​Marc Belaiche, President and Owner of Torontojobs.ca shared these five tips with the Ontario Association of Career Management members and guests at last weeks dinner meeting.

1. Prepare, prepare and prepare for interviews. Interviewers are getting more savvy in their interviewing techniques. It can cost a company at least the equivalent of one years salary to hire for a new position so being able to tell a hiring manager what you are going to do for them is more important than anything else you can tell a potential employer.
   
   
2. Avoid doing things recruiters don’t like. Show up on time, know your resume inside out and backwards, know your salary expectation and indicate whether you are relocatable. Dress for the position or one level above, know your SAR stories and give quantitative results where possible.
   
   
3. Show up. Even if you have decided the position isn’t for you, go for the practice or minimally, call to cancel.
   
   
4. Know what jobs are in demand and who has the leverage. Thinking that you could do the job isn’t the same as having done the job, apply for jobs that you have experience in. Before you attend an interview, ask who will be doing the interview, their names and titles and how long the interview will be.
   
   
5. Learn how to search for jobs online; use social media to find job opportunities. Did you know that Kijiji and Craig’s List have job postings? Have a highly professional LinkedIn profile and learn how to use LinkedIn to uncover job postings.
   
   

Marc also shared that reference checks are not as prevalent today as credit and criminal checks. Know your credit rating, it is yours for the asking.

You may not be asked how much you earned in your last job, which is irrelevant to any new position, but what you are looking to earn. Be sure to know the industry standard for your qualifications, education level, experience, skills and potential.
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At the end of the day, interviewers want their candidates to be: courteous, prepared and responsive. Evaluate yourself in these three areas to ensure you are a 10 out of 10 in each category.

The world of work and of job search has shifted and redefined itself substantially in the last ten years. These are issues that employers face in finding and keeping an inspired, productive employee base in these ever changing times.

1. Truth be told, it is getting more and more difficult to find the best candidates for many jobs in varied sectors of business. This is the #1 issue for recruiters right now.
   
   
2. There has been an increase in multiple and counter offers. For highly employable individuals often in newly created positions and with high traffic, people are receiving two or three offers at a time.
   
   
3. Employers are moving more quickly to the interview stage to find the right candidate. You snooze you lose, so set the interview, make a decision and get the best candidate.
   
   
4. HR professionals and hiring managers are paying attention to resumes they might have disregarded in the past. There are less applicants per posted position so there are less resumes in piles B & C and more being considered in pile A.
   
   
5. The trend is to make it easier to apply to positions on line. 50% of candidates drop out from applying to a position if there are too many steps in the application process.
   
   
6. Social media is still not being used to recruit by many organizations. It is still important to have a stellar LinkedIn profile, but don’t count on that as your only means of visibility.
   
   
7. Employers are using varied means of recruiting technology including:
   • Video interviewing
   • Xref Reference Checking
   • AI, Artificial Intelligence. Robot Vera is a Russian computerized interviewer who can interview up to 1500 people a day. 200 companies in England and Russia are using AI for interviewing for repetitive jobs -  and she records the answers.
   • Facial recognition technology. By reading your facial muscle movement this technology registers how interested you are in the job being interviewed for.
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8. 85% of job applicants lie on their resume. This astounded me. There are seven types of checks a recruiter can use to validate a candidate’s resume so don’t take applicants at face value, do your due diligence and check out all potential new hires.
   
   
9. Give people their 10 out of 10 jobs. In that only 13% of employees are passionate about their job, it is so important to try a rate a candidate’s opinion on how they measure or value their job.
   
   
10. Consider alternatives to filling empty positions. Such as: internal promotions, transfers and reallocating work.
    
    
11. Don’t fear Gen Z and Millennials. There are 8.4M Gen Z’s in Canada, people under 24, and they are entering the workforce as you read this. (more on Gen Z’s in another article)
    
    
12. The “Ghosting” Phenomenon: Why Candidates Don’t Show Up for Interviews or Start the Jobs They Are Offered. Employers are combatting this trend by:
    • Arranging to speak live on Skype or Facetime
    • Listening to them tone of voice for how interested the candidate is in the position
    • Asking if they have other offers
    • Asking for their word to show up for the interview, “Do you promise?”
    • Reminding them they have signed a legally binding contract
    
    
13. Employees don’t really care about cool office perks, what really matters is that 44% of professionals said benefits like health coverage and paid time off will likely keep them at their current company for 5+ years. More than half of professionals are most proud of the work life balance and flexibility at their company. 70% of employees will not work at an organization with a bad culture.

Shared by guest speaker, Marc Belaiche, President and Owner of Torontojobs.ca, delivered on February 21, 2019 at the event: Tales from the Recruiter.

Career coaches and consultants regularly deal with clients who have had a disappointing, perhaps painful experience with their employment situation. While it is not always practical to prevent such difficulties, there is a simple formula available which can help to significantly decrease the likelihood of this happening.
 
Put another way, the premise of this article is based on the general desirability of an employment relationship being genuinely enabling to the employee and a serious value-add to the employer, not the employee exploiting the employer or vice versa. The “Six Yeses” formula can provide a radical reduction in the probability of pain to both parties and can provide an increase in the probability of a mutually rewarding and successful engagement over the medium to long term.
 
While it is true that the needs and interests of an employer are not the same and can be in conflict with the needs and interests of an applicant, the questions both parties have in common include the quality of fit between them and the sense to both that the longer term relationship will be satisfactory or better to both parties.
 
This formula is deceptively simple. When it is described to a client or employer, its value is appreciated almost immediately. As if by magic, the client and the employer have a new tool for self-protection and assurance that when they agree to enter a new employment relationship, it has all the markers of being highly beneficial for both parties. Or, if the decision is made to proceed in offering or accepting a job offer with less than six yeses, both parties are much more aware of the risk issues, and have the opportunity to manage and mitigate them so they do not blossom into really bad news in the future.
 
Employers, during the recruiting and interview process typically ask many questions. Reducing all these questions into three categories, the employer needs to be satisfied about each applicant:

• Can they do the work? Do they have the skills, knowledge, technology, network and social capabilities to be successful in this role with this organization?
• Will they do the work?  The employer needs to hire a person who wants to be working in this specific job. Even if the applicant has the skills, this does not mean that they will be motivated, keen and enthusiastic in using their skills to get the job done. Therefore the employer is wise to probe about motivation issues.
• Will they fit in? It is particularly important that a new hire is compatible with the organizational culture and gets along well with their future boss.

 
It is generally understood that more often than not, if a dysfunctional relationship develops between an employee and his/her immediate manager, the employee may resign, may slip into “presenteeism” (at their desk but not actually working) or may become disruptive.
 
Employee Assistance Program (EAP) practice and research inform us that an unhappy/distracted/disengaged employee generally becomes a significant problem for his/her boss, colleagues, subordinates and others who rely on their successful performance. Therefore prior to making the hiring decision, employers have an obligation to ensure, if possible, that the manager and the prospective employee will get along well and will develop a mutually enabling relationship.
 
From the employer’s perspective: The employer has at least three methods of gathering information about the answers to the above questions: They can ask their questions during the interviews, can do their due diligence, including taking up references supplied by the applicant, and can conduct a broader search -- social media, information gathering from the employer’s network, and checking around without declaring it to the applicant.
 
The employer should be cautious about making a job offer until they are satisfied that the applicant has the skills to do the work, is sufficiently motivated, enthusiastic and keen to actually do the work, and that the applicant, if hired, will work well with their new manager and align themself with the employer’s general themes, mission and priorities. In brief, once the employer has three yeses, it is reasonable for them to make the job offer.
 
From the applicant’s perspective: The applicant likewise asks similar questions from his/her point of view, although in my experience, it is common for these questions to be bypassed substantially if not completely, since many job seekers are anxious to become employed, even if the fit with the new job, manager and employer is marginal.

1. Does the applicant actually have the skills required or can they be easily acquired? Regarding the work product, what deliverables are expected and by when? Are the employer’s expectations reasonable and achievable? Often the match between skills required and the applicant’s skills is marginal and only the applicant can make this determination. If the applicant’s evaluation is acceptable about the skill-fit, he or she records their first yes.
2. How keen, enthusiastic and motivated does the applicant feel about the opportunity? How excited is the applicant about taking on these challenges? Will there really be an opportunity for the applicant to be at his or her best, to do their most productive work, to learn and be stimulated, to add significant value to the employer, to strengthen their resumé for the future? Could the applicant feel proud to be working with this organization? Is the compensation reasonable or better?  If yes, the applicant proceeds to the last question.
3. What is the applicant’s feeling and impression about how worklife would likely be under the direction of the new boss? Does the applicant trust what the prospective boss is saying? Does the applicant feel a sense of respect for the manager? Is there reasonable compatibility between the boss’ management style and the style that brings out the applicant’s enthusiasm and best work? Can the applicant learn anything from their new manager and become stronger and more competent for the future? If these questions are answered in the affirmative, the stage is set for the applicant to negotiate and accept the job offer, when it arrives.

 
Some of the answers to these questions may be revealed in the interviews, but other information may be missing. The alert applicant needs to recognize that despite his or her best social sense in “reading between the lines”, what happens in an interview is frequently influenced by the employer’s interest in attracting and recruiting the applicant, not necessarily in talking about things that may be difficult to explain.
 
Missing information may include the immediate manager’s actual managerial style, crisis response style, record of anger management, adherence to ethical practices, accessibility and responsiveness to the new employee’s requests for information, decisions and advice.
 
Employers can be highly reassuring and apparently sincere in interviews, and it is the applicant’s responsibility to come to an understanding about what the true situation is. The prospective manager may be one of the best, or perhaps not. If the applicant has taken the boss’ comments at face value, he or she is at risk of believing the manager’s story line about what a wonderful manager he/she is, when it may not be entirely true.
 
Therefore there is an obligation on the applicant to do his or her own “due diligence,” checking about the prospective manager’s behaviour in the workplace and the general reputation of the employer from individuals who have worked there or had meaningful interaction with the organization.
 
Unfortunately, many, perhaps most applicants stop themselves from making the due diligence calls and this is a strategic mistake. Not investigating means that the applicant has incomplete information about their next and most important reporting relationship and is relying entirely on what was perceived, assumed, learned and inferred from the face-to-face interviews. This represents a massive gap in the applicant’s analysis.
 
Once the applicant is satisfied that he/she has the skills required, and is motivated and keen to do the work, questions one and two are answered positively. Assuming that the applicant has done the appropriate due diligence and has gathered opinions and facts about the corporate culture and how the manager actually behaves on the job, and has found that the reports are not troublesome, the third question becomes answered in the affirmative. Once the applicant has three yeses, he or she can be as confident as possible that acceptance of the offer will lead to a mutually rewarding, productive and stable employment experience.
 
At this point, the employer has arrived at three yeses, and makes the employment offer. The applicant has three yeses and is fully ready to negotiate and accept the offer. While nothing is certain, and situations can change, the likelihood is strong that the applicant, now the new employee, will be using the skills they have, will have high motivation to work hard and smart, and has accepted a new manager who will be delighted to have found a new employee. This is the win-win conclusion that most of us would wish.
 
In summary, this deceptively simple formula provides a framework enabling wise decisions to be made by the employer and the applicant, which work to the advantage of both parties, and to the disadvantage of neither.
 
Donald M. Smith, M.S.W., CMF
Secretary of Ontario Association of Career Management
Career Coach & Consultant
416-465-9779
don.smith@sympatico.ca
https://ca.linkedin.com/in/donaldmalcolmsmith
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Members and supporters of the Ontario Association of Career Management (OACM) have asked several questions about:

1. Why we changed our name from Association of Career Professionals International (Toronto Network) to the OACM?
2. Why we selected a focus on Ontario rather than Toronto?
3. Why did we select a focus on Career Management, rather than a term that was broader or more restrictive?

 
Since these are all reasonable questions, this Blog will provide our reasoning and the process that we pursued in creating our new branding name. Together they describe the steps taken since the Annual General Meeting in June 2015 when Zana Dragovic (Past Chair) and Kristina Sammut (Chair) announced that the association would cease being a subsidiary network of the Association of Career Professionals International and, as an independent organization, would create a new name and identity for future programming in support of career professionals in Toronto and Ontario.
 
The story starts with the concept of “name infringement”, as a source of litigation which, unfortunately has become a popular distraction in the Not-For-Profit zone. Clearly identified brand messaging is important in any commercial or professional sector, so that members and supporters can differentiate at a glance the prospective benefits (and limitations) which any given association can provide. 
 
Our way to establish a new association name is through incorporation with the Ontario Government.  Our Board identified a number of potential names which were not arguably or apparently confusable with any other NFP association names and secured approval to identify ourselves as the Ontario Association of Career Management. This made it possible to secure incorporation (“Letters Patent”) from the Ministry of Government Services.


Why the change from Association of Career Professionals International (Toronto Network) to Ontario Association of Career Management?

At the ACPI (Toronto Network) AGM on 9 June 2015 Zana Dragovic (outgoing Chair) and Kristina Sammut (incoming Chair) made announcements that the organization was separating from ACP International. As an independent association, it would be establishing a new name that would be unique to our function and could not arguably be confused with the ACP International branding or the branding of any other professional support association.
 
Of the numerous names considered, OACM was the only one which met four key criteria. The criteria are (1) clearly distinctive from other associations, (2) describing the kind of work our Members do, (3) approvable within the NUANS name search and (4) consistent with our history; prior to adopting the name ACP International, the association was branded as International Association of Career Management Professionals.

 
Why the focus on Ontario rather than Toronto?

Historically, the largest group of members in the association was living or working within reach of the Greater Toronto Area, although there was always interest and participation from professionals from elsewhere in the province of Ontario. It is likely that on an ongoing basis the majority of our members will continue to be GTA based, but by broadening our reach to Ontario, this provides a platform for the non-GTA Members to feel fully legitimized and welcome to participate in the networking, information sharing and professional development activities that the OACM offers. This also opens the door to other delivery channels for professional development, for example by developing virtual presentations using GoToMeeting or other modalities.
 
Why did we select Career Management as an umbrella concept rather than something broader or narrower?

The intention of selecting “Career Management” as our scope of interest is to attract leaders and professionals from within the spectrum of distinctive, yet related practices, so that together we can learn from each other and generate a broader appreciation of the interrelatedness of these different fields. These leaders and professionals  provide, purchase and organize career services; we found that the name of the association was too tightly focused just on career service professionals. There is great benefit to be gained by attracting members from broader fields, since they are all to some extent cousins (or at least close relatives) of ours in that their mandate overlaps with ours in positive ways.
 
Here are three examples:

• Executive Search Consultants are not career professionals yet many aspects of their work interact with the work of career professionals and each can learn from the other.
• Talent development professionals employed by organizations do not provide career services as we understand it, yet there are many potential benefits to each group that can be gained by planning and sharing together in our membership and Events.
• Life Coaches have training and experience in coaching procedures for marital, spiritual, relationship and life mission issues, yet few have any specific training in career/employment methodology. They can benefit from training in career planning, resumé development, job/work search methods, market research and interviewing.

 
Although the following list of fields is not exhaustive, we plan to provide Event programming that includes leading-edge dialogue and professional development to our Members including:

• Senior leaders and managers/executives in organizations who have an interest in the complete life cycle of employment, including recruitment, selection, hiring, onboarding, development, training/education, transfer, succession and dismissal
• Professionals and managers in career centres including in colleges and universities
• Employers of Talent Management Specialists in the for-profit, government, NFP agencies and institutional sectors
• Employment Facilitators and Consultants, Job Developers, Job Coaches, Accreditation Specialists, Recruiters, Counsellors, Career Developers and Exit Enterview Specialists
• Leaders and professionals in career transition (outplacement) firms in the private sector
• Training and organization development specialists
• Life coaches in need of technical training in the career management field
• Employee Assistance Program professionals and managers
• Human Resource professionals with a focus on employee issues, third-party intervention, disability and human dynamics concerns
• Human Resource Specialists who deal with employee demotivation issues, manager/employee conflict & misunderstandings and family troubles that spill over into the workplace
• Executive Search Consultants
• Senior staff in organizations which frequently or occasionally purchase career transition (outplacement) services

Written by:
Don Smith, Secretary of the Board
Ontario Association of Career Management