One more thing not to do

If you have submitted a resume and are expecting someone to call you on the phone, make sure to have a professional sounding message on your answering machine. I just called a candidate that had Timon and Pumba from The Lion King singing as his message. I almost hung up and tossed his resume in the trash. He’ll have to go the extra mile to convince me to call him in for an interview now.

10 things to help you get hired

In my last post I outlined several things to do to not get an interview/job offer. Well I decided to flip it around and focus on some positive things that may help you along the job path. By the way I have to tip my hat to my wonderful wife who made many of these suggestions to me years ago. I initially blew many of them off, but came to discover that she was correct about virtually every suggestion.

1. Hand deliver your Resume
Even if you submit an electronic copy, stop by the main office if possible and walk your resume in the door. Quite often it will get directed to the hiring manager and bypass HR. Even if HR does get it first it will often be noted that you took the time and effort to drop it off. In addition you will have a nice looking resume sitting in the stack with all the hideous ones that have been mangled and decimated by the Monster/Career Bulder/Dice resume gremlins.

2. Show up early and talk nice to the receptionist
Show up a few minutes early, but not too early. If you arrive too early then you just put pressure on the interviewing and/or HR manager. When you first arrive find the restroom, take care of any last minute business and double check your appearance. Then, while you’re waiting for the HR person to make their appearance, chat up the receptionist. I can tell you that almost every person that comes into our office for an interview is being evaluated by our front desk person. She’s been here a long time and has a good feel for seeing if a person is friendly and seems like a good fit for our organization. I always ask her what she thinks after a potential candidate has left.

3. Be prepared for behavioral questions
Behavioral questions are becoming more the norm all the time. Search the internet and find a good sampling of these types of questions. Try here or here or here as a starting point. As many articles point out there is a fairly standard way of phrasing your answers. It’s called the STAR (Situation/Task – Action – Result), or PAR (Problem – Action – Result) method. Go over a list of questions that you think you are most likely to be asked and have some examples ready to respond to those questions. Do not respond with general or non-specific answers. A good interviewer will continue to try to get you to provide specifics. But if you keep giving vague, non specific answers than they will mark you down heavily for that.

4. Ask for business cards
Ask for a business card from each person you meet during the interview process. In addition to showing that you have an interest in the person you just met, it also provides you with contact information that becomes valuable later on in the process. And in a pinch if you are terrible with names like I am, you can sneak a quick peek at the card. This becomes doubly important if you are in a panel type of interview where you have 3-5 people interviewing you at the same time.

5. Be prepared to ask them questions
Besides asking about the obvious responsibilities of the job, have several other questions ready. Ask them what the 3 greatest challenge they see that they expect you to solve if you take the position? What obstacles currently exist to prevent or inhibit you from accomplishing those goals? Is this a new position or are they backfilling this position? What happened to the prior person in this position? Did they leave or get promoted? There are plenty of resources available for these types of questions like here or here.

There are also some questions you probably don’t want to ask during an initial interview. Don’t ask about vacation policies or benefits, etc. Those are best addressed during a second interview. Asking those kinds of questions during the first interview can come off as “What’s in it for me?”.

6. Ask what concerns they have about you
Near the end of the interview make sure to ask if they have any concerns or reservations about you being the best candidate for the job. Listen to their response and address those concerns using a specific example if possible (see the STAR/PAR method above) or you the Feel/Felt/Found response:

I understand how your FEEL about that issue.
I FELT the same way (or I’d FEEL the same way) if I were in your shoes
But here’s what I FOUND out…..(explain why you can address/handle those objections)You may not want to use those exact words, but it’s the response method that’s important.

7. Send each person a thank you card
This should be a hand written card thanking them for their time. Almost nobody does this and it makes a huge impression on most people.

8. Follow up with everyone you interviewed with
Using the eMail address obtained from #4, send them an eMail that night or the next morning thanking them again (this does not replace the handwritten card) and summarizing why your skills are a great fit for the position as they outlined it. Also offer to clarify any outstanding questions or concerns that they may have. If you don’t have their eMail address than this should be done in a mailed letter.

9. Call them back
Wait a day or two and then call them back (you have their business card, remember?). Ask them where they are in the selection process. Ask if there are any outstanding questions or issues about you being the best candidate for the job that you could answer. Then if they haven’t told you that you’re no longer in the running, ask them when you should call back again. Then keep calling.

10. Don’t seem desperate|
I didn’t really have ten suggestions at first, but that just didn’t seem right to have only nine. So after pondering it a few minutes I came up with this, don’t seem desperate for the job in your interview. Rule #1 in negotiating anything is to be willing to walk away. That’s true even in an interview process. Remember it’s not just them offering you a job. You are also offing them some of the most valuable commodity on the planet; your time. Even if this is the only lead you have on the radar, don’t let them know that.     

 

 

 

 

 

10 things to make sure you don’t get a job offer

I’m currently working to backfill a position at my company for a Senior Systems Administrator. Even though I’ve received a couple hundred resumes over the past 3 months, I have yet to fill the position. Yes, I’ve had some people in for interviews but none of them have been quite the person I’m looking for…..well there was one, but we were too slow to make an offer and he accepted a position elsewhere. How that transpired is probably fodder for another post.

Through the process of trying to identify qualified applicants, I’ve come up with these 10 things that pretty much ensure that you won’t be on the receiving end of a job offer. Yes, all the examples cited here are true.

1. Don’t spell-check your resume and cover letter.
I can’t believe how many people don’t perform this simple task. In most editors the spell-check is automatic. So either people are turning off the spell-check, or ignoring the highlighted words that are marked as incorrect.

2. Make sure you are using the incorrect word
This is closely related to spell-checking the document. Sometimes a word will be spelled correctly, but it’s the wrong word. For example I had a candidate indicate that he had experience with “cash servers” instead of “cache servers”. The word was spelled correctly, but was completely wrong.

3. Get your former employer incorrect.
If you worked for a large national company, or a regional company in your area that everyone will know about, then for goodness sakes get the company’s name right.

4. Don’t read your resume and cover letter out loud.
To ensure that your resume and cover letter contains comprehensible and reasonably intelligent sentences, read it out loud. No, it doesn’t count to read it in your head; you must speak it aloud so your ears can hear it. Better yet, have someone else read it OUT LOUD to you. And having two or three people read it is better than one.

5. Don’t include a cover letter
Actually not including a cover letter won’t get you disqualified, but it certainly drops your overall impression in my mind. And if you do include a cover letter spend a couple of paragraphs telling me exactly why (based on the job description in the ad) you are a great candidate for the position. Just saying you are responding to the xyz ad doesn’t cut it. If you are smart enough to include a decent cover letter you just added a bunch of points to the mental point calculator that I keep a running tally on as I evaluate your submission.

6. If I call you for a phone screen, wait several days to call me back
I’m guessing that if you sent me a resume that you are actively looking for a position. That means that you should actually take an interest in responding to my phone calls and eMails. Even if you have accepted another position you should still respond because guess what, odds are that we’ll cross paths again. If you are interested and you’ve taken 5 days to call me back it’s nothing but an uphill battle for you. Have a pre-scheduled vacation? Great, no problem. Just let me know in your cover letter that you’d love to speak with me, but will be unavailable for a few days, and then give the dates you’ll be gone.

7. Call me from the server room or a restaurant
Make sure you are prepared and have the time and a nice quiet place to conduct the phone interview. When I call you the first thing I ask is if it is a good time. If it isn’t, say so. I’ll happily schedule a time when we can speak for 10-15 minutes. I had people do their phone screen from the server room (I love the sound of 20 server and UPS fans whirring in the background) with terrible cell coverage (see #8), and from a bar at a restaurant while they were waiting for a table.

8. Use your cell phone for extended conversations
Sorry, but irregardlessly (yes, I know that’s not a real word) of advances in technology cell phones still sound like cell phones 93.4% of the time. Unless it’s a very brief call, make sure you use a land line in a quiet environment to speak with me. That also means no kids or noisy animals in the background. I actually asked one guy if he had a pet dolphin. Turns out it was just his noisy bird in the background.

9. Don’t do the basic things I ask
If I send you an eMail with our job application and ask you send that back to me BEFORE your scheduled onsite interview, take the time to fill it out and send it back before you come in. If you don’t then it tells me you can’t follow simple instructions. And for a Senior Admin position I expect that you can follow directions without me holding your hand.

10. Don’t show up for the interview (or show up late with no phone call)
As strange as it may seem, I’ve had two people not even show up for a scheduled interview. Why not……? I have no idea. One called the next day and said he forgot, and the other never bothered to call. And if you got stuck in bad traffic on a freeway that just had a giant sign fall onto it stopping all traffic, call me and I’ll understand if you’re running late or need to reschedule.

I have more helpful tips for making sure you don’t get a job offer, but I titled it “10 things” so I’ll have to stop for now.