Val's Pithy Pearls of Wisdom

Why we cannot “help you find a job”

Val Golan — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 19:02:00 GMT

It’s not because we do not care, quite the opposite. There is nothing more satisfying that being part of a process wherein people find better livelihood or realize their career dream. However, the only person who can find you a job is…yourself. You cannot outsource that process. Of course, some professionals, like career counselors, can assist you and give you tools to better manage your search. They will however charge you for the service, as you are their clients. That’s not what we do.

We provide HR Services – including recruiting – to our corporate clients, usually high-tech/bio-tech or financial companies in the US. That means that if one of the companies we work with is looking for a CPA and you are a CPA, we will consider your application to the job like any other qualified candidate. Also, we have created and currently manage a job board, similar to Monster™ or CareerBuilder™, but with different features, to allow employers a direct reach into talented workforce. So just like the corporate recruiter at one of the companies you want to work at to find you a job, or the person who manages the Monster™ database, we cannot help you find a job. You can help yourself by watching all current job postings and applying only to the ones whose requirements match your skills set.

Additionally, we have over 1500 active candidates at any given time. As much as we would want to, we cannot give each of them individual attention and follow-up on his/her job search. This is the reason why we only reach out to candidates in view of a specific opening, and do not give a courtesy call to every applicant.

However, as many of you know, I personally try to volunteer for at least one career counseling /résumé writing session a month with local non-profit organizations, and keep you informed of such if applicable. These sessions are set up and managed by the organizations themselves, such as the Jewish Family Services of NY and NJ, and I would encourage you to research and use these available resources.

We appreciate your understanding and wish you the best on all your career endeavors.

Adversity as opportunity

Val Golan — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 23:00:00 GMT

If you are a business owner or have been looking for a job in the past 18 months, you must feel pretty acquainted with adversity. Cheer up: Apart from the upcoming recovery, which we feel quite acutely, there are a few points that I’d like to share with you, coming not only from observation but from personal experience. Adversity is giving you a unique opportunity to revamp your skills, your career objectives or your business model.

Always wanted to take that class /finish that degree /finally get certified? Now is the time, breaking away from a busy work schedule. Costs are not always high, and often, you can get subsidized if unemployed. That’s how I’ve accumulated different degrees, building critical knowledge in professional fields (and just for fun, too, in some instances). One advice though: list on your resume only the education relevant to the position you are applying to. Back when I worked in corporate, employers would think of me as purely academic simply in view of the letters Ph.D., which I promptly removed. It’s perfectly legal to refrain from listing every single degree or work experience in your resume, it is not supposed to be a complete Curriculum Vitae.
You were employed at a financial institution…and always loved teaching Hebrew / writing movie scripts / grooming pets. Maybe you can build enough clientele to skip answering every ad on Monster and finally stick to doing what you really like. I see a lot of people operating successful career changes because of hard circumstances. My background was not in HR, although as a General Manager I supervised the HR function too. The market demands and serendipity, together with my love of learning, made me want to acquire utmost expertise in that field. And if you love something, you can bet at being really good at it too.
As a business owner, you have been facing increasing competition and an ever shrinking market. Of course, times are challenging, but could you be going with the wrong business model? Something that may have worked in 2005-06 may just not cut it nowadays. If your product or service is a commodity, and your only differentiator is the price, you may be in trouble, because there are enough desperate people out there to do it at lower cost. Unfortunately, your clients may not really care about the level of service or quality of products at this time and just go for the cheapest option. My personal advice is not to get dragged to the lowest level of professionalism. Rather than agreeing to compete with newcomers who may use your methods, positioning and even have access to your address book, move to the next level and do something they could never follow you at. Be your best and leave them in the dust. So if your long-time friend/ most trusted employee used you to open a competing business, don’t get mad: they actually did you a favor. Real entrepreneurs are serial inventors, and now, you can be re-inventing your business model. Here again, I talk from experience, and honestly, the harder the road the more rewarding the results.

Anyway, it’s the season to be forgiving, as tradition tells us God decides on Rosh Ha Shana how successful we will be all year…

Happy New Year 5770 to us all!

Why NOT Contingency Recruiting

Val Golan — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 19:24:00 GMT

Why NOT Contingency Recruiting

I could explain how clients working with that model basically create a conflict of interest with their most important supplier(s) and that in this economy - with the numbers of candidates out there - they don’t need a third party introduction, they need help with the assessment and selection processes. But these remarks, however true, are not the reasons behind my choice not to act as a contingency recruiter. My rationale, which really reflects my professional credo, follows.

I don't want to be a recruiter who gives people false hopes. I don't want to have to explain why clients don't get back to candidates - or don't get back to us - but it's really because they have nothing to lose. I don't want to make placements just because I pressed the send button faster. I don't want to have to rely on Chutzpah, luck or willingness to compromise, because that's what contingency recruiting is all about. I want to use ingenuity, integrity and intelligence in my line of work, and I believe that these qualities, together with months of hard work, deserve compensation. I don't want to perform unpaid market surveys or due diligence for companies who have no real intention of recruiting. I don't want to have to compete with people who recruit for a hobby or with the hiring manager's sister-in-law. I want to be the resource companies use to get the best people, not a misaligned filter for employers. I want to make sure candidates get the attention and respect they deserve, and that means giving them honest feedback, especially if they just spent the past 6 months interviewing with everybody in the H.R department and the whole management team on three continents. I don't want to have to listen to improbable excuses about lack of chemistry or cultural fit when the candidate is simply not falling into the hiring manager's sweet spot. And if you are going to discriminate, and use selection criteria that have absolutely no pertinence to the job, just be aware that I am not going to wink back, and that I won't work with you.

I may lose some clients, but at least I’ll keep some dignity in the profession.

To the moon with eHire

Val Golan — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 01:11:00 GMT

One of the most fascinating phenomena in the scientific community is that of parallel discovery. When the time is right, researchers in one part of the world will discover something of incredible significance while scientists in another part of the world will come across the same findings within days, even as humanity had waited centuries for such a result. This phenomenon is similar to what occurred in the 1960’s when American scientists were the first to achieve the unthinkable scenario of having a man walk along the surface of the moon.

I’ve had for some time a vision of the perfect recruiting platform, which would be web-based, process-driven, and client-centric. I started pushing the idea, and consulted with my friend Ran Margalit, who is a genius programmer and has the greatest patience for my idealistic, if unpractical ideas. With Ran, everything seems to be feasible and achievable within the span of a few months. This time, he asked me to think about it, and I realized that this endeavor may have been considered large and difficult, even by my standards. Then I heard of eHire. It seems that Joe Sabrin, and Shaul Halevi, both brilliant entrepreneurs, had developed the exact platform I envisioned, and even made it better. It took them about 5 years of hard work and iterations, culminating in the much anticipated product release on March 1.

The really exciting part is that we immediately saw the potential for a great partnership, and as of Friday Feruary 13, I am officially the CMO of eHire. I remain, of course, Managing Director of GoLAN Consulting, which I have built and grown over the past 6 years. We plan to capitalize on the unique synergy between the two companies, as I will be one of the platform’s most avid users on the recruiting side.
In short, they built the rocket, but they are gracefully taking me along for the big adventure. Honestly, I cannot think of a better way to get to the moon.

Calcalist article

Val Golan — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 01:48:00 GMT

We were very excited about the Calcalist article that appeared on November 18, in printed and online version, as well as on Ynet, during my visit to Israel. The article focused on the subject of high-level Israeli executives going back to Israel. There were a few inaccuracies, such as quoting me as working for Nisha Global, who have been business partners for about five years. Also, GoLAN Consulting specializes in providing HR services – including recruiting – to Israeli firms operating in the US, as well as US firms with some ties to Israel. We do not provide relocation services or career counseling to candidates, as may be derived from the article.
Obviously, nobody can argue with the fact that Israelis who live in the US do come back in larger quantities now that the economy is tighter, and that fewer Israelis are readily available for temporary relocation to the US. The latest layoffs have exacerbated the current crisis. It certainly does not preclude Israelis (and American Jews) from going back for all the right reasons, like loving Israel and wanting to grow their kids there after enriching themselves personally and professionally. I believe they represent a great asset for the country in terms of financial and professional enrichment. What the article does not say, however, is that there are still plenty of Israelis who want to stay in the US and there are, indeed, still positions to fill and companies who thrive even in challenging times. There are actually some sectors of the economy that were hardly touched and may suffer minimal loss, as well as new opportunities linked to the upcoming political changes in the country. No matter which side of the debate you are on, there is going to be a need for technology to support the healthcare reform, and the CleanTech efforts promoted by the new government.

Click here for a link to the article.

It’s OK to Let Go

Val Golan — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 02:08:00 GMT

As employers or HR managers, we sometimes have to make the hardest personnel decisions; the ones that directly affect the livelihood of employees. Most professionals feel that the most difficult responsibility of their position is terminating somebody’s employment. They may go ahead and try to assuage their guilt or discomfort by postponing the inevitable and trying to find another position for the employee; or simply dragging the end date as long as possible. Although letting go of an employee may feel like a failure, it is sometimes an inevitable and necessary step for a company in order to function and perform better, and there are clear instances wherein procrastination can hurt both the employer and the employee. It’s particularly hard in times of lesser revenue, when companies have an absolute necessity to cut costs and to become leaner and more effective. In such conditions, employees are sometimes terminated for no fault of their own. They may have been loyal, honest, and hardworking, but their contribution to the company was not sufficient to justify their continuous employment.

The legal system in the US, with employment at will, makes it immediate termination possible, as opposed to certain countries of Europe where it is an awkward, difficult and long process. We are actually famous for the Hollywood scene where the employee is suddenly notified of his dismissal, gets a cardboard box and a security escort out of the building. It raises cries of horror among my French colleagues, who have been influenced by long years of socialism. It is true that things that are legal are not necessarily ethical, and that caution should be used when striking at something as vital as a person’s livelihood. On the other hand, the organization can bleed, too, from overuse of resources, putting everybody at risk. As I work with start-up and small companies, it is clear that people are often stretched to the maximum of their capacities and goodwill. The ones who do the absolute minimum to just get by are the first to go, because the company simply cannot afford them. I do believe, however, that they are somewhat aware that they are pushing the limits and that at some point the free ride will end. In a philosophy of win-win, the sinecure job becomes very suspicious, and inevitably provisory. Great and successful companies even practice systematic “pruning” of their employee roster, keeping only the best to stay competitive within their industries.

In short, as uncomfortable as it may be to our psyche and karma, we all have to make the decision that is right for the business entity we represent. In times of tough market and constricting resources, we have to let go, dispassionately and with empathy, of the lesser performers, and realize that perpetuating imbalance is also a form of evil.