Favorite Friday: “I Guarantee I’ll Find You A Job” (RUN AWAY!!)

I wrote this May 2009: “I Guarantee I’ll Find You A Job”

A few years ago branding and marketing experts told me I had to put some kind of guarantee or phrase in my marketing that would promise JibberJobber would help you find a job 30% faster, or get more job offers, or something like that.

It sounded really cool, of course… who wouldn’t want a guarantee to make their job search go faster, or be more successful?

Who doesn’t want a silver bullet for their job search?  Please, just give me “the job search secret,” let me move on to my next job and wash my hands of this unemployment crap.

There was no way I would put any kind of promise, or allude to any such promise, in my literature.  First of all, how do you back it up?  Second, what about the anomalies the economy (which was quite different three years ago), and the slackers?  What about people who weren’t doing a principle-based search (like mine – very not principle-based, and destined to failure)?

Perhaps the problem is my solution (JibberJobber) wasn’t priced appropriately.  For $99/year, what could you expect – a job lead straight to the corner office?  Not hardly.

We all know throwing money at a problem will make it go away – so what if I pay $7,500 to a firm that will find me a job?  Sounds sweet, and that sounds like just the right price (comparable to an amazing vacation, an industry certification and training, a car for my kid, etc…. this is not peanuts – since it costs so much it must work).

In the comments yesterday a JibberJobber Partner, Mike Ballardwrote:

Another expose that needs to be done is that of so-called ‘Search’ firms that charge exorbitant up-front fees (often thousands of dollars) for their services, in exchange for a guaranteed ‘dream job’. Like the Ladders, these operations traditionally prey upon high-end execs that they figure have plenty of extra cash. Now we at (his employer) are beginning to hear stories of similar operations that are target low-income workers and charge a few hundred dollars for ‘guaranteed’ results. This is even more despicable for someone who may be only a few paychecks from the street.

There’s a big difference between hiring a job search or career coach who will help you along the process, and hiring a firm who will guarantee you a great job.  Can such a guarantee exist?

I can’t remember the names of any such firms right now, but I do remember hearing about some who continually change their names so you can’t find much information about them – my point is, please be careful where you put your money in a job search – and be very suspicous of guarantees or claims that seem to good to be true, even if they do look like your silver bullet to kill this problem.