You Need to Be Able to Close
The ability to ‘‘close’‘ and get the sale is the most important skill in selling. It is something that few people know how to do. Many people can get a consumer, an employer, or others to the cusp of making a purchasing or a hiring decision; however, it is the final ‘‘push’‘ that makes all of the difference. It takes a tremendous amount of skill to sell yourself and get a job. It takes a tremendous amount of skill to go from someone who a potential employer will consider for the job to someone who is hired. Your job in getting hired, in getting a better job and when looking for a job, is to push the employer over the fence and make them hire you. This is all there is to it. You need to get hired. There is nothing wrong with developing the skills of a master salesperson and ‘‘closer’‘ in order to get the best job you can. The desire to get a good job and ‘‘close’‘ the deal is a desire for employment, which leads to a richer and more abundant life and the desire to better yourself is praiseworthy. If you do not desire to have a better job or to find a job when you are unemployed, you are not living up to your full potential. It is absolutely essential that you give your best efforts to ‘‘closing’‘ and [Read more]
Socrates and Your Job Search
Several years ago, we were launching a newsletter for law schools. One of our employees who was working on the project decided that the title of the newsletter should be “The Signal” and he was very enthusiastic about this particular title. In fact, I had never seen him so enthusiastic about anything. The problem with this name was that the domain name for it had been taken long ago and I seem to remember that the person who owned the domain name had no interest in selling it. Without a domain name, it did not seem like it made sense to have an important newsletter going out to law schools with this particular name. The newsletter was supposed to be electronic, and due to it being electronic, people would start associating the name “The Signal” with the newsletter and looking for it under this URL when they did searches online. I explained this to my employee but he was having none of it. He did not care what the URL was. He was convinced the newsletter needed to be called “The Signal,” and when I would not agree to this he became extremely irate. He stomped out of work. He stopped working on the project and refused to work on the newsletter the next day. What had happened to this particular employee is that he had decided that things just needed to be a certain way and he did not want to hear anything that was different from this certain way at all. He had made up his mind that only one name was appropriate and had thrown all of his thinking, energy, and spirit behind something that was really unnecessary. However, this is something that many of us do in one form or another, and we do it with numerous, numerous things. One of the biggest challenges for me in working with people looking for jobs, is that most people seem to believe that their search needs to work in a certain way. They believe that there is one way of looking for a job and that way is the only way. People are extremely attached to doing things a certain way. For someone who is in their mid 50s, they may believe they should never go online and that the best sources of jobs are always in the newspaper. Other people may believe that networking is the only approach to getting a job. Still, other people may believe they will only be able to ever get a job with a certain type of employer. People are very stubborn and this obstinance is something that really holds them back. The guy who worked for me was so frustrated by the title of the newsletter, he ended up not coming into work regularly and turned from a very dependable employee to one who was completely unreliable. This was a huge mistake and he ended up losing his job. He was pigheaded about something that did not really matter. Many of us are pigheaded [Read more]
Athens, Sparta, America and Your Job Search
One of the greatest conflicts in the ancient world was between Athens and Sparta. In fact, the history of ancient Greece was dominated by the conflict between these two different cultures. Both cultures ended up leaving an important legacy to the world.
- On one hand, the culture of Athens left a legacy of art, drama, architecture, philosophy, the enjoyment of wealth and opulence, the idea of a governmental democracy and a strong navy.
- On the other hand, the government of Sparta left a legacy of asceticism, military supremacy on land and oligarchy (rule by a few).
These two societies fought repeatedly between the years of 500 BC and 350 BC. Their clash was a fight between two civilizations in the fullest sense. Each believed that their society and their way of [Read more]
Finding a Job in a Down Market
I made a video recently called “Job Search Secrets for a Recession,” which discussed the best way to locate a position during a recession. In my experience, the best way to find a job is and always has been to approach the widest variety of employers possible. There is another aspect to finding a job in a down economy, however, which is even more important: your own psyche. The psychological aspect of finding a job is what slows most people down in their search. People get depressed and stop taking action. This is not the right way to [Read more]
Don’t Be Persuaded by Others Who Tell You How to Do Your Job Search
Several years ago, I was sitting at my desk when my secretary ran into my office. She told me the career services dean of a major American law school was on the telephone, demanding to speak with me, and that she was extremely angry. I took the call and the dean yelled at me for several minutes. She was angry about a letter I’d sent telling her I wanted to help her students with a service called Legal Authority, which assists law students and attorneys in getting jobs by doing mass mailings of their résumés to employers [Read more]
The Job Search Market in a Bad Economy
I recently had a discussion with a manager of Legal Authority, my favorite job search company for attorneys, about exactly what happens in the market when there is a recession. Specifically we discussed what occurs in the job market for attorneys—who gets hired and who does not get hired. Since I have been witnessing this process take place for years, I thought learning the dynamics of it would be interesting. On its most basic level, what happens during an economic recession is that the growth of jobs in the legal community involving transactional work slows down for the most part, while the growth of jobs involving litigation speeds up. Litigation tends to increase when the economy gets bad, because people are more aware of losses in their business dealings caused by the wrongdoing of other parties, and they sue. Growth in corporate, securities, and real estate-related jobs all typically slows down dramatically during a recession. This may also be the case for patent law, although there is typically a greater lag time. Patent work already in the system [Read more]
The Effect of a Weakening Economy on the Job Market
In the latter half of 2008 Wall Street and the banking system were undergoing major changes. I remember hearing the stress in people’s voices when I spoke to them in New York, and I believed we had reached a sea change of sorts, in the way the job market and the economy were about to shift. The economy was clearly in very serious trouble. After 9/11, the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates, which stimulated many housing purchases across the land, allowed for the refinancing of homes, and put a lot of money into the economy. This was [Read more]
