Nobody likes to be a nobody, but unfortunately, that’s what you are at the beginning of the job search process, provided you’ve just joined the ranks of those in transition. Those who are the decision makers about your future do not initially know anything about you, so you have the chance to impress them, and you want to make darn sure it’s a very good impression.
So, how are you going to positively influence hiring managers, human resources folks, and recruiters? To start with, record brief greetings on both your answering machine at home and your mobile phone, and project a clear, mature, businesslike, and overall positive message. Your children are cute, I’m sure, but leave their greetings for sharing with family and friends and not potential employers. Next, get into the habit of answering your phone professionally. Answering with “Hello, this is John Doe,” with a friendly and inviting tone of voice, is best. Get into that habit even if you think you can identify the person via caller ID. Don’t make exceptions to the rule, because you’ll be sorry if you didn’t answer properly when it’s someone you really want to impress. You also want to make sure your e-mail address is nothing less than professional. An address like bigmama@yahoo.com or anything cute or sexy could be detrimental to that first impression.
Your next opportunity to create the right image is via your résumé. This is probably the single most important document you’ll be evaluated by, and it will determine whether the hiring folks want to invite you to an interview or not. Remember that the first impression is a lasting impression. This is an extremely critical stage because résumé readers typically review large numbers of résumés, and having only one opening to fill, their intention at this point is to reduce the number of résumés to three to five final candidates for interviewing. In fact, this process of reviewing the résumé is divided into two parts. The resume reader’s objective is to eliminate résumés that clearly seem to lack something. It might be something as simple as an unattractive appearance, improper use of language or grammar, lengthiness, overly detailed experience, or a lack of accomplishments.
On one hand, many résumés contain listings of job duties as described in job descriptions and not actual accomplishments. The résumé reviewer expects to read about accomplishments on the job. If your résumé doesn’t pass this 10- to 30-second scan, it’s likely that it will be set aside and never resurface again. Unfortunately, you’ll never find out that that was the case—except by the lack of any next steps.
On the other hand, if your résumé passes this first-blush review, it will be read thoroughly, along with another 10 or 12 others, and will be ranked on a competitive basis. Probably only three to five candidates will be called in for face-to-face interviews. With that decision, you move on to the next stage in the job search process, in which you have to get ready for the final test, which is to convince the hiring manager and others interviewing you that you are their ideal candidate. Good luck.
Alex Freund is the founder of Landing Expert–Career Coaching. His Web site includes a current and comprehensive list of job search networking groups in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and the city of New York, and the site is visited by thousands of people every month. Landing Expert is a premier career-coaching service with the objective of preparing job seekers for interviews. Alex’s clients are gaining knowledge, receiving marketing material, and acquiring the know-how to beat the competition.
Alex can be reached at:
609-333-8866
I know that the title I selected for this blog represents a near impossibility. Technology in the past decade has been developing at a furious pace, and from what I read it is expected to speed up even more. And that makes it even more difficult to stay abreast with. In this blog I want to limit my intent to two areas when I talk about technology. The first area is the technology in your particular profession. And regardless of what that profession is, new and technological advancements are parts of every profession. Companies are very interested in reducing costs, and they therefore embrace technology to keep up their levels of competitiveness with others in the same industry. The second area is the technology that evolved in the past decade in the area of social media.
It is highly advisable that while in transition you stay on top of technological developments in your particular profession. Hiring managers are more interested in hiring someone who’s up-to-date as opposed to someone who’s been out for a while and who lacks the latest technology skills and therefore whose learning curve will be steep and possibly prolonged.
Equally important, I see the need for people in transition to show potential employers their proficiency in using social media. At the very least, one should use LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook but also potentially some others. The aforementioned social media could give a job seeker a huge advantage by acquiring a personal brand and then promulgating it to would-be employers or other networking folks. As a career coach, I strongly recommend to my clients that they spend no less than one hour a day—and possibly longer—in learning the functionalities of these new and developing and ever-changing tools. Many recruiters and hiring managers take advantage of them, and so should you.
Alex Freund is the founder of Landing Expert–Career Coaching. His Web site includes a current and comprehensive list of job search networking groups in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and the city of New York, and the site is visited by thousands of people every month. Landing Expert is a premier career-coaching service with the objective of preparing job seekers for interviews. Alex’s clients are gaining knowledge, receiving marketing material, and acquiring the know-how to beat the competition.
Alex can be reached at:
609-333-8866
When preparing my clients for interviews, I often get to see the job description relevant to the interview. Usually, I caution my clients to take that job description with a grain of salt. I’ve learned through the years by working for major companies that the bigger the company, the bigger the mess. Of course I say that with sarcasm, but there’s a lot of truth in it.
Typically, job descriptions are documents that a human resources department requires on file for reference purposes. They have no practical use except during the hiring process or at the time of yearly employee evaluations should there be disputes. Once a position opens, the job description becomes the focal point for recruiting. However, sometimes the description on file has not been updated and made pertinent to the current position.
At times job descriptions are outright misleading! Evidence of this occurred when I interviewed with Honeywell. Truthfully, I was reluctant to apply for the position as advertised in the New York Times. It was two titles below my level but a 15-minute drive from my house. Since I was unhappy with my employer at the time, I was motivated to make a change. Evidently, my resume was so impressive that I was selected for an interview. However, during that interview, I learned they were looking for someone with my background and accomplishments and not what they advertised in the ad I answered. Turned out that I spent the best 15 years of my career with Honeywell.
So, what’s a candidate to do to be best prepared for an interview? The answer to the question is, learn the skills of (1) sleuthing by researching the company through networking contacts and (2) asking the interviewer questions whose answers reveal the key issues on the interviewer’s mind. The job description may disclose some of those issues, but many more of them may be buried among the details. The reason is easy to understand: Job descriptions are usually written by people in human resources, so how much can those workers understand the core needs of the position? Human resources most often uses standard-language descriptions that are overly generalized, such as, “Looking for a highly motivated self-starter with strong organizational and leadership skills. Must be an excellent communicator, with . . . ” The same goes for recruiters–unless they have a long-standing relationship with the company.
The conclusion is that the candidate should attempt to surface the true needs of the hiring manager as soon as possible at the start of the interview. One way of doing so is by asking the interviewer a question such as, “I understand what you’re saying, but I wonder whether you could tell me what the hired candidate would be doing during, say, the first six weeks on the job?” Any pertinent paraphrase of that question will get a reply that tells you what is important to the interviewer. After all, during the initial period on the job, a newly hired person would focus on what the boss needs done. Right?
Alex Freund is the founder of Landing Expert–Career Coaching. His Web site includes a current–and comprehensive–list of job search networking groups in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and the city of New York, and the site is visited by thousands of people every month. Landing Expert is a premier career-coaching service with the objective of preparing job seekers for interviews. Alex’s clients are gaining knowledge, receiving marketing material, and acquiring the know-how to beat the competition.
Alex can be reached at:
609-333-8866
