Getting your player ready...
Dear J.T. & Dale: Back in July of 2011 year, my position was eliminated (along with that of my boss and a dozen others). The company provided a job-counseling service. While the resume preparation was helpful, I don’t understand the rationale behind networking to secure interviews. Why would hiring managers take time to see me because one of their people said, “I know someone who knows someone who knows someone”? I only got my last job because an employment service contacted me. – Cameron
DALE: Why would a hiring manager meet with you? Let’s start with an even tougher question: Why would a manager meet with you who is NOT currently hiring? Some reasons:
1. Kindness.
2. Curiosity – to learn what employees at related companies (like your former employer) are working on, what their salaries are, etc.
3. The future – good managers are always looking to add people to their list of employee prospects, just in case something opens up.
4. The alternative future – in this economy, all managers know they may be looking for work sometime soon, and they want to build their own networks.
5. Help – even though they may not have the perfect full-time job for you, they may have a project you could help with as a consultant.
Notice a couple of things about this list. First, only the first one involved meeting you for your sake; the rest were driven by a personal or company motive. Second, the list did not include the current need to hire someone, the most compelling reason of all.
J.T.: As for those who are hiring, managers know that finding the right employee is not easy, even when there are plenty of available employees – perhaps I should say especially when there are many applicants available.
Managers don’t want to look at hundreds of resumes and guess about what’s not in them, like the person’s personality, aptitude and knowledge. That’s why hiring managers are glad to use referrals, even when they are friends of friends. Trust networking, it works.
Dear J.T. & Dale: I accepted a job as a quality director at a food plant. Twice during the interviews, I asked about the hours and was told “day shift.” To me, that meant eight hours during daytime. My second day on the job, I was told that the day shift was 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., startup to shutdown. I told them I can’t work those hours, as my wife had just had brain surgery and I take her to rehab. I’d been collecting unemployment when I took the job, so I decided to go back to collecting it.
But I got a letter from unemployment telling me that I quit the job and thus was no longer eligible. I appealed and got nowhere. – Len
J.T.: Perhaps you might get a better response from an employment attorney, but I can’t see that there’s much you can do. Had you known the reality of the job, you would’ve passed on it. Or, if you’d stayed and not been able to perform the duties, they might have fired you.
DALE: Sounds like a lousy deal, Len, and a truly obnoxious employer. But even good employers with a reasonable workday may not be willing to fit their schedule around your wife’s rehab, so you may have to seek out other transportation options for her. In the future, AFTER you have a job offer, ask about their flexibility. But know that you should be prepared to be flexible yourself, having backup options.
