smooth transition of their business in the event of your departure. So, while they are promising to grow a team under your leadership, they are really securing their business post your employment. The organization is not at fault for this, but the key is to be informed. It is also probable that they could abruptly end your employment once you’ve adequately groomed a suitable replacement. I highly advise against accepting a counteroffer, but if you must, please be wise about it by not taking everything at face value.

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Business Lessons From The Basketball Court

Career Insight, Employer Insight, Inspiration, Leadership, Recruitment /

I love basketball banter! As I’ve aged, I have come to appreciate the pre & post game analysis more than game action. The news that still has the basketball world buzzing and the Dallas community in fury, is the trade that happened behind closed doors, finalized in the wee hours of the night to avoid public scrutiny & backlash. Coined the most shocking trade in NBA history, the move of one of basketball’s rising legends is still mind-boggling to many. How could a franchise with playoff aspirations at the beginning of the season now be facing a missed opportunity to make the postseason? I’ll leave the conspiracy theories to the experts, but there are important lessons to takeaway for the business world: Whatever you are trying to accomplish as a business leader should be clearly communicated. It’s unrealistic and counterproductive to reach a consensus on every decision, but leaving your team in the dark is certainly not the way to build a winning organization. Hidden agendas provide a smooth runway for your best people to take their talents elsewhere.

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You Can Be Traded!

Career Insight, Career Preparation, Inspiration, Leadership /

The basketball world was left in a state of confusion by the Luka Doncic trade early Sunday morning. How could a franchise that just went to the NBA finals a year ago with a roster designed to make another championship run so callously part with their best player in the prime of his career? What took place by the leadership of the Dallas Mavericks happens on a daily basis in the business world and doesn’t come as a surprise to me. As I consider the situation, here are my takeaways and lessons learned: I’ve facilitated many great connections over my career in recruitment. I’ve also seen relationships fall by the way side despite efforts to turn things around. If you’re a top performer within your organization, understand that you can be replaced if business needs change. We see this where there is new ownership or a change in the structure of an organization. I’ve witnessed enough of this throughout my career and the best way to handle it is to look after yourself. Your work is what you do to make a living and to provide for your loved ones – your identity should never be defined solely by your profession. Employees are expected to serve notice to ensure a smooth transition out and transfer of knowledge, but organizations can end that relationship in a moment regardless of your past successes & commitment. Work hard, be professional, but remember that you are a chess piece to that company, and they will continue to make moves that benefit the bottom-line.

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Here’s The Truth About The Job Search Process

Career Insight, Career Preparation /

They told you that the job search was a numbers games and you believed it! At one point in my life, I did as well. Have Chat GPT write you a winning resume and send out hundreds of applications a week. The next week, repeat the process until you get burnt out and start complaining about the job market, the economy, and recruiters that never follow up with you. I’m challenging that approach by suggesting that it’s not a numbers game, but perhaps your approach is focused solely on send-outs and not on results with small wins along the way. The job search quickly gets stale when you’ve sent out resumes with no response from the right people. Emphasis on the “right people”, i.e., decision makers. Your process needs to be finetuned with a goal towards achieving 2-3 responses from a decision maker a week. It’s about building momentum on a traditionally tedious journey that will keep you motivated through the rejections. My Recommendations: 1️⃣ Chose 5 companies for a given week that you’d like to work for. The quality of your outreach is more important than the number. Target those companies & do your research into each one. Stop blindly applying to companies and roles that don’t fit your values. To employers & recruiters, you are part of the 1% if you have an organized & well-thought-out job search strategy. You can tell a lot about a prospect by the approach they’ve taken to their job search. The best example of this was a candidate who I was counselling some time back. He showed me a detailed excel sheet during one of our calls that he was using to track every position he had applied to since starting his job search. It wasn’t long afterwards that he was hired and started a new position. 2️⃣ From those 5 companies that you’ve selected, go on LinkedIn and find a hiring authority or an HR representative at each company. Hit the “APPLY NOW” button on the job posting, but don’t stop there. Log it in your excel sheet and leverage LinkedIn to find the hiring manager for that position. Some postings mention who that person is, but there are times when you’ll have to make an educated guess. A personalized message to that individual with your resume attached will increase the chances of a response from someone within the company. Even if it’s a no, you’ve now connected with someone, and you can follow up in the future or keep the conversation going. When I was looking for a new position some years ago, I engaged in a 3-week blitz that included sending out resumes with a personalized message to a decision maker. From there, I got in my car and drove to a some of those companies where I was able to personally speak to decision makers. It seems intimidating, but after the first impromptu meeting, my confidence went through the roof. It was as simple as walking into the company and asking reception for that individual. In one instance, I was interviewed on the spot by the person overseeing that vacancy. Be encouraged and keep pressing forward!

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I’m Taking My Talents To…

Career Insight, Employee Retention, Inspiration, Leadership /

In my line of work, I am privileged to speak to a variety of professionals who are passively open to hearing about new opportunities or active in the market. This is of course good for business, but it’s boggling to the mind why business leaders are not doing a better job of providing a career growth trajectory for their best people. You shouldn’t be surprised when a top performer walks into your office with a letter of resignation. Oftentimes, counteroffers are seen as insincere and a tactic used by leaders to prevent a disruption to their business. A true professional will see right through it, thank you for the opportunity, and proceed to their notice period. But why are business leaders allowing it to get to that point and why aren’t they proactive in grooming their talent and finding meaningful ways to keep them motivated? Few companies have figured this out, and the rest are learning the hard way. People stay where they are wanted, appreciated, paid well, and most importantly, where they can see an evolution of their career in the short term. If you’re a business owner or leader of a division, realize that you have the ability to create a roadmap for your best people by engaging in conversations periodically and crafting a legitimate and tangible career path based on certain accomplishments being met along the way. Why should your talent have to look outside of your company to find that next level up when you have the autonomy to create a new role for that individual and pay them accordingly? You are foolishly allowing your superstars to take their talents to South Beach (🏀), and you’ve become a spectator like everyone else. Taking people for granted is expensive. If you think hiring comes at a cost, replacing your best people is even more taxing on your time, resources, and money. If you have the ability to move a top performer into that coveted Vice President role, why not do that? If you are not taking care of your best talent, someone else sure will.

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Try Something Different

Career Insight, Inspiration, Leadership, Recruitment /

I received a call from an executive leader of a company a few months ago. He wanted to enlist my help on a couple of searches that his organization was having trouble filling. These were not highly complex roles to fill by any means, but given the tightness of the marketplace, finding the right people and keeping them beyond a year is proving to be a challenge. My kickoff call went well, but ultimately, discussions stopped there. I was told during the call that they had a few recruitment partners that were working with on the searches, but for reasons unclear to me, they were not able to successfully fill their positions. Essentially, they wanted to add me as another recruiter since I was known to one of their executives in the company, under the pretense that more eyes on a search means greater odds of a successful outcome. I challenged the train of thought by suggesting that perhaps your approach to date is not working and maybe you should try something different. I realized today that most business leaders are afraid of change, and they are wired to engage in the same behaviour hoping that somehow circumstances will work out differently in the future. I think by definition you can call that insanity, yet most people are okay to remain in this state and this has somehow translated to be what’s best for business. It’s like repeatedly hitting your head against the wall and complaining about your headache. We are okay to have multiple recruiters working on a given search at the same time, yet we employ the services of one mechanic if our car needs an oil change or one law firm if we are being sued. I’ve never heard anyone say that they were going to use multiple surgeons to remove their gallbladder to increase the chances of a successful operation. Yet, this has become the dominate thought related to recruitment and then we wonder why positions are taking longer to fill and hires don’t make it past the first year of employment. Let’s try something different.

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Regular Maintenance

Career Insight, Inspiration, Leadership, Recruitment /

The courtship precedes any successful relationship for good reason and regular maintenance of that relationship is a must. Just ask anyone who has been married for more than 90 days or been in business for more than 10 years. Finding that great candidate or trying to build your team of professionals without healthy steps towards courtship is counterproductive. As a Recruiter approaching 15 years in the industry, I’ve facilitated many great relationships. Fortunately, I’ve witnessed hiring processes that were collaborative & just a joy for everyone to be part of, and others that would make you cringe. The onus rests on business leaders to create a good runway for those they are looking to hire. One of the worst things to do during the courtship is to make the other party feel like you are doing them a favour or leading them on a journey to nowhere. The best amongst us will be able to sniff this out early. If it’s not a fit or the timing is off, all parties should be able to understand so long as honesty and transparency were woven into the process from the beginning. If you’re a business leader overseeing a project team or product group, you will have to perform regular maintenance on those relationships. The camaraderie within the team falls entirely on your shoulders. Don’t make it easy for people like me to lure your best people away. Hire right, and treat your people well enough so that even the best offer they could receive won’t move them. This is the challenge because we are so narrow-minded, egotistical, and oblivious to what motivates our best people. One of the criticisms I received as an early driver was that I just drove my car. I did not do anything to take care of it. That explained a lot of the issues I had with that vehicle. I was reactive in the maintenance of my car when I should’ve been proactively checking the oil, tire pressure, coolant, and so forth. The cost associated with reacting far surpasses the cost of acting in the first place. Part of the maintenance on your team includes regular discussions about their goals and the career path they’d like to be on. Conscious at all times that this could be constantly evolving for some individuals. This is where not taking your people for granted comes into play. This could happen over lunch, bowling, or simply meeting as a team in your boardroom over coffee. This morning, I surprised my Wife with a bouquet of flowers, not because I’m a good husband, but because I’ve made a conscious decision to build a peaceful home and that requires maintenance in the areas that she finds meaningful. I am challenging business leaders to take regular steps towards building chemistry and trust within their team. The cost of not doing it is always bad for business (…but great for mine 😉)

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Excellence Goes The Extra Mile

Career Insight, Leadership /

I had a fascinating call with an engineer today… She’s pursuing an MBA which she’s looking to leverage into a career in management… It’s not everyday that I speak to an engineer who has MBA ambitions, so I probed… The “why” behind the pursuit of an MBA was admirable… There are good, great, and excellent engineers… Excellence goes the extra mile! She wasn’t content with just designing good products. She wanted to understand the bigger picture behind the product. It was a conversation with her then Manager that fueled the desire to go the extra mile… I’m paraphrasing and perhaps oversimplifying the story, but after inquiring into the delay in releasing one of their products, she was essentially told to focus on designing and to leave management activities to those who understood it. Fueled by curiosity and a desire to be more than just an “engineer”, she decided to enroll in an MBA course so that she could look behind the curtain… This reminded me of a conversation I had with another young engineer who learned sign language while working at his previous company because one of his co-workers was deaf… These are the types who refuse to be limited by a job description and will go the extra mile without being asked to. Excellence always has a compelling story behind it… …there is something attractive about scarcity!

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A Legacy of Leadership Excellence

Career Insight, Inspiration, Leadership, Recruitment /

Leadership is a dear subject to my heart. Having sat under my fair share of leaders, good & bad, I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t. This morning before Christmas breakfast, I stumbled onto an article about The San Antonio Spurs head coach, Gregg Popovich. Coach Pop, as he’s referred to by his players, has been coaching the Spurs for 28 years, a tenure that is not common in sports these days. In this revolving door society, it’s rare for anyone to stay with one organization for that length of time, especially over the last few years while the organization has been struggling to rebuild after their championship run. So, why has the organization bought into Coach Pop’s style of leadership, and how has he remained influential amongst his players 28 years in? The answer is simple and the excerpt from the article below sums up what I believe to be at the heart of responsible leadership: “A cornerstone of his philosophy is balancing the human and sporting aspects of coaching; a method he has employed repeatedly to extract the best performance from his players.” Chris Paul, the franchises newest point guard and seasoned NBA professional, highlighted Coach Pop’s “human-centered coaching philosophy.” “This balance of performance and personal connection is what has made his method a benchmark for coaching excellence.” This is frankly where a lot of leaders fall by the wayside amongst their followers. Being tactical is great. Technical expertise builds credibility, but it doesn’t foster trust and an unwavering commitment from your team. Understanding how grueling and lonely the NBA season can be for his players has made Coach Pop take a balanced approach to leadership that emphasizes stepping away to unwind and refuel with your loved ones. The 5 championships and cruise control to retirement makes perfect sense now. Be as demanding as you need to be, but keep the well-being of your team at the center of your leadership. If you do, then you’ll never have to ask them to go the extra mile. You won’t have to wonder if that request for an afternoon off is really a need to slip away for an interview with your competitor. This brand of leadership does not mean that you won’t experience turnover. In fact, talent will always leave for what they believe to be greener pastures. What Coach Pop can hang his hat on is not his retention of talent, but the caliber of men he is cultivating. This translates to better Fathers, Husbands, & other life accomplishments beyond basketball. When I was courting my now Wife some years ago and going through some personal struggles, my then Manager told me to take an afternoon off to take her to lunch. That was a crucial moment in our relationship and that afternoon set the foundation for what is now a wonderful marriage & life together. My tenure under his leadership had it’s fair share of challenges, but that moment was solidified in my heart as human-centered leadership at its finest. X’s and O’s are necessary and part of the scheme towards success, but put your people first and you’ll never have to worry about being fired or losing the faith of your team.

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The Private Jet Experience

Career Insight, Recruitment /

Understanding the intrinsic value of a product or service is vital to getting the most out of it. A private jet is valuable to those who can afford it because of the comfort it provides and the speed at which it can travel, enabling a faster and a less congested experience to your destination. You as the consumer get your time in return by making this investment. It’s a service and a luxury that we are willing to pay for no matter the cost. My last boss told me on the first day we met that he prides his business on being able to allow its customers to sleep well at night. The greatest value you can provide to the end user is a return of their time. This allows you to remain timeless and insulated from the ebbs and flows of the marketplace & world. You become a sought-after service provider, and your product becomes a staple in many environments. Recruiters fall into the trap of thinking that they only provide resumes and fill positions. Start positioning yourself as a service that gives executives their time back and allows them to sleep better at night.

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