The guest on today’s Consumerism Commentary Podcast is Nick Corcodilos, author of Ask the Headhunter: Reinventing the Interview to Win the Job and How to Work With Heahunters. Nick is the founder of the website Ask the Headhunter where he offers advice about job hunting.
Today, Tom Dziubek and Nick Corcodilos discuss the job of the headhunter and what job hunters need to do in this economy to get a great job and advance their careers.
Production Number: S02E04
Segment Number: 43
To listen, use the player above (Adobe Flash required), download the podcast here, subscribe to the podcast RSS feed, or use the iTunes link. Note: open links in a new window (Ctrl-click or Command-click) to avoid interrupting the podcast.
[00:00] Introduction from Tom Dziubek
[00:31] Interview with Nick Corcodilos from “Ask the Headhunter”
– [00:51] The job of a headhunter
– [01:32] Assistance with the job search
– [02:47] Bad headhunters’ mistakes
– [04:20] Networking for job seekers
– [06:03] New job search recommendations
– [08:03] Searching for jobs online
– [10:34] Negotiating for a better salary
– [12:01] The current job market
– [13:33] How to Work With Headhunters
[16:18] End
We always welcome feedback from listeners. If you have any comments for this episode or for any other, or if you have suggestions for future episodes, please leave us comments here or email us at podcast at this domain name.
Humans are by nature judgmental, and there are good reasons for this. Even though it is often premature, judging quickly helps people make critical decisions with limited information. That limited information, when combined with prejudices or generalizations, can result in poor decisions.
An interesting article from CNN Money asks if your name can prevent you from getting a job. Absolutely. If you have the “wrong” name — wrong in the eyes or ears of the reviewer — you are less likely to be called for an interview after sending a résumé identical to someone with the “right” name.
The National Bureau of Economic Research conducted a study a few years ago in which the authors responded to 1,300 employment ads, sending out 5,000 résumés. In addition to keeping recruiters and hiring managers busy, they measured that résumés featuring names like Emily Walsh and Greg Baker would receive responses 50% more often than those featuring names like Lakisha Washington or Jamal Jones. When comparing résumés featuring good qualifications with those featuring superb qualifications, the superb applicant has a 30% higher chance of being called if the name on the résumé sounds “white,” whereas superb applicants with a “non-white” name do not see an increased probability.
While this doesn’t measure the likelihood of getting a job after an interview, it does point out the initial judgment due to nothing more than a name. If you feel your name could be an initial detriment to your job search, there are several options, but none of them are very good.
1. Legally change your name. Your name is a symbol of your identity. Decades ago, it was common for immigrants to the Untied States to Americanize their names, and it wasn’t such a bad idea for those looking for a new life in the country. This practice is less common now, whether it is due to pride or the shrinking world. I believe for many people, changing a name to fit in with a prejudicial world is too much of a compromise to make.
2. Take on an Americanized nickname. Interestingly, it is apparently common for people born in China to take an English name but prefer to use their Chinese given name when living in the United States. Taking the opposite approach may help you fight the initial prejudice in the United States. If you feel your name is holding you back when searching for a job, keeping your last name but offering an American nick name might help you get your foot in the door.
3. Use only your first initial on your résumé. It would be interesting to see a study that measures the results of this tactic. It may only provide an advantage if the applicant’s last name doesn’t inspire a judgment.
I agree with the author of the CNN article: focus on the aspects of your image that you can control without sacrificing your identity. But this is only from my perspective as someone with a name that doesn’t sound very foreign. With the unemployment rate in the United States still high, perhaps more people are willing to compromise more for an advantage — or to level the playing field.
It’s possible that this advice might be considered common knowledge, but I just learned it at age 32, so feel free to forward it to your friends who recently became part of a working couple.
The first time I saw a W-4 form at age 16, I had to take it home and ask my parents to help me with it, because the design of the thing was so oppressively boring that I could barely read it, not to mention that I had no idea what a “dependent” was. I remember my father walking over and saying, “just put zero.” Not that he was wrong, but, you know, teach a man to fish, and all that…
In the last 16 years, the design of the W-4 hasn’t improved. It’s not unique among Government documents for lacking proper hierarchy. For example, see this article about how better information design might have helped President Bush pay more attention to the memo titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US”.
Here’s a snapshot of the current W-4, with an arrow pointing at the part that looks important:
And, once you’re married, here’s where the important part starts:
Of course, blaming others is hardly ever a good way to retroactively avoid making mistakes. And my mistake was not closely re-reading the W-4 after I was married. Had I ever spoken with an accountant or financial adviser before I was married, I might have avoided this mistake, but taxes had always been so easy. All marriage was supposed to do was maybe provide a tax break or two.
In 2007 I answered the W-4 questions honestly, as I had done ever since I started working full-time (enter 1 for yourself, enter 1 if you are married, and I ended up with a “2″), and my wife entered a total of “1″, because she’s just more conservative than me. All year long we, as a working couple, were not having enough taxes withheld. Not that we were living like kings, and we just didn’t notice it… we weren’t awash in cash. It just felt like we were doing okay for ourselves.
As it turns out, we bought stuff, and went out to dinner, more often than we should have.
The summary version is this: if you are filing jointly, and both of you have an income, only one of you is supposed to answer the W-4 questions “honestly”. More specifically, there’s a formula you can use to determine the individual settings that both of you should be putting on your W-4. Other important factors, like a mortgage payment, will also come into play when determining these settings.
Theoretically, there is a withholding calculator operated by the IRS, but every time I go to look at it, it’s “undergoing maintenance.”
There are other options out there, but it’s hard to gauge the official-ness of calculators created by companies that don’t have as much information as the IRS does.
If you’re part of a working couple, your W-4 almost certainly needs some finessing. Comment below if you have additional advice or questions for me and the rest of the readers here.
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