How Jobseekers And Companies Can Help Themselves in Today's Market

By Tony Restell

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I recently had the opportunity to interview Jason Kaminsky, the Founder and President of bizjobz LLC. Jason kindly agreed to share his insights, as a seasoned recruiter, on the ways Jobseekers and Companies can help themselves in today's market.

The key questions I put to Jason were:

BizJobz Interview with Jason Kaminsky- if you were advising candidates on what they should prioritize doing to get a new job in the current climate, what would have them focus on doing?

- what lessons from previous downturns could help candidates today to position themselves for success in their job search?

- what's one mistake you see executive candidates making when trying to make a career move?

- Why should a company utilize an external agency when so many people are unemployed?

- What should leadership be doing now (or thinking about) to better prepare for when they need to start adding headcount to their team

Watch the full interview

Here's the full video, a transcript of which follows underneath


Interview Transcript

Would you just start by introducing yourself and and your business?

Yeah Tony, thank you so much for having me today.

My name is Jason Kaminsky, I'm President and CEO of bizjobz

We're here out of the Long Island office just outside New York City.

We've been recruiting for the past 15 years, and I'm happy to talk about really, what's going on in today's world of work.

What's going on the world of hiring, what's going on in the world of the candidate and the client


Fantastic.
So maybe let's start with the candidates.

If you were advising candidates today of things they should focus on doing what would be some of the top suggestions you would give them...

... that could be for people who've been displaced because their industry's in trouble.

Or it could be just because people are looking for a change.

What would your top recommendations be?


Tony that's a great question.

You know today it is extremely important for all candidates to update all their profiles.

Whether it's on LinkedIn or any other social media that they're on, it has to mirror their resume.

It should be as professional as possible. It's got to stand out more than it's ever done before.

A lot of people are unemployed, so the competition for that next job is gonna be fierce.

The other thing, that's very important; each and every candidate needs to show that they are flexible, adaptive, creative...

... and they need to show a resolve on how they got through these past couple of months.

This is something we've never seen before, but they need to show a new employer how flexible and creative and adaptive they are


That's great advice, and I'm guessing you've recruited through some previous downturns...

Are there any lessons you could share from things you've seen then, or things you can say that would encourage people that you know there's light at the end of the tunnel?


Yeah, every time there's been a downturn, every time there's been a loss of major jobs the one common theme happens, jobs come back.

No one has a crystal ball and when that will be or how that will be.

But the jobs come back.

I think we're in a W recovery, not a V recovery, but more of a W recovery - where we've gone down a lot, we're gonna go up. We might even go down a little more.

But then, once we're ready to go, it's going to spike.

And the work force today or the working world today is gonna be a lot different than what it was.

We were already trending in a virtual environment where, you know, companies had virtual employees - whether it be semi local to their office or they hired someone thousands of miles away; you're going to see more that the talent pool is gonna be the larger from a geographical perspective than ever before.

Not everyone's gonna go back to work in an office environment.

People have seen that they can do it from home.

They might have a flex schedule where they go to the office 1 or 2 days a week, working from home a couple of days, and it's acceptable.

So these jobs are going to be back in due time, they're gonna be newly created, and they're gonna be new and exciting opportunities as well.

Absolutely and if we just put the current crisis to one side for a moment.

If you think about executive candidates trying to make a career move generally, what are one or two mistakes that you typically see that kind of candidate making that holds them back?


Yeah. So I used the word flexible and adaptive, and I've always felt the executive candidate got to that place because of hard work, dedication, a little good fortune, a little of everything.

However, anyone looking for a new opportunity needs to have a little bit of humble inside them. They need to show a lot of creativity and a lot of flexibility.

And that's the theme today.

Creativity and flexibility, because what they had before... the responsibilities they had before... the titles they had before... compensation they've had that might change a little.

You might have to take a step sideways to get five steps ahead.

Don't worry about the title. You might have been an SVP, but you might just be a VP at your next position that has more responsibilities with a company that's growing.

Maybe they got into an e-commerce company that's exploding right now because of the way you know people are purchasing.

So just think a little bit outside the box, be yourself, be humble, be creative.

And again be flexible and adaptive.


Terrific advice. Thank you. And if we turn our attention to the employers for a moment...

Why would you advise companies that they should still be using external agencies in this kind of market?...

... when there's so many people unemployed, what are some of the key things that you would highlight?


Number one, a company that needs employees is in a separate business altogether.

They might be in manufacturing.

They might be in distribution.

They might be in technology.

Whatever the case may be, they're not in recruiting and staffing.

Let us do our job so they can do their job much better. We know where the people are. We're talking to the people all the time. We know how to manage the process.

There could be a situation where an organization has 250 people, but they let go their entire HR department due to the Coronavirus.

You want us to come in there and be an external resource and support you.

So there's a number of reasons Tony why companies should allow a professional do the job at hand versus trying to do it yourself.

Run your business.

You have more pressing needs.

You have to worry about your clients, your operations, your sales. Don't worry about, you know, identifying finding people.

That's our job.


Absolutely. And when you're talking to people in the market. What kinds of things are you hearing that leadership are focusing on, or what should they be focusing on to better prepare for things getting better and on the market rebounding?


The biggest thing right now, the biggest shift that we see right now is that organizations need to be a little bit more creative.

You have a, what we'll call old school or legacy type mindsets where individuals never thought about having a diverse workforce that's virtual; they've seen over the last couple of months, that this can get done

This can get done in the right way.

The technology is there.

The processes are not defined yet, but they're defining them. So with that said, the attitude of... you have to have all your employees come into
the office. They have to come meet with me every day at eight o'clock in the morning.

They have to go, you know, send in the reports. No, it's changing right now.

It's all about productivity and getting the job done, whether it's from their home, whether it's from their car, whether it's from the office now.

You could set up schedules where maybe someone comes in, you know, one or two days a week, you know, in the morning.

And the second group comes in in the afternoon, and then the rest of the time they were in the office, they're in their homes.

I'm sorry, but I think we've gotten past the point where you got to be in the office five days a week, putting in a 40 hour work force.

And I think you know, companies today need to figure out how they are gonna overcome some of those obstacles that they have had in the past?

Some have already started to embrace it.

You look at big corporations, you know, like Twitter and others that said, you know, we might not ever have employees come back to the office again.

Now, that brings up a second point that Okay, how do you interview these candidates?

I think we've seen over the last few months that companies today are interviewing just like we're doing right now. On a Gotomeeting webinar or could be a Zoom or could be a Facetime. This is the new norm and organizations today need to be prepared for that... trickle down effect, you know?

Will they need all that real estate? Whether it's in a big city like New York or small city in the middle of Nebraska. Do they need to have 45 desks? 100 desks? 200 desks. Probably not.

So these are all things that are evolving right now.

And I think it's an exciting time for America today whether you're fresh out of school or someone that you really got a couple of years left before they're ready to retire.


Jason, fantastic advice. Thank you ever so much. And just to wrap up where can people find your website and how can they get in touch with you?


Well, the best thing is my website is bizjobz.com

It's www.bizjobz.com

My phone number is 855 biz jobz

Very simple.

Very easy.

And I'd love to talk to you if I could help you as a candidate. In any way. I'd love to talk to you. You just never know.

From a company perspective, we've been doing this over 15 years. We are a generalist firm and we work across all industries and sectors.

Just pick up the phone. Give me a call, let me know how we could help you out.

And I hope everybody stays safe.

 

Fantastic, Jason. Thanks ever so much for your time and thanks, everyone. Thanks for joining us.

 

Thank you, Tony.

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