For everyone out in the huge Internet universe who reads our TxMQ blogs; I have an announcement. I am taking a brief leave from my weekly responsibilities as a blogger. Why? Well truth be told, I’m getting married.

And of course, one thing always reminds me of another and another. It’s how my brain works. My constant thought stream can somehow link an elephant with macaroni and cheese if I want it to… I’ll have to think on that one later.

But seriously, what my wedding makes me think about is everything that came before. The initial meet, the courtship, learning about each other, falling in love, and making the ultimate commitment to get married.

(YES – I am going to use love and marriage as a metaphor for the hiring process in honor of my big day. Yes. It must be done.)

Aside from the actual marriage part, it all fits quite well. In one’s career they will go through either a few or many relationships with companies; making commitment after commitment. I would liken our careers more to a lifetime of dating relationships. Very few individuals these days actually become MARRIED to their jobs for life – barring entrepreneurs.

So anyway – I read an article that prompted the idea for this blog. From HR Magazine (www.hrmagazine.co.uk) Mr. Jeffrey, head of Talent Acquisition for Autodesk, made some pretty strong statements about the recruitment industry and how it needs to change.

“There is a global war for talent and we are competing to hire the best.”

“Lazy recruiters are damaging the standard of the profession and are just ticking boxes.”

“Recruiters need to have a relationship with people to give them an idea of company culture because passive candidates become active at the touch of a button.”

“We need to celebrate the candidate in the recruitment process.”

“The candidate experience can genuinely be very poor.”

In my opinion, Mr. Jeffrey is correct on all counts. There has been a paradigm shift over the last 8 months or so that has given candidates the upper hand in hiring relationships. This article sites that 90% of the best candidates are not actively on the job hunt. They’re your neighbor, your vendor, your supplier, your client.

I think the number one item I took away from the article was the simple fact that the interviewing/hiring process is the beginning of courtship with and end goal of establishing long-term relationship.

The art of courting a candidate has been completely lost over the past four years because employers have enjoyed the upper hand with so many displaced workers seeking jobs. Employers – you were allowed to be callous, treat your candidates like a number, show disinterest in the interview process, lowball them on salary and benefits, and pile them with a workload built for two F/T employees BECAUSE YOU COULD. No one can blame you. No one did. They needed work, and it was work you provided.

But what do you do now that the best candidates have CHOICES.

What’s the old saying? “There are plenty of fish in the sea.”

This is how candidates are viewing their job search – they now have OPTIONS.

So this art of courting a candidate; establishing a relationship with them that transcends money needs to be resurrected.

Without a doubt my experience tells me that every personal story a candidate tells me, every chuckle I get out of them over the phone, every time they brag about their kids’ soccer games, the closer I get to earning their trust. AND THAT is when they will actually listen to me about a job opportunity with one of my client companies. They will trust what I tell them. They will CONSIDER what I’m telling them – and THAT means I’ve successfully established a tentative trusting relationship. At that point I have become their confidante. At that point they prefer to work with me over another recruiter. I become their partner.

I can only hope that when I hand a candidate off to my client company that they take care to do the same. The courtship – that initial impression you leave on a high profile candidate is THE MOST important to establishing a relationship that will encourage them to say yes when you’ve presented them with an offer. This world is not so black and white as a dollar amount. Candidates need to feel needed, and wanted, and accepted. They need to feel as though you’re excited to meet them. Hmm, sounds a lot like something I call…. Dating.

It’s what we at TxMQ call “rolling out the red carpet”. Think of it in these terms: You’re on a first date (first interview) and you want to showcase the best possible version of yourself. You want to (at least pretend) to listen attentively and sing some of your own accolades. Because in this game you want to WIN that person over, and that person could end up being the best thing that ever happened to you(re business).

I read a super interesting article that kind of resonated with me today. The article was posted in INC.com and was entitled: Success Tips: 6 Habits of Truly Memorable People. I will let you read the article yourself here, but the one thing that stood out in my mind from the whole thing was the tip that suggested getting over yourself.

Most of the time your professional life is like a hamster wheel of resume or C.V. padding: You avoid all possibility of failure while maximizing the odds of success in order to ensure your achievement graph climbs up and up and up.

Inevitably, that approach starts to extend to your personal life too.

So you run… but you won’t enter a race because you don’t want to finish at the back of the pack. You sing… but you won’t share a mic in a friend’s band because you’re no Adele. You’ll sponsor the employee softball team but you won’t play because you’re not very good.

Personally and professionally, you feel compelled to maintain your all-knowing, all-achieving, all conquering image.

And you’re not a person. You’re a resume.

Stop trying to seem perfect. Accept your faults. Make mistakes. Hang yourself out there. Try and fail.

Then be gracious when you fail.

When you do, people will definitely remember you because people who are willing to fail are rare… and because people who display grace and humility, especially in the face of defeat, are incredibly rare.

It’s true. The best people I have ever worked with have been the people who can check their ego at the door, be gracious to their fellow employees, give credit where credit is due and not be afraid to admit to their mistakes.

We all have an element of ego and that’s ok, it’s part of what makes you take pride in what you do, but knowing when and where to check the ego will go much further than being the best and showcasing it constantly.

Don’t be afraid to let go of your image and make a mistake, especially if it will ultimately be for the the betterment of the group.

Quick story, my husband is training a new employee right now. He’s not the most senior level person at his employer, he’s not even the technical director, but he has taken the training responsibility under his charge because he wants the new employee to be the best that she can be. So here he is, making sure his work gets done, all while overseeing a new employee’s training process while his boss continually avoids doing anything hands-on. Nobody knows the reason his boss is sidestepping this responsibility, but for what it’s worth, it doesn’t look good to her.

My husband’s co-workers would respect her far more if she would get her hands dirty in the field and help with the training than they do for just letting her put the training responsibility on someone else.

So make yourself stand out today. Do something special in the field, something outside of your comfort zone or outside the box. Check your ego at the door, be gracious and help your co-workers succeed just as you have found success. Trust me, they will respect and admire you all the more for it. Even if it doesn’t seem like it will pay off in the immediate future, it’s guaranteed to pay off in the future.

During a recession people do a lot of reflecting on their career choices. Is their education up to snuff? Have they stayed current in skill sets? Have they chosen the right profession; the right industry? Is there ANY such thing as job security anymore?

To answer the last question – NO, there really isn’t job security anymore. At least, not the way there was job security, say, for my parents’ generation (both have been with the same employer for 10+ and 25+ years and are lucky at that). One thing that everyone has learned in the past four years is NOT to remain complacent, and not to become too comfortable.

BUT – this isn’t what my blog is about. I’m in a good mood, so I want to take a more positive twist on the subject.

When you break it down, job security is most closely linked with industry.

Buffalo – where I live – is an old steel town. Back in the ‘50’s, when we were pumping steel out faster than you could say “rust belt”, a lot of steel tycoons got VERY rich. As a matter of fact, even the factory workers made a pretty penny. But as the steel industry died in the U.S. (due to many different factors including the rise in popularity of imported cars) so did Buffalo’s riches.

What I’ve learned as a recruiter is that every industry has its moment in the sun, but few industries stay at the top all the time. These industries should be the target of your career aspirations to if you crave stability in this unstable economy.

The best way to test the longevity of your industry is to ask a simple, two fold question:

How important is my company’s product or service to the general populace?

How often do they need to purchase this product or service?

What I’m getting at is working in a commodity-based industry; an industry that appeals to peoples NEEDS. Not their wants.

The industries that best fit this mold are food/beverage, pharmaceutical, medical & banking.

Industries that would SEEM to fit that mold are construction and automotive, but ask yourself the 2^nd question – how often do people need to purchase a home or a car? To take it a step deeper, how often do people need to purchase a NEW home or a NEW car?

Just some food for thought. At the end of the day, the industries that supply us with products essential to life typically foster more stability.

As a side note, thankfully Buffalo has found found new centers of industry including banking, healthcare, & medical research.

“If you don’t have a LinkedIn profile, you don’t exist”.

Those are some heavy hitting words from Inc Magazine’s latest article on this business/career social networking site. The full article, LinkedIn: Reading Between the Lines, can be found here:

To be honest, I’m glad SOMEONE finally said it in such direct way. When I find that a colleague doesn’t have a LinkedIn profile, or I’m doing a bit of digging on the public LinkedIn site and find that entire companies are lacking a presence I find myself thinking “what kind of rinky dink operation do they have running?” Not sure if that’s a fair thought – but it’s what my inner monologue is saying none-the-less.

For instance, my father is an EXTREMELY successful businessman. He’s built a solid C-level career in an industry that will always have more demand than supply, yet he has no LinkedIn profile. When I’ve confronted him about it, he says he doesn’t understand LinkedIn’s purpose and just doesn’t see the need.

My father is what people would deem “old school” and he’s close to retirement so he can probably get away with never signing up and is no worse for wear. HOWEVER, this old school mentality will become hindering as social networking continues to grow in popularity. And don’t get me wrong; it’s already INSANELY popular.

For those of you who are skeptics – let me give you a quick understanding of the benefit of being LinkedIn.

A)   You can connect with former colleagues, clients, vendors, mentors, etc. It’s like Facebook for business – those whom you’ve lost touch with are just a click away

B)   You can utilize LinkedIn to research and create sales leads

C)   If you find yourself on the job hunt, LinkedIn is PARAMOUNT in a job search. Make your profile public so recruiters and competitors can see you and reach out to you.

D)   You become searchable on major search engines like GOOGLE and YAHOO!

E)   You’re given the opportunity to brand YOURSELF; not your company, but you – LinkedIn favors the individual rather than the business (in my opinion anyway)

F)    You can hook up with other industry professionals by joining LinkedIn’s MILLIONS of industry-specific and skill-specific groups.

As a recruiter, LinkedIn is my lifeline to “softly seeking candidates”, IE people who might entertain a job opportunity but have not posted their resume on Monster or Careerbuilder. As a matter of fact, this week I’m celebrating my 500^th connection, which makes me a LinkedIn LION – yes, it’s an official term for someone who is considered an “open networker” – very common in my profession of knowing a lot of really diverse people.

Anyway, this Inc.com article had some great advice for creating a smashing LinkedIn profile. This includes ALWAYS having a photo (make sure it’s professional and friendly), having a decent amount of connections, taking time to create a summary worthy of your experience, making sure to remember to add a chronological list of your experience (almost resume style), and having some recent recommendations posted.

For more specifics on each of these pointers, I encourage you to read the article – it’s a good one!

FINALLY – Link with me, and let me know how much you love my blogs!

http://www.linkedin.com/in/coreyswitzer

I was driving to work this morning feeling overwhelmed. Not with anything in particular, but just life itself.

I suppose raising an almost 19-month old, working a full time job and helping to support a household (all while trying to have a little bit of a personal life) makes that happen.

But it’s not unusual. We all get overwhelmed at times. As I have blogged about many times before, I think the origin of my stress is the constant struggle for perfection. But guess what? You can’t be perfect all the time. If you’re perfect at one thing, something else is going to slip. So I try to distribute my “perfectionist attitude” semi-equally across the board.

As is the nature of my business (recruiters tend to be perfectionists as well), my co-workers have the same drive for perfection as I do. It’s a good thing most of the time because we all understand one another. One the other hand, however, it can be a double-edged sword.

TxMQ had an off month in April. Not sure what happened, but it’s more than likely just the natural ebb and flow of business demand. Whatever the case, everyone struggled with it.

It was a struggle to find the right candidates, it was a struggle to get our clients to provide feedback, and it was a struggle to close positions. After several weeks of this, you can imagine that there was some frustration and doubt seeping into the minds of the masses.

The thing is, we all expect more, more, more. It’s what makes us good at what we do. But when all you experience is less, less, less…and everyone is experiencing it, the mood can dampen really quickly.

So what did I do? I brought ice cream. I wanted to fix it. I wanted to make everyone’s mood better, raise spirits up a little bit. Ice cream fixes everything, right?? RIGHT???

Wrong.

So we ate ice cream and remained frustrated; didn’t gain anything except perhaps an ice cream headache and maybe a pound.

Then in May, things just suddenly started to pick up. Again, we don’t know why. But it raised everyone’s spirits much higher than a simple ice cream treat.

But as we were discussing what happened in the month of April, Chuck had a great point. When things don’t seem like they’re happening, or you’re feeling supremely overwhelmed, go back to basics.

Sports analogy time…what happens when a team plays horribly or a coach wants to drive home a point? They go back to basics. They run basic drills and circle back to the foundation of the sport. That’s what eventually makes you a better player. So when all else fails and all the fancy moves aren’t getting you anywhere, go back to the basics and start all over with what you know.

So I promised myself today that instead of feeling overwhelmed, I would go back to the basics today, too. I would make myself a list and split it into the items that are second nature to me and the items that put me outside my comfort zone. And I would try to tackle each side equally. That way, I have a great mixture of what I enjoy to do and what stresses me out.

My blog here? That goes on the side that I enjoy to do. Now I’m off to try something that’s a bit more outside my comfort zone. But the one thing I know is that when the going gets tough, I can always drop back to my basics and things will look just a little bit better.

I got to do something really fun in the name of work this week!

One of the perks of being a recruiter is showing a prospective job candidate around an area they’re considering to relocate to.

In this case it was a family affair. While my candidate was on his job interview I got to show some WNY countryside to his wife and children, and we had a blast!

We picked a rural area because this family actually owns some livestock down in Pennsylvania, where they live, and would be looking for a similar situation/similar lifestyle.

Luckily for Western New York, we have it all; from farm country, to ski country, to city life and suburban heaven. WNY has many religious and cultural communities as well if you’re looking for neighbors with common ground.

So, WHAT am I getting at here?

I’ll tell you.

A job isn’t JUST about the requirements and starting salary. In many cases – especially with candidates who have families (who should be VERY MUCH a part of the decision-making process), location is prime as is standard of living and comfort with an area.

For instance – I’ve met MANY West Coasters who would/could never move to, much less survive in the Northeast. I’m not passing judgment. I’m just saying that you can have a job you love that pays you well, but if you’re not in your element it gets stressful.

I know a bunch of extremely successful people who have accepted jobs with Fortune 100 companies in states far away, or cities that don’t jive well with their personalities who leave those jobs to “come back home” or move to a place like home.

As a recruiter, it’s my job to gauge my candidates’ reactions to job locations. If they’re teetering on the edge of not considering a job opportunity based on location, it’s my job to talk with them, understand what their needs/wants/hobbies are and to see if the location would suit those needs.

When a candidate is getting close to an offer, or has been made an offer that would require relocation, it’s my job again to show them what a geographical area can offer that SUITS THEM.

No two people are alike – this is something my industry has painstakingly taught me. Just because Manhattan is a “happening place” doesn’t mean that everyone wants to live there. Just because Oregon is an incredibly beautiful state doesn’t mean that everyone wants to live there!

The prospect of relocation is a deal breaker for a lot of candidates – but for those willing to relocate, I need to ensure that they will find a measure of home and comfort where they hang their hat!

Recently, Chuck was interviewed for an article about what it takes to work at a small business. And while you may not think about it on a daily basis, it takes a certain personality to succeed and flourish at a small business. The dynamic is just different. So how do small business employee’s differ from large corporation employees?

Read on and I will give you some examples. I like to think I have some good insight on this, especially having worked for almost exclusively small businesses in my career thus far.

1. Drive - You’ve got to have a drive and need to succeed. You can’t be a wallflower when working in a small business. There just isn’t an opportunity to blend in. You need to pull your own weight and sometimes more. You can’t be satisfied with the status quo. When I think about why I like working for my small company, I usually reason it out with the fact that I love to vacuum and I love to mow the lawn. Why? Well, it’s instant gratification. You can IMMEDIATELY see the results of your work.

The same thing happens to me on a daily basis. I see the results of my hard work almost immediately. It’s impossible not to. There aren’t a lot of layers for it to filter through. I’m responsible for certain items that must get done and if they don’t, I am on the hook for it.

2. Accountability – The other edge of the “drive” sword, however, is that you need to be willing to take the blame for mistakes that are made. It’s not someone else’s fault when you mess up. Since many times you’re solely responsible for the completion of a project, there’s no hiding when something gets messed up. You need to be able to admit to your mistakes, own then and make them better next time. That was always a hard thing for me, but now I see that you actually get more respect when you admit that you honestly messed up and you will fix it.

3. Flexibility – There’s a lot of flexibility needed with a small company. Your job description can really be ever changing and you need to check your pride and ego at the door. There’s no room for it. If you need to run to the post office, you do. The garbage needs emptied? You do that too. I can’t tell you how many times I have emptied the dishwasher, wiped down the toilet or cleaned the fridge. Nothing is above you when you work for a small business. It takes everyone as a team to keep things running smoothly.

4. Patience – Things can go one of two ways when working for a small business. They move at lightning speed or they drag at a turtle’s pace and take forever to complete. Either way, you have to have the patience to wait out the ebb and flow of the business cycle and understand natural ups and downs. You also need a high tolerance to stress. When a project falls on your shoulders and your shoulders only, the stress can build up. You need to be able to handle the pressure and complete the task at hand.

5. Outgoing Personality – Here’s the reality…If you don’t like knowing what’s going on in people’s lives, working for a small business probably won’t work for you. One way or another, you’re going to be in frequent contact with the people you work with and you’re going to hear what’s going on in their personal lives…and let’s be honest here, not everyone is going to get along. It’s about being able to accept others idiosyncrasies and knowing how to look the other way when something small bothers you.

It’s also so important to know how to handle confrontation. There’s no avoiding your co-workers, so it’s better to face confrontation head on rather than discussing it behind the scenes or with anyone other than the person you have an issue with.

6. Positive Attitude – Check your baggage at the door. It’s fine to have a bad day here and there, but extended “Debbie Downers” can really leave a bad vibe throughout the company. With a small environment, it is so easy for negativity to permeate the air. Originally when Chuck was called for the interview, the article was supposed to be about what you do with the negative person in a small company. Unfortunately, the answer is too easy…Get rid of them.

With so few people, it is too easy for one person’s negativity to spread like a contagious disease. There’s no room for it in a small business, so check it at the door, or you may find your bags packed for you.

To see the original article published in this topic, click here.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my years as a recruiter it’s that our industry has a particular ebb and flow. We have a busy season and a slow season. Our cycle depends on time of year, holidays, the beginning and/or end of the calendar year and fiscal year, the economy, and world economics and politics.

Phew! The world of hiring is certainly at the mercy of a lot of uncontrollable factors! As a matter of fact, just when we think we’ve got our cycle down, a wrench get’s thrown into the forecast that puts everything back up into the air.

For instance, in a typical economy (which we are not in) the hot hiring times are typically February through June, with a bit of a slowdown from July through October, and almost complete shut down in November, December and part of January because of the holidays and the end of the calendar year.

This year our predictions were WAY off. Back in November, December and January we were so hot we weren’t just on fire, we were EN FUEGO (Spanish for “on fire” but it’s got more zest)!! Our division literally could not fill jobs as fast as we were receiving them. In those three months we put almost 15 senior level engineering/management professionals to work. WOW.

Naturally, we were thinking “Jeeze, we’re SO BUSY right now that when we actually hit busy season we’re going to be blown away”. The mood was a mixture of excitement, and anxiety. How will me manage all that money?! How will we manage all of those job opportunities?

Needless to say, when “busy season” hit, we were disappointed. This spring has been a trying and confusing time for our division. Sure, we’re making money and we’re remaining profitable (thank Gosh) but we’re actually a smidge slower than we were in the last quarter of 2011. AND WHY?!?!?!

Traditionally we should be off our rockers, INSANE with requisitions to fill. Natalie (my boss) and I have been revisiting and researching the factors that control our industry; it’s not the time of year, is it the early warm weather? Is it due to the end of the War in Iraq? Is it happening down on the gas and oil commodity level that purchasing is just slowing down because of rising fuel prices?

Turns out, it’s all of the above according to a NY Times article I read this morning. Previous projections of a wham bam spring business season are now being changed and retracted according to experts at the International Monetary Fund.

According to the article, the consecutive months of job growth/creation has ended in the United States. March was the first month since November that job growth is actually DOWN.

What do the experts attribute to this “blip” on the radar?

1. The ill timing of Easter
2. “Oil prices remain stubbornly high”
3. An uncommonly warm winter caused a false-start and created a smidge bit of false hope (ha)

Though, economists are saying that this is just a “blip” on the radar rather than a trend and there’s still an “uneasy calm” regarding global economic growth.

To be honest – I’m a little bit happy that I stumbled on this article today. Natalie and I have been speculating for weeks about the slow down in our business and this puts a name and face to it! Maybe we should quit our day jobs and become economists because we were SPOT ON!

HAAAA – Just kidding ☺ As I’ve learned, all of life is a cycle and we’re coming full circle slowly but surely from 2009. My recruiter’s sense tells me that we’ll see a busy late spring and summer. FINGERS CROSSED!!

PS. you can find the NY Times article here.

I just got back from vacation. My family and I went to Marco Island, Florida for a week, rented a house and just relaxed on the beach…well as much as we can relax with an 18 month old running around.

So I have a couple observations about technology…

1. Transportation – It’s awesome what it can do to cut down on travel time. We boarded the plane in Buffalo, got into the air and in the two hours it took my baby girl to take a nap, we traveled the length of the country and were in a whole new world. AWESOME!!

2. WiFi – So while we can stay connected with the world via WiFi, this is what I consider the real double-edged sword. We had a moment of panic when we got to the house and figured out that we couldn’t figure out the wireless password. I knew I needed to be online so I could keep up to date on the status of work projects. So the momentary panic I had was alleviated for a minute when I realized that I could check my phone for email. This however didn’t help the “Go To My PC” program that I had set up that allowed me access to my desktop computer at work. I did not have access to that all week.

So my main source of stress throughout the week was checking my email and making sure that everything was running smoothly at work. I had several co- workers heading to a conference in Las Vegas and I had left several items in another co-workers hands and (as a perfectionist) I had a fear that they just wouldn’t get done without me there.

I felt a great need to STAY wired, even though I was on vacation. It’s the overachiever in me, I suppose. But technology didn’t let that turn off. Had I been on a cruise or something, trust me, I wouldn’t have stayed plugged in, but because I had the option to be, I felt like I MUST be.

3. Cell Phones – Great, great way to keep in touch with the family and take pictures and stay connected to life outside of Marco…HOWEVER…and this is a big HOWEVER…it sucks time out of your day.

Taking a walk, enjoying the weather, my husband was taking pictures of the homes on the Island and sending the pictures to his family back home. Very nice way to keep them in the loop of where we were and what we were doing. And here’s the HOWEVER…As I was walking with the stroller, I lost my husband. He was about 15 houses behind me, texting back home.

So now while it’s nice to stay connected, it’s almost disconnecting in the moment we were in.

Look, I’m all for technology. Heck, it pays my paycheck each week. Without technology, there would be no TxMQ, therefore no job. But sometimes, it would just be really nice to be able to check out. I think everyone mentally needs that relaxation, though I know some of you would disagree.

I am a huge fan of sitting back and taking in the moment and memories as they happen and while technology helps make memories, the preoccupation with it can also shift focus away from what is truly important.

I’ve had a bad week.

Today I was going to blog about how CareerBuilder is running an ad on their website advocating working with recruiters. But let’s be honest, recruitment firms pay CareerBuilder BIG BUCKS, so it’s a no brainer that they’re singing our praises. They’re buttering us up for the pig roast (whatever that means).

Not that I don’t love CB, because I really do.

Anyway, their praise got me thinking about the fact that most candidates don’t understand how much work we (recruiters) do on their behalf.

Thankfully, most candidates are grateful regardless of how much we can help them. They realize that a bridge built can someday facilitate a new introduction. They REALIZE that recruiters are some of the most well-connected professionals in a region. There are fewer candidates who treat us as a slight annoyance; a gatekeeper to the Promised Land – the INTERVIEW. Other candidates (the SMALL minority) must think we just sit around drinking latte’s all day and gossiping around the water cooler. They must think that intelligence and an incredibly hard work ethic are traits we lack.

Individuals who don’t appreciate the work we do on their behalf – AT NO EXPENSE TO THEM – are a waste of my time.

I know this blog seems dark, but I take my profession seriously. I am in the business of employing our country in the middle of a recession. I directly affect the growth and success of my client companies based on the work that I do for them.

If an individual doesn’t realize the 50+ man-hours per week I put in on behalf of all of my candidates; getting to know them, understanding their innermost wants and needs, advocating them, going to bat for them, going above and beyond to market them to clients that aren’t necessarily hiring, GETTING THEM AN OFFER, then I simply don’t want to work with them. And I happen to have that choice!

What people who treat recruiters like dirt under their shoe don’t realize is that good recruiters become a hiring partner; a confidant to their client companies. If a candidate chooses to mess with the bull (me), they will get the horns (the boot from my advocacy of them).

At the end of the day, IF YOU DON’T RESPECT ME, I DON’T RESPECT YOU. And I’ll let you in on a little secret – I need to respect you to even begin to consider to plop my seal of approval on your resume and send it over to a client who trusts me.

What’s the moral of the story? I dunno – there probably is no moral for 99% of you out there in cyberspace reading this blog. Like I referenced before, I really enjoy getting to know and working with most of my candidates.

The moral for the other 1% – start respecting those who are around to make you look good or you’ll “never work in this town again” (to quote some obscure movie from the 1940’s or 50’s).

PS – let me know if you know where and with whom that quote originated!

This is Corey signing off.

Fingers crossed for a better week, next week.