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It may be impossible to find objective advice for how to respond to a counter-offer to stay at your current job. Your current company wants you to stay. The new offer is exactly what you’ve asked for during the interview process. What do you do? And, as importantly, what are the risks (or opportunities) in making the choice about whether to stay or go? We coach candidates and hiring managers through these dicey situations frequently – The Counter-Offer – The Candidate’s Perspective It feels good to receive a counter-offer from the company you work for – validation for the years [...]

Every day we connect qualified candidates with eager hiring managers looking for top talent.  And, because we’re continuously talking about new opportunities, we spend very little time talking about how companies might look to retain their best employees.  After all, the best solution for any business (and any trades person) is to only post jobs because your best employees are earning promotions – not walking away. Holding onto your top performers takes a strategic approach – particularly in a labor market where opportunities are landing in those qualified employees' inboxes each day. One strategy that we recommend for retaining your [...]

No one will tap you on the shoulder and tell you that it’s time to update your resume.  The choice is yours and, often, not so cut-and-dry. Many people stay at jobs too long – leading to diminished performance, boredom and, particularly in the trades, less drive to learn new skills. And, while we cannot say if you should be applying for new opportunities, there are a few signs that might indicate a change might be right for you. How healthy is your current company? It’s easy to get locked in on the day-to-day grind of your current project.  And, as [...]

When you first see the candidate’s resume, in passing, you think, ‘I wonder how much they make now?’ A similar question weighs on each applicant after they’ve submitted their resume, ‘I wonder how much they’d be paying?’   And, whether you call it pay, salary, compensation or money – the topic is omnipresent in the pursuit of all qualified applicants. So, if the topic is important enough to weigh on both hiring manager and candidate, why isn’t salary the first topic of conversations between the company and prospective employee? There are many answers to that question: the unknown, the taboo nature [...]

Most articles written about the topic of job offers center on the applicant – how to counter-offer, what they should to look for in the offer details, questions to ask and how quickly to respond. Left out in these resources is advice for the other side – the point of view of the hiring manager presenting the offer.  There are few things written about best practices in crafting and presenting job offers and, in a labor market that has excess applicants, the lack of information for recruiters might be just fine. The construction labor market, though, is tight – requiring [...]

During most interview processes, any candidate will hear “corporate culture” thrown around at different steps along the way.  Most of the time, the comment goes unnoticed – mentally filed away as another piece of helpful, not critical, information about the hiring company. Normally, the assessment of whether the company would be the right fit for you is a secondary to more tangible, easily-defined aspects of a job – like salary, benefits and vacation time. We are not naïve.  We understand that money is important in the evaluation of any job offer.  We do, though, encourage all candidates not to ignore [...]

As soon as the word “dummy” came out of my mouth, I knew the reporter from US News and World Report would be using it in his story about the construction labor market.  And, while I might have chosen those words differently, I meant what I said. My quote in the published article read, “For so long, it was seen that if you worked with a hard hat, you didn’t make a lot of money and you were a dummy.  I can tell you that is contrary to everything that is reality.” In fact, I’d say it repeatedly to anyone that [...]

By this time, most of our New Year’s resolutions have been forgotten.  Our predictions for the state of the construction market, though, live on.  With 2018 half way in the books, June provides a perfect time for a mid-year check up on those predictions we made. Prediction #1: Unemployment will hover around 4% Mid-Year Result: Labor Force Statistics show a moderately declining Unemployment Rate, starting in January at 4.1% and standing at 3.8% in May.  The same data for the construction market alone shows a more drastic, seasonally-adjusted decrease over the same period – from 7.3% to 4.4%. This data [...]

Goliath’s ‘Master the Interview’ series is a 5-part playbook of tips and best practices enabling job seekers to stand out in all interviewing formats – over the phone, in a one-on-one setting or in a group interview.    A quick check of your watch signals that your on-site interview will end soon. By this time, you’re starting to fade – your interviewer might be as well.  It would be tempting to relax - to think about a cold one at happy hour rather than finishing strong. Someway, somehow, though, you must stay focused. Resist the urge to let your guard [...]

Goliath’s ‘Master the Interview’ series is a 5-part playbook of tips and best practices enabling job seekers to stand out in all interviewing formats – over the phone, in a one-on-one setting or in a group interview.    Your on-site interview starts in fifteen minutes. As you put the car in park in front of this unfamiliar office, just think of how far you’ve come: Your polished resume stood out from the crowd. The phone interview has the hiring manager wanting to meet you in person. You’ve come toting your resume, notes about the company and a leave-behind for the [...]