How to Choose Recruiters, Executive Search, and Recruitment Agencies (and How They Work)

When you go to most job sites, the majority of advertisements you will typically see, will be from recruiters. However, despite so many recruiter advertisements clogging job sites, recruiters are one of the most popular (and most misunderstood) ways of getting a job. It is rare to see articles that are negative about recruiters, or information that ”tells it like it is” when it comes to giving you advice on how to work with recruiters. The reason for this is largely due to the fact that the money recruiters pay to advertise on job sites and other [Read more]

Upgrade Your Career and Life by Finding Work to Be Done

Several years ago I decided that I did not want to work in a law firm any more. The problem was that I did not know what else I could do besides practice law. Also, I did not have any money.  In order to continue to make a living, I needed to do something that is among the most important skills we can have: I needed to create work for myself.  I have written extensively about the importance of creating work before, because without the ability to create work for yourself you might as well settle for a life of mediocrity.  The more work you know how to create, the better off you are going to be. If you know how to create work for yourself, you will never be unemployed or without excitement in your life.  Everything that happens in this world comes about through the ability of us to use our minds to create work.  One of my favorite motivational writers is Wallace D. Wattles.  In The Science of Getting Rich Wattles writes:

No one is kept in poverty by shortness in the supply of riches; there is more than enough for all.  A palace as large as the capital in Washington might be built for every family on earth from the building material in the United States alone; and under intensive cultivation, this country would produce wool, cotton, linen, and silk enough to clothe each person in the world finer than Soloman was arrayed in all his glory; together with food enough to feed them all luxuriously. The visible supply is practically inexhaustible; and the invisible supply really IS inexhaustible.  Everything you need on earth really is made from one original substance, out of which all things proceed.  New forms are constantly being made, and older ones are dissolving; but all shapes are assumed by One Thing.  There is no limit to the supply of Formless Stuff, or Original Substance.  The universe is made out of it; but it was not all used in making the universe.  The spaces in, through, and between the forms of the visible universe are permeated and filled with the Original Substance; with the formless Stuff, with the raw material of all things.  Ten thousand times as much stuff as has been made might still be made, and even then we should not have exhausted the supply of universal raw material. No man, therefore, is poor because nature is poor, or because there is not enough to go around.  Nature is an inexhaustible storehouse of riches; the supply will never run short.  Original substance is alive with creative energy, and is constantly producing more forms.  When the supply of building material is exhausted, more will be produced; when the soil is exhausted so that foodstuffs and materials for Clothing will no longer grow upon it, it will be renewed or more soil will be made.  When all the gold and silver has been dug from the earth, if man is still in such a stage of development that he needs gold and silver, more will be produced from the Formless.  The Formless Stuff responds to the needs of man; it will not let him be without any good thing. This is true collectively; the race as a whole is always abundantly rich, and if individuals are poor, it is because they do not follow the Certain Way of doing things which makes the individual man rich.  The Formless Stuff is intelligent; it is stuff which thinks.  It is alive, and is always impelled towards life.

Wattles’ writings are somewhat abstract; however, the point is that there is unlimited wealth and unlimited opportunity out there for you.  People can create great wealth and opportunity for themselves from nothing.  You too need to do the same thing with your life and career. I am amazed when I look around me and see how incredible certain people are [Read more]

You Need to Stop Competing and Seeing Differences Between You and Others

If you are looking for a job, trying to improve in your current job, or simply wish to experience a better life, there is one thing you need to do: You need to be friends with everyone you meet in business, and stop competing and seeing differences.   This is a statement that falls on deaf ears for most people.  In fact, this is the exact opposite of the way most of us think.  Instead, we view others as competitors and the slices of pie as limited.  We view opportunities as few and limited, and feel the need to compete for what little there is. What are the rewards for looking and seeing commonalty between you and others?  They are incredible.  In the Year 2000 I started a legal recruiting firm.  I did not start the firm until around March of that year. I had no legal recruiting experience and knew absolutely nothing about the market.  Since I had been a practicing attorney for years, the fact that I was now recruiting seemed almost surreal to me in many respects.  I had decided to just enter a zone where I did not care what happened to me.  When you are in the recruiting business, what typically happens is that law firms will call you in a very formal way to tell you they have no interest in a candidate of yours.  The conversations will typically last no more than 30 to 45 seconds. “We are calling to let you know that we have no interest in John Smith,” they might say. “Thank you,” would be the standard response. After several weeks of this I began to feel that the entire situation was somewhat absurd.  This is what recruiters do all over the country. I decided that the best [Read more]

Alpha Pygmy Goats, Unreasonably Optimistic Russian Attorneys and Setting High Expectations for Yourself

I used to be a law professor, and I remember in my class there was the nicest kid you can imagine who had immigrated from Russia a few years previously and wanted to be an attorney.  He hardly spoke English and had a difficult time putting sentences together, however, none of this appeared to matter.  He was always the first guy who arrived in class each day and always stayed after to ask questions.  During class, he took notes and wrote furiously.  He sat in the front row and appeared to believe that he was going to be the greatest attorney of all time.  He wore a suit to class each day and other kids were showing up to class in shorts, tee shirts and flip flops.  All of the kids in the class liked him a lot, and they respected him a lot. Each day after class, he would approach me and ask me questions about ridiculously prestigious law firms and whether or not I thought he could get a job with these firms.  I never had the heart to tell him that it would be impossible for him to get a job with most of these law firms due to where he was attending law school and his ability to speak English.  He did not seem to care, however.  For as long as I could take it each day, he would sit there and question me about various law firms and then, from time to time, also ask me questions about the material. When the semester was over, I continued to hear from [Read more]

Treating Your Career Like A Small Business

No one seems to take the time to consider that their careers are businesses. Your career is no different than any small business. You have a product (you) that you are selling to your audience (your employer). You need to run your career exactly like a business person runs a business. There is no greater skill to have with your career than to run it like a business. As a business, your goal is survival and to sell your product for as much money as possible. So too it is with your career.

Be a good business person and your career may go far, ignore the business realities and you are likely to run into trouble. I have been a recruiter for several years and have [Read more]

How to Choose a Recruiter Based on Recruiting Style

Every recruiter’s individual style has certain merits. However, there are recruiters who are truly exceptional at what they do. Choosing an exceptional recruiter is even more important in a bad market because the methods he or she uses determines if a candidate will find employment. As the CEO of a recruiting company, I am constantly astonished by the methods many recruiters use. We train our recruiters very carefully to recruit in a certain way and we are always very aware of how they are performing. I have been in the recruiting industry for a long time [Read more]