Five ways to fail a job interview

AGENCY LIFE, GTD, PR — BY MORGAN MCLINTIC ON MARCH 12, 2010 9:59 AM 

I’ve interviewed hundreds of
job candidates. Going into an interview, I want the interviewee to
get the job, to be ‘the one’. But the law of averages says that’s
unlikely. Most candidates make the same mistakes:

They just
want A job not, THIS job - Particularly in the current economic
climate, candidates just want a position, any position. If you
can’t answer why you want to work for this company in this particular
role, and are the best person to do that, save yourself the bother of
applying. Contrary to what you may think, it’s not a numbers game. You
don’t marry just anyone with a pulse, so don’t apply to just any company
with a payroll. As an employer, I want to know why you are the only
person who can do the job.

They don’t know what we do -
You have to do your research into the company, its positioning,
competitors, challenges, financials, recent news. For instance, in my
sector, you have to know the difference between PR and advertising. I’m
sure there are similar fundamentals in other areas which scream lack of
research. It’s hard to take a candidate seriously who hasn’t put in a
few hours getting the fundamentals down.

They mess up the
basics – Turn up on time, wear a clean suit, bring an up-to-date
resume which is free of typos, don’t smell (e.g. of smoke or attack
perfume), brush your hair, have clean shoes, don’t wear too much make-up
(especially guys!) or show too much cleavage (guys!!), don’t sweat
profusely, or in any way give a first impression which is not the one
you intend. Your apparel and punctuality should not be noticeable. You
should be what we notice.

They’re dull - Companies want to
hire fascinating, engaged and exciting people. The ones who ooze
potential. So don’t bore your interviewer with trivial accomplishments,
bland perspectives, wrote answers or lengthy diatribes. Be different. I
often ask myself – would I want to get trapped in an elevator with this
person? If I can’t imagine inviting them home for dinner or going to a
bar with them, they’re probably not the right fit. Keep your answers
short, laugh your way through the interview, be yourself. This is
supposed to be you at your sparkling best.

They exaggerate
- During an interview the BS radar is on full alert and pointed
directly at you. So just be honest. By all means, highlight your
accomplishments but don’t claim abilities which you don’t possess.
Honesty and humility are far more important than supposed superpowers.
And don’t forget, if you get the job, and your track record is a
fabrication, we’ll find out. Start the relationship on a solid foundation -
in many ways it’s better to underplay your role and then over deliver
when you get the job.

Credit:

Five ways to fail a job interview

AGENCY LIFE, GTD, PR — BY MORGAN MCLINTIC ON MARCH 12, 2010 9:59 AM 

http://www.morganmclintic.com/pr/2010/03/five-ways-to-fail-a-job-interview.html?goback=.gmp_3688976.gde_3688976_member_46221938
!

Develop Leadership skills in any role

No matter what position you hold, leadership skills are valuable for moving you through your career and into a leadership role. Smart companies and employees know it’s critical to business survival to cultivate leadership skills at all levels.

Get Ready for Your Future

During your career, you will learn myriad leadership skills, but the following tips should give your career a jump-start:

• Show Enthusiasm: Personal energy is contagious, and so is the lack of it. No matter what the job, complete it with a sense of urgency. When others notice, they will become enthusiastic also.

• Build Optimism: Negativity in the workplace is destructive. Your boss doesn’t want to hear what’s wrong with a project; he wants to hear your suggestions for making it better.

• Be Flexible: You can’t survive in business today while resisting change. Show you can handle change by volunteering for a new project or by helping others with change.

• Cooperate: Since companies must do more with fewer resources, teamwork is essential. If you insist on having your own way or controlling others, your career will run into a brick wall.

• Be Creative: What process can be improved? How can you make things easier for customers? Use your creativity to continuously improve processes, and you will stand out.

Your First Leadership Role Requires Special Skills

Once you get the call to serve in a leadership role, you need to make some adjustments to your library of skills:

• Delegate whenever possible. Give projects to the right employees, and don’t micromanage them.

• Dedication is a critical skill in your first leadership role. Eight hours of work is not enough to show dedication. Spend a minimum of 12 hours per day on your job or your self-improvement.

• Hire employees who complement your abilities. You will limit your accomplishments hiring only people like you. When you hire individuals who have the skills you don’t, you will exceed your goals.

• Ask your peers for advice. When you are new to a leadership position, you don’t know everything. Identify your most respected peers, and ask them how they have succeeded.

• Stand by your employees. Show you trust them, and they will be trustworthy.

Stepping Up to the Next Level

When you’ve shown you are worthy of upward movement, you will need an additional set of skills for success:

• Vision: Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald’s, had awesome vision. In 1954, he saw the McDonald brothers’ hamburger stand in California and knew he could build a business by selling 15-cent hamburgers. Over the years, he set the pace for fast food. Be a forward thinker, and share your vision with every employee.

• Become a Mentor: As you have learned along the way, you should share that knowledge with others. Look for enthusiastic employees and spend some time cultivating them.

• Share Celebrations with Your Employees: Nothing inspires a team more than knowing you appreciate everyone’s hard work.

• Give Back to the Community That Made You Successful: Get involved in the local community by making donations and volunteering. What you give out comes back to you twofold.

• Don’t Blow Your Own Horn: Others will be talking about you, which will make you appear more successful. Be grateful for the acknowledgements, but stay humble.


If you start cultivating your leadership skills, moving up will be much easier. If you realize how many times you provide guidance at work, it would be easy to realize you are a leader no matter what your current position.


Source: Cheri Swales, Monster Contributing Writer
This article first appeared on Monster.com.
 http://insidetech.monster.com/benefits/articles/7944-develop-leadership-skills-in-any-job

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Female Style of Networking - Detrimental to Success?

Editors Notes: Are women better networkers or just different then men? Do men go for the size/volume of business relationships while women build smaller more meaningful relationships? Does this help or hurt women?

Women are born networkers. After all, at its core, networking is about connecting with other people, and that’s something women excel at. Connecting is in our DNA.
Given that we have the social gene, I’ve been surprised in my work as a coach and the research I did for my new book, The Female Brand, that women often don’t have an expansive network – yet men do. We women tend to favor deep relationships with a group of close friends, a preference evolutionary scientists trace back to our roots as family caretakers and home keepers. We also see the preference for close, intense relationships in playground studies. Most girls tend to pair up and play one-on-one or with a small group, while boys are more likely to play with a series of different mates and play with a larger group. Later, when female hormones kick in, the preference for intimate relationships with a small group of friends accelerates.

A small group of deep relationships provides women with a reliable source of support and advice, but in the wider world of careers and brand building, a small though intensely committed group is not as advantageous as a large network of contacts – even if those contacts are superficial. In my coaching of senior executives, I also found that women, unlike men, are less likely to ask for a favor or introduction unless they know someone well. For many women, calling up a virtual stranger is painful. Likewise, women seemed more reluctant to do a favor for someone they didn’t know – say, recommend a friend of a friend for a job – unless they had actual experience working with the person.

Men, on the whole, seem less constrained in networking. Guys understand the mutual advantage of helping one another out. Many men can know someone casually or hardly at all and think it’s no big deal to call him to arrange an informational interview or pitch him for a specific job opportunity. They feel more comfortable pitching a casual friend or a friend of a friend.

That same tendency may be apparent in a recent Harvard Business Publishing study on Twitter usage, based on a random sample of 300,000 Twitter users in May 2009. Though men and women follow a similar number of users, men have 15 percent more followers than women and they have more reciprocated relationships in which two users follow each other, according to the report. The study also pointed out that women seem to be less compelled to have followers or "have more stringent thresholds for reciprocating relationships."

The male networking model is something women need to think about, because in the world of work, the larger your network, the more career capital you will have. Networks are powerful because of their size and range, and the comfort they provide for making and accepting professional contacts.

Here are some thoughts on how to get into the right mindset for networking:

• Run in packs – just like men do. Since women are masters of deep relationships, there’s no reason we can’t expand our relationship model to connect with more people on a less personal and less intense level. Of course, many successful women have, and it’s a smart strategy because the reality is that you can’t do as much on your own with a small network of supporters

• Think of networking as an economy – an economy of favors. Networking involves an economy – an economy of favors. It’s a hidden economy, but a powerful one. The networking trade works like this: I do you a favor, and there is the unspoken understanding that you will return the favor if there is an opportunity. A networking economy only works if there is active trade back and forth. Favor givers are attracted to those who reciprocate, and punish those who take a favor and don’t reciprocate. Believe me, word will get out on what type you are. It’s an economy men know well. Women have all the right skills to be excellent players too.

• Realize that a big network gives you career capital. A large, robust network is career capital that you can practically take to the bank. The bigger your network, the more success you are likely to have, because you will have access to more options. Realize too that an all-female network equals a weak network. After all, there are more men in positions of power, so you’ll want men and women on your networking team. Don’t think they don’t count if they are soft links – people whom you don’t know well. Every job I have gotten was through people I didn’t know well.

• Ask, and you shall receive. One thing we women have to overcome is a reluctance to ask for a favor. We need to drop the soul searching and self-doubt that so many of us go through in asking for something for ourselves. It’s often as simple as asking for a favor. Studies show that if you preface a request with “I’m wondering if you can help me,” and then make a small, specific request, you will be more successful. But most of the time you will need more finesse, especially if you want to seek help for bigger things. Most people will be happy to share their career experience and advice if you ask. For example, “Can I brainstorm with you for 15 minutes over the phone about how to move up from my current job? I’ve admired how you transitioned into various jobs and I’d love to hear about it.”

It’s a big world out there, and you can be a big part of it (with your network cast far and wide).

Source: Catherine Kaputa at www.wowowow.com

10 Job Seeker Steps to LinkedIn-Ability

I had a 45 minute con­ver­sa­tion with “Max”, this evening about his job search. He has a solid work his­tory. He was down­sized from a good posi­tion doing what he is an expert at. Max is not hav­ing luck with his job search.

It’s been a long time since Max had to look for a job. In fact, last time he did, social net­work­ing didn’t yet exist. He is PC savvy and his com­puter use over the years was mainly work related, Inter­net searches for infor­ma­tion, etc. Max heard net­work­ing via LinkedIn could help him so he cre­ated an account a year ago and has con­nected with a dozen or so peo­ple he knows. Max joined a cou­ple of local groups and par­tic­i­pates in some discussions.

It’s not working…

Here are some of the things I sug­gested Max could do to improve his LinkedIn-Ability:

1. Be a com­pleter — if you can’t com­plete your own pro­file how are you going to com­plete work?
2. Let peo­ple know you are a job seeker in the “pro­fes­sion” field –> Admin­is­tra­tive Assis­tant Seek­ing New Opportunity.
3. Sell your­self in your sum­mary — just like employ­ers post job ads you should cre­ate a job search ad there
4. Use Google Pre­sen­ta­tions or Box.net to post your resume, work sam­ples, etc.
5. Join groups, ask and answer ques­tions –> network
6. You can join 50 groups — they’re free — why would you belong to 5? Oh, they all have job boards =)
7. Search com­pa­nies you are inter­ested in and net­work with employees.
8. Net­work with ex-employees — they have noth­ing to lose so they TALK and they stay in touch with friends so they know what’s going on.
9. Write some sin­cere rec­om­men­da­tions and chances are you’ll receive some.
10. Search jobs and see who your con­tacts are that have a rela­tion­ship there.

Are you 10 for 10 in LinkedIn-Ability? Share your tips here so oth­ers can learn from you!

Confessions of a Job Seeker: What I Learned!

For those who don’t know, I was a recent job seeker. Through hard work and perseverance, I found a great position with an innovative company called SmashFly Technologies. Through this recruiting journey, I learned a lot about both sides of the recruiting spectrum. By experiencing the ins and outs of the job search grind on a daily basis and more importantly actively seeking advice from job seekers and recruiters, I was able to garner some key takeaways on how the recruiting process can be better.

In addition, as I talked to both sides, I came to realize the great value that came from these two sides sharing thoughts with one another. To foster this sharing of wisdom, I would like to share my observations from my job seeking process and the many conversations I had with job seekers and recruiters. I hope this article helps you both.

FOR JOB SEEKERS

I’ll start with job seekers. Here are 4 tried and true tips that worked for me in finding the great job I have today:

One Page Resume: Recruiters and HR professionals don’t have the time to read through every line of every candidate’s resume, so make it easy for them. A one page resume forces you to prioritize what experiences are the most important for a crisp, clean submittal. (This may change for candidates with more than 10 years experience.)

Knock Their Socks Off with Your Cover Letter – Your cover letter is a great chance to get noticed by a recruiter (and have them look at your resume). So how do you write one? Ignore the basic cover letter templates you see out there and be yourself. Be enthusiastic and let them know why you’re interested and more importantly qualified for the job. Most importantly, don’t worry about being informal (disrespectful is another issue), as the more your cover letter is different the more you’ll get noticed. (One great cover letter that I wrote provided me with over 6 interviews in less than a month.)

Leverage Your Online Networks – From Twitter to Facebook to LinkedIn, there is a wealth of people that you are connected to, that are more than happy to go out of their way to help you. Identify what you want to do and companies that you’d love to work for and see who in your network has connections in these disciplines or companies. Email them and set up some time to talk and learn about how you can get into the company and ask for other people to talk to. (And who knows they may receive a referral hiring bonus from their company which provides even more incentive.)

Do Your Research – Make sure you do your research for every position you are excited about. Know what the company does, follow them on Twitter and Facebook for company news and look up your interviewers on LinkedIn. There is such a wealth of information out there today, that not doing research for a job is just plain lazy which is not a trait you want to show a recruiter in an interview.

FOR RECRUITERS

As you go through the recruiting process, you notice a lot of things that companies do extremely well from a recruiting perspective. When you notice the good, it becomes eerily evident when a company doesn’t provide these benefits. Here are my 3 biggest pet peeves when it comes to employers:

Provide Opt-In Opportunities - One of the most frustrating parts of job seeking for me was coming across a job I was qualified for but was posted 30 days ago. I finally realized that I could create alerts in Indeed that would allow me to follow new jobs at companies that I wanted to work for. But why make it that hard? A simple opt-in form during the application process would give the applicant the opportunity to get updates on new jobs quickly through email and provide recruiters with a great pool of interested candidates to post new jobs to. It’s a win-win, but something not every company does.

Leverage Your Online Presence – For every job that I applied to, I always made sure to join the social network pages to learn more about the company. What surprised me was that more companies didn’t provide me with a good way to follow them through the application process. Not only would a few links make it easier for candidates to research these companies but it’s a free and easy way for companies to promote their employer brand to a group that is definitely interested in listening.

Repetition for the sake of Repetition – Some companies just seem to go out of their way to make their application process difficult. I understand this helps weed out less motivated candidates but sometimes it can just alienate qualified ones. The one that annoyed me the most was having to type in everything I had on my resume again into their form (seemed pointless). To make it easier for candidates, invest in some parsing technology that pulls info from their resume or use a technology that can give the candidates an option to use their LinkedIn profile in their application. Simple things like this will sky-rocket your application completion rates. Trust me.

Overall, I had some great experiences and some not so good ones. Job seekers and Recruiters alike can find great value in speaking to one another and taking a quick look from the each other’s point of view to make the recruiting process better. So I encourage you to get feedback from the other side and use it to improve your recruiting results!

Source: SmashFly Technologies Blog at blog.smashfly.com