Articles Archives

Doubling Toys for Tots Donations in 2012, a National Executive Search Firm Pioneers the Drive for Corporate Charity During Times of Economic Uncertainty

Posted on September 9, 2023September 9, 2023 by JMJ Phillip

JMJ Phillip, a top Executive Search Firm, believes with success comes greater community responsibility as they continue to champion and support their annual Toys for Tots program, giving less fortunate children some holiday cheer.
(PRWEB) November 13, 2012 JMJ Phillip, a Michigan based Executive Search Firm, is inspiring companies to participate in the Toys for Tots charity this Christmas 2012. To promote the giving spirit this holiday season, JMJ Phillip has offered to match any toy donation a business sends into their firm with an equivalent gift. Not only does this encourage companies to help the Toys for Tots program, but it offers the incentive of a combined effort to help kids in need with donations up to $2500 in toys.

“As in previous years, the Toys for Tots program has been one that keeps gaining momentum with each year we participate and collect donations. It is great to see the ongoing support from our company clients and candidates we’ve worked with and look forward to 2012 being our biggest year of contributions yet,” said James Thompson, Vice President of Business Development.

Toys will be collected until 5pm on December 8th. JMJ Phillip offers drop boxes placed at customer businesses as a means of collection. Arrangements may be made for gift pickups in the Metro Detroit Area by contacting JMJ Phillip at jmj.reora.net.

A third way to contribute is by posting a picture of a new toy ready to be donated on the JMJ Phillip Facebook page and it will be matched with an equal gift. Toys for Tots requires all toys to be new, unwrapped, and in the original package. There is no set age for the toys and all gifts are welcome, but there is usually a higher demand for the older children.

Marc Callert, a Manufacturing and Supply Chain Executive Recruiter states “Toys for Tots is a fantastic charity to participate in this time of year and especially in today’s economy. The program directly helps bring the community together and raises the spirits of kids who may not be going through the best of times. As an executive recruiter, I am speaking with individuals in all types of situations and it has been my experience that programs like this bring out the compassion and willingness to give in everyone no matter how big or small the donation may be.”

About JMJ Phillip:

Located in Troy, MI, JMJ Phillip is one of the nation’s leading executive recruiting firms specializing in the placement of manufacturing, supply chain and information technology professionals. For more than a decade JMJ Phillip has helped organizations grow and prosper by identifying and helping them retain exceptional leadership talent. To learn more about the company and its services, please visit http://jmjphillip.com/.

James Thompson

JMJ Phillip

877-500-7762

James.thompson@jmjphillip.com

See JMJ Phillip on Yahoo News: http://news.yahoo.com/doubling-toys-tots-donations-2012-national-executive-search-121517963.html

“We went live on a new ERP System and don’t know what to build or ship”

Posted on September 9, 2023September 9, 2023 by JMJ Phillip

This is the first thing we hear from new and existing clients right between the 3-6 month periods after a go-live on a new ERP system. Largely prevalent with those running SAP, but we still hear these stories from more than a half dozen different MRP \ ERP systems.

So we want to say this: “Call us BEFORE you go live!”

We receive dozens of these calls every year and it often leaves our jaw on the floor. All these companies have the same problem, and if they would plan for this before going live we could get them the talent they need to stop this from happening. Some of our executive search consultants have been part of implementations and are aware of the first month or two of “hell”. But it seems once the data in your old system can no longer be a crutch, you don’t know what to build or ship. Planning for what is going to happen 6 month’s out is critical.

Our most famous call in went like this “Its 2 weeks before Thanksgiving and our inbound EDI and master data is unreliable. We don’t know what to build and our Christmas shipments represent over 30% of our annual sales!” (Retail Client CPG)

Here is the thing, they went live over 6 months prior!

We have helped turnaround a lot of nearly failed ERP implementations but without time we cannot help you. In the case above even if we reached out to our Manufacturing and Supply Chain ERP contacts, the likelihood of them being able to start a new position quickly, locally, let alone having to relocate is almost impossible.

Plan ahead. If you’re going live you can bank on having Demand \ Planning issues, call us months before you go live and let us leverage our 15 years of Manufacturing, Supply Chain and ERP recruiting experience to get you the right workforce to help avoid these costly issues.

Sponsoring The OGBC

Posted on September 9, 2023September 9, 2023 by JMJ Phillip

JMJ Phillip, a Michigan based Executive Recruiting Firm, is proud to be sponsoring The OGBC (Olympia Gymnastics Booster Club) Athlete Warrior Challenge February 1-3, 2013. This three day event has over 2000 gymnasts, ages 8-18 from around the United States compete against the best in their division. The event will be held at Macomb Community College Sports and Expo Center in Warren, MI.

The mission of the OGBC is the promotion of amateur gymnastics:

“To promote the physical, mental and moral development of members who participate in competitive gymnastics activities;
To encourage, assist, and support the development of a gymnastics program which shall include recreational, exhibition, and competitive gymnastics opportunities for participant members;
To encourage and assist in the development of a sense of fair play, honesty, fair competition and true sportsmanship on the part of each participant;
To provide an effective and efficient means of communication between OGBC members and the community, teams and gymnastic members.”

www.olympiabooster.com

June 2013 Cover Story in PE Magazine

Posted on September 9, 2023September 9, 2023 by JMJ Phillip

JMJ Phillip was recently interviewed in the June 2013 Cover Story in PE Magazine about succession planning and the need for engineers. To read more please visit http://www.nspe.org/PEmagazine/13/pe_0613_Engineer.html.

Just As Many BAD Employers as BAD Employees

Posted on September 9, 2023September 9, 2023 by JMJ Phillip

Every executive search firm battles the same issue with their clients “the candidate is a job hopper”. We are on board with that, we don’t like to hire job hoppers at JMJ Phillip either. If you’re looking for a slightly better pay day every 2 years or you simply couldn’t cut it and keep getting bounced out of your job then you’re not for us.

But over the years we have come to realize that it’s not always the candidates fault and the general idea that employers are immaculate is simply ridiculous. Often candidates get hired and are never told the full story, because if they had the full story they would never take the job! Companies holding their cards close is nothing new, but imagine if you took a job and found this out in the first 6 months that: (this is a sampling of true stories)..

• We have 45 days of cash flow and our biggest customer is suing us

• We have been in a turnaround situation for over 18 months

• We went live on SAP and it was a failed implementation

• We lost a government contract so we will being having layoffs

• Job sold in the interview did not end up being the job you signed up for

• Company is an acquisition target and will be bought

• Pay, bonuses and incentives were not as promised

• Manufacturing is moving to Mexico

• Manufacturing is moving to Asia

• Plant is closing, everything is moving to another plant

For every job hopper, you have someone that has had legitimate reasons for moving around. If someone worked for 2 bankrupt companies in the last 5 years, how do you blame them for being a hopper? Meanwhile your seeking that guy that spent 12 years at one company thinking they are the rock solid person you need to hire and here are some lessons learned from that.

• Long tenure can be a sign of complacency

• Long tenure could mean the work environment was relaxed where poor employees have the opportunity to have long careers

• Lack of diversity leads to “this is how I did it at my old company”

One last note that may surprise you: Those that had long tenures often end up having more than 3 jobs in a short period time.

Now it’s not always the case, but you will see someone that had a 8 year run, and a 6 year run, then have 3 or 4 jobs over the next 6 years. So while you’re seeking the ideal candidate based on tenure you’re letting some top candidates pass through your fingertips because you didn’t want to invest 20 minutes talking to them to learn about why they had the career changes they did.

Now at JMJ Phillip we already have that discussion before we send you the candidate, but before you are quick to say “pass”, step back for a moment and think about how many bad employers you have worked for, it may make you give someone with amazing talent a chance that you wouldn’t have otherwise.

Candidate compensation demands demystified

Posted on September 9, 2023September 9, 2023 by JMJ Phillip

Finding someone’s resume in a database or on LinkedIn only represents a small fraction of what a great recruiting firm is paid to accomplish. While many companies look at recruiters as a one dimensional source of paper, the top recruiting firms in the nation are also great talent evaluators, compensation negotiators and counter offer experts. We are going to talk about the touchy compensation issues in this article.

So we deal with this every week and if you’re hiring often you do as well. Your in-house recruiter or outside recruiting firm sends you a candidate, they note their salary range and if you like them, you bring them in for an interview. After the first interview, you choose to do a second and when your in-house recruiter or outside recruiting firm calls the candidate to book it, all of a sudden they went from needing 95k + 10% bonus to needing 120k + 15% bonus otherwise they don’t want to move forward. (this also happens later in the process when an offer is to be made)

Ok, now you’re upset at your in-house recruiter or outside recruiting firm because you think they didn’t do their homework or they are fudging the numbers. Once you realize this happens way too often for either of those mistakes to be happening regularly, you want to learn the WHY behind these debacles.

We will break it down to tell you WHY and also make suggestions on how to mitigate it from happening so often.

1. The candidate walked into your company and the hiring team said things like, “when can you start” or, “you’re the best candidate we have met so far”. You basically just told the candidate you’re willing to give them a blank check when its offer time. How to avoid this: You have to walk the fine line of showing them you’re interested as top candidates want to feel wanted but you cannot show your cards either. Giving the candidate any idea they are the only and or best one for this position only begs for them to raise their price.

2. You don’t want to hear this, but the candidate wasn’t sold on your company either because of the vibe, looks of the place, lack of participation from people that should have been in the interview, your product or service or many other things they discover once being on site. They may still be interested but for them to work there or leave their current position for your company, they want more reward for more risk. How to avoid this: As recruiters we have to SELL your company, and sell it hard to top candidates, you must do the same. You also need to make sure what you’re showing \ telling the candidate makes them feel comfortable with your business unless they know it’s a turnaround situation. If you tell the candidate the CFO, CEO, COO or other executives will be in the meeting, make sure they show up and act interested otherwise the candidate feels insulted.

3. The candidate is interviewing elsewhere (always assume this anyway) and they have the rational that they can ask you for more money and if you pull the offer oh well, they have other options. How to Avoid this: This one is simple, act fast! Far too much time goes on, between the time a candidate is found and an offer is made, companies often drag their feet and as the saying goes “more is lost from indecision than the wrong decision”. Interview fast, make a decision quick and make your offer strong! To top that off, don’t make offers on Fridays and when you do make an offer give the candidate 48 hours to make a decision, put their feet to the fire and MAKE them MAKE a decision.

If your company is having issues with the art of the deal when it comes to making a hire, read more about our Retained Executive Search Firm Services.

Top Executive Career Mistakes Of 2014

Posted on September 9, 2023September 9, 2023 by JMJ Phillip

We are kicking off the New Year with a simple list of “what not to do” for executives making a career move in 2015. JMJ Phillip’s Retained Executive Search Division has compiled notes from global searches to publish the top 5 career search mistakes of 2014.

Listed below are the Top 5 Mistakes our search consultants witnessed in 2014:

Hypothetical Futuristic Bonus Value: Sounds confusing right? While most want a bulldog type in the C-Suite, as they appreciate strong negotiators, it is also really easy to turn off a future employer with a convoluted “what if, and or” Boolean dissertation on what bonus you may be missing out on.

Of course no one wants to walk away from a guaranteed high 5 or 6 digit bonus but trying to leverage your future employer because of a bonus that may or may not come is a sure fire way to make the employer look at other candidates. We worked with a couple of impressive high level executives that gave some great insight on how their careers progressed so quickly by not waiting for a potential bonus to be paid out.

The first executive noted: “You cannot keep looking backwards. Your future is in the hands of your new employer. So I lost some bonus money, not every step is forward and career growth certainly isn’t linear. If the job is worth taking, its worth taking whether you get your bonus from the old company or not.”

The second executive noted: “I guess it’s a matter of integrity for me. I cannot stick around and wait 2 months for a bonus knowing I will put my notice in right after. I have to do what’s best for me and my family but I don’t want to dine and dash on a company that was good to me. I also believe in this new world we are living in, 2 months is a lot of time and I would rather get into the new job and start making things happen knowing it will reward me far more than whatever bonus I could have received from my old employer.”

Being in the search business we understand nothing is clear-cut, sometimes it makes sense to stick around and get your bonus. After all, you earned it right? Other times it may be best to just move on.

But one thing to think about before you sit down to talk compensation, if you’re flinging out wild numbers about a bonus that “may come” your chances of getting the job are going to go down.

Relocation Bi-Polarism: When you ask anyone working at an executive search firm how they feel about working on retained executive searches versus the contingent professional and management recruiting they did to start their careers off, they will often say, “executives know the game, they know how to make a career change and it’s often a smooth consulting gig.” While that is true we witnessed something in 2014 that was a bit disturbing. Companies often complained about candidates, be it those from a firm or their own internally sourced, backing out in the 25^th hour because of relocation. Candidates will often fly out 2-3-4 times only to back out which wastes a lot of peoples time. One caveat to keep in mind is that the world is shrinking, and everyone knows everyone.

If you don’t want to move you need to figure that out early on in your career search, ideally before the first interview and absolutely no later than after the 1^st interview. If you fly out somewhere 3 or 4 times only to back out, wasting people’s time may not go well for your reputation.

Playing “Hide the Compensation”: Once again everyone appreciates a strong negotiator but everyone in today’s world wants transparency. Nothing seems to stop an offer in its tracks faster than withholding what you are currently earning. We know it’s a point of leverage and you don’t want them to lowball you but we look at it from a different light.

If the company see’s your value, they are going to pay you what you are worth. Likewise if you are trying to get a 30-40% raise by playing the hide the compensation game the company can equally say you’re just looking for a pay day, not a career. Be honest with the company about your compensation, tell them where you would like to be AND WHY, then let the chips fall where they may.

Ask yourself this, do you want to work for a company that was going to low ball you but you some how got them to pay you much more? That is not a win win in the end and this can ultimately lead to a resume that depicts you as a job-hopper because neither party ends up happy with the transaction leaving you looking for jobs every 1-2 years.

I Know Someone There: A pretty simple one to avoid. Again, with the world shrinking, everyone knows everyone. Often we hear from the candidate that they know someone at the company they are interviewing with and they reach out to them. Want to know how often that works out? Not often! Odds do not seem to be in your favor when you work back channels. Prior colleagues opinions of you may not align with your perception.

The one thing you didn’t think about is, maybe the person you’re reaching out to doesn’t want you working there because you have dirt on them. They started a new career and they are doing okay when someone walks in from the past with stories about them. People don’t think about these things but it happens far more often than you know.

Resume And Social Media Asymmetry: It seems everyone in their life took a position or two that didn’t work out. Maybe they only lasted 3 months because it was a bad cultural fit or the company wasn’t what they expected. So what do you do? You leave it off your resume but it’s listed on your LinkedIn profile or some other lead gathering site has your information listed and you cannot have it removed. So it only takes one simple Google search for someone to find that discrepancy and question your integrity. All we can say is the world is changing. Data is everywhere. If you choose to hide things it may or may not hurt you. Sometimes you can address this in an interview or with the recruiter so everything is on an even keel.

Making a Career move in 2015? Visit Resume Submission

Hiring an Executive Search Firm in 2015? Call 877-500-7762

What to Make of LinkedIn’s Mad Skills

Posted on September 9, 2023September 9, 2023 by JMJ Phillip

Do endorsements on LinkedIn help? If so, which skills should you highlight? Read more from our Vice President below:

“Indeed, some HR pros say these endorsements aren’t so useful. What your friends say about you is about as reliable as what you say about yourself, says James Thompson, executive vice president of JMJ Phillip Holdings, a human resources consulting firm. That is, not much. “Job seekers plaster buzzwords all on the top of the resume, only to find in the interview that they really were a master of none of them,” he says. (“Creative” remains LinkedIn’s most overused buzzword.)”

For full article click HERE.

The Career Dead Cat Bounce (Evaluating Talent)

Posted on September 9, 2023September 9, 2023 by JMJ Phillip

If you were an economics major or understand the operational aspects of a margin account, you likely already know what a dead cat bounce is. For those that don’t we grabbed a clip from Wikipedia to explain.

“In economics, a dead cat bounce is a small, brief recovery in the price of a declining stock.[1] Derived from the idea that “even a dead cat will bounce if it falls from a great height”, the phrase, which originated on Wall Street, is also popularly applied to any case where a subject experiences a brief resurgence during or following a severe decline.”

We are not just churn and burn recruiters rapidly firing off paper at the pace of a Gatling gun, we are talent evaluators assisting you with the selection of hiring top 5% talent. One of our own internal metrics happens to be, “if you chart this candidates career, is it their second wind or simply a dead cat bounce?”

You likely have made this mistake before, someone was killing it for years at one of your competitors and they took a down turn or maybe even were unemployed for a period of time. You may be thinking about picking them up cheap and go with your instinct that their industry experience could be useful. What you didn’t know is that although the candidate interviewed very well, they were a broken man \ woman. This could be one major event in their life or an accumulation of several factors such as divorce, bankruptcy, loss of competitive attitude or simply being burnt out.

So you hired this “rock star” on the cheap and you’re counting the days until you can let them go, so where did you go wrong?

You need a bad guy. It’s that simple. When you’re working with an executive search firm we can be the bad guy, but when you’re doing it internally you really need someone that can do it. Not just anyone can do this and we will tell you several rules that must be followed when doing this.

1. The bad guy cannot be the hiring manager. When onboarding intelligent people, if they feel the hiring manager is a pain to work for you can count them out or expect their salary demands to go higher.

2. The bad guy (or girl) must have the necessary business alchemy so they know what questions to press buttons on.

3. This person cannot accept politician answers. For example, if you ask how much they saved with their value engineering efforts in the global supply chain and they reply with “$2MM to $4MM”, you ask, which is it? $2MM or $4MM? And you keep your foot on the pedal until you figure out all the details on HOW they accomplished it.

4. Get out of the office! We are notorious for conducting interviews in coffee shops, at dinner, we even pack up the golf clubs and head to the driving range. Get candidates out of the boardroom setting where they know how they should act and put them in a social scene allowing them to be who they really are.

One last note, follow these interviewing processes all the time! You don’t need to follow these just for when you are vetting someone’s ability to come in and still be a star, you can use these principles to assist with making better hires every time.

Why the Vice President personally interviewing ALL new hires is a good thing

Posted on September 9, 2023September 9, 2023 by JMJ Phillip

Would you ask why or instantly understand why a Vice President within a multi-billion dollar company is interviewing EVERY new hire, even positions down to 40k?

Frankly, we were excited to hear it. Not because of his rank, but because we know he is very talented at making the right hire. When we say right hire it is about not screening people out because of their resume, interviewing quirks or other superficial traits. He has the ability to honestly read people, see their talents and know how to leverage them along with figuring out in a short period of time which person is really going to make it there vs. someone just bs’ing their way only to disappoint 30 days in.

But here is a problem we see every day. Hiring managers are often great department managers or leaders and often very poor at hiring. Not everyone is born with that special trait to read people for who they are, and no matter how much you try you may never be good at it.

We often recommend companies try to find that person in each department or division that can be part of the hiring team in this special role. This prevents the office politics of hiring managers not hiring someone because they’re worried they will take their job and it also increases the chance of weeding out those people that BS their way in the door.

Your hiring team needs someone that is great at hiring. Set a goal in 2012 to make sure every new hire is well vetted by those in your organization that have a record of making great hires as the market continues to become ultra-competitive for top talent.