Welcome to Getting the Nod

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An introduction to Getting the Nod, the company and this publication. After 20+ years of hiring/recruiting (mostly in tech), now I help people get hired. Postings here will be mostly about hiring, recruiting, and industry trends around workplace & company culture.

Photo by Olivier Collet on Unsplash

After 20+ years on the hiring/recruiting side of things I started Getting the Nod (the career consulting firm and now this publication) to help people guide their careers and job searches. There are so many avoidable mistakes people make in their applications, approaches that do the opposite of what they intend, and mental abuses that people adopt when they’re looking for their next job. I want to break that cycle (and reduce the number of awful cover letters out there while I’m at it).

I don’t pretend to be the person that’s going to help every person get every job, but I can help people think differently about the process, the motivations involved, and adjust accordingly to put their best foot forward. To borrow from the sports adage, if you’ve “left it all on the field” you’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. I want to be the coach helping you create that best gameplan.

Here are some pillars of my own thinking:
- Your story is yours to tell and share.
- The truth is probably a better story than you think it is.
- You don’t want every role. Every role isn’t right for every person.
- You can’t control everything. Don’t try.
- You may do everything right and be passed over anyway.

That last bullet might sound a bit defeatist, but I have no interest in trying to present the job landscape as anything more than the hellscape (yay!). No shortage of competition, shady business practices, information asymmetry & skewed power dynamics between companies and applicants, and all of that’s before you get to the racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia, ablism, lookism, etc. that may also be at play. It’s a small wonder things work out for anyone.

Given all of the impediments, I decided I wanted to be an advocate and cheerleader, helping people get where they want to be. Helping them understand themselves, their strengths & weaknesses, and how their career journey is something they can captain rather than float through. This publication is an extension of that work, as I’ll be posting about hiring & recruiting, industry trends, and workplace & company culture.

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