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Authors: Harvey Mackay
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BOOK: Use Your Head to Get Your Foot in the Door
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“Would you take the guy at Table4? I used to be his broker.”
Chapter 18
When It’s OK
Not to Act Your Age!
A few years ago, the MacArthur Foundation underwrote a landmark study that included the importance of “lifestyle choices” to maintaining productivity as one ages. The findings were summarized in a book titled
Successful Aging
by Dr. John W. Rowe, president of Mount Sinai Hospital, and Robert L. Kahn, PhD, from the University of Michigan.
Successful Aging
by Dr. John W. Rowe, president of Mount Sinai Hospital, and Robert L. Kahn, PhD, from the University of Michigan.
Three groups of factors have an influence on productivity as one’s age advances: mental and physical function, friendship and social relations, and enduring personal characteristics.
Among the book’s remarkable findings:
• “Most age-related reductions in physical performance are avoidable and many are reversible.”
• “Exercise dramatically increases physical fitness, muscle size, and strength in older individuals.”
• “When it comes to sexual activity . . . chronological age itself is not the critical factor.”
• “The more frequent the [physical] exercise, the greater the benefit, but you don’t have to overdo it. Moderate exercise . . . [as measured in a major study] proved to be nearly as protective as vigorous exercise.”
• “While most people assume that genes play the dominant role, new research suggests that environment and lifestyle may in fact be more important in terms of the risk factors associated with aging.”
The authors also cite the famous African American baseball pitcher Satchel Paige who was still hurling from the mound after the age most big leaguers retire to read their press clippings and dust their trophies. When asked how old he was, Paige’s answer was, “ ‘How old would
you
be if you didn’t know how old you was?”
you
be if you didn’t know how old you was?”
The more concessions to age that people make, the older they will act and the older they will seem. Among these I would include The Decisive Seven:
1. Awareness of the importance of nutrition and exercise.
2. Pride in personal appearance.
3. Breadth and diversity of personal network.
4. Scope of friends and engagement in socializing.
5. Participation in learning opportunities and continuing education.
6. Attention to current events and important trends in human behavior.
7. Resilience in facing and overcoming setbacks.
It’s hard to make a meaningful effort on any of these fronts without faith in yourself. “Faith in oneself is the best and safest course,” Michelangelo maintained. He left his design for the dome of St. Peter’s unfinished when he died at the age of 88 in 1564. He remained unafraid of failure throughout his life, and this was decisive.
“The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short,” Michelangelo believed, “but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.”
Mackay’s Moral:
Act the age you want to be, not the age
others expect.
Act the age you want to be, not the age
others expect.
“Apparently, fifty is the new unemployed.”
Quickie—Moonlighting: The Wisdom of Having a Second Skill
In turbulent times and in an era where job and career changes are so prevalent, it pays to have multiple personal skills. It used to be that a person simply stuck to a single professional profile. Not any longer.
This pattern is abundantly clear in the world of professional sports. Los Angeles Dodgers manager Joe Torre, for example, was a broadcast-booth presence for the California Angels between manager jobs.
How many Metropolitan Opera chorus members worked as (singing) waiters until the breakthrough role finally arrived? How many Hollywood stars unloaded trucks or drew sodas while they performed, often uncredited, roles in B and even C films? In an article titled “Actors Moonlighting on Horror Flicks,” DVD columnist Michael H. Kleinschrodt points out that marquee stars like Casey Affleck, George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, and Halle Berry all worked on the scary screen.
When planning your moonlighting, it’s generally best to develop skills that have some relationship with each other, but not necessarily for professions that are likely to suffer in the same flat economic period.
In a
U.S. News & World Report
column, Karen Burns advises, “You have a job. Good news! But you don’t like the job. Or it doesn’t pay a living wage. Or it doesn’t offer health insurance. That’s bad news. The secret to successful moonlighting is simple: Job B needs to provide what Job A lacks.” She admits, “Long-term moonlighting can wear you down. But until the economy improves and/or you find that One Good Job, two jobs that complement each other may be the answer.”
U.S. News & World Report
column, Karen Burns advises, “You have a job. Good news! But you don’t like the job. Or it doesn’t pay a living wage. Or it doesn’t offer health insurance. That’s bad news. The secret to successful moonlighting is simple: Job B needs to provide what Job A lacks.” She admits, “Long-term moonlighting can wear you down. But until the economy improves and/or you find that One Good Job, two jobs that complement each other may be the answer.”
Chapter 19
Electronic Résumé Screening:
Use Language That Computes
Get a hold of an April 2009 article in
Fortune
called “Secrets of the Résumé Gatekeeper.” It could save your career life. That’s because your career survival is increasingly in the grip of tough guys, not with a chip on their shoulder . . . but with a chip for a heart.
Fortune
called “Secrets of the Résumé Gatekeeper.” It could save your career life. That’s because your career survival is increasingly in the grip of tough guys, not with a chip on their shoulder . . . but with a chip for a heart.
Companies are being hit with a barrage of résumés that make Hurricane Katrina feel like the kiss of a gentle ocean breeze.
How are they responding?
How did you think they would respond?
They’re screening out the clutter and using software programs to do it. Until you jump the hurdle and prove you are a meaningful applicant, your résumé is about as unwelcome as the latest batch of pollen on a hayfever sufferer’s windowsill.
Reporter Beth Kowitt chronicled the saga of Al Campa. He heads up marketing for Taleo, which their Web site says does “on demand talent management.”
Campa was looking for a product marketing VP and had gotten five times the normal load of career paper—a total of 250 résumés.
Instead of reviewing each career profile, he used “the candidate-screening program made by his company, and he narrowed the pool down to 20 . . . Great for Campa. Not so great for the 230-odd applicants who didn’t make the cut.” And by the way, Taleo sells this program to a bevy of Fortune 100 companies.
“When a résumé is submitted, the software parses, scans and breaks out the applicant’s levels of experience. It summarizes some of the key elements for the hiring manager, who can also filter and define criteria.” If such selection programs are on the loose today, expect that new and vastly improved versions will be manning the personnel beat in the months to come.
How do you become an “ace candidate” in the sensors of Robby the Recruitment Robot?
• Be specific and clear about your credentials.
• Use terminology to describe your experiences that is generally well understood and accepted within your profession.
• Don’t “send out résumés blindly . . . [T]his ‘spray and pray’ technique is not an effective strategy,” says CEO of career management firm Chandler Hill Partners, Sarah Hightower Hill.
• And write to “make sense to both the software and a human reader.” At some point, you will need to win the hearts and minds of real human beings. If your résumé comes across as letter-perfect for a code specialist at CIA headquarters, there are few jobs for which you are a perfect fit. Most of them, as you can guess, deal with machines, not people.
Mackay’s Moral:
A smart résumé breaks the code of
automated screening without breaking the backbone of reaworld
experience.
A smart résumé breaks the code of
automated screening without breaking the backbone of reaworld
experience.
Quickie—The Acid Test for Hiring
Ask yourself:
How would you feel having this same person working for your competition instead of for you?
How would you feel having this same person working for your competition instead of for you?
How often have I opened the morning paper or clicked on a trade journal Web site to a competitor of ours who has hired the ultimate tiger—street-smart, perfectly groomed, and hungry.
Then I think back about the time when
we
interviewed this same choice talent and:
we
interviewed this same choice talent and:
• The vetting that exposed serious résumé omissions and chronology conflicts.
• The “popcorn” track record of one career burst after another, but no sustained success for his department after the guy was out the door to a different firm.
• The impatient, bossy attitude toward waitstaff on more than one restaurant outing that exposed insensitivity to people.
• A walled-in mentality that tried to resolve even the most delicate and potentially explosive conflict through an e-mail blast rather than a patient phone call or an impromptu meeting.
How often have I said to myself, “There but for the grace of God . . .”
Chapter 20
Headhunters:
Making Yourself Delectable
Teresa Mazzitelli, founder of The Mazzitelli Group, has been an executive recruiter for thirty-three years and has placed nearly 800 people at almost all levels in every job sector. Over twenty-five years working with MackayMitchell Envelope Company alone, she has helped us locate and hire thirty-seven team members, including my right-hand man, Greg Bailey.
Petite and scarcely over five feet tall, Teresa has earned the moniker “Bulldog” at MackayMitchell for her spunk and dogged persistence. Some years back, she helped us land one of our top sales people even though it took eighteen months to reel him in. Our revenues have sparkled ever since, due to her command of bringing us talent and his unrivaled marketing expertise.
Recently, I had a chance to chat with Teresa about what was afoot in the dark jungle of headhunting during the downturn of all downturns. She offered some tips, not only on how to survive a trip to the headhunter, but to come back with the old bean screwed on even better than before.
You’re a recruiter who has worked with us for a long time. It’s clear you know a lot about the culture and values of MackayMitchell Envelope. Do candidates tap into your reservoir of knowledge? Do they usually ask you penetrating questions about a company’s culture and how they will fit in?
Harvey, ninety-nine percent of the searches I do are for passive candidates, i.e., people who aren’t looking for a job and who are happy to stay right where they are. These are, to be sure, very desirable candidates, and it takes a lot of persuasion to entice them to move.
Passive search candidates usually ask discerning questions about the culture and values of any company they might consider leaving their present job to join. Remember, they don’t have a compelling reason to leave and usually have convincing reasons to stay where they are. It’s important that an individual really appreciate the implications of a career shift in a thoughtful way. Culture, values, how they fit in. These are very, very important questions.
Let’s play out this same scenario another way. Assume you’ve been axed, there’s a job vacancy, and you’re lucky enough to pry open the door for a job interview with a recruiter. Let’s say you
don’t
ask any tough questions about the company, the culture, the values, and how you would fit in. Aren’t you broadcasting an impression that you are desperate for a job? Doesn’t that weaken your chances of landing the job, no matter how badly you may need it?
don’t
ask any tough questions about the company, the culture, the values, and how you would fit in. Aren’t you broadcasting an impression that you are desperate for a job? Doesn’t that weaken your chances of landing the job, no matter how badly you may need it?
You’re right. You may be out of work and worrying where next month’s rent is going to come from. Nonetheless, the last thing you want to radiate is that you’re a desperation case. You should always be asking substantial questions when your future is at stake, no matter how economically pressured you might feel.
Determination, resilience, character. That’s the stuff we want to lasso for our clients. In adverse times, these traits attain towering importance. Not having them telegraphs you have little confidence in your long-term future.
How tough is it to attract passive candidates today compared to the recent past?
I have to admit it’s not easier. The best people with good jobs and prospects have become somewhat more cautious, just as companies are managing their businesses in a more careful and conservative way. Employers and candidates alike feel that present circumstances are somewhat beyond their control.
What kind of job-loss situations are you seeing in the real world? Is this economic downturn really different from the past?
At a community breakfast recently, I was seated—it could well have been by design—between two managers from different companies. Both had recently been “reorg’ed” out of a job.
The guy on my left was caught in a situation that deserves comment. He was an IT director who reported to the chief financial officer in the company’s C-suite. The CFO had significant experience in information technology. As the economy got tighter and budget pressure grew, the more the two positions seemed to duplicate each other. Day by day, they looked more and more the same to the top team doing the expense reviews. Naturally the IT guy got squeezed out.
BOOK: Use Your Head to Get Your Foot in the Door
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