James will speaking on the very timely and important career-related topic of "I'm 40 Now! Is It Really Game Over For Me In Japan's Job Market?" at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan on November 20th.

Arguably no group of job seekers has been more negatively affected by this brutal reality than 40+ year old job seekers.

Many job seekers are shocked to find this is the reality not only in the broader US economy but even in vaunted Silicon Valley which is the supposed Mecca of open-mindedness and where, we are told, a meritocracy has reigned for decades.

And yet, for how bad it is in the US and even Silicon Valley, 40+ year old job seekers soon come to find that it's often much, much worse in Japan. Terrible. Impossibly frustrating. Depressing. These are words that come to mind when seeking employment in Japan as a 40+ year old candidate.

But how can this be the case in Japan, when Japan still has an economy which is the 3rd largest economy in the world and which is moving to further internationalize its businesses as rapidly as possible in the face of both falling domestic demand and a severe shortage of experienced workers.

The bottom line is this: 

Older, deeply experienced job seekers quickly run into five (5) seemingly insurmountable brick walls.

By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive


I had the privilege last night of talking with a large group of visiting high school students from The Harvey School of Katonah, New York on the subject of "How to Jumpstart Your Career In Japan".

We discussed quite a bit about not only developing your value and ROI as a candidate but how one can future proof themselves in the face of the impending tectonic societal and economic shifts that will occur and are occurring from the adoption and diffusion of technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), expert systems, machine vision, robots, 3D printing, autonomous vehicles, etc.

By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive!


There's a very pervasive and dangerous meme in the world today that suggests that businesses create jobs or are even "in the business of creating jobs".

Nothing could be further from the truth as Peter Drucker observed many years:

"The purpose of business is to create and keep customers."

That's it. Period.

"So what? Why should I care about this?", you may ask yourself. 

Simple.  

Because when one understands that job creation is not the goal of business but rather an extremely unwanted byproduct of creating, serving and retaining customers a powerful shift of mindset results.

The fact remains that if a company were able to, they would hire no one. There's absolutely no benefit in employing people unless the employees are creating value such as increasing revenues, creating assets or decreasing costs.

New jobs (in the private sector) are created only (in the vast majority of the cases) when a company finds that it can no longer create, serve and retain its customers with the existing workforce.

When you understand this and take this to heart, you can then make the mental shift to realize that any approach during a job search that views landing a job as either a lottery or an act of charity is doomed to always underperform if not flat out fail.

Conversely, by understanding how and why jobs are created and why companies are ultimately in business (and what keeps them there) as well as what they are not in business for (e.g.g, creating jobs), you'll have a major leg up on your competition by understanding you must Never, Ever Beg but Always Bring Value.

By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive!


Have you ever wondered why companies so often hire or overpay for the wrong talent? You know, talent that often is just terrible. 

All while you can't seem to land a job.

This presentation is from the HR or Hiring Authority's perspective but it would greatly behoove you to be aware of what so often goes on in the sausage factory, allowing you to better understand and leverage this reality for your own career benefit.

By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive!


Reader's Question:
I recently passed the interview stage for a Systems Engineer position, and they sent me an initial offer.

I found the proposed salary to be insufficient given my years of experience and level of education (M.Sc.), however; and I countered by asking for a substantial amount above what they offered.

In order to justify the increase, I mentioned how much my participation (in a technical capacity) may have contributed to revenues for past employers. Unfortunately, that was a mistake; but I was just expecting fairly straightforward negotiating.

Instead, they responded by telling me to come up with a business plan to make the same amount of money for their company.

However, I have no experience, nor interest, in the business end of things.

I'm obviously in a weakened bargaining position at this point, and I'm wondering how best to proceed without making it worse. Or better yet, turn the tables back in my favor.

Signed,
- Matthew

Ask The Career Coach's Reply

Dear Matthew,

First off, congratulations on successfully completing your interviews and receiving a written offer!

That's no small feat in today's continuing "uneven" economy.

With that said, you're now facing a common situation whereby you believe that what the hiring company is offering you in terms of compensation is below your market value or at least your expected salary.

Further, you're now seem to be feeling that you may have boxed yourself in and developed a weakened bargaining position. Perhaps there's also a tinge of a feeling that you may have pushed too hard, potentially straining your future working relationships should you accept the offer (or that it may even serve as an impetus for the company to even rescind the offer).

So let's get this straightened out.

First, let's back up and consider how offers are determined or calculated, what factors influence them and what can be done to generate the highest initial offer with the highest velocity of transaction or transactional velocity.

Salary negotiations begin the moment you contact the company.

That's right.

From the very first contact made by you (or your recruiter on your behalf if you are using one) or if it's inbound then it's contact made by them, you are imputing and signaling value -- whether you intend to or not.

Your task then is to position, package, promote, present, persuade, communicate and convey your value to the prospective employer.

Initially, through you resume, an online application, an online profile, an outbound phone call, outbound email or some combination thereof, you should be working to be seen as the "Must Meet Candidate". They must feel that they have to meet you. 
Sure, they may meet you anyways, even if they are not hot for you, but the idea is to get them hot for you by raising their buying temperature.

Next during the interview process, the purpose is to be seen as the "Must Hire Candidate". That is, they must feel that they need to hire you ASAP and bring you on board as both as a fully satisfied and as a fully engaged contributor. That will normally yield the strongest package and fastest delivered written offer.

That's the ideal scenario.

Now, more specifically to your case.

You feel that offer is too low. This raises several questions:

1. Why do you feel it is too low?
2. Upon what are you basing your argument?
3. How far apart is what you expect and what they have initially offered you?

There are many factors involved, and these may be reasonable (at least from the company's standpoint of cost minimization + production maximization) as to why they are offering you "less" than you think you are worth (or that the market is saying that you are worth).

Here a few of the more common factors involved:

1. The market has changed.
   
2. Your skills have aged.
   
3. They feel that you are a risky hire (job hopper, career damage, accumulated disadvantages, etc.)
   
4. They feel there is an abundance of qualified candidates.
5. They feel that your skills are fungible, that is, a commodity, like flour,  table salt, canned corn.
   
6. They do it because they can -- you're unemployed and have no other options. Therefore, your current salary is zip, zero, nada, zilch.
   
7. They have a hard budget number to meet.
   
8. many more.....
   

So rather than speculating this, let's look a little closer at their response to your push back. After pushing back (which can often be a very good thing as it also imputes and signals value), they asked you to justify your counter offer.

Hmmm.

Notice that they didn't say  "no", "nein", "nyet".... 
Nor did they say. "That's it, take it or leave it. This is our best offer"

They asked you to justify it.

This means they are open to your counteroffer but you need to prove it. 

Further it is a good sign in that by forcing you to justify it, they can still offer you the same initial amount if you can't justify it and not feel bad or look bad since even you were unable to justify the increased salary amount you had desired or requested.

Okay, so how specifically can you justify more money?

First, here's what not to do:

1. Don't push hard.
   
2. Don't give ultimatums.
   
3. Don't get whiny.
   
4. Don't try to value or give value to what they don't value. That is, you are thinking that a Masters degree has some intrinsic value, but if they don't value that, they don't want to pay for it.  Don't try to sell them a Mercedes if they only need a use pickup truck. That is a major mismatch or misalignment of talent and need.
   
5. Don't try to use "salary surveys" to justify it.
   

Alright, then what to do?

Glad you asked. :)

Look at the value that you will bring and then quantify that financial impact the best that you can.

I would start out like this:
"Look, I'm really interested in this position, I'm impressed with the company, I feel it's a really good fit for me and I know I can add value. I'm not here to roll you over, break any budgets or squeeze anything above my market value, but given what you are looking for and what I can provide, I'd like to be compensated for that."

"I'm not a financial whiz, I'm a system engineer and I think my track record shows I'm good at it, so I'll try to more clearly articulate the value I feel that I will bring you. Thank you for considering this."

The next part is where you need to take the difference of what they offered you and what you countered with and justify it.

You have two ways to justify it:
1. Revenues produced/ROI generated.
2. Costs reduced (minimized mistakes, increased productivity, higher quality, etc.).

Avoid Feature Focus and Spotlight Benefits Brought

Rather than stating that you have XXX years of experience as a Systems Engineer or that you have earned a Masters degree (primarily features but can serve as benefits), you are far better served to map out and align the actual benefits that these skills will bring to the company's needs (and their bottom line) and this position so that you can show the value and benefits you bring to increase revenues, increase productivity while reducing costs, decreasing risks and so on.

Case in point: 
Look at Heartbleed. Maybe your value is that you are good at testing both negative testing and regression testing and your enjoy trying to break your/others modules and so on. 

How much money would such a skill and talent like that save or have saved?

More examples:
1. XXX years of experience may mean that you can work more efficiently.

2. A Master in Computer Science may mean that you develop better product environments, write better software, etc.

Think along these lines.

And make it visual. Why not make a 2 or 3 slide document that shows just the difference of what you want.

Maybe it's a $10,000 USD difference.

Show that as $10,000 USD and then show what you'll produce and put a dollar figure on it. Ideally, show the incremental improvements of your skills as well, and hopefully you are producing an even greater amount of value above the total salary you would get when it matches your desired salary.

Hope that helps!

- James Santagata

By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive!

I had the good fortune to be invited to participate in the 2014 After JET Conference's Career Panel which was held at the Pacifico Yokohama (Yokohama, Japan) on February 21st. 

By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive!

One of the major challenges that new or recent graduates face in landing their first professional job is not necessarily determined by what they've studied but rather by what value they can offer to a prospective employer as well as their ability to clearly communicate and convey that to the prospective employer.

It's not just that some degrees are "better" than others, it's that some degrees are either far more in demand (due to a constrained supply) OR certain degrees are
more monetizable by the firm in question.

Holding an easily or readily monetizable degree means that prospective employers don't have to spend time figuring out how to use the degree nor does the student even need to be "good" at conveying their value (of course, this is still very important and I'm speaking on a "relative" basis here).

Conversely, if a degree is not easily or readily monetizable (or it's perceived that way) and/or there is a huge supply of those particular degrees in the marketplace, then the graduate (aka job applicant) needs to turn on or develop some strong "marketing and sales" chops to ensure that they have the proper messaging and are properly packaged and presented to the employer, while clearly communicating and conveying their value.

There's more to it than that on the marketing and sales front, but these are the broad strokes that you should be thinking about and internalizing.

By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive!


On an almost daily basis I'm contacted by or, during the course of the day, I come across individuals who express frustration that they either (a) have the proper credentials to do a particular job or (b) have proven experience at doing a particular job, yet they somehow have great difficulty in finding or landing not just that particular  job but often any job.

There are a number of very granular reasons as to why this is, but for now, takes take a 20,000 foot view of what's going on here:

• Being good at "doing a job" isn't the same as being good at "finding a job". 
  
• Being good at "finding a job" isn't the same as being "good at landing a job" (i.e., receiving an offer and joining the company).
  
• Being good at "landing a job" isn't the same as  "doing the job", let alone "keeping it".
• And even if one is good at all of those, it doesn't follow that one is also automatically good at planning and managing a career.
  

Below are the 5 broad areas in which some level or core competency is necessary for an individual to establish, nurture and enjoy a long vibrant and fruitful career. 

It should also be noted that each of these 5  areas can also be analyzed on a much more granular basis. 

For instance, finding a job and landing a job would together include activities such as job discovery or job creation, resume design and development, locking down interview opportunities, closing down the interview, receiving a written job offer, negotiating a "proper" starting salary and package, onboarding and so on.

Five Broad Areas Of Career Competency:
1. Do a job
2. Find a job
3. Land a job
4. Keep a job
5. Plan and manage a career

Do you agree or disagree with this view? Which areas do you find yourself strongest in? Which areas do you find your skills to be uneven or perhaps in need of a boost if not a tear down and rebuild?

By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive!

Greg Baldwin, President of VolunteerMatch, recently wrote an article where it was claimed that active volunteers were 27% more likely to get a job than non-volunteers (see the article and links below).

This raises a few pertinent questions for job seekers and those with jobs who may want to augment their resumes to enhance their future employability.

1. Is it true and if so WHY?
2. If it is true, how to handle this on one's resume?

I would submit to you that it is true that those that volunteer do have a much higher likelihood of getting a job versus non-volunteers but not for the reason you may infer.

In general, the prospective employer doesn't care about your generosity or ability to be magnanimous. The prospective employer only care about the skill sets and more importantly the value you can bring to their organization (we'll delve in the negative connotations of volunteering and being seen as a volunteer below).

The reason volunteers have a better chance of landing a job is two-fold:
1. The volunteer work, especially among lower skilled workers, provides the individual the chance to learn new skills or hone and temper existing skills. This could be phone work, interpersonal communication skills, sales and organizational skills and so on. For instance, this would be especially a key differentiator for new college graduates where the person managed the finances of a school organization or managed the group or club and so on. Basically, volunteering and learning these skills will pay off for your career more so than watching tv or playing Call of Duty or some other video game.

2. When you volunteer you have chosen to help others and participate in an activity with others rather than sitting at home watching tv or drinking at a bar. This means you will meet other energetic and take-action type of people, some of which will be in other industries, other functional areas or more senior or successful in their career -- in other words you will be a network on which to leverage. To identify job openings, to identify the hiring manager or an insider to submit you to the hiring manager and so on.
 
By understanding why the volunteer activities helps you get the job over others that don't have it, we have the necessary ingredients and recipe to answer this dilemma:

How to handle volunteer activities on your resume?

1. Some career coaches will insist that you always list it.
   
2. Some will insist that you list it only if it's relevant to the job you are applying for.
   
3. Some will insist that you only list it, even if it's relevant to the job you are applying for, if the prospective employer can call and verify it.
   

Each of these criteria of when to list it, again misses the mark since the value of the volunteer activities is NOT the listing (some listing exceptions discussed below) of it on the resume but the skills, confidence and network you build by networking.

In fact, by listing it, you may not be signaling you are smarter or better than other candidates but rather you may be worrying the prospective employer that you are "distracted" or will be missing days of important work or personal crusades or hitting up the company and fellow employees with guilt trips for donations.

Again, the value in volunteering and the increase in the likelihood of a volunteer to land a particular job over a non-volunteer is NOT due to listing it on the resume but rather due to the skills that are acquired and network that is built through the volunteering activities and process.  And as was noted, listing the volunteer activities may harm you if it mismatches with the hiring authorities views, religions, beliefs and so on OR if it makes you seem distracted by your volunteer work.

With that said, only you know what is important to you and for those that want to improve themselves, build a network or get crucial skills while an undergraduate, volunteering is a fantastic and proven way to do so.

Now onto the listing exceptions (that is, when you should definitely be listing your volunteer activities). If you are going to point to a specific skills that you acquired or proved your proficient use of at a particular charity or volunteer activity, then you should be listing it so that you can (a) have it written for all to see and (b) frame the discussion and reference that during the interview as well as to show enough value in your resume to initially get invited for an interview. This often happens for new grads as well as well as those with limited working world experience, such a homemaker who is entering for the first time or re-entering the workforce. For such persons, the value of such activities and more importantly the skills, lessons and experiences developed, gained and learned can be a major point of differentiation.

Original Article: The One Thing That Makes You 27% More Likely to Get a Job

by Greg BaldwinPresident, VolunteerMatch
November 06, 2013 

If you are job hunting, or just looking around for new opportunities, you have probably spent a lot of time recently tending to your LinkedIn profile. Updating your experience. Joining new groups. Building your network. Following your favorite new Influencers 
(hint, hint).

But what if I told you there is something else that you probably aren't doing which could dramatically increase your odds of getting a job?

It's not about getting a graduate degree, and it's not even about learning a new skill. And as for changing your perspective, you can also put those Tony Robbins CDs back in the closet.

According to the research, the smartest and most often overlooked thing you can do to get ahead in the competitive job market is to start giving back. That's right. If you want to improve your odds of getting your dream job, it is time to start volunteering.

Here are the facts.

This summer, researchers at the Corporation for National and Community Service, released new findings that tracked the relationship between volunteering and employment for a group of 70,535 respondents over a ten year period.

According to Dr. Chris Spera, CNCS's Director of Research & Evaluation and one of the authors of the report "Volunteering as a Pathway to Employment," active volunteers were 27% more likely to get a job than non-volunteers. And the relationship held stable across gender, race, ethnicity, age, location, and unemployment rate. That's a big difference.

Underlying the findings, Spera and his team believe there is a strong relationship between volunteering and the development of social and human capital -- key attributes in today's most desirable candidates.

The findings echo a recent LinkedIn survey of 2,000 professionals which found that 41% of respondents consider volunteer experience to be as important as work experience for job candidates. The survey also found that 20% of hiring managers have offered jobs based on a candidate's volunteer experience.

So what are you waiting for? Last year 64.5 million Americans volunteered. Which might sound like a lot. But it's really only a bit more than one in four of us. So until everybody else reads this and starts volunteering you'll have a leg up on 180 million people.

If you need some help getting started come visit us at volunteermatch.org. And once you've found a great place to volunteer add it to your LinkedIn profile and let the job hunting begin.

Greg Baldwin is President of VolunteerMatch the web's largest volunteer engagement network.

Additional Research Report: Volunteering As A Pathway To Employment

By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive!

The New York Times ran a recent article entitled Young and Educated in Europe, but Desperate for Jobs.

There are so many myths and memes in this article, that sadly is preventing good and talented people from getting jobs. As you read through this article, you'll notice that many of the people in trouble are talking about how they took a college education, how they graduated and how they did what they were told but still couldn't land a suitable job. In some cases, they did land a job but there were greatly underemployed.

You can read the article below, but first allow me to put a few things in perspective:

1. Education: People seem to believe that an "education" is key to landing a job, especially a college education. This is not necessarily a key for landing a job. An education, some particular skills sets or a college degree may be a baseline requirement to be hired but it's NO LONGER a point of differentiation for you as a candidate.

2. Companies don't just create jobs to hire people: No. Companies hire people, when in the course of doing business and serving their markets and customers they find they need more people (volume) or new skills sets (ability). What you need to do, is to map and align your skills, abilities and potential to the company's needs and show how you provide value.

3. Having the skills is not enough: You still need to find the opportunities and then package and present yourself.

(Fire Your Recruiter!, Crush Any Interview!, High-Impact Resumes)

Europe's fiscal crisis has forced young people like Melissa Abadía to make painful adjustments and migrate to find jobs.


By LIZ ALDERMAN
Published: November 15, 2013

MADRID — Alba Méndez, a 24-year-old with a master’s degree in sociology, sprang out of bed nervously one recent morning, carefully put on makeup and styled her hair. Her thin hands trembled as she clutched her résumé on her way out of the tiny room where a friend allows her to stay rent free.

She had an interview that day for a job at a supermarket. It was nothing like the kind of professional career she thought she would have after finishing her education. But it was a rare flicker of opportunity after a series of temporary positions, applications that went nowhere and employers who increasingly demanded that young people work long, unpaid stretches just to be considered for something permanent.

Her parents were imploring her to return home to the Canary Islands to help run her father’s fruit business. It was a sign of the times, though, that even her own father probably would not be able to afford to pay her.

“We’re in a situation that is beyond our control,” Ms. Méndez said. “But that doesn’t stop the feelings of guilt. On the bad days, it’s really hard to get out of bed. I ask myself, ‘What did I do wrong?' 

The question is being asked by millions of young Europeans. Five years after 
the economic crisis struck the Continent, youth unemployment has climbed to staggering levels in many countries: in September, 56 percent in Spain for those 24 and younger, 57 percent in Greece, 40 percent in Italy, 37 percent in Portugal and 28 percent in Ireland. For people 25 to 30, the rates are half to two-thirds as high and rising.

Those are Great Depression-like rates of unemployment, and there is no sign that European economies, still barely emerging from recession, are about to generate the jobs necessary to bring those Europeans into the work force soon, perhaps in their lifetimes.

Dozens of interviews with young people around the Continent reveal a creeping realization that the European dream their parents enjoyed is out of reach. It is not that Europe will never recover, but that the era of recession and austerity has persisted for so long that new growth, when it comes, will be enjoyed by the next generation, leaving this one out.


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