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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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In this article Harrison discusses the role of self-motivation and self management. Self-motivated and self managed people always perform well. In contrast people who are forced to follow massive amounts of procedures and rules can never perform. It is important that our rituals and sense of responsibility is internal, and something we learn to do naturally–not something we only do when it is imposed on us by people on the outside. The best people in every job are self- managed and responsible individuals. Also, the more self-managed people there are working for an organization, the stronger the organization generally is. Instead of creating problems in the workplace, you should seek out responsibilities, and ritualize your work routine. These responsibilities will drive you forward in your daily work, in your career, and in your life.
Your must always strive to create value for your organization, and your organization must in turn strive to add value to the world. Since value comes from teams of individuals rather than any single person, the best companies strive to maximize their staffs’ efficiency. You must also ensure that your company weeds out the employees who do not create value in favor of those who do, and that you belong to the latter group.
When you try to mask or suppress aspects of your personality, those traits will inevitably come to the fore anyway. You need to develop a comprehensive understanding of yourself, including your darker or deeply buried traits; once you know how your dark side limits and controls you, the better you will do in your life and career. Self-discovery will ultimately lead to inner peace, which in turn will enable you to more fully develop your goals.
The number one thing that makes people fail and not reach their potential is competition. If get into an area where there is not much competition and you genuinely have something to offer, you will succeed. Everyone is successful to the extent they are doing something others around them are not that provides value.
Creating a sense of urgency is one of the most important things you can do in your job search. Understand that your career is itself a commodity and you need to sell yourself, and your salesmanship will determine your career success. Creating a sense of urgency will always help you close your sale.
Companies necessarily seek to employ positive, forward-minded people. A firm’s success depends on their employees, and they seek people who will enhance them rather than merely contribute to the bottom line. People with positive natures, who contribute to a healthy social environment, prove essential to the growth and success of their employers.
You can never become too comfortable if you wish to be successful. Your success will largely depend on your ability to become dissatisfied with your current position. Successful people are never satisfied with the status quo, and constantly push beyond their comfort zone. When do you this and succeed, you set a new standard for normality in your life. Be continually dissatisfied, and always pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone.
Resourcefulness can make you better at everything you do, and separates the truly extraordinary people from the general herd. Do everything within your power to be resourceful in your job search, life, and career to give yourself the best possible chance of achieving your goals, and learn how to employ the resources currently at your disposal for maximum impact.
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.
You can change your life forever by harnessing the power of persistence. Think about the people in your life, and whether they empower you or hinder you in achieving your goals. You must win at all costs, and persist until you succeed.
You will greatly benefit your career by helping and promoting your company’s expansion. A common belief is that expansion is fundamentally positive, and a lack of expansion is fundamentally negative. You must be on the side of expansion rather than contraction in every area of your life. All employers seek people who will help them expand, and the more your ability to contribute to this expansion will provide you increased job security and a greater likelihood of being hired.
Focus on what you are doing, not what others around you are doing. There are people to take action towards their goals, and then there people who sit on the sidelines and comment on the first group of people. People who are mostly interested in gossip and watching others usually lack the confidence and determination to take action themselves. The most successful people go account and accomplish things rather than sit back and watch others make things happen.
Anyone can be up when things are going well, but the real challenge comes when things are not. Do not look at problems, which are inevitable for any person or business, in a negative light; think of them instead as challenges, lessons, or opportunities. There is a silver lining to be found in every problem, and finding that silver lining will enable you to grow.
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.
In this article Harrison explains how you can do better in your career by selling. The most successful people are absolute masters at sales. Selling is among the most important career skills you can have. When you know how to sell something you can do exceptionally well wherever you go. Knowing how to sell something is a key to survival, advancement, fame, and fortune. Everything we do is about making a sale. Selling yourself is about showing others the value you can bring them. So package yourself to the best of your ability, always be at your best and sell yourself. Develop your sales skills and do not be afraid to sell anything. Whatever your goal in life, becoming an effective salesman will help you achieve it.
Your résumé is an extremely important document. There are entire books written about how to craft them. I have written at least one myself. There are scores of résumé consultants, companies, and others that will work on your résumé for a fee. Hiring one of these services can be useful and can improve your résumé. Nevertheless, most résumés can improve dramatically by following the below advice.
It is extremely important that you enjoy your job. Most people find themselves in jobs that they resent, and eventually make this resentment known by appearing disinterested and distracted. Success comes from being engaged in and grateful for your work. You can define your job according to your own vision; you can either choose to engage with your work, or avoid and despise what you do. People recognize and appreciate those who are enthusiastic about their work.
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.
When faced with difficult times, you must develop the ability to transcend the trouble around you instead of giving up or assuming that nothing can be done about your situation. Keep your wits about you and take charge of the situation, and you will find yourself on track for constant improvement and career success.
In this article Harrison talks about releasing the lack that you feel, in order to reach your full potential. If a sense of lack dominates your thinking, it will affect your interaction with the world and how the world sees you. There are many areas of your life where you are coming from a position of lack. Your ability to release this lack and go forward with your life can create a tremendous sense of peace and more natural accomplishments in your world. The amount of lack that people see out there is profound and it has a massive impact on their lives. According to Harrison, the most successful people in the world see the world as a place of opportunity and not lack.
Determine whether you are a global or specific person. Most people are either too general or too specific in the way they treat information, and overly detail-oriented people risk losing sight of the bigger picture. General people are more comfortable in managerial positions, while detail-oriented people prefer everything to conform to a logical sequence. Understand which sort of person you are, and seek work that best harnesses your natural inclination.
Recent immigrants exemplify the benefits of willpower, passion, and excitement in the way that they work so much harder for their goals than the people who have been here for most or all of their lives. Like most Americans, you need to rekindle the spirit of your immigrant ancestors and become hungry for what you want. The entrepreneurial spirit that brought people to America has often faded over time; adopt the fire and work ethic of new immigrants in order to achieve your goals.
You must plant seeds in the minds of others, so that they will be more likely than otherwise to think of you when a future need arises. In planting seeds, you are making people aware of what you have to offer; you must make sure that you are ever present in the minds of your potential employers. Planting seeds is the most effective way to generate top-of-mind awareness, and ensure that the right people remember you at the appropriate time.
A recommendation from a powerful person can make a huge difference in your job search; a reference from an influential person makes a tremendous difference to a prospective employer, and thus can be a major advantage for you. When an important person whom the company trusts recommends you, you instantly qualify for positions that may previously have been unattainable. Make the absolute most of your connections with the powerful people in your life, because doing so can instantaneously change your career and life.
Maintaining a routine in both life and work is important to success. Not only do you need to establish a routine, you must make that routine demanding and push yourself to the limit. Budget a certain amount of time each week for networking, applying to jobs, brushing up your interview skills, and following up with employers. Such consistent effort on a daily basis will make a huge difference to your career success.
You can better market yourself by taking a stand against something. Peoples’ personal beliefs, including the things with which they do not agree, define who they are as people. Standing against something differentiates you from the crowd; when done in the correct manner, without disrespecting others’ opinions, such a stance can help you land your dream job.
To reach the goals to which you aspire, you must compare yourself with people superior to you for motivation. Most people prefer to look at life the way they wish it to be, rather than as it truly is. Move out of your comfort zones and face reality. Don’t seek out or compare yourself with the average people around you, as doing so will only mire you in mediocrity rather than push you forward.
In this article Harrison discusses what a good hiring manager should look for. Many people who make hiring decisions really do not know what they are doing. In fact, they often make mistakes when hiring. They put too much emphasis on skills and experience. But the single most important aspect of hiring is evaluating the person’s unique outlook on the world. If the person does not have a positive outlook on the world, he/she will bring down the morale of the other workers. The person will harm the company through the negative outlook. The key to success is having the power to stick it out in jobs and finding happiness wherever you are. Hiring people who do good work and are always able to find happiness should be the number one objective of hiring managers.
Don’t ever give up, and make the most of the tools at your disposal. Take chances and invest in your best skills, and persist in the face of unfortunate events. Have faith in your considerable work and capabilities, and use them to create value for others.
Things will not always go the way that you want them to go, so you must not be discouraged by adversity in your job hunt. When you persist and consistently put forth your best effort, things are much more likely to go in your favor. Also, you must resist others’ efforts to undermine your efforts and potential; focus instead on doing everything in your power to fight on and complete the task at hand.
Having a goal or vision will propel you towards greater career success and happiness. Without a purpose, you will find yourself depressed and ultimately fail to achieve your goals. Do not subscribe to the unrealistic problem that you should never have problems, but instead regard problems as part of your overall growth strategy.
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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