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For some reason, almost every week (sometimes more than once a week) venture capitalists and private equity companies call me to talk about the various businesses I am involved in. I used to talk to them quite formally, the way average people like me talk to doctors, lawyers and bankers. I assumed (wrongly so), that I needed to be a little bit guarded, not share too much information and such. Do not ask me why I thought this way. I think it probably has something to do with the fact that when they call, they say something like the following:
”Hi. I’m from a private equity firm. We manage a fund of over two billion dollars and are looking for investments.”
I do not know about you, but when someone calls and tells you they have two billion dollars to spend, it makes me a little nervous. I just cannot communicate effectively. Nevertheless, I have been taking these phone calls for years and am now far more interested in speaking with these guys. I have probably done over 50+ phone calls with them in the past few years and they have become a focus of intense interest for me. These guys are fascinating to me because they have penetrating insights into “hot” businesses and where the economy is going.
Most of the private equity players out there are really smart guys with great educations. They also really know business and their entire job is to identify businesses that are likely to increase and grow rapidly. They basically want to put money into a business that is growing and then ”sell off” their portion of the business when it starts to ”slow down”. Typically, these investors will focus on industries and individual companies that are poised for massive growth.
In my opinion, if you are trying to decide what sort of company to work for, you’d be smart taking a look at what the most successful and profitable private equity companies are doing. They are very good at putting their money to work in the industries, companies and geographic locations where there is a cycle of expansion occurring.
Expansion cycles are good because they breed ”inefficiencies”. Inefficiencies are good because they create opportunity. When there are inefficiencies, companies (and people) tend to not watch their money as carefully.
When I was starting my legal career I applied for jobs in the following areas: Detroit, Los Angeles and New York. In New York City I got so many interviews I could not believe it. I was taking trip after trip there to meet with law firms. I also got a lot of interviews in Los Angeles. When I went into these interviews I was treated very well and found employers eager and excited to hire. They were not that critical, did not ask a lot of questions about my grades and were eager to make offers.
Detroit, on the other hand, was a different story. At the particular time I was interviewing, the Detroit market had been contracting for years. The interviews with the firms there were not as easy to come by. Firms were much less likely to make offers easily. The big firms in the city had not been growing for years and had been shrinking for a long time. In simplistic terms: There was not a lot of opportunity. The big law firms in Detroit were looking for reasons not to hire you as opposed to looking for reasons to hire you.
I realized early on that working in Detroit was not a good long-term prospect for me. The Los Angeles legal market was growing at the time and so that is where I went. The market was so ”hot” at that point in time that law firms were making me offers during interviews, paying ”signing bonuses” and so forth—it was far different than the sort of thing you would ever see in Detroit at the time.
If you are going to succeed in your career to your full potential … seek out geographic locations, industries and companies that are booming. It makes all the difference.
When I was in college, I was close friends with a girl who went to school in another state. She shared a dorm building with a friend of mine growing up. My friend was good at science and had majored in a science-related discipline that was very much in demand at the time. He had done a very average job in college. I think he had around a 2.0 grade point average. The issue was that he did a ton of drugs. One day she called me:
”He has been sitting in a chair for 36 hours staring at a wall in the student commons and he has not moved. He is on really bad acid … No one can get him to move.”
I never thought that much would come of this guy. By his senior year of college he could scarcely form a sentence- he had done so many drugs. Nevertheless, due to this ”unique” science-related major he received tons of job offers and ended up doing very well. Most of the better students and others in his class were searching for jobs months after he graduated and was earning an incredible living. He is still doing well to this day.
What did this guy do that was so smart? He chose a major (and obscure one) where there was a ton of demand. There was so much demand that all he needed was a pulse to get a job.
The basic cycle of a business involves a company coming out with a product or service and either succeeding, or failing. When the company succeeds it can succeed in multiple ways. On the one hand it may grow slowly. On the other hand, the company may ”take off” and experience explosive growth. You want to go where there is ”explosive growth.”
Companies that experience ”explosive growth” generally are able to do so due to the fact that they are not facing lots of competition and are doing things in a way that is competitively different from others. This allows the company to generate ”windfall profits” for some time and the leadership of the company, the company’s employees and others generally fall under the spell that the ”sun will shine forever.”
Regions that experience explosive growth are similar. In the ”Wild West”, for example, if you were one of the few businesses in a geographic region selling something you could mark up the price and be virtually assured of making good profits. This is happening in regions of the United States all the time where there is growth—due to an industry, demographic trends, or otherwise.
When things are good, companies and the people making hiring decisions inside of them do not give hiring a lot of thought. I have hired people I met at dinner, people who were recommended by friends and family and others — without much regard to whether we had a job opening at all. I just knew that the person had certain skills and could contribute to the overall efforts of the company. That was when things were ”on the up” and explosive growth was occurring.
It is like this with lots of companies. When things are good and the company is ”on the way up” the company does not closely scrutinize a lot of its hiring. It is this way with all companies.
”Back in the day” executives in the largest automotive companies had fancy wood paneled dining rooms where they were served gourmet foods and so forth daily. That soon went away as the industry started contracting under pressure. Companies like Google currently have cafeterias that are free and are so ”fat” that they even allow employees to spend part of their work time on independent projects.
One of the most interesting things you can and should be doing in your job search is going after companies that are on this ”explosive growth” trend. They will often hire you without giving it much thought—even if they do not have openings. It is the same thing with booming geographic areas and industries—you can often get hired even if there are no openings at a particular company just by ”showing up.”
I am going to tell you a job search secret I should not be telling you—but if you’ve read this far you deserve to learn it. If you see a company with a lot of openings proportional to its size—this means things are going very well there. It is the same thing with industries and geographic locations—a ton of openings mean some good stuff is going on. For example, if you see a small city somewhere and there are a ton of openings, then that city is growing.
Apply to companies that are growing fast—even if they do not have openings for you. This is a ”contrarian strategy” but I have seen it work more times than I can count. Call them, email them and do whatever you have to do. Companies that are ”on the way up” will often hire you even if they do not have openings. You need to find places, companies and industries on the way up.
THE LESSON
Going after companies on an “explosive growth” trend is among the most interesting and beneficial things you can do in your job search, as many such companies will hire you even if they do not have openings. Similarly, you can get hired in booming industries and geographical areas even if there are no openings, simply by showing up. Apply to growing companies, even if they do not have open positions.
About Harrison Barnes
Harrison Barnes is the Founder of BCG Attorney Search and a successful legal recruiter himself. Harrison is extremely committed to and passionate about the profession of legal placement. His firm BCG Attorney Search has placed thousands of attorneys. BCG Attorney Search works with attorneys to dramatically improve their careers by leaving no stone unturned in a search and bringing out the very best in them. Harrison has placed the leaders of the nation’s top law firms, and countless associates who have gone on to lead the nation’s top law firms. There are very few firms Harrison has not made placements with. Harrison’s writings about attorney careers and placements attract millions of reads each year. He coaches and consults with law firms about how to dramatically improve their recruiting and retention efforts. His company LawCrossing has been ranked on the Inc. 500 twice. For more information, please visit Harrison Barnes’ bio.
About BCG Attorney Search
BCG Attorney Search matches attorneys and law firms with unparalleled expertise and drive that gets results. Known globally for its success in locating and placing attorneys in law firms of all sizes, BCG Attorney Search has placed thousands of attorneys in law firms in thousands of different law firms around the country. Unlike other legal placement firms, BCG Attorney Search brings massive resources of over 150 employees to its placement efforts locating positions and opportunities that its competitors simply cannot. Every legal recruiter at BCG Attorney Search is a former successful attorney who attended a top law school, worked in top law firms and brought massive drive and commitment to their work. BCG Attorney Search legal recruiters take your legal career seriously and understand attorneys. For more information, please visit www.BCGSearch.com.
Filed Under : Featured, How to Succeed
Tagged: career advice, career blog | a harrison barnes, job opportunity, law firms, legal career, legal markets, private equity companies, searching for jobs
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It is absolutely vital to be in control of your life and career. When you fail to control your life, someone else will step in to do so and fit your life into their plans. Understand that it is in others’ interests to establish control over your life and work, and instead exert control yourself over your life and the events around you.
Do not be a dabbler, or someone who turns away in the face of stress; the secret to long-term happiness is to instead confront and push through these stress factors. Do not be discouraged by difficulties, but find ways to persist and deal with the stress. Confronting problems head-on is the key to improvement, and will take you much further than the dabblers who fail to approach their careers with commitment.
In this article Harrison discusses how persistent pursuit of something you believe in, against all obstacles, is one of the most important keys to success. So many of us just decide at some point not to push through and not to keep going even when a little bit of extra effort would push us through. The secret to being incredibly good at everything is pushing through and getting better and better when others around you are quitting. Even while hiring, employers want experts and people who are the best at what they are doing–they do not want dabblers. They want to hire the person who is incredibly committed to a job and has persisted against odds in one direction when others have given up.
In this article Harrison suggests that you actually may be safer getting a job without the help of family or friends. It is exceedingly rare that a friend or family member will ever be able to get you a position. They may not even want to help you get a job for various reasons. Their involvement in your job search may actually hurt you. The organization may actually look upon you negatively if you try to use a friend or family member to get a job. So going through a close contact is often counterproductive to your job search. Even if you get a position through a friend or family member, you could harm your relationship with that person in the process. Your friend or family member’s act of kindness may ultimately unbalance your relationship. The risks involved in this kind of job far outweigh the potential rewards.
A powerful sense of self will make all the difference in your life. You must understand that your sense of yourself and your capabilities come from inside of you, not from the external forces that have brought you to your current place in life. What you feel internally might be completely different from what the world is telling you, and you must learn to focus on the former rather than the latter.
In this article, Harrison explains the importance of making an effort in your job which is way above what is expected of you. When you have been given certain responsibilities, it means that someone is dependent on you for certain things. When you fulfill these duties far more efficiently, put in a lot more time and effort, and even stay back on weekends and holidays to complete or do extra work, your employers get the message that you are sharing their burden of pressures with them and begin to place tremendous trust in you. This is what paves the path to your promotion and growth in the company. Harrison believes that you need to develop the correct attitude and possess an extraordinary work ethic to thrive in the job you do.
In this article Harrison discusses how resisting change and not taking necessary and relevant action can be the biggest obstacles to a better career and better life. Resistance is something that prevents most people from ever changing. Resisting change can be highly damaging to your growth in your career and life. Instead of allowing your life to be controlled by external circumstances, choose to take action and bring about a change. Conduct a brutal self analysis if needed, to clear the blocks you have in your mind and to bring about change that is necessary. Most people give up. They do not persist. You need strategies and beliefs that will allow you to persist and persevere, so that you can change. The best strategy is to be focused, and this focus will help you overcome the resistance you face whenever you make an effort to begin changing.
Adopting a positive attitude will always bring you closer to success, as nobody wants to be associated with a losing side. Everyone wants to associate with and hire winners, and avoids losers. Nothing is more important than maintaining a positive attitude, as many employers hire people based primarily on attitude; with the right attitude, everything else will fall into place. You must look like you are on the winning team, even if times are tough; nobody wants to hire a loser.
The past does not dictate the future, so you should not use inductive reasoning to make conclusions about your life or career. Recognize when you are making incorrect conclusions based on past events, and switch to deductive reasoning in which you are not limited by the past. You will find your conclusions to be much more accurate, and you will succeed as a result.
When I was an attorney, I stopped going out to lunch with other attorneys during the day. The reason was not that I was not hungry. Instead, I stopped going out to lunch because just about everyone I worked with would want to dedicate the lunch to a critique—whether it was critiquing our bosses, coworkers, or others. When these people were not being critiqued, the job itself was being critiqued. When the job was not being critiqued, the attorney’s home life was being critiqued.
In this article Harrison discusses the significance of conditioning yourself to develop behaviors that will elevate you in your life. One of the most difficult things for anyone to do is to get leverage over themselves and condition themselves to go in a new direction. Very few people are ever able to make very fundamental transformations in their lives and become someone completely new and completely improved—and stick with it. Major improvements in our lives come only when we condition ourselves over and over again in one direction. You need to get leverage over yourself and condition new habits and behaviors within yourself to make any sort of fundamental and lasting change. The conditioning needs to be part of your lifestyle. You need to condition yourself to adopt new patterns in your life.
Going after companies on an “explosive growth” trend is among the most interesting and beneficial things you can do in your job search, as many such companies will hire you even if they do not have openings. Similarly, you can get hired in booming industries and geographical areas even if there are no openings, simply by showing up. Apply to growing companies, even if they do not have open positions.
Two fundamental laws of the universe are that order leads to disorder, and disorder leads to order. Since disorder always leads to order, you must always view disorder as a positive rather than a negative; disorder in your life is an opportunity to reorganize your life and career into something better. Making both order and disorder work for you will enhance your chances of success in career and life.
Think about your ultimate purpose in life, and what you are currently doing to accomplish it. Everyone is gifted with unique talents, and a failure to identify and utilize yours would be tragic for your life and career. The greater purpose you identify in your life, the greater the obstacles you will face. If you persevere and push through these hurdles, you will find the rewards to also be correspondingly greater.
Your perceptions of the world determine your reactions, and your reactions in turn determine your destiny. External factors do not dictate your life and destiny so much as your response to them, which is usually dictates by your emotional state. You must challenge yourself to make the best use of disorder in your life, and use it as a basis to develop a superior kind of order.
Be the person you want to be; if you see yourself naturally going in a certain direction, then you must allow yourself to go that way. Be grateful for every little thing in your life, and you will position yourself to receive more good things. You must hold the correct mindset to achieve a successful life and career; “get your mind right”, look at the world differently, and get away from your established ways of doing things.
There are two kinds of people; value creators and value extractors. Your career success will largely depend on your skill at either of these two things. Value extractors prefer an environment where value is already being created, while value creators look for areas of maximum opportunity. While value extractors seek stable careers, value creators seek to build up organizations rather than work within them. You need to decide if you are a value creator or extractor, commit to one or the other, and never look back.
It is important to have high standards. For the most part, life will pay any price you ask of it. The people who achieve the most in the world have incredibly high standards. It is like this with businesses as well. A great piece of machinery, or a great service, is like this because of the standards that are followed.
Rely on facts and statistics rather than opinions; when you depend on mere opinions, you inevitably face disastrous consequences. You must understand the difference between facts and opinions, analyze both, and adopt the former while disregarding the latter to make productive decisions.
Your skills and abilities merit profound appreciation; you must therefore place yourself in an environment where you will be so appreciated, and not subject to the negative opinions of others. People tend to believe the negative information that they hear about themselves. A work situation where you are unappreciated will tax your two greatest assets, your self-worth and your sanity.
Salesmanship is one of the most important skills you can have in your job hunt. You can use personality as a means of standing out and selling yourself, making sure that it comes through in everything you are doing. By injecting personality into your job search, you will soon notice changes in your life and career. People with personality succeed in sales because they draw attention; employers want to hire people with personalities, and a good personality can be your best job hunting tool.
In this article Harrison explains why the ability to close a sale is the most important skill in selling. Many people may get consumers interested in their products and lead them to the edge of making the sale, but it is the final push where the customer makes the actual purchasing decision which is the most important. Similarly it is good to be able to secure an interview, but what actually counts is the ability to push the employer to make the final hiring decision. There are a million possible closing techniques ranging from using the power of money and the power of issuing a deadline to identifying with a particular cause that could be important to the employer. All you need to do is tap into your instinctual ability and push employers that extra bit to ensure you get the job.
It is very important that you always ask questions in an interview when given the opportunity. Here are some good questions to ask and why you should ask them.
People who fail to reach their career goals are too complacent, rely too much on the opinions of others, allow difficulties to progress into ruin, and associate success with negative things. You have to establish success as a firm “must” in your life, associate your success with positive things, develop a workable strategy for success, and follow through with your plans. Never be a dabbler or give up in the face of adversity.
In this article Harrison explains the need to accept yourself the way you are. Harrison believes that most of us are not confident that we are good enough, or capable enough. Because of this hole within ourselves, we allow others to help us when we do not need help, fail to consistently feel content with our lives and accomplishments, and neglect to feel satisfied with who we are. We always feel a sense of lack. The most important thing you can ever do for yourself is overcome this sense of lack. Believe in yourself and your worth: you can accomplish all those things about which others would have you believe differently.
In this article Harrison discusses the importance of showing up on time. When you do not show up on time people are let down and they get upset. Their confidence in you is eroded. Not showing up on time conveys that you do not respect others and their needs. You should never show up late for anything. When you show up on time you send the message that you respect others and their time. It also sends the message you take others’ needs as seriously as your own. Being on time sends the message you will play by the rules, do what is expected of you, and do your best to get along with others and look out for their needs. You always need to be on time.
In this article Harrison discusses the importance of focusing all your energies on creating value for others. When your focus is on getting rewards and not adding value, you will find success eluding you. You need to create value by solving people’s problems to the very best of your ability. You will grow in your career if you solve people’s problems with dedication. You are owed nothing by anyone until you create value. People will seek you out as long as you create outstanding value for them. Once you start expecting something without creating value, the end is often near. Focusing on the rewards diverts your energy from what generates rewards in the first place. When you create value for others and focus on the work you are doing, the rewards come naturally.
In this article Harrison discusses that there is incredible power which is available out there that we only need to capture in order to achieve what we want in the world. Everything we need and could possibly want is already around us. There is power in existence all around us that is available if we are not limited by our own minds. Anything you believe is possible. It is your beliefs about the way things are that shapes reality. There are forces out there which you can utilize to do and become virtually anything you want to be. There is far more potential in the world, in you, and around you than you realize. Capture it now.
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Harrison, I’m not even a practicing attorney any longer, and I still read your blog and columns religiously. Excellent stuff.
Curious about the hedge fund calls. Are they calling because you have in-house info? Or you have outside interests? I deal with investors (well, VC now) with some regularity – hedge fund previously, but have a number of friends in this industry. Can you discuss this practice – or they speaking with you as a recruiter, or in some other capacity?
Also, love the stories about your days as an asphalt contractor. Somehow, those stories seem to suit you best.
Happy new year, and thanks so much for the advice over the years!
Kind regards,
Alexandra