Michael Stuck

Proud moment for me and Gables Search Group. 🎉 @GablesSearch has been recognized on Forbes’ 2026 America’s Best Recruiting and Temporary Staffing Firms lists as a Top 50 firm in 3 recruiting and staffing categories. Built from the ground up, and grateful. forbes.com/lists/best-profes…

A company is on its best behavior when it wants to hire you. How it treats people on their way out tells you just as much. Before accepting an offer, ask former employees how the company handled its last round of layoffs. Hopefully, you'll never need to know.

If you posted a great job and heard crickets, it’s probably because the people you’d love to hire aren’t applying anywhere. They’re busy doing good work somewhere else. When you reach out to someone directly, there’s a decent chance you’re the only company that did.

In your next interview, ask how they know when someone’s doing a good job there. Then listen for what they count. You can find out at your first review, or you can just ask now.

Try applying for one of your own open roles on your phone. If you can’t get through it without sighing, your best candidates probably can’t either. And you’d never find out they tried.

When you’re a director, your phone doesn’t stop ringing. But a lot of those calls are for your title, and the title stays with the company. Call a few old bosses and peers this month. “Thought of you” is a much easier call to make than “so, funny story.”

Everyone has the AI tools now. Someone who can look at what they spit out and say “yeah, no, that’s wrong” is much harder to find. Usually, that’s the person with the twenty years.

“We’ve decided to put this role on hold.” Two words that say nothing and still ruin your week. Send a quick note every month or so, then keep searching. When a frozen role comes back, the company calls the people it already met.

A panel of frontline workers was asked whether they’d rather have better benefits or more pay. One of them said, “Just give me my money!” I’m with them. If you’re working on next year’s budget, ask your people what they’d pick.

Indeed’s CEO says employers are trying to figure out which applicants are even real people. A polished application that reads like a hundred others might get treated like one. Make it easy for them to see there’s a person behind yours.

In the first week after a layoff, most of us would pay someone to help us think things through. You might already have that person, tucked into your severance paperwork under “outplacement services.” You earned that package. Use all of it.

The one who leaves at five might be your best person. They just do the work on their own schedule. They know how you see that empty desk. When a recruiter calls, coffee is an easy yes.

You can tell your interview stories in your sleep. Then someone across the table says, “Okay, show me.” Talk while you work. They’re watching how you think as much as what you end up with.