In defence, not support, of Rob Ford, Mayor of Toronto

I didn't vote for Rob Ford for Mayor of Toronto in the last election and it's not likely that I will in the next one. I don't particularly have an opinion on the dozens of celebrations that go on in the city each year except to say that I find it particularly distasteful when politicians show up just for photo ops when they could clearly care less about the event itself or it's purpose. To me, better they be unseen and unheard.

I am straight so I will not claim to have any true knowledge of the struggles of the gay and lesbian community; but as a black man, even one living in one of the best countries in the world as far as equality (I hesitate to say the best because I haven't lived in all of the others and don't know anyone who has), I have still both witnessed and experienced first hand my share of prejudice and racism, so at the very least I think my own experience enables me to look at things from a place of compassion and understanding. 

Now that I've hopefully made it clear that I am not anti anything, I simply wish to say that I find the reaction to Rob Ford's decision not to attend the Pride Parade deeply disturbing. I understand that he is the Mayor and I appreciate the desire to have him show his support, however I believe the way some have demonized him is completely wrong.

Equality means fair treatment not special treatment. Some will like & support you while those who don't should simply let you be. No one should purposely stand in your way or try to hold you back but you shouldn't expect everyone to march in your parade either... live and let live as the saying goes. When you demonize those who don't openly support you but do nothing to harm you, you just seem petty and hypocritical. Don't demand equal and fair treatment and freedom of choice then deny the same to others, even those you may have helped elect to public office.

Random Thoughts - On Perseverance

Keep trying until the number of reasons you can offer for your successes is greater than the number of excuses you can think of for your failures.

Random Thoughts - Changing Beliefs

There was a time I believed in everything and everyone.

There was a time I believed in nothing and no one.

Now I believe that no one can be everything to anyone but everyone needs to believe they are everything to someone.

Random Thoughts - Could failure be the key to success?

If you follow me on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn you might have gathered from the abundance of quotes that I choose on the subjects, that I am fixated on the juxtaposition of failure and success. In fact, it’s two of my favourite and most often repeated quotes that led me to write in my blog after a fairly long absence. One is a quote by Colin L. Powell, “There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work and learning from failure Colin L. Powell”. The second is a humorous take on a William E. Hickson quote by W.C. Fields, “If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There's no use being a damn fool about it.”

With this in mind, here’s what recently came to my mind. Every day I have at least one new idea for a business that I'm absolutely certain will succeed. At the same time, I’m absolutely certain that if I tried even a few of them in conjunction with my current business, that each and every one of them, including my current business, would fail.

For me personally, it's very important to stay focused, and looking at many successful people, I've found the ability to focus to be a common trait. More important though, it's the ability to stay focused even when faced with failure. They seemed to focus on one thing and either mastered it or gave it their all but failed to become successful before moving on to the next thing. On the occasions that they failed, they moved on decisively; and those who achieved the greatest and most lasting success, had more instances of failure than success.

Of course there are those who appear only to succeed and never fail; those who seem to possess the mythical Midas Touch. Those however are very rare and a subject for another post. For most, the instances of failure are invariably greater than the occasions of measurable and lasting success.

So what does this mean? Well here’s what I’ve come up with: In order to succeed you first have to try. You have to try to prove that you can or prove that you can't. Once you’ve proven one or the other you’ll either have succeeded or failed at what you have tried. When you are done trying, move on. Your failures will provide you with the knowledge and wisdom you need to succeed and your successes with afford you the confidence, means and freedom to fail on your way to achieving new successes.

What do you think? Could failure be the key to success?

"Could failure be the key to success?" was written by Nigel Corneal nigel@thinkbdm.com http://thinkbdm.com/ and may be reprinted without permission provided that the entire article is used unedited and that this paragraph is included unchanged at the end of the article and made clearly visible to the reader.

Random Thoughts - Failure is relative, success based on perspective.

You can not fail having given your best effort if you have the right perspective of success. Never judge your accomplishments by the achievements of others or their perceptions of success and never judge the accomplishments of others by your own. Consider the effort, ability and resources required and available to accomplish the goal and then either seek needed assistance, offer encouragement, lend a hand, applaud the effort, or be silent, but do not disparage; and remember that constructive criticism is still criticism and only constructive if it helps to build up and not tear down.

Please submit a comment or share your reactions before you leave and if you’re a jobseeker looking for help in finding a job or part of a business with jobs to fill please contact me: Phone 416-467-9961, Email nigel@thinkbdm.com, Windows Live nigelcorneal@hotmail.com, Skype nigel.corneal.

 

"Failure is relative, success based on perspective." was written by Nigel Corneal nigel@thinkbdm.com and may be reprinted without permission provided that the entire article is used unedited and that this paragraph is included unchanged at the end of the article and made clearly visible to the reader.

Why the recruiter or employment agency you signed on with can not help you to find a job but just might!

If you wonder why you rarely hear back from recruiters you submit your resume to, or get very few interviews through them, it is most often because your experience and qualifications simply do not ideally match the needs of their client; and their client is the employer who has either paid or will pay them for filling the position you applied to, not you. For the most part a recruiter is beneficial to you if you match the specific needs of a paying client.

When dealing with third party recruiters (those that work for agencies or search firms) you must understand the reality of how they operate and appreciate that their primary job, is not to assist you in finding a job.

To hire for a permanent position through a recruiter the company pays a fee, a fee which is normally based on the starting salary for the job. The higher the starting salary, the higher the fee. The percentage charged will depend on the fee schedule used by the agency the recruiter works for and can vary widely from one to another. For example, the fee for a job with a starting salary of only $25,000 per year can be anywhere from 10% to 25% or $2,500 to $6,250, and the fee for a job with a starting salary of $50,000 per year can range from 10% to 40% or $5,000 to $20,000.

In all cases, you see that it can be quite expensive for a company to use the services of a third party recruiter on a regular basis and it's for this reason that most companies actually do not use them, and that those that do only use them to fill a small portion of their jobs. When you look at the fees employers pay and add to this the fact that in most cases all or the majority of what a recruiter earns is based on filling the job, you can easily understand how selective an employer will be when they hire through a recruiter, and how careful the recruiter must be about who he or she sends, for fear of losing the employer or losing out to another recruiter.

What makes this even more challenging for recruiters, and thus for you as the candidate, is that there are hundreds of agencies and search firms and thousands of recruiters who work for them; and in many cases they are competing with other recruiters, sometimes even at their own firms, to fill the same jobs. You should now be able to understand why employment agencies focus on finding employers who are willing to pay, and why their recruiters focus on finding and referring multiple candidates in hopes of filling the jobs they get, and not specifically on trying to help Job Seekers.

As I stated before, a recruiter will be beneficial to you if you match the needs one of their paying clients. Your best strategy as a candidate is to register with many agencies that deal with your industry or discipline to ensure that you have a chance at being considered for the very small portion of the job market represented by the industry; regardless of what any one recruiter may tell you about their working on your behalf and promises to place you in a job.

Now I hope this does not appear to be an article against recruiters, or that they should not be a part of your job search strategy because they absolutely should. Recruiters have access to jobs you do not and after all it does not cost you anything except that time it takes to register or send you resume, which is something you are doing anyway. What I am saying is that you need to appreciate that the job of a recruiter is not to help you find a job, it is to help the employer; so you should never rely on recruiters as your only means or even your primary means of finding work.

If you want someone to work on your behalf and focus on finding you a job then you should consider finding an Outplacement Consultant or Job Developer. They are the opposite of recruiters in that they work with/for the candidate. The obvious major difference is that the fees for their services are paid by you (or the downsizing employer you are being let go from). The main advantage is that these professionals have a much more extensive network of contacts and greater access to job and career opportunities as there is no fee to the employer to work with them and hire through them.

Whatever you choose to do, remember that recruiters are paid to fill jobs and would love nothing more that for you to be the candidate their client needs when they review your resume. It is their skill, expertise and opinion the employer is paying for to help them fill the position. It is their livelihood at stake if they send the wrong candidate. A recruiter or employment agency might not be able to help you to find a job but if you sign on with them so they can find you when they have a job to fill they just might.


Please submit a comment or share your reactions before you leave and if you’re a Job Seeker looking for help in finding a job or part of a business with jobs to fill please contact me: Phone 416-628-5953 or 1-800-379-5629, Email nigel@thinkbdm.com, Skype nigel.corneal.

Preparing For Interviews - How to give the perfect answer to every interview question you’ll ever be asked.

  There are right and wrong answers to most technical interview questions so giving the perfect answer usually just means getting it right. With many interview questions however there are only desired answers; and the problem most interviewees face is that the desired answer can differ from interviewer to interviewer and from company to company. The same question, asked by the same interviewer, at the same company, can even have a different desired answer for different positions, but that’s a topic for another time. What I do know is that every perfect answer I’ve ever heard to an interview question had one common element; and because it was ‘perfect’ could work to the benefit of the interviewee, even when it was not the desired answer.

  What is that common element you ask? It’s good old honesty and truth of course, just like we were taught as kids. In preparing for an interview it’s important to prepare to be honest and true to you. Don’t prepare what you think is the expected or desired answer if it’s not the truth, the whole truth… well you know the oath. You expect the interviewer to be honest and truthful about your prospective employer and the job don’t you? So why is it that so many jobseekers and some of those helping them to prepare for interviews think that deception, distortion of facts, and lies of omission are acceptable in order to secure a job?

  For those who disagree or try to justify this type of behavior with the old adages “a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do” or “a girl’s gotta eat”, you’ll most often find careers full of short term jobs that although they started off as permanent positions, end up being listed as ‘temporary’ or ‘contract’, or where the individual is frequently ‘laid off’, usually for no fault of their own of course; and conveniently there are always a variety of very good reasons why there is no way to get references from anyone but a colleague or manager and one who is no longer with the company and whose own employment can not be verified.

  When you prepare for interviews it is good practice to prepare ‘your’ answers to common interview questions and anticipated technical, industry and discipline specific questions. Prepare by practicing what to say and how to say it in advance, that’s smart. Prepare a variety of ways to express the same thing to be ready for different:

• Circumstances - Have a short version ready for interviews where time is limited and a more complete version for interviews where you are expected to be more thorough -- also keep in mind that the same answer or explanation can come across very different when read than when heard, and different again in ‘live’ conversation where body language and facial expressions are taken into account;
• Personalities - Remember that humor has it’s place, learn when to take control and when to cede control, and realize that waxing philosophical is not necessarily the same as actually answering a question;
• Levels of expertise or even intelligence - As smart as we interviewers think we are, sometimes you will need to dumb it down for us :)
• Position or level of authority - I believe that it’s acceptable and in no way dishonest to answer based on a sort term goal as opposed to a longer term or ultimate goal when asked questions such as those about your reason for applying to the job, depending on the who you’re interviewing with. It would be unfair for example to expect you to tell someone whose position is below the level you aspire to, who unbeknownst to you might be looking for advancement to the same role, that you ultimately want the job above them.

  In all of your preparation remember that an experienced interviewer has probably heard it all before and will see right through any ruse; and while he or she will likely be too professional to call you on it, the attempt will result in you not getting called back for a second interview, or considered for more suitable opportunities as they arise with the company or through the agency you interviewed with. You may be the most qualified, personally likeable and the chemistry between yourself and the interviewer may seem great, but if during the interview, or upon reflection it feels like you can not be trusted because your answers appear disingenuous, you will not get the job, it’s that simple.

  Of course if you do employ subterfuge and get the job, it’s likely to be short-lived and leave both parties feeling resentful and unsatisfied in the end, much like the bad relationships encountered while dating where the desired behavior shown and numerous omissions that occur in the beginning lead to regret and anger later on as you realize that she was never really… but I digress and am probably over-sharing :). My point is that it will not work out and you’ll either have to leave the position off of your resume creating a gap in your work history, or include it as temporary or contract and come up with some yarn about why it is not possible to get a reference if one is requested.

  There are no prefect answers, and you can’t expect to be the right fit or the best qualified for every job you interview for; and in some cases you may not land the job simply because the interviewer likes another candidate better or, as wonderful as your family and friends think you are, simply does not like you - a fair reason if the person would have to work with you and see you every day don’t you think?

  What I am certain of however is that if you are honest and true to you, you will find that your network of contacts will grow, you’ll see more second and third interviews, and find that some recruiters, managers, executives and owners will go out of their way to find a place for you in their company. Even those who may not take an immediate liking to you will put their personal feelings aside and refer you on to another department, division or company (I know because I have and know others who have also). In the end you’ll receive more offers and ultimately land in a position that is right for both you and the employer. So be prepared and be honest and true to you and you’ll find that you give the perfect answer to every interview question you’ll ever be asked.

Please submit a comment or share your reactions before you leave and if you’re a jobseeker looking for help with interviewing or part of a business interested in assistance with screening and interviewing candidates or to improve your own skills and techniques for conducting interviews please contact me: Phone 416-467-9961, Email nigel@thinkbdm.com, Windows Live nigelcorneal@hotmail.com, Skype nigel.corneal.