Help as Many People as You Can: Interview with Author William Vanderbloemen
I recently went one-on-one with William Vanderbloemen. William is the founder and CEO of Vanderbloemen Search Group and the author of the new book Be The Unicorn: 12 Data Driven Habits That Separate the Best Leaders From the Rest.
Adam: Thanks again for taking the time to share your advice. First things first, though, I am sure readers would love to learn more about you. How did you get here? What experiences, failures, setbacks, or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth?
William: Well, Adam, that would probably require at least another full interview. My road is a long, winding one, from being a young entrepreneurial teenager to an ambitious college student to a seminary, and at Princeton then, through several stops at churches. There were lots of setbacks, most of them by my own hand. I can’t believe people put up with the younger version of me. About the only thing I had going for me in my early 30s is that I knew everything…
When I think back on the unpredictable path that led me here, one piece of advice that I received a long time ago stands out. Someone once told me that if I could find a job that required all of the skills I had learned up until now to do that job, that’s a job worth considering.
I could never have started down the path of Executive Search without mentoring from someone in the industry. I could have never figured out how to start an industry for the Faith base sector, had I not served in that sector for a long period of time leading up to the firm's founding.
And I never could’ve done anything in the form of a startup, had I not done a bunch of entrepreneurial efforts before I ever even graduated from college.
So, if my path can help any of your readers, I encourage them to look for job opportunities that require them to use every skill and phase of life they’ve had up until the current moment .
Adam: What are your best tips for candidates on the job market?
William:
It’s a lot easier to find a job if you already have a job. One of the lessons from the great resignation, which we predicted before the media did, is that leaving your job suddenly and quickly might leave you with a long slow process of looking for your next job. Hiring managers are very nervous in the weight of the great resignation, And don’t want to run the risk of hiring someone who might leave suddenly.
Update your résumé. This sounds old-fashioned, perhaps even antiquated. But a résumé is still a necessary part of a job search. It’s similar to the first inning or two of a baseball game. You cannot win a baseball game in the first couple of innings, but you can sure lose one. Pro-tip for your résumé: tell me what you’ve done. Don’t tell me an objective. Don’t tell me what you would like to do. Tell me what you have accomplished in each of your roles. The single, best predictor of future performance is past performance.
Do not counteroffer. As you’re considering an employer, it’s important to go to work for someone who will work with you. Many times that causes candidates to think they should test the collaborative spirit of a manager by asking for more money, more time working from home, or other special concessions. right now, hiring managers are very nervous. If you want to stand out in the crowd, take their first offer. Obviously, if they’re not paying you enough to make ends meet, you may need to tweak this advice. But in general, I’ve never seen more people asking for counter offers, and digging a hole with the future employer, without knowing it.
Adam: What are your best tips for hiring managers?
William:
Look for accomplished goals. Very similar to the advice I gave candidates for their résumé, hiring managers should look at past performance as the greatest predictor for future performance.
Know your culture. The more you know about what makes your team, unique, the more uniquely you can approach interviewing. For instance, speed and responsiveness are core values for our team. So we interview for that habit. We’ve even been known to use a text test, as sort of a pop quiz to see if candidates are naturally inclined to respond quickly.
Be ready to make an offer. In the 15 years and 3000 searches that I’ve been leading our firm, I’ve never seen a time when candidates are more fickle, or when they have more options than now. Candidates will take another job if you don’t move along. Obviously, don’t rush into hiring. But when you find someone who fits, go ahead and close the deal or you may run the risk of them taking a job elsewhere.
Avoid making special deals just to land a particular candidate. I’ve never seen a time when candidates are more ready to counteroffer their job offer. Oftentimes, hiring managers feel tempted to make special concessions to get that special candidate. But if you fast forward a few years, you’re likely to have a staff, with their own special set of circumstances, and as they start to talk amongst themselves, you may be in for a bit of a reckoning as everyone wants the same deal someone else has. As much as you can, keep the job and offers homogenous and equitable.
Adam: What do you believe are the defining qualities of an effective leader?
William: With seven children, we have a lot of people in our house, moving in a lot of different career directions. And since I spend my day interviewing people and studying leadership and talent, I’ve become somewhat of our household's HR department.
When the kids ask me how to be successful in their career path, I tell them it’s not hard. I tell them, “If you do what you tell people you’re going to do, on the schedule, you promised to do it, and at the price that you quoted from the beginning, you will be in the top 5% of whatever job sector you choose.
Adam: How can leaders and aspiring leaders take their leadership skills to the next level?
William: This question is an easy one for me to answer. After a massive research study that led to our book, Be the Unicorn, I was thrilled to learn that people who stand out of the crowd don’t stand out of the crowd because they look a certain way, or have a certain IQ, or have a refined pedigree. Rather, it is people who practice 12 completely learnable, coachable habits. These 12 habits involve how we intentionally treat other humans, and if your readers put them to practice, they will stand out of the crowd, and become irreplaceable, no matter what they are doing.
Adam: What are your three best tips applicable to emerging leaders and to senior leaders?
William: If you #1 do what you say you’re going to do; #2 when you say you’re going to do it; and #3 at the price you promised, you will be in the top 5% of whatever job you have.
Adam: What do you hope readers take away from your new book?
William: I wrote this book in the hopes that I would be able to identify top talent more quickly. I wanted to be able to find unicorns faster. The really cool conclusion of our Long research project, is that we can spot them quicker. But even better, we can teach people to become a unicorn. My hope is that people who want to stand out of the crowd will read this book, apply it to their lives, and find that they have become irreplaceable.
Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?
William: You spend your energy focused on trying to help as many people as you can, you will never run out of business, opportunities, or work.
Adam Mendler is an entrepreneur, writer, speaker, educator, and nationally-recognized authority on leadership. Adam is the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal-winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities, and non-profit organizations. Adam has written extensively on leadership and related topics, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. Adam teaches graduate-level courses on leadership at UCLA and is an advisor to numerous companies and leaders. A Los Angeles native, Adam is a lifelong Angels fan and an avid backgammon player.
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