Human Resource (HR)

Most of the time, I hate the condescending tone of the career pundits. It’s always “Sally, you idiot, here is how you should do your resume.” Or, “Billy Bob, here is how to answer these typical interview questions.”

I thought you knew better. Come to find out there are a lot…I mean a LOT…of job seekers who are clueless about the basics, of how a business operates and recruits. This is Interviewing 101: The Class Everyone Thought You Took, But You Didn’t. It is a lecture.

Please pardon my bluntness, but some of your friends, NOT YOU, need this direct approach.

1. When you send out a resume, send a cover letter too. Make both perfect.

2. Keep track of what company and to whom you send your resume and cover letter. You do this so when you are called by the company’s recruiter, you don’t say things like “how did you get my resume,” or “who are you and why are you calling me?”

3. Google each company. Read and remember just a little bit about the company. This is so when you are called for the initial interview you are NOT completely in the dark about the company. You want to avoid comments like “mmmm, I have never heard about your company, what do you do?”

4. Before the interview, study more about the company; granted, this is a lot like homework. Find out as much as you can about the company and industry. What do they do? What else can you find out about them?

Making a good first impression is important for successful job interviews. Make sure that you wear formal clothes for interviews unless you have been specifically asked to dress casually. Remember that on your first job interview, you are bound to be very nervous – that’s why you should be as well-prepared as possible, so there is less chance of you doing or saying something that could sink your prospects.

A career coach can help you be more successful on interviews – helping you to master such topics as asking the right questions and the art of negotiating salary. Your first job interview may not necessarily end up with you getting the job, however you must know how to deal with different situations gracefully.

As with anything worth having, the one thing that will help you finds a good job is practice. Going on all types of interviews, even informational ones will help you become more comfortable and know what employers are looking for in candidates.

1. Research, research, and then research some more. Prospective employers expect you to be well-informed about the company, its products and services, and the industry as a whole in general. Plan to spend quite a bit of time on the company’s web site. Look at their mission, news releases, product releases, etc.

Read articles about what the company and the industry are going through. Speak to people who work there. Know the company’s view of itself, as well as what people who don’t work for that company think about it. You are looking for indications of where a company is going and what problems the company and the industry are having. Knowledge is power. The more you know before the interview, the more confident you will be when you are there.

2. Know the job description intimately. If you want to do well during an interview, you have to know what the company wants you to do. This information is in the job description. Go through the bulleted list of requirements in the job description, one-by-one, and come up with an example of how you have successfully done what they are looking for in either your current or past positions.

3. Make a list of questions you may be asked during the interview. List questions you can easily answer as well as those you wish would not be brought up, but you know will be. Go through each question and write out your answers for each.

I’ve become increasingly concerned about the ignorance of Americans - not those who have learned English as a second language, but native English speakers - regardless of race, income level, schooling or other determining factors.

The number of people who read seems to be decreasing in direct proportion to the number of kids growing up with portable DVDs, and ipods. Television has become the preferred babysitter for children and the most effective way for adults to anesthetize themselves after a day’s work. Teachers, overworked and underpaid, seem to be fighting a losing battle – or are some perpetuating it?

These days I see egregious (horrible, outrageous, astoundingly bad) grammatical errors on resumes and cover letters, web sites, signs, emails to me…..regardless of management or income level. Job hunters write asking me for “advise” (it should be “advice.” “Advice” is the noun; “to advise” is a verb). Some of these are written by people who are in the job market hoping to be invited in for an interview, and their paperwork is full of punctuation and grammatical mistakes. Were they careless? Or do they not know? Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe the hiring authority doesn’t know the difference either.

Preparation of additional information/documentation-

During the interview, did you offer to put together a rough outline of a marketing idea you discussed? Were you asked to forward your college transcripts? Did you volunteer to send a great article you’d read about manufacturing in rural areas? Be prompt, precise, and proactive in providing additional material that may help support your candidacy. You may cover these materials with a brief handwritten note or your business card with a word or two jotted on the back.

Follow up phone calls.

It is perfectly appropriate to follow up with the interviewer after a period of time to determine the status of the position and your candidacy. One of your final questions at the end of your interview might be, “When may I expect to hear from you? May I check back with you in two weeks?” Enter the date in your calendar and follow up as promised.

Continued networking:

A successful networking interview should result in additional contact names. Follow through on all leads, and give occasional status updates to the person who originally referred you.

Congratulations!

You’ve just completed an interview for a position that interests you, or perhaps you met with a networking contact who offered some insight into your job search. Now that the interview is over, it’s time to swing into action with some memorable follow up activities. Depending on the nature of your interview, follow up can take several forms. What you do can greatly influence whether you succeed in generating a second interview or benefit from your networking meeting. Review the checklist below for specific activities that may apply to you.

Thank you note:

A thank you note should be sent immediately following an interview to each person with whom you met. A thank you note may be handwritten if it is brief (the “bread-and-butter” thank yours our mothers taught us when we were children). However, a more effective follow-up is a word processed letter that reinforces the points you made during the interview and reiterates your qualifications for the position. Thank you notes should always be personalized. If you are writing to more than one person at a company following a group or successive interview, do not send the same note to each; vary your missives so that the person reading it knows you recall and related to the specific information they provided.

This will make it much easier to market your skills for an executive or management role.

I have compiled three highly effective tips you can use when presenting an interruption in your work history to a potential employer:

1) Remember that hiring authorities see gaps all the time… but they will also expect to see career progression, PLUS and explanation. This is a critical point! In order to deflect questions about short-term gaps, ensure that your résumé shows some strong areas of growth throughout your professional history. This can make the gap seem more like a blip in your career.

Also, be prepared to explain the gap itself by pointing to an activity that filled it, such as volunteer work, caring for an ill family member, or launching a business, in order to explain time in between jobs.

2) If possible, give a name to the gap itself. Give readers of your résumé an idea of what you did to fill your time by using a between-jobs “title” such as Consulting, Sabbatical, Leave of Absence, or Family Management.

But what if the gap was short enough that you were merely searching for work? You can just leave it “as is,” while still preparing your explanation. This leads to the next tip, which is…

1. Research the company beforehand. If you come in to the interview knowing about the company through research on their website, perhaps through talking to people who’ve worked there, etc., you will come across like a professional who is serious about finding a good match with an employer.

2. You should do as much listening as possible in the interview to find out what the employer is looking for. The more you know about what the employer wants the better you can tailor your responses so that they fit in with the employer’s vision for the position. This doesn’t mean you should lie or exaggerate. However, knowing more about what qualities are important to the employer will help you determine which aspects of your experience, personality, vision for your career, and vision for how you can help them to emphasize. For example, if an employer is most concerned about finding someone with good people skills, you’d be better off talking about how well you work with people and how you like working with others than you’d be talking about your great computer skills (although it would be important to talk about computer skills too if the employer’s interested in that).

Step #1 - Study the job description and organization to identify the criteria for the job (not “requirements”). The criteria are likely to be “soft skills,” e.g., flexibility, team orientation, interpersonal skills, etc. Create a grid, with the criteria on the left and your previous employers across the top.

Step #2 - Fill-in the cells with a note about each employer/accomplishment that addresses the new job criteria. (Without the ability to post a table online, I can’t provide a good-looking sample - contact this author for a complimentary copy of this worksheet...)

Step #3 - Once you’ve completed this “homework,” use your notes to prepare for questions and conversation with the interviewers. Be careful to limit your responses to three - four crisp sentences, using the Problem (Challenge) - Action - Result model.

Ironically, you’ll need to rehearse these responses so you can deliver them in a style that appears to be totally spontaneous!

Rehearse wherever you are alone and won’t feel silly talking out loud to yourself, e.g., while driving, drying your hair, etc. Preparation is the key to nailing the behavioral interview.

If you are entry level or a fairly junior player without specialized skills and experience you just don’t have a lot of room to negotiate. You may be able to get a higher salary if, say, you have to commute further to the new job or you need to buy a car to drive to the new job. If that is the case, mention it to the hiring manager and ask if they would consider additional compensation to cover your additional commute costs. If that isn’t an option for them perhaps you can negotiate a flexible work situation that includes telecommuting for part of the week. You may also be able to negotiate additional days off or tuition reimbursement. Many companies have a dollar amount that they offer to junior employees – particularly those who join the company as a member of training program or a class (i.e.: first year Big 4 auditors or consultants) and that number tends to be pretty rigid.