By Becky Gillette – Jay Fusaro “found” Eureka Springs during a motorcycle trip in 2009, and when he came back with his wife, Rosemary, in 2011, she also fell in love with the town. They purchased a home in here in 2011, and became full-time residents in June 2015.
Fusaro operates Eureka Professional Services, a business that prepares people to conduct a job search. He takes on individual clients and sticks with them until they land the job they want. And he helps others with the advice in his book, From The Other Side of the Desk, A Practical Guide to Shortening Your Job Search, which he authored with the help of Rosemary, whose career in banking included being executive vice president and chief lending official for Liberty Capital Bank in Addison, Texas.
Jay, a CPA in Texas, had a 28-year career in finance before deciding he wanted to do something different.
“I thought my niche would be to help people conduct an efficient and effective job search,” he said. “Through my experience from the employer’s side of interviewing hundreds of people and hiring dozens of people, as well as being in a job search myself, I believed I could come up with a process or methodology to shorten people’s job search. So in 2013, I started Eureka Professional Services.”
The story about the naming of Eureka Springs is that an early explorer said, “Eureka! I found it!” after discovering the Basin Spring reputed for its healing properties. Fusaro’s idea was that he “found” Eureka, and wanted to help people find a job.
From The Other Side of the Desk is the title because he interacts with clients as if he were the hiring manager. He helps job seekers get comfortable with being interviewed, helps them script what they will say during the interview, and otherwise primes them for success.
He teaches clients six very specific skills: 1. How to write a résumé. 2. How to write a cover letter. 3. How to network. 4. How to interview. 5. How to negotiate an offer. 6. What to do in your first 100 days on the job.
“I teach them a skill,” Fusaro said. “I don’t find a job for them. I’m not a recruiter. I’m not a placement agency. I don’t find the positions for people, but I teach them the skills they need to conduct an efficient and effective job search. My business model is I charge a flat fee, and I stay with my clients until they land the new job. I have had sixty-eight clients land a job. The average job search for a professional is eight to nine months. And my clients land on a job in three months on average.”
The industry average rate for success in a job interview is about 25 percent. “My clients have about a sixty-four percent interview success rate,” Fusaro said.
Of the skills he teaches, he said the one people struggle the most with is how to effectively network. And most people also don’t know the importance of preparing for a job interview.
“Preparation will help relieve stress,” Fusaro said. “If you are very well prepared, then your stress level will be reduced. Too many people go into an interview and ad lib. But eighty percent of what you say should be scripted out and twenty percent should be ad lib.”
Dress is important. You have to make sure that you look professional, especially when you are networking because you never know when you are talking to someone if they know of an opportunity, but aren’t going to tell you about that opportunity until they can assess you. If you don’t show them respect by the way you dress, you are not going to get very far,” Fusaro said.
In addition to death of a loved one and divorce, a job change is one of the most stressful things people go through in life. Failing to find a job can be very damaging not just to finances, but someone’s self-esteem.
“That’s why I talk about being confident when you are talking to people and not letting looking for a job damage your self-esteem because it is nothing to be ashamed about,” Fusaro said.
A key tip for the job interview is explaining how your experience can benefit the company; it is about identifying the problem the employer has and presenting your experience as the solution to that problem. It is also good to talk about how you can make a significant contribution to the company, not why this job is good for you.
Older people can face age discrimination. One suggestion for older people is don’t volunteer how much longer you want to work. If an employer knows you plan to retire in a year or two, you are unlikely to be hired. Instead, when asked what your career goals are, say something like, “I’m looking for a position of increasing responsibility where I can continue to make significant contributions to the team.”
Fusaro also recommends people searching for a job be flexible and have perseverance. “And you need to have a process to follow,” he said.
He also provides advice on accepting an offer.
“The first thing is you need to be is appreciative and enthusiastic whether you are going to accept outright or negotiate,” Fusaro said. “If you are going to negotiate, you need to know ahead of time what you are looking for in an offer so you know what to negotiate. You can negotiate your title, base pay, bonus and paid time off. I would not ask for more than two things when negotiating. Pick two things more important to you and negotiate those. To negotiate pay is the most common.”
Initially most of his clients were from the Dallas area. But now, because of the book and the Internet, he gets clients from all over the country. About 40 percent of his clients are employed looking for another opportunity, 40 percent are in transition and 20 percent are recent graduates.
Fusaro, who is president of the Good Shepherd Humane Society, also gives pro bono seminars about job searching at colleges, churches and the VA. For more information, see eurekaprofessionalservices.com/ or call (469) 223-5201.