Soup Nazis, Insurance Investment Scams, Consumerism and Focusing on the Work
Several years ago, after I had only been a recruiter for around six months, I went out to dinner with a few people. I will never forget the dinner because at the time I was very caught up in recruiting, and was working seven days a week. In fact, all I could think about were my candidates and the people I was working with. Throughout the dinner, which was on a Friday night, I remember that I even took a few phone calls. I considered each of my candidates to be like close friends, and I made it a point [Read more]
Parking Benefits and Falling in Love with Your Job
As unfortunate as it is, most working people seem to fall in love with themselves instead of falling in love with their job, clients, customers, and bosses. In this one fact these people have severely crippled themselves. Your entire career will change when you conceive of your career not as benefiting you alone, but as enhancing the lives of your clients, customers, and bosses. No one hires you because they want you to make a lot of money. No one hires you because they want you to feel important. No one hires you because they are concerned [Read more]
The Importance of Fitting In
One of the most persistent mistakes people make is not fitting in with their work environments. Fitting in enables you to both get and keep a job. In terms of what it takes to succeed in the long term, fitting in may actually be more important than your skill level. This little-known observation is lost on many people, and overlooking this can result in unhappy and unfulfilled careers. Conversely, being aware of this often results in very happy and fulfilling careers. The problem is that it is often the very best people and those with the best academics and technical [Read more]
Are You Here? The Importance of Being Present in Your Job and Job Search
What makes someone successful in his or her career? When it comes down to it, I believe one of the greatest determinants of success is whether or not you are “here.” “Being here” takes two forms. The most obvious is to be here physically. Coming into the office each day and going through the motions is the most basic way to be here and the minimum requirement for success. An example of being here for a salesperson would be coming into the office and making a certain number of cold calls each day. If this is done, and nothing more, [Read more]
Your Ultimate Goal: How You Can Find Job Security
One of the worst things that can happen to people is getting fired from a job with no notice whatsoever. It can be devastating to lose your source of income unexpectedly, especially in a contracting economy. Losing a job can color our perspective on the world and our future. Going forward, we have a difficult time allowing ourselves to ever feel secure again. We believe that things can change in an instant and that we might be suddenly out of a job again. This fear of sudden job loss is something that many people who have been terminated from jobs [Read more]
Your Job Is a Game. Make Your Opponents External
After being in the workforce for many years, I’ve come to realize that all of our jobs are, quite simply, games. In every job you have ever had, you are part of a game. Your ability to play the game and be part of the team will determine your success or failure. The ability of your employer to externalize the game and the opponent will determine the success or failure of the enterprise. Games consist of rules, freedoms, barriers, and opponents. Every organization has a certain set of rules by which it operates. These rules determine how [Read more]
The Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon and Your Job Search
One of the most powerful and important things you can do to get a job or achieve anything in life is learn how to just get your foot in the door. Once you are able to get your foot in the door, everything changes. My entire life, I have seen firsthand the power of people getting their foot in the door. A large part of the battle for success in your career revolves around your ability to do this, because once you get your foot in the door incredible things can happen to you. Once you are in, the people you are working with will protect you if you work hard. You will also be in a position to impart massive change on the world. Several years ago, I was in a relationship with a woman who worked for David Geffen, who is one of the most powerful and richest men in Hollywood. This woman used to work at Geffen’s house, and when she was there she would see people like President Bill Clinton walking around. Amazingly, Geffen never completed college. He started his career working in the mail room at the William Morris Agency. To get the job, he was asked to prove that he had graduated from college, so he forged a letter to that effect. Geffen was such a hard worker that, once he was able to get his foot in the door, he was able to achieve what his true pedigree would not have allowed him to achieve. While people may not approve of Geffen forging the fact that he went to college, doing so got him in the door. The rest is history; getting his foot in the door gave Geffen the opportunity to become a powerful agent, and ultimately, hang out with presidents, make movies, become a generous benefactor, and more. All of his successes came from his ability to get in the door. Several years ago, I was speaking to an attorney who was working at what is widely considered the most difficult law firm to [Read more]
Concentrate on the Process, Not the Results
Some time ago, I was listening to a seminar about a company that was in the furniture business. This company decided that because it was doing so well, it should expand into the piano business, and also sell pianos. They went out and purchased a Steinway and took the piano apart to study all of the pieces. Then they made the same pieces themselves and built a piano. When they finally had built their own piano and tried to play it, nothing but thuds came out of the instrument. Discouraged, not knowing what they possibly could have done wrong, they [Read more]
Marketing Yourself–Who, What, and How
In your career and life you need to be aware of (1) whom you are marketing yourself to, (2) what you are marketing, and (3) how you are marketing yourself. Each of these three things can make a major difference in the success of your job search. People who understand these three components can
- make tens of millions of dollars in a short time;
- get a job at a company that is not hiring;
- easily find positions in any economic environment.
Market to the Right People. When I first started working as a legal recruiter, it was early 2000 and the market for corporate attorneys in Silicon Valley was out of control. At the time, attorneys were leaving law firms to take jobs inside of Internet companies and were getting stock options in many cases. Some young attorneys made millions of dollars in less than a few years, and because attorneys perceived there was so much opportunity inside of young tech companies, they were “jumping ship,” leaving law firms as fast as they could. In response, law firms started ratcheting up salaries and hiring new corporate attorneys as fast as they could. I used to be a legal recruiter in Los Angeles and for the first six months or so that I was recruiting I did not place a single corporate attorney in Los Angeles. However, during this six-month period I placed probably 20 corporate attorneys in Silicon Valley. I placed corporate attorneys from small towns as well as firms in New Jersey within giant Silicon Valley firms. In many cases these were people who had been out of work for months. If a corporate attorney could make it to the interview and act with a modicum of professionalism in the interview, he or she would get the job. To say the market in Silicon Valley was incredible would be an understatement. At the same time, though, corporate attorneys were not in high demand in Los Angeles. Many of the corporate attorneys I was working with in Los Angeles waited weeks to get interviews, despite having stellar qualifications. The corporate attorneys simply were not having luck tracking down jobs in Los Angeles. It was the same thing in a few other cities around the United States. If you were a corporate attorney working in Los Angeles at the time, you might have become quite discouraged by the market and thought there was something wrong with you. In reality, there was nothing wrong with the corporate attorneys–it was all about the market trends at the time. The way the market works is among the most important things you can understand about your life and particularly your job search. You need to bring your product or service to the right market in order to succeed. If you put yourself in the right market, you will do exceptionally well. I met a guy my age not too long ago who attended the University of Michigan Law School. When he graduated from there, he had a difficult time finding a good job with a law firm in Detroit. He took a low-paying job with a company that was not that prestigious, because it was the only job he could get. Then, I think, he got fired and moved to the Bay Area. He was one of the first people hired at a major technology company and he got all sorts of stock options and made millions of dollars. After that he was one of the first few employees at another technology company and in less than a year, he made more than $50 million, when the company went public. He now spends his time traveling between multiple homes and investing in other technology companies. Do you think any of this would have happened if this person had stayed in Detroit, working his first lousy job? Of course not; he had to go to the right market, one that would make full use of his abilities and talents. It is all about where and to whom you market yourself. This morning I got a spam e-mail about a Russian bride dating site. I went to the site and then [Read more]
Plan for Success–Not Failure
When I was younger, there was a restaurant on Telegraph Road in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, that used to offer people a percentage off the price of their meals equal to a person’s age, on the person’s birthday each year. So, on your 25th birthday, for instance, you would get a 25% discount on your meal. On your 50th birthday, you would get a 50% discount on your meal. Not surprisingly, this particular restaurant was extremely popular with older people on their birthdays. In fact, elderly people came from all over town on their birthdays each year. I [Read more]
