Does a Pandemic Make This a Bad Time to Change Jobs?

A highly qualified, motivated candidate of mine recently surprised me by withdrawing her candidacy, deciding to stay put in her current position rather than pursuing a position that would represent for her a dramatic step up, expressing concern that this felt like “a bad time to change jobs.”  She couldn’t define logically what that meant,…

Read More

The Process of Making a Job Offer

Making a job offer requires a process, not a pitch. In this first in a three part series, we look at the process of qualifying candidate’s motivations and boosting your probability of a successful hire. You’ve experienced this, I’m sure. After a thorough interview process, you extend a candidate what you think is a terrific…

Read More

Ensuring Your New Hire Actually Starts

How to ensure your new hire actually starts work, and that his or her first days on the job are everything you promised they would be. After months of time consuming recruiting, you at last have hired someone to fill that critical job in your organization. Best of all, the person you hired is ideal.…

Read More

Orchestrating the Interview Process

In any job market, you can’t afford to turn off strong A-player candidates any more than you can afford to hire B- / C-level candidates. Your company’s interview process needs to be well defined, consistently applied and tightly controlled. No matter what you may think of the advice offered by your least favorite Gartner analyst,…

Read More

Recruiting and Retaining Superstars

  The quality of your people defines your culture. Your recruitment efforts leverage and replicate their strengths. Your best people, not just programs, can be your best sales tool in attracting and retaining superstars. We all have read the articles. Over the past 10 years, companies have become increasingly creative in their approaches to creating…

Read More

Interviewing for Character

In the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown, many employers were either patting themselves on their backs, or are quietly re-examining their codes of ethics and their hiring practices. Commonly, executive managers are asking, How can we ensure that the people we hire to lead our public institutions have the necessary character to earn and maintain…

Read More

Is a Start-Up Right for You?

Start-ups can be extraordinarily stimulating places to work.  Everyone, from senior management to the receptionist, feels like they are on a mission from God.  The hours are long, the pace frenetic, and emotional swings as sudden as each day’s latest win or loss. Deciding whether one should accept a position at a start-up – versus…

Read More

Cold Realities of the Counter-Offer

See if this scenario sounds familiar.  For any number of reasons – underappreciated, overworked, underpaid, overlooked, whatever – you reach the conclusion that your career potential will never be realized at your employer.  After a diligent job search, you accept an offer from a new employer.  You are excited that you will start your new…

Read More

Writing Resumes That Beg To Be Read

As professional search consultants, we read plenty of resumes, solicited or otherwise. Admit it.  When was the last time you said to yourself, Oh boy, I can’t wait to read some resumes!  No resume will ever likely be considered New York Times Best Seller material, though one could argue that in some resumes there is…

Read More

Should I Accept This Job?

You have endured a battery of interviews, met countless interviewers, and now are faced with a good, even flattering, offer. You have performed your own due diligence on the employer, just as the employer has with you. Everything checks out fine, but conflicting logic and emotions are holding you back from accepting. It may be…

Read More