Most of us who have been around understand (and sometimes long for) the advantages of youth (especially as our society is obsessed with youth), but when it comes to career changes sometimes a little experience goes a long way.

Obviously my job as a recruiter is to educate and inform a candidate about the interview process and assist them in working through details about a job and anything impacted by a change in jobs. Of course working with candidates who have been through a couple of career changes always makes the process a little smoother as they know the basics of how a typical company process runs and can easily (and without emotion) be walked through any differences with this iteration. Rookies on the other hand must be walked through the process repeatedly to insure that they are completely aware of what’s about to happen and when in an attempt to make sure that they don’t crack under the emotional pressure.

Now this isn’t pitching for the Yankees in a key series against the Red Sox as the playoffs approach, but it is a huge change/decision in the life of a 23-26 year old that, having never gone through this process, has just ratcheted up the level of stress in their live immeasurably. Of course most people eventually leave and loose their rookie status, but many including the recent candidate who inspired this blog make mistakes along the way and in the case of this recent situation he later admitted to me that he left a better job, career path and a 20% increase on the table because he was scared and couldn’t get over his fear of change.

So the key to getting through this (for both the recruiter and the candidate) is to talk about this fear of change at the earliest stage possible (usually when discussing counteroffer on the day they are recruited), and helping them to understand that everyone goes through it on some level (even if they’ve changed jobs many time before). So if both candidate and recruiter understand what will happen (and it will) and that logic and emotion work against each other when making a decision. Hopefully, they should be able to work together to separate the two during the process and make the best decision for the candidate.