Overqualified…

Many employers, correctly seeking to act quickly on a good candidate, put together and extend offers as soon as they decide a candidate is right for them. The minute the offer is extended, all control moves over to the candidate, and the employer’s ability to influence the decision, or help “close” the candidate is diminished. An important strategy is to test-close or pre-close the candidate, mostly to surface…

I call my concept of getting close to people quickly the “Bullseye Theory of Communication.” Picture a bullseye type of target.

We are all trained from childhood to be polite, to not be nosy, not pry, not push people too far out of their comfort zone. In my bullseye…

Whenever people talk about candidate lying, the usual topics come up: Exaggerating dates of employment, falsifying education, inflating salary or title, hiding a criminal record, and hiding a drug habit. Most of these can be easily caught by a decent background check. You can ask for a W-2 to verify compensation. Simple diligence can prevent a person who is lying about…

I have consistently contended that executives who tolerate “B” and “C” players on their teams give up a lot. Let me now quantify it:

Let’s say you are a CEO with 5 key management team reports, running a $50 million (revenue) company. Let’s say that you project 10% revenue growth next year, but…