Author Archives: bryandilts

4 ways to prepare for an interview to get ten percent more

Posted on November 15, 2012 | Leave a comment

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, In practice, there is. (Chuck Reid)

Every manager wants to find someone with:

  • Less experience
  • More raw ability
  • More talent
  • Bigger potential profits
  • Lower pay

Everyone is looking for the same magical person.  They get twice as much done, and you only pay them a little more. You can pay them 10 percent more than their peers and still be paying them less than they really and truly are worth. That means more profit and a bigger bonus for management.

Where is it determined to pay them 10 percent more? In the interview.

If you interview well, you will get paid more. It is just a fact of life. There are several places to get better interview skills:

  • Teach a class
  • Lead a group
  • Take an interview preparation class
  • Join Toastmasters.

Teach a class

Many schools and most churches are looking for teachers. It may be a one time one hour visit or a weekly commitment. Often they have a Teacher Preparation class or manual. Volunteer. Even if you do poorly the first time, you can get that teacher preparation book or course and learn to succeed. Teaching a class gives you experience speaking to groups and imparting your expertise. The smoothness you develop will help a lot in interviews.

Lead a group

The Elks Club, Rotary Club, youth sports, Boy and Girl Scouts, 4H, PTA, and every other organized group of people needs leaders. You can lead a small committee or the whole club. The experience you gain dealing with groups will make a big difference in your interview skills and how much you earn.

Take an interview preparation class

They may cost a hefty chunk of change, but they can make a big difference in how much you are paid and how much you earn. Sometimes they will have video recorded practice interviews, group evaluations and individual coaching.

Join Toastmasters

www.toastmasters.org is the best place to go to learn to deal well with groups. They develop your ability to give prepared and unprepared speeches. There are multiple clubs near you. Visit several of them and find a place you fit.

Something to do today

The first thing to do is check out Toastmasters. Then volunteer to lead a group or class somewhere. Develop your interview skills.

 

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Posted in Interviews, Negotiating

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Ten percent more in your next job – part two

Posted on November 14, 2012 | Leave a comment

Henry accepted 30% more salary for a job than he was initially offered.  Acme Corp. ended up paying 30% more. (Yes, the story is true, the names are changed.) Five factors affected it.  I mentioned four of them yesterday.

The five factors are:

  • The company’s finances
  • The other people available for the job
  • The resume
  • The interview
  • Patience

Here’s how it happened.

Acme is doing well financially.  Unfortunately finding highly skilled people for the job is difficult.  Mediocre people earn Acme half the profit that a highly skilled person earns them.  The resume proved that Henry was one of the top people in the country.  The interview confirmed it.  The initial offer was flat out rejected by Henry.  Acme looked around for weeks and couldn’t find anyone of that caliber.  In the meantime Acme was being hurt by waiting to fill the position.  Acme and Henry got together again and came to an agreement.

A very important step was proving how much Henry was worth.  First we used the resume, then the interview. The resume gave absolute, iron clad, irrefutable proof that Henry was one of the best in the country.  We gave verifiable production numbers as well as comparisons to everyone else in his old company.

In the interview the figures were repeated.  Henry also interviews extremely well.

Last of all, Henry rejected a low offer.  He waited without being offended.  After a few weeks it became obvious the company made a mistake.  Henry got his offer at a number he deserved.

You need to make a list of things you have accomplished that prove how much you can be worth to your next company.  If you absolutely prove you will be worth twice what anyone else is, you too will get a lot more money.

Tomorrow is about how to radically increase your interview effectiveness.  I’ll give you three things you can do to prepare for interviews.  Things that could get you 10% more money.

Something to do today

Can you prove how much you are worth to your company?  How many customers did you bring in or save?  How much profit did you generate?  How much money did you save the company?

Make a list.

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Later:              Get 10% more at your next job, interviews

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Posted in Accomplishments, Negotiating

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Why recruiting looks easy

Posted on November 13, 2012 | Leave a comment

A lot of people can’t believe I get paid for working out of my attic.  Sometimes it only takes a half hour from when I find out about a job until I have submitted the winning candidate.

This article uses a child’s story to tell why there are so few successful recruiters, and what the good ones do right.

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Posted in Recruiters

Ten percent more in your next job – part one

Posted on November 13, 2012 | Leave a comment

You have interviewed with five people at the company.  Your references have been checked.  The background and drug checks came in clean.  Your recruiter has more negotiating skills in his little toe than the whole management chain in that company put together.  Now to see how much money you will be paid for the job.

There is an upper limit you won’t get past.  It may be the first offer you hear.  It may be reached after a week of haggling.  There absolutely is an upper limit.  The best negotiator cannot get you more money than that limit. That limit was 50% more than the salary range for one position I’ve seen. But there is a limit.

What are the factors that set the limit?

  • The company’s finances
  • The other people available for the job
  • Your resume
  • Your interview

That’s it.  The first two are very complex, but you can’t do anything about them.  The last two are closely related.  Your resume and your interview work together to show possibilities.  They show how you might affect company finances. They allow you to be compared to those other people.

The next two blog posts will deal with what information you need to get to your future bosses, and how to radically increase your interview effectiveness. They are about how to get that 10% more.

Something to do today

Make a list of the topics covered in your last job interview.  Tomorrow we’ll see if you covered the most important information.

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Later:              Get 10% more at your next job, 2 more parts

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Posted in Negotiating

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Get a phone call: The 6 word “career objective” and your very simple resume

Posted on November 12, 2012 | Leave a comment

You will find a job a lot quicker if you simplify your career objective and your resume. Simplicity will get you a phone call.

How a simple plan leads to success in business

Fedex has a very simple business plan.  They get packages anywhere the next day.  Google is incredibly simple.  They help people find stuff on the internet.  Microsoft started out with a simple concept.  Make personal computers work for people.

Just like business plans, first you have to simplify your career plans.  What do you want to do, achieve or become?

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler.  (Albert Einstein)

Make your career objective a 6 word sentence.

I rarely read more than 6 words of the “objective” portion of a resume.  I don’t have time to read that you want to work in a team, grow, contribute, and add to the bottom line.  Who doesn’t want those things?

Can you write your career objective in 6 words?  Would you dare put that on your resume?

Most resume screeners and managers decide whether to read career objectives based on the first 6 words.  Why not put your real objective there? 6 words.

Do you want your resume read?

I read The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, the abridged Reader’s Digest version.  It was fantastic.  I liked it so much I started reading the original by Victor Hugo.  It was torture.  Every building in Paris was carefully described.  A walk down a street was worth a chapter.  I couldn’t finish it.

Like Reader’s Digest did, you have to simplify your resume according to your simple plan. Your resume plan should simply be – GET A PHONE CALL.

GET A PHONE CALL

Make getting a phone call the point of your resume.  Now remove the stuff from your resume that won’t get you a phone call.  You need to entice people to call you by giving them exciting information, and NOT fully explaining it.  Then they have to call you.

If you set out to simplify your resume without a simple plan, you will fail.  You have to cut out the things that don’t apply to the plan you are pursuing.  You may end up with three simple objectives and three simple resumes.  That’s fine.  But each resume should be simplified so that it applies to one single objective and the single plan to GET A PHONE CALL.

For someone living before photographs, a description of Paris was thrilling.  For someone who has been there and can see pictures of it on the internet, descriptions of Paris are chloroform in print.  Victor Hugo decided on a simple plan: have a good plot, and double sales by having great descriptions.  He knew his audience.  He sold a lot of books to his target audience.

The same thing goes for the person who wants to be a manager.  He’d better have manager’s resume.  If the same person applies for a job as a technician he needs to leave out all the manager stuff.  Complexity gets confusing and discouraging to the reader¼and therefore gets your resume deleted.  If you want to be a hands-on manager, then show how you have done that in the past.  That is actually a simple plan like Victor Hugo with plot and descriptions.

Simplify your plan, simplify your career objective, then simplify your resume. You will get a phone call.

Something to do today

Are you applying for several different kinds of jobs?

Split your resume into several distinct resumes.  One simple resume for each job.

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Later:              Get 10% more at your next job, 3 parts

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Posted in Focus, Resumes

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Why failure is good in your job search

Posted on November 9, 2012 | 1 comment

Not many people are willing to give failure a second try.  They fail once and it is all over.  The bitter pill of failure is often more than most people can handle.  If you are willing to accept failure and learn from it, if you are willing to consider failure as a blessing in disguise and bounce back, you have got the essential of harnessing one of the most powerful success forces.  (Joseph Sugarman)

Why failure is good in your job search

When I was 17 I bragged that I had gotten every job I applied for.  That was 5 jobs at the time.  I set my own expectations and hit them.  I continued to get every job I applied for. Looking back, I was lucky and that luck kept me from doing better.

I always had enough money to survive and my desires weren’t huge.  I was going to college by then and just wanted to graduate.  That is why my luck hurt me so bad.

After I left college I found out that my Geology Department would have gladly given me jobs while I was at school.  I just never asked.  I could have gone on to graduate school and jobs would have been lined up for me so I could afford it.  I never asked.  During the summer break there were jobs available for aspiring geologists, but I had already lined up something else selling books or working in the library.  It was so easy to get the jobs I applied for that I never got the jobs that would advance my career.

Even when I graduated I applied for a job in geology that was being filled by high school graduates at the time.  Of course I got the job.  And I earned less than I could. And I didn’t look for another job until I was laid off.

It took me 3 years after that lay off to get a good job with a bright future.  It took me that long to learn that if I accept every job I can get, I get jobs without a future.

I was a slow learner.  I didn’t start failing until after I was laid off.  I finally learned.  Sometimes getting every job you apply for means you aren’t aiming high enough.

Something to do today

Do you have a real career plan?

I was talking with programmers earning $50,000 per year and others earning $120,000 per year.  They had the same basic talents.  The better paid ones had chosen to work in SAP instead of Visual Basic.  They really had to pay a price to get into SAP.  Now they are reaping amazing rewards compared to the programmers who applied for jobs they knew they could get.

Do you really have a career plan?  Or is it just a downhill career path?

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Later:              Simplicity

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Posted in Attitude, Finding jobs, Focus

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How to distract interviewers from your big problem

Posted on November 8, 2012 | Leave a comment

A red herring distracts from an important point.  Here is how it works.

You have no chance if they know who you are.  You slip your gun into the shoulder holster.  Over goes the suit made by that tailor who is expert at hiding the telltale lethal bulge.  You check your watch.  It is transmitting correctly, fully loaded with explosives, and it even tells the correct time.  Last, the pen.  A laser capable of cutting through steel or decapitating an opponent, and it writes.  It’s action time.  Now for that job interview.

Kill or overkill? How do you know?  What was the red herring?

Everything but the suit was a red herring.  He is an accountant interviewing for a job.

Is a red herring good or bad?  Obviously it can be either.

Do you have something to hide?  If it is a minor disqualifier, be prepared to talk around it.  Let’s say you were five years in accounting, but only the last year of it in audit.  They ask about how much time you actually spent in audits.  You answer precisely, “I’ve been with Bolger & Smith CPA’s for five years.  In the last year alone, I have done full audits of 12 companies in addition to my other duties.”  The phrase, “In the last year alone,” is a red herring.  Skillfully placed it diverts attention to the last year.

Were you fired for refusing to work any more overtime?  First off, make sure there will be no overtime in the new job.  When they ask, “Why did you leave,” you can reply, “My manager and I disagreed on a matter of service, which I will not go into.”  Don’t say, “I was fired.”  Don’t give a full explanation.  When they press for details you can say, “My last manager was well qualified.  We disagreed on a matter of service.  I won’t go into it farther.”  The red herring is your nobility in not tearing down your old manager.  Make sure they see your loyalty and refusal to gossip.  It makes you look good and distracts from the issue of being fired.

A red herring is not a lie.  It is a distraction.  If your distraction doesn’t work, either refuse to answer or tell the unvarnished truth.  In the end, distraction is acceptable.  A lie will get you fired.

Something to do today

If you have something to hide, write out tough questions.  Write out three red herring for each question.  Practice them.

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Later:              Failure

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Posted in Interviews

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Two ways to fight interview red herrings

Posted on November 7, 2012 | Leave a comment

Reading off of a sheet of questions, each interviewer takes a turn asking set questions.  There are technical questions, motivation questions and team related questions.  Which are the most important ones?  Which are the red herrings?

If you interview with 5 people at a company, you will have to deal with 5 agendas.  Each will have a different set of core values and competencies they are looking for.  So how do you win?

Be yourself, but avoid dwelling on yourself.

Be yourself

Make sure your interviewers know one or two endearing things that make you different.  For instance, I have ten kids and will be going into the mountains with my Boy Scouts this month.  That will set Bryan Dilts apart from other candidates and give me a personality.  Do you have a computer network in your basement?  Were you the top salesman of Girl Scout cookies as a kid?  Are you a Steelers fan?  Mention one or two things that make you unique.  Okay, I’m not sure about mentioning politics and the NFL.

Avoid dwelling on yourself

Historians are like deaf people who go on answering questions that no one has asked them. (Leo Tolstoy)

A quick mention of your one or two endearing qualities is all that is needed.  Then it is time to mention past job performance.

When asked about what you did, mention specific projects.  You can say, “I was in charge of the budget,” or you can say, “While I was in charge of the budget we increased productivity 60% while increasing the budget only 20%.”  That will catch their attention.  As a salesperson you can say, “I sold to companies with over 2000 employees,” or you can get bonus points by saying, “In the last year I opened new accounts at 14 companies, each with over 2000 employees.”

Don’t dwell on yourself.  Dwell on the facts.  Facts that demonstrate your value to your last company and the company you are interviewing with.

Their red herrings

You really have no hope of knowing which of their questions are red herrings.  All you can do is refocus each question they ask on what you have accomplished in the past.  Given a choice, most people would rather work with someone who will get things done rather than someone who answers the questions just like they are supposed to.

Ignore their red herrings and show them you are a big fish.  They’ll want to reel you in and hire you.

Something to do today

Ask if you can help do interviews at your current company.  You may be surprised what you learn about being interviewed by watching others in the hot seat and talking with your boss about them afterwards.

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Later:              Interview red herring – yours

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Posted in Accomplishments, Interviews

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The main way your resume stops you from being hired

Posted on November 6, 2012 | Leave a comment

Some people wisely ask, how can I hide my flaws?  Others seem to ask, how can I hide my greatest strengths?

Every resume I read is a mystery novel.  For instance, an accountant dismissed in March is a lot different than one dismissed in May.  March is the busy part of tax season, so, why would a competent accountant be sacked?  May is a time that accountants cut back on staff.  Is the firing a red flag or a red herring?

Is an 8 or 10 line “objective” on a resume a red herring?  Do any of those 200 words really mean anything?  A 300 word paragraph describing the last job is incredible camouflage for good and bad.

A bullet cuts through all the fluff, just like in a murder mystery.  Find the bullet, find the gun, find the murderer.  I always read the first 3 bullets under a job in a resume.  If those first 3 bullets are really 3 red herring, then I may skip the rest.  By skipping the rest, I may miss the one important bullet.

O jest unseen, inscrutable, invisible, As a nose on a man’s face, or a weathercock on a steeple.  (William Shakespeare)

My problem is that I am human.  I am easily distracted.  I have hours of work to plow through before I leave.  If I see too many red herring in your resume, I’ll push the delete key.

How many pounds of red herring are in your resume?

Something to do today

Hand your resume and the job ad you are applying for to a friend.  Ask them if they match.  It it takes more than 15 seconds to say, “Yes!”, then you lose.

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Later:              Interview red herring

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Posted in Resumes

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What scares hiring managers in interviews

Posted on November 5, 2012 | Leave a comment

Why weren’t you hired?

Better question:  What scares hiring managers the most?

This article gives a good glimpse into the reason that interviewing managers run away from some candidates.

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Posted in Accomplishments, Interviews, talent

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