Crypto Guys!

Field Trip!

-The National Cryptologic Museum at NSA-

The ENIGMA!

Tips for Working with Recruiters

Your average job seeker just doesn’t “get” what a recruiter does. This is apparent to anyone that’s ever heard a friend or relative complain about a recruiter “not finding them a job.” If you’re planning on working with recruiters or with a staffing firm, here are a few things to keep in mind.

Tips for Working with Recruiters

• Recruiters don’t find people jobs: The average job seeker has it all mixed up – recruiters don’t go out and find jobs, recruiters find candidates. They match candidates with open positions given to them by their client companies. Recruiters are tasked with filling these job requisitions. If you’re planning on working with recruiters, understand that they are often looking for very specific types of candidates – don’t get offended if you don’t match.
• Recruiters are part of the bigger picture: With this in mind, job seekers should embrace one or more recruiters as part of their overall job seeking strategy – not as an end-all solution. Professional networking, social media sites, and other job seeking channels should still be utilized to maximize individual job leads. Job seekers should recognize that recruiters can open additional doors for them and are inevitably part of the larger job market landscape.
• Recruiters and job seekers need to work together: It’s all about teamwork. Job seekers should be honest about their credentials and in turn, recruiters will work hard to push their profile towards befitting opportunities. Be open and upfront about your current compensation and future expectations and recruiters will get the interviews rolling. If everything works out, the recruiter makes a placement and you get a new job – both sides win when there’s mutual respect and understanding.

All too often, job seekers throw themselves at recruiters and expect royal treatment. Candidates have a hard time accepting the fact that recruiters don’t work for them, but with them. Recruiters always have your best interests in mind (and they want you to get hired), but they can’t make individually tailored jobs appear out of thin air.

Seeing eye-to-eye with recruiters isn’t all that complicated when you use their services as one of many valuable resources in your job seeking toolbox. If you are looking for a job, make sure you pursue every avenue available to you – and that working with recruiters in the correct fashion is part of your job search strategy.

How to Work the Phone: 6 Tricks to SUCCESS!

The telephone has been in existence for 136 years, but the way some people use it, you'd think it was invented yesterday.

With business travel at an all-time low, there is simply no skill more important to business success (especially in sales) than the ability to build rapport during a telephone conversation. When you can't shake hands or look somebody in the eye, your voice (and your voice alone) must be able to communicate "I am capable and trustworthy."

Unfortunately, many people in business have no idea that they sound like idiots, hustlers or robots when they're talking on the phone. They talk too fast, they mumble, they blather, they make remarks that would only make sense with an accompanying hand gesture.

It's crazy. You wouldn't believe the stuff I've heard. And that's just the negative, sales-killing stuff. Very few people use their voice and word choice actively to create a better connection with the person at the other end of the line.

Here's a quick primer how to do this:

1. Expunge your verbal weaknesses.

Record some conversations (with the other person's agreement, naturally) and see if you're doing something annoying–saying "uh ..." in the middle of every sentence, for instance, or slapping a "you know ..." at the end.

Important: Never, ever turn a statement into a question by putting a little uptick at the end; it's a huge credibility killer. Same goes for regional accents that carry a stigma in other regions. If necessary, hire a vocal coach.

2. Always have an agenda.

Never have a business conversation, especially on the phone, without knowing exactly what you're trying to accomplish. This is also a good idea when meeting face to face or emailing, but it's even more important during a phone call. Two key reasons:

• You may not have the other person's full attention.
• Unlike email, it's real time–which means you can't craft a message and then edit it before hitting "send."

3. Listen (really) to the other person.

When in a conversation, most people barely hear what the other person is saying; instead, they're thinking about what they're going to say next. That's really stupid during a phone conversation because nuances are much harder to catch than if you're face to face.

It takes a bit of practice, but what you need to do is suspend your "what do I say next?" until after the other person is done speaking.

4. Take a second before each response.

When you pause before responding, the other person knows that you've listened. If, by contrast, you jump right in immediately with your response (or worse, cut the other person off), you've just communicated that you think your own thoughts are far more important than anything the other person could have said.

5. Listen (really) to your own voice.

This is the flip side of listening to the other person. When in a conversation, most people, as they talk, are thinking about what the other person is going to say next. That almost guarantees you'll communicate poorly.

Instead, listen to your own voice as if you were listening to another person. (By the way, this is much easier if you're following rules 1 and 3.)

6. Adapt your tonality to match.

As you speak, gradually take on the least obvious elements of other person's voice. The key here is to make it subtle, not obvious–lest the changes fall flat or, worse, seem mocking.

For example, if you're talking with somebody with a Mississippi accent, draw out your vowels ever so slightly–but don't cram "y'all" into your normal speaking pattern. Believe it or not, this trick really does build rapport quickly.

One final note: I probably don't need to say that the rules above also apply to face-to-face conversations. However, the rules are not quite as important in person, when your body language and appearance create enough interference that things like voice tonality can get lost in the mix. This is especially true for people who are very attractive. Back when I was single, I was often amazed at how a woman who wasfascinating in person could be annoying over the phone.

In fact, if I can make a non-scientific observation, it often seems that there's an inverse relationship between physical attractiveness and good phone skills. It's almost as if the "beautiful people" have become dependent upon their looks to smooth over their character flaws–flaws that emerge, big time, when they're on the phone.

Improving Recruiting Skills and Reflexes!

Training Like a Professional Have you ever participated seriously in a competitive sport? Do you know the manner in which people train for one? If you look deeply, you will see a strong resemblance in principal to that sport and our business. Because the reality is, if we put aside planning and strategizing and focus on the actual mechanics of what we do, after a period of time we get by on our reflexes. Throughout our working day we continually encounter a multitude of seemingly minor circumstances and objections which require us to respond, perhaps by additional probing questions, perhaps with rebuttals. If those situations are handled properly, we gain additional information or we overcome the objection and proceed to our next step. Does this always happen? No. But to the degree we do respond with maximum effectiveness, we improve our production. Consider it. A prospective client says he only pays a 20% fee. A candidate says she's happy where she is. Clients say they'll hire immediately if you find the right person. Candidates after interviews claim "everything went great". A hundred times a day we encounter situations where we might respond a bit better. But do we? We never see the hard results we might have had, so we think we are doing well. Perhaps we are. But if, as has been said, baseball is a game of inches, maximizing recruiting results is a game of improving your odds by enhanced skill at responses. A new person, of course, needs a solid foundation to do well. But once past that point - say, after a couple of years - you need better reflexes. HOW TO IMPROVE Sharpening up your reflexes is a two-step process, though that process can continue forever as you see more areas where you might improve. The first, of course, is identifying the areas where sharper reflexes will result in incremental additional billings. This does not have to only include such obvious areas as overcoming objections. Do you speak too rapidly? Have you fallen into repetitive speech patterns? Do you respond too quickly after the client or candidate stops talking without a brief moment of time to indicate you are listening? Do you ask questions to elicit more specific information rather than making statements? These too are reflexes. WHERE TO FOCUS Your first step is obviously to narrow your focus. Don't think you can just say "I need to do better" and leave it at that. You must train like a professional athlete. What does this mean? There is a major difference between how an amateur and a professional train. An amateur just does more of his sport - he plays more golf or tennis, he spars (in karate or boxing) more. By doing so, he may improve (slowly), but will never progress past his amateur level. A professional determines which specific area he needs to improve, and then spends time focusing on it alone. To do so, you must find your weak spots. Here are the ways to do so. Yourself Initially, try simply asking yourself where you could improve. Over the years, chances are you've noticed or been told about them, and have said to yourself "I need to work on that". Have you? Probably. Is the problem corrected? Perhaps not. Manager/Others If you have a manager, it's a mistake to think that he can't help you. If you haven't indicated a willingness to improve, he may just be concentrating on new people or those who ask for his help. Tell him you're ready to learn more and ask. If you are the manager, ask your most senior recruiter for some suggestions. He won't think you're "showing weakness"; he'll respect you for wanting to improve...as he should. Tape and Critique Your Calls Professional athletes record and evaluate their performances all the time to improve. You should, too. Our equivalent is a tape recorder hooked up to your phone. Visit Radio Shack or a similar electronics store. Fifteen minutes a day, three days a week, listening to your own calls after hours at home will get any experienced recruiter realizing where he can be improved. Notes and Numbers Have an unusually-colored sheet of paper on your desk (so it doesn't get lost in the clutter). Whenever something happens that you feel you didn't handle particularly well, write it down. Keep doing it. Over the course of a few weeks, a pattern is quite likely to emerge. Throughout these procedures, don't concentrate only on the words that you say. The manner of your presentation is not to be overlooked. And it too can be changed to the great benefit of your production. HOW TO IMPROVE Notes on Your Phone Take a look at your phone right now. Is there a note on it relating to improved performance? If not, you're missing an easy way to improve. Reflexes are habits; habits, to change, require ongoing reminders. Put a new sign on your phone every week. While brief pieces of "script" are certainly possible, it is more likely that these will reflect your manner of presentation and broad principles. Some examples might be "slow your pace", "ask questions" or "reinforce positives". Role-Playing No matter how good an athlete is, he practices. No matter how good a musician is, he practices - every day. Do you? Role-playing is our equivalent of practicing, and it will benefit you, the experienced recruiter, just as much as a novice. Conduct a Sales Meeting Aristotle once said that "the truest knowledge of an art is the ability to teach it". You don't need to teach everything about this business; you just need to do it. But teaching a weak spot of yours will force you to organize your thoughts, consider the problem and solution in depth, and formalize your knowledge. Immersion Serious professional-level athletes do not always "eat, sleep and breathe" their sport. But they do spend a lot of time thinking about it when in a non-competitive or non-training environment. So should you! Do you commute to work? You should be listening to industry-specific CDs. If you don't commute, you should listen while showering or (if you eat alone) while having breakfast. Andrew Carnegie wrote that a career is made or marred in the hours after formal work is done. That's true of you as well: commit to your improvement! And partial non-office-hours immersion in your career is the way to do it. Finally No matter how good or how experienced you are, significant improvement is possible. Accomplishing it will not only give you the sense of the forward movement which is the hallmark of a successful person in any field; it will make you a lot more money! The above suggestions will go far towards achieving that goal.

3 Reasons people make a job change

Here in the Search Group we believe there are 3 reasons why people make a job change.

When doing search and recruiting, almost everyone we contact initially responds to us with "I'm not looking for a job right now", or something along those lines.  Music to our ears!

Let me explain to you why it makes sense for us to talk even if you aren't on the market.  I want to emphasize two points:

1.  Time is money and we pride ourselves on not wasting yours, ours, or our customer's.

2.  We are not your typical run of the mill recruiters looking to force square-pegs into a round-holes.

That said, people switch jobs in one of three ways. 

1. You suddenly find yourself needing a new job because of lack of work (reactive)

2. Something just falls in your lap (random)

3. You have some method of staying aware of specific types of opportunities that would be a significant improvement over their current situation (proactive).

The reason to talk with us now, when you aren't interested in a new job, is that we can be that proactive approach. 

We help people upgrade their careers. 

For you, an upgrade might mean more challenging work, exposure to a new technology, growth opportunities, a closer location to home, better compensation/benefits, or whatever else is important to you.

If you’ll invest a small amount of time talking with us, you'll have a relationship with an expert who spends all their time talking with the best companies in the Intelligence Community and learning about what they can offer to potential employees. 

We'll know precisely what your career goals are and your criteria for considering an opportunity, and when we find that bullseye, we'll be able make sure you know about it. 

You can decide whether or not to pursue it, but we'll make sure you know it exists.

So take our call, read our email, and leverage your relationship with us!

Practical Time Management for Recruiters

What does it take to do well in a today's market? Certainly skill improvement and perhaps changes in methodology, the manner in which you work a desk, are primary. However, all the improved technique and methodology in the world will not be maximized if enhanced focus and time management does not accompany. As Larry Nobles, well-known speaker and author of the best foundational book ever written for our industry, wrote, "Stop trying to get $300K in production from $100K worth of work!" In a strong market, it is easy to drift, getting good results from less and less time, concentration, and effort. In today's market, however, things are different. Enhanced focus on time management will yield more substantive impactful time on the phone...and that, combined with improved methodology, is the only way to survive and prosper. Eliminate Time Theft Wal-Mart, perhaps the most successful retailer in history, warns their employees of "Time Theft"; this refers to time taken during the working day which reduces accomplishment of the results for which they are paid. Wasting time in the office on totally non-productive activities is thus the equivalent of stealing from your own income, your own family, and your own future. How much time do you actually spend on the phone generating income? The facts are that when this is measured by monitoring equipment, the average recruiter spends less than two hours a day on the phone. And even top producers rarely hit three hours! Where does the rest of the time go? Let's look at some common answers. Personal Calls For many, a major impediment to success is personal phone calls. If not stopped and stopped quickly, these will grow to excess. The difficulty and cost of this problem goes well beyond the quantitative amount of non-work-related time that is taken on the phone, though that could be considerable. It is the great reduction of intensity that happens as a result of these constant interruptions. Peter Drucker in his exceptional book "The Effective Executive" made reference to this when he mentioned the fact that every human activity has 3 facets; the beginning, the doing, and then the wind down. Regardless of the length of time one invests, the "beginning" and the "wind down" are pretty close to the same. Thus, according to Drucker, a one-hour block of uninterrupted time is worth not 4 but 10 15-minute blocks of time. Why? Because the doing time, the central portion that yields effectiveness, increases by a factor of 10, though the warm up and the wind down stay pretty much the same. What this means to us is that a constant stream of incoming non-business calls tend to interrupt and cause us to have to warm up all over again! But how do you eliminate these? You can't very well hang up on nice people. Still something must be done or business will suffer...and suffer badly. It is, of course, simple to say "But I have Caller ID. I'll just let the calls go to my answering machine". However, it may be a genuine emergency. And of course, many of us don't want to be rude and will automatically answer the phone from someone we know...only to be slightly regretful that we did. So what to do? Try this ... Step 1 When a call comes in, ask yourself, is this really critical? The reality is if a nurse calls from school indicating that your child's got a broken arm, you must deal with it immediately. But you won't get many such calls. An overwhelming percentage will not be critical, but just people "calling to talk". Once you figure that out, it is fairly easy to take it from there. Step 2 Indicate that you do want to speak with this person. "Bob, I appreciate the call. I really do want to talk with you." You want to be polite and friendly to these people, quite obviously. They are probably friends or relatives. However, you have a business to run and things to accomplish. Step 3 Claim an important conference coming up. "But I am right on the verge of a very important conference. I do want to talk with you, but I have got to get to this meeting. May I get back to you this evening?" Step 4 Do return the phone call ... after working hours. Over a period of time, if you continue with this procedure whenever a non-critical personal call comes in, it will become clear to these "social" callers that you are busy with work, and can only take important calls. This will eventually stop the non-important ones that drain your time, energy, focus...and income. This is significant! Between hobbies or non-business interests or friends, many recruiters will get a constant stream of these. If you don't stop it, it will affect your business. Maybe in a strong market, you can afford these time wasters, but the reality is that in a less-than-good market, things change. Put a sign on the phone if you don't remember to do this to serve as an ongoing reminder. Slowly get them away from calling you - just like that. Intra-Office Chat In many offices, there is a clear separation in the determination of the recruiters to succeed in a less-than-great market. Some recruiters will tighten up, become more focused, work both smarter and harder, and will ultimately fight their way to high production. Others will slow down, complain, become unwilling to make calls, and engage in pointless time-wasting conversation to avoid getting on the phone. Look around your office, and see these two camps. Which one are you? The difficulty is that the latter group will make a definite effort to interfere with their tough-minded co-workers. Conversation about personal matters, complaints about management and the market, irrevelant erroneous "questions","suggestions" and "ideas" will all increase dramatically. While it is indeed the job of the manager to weed out these bad apples, it is your job to ignore them and go to work with a renewed dedication. And that is not always easy. The best way to avoid these impediments to your success is simply to be busy. When they walk into your office/work area and attempt to engage you in pointless conversation, just say "_____, I'd love to talk with you, but I've got an assignment I've got to find people for. Let's talk after work" . Then pick up the phone and make a call. Repeat a modified version of the same thing when they try to side-track you away from your desk. These people may be nice, but your primary function other than improving skills is staying on the phone--regardless of well-meaning distractions. The High-Tech Time Waster The internet as a means of identifying potential candidates and clients may have some merit. However, unrelated to the internet as a business tool, it is also a major handicap in achieving your financial goals. Even if you have avoided getting involved in playing actual computer games, there is a real probability that you have not escaped other addictions relative to the internet. Consider the following: · A Nielsen Survey found that the majority of on-line shopping, auctions, stock trading, chat room visits, news reading and, yes, porn traffic, take place during working hours. · A recent Robert Half International survey found that 60% of executives said that time spent accessing the web for non-business purposes was undermining their employees' effectiveness on the job. · A recent Men's Health magazine survey of 2,000 subscribers asked the question, "What interferes most with your productivity at work?". The #1 answer (74%)? The Internet! So what's the answer to this modern high-tech time waster? Easy; get the heck off it! First, change your computer so it does not automatically hook up to the internet. Then... don't access it until after 5 PM. If you feel you need to research to identify candidates or clients, clump that time together and do it all after 4:30 -- while you're planning....including emails! Barring a real anticipated necessity, open your emails twice a day -- morning and right before planning. Here's a test. Keep track of the emails you receive tomorrow and then ask yourself this question. "'If I didn't read these until the end of the day, how much business would I lose?" The answer? Probably none. But the interruptions? Substantial!l What do you think would happen without non-essential internet time during prime working hours .. including emails, barring a real anticipated necessity?  Chances are, with all that extra time and reduced distraction on your hands, you'd pick up the phone and make phone calls--lots of phone calls... Maybe you should try it and see. Early Start "Well begun", as the old saying goes, "is half done". Moreover, multiple sales surveys have shown that the majority of business sales are made before noon. This applies to us as well. If you're in the habit of arriving a few minutes late in the morning, reviewing and adding to your Daily Planner ( which wasn't quite completed the night before), organizing your desk, greeting your co-workers one by one with comments to each, having several cups of coffee and then picking up the phone-you're missing out of the best selling time of the day. In our current market, you just can't afford to do so. Look around your office at the formal starting times, and see who is at their desk and on the phone-and who is still wandering around. Which one are you? If you're not on the phone--or at least pushing buttons to get through--early, you'd better make some changes. Especially in today's market. Planning A specific complete written-out Daily Planner filled out at the end of the day is an absolute key to getting maximum results from the time spent in the office. Don't shortcut this! The Two-Front War It is no exaggeration to view improving production as a (bloodless) war. And if you are to prevail, this war must be fought on two fronts. First, of course, is changing and improving skills, techniques, methodology. To do so, however, is only half the job. The other half is to work equally hard at improving your focus, your concentration, your work ethic, maximizing time on the phone. The reality is that to survive today, you must endure some pain by pushing yourself beyond the boundaries of what is comfortable for you. While there will be no injuries in this war, there will very definitely be a fight. And the fight will be with your own motivation and discipline. By establishing the needed habit patterns and eliminating the bad ones addressed here, you will greatly enhance your results from the other improvements that must be the foundation of your strategy. Combined with this, your increased call volume will allow you to get through our current market. Markets follow predictable patterns. After the darkness comes the dawn. It always has...and it always will. This two-pronged approach of skill improvement plus increased focus on effective time management will guarantee you conspicuous success in the roaring boom market that is sure to follow!