Harper's Rules (9 page)

“That's it, Casey. A good MPC gets three interviews for every fifty calls made by an experienced headhunter. Your ratio should be better because no one has as much knowledge about you as you do, and no one has more at stake.”

“But it seems so simple, Harper. Why wouldn't everyone do that for themselves before they called you?”

“Because they're afraid. The same reason we don't tell someone we love that we love them, even though we might ache to do so. What if they reject us?”

I had to look away. Harper clicked off his recorder and stood up. This writing session was over.

“Well, I'm not afraid. I'm a salesperson. I can make those calls.”

“I know,” Harper said, “and you should. Gotta go.”

“What about the interview?”

“A little faith, please.”

Harper moved past me, touched my shoulder briefly but not absently, and squeezed for a second.

Suddenly I felt another hand pat my shoulder. Is there a sign on my back that says,
PAT HERE, I'M LONELY
?

“So,” Wallace Avery began, “it seems Harper has left us to our own devices. Sorry, did I startle you?”

“No, I'm sorry, just preoccupied. Backswing, downswing, straight left arm . . .”

He smiled. “Well, we need to schedule our meeting. How's ten on Friday? I'm in Stamford on Fridays, so I can save you the drive in to Manhattan. The Archer Building across from the Marriott.”

“I look forward to it. Look at us, doing Harper's job for him.”

“Well,” Wallace shrugged, “I'm sure it's awkward for him.”

I must have looked confused. “You know, don't you?” he said. “I'm not sure what you're referring to.”

“We passed a corporate edict a year ago: no more headhunting fees. If we end up hiring you, Harper is not charging us.”

Wallace could see he had made me uncomfortable but was not to be deterred by my burst of pride.

“He told me he's placed you twice, young lady, and I have paid him a small fortune over the years, so you and I have earned this, and we are going to meet Friday. Besides, we may hate you. Friday. Okay?”

“I'll be there.”

“First test. Can you be trusted with a secret? I just talked out of school, and now you need to cover for me with Harper.”

Halfway home, I decided I had to breach the confidentiality with Wallace and talk to Harper. Should I thank him? Should I rip into him and tell him I do not need
charity and that if he was going to change the nature of our business relationship he should have included me in the decision? Harper's fee for someone on my level was around 40K! But what if he told Wallace Avery that I knew? It not only would cost me the job I had not yet interviewed for; how would I feel when Avery asked me why I broke his trust?

I once asked Harper if he could keep a secret because I wanted to tell him some juicy gossip I had heard about a major competitor's product. “No,” he said solemnly, “I can't keep a secret. If you tell me I will tell everyone I know. Then I'll start cold calling.”

I made a decision to respect Avery's wishes and keep Harper's pro bono work to myself.

I was pulling into my driveway, trying to figure out why this lovely gesture on Harper's part had somehow made me resentful of him, when my cell buzzed, and I saw the name and number of Peter Bonetti. I will eat this clown alive.

“Peter Bonetti, as I live and breathe.” There was a pause. “Well?”

“Okay, give me a minute. I'm so used to your voice mail recording, I never considered you might actually pick up.”

I sat back in my car seat in my driveway. This was going to be so much fun.

“Well, that's a rookie move, Peter. You are supposed to be prepared for a live connect every time you reach out to someone like me.”

“You haven't made it easy. Didn't anyone ever teach you the basic courtesy of returning someone's call?”

Okay, this kid is going to die, and then I'm going after his family. “Are you joking? How many times have you called me? Ten, fifteen?”

“Six on your regular phone and three on your cell. Not that I'm tracking it.”

“God, you really are a rookie, aren't you? How long have you been doing this?”

“You mean calling women I don't know and trying to get them to give me a few minutes before they reject me?”

“Exactly. How long?”

“About six months, I guess. I used to think I was pretty good at this. But I've been out of it for so long, guess I don't have my game back yet.”

I knew guys like this. They get out of sales because they burn out, and then when they try to get back in, they've lost their nerve.

“Okay, rookie. I'm going to cut you a break and let you make your pitch. It's not going to work, but I'll let you practice. Go.”

“I don't think so. Enough is enough. Thanks for taking my call. You really need to learn some manners.”

“Give me your manager's name, Bonetti!”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“I want your manager's name.”

“I don't have a manager. My boss is the owner, and you know him. I've seen you talk to him.”

“Okay, stop trying to confuse me. Who is this owner?”

“Just make sure when you talk to him you admit that I have caught you staring at my ass. That you flirt with me. That you told Amanda at the front desk that I was hot, which is why I looked you up in the member's database and got your cell phone. That is against gym rules, so go ahead and get me fired. At least I won't have to see you anymore.”

Oh my God! Peter Bonetti is Cute Guy! No wonder he gave me the stinkeye the last couple of times I saw him. I started to laugh. I wanted to tell him I had never listened to any of his messages, but when I tried, nothing came out but a snorting sound, and then I lost it and was laughing so hard I was crying. I couldn't remember the last time I had laughed so hard. Finally I calmed down enough to explain. At first I could tell he didn't believe me, but then he surrendered, and he started to laugh—a deep, savory laugh that I could tell he gave up easily under normal circumstances. To me it was a precious, vulnerable piece of me I dispensed with stinginess. I make men laugh; they don't make me laugh.

“I'm sorry, Peter. Really, I am. You know if you wore the polo shirt with the name tag that all the other gym employees wear instead of the tank tops you walk around in, I'd have known your name.”

“I'm a personal trainer; those tank tops get me business.”

“Right,” I laughed.

“Can I make my pitch now?”

“Sure.”

“I work at the gym as a personal trainer. I don't have a lot of money, although my client base is growing. I am thirty-two years old, and I was living with a girl for five years who pretty much broke my heart about six months ago. I'm really afraid of going through all that again but decided it was time to take a risk. You seemed, I don't know . . .”

“This is where you say, ‘really, really hot.'”

“That too, sure, but you seemed like . . . you'd been there. Like you were trying to act okay.”

“I am okay,” I managed, finally.

“Okay. So I wanted to see if you wanted to do something in the area of a date of some sort.”

“That's your pitch?”

“There it is.”

“It's pretty weak, Peter. I have had classical sales training, and you are breaking all the rules. You are supposed to only present your best qualities, not your weaknesses, and then of course you didn't close me on a specific time. The correct method would be to ask an open ended question like, ‘How's Saturday?'”

“Saturday's great. What time?”

Oh no, I'm feeling that flutter thing in my chest. I promised myself to never feel that again.

“I don't know, Peter, I just don't know if I can. I'm sorry.”

“I understand.”

“Oh for God's sake, that's an objection! You're supposed to overcome it. All right! Seven o'clock on Saturday. Hang up the phone now, Peter. A good salesman gets the order and gets off the phone.”

An interview on Friday and a date on Saturday . . . Could things be starting to actually go my way? Dial down the hope, I told myself. It's the hope that gets you.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The next day I went running at Hubbard Park. I hate running outside, but I have a quandary: I need to lose two to five pounds in the three days before my interview and date, but the person I am dating works at the gym and would see me trying to overcompensate.

Just when I was trying to decide whether to do the mile loop again or head back home, a car pulled up and a young kid rolled down the window. Here we go. Boys and their turbo-testosterone. What can you do?

“Excuse me, ma'am,” he said politely, “do you know where Webster's Bakery is?”

“Are you crazy? You stop me while I'm running and not only don't give me a ‘hey, baby,' but when you saw me from behind, you thought, ‘there's someone who knows where a bakery is?'”

“Sorry, ma'am.”

He drove off and I felt the urge to memorize the license plate, but I didn't know whom I would report them to. Then I heard the laughter. I turned to square off with my next victim, and there was Harper on a park bench by the jogging trail.

He was wearing a houndstooth sport coat and a cashmere sweater over an oxford shirt, and had a Burberry trench coat folded in his lap. The cordovan loafers were so polished they looked like they had just been taken out of their shoebox for the first time.

“Hey, baby. How was that?”

“Tread lightly, funny man. What are you doing here, Harper?”

“You have an interview. It's my job to prep you for that interview, and everything I tell you will also apply to the date you told me you have on Saturday.”

“Another book chapter.”

“You're so cynical. We need to get you a job so you can go back to just being disgruntled.”

“But how did you know I'd be here? I haven't run outside in months!”

“I didn't know. I was taking a chance you'd be home and was on your street when you ran by. Why aren't you at your gym—oh, never mind. Your date is with someone you met there, and you can't risk looking overanxious.”

“Does your wife find your deductive powers as annoying as I do?”

He stood up. “Do you want to walk? I need to give you my chapter and then get to work.”

It wasn't really a question; Harper started walking. I reminded him that I had always done well on interviews.

“That's nonsense,” Harper said. “I track my ratios. Without a headhunter's professional prep, even excellent candidates get offers only forty percent of the time. With the prep, it's seventy percent. And how about dating; how are your ratios there?”

“I never tracked my dating ratios, Harper, seeing as how I'm not a psycho.”

“You should. It's a numbers game. Why waste your time? Can I begin, or do you need to sit at the next bench and catch your breath?”

“No need to be snippy.”

HARPER'S RULES
Prepping for Interviews and First Dates

Rule #1: Know your objective: to be asked back for a second interview or another date.

You may turn down that invitation, but you can't go into the interview/date with any thought other than getting them to want you. Sure, sometimes it's just a courtesy interview or a blind date and you find yourself woefully mismatched. In that case, just stand up, tell them you value their time as well as your own, but know instinctively this won't work. Thank them for their time and move on. But this scenario is rare.

Most of the time the first interview/date protocol makes it impossible to determine your interest level. Everyone is on their best behavior. As an unemployed/single person, you have a vested interest in giving them the benefit of the doubt. If your mindset is that you have one objective only—to get another meeting—you will be more aware of the most important dynamic in first interviews and dates: it's all about them!

Rule #2: It's all about them.

Meeting One is about their needs and desires. Your goal is to show them you are truly present and really listening while they are talking. On a first meeting, imagine you're their ghostwriter, helping them write their memoirs. We all love to talk about ourselves. If you
make it your business to leave that date or that interview knowing 1) that you have actively asked them about their lives; and 2) that you have left them wanting to know more about your life, you will get asked if you are available for another meeting, and that is the only way of knowing the first interview or date was a success.

Rule #3: Never go on an interview or a date without having done your homework.

The more you know going into the meeting, the more power you have; and the more power you have, the more you control the outcome. We live in a search-engine world, and yet the majority of the people who walk into interviews have done zero research about the company or the person they are meeting. They walk into an office with a résumé, hand it over, and then sit back and allow themselves to be interrogated. This is all wrong. I instruct all my candidates to control the interview by showing, through a series of questions and statements, that they are knowledgeable, curious to learn more, and razor-sharp. These are all attractive traits, and we want to be with or work with people we find attractive.

So,
never
go on an interview without knowing:

• Company history
  
• Company products or service (and their value proposition in the market)
  
• Who the customers and/or end users are
  
• Size of company and number of employees
  
• Whether they are publicly or privately traded and if public, what the current stock value is
  
• Work history of the person(s) you are meeting
  
• The culture of the firm
  
• An understanding of and empathy for the short-term problems they are facing