I wish I wrote this but I didn’t: interview advice

I thought this was pretty good. Reminds me of when I was first starting out as a recruiter and met a young candidate who was chewing gum when she met me. I thought she’d never do that on an interview: well, I was wrong. She chewed the entire time and when she was talking she tucked the gum under her upper lip. Needless to say she didn’t get the job and I learned that if people will do this stuff in front of me, they may do it in an interview. Perhaps we can add 5 to this: what you look like and dress like and how you handle yourself physically matters in an interview.

4 Things That Can Completely Derail a Job Interview

On December 27, 2009, In Resume Writing by Melanie Szlucha, By Melanie Szlucha

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Everyone knows (or should know) the big things that can cause an interview to completely tank.  However, there’s also some smaller little things that interviewees do that give interviewers an “oh, I think we’ll pass.” feeling.  If you want to get hired—best to avoid these gaffes:

1. Going into an interview without anything.  Always bring a notebook or a folder with paper, extra copies of your resume (trust me, the printouts from Monster.com are a mess) or a small, professional briefcase to pack these things in.  Also—always make sure you have a pen.  Sounds so simple, but it’s easy to leave the house without them.  Arriving at an interview without them tells an interviewer that you’re just planning on “winging it”, and that you don’t anticipate the need to jot anything down to ask about later.  Kind of like when a waiter arrives at your table without a pad.  You assume he’ll care enough to remember your order correctly when he gets back to the kitchen, but you’re not always sure. You want an employer to always feel sure about you and your abilities.
2. Saying anything remotely negative.  This should be implied to include past employers as well (which everyone knows).  Let’s say that in your last job you spent the majority of your time on the phone with clients and customers.  In your mind—you’d love to get a job where you’re off the phone and in front of them more.  You’re happy because the job you’re interviewing for sounds like it includes a lot more facetime.   In the interview, an interviewer asks why you’re looking to leave your past job.  You start to talk about how much you don’t like being on the phone for the entire day.  What you don’t know about the job (and don’t assume the job description is a complete inventory of all components of a job) is that before you can meet with all of those clients face to face, you’ll need to spend the mornings for the first 3 months making calls to current customers to set up those meetings and establish a relationship.  So while the new job does allow you to get out and mingle—there’ll be time spent on the phones in the beginning.  The employer hasn’t been secretive.  You made an assumption. The solution? Don’t ever say how much you dislike anything.  Ever.  In the case of the above example, say that you’d prefer to spend more facetime with clients.  Your current job just allows for phone conversations, not travel, but you would appreciate the opportunity to travel and meet with people face to face.  You never said you hated being on the phone with the heat of a thousand suns, just talked about how much you’d appreciate talking to them face to face.
3. Look tense.  Come on, you can handle this one.  I know you’re going to be nervous, the employer knows you’re going to be nervous and you know you’re going to be nervous. However, acting nervous and tense makes the interviewer nervous and tense.  Remember that they’re trying to assess if you can do the job and if they like you.  I have interviewed but not hired people who sat stiffly in my office because I figured that they’d be stiff to work with, and I’m not a stiff person.  Before you walk into the interview, listen to your favorite music (theme song from Rocky?) and remember that being likable and competent goes even further than just being competent.
4. Fake knowledge you don’t have.  If they’re looking for experience in a particular field or with a particular computer program—your first instinct may be to say that you have worked on it or “played around” with it, when maybe all you did was pick up the box in the computer store.  It’s OK to ask them if it’s similar to a program that you do know, and give them some examples of programs you’ve learned at other jobs in relatively short timeframes.  Remember if they’re looking for an egg and you’re a chair, it’s never going to be a fit and it isn’t anyone’s fault.  If it’s something that you’re seeing as a requirement on quite a few of the jobs you’re applying for, then you do need to take a class to learn it.  You never need to “fake it until you make it.”

Those are some of the basics.  Remember to always be genuine and friendly.  Think of Julia Roberts, Oprah Winfrey or Will Smith when you prepare for interviews.  Keep in mind how they’re nice, approachable, but never show their nervousness and always show their personality.  Friendliness will go far.

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Up In the Air: The movie and Life

I was much more impressed by this movie than I thought I would be. I don’t usually like main stream movies but I thought the acting and the dialogue was great. But really interestingly, I took away a lot from this movie in terms of my life as a recruiter and someone who is sometimes on the front line of getting the phone call after someone is downsized, fired, dismissed, closed down.

Is it really realistic that people would act in such a surprised and angry manner? It’s the surprise (not the anger) that I find intiguing. There are certainly signs that people can watch out for and not be blind-sided by something like this. Here’s a check list (because I like check lists):

• Is your company profitable? If not, how can they support everyone.
• Did you get a bad review?
• Does management like you, are you well regarded?
• Have you won new business recently?
• Has the company taken on added dept?
• Has the company merged or acquired (or was acquired) and are there duplicate positions?
• Are people meeting in secret and things don’t feel right?

It seems that these people should  have some clue and though they couldn’t have been prepared with something else to do, they should have had some inkling this could be a possibility.

Am I the naive one?

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Employment Tests are out; Simulations are in

Listen here: forget those boring assesment tests: Let’s put people in simulated jobs and see how they perform. How perfect is that and how quickly can we use it?

http://www.ere.net/2009/03/11/job-simulations-for-selecting-employees-what-might-the-future-hold/.

Is Direct Mail Dead?

I’ve been writing this blog now for awhile and really haven’t gotten much read or response. In order to hopefully rectify that, I’m going to touch on a somewhat controversial subject (somewhat because this is hardly the war in Afganistan): does it really pay to send out direct mail anymore? Direct Mail is expenisve: postage, paper, printing, mailing, creative, strategy, targeting, lists, etc. Email marketing is cheap (as compared): computer system, targeting, email list, copy and go–testing is easy, production is cheap, lettershop costs are minimal. So why mail if you can email?

• You can opt out of both: trash the email and the company that sent it if you don’t approve; put yourself on the do not mail registry or rip up the sucker
• Testing is similar; overlays are similar–you can target in a similar way and do unlimited testing with email at a fraction of the time and adjust according to what you are getting in response.
• Reach of dm versus email: I don’t have stats but I have to imagine the cost savings makes up for the more limited reach and do people without email addresses still buy via dm? If you know, please fill me in.
• At the very least, using direct mail in it’s cheapest form to drive to website and email follow up (or as a way to capture email addresses) should be the way to go.

But what do I know?

Ten Ways To Decide If Your Business Should Tweet

To respond to my previous post about twitter and  facebook as a waste of time: check out this link:

 

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=107548.

 

It’s clear and concise and you can decide for yourself. Haven’t found anything regarding the facebook question yet.

Social Media Perspective from a Left Coast Architect

I know that advertising and public relations folks are really focusing on these interactive social media, because I’ve seen this happen in several professional environments in which I circulate. But for the average working stiff many of these things are major time sinkholes.

All my colleagues have played with twitter, for example, likewise with facebook–and abandoned them almost immediately because they provide capabilities that we just aren’t that interested in using or exploiting, and–more importantly–our clients don’t use (or rather, some of them MIS-use). One of my clients signed up on facebook, and suddenly I’m inundated with details about his on-line game playing avatars, and his requests for assistance in beating down space creatures. Does he enjoy it? Yes. Do I need to know about this? No.

Sure, I could find a way to control that information flow–but that’s yet another time investment and effort that I don’t really need right now.

 

There’s a lot of hype being generated about the increased connectivity that results from the use of social media, but to me this hype tends to emphasize a form of social ADD, in which constant communication is the ideal, and isolated thinking time is ignored. In addition, I’ve found that it is difficult to control external inputs when one’s activities are taking place within the social media bubble; I get slammed with other people’s info whether I want it or not, and I’m already having difficulty performing triage on the overwhelming amounts of info coming in over the transom as it is. Not to mention the expectations that are raised in others when participating in all

this: I sent you a facebook invite, are you ignoring me?

Why…er…yes, yes I am. Frankly I’m not that interested in your mood right now, thank you very much.

 

I’m not someone who is shy about using new methods and technologies, mind you. But, to put it in perspective, neither am I a Crackberry addict either, so that should tell you something. I remember a client once falling into confusion when I refused to provide my cell phone number; how will I reach you, he asked. I have an office, I replied, with a phone and an answering machine. I know it’s old fashioned, I added, but—I DON’T RUN AN AMBULANCE SERVICE. I mean, what kind of architectural emergency can you have, after all. OMFG, I CAN’T DECIDE WHAT KIND OF TOILET TO BUY! AND THE PAINT–SHOULD IT BE OXIDE WHITE, OR SWISS COFFEE??? I HAVE TO KNOW RIGHT AWAY!

 

Of course, the moment teenagers become my clients, my opinions may change. What do I know.

Job websites and open resumes

I was recently asked the question whether you should open your resume on websites such a TheLadder.com or other senior executive sites. My answer is empatically no. It’s no whether you have a job or not. Here’s why:

If you have a job:

• HR Dept use these sites. Companies make them use it whether they want to or not to keep recruiting costs down. And you can be seen by them.  It’s unlikely you will lose your job because you are open to other opportunities (though posting a resume is more than “open to other opportunties”), but you really don’t want your company know you’re looking unless you are sure that they will use this to give you a promotion or raise. And if they are forced to give you more money  in this manner, you can be sure there will be some resentment.
• You want to leave your company on your own accord, under your own conditions and time constraints. This will be a red flag to them.
• HR department use these sites by looking at keywords. Unless your resume has enough key words, they are likely to miss you. You can’t direct your resume to a specific job. So if you haven’t highlighted CRM enough or called it by a different name (didn’t we used to call it retention marketing), they may not find you.

If you don’t have a job:

• You think, how can this hurt? Well, frequently if you post to a site, a company will then not allow a recruiter to represent you. And if a recruiter has interviewed you, knows your skill set and knows what you can do–and it is not an exact match with the key words the HR person is using–you’ll get pasted over without having an advocate (the recruiter). And the recruiter won’t be able to represent you.

So what do you do?

I’m going to sound biased, but having an intermediatry is the best way. But if that’s not possible, research compaines you are interested in and check out the career section on their website. Posting to the website is safe and will eliminate exposure.

Will you be missing out on some opportunities that way? Yes, but you have to balance that with not opening yourself up to the world.

 

 

Bloomberg or Bust

Well, I busted. I couldn’t in good conscience vote for this guy. Did he do a good job the last 8 years? I think so. Am I happy with his approach to public schools? Pretty much–though I don’t understand why our part of Brooklyn (Park Slope) doesn’t have a decent high school. So why am I going to “cut off my nose to spite my face?” Because Mike lied and he overturned the will of the people. What Mike should have done was to promote someone  with like sentiment and ideals who could replace him.  But Mike doesn’t think that anyone can replace him–only he can do this job well. And that is why I couldn’t and didn’t vote for him.  I don’t think Bill Thompson is a good choice, but at least he’s an upstanding guy. I don’t believe at this point that Mike is an upstanding guy. So go Bill go…

Interesting blog

Many years ago I interviewed the guy who writes this blog: http://go-digital.net/blog/.

I thought he was brilliant then and even more so now. Too bad my clients at the time couldn’t see this. So what kinds of lessons does this teach me about the type of candidates I find and those that find me–and tidbits I can impart as a recruiter:

• This guy didn’t fit into a specific mold at the time. He was brilliant, with some great background and great educational credentials. His background was a bit choppy (meaning there was no logical progression) and my clients couldn’t see past that. Looks like he’s overcome and good for him.
• I can’t find everyone a job. I can only try to fill the jobs that I have–which are mostly a specific need (that is likely hard to find and that is why people use a recruiter), at a specific price point.
• Most people with a “non-traditional” progression and movement (changing jobs frequently without good explanation) will not be able to benefit from a recruiter other than in a very market of very low unemployment (in 2000 all your resume had to do was say digital and you could get a high paying job–until 2001 and then you couldn’t). I suggest you network and try to prove yourself on a consulting/freelance basis.
• In this market most candidates who do not have stellar track records also won’t be able to benefit from a recruiter. (but there are exceptions so please keep on sending resumes over)
• And lastly, don’t waste your time trying to work at companies that are not a corporate fit for you. If you are unsure what that is, look at the profiles on linked in of people who work there or stand outside their offices and see who is walking in.