Category Archives: Interviews

Giving 30 seconds away can get you a job

Posted on April 10, 2014 | Leave a comment

Giving away 30 seconds to get a job may seem like a no-brainer.  The trouble is that few people do it.  You have to think about it.  Here is how it works.

 One college fundraising drive was also an experiment.  The fundraisers went into the dormitory common area where there were students.  Half the time they just asked for donations.  The other times they came and handed out soft drinks as they asked for donations.  The trips with the soft drinks raised several times more money.  The secret is giving something away before you ask for help.

Give 30 seconds away.

Your time and attention are your most valuable possessions.

The greatest secret of top salesmen is: establish a relationship before you sell yourself.  Break your target person out of their rut before you sell yourself. Start by spending 30 seconds talking about them.  Few people can resist trying to help someone who has given them 30 seconds of rapt attention.

Ask a question and then listen.   “How is your day going so far?  How many of these interviews do you do in a day?  You must be worn out by now, how do you keep a fresh attitude?  Is that a picture of your dog?  My kids were crazy this morning, do you think it was just the weather?  How did you learn to do this job?”

It takes practice.  Get the book, How To Win Friends And Influence People, by Dale Carnegie.  Read and apply one chapter a day. It will make people smile when you enter the room.  You’ll be memorable.  You will also enjoy meeting other people more than you ever have before.

Want a job?  You have to stand out from the crowd.  Give your most important possession away.  Give 30 seconds of your time and attention.  You will be fondly remembered by everyone you meet.  They will also really want to help you because you are a nice person.

————————-

Something To Do Today

Practice giving away 30 seconds with everyone you meet.

Later:  Beauty contest job openings and being memorable

Leave a comment

Posted in Interviews, Networking

Tagged , ,

Hallowe’en and your job search, really.

Posted on January 20, 2014 | Leave a comment

I know it is not Hallowe’en.  Humor me.

Tips for job seekers and Halloween trick or treaters are just about the same.  Think about how each of these directly applies to looking for a job.

  1. If you are scared, get your dad (a coach) to help on a few doors.
  2. Dress for success.  Look the part from your hair to your shoes, bag and greeting.
  3. The neighborhood you call on defines the size of the treats you get.
  4. Not everyone is giving out one pound candy bars, but they are all worth visiting.
  5. The more houses you call on, the more likely you will get a one pound candy bar.
  6. Go BACK to the biggest house with the best candy later.
  7. The most successful trick or treaters plan their routes and run from door to door.
  8. If you don’t knock, they won’t answer.
  9. If the porch light is out, you won’t get any candy, but you may get advice.
  10. Some of the scariest houses give the best treats.
  11. You get more treats if you start early and work late.
  12. Asking for candy in the traditional way works, ingenuity may get you more.
  13. Helping a little kid can double your take.
  14. Always say thank you.
  15. Sometimes they just ran out of treats, sorry.
  16. Going with friends (groups and social media) can make a scary neighborhood safer.
  17. It is a night of cold calling, even if you know the people.
  18. Trade candy (leads) afterwards to get what you really want.
  19. If you go to a party instead, and complain, you won’t get a big bag of candy.
  20. Don’t blow out the candle in the pumpkin.
  21. Do it again next year, only better, now that you have experience.

Wow!  I could write 21 articles based on those points.  Let me make a few quick points instead.

  1. Planning and preparation.  If you want the best chance of quick success, take 15 minutes each day and an additional 4 hours each week to review results, make lists, THINK, and plan for the coming week.  And make sure you have resumes that are attractive and get people to call you.
  2. Work hard and fast.  Actually do what you plan.  Make calls and contacts daily.  It is amazing how often luck follows hard work.
  3. Go back again.  You should be talking to your best prospects at least monthly.  If you spend 15 minutes thinking and looking for a reason to call, you can usually come up with a helpful reason to call almost anyone.
  4. Work together.  Share leads.  Offer to critique other’s resumes.  Suggest websites, books, and other job search ideas.  A lot of people find the perfect job in the castoffs and contacts from someone else’s search. Go to someone else’s house and both of you make calls at the same time.
  5. Be polite. Just because they say “No” doesn’t mean they hate you.  Say thank you and contact them again if it is a company you really want to join.  Never burn bridges or “blow out the candle” with anyone.

Have a great Halloween, and an even better job search.  Good luck finding that one pound candy bar!

Leave a comment

Posted in Finding jobs, Followup, Interviews, Job Boards, Networking, Perseverance, References, Resumes, Time management

Tagged ,

Why hiring managers should be personality tested, and not candidates

Posted on November 15, 2013 | Leave a comment

HR uses personality tests to protect their jobs when bad hires are made.  Hiring managers use the tests to try and do less badly at reading personalities. If they would test themselves first, things would go better.

This article also shows why a two question test often works just as well as the hour long personality tests.

 

Leave a comment

Posted in Interviews, talent

Tagged ,

You have to give me a job – the scariest phrase I hear

Posted on September 18, 2013 | Leave a comment

How would you react to a candidate who said, “You have to give me a new job.  I am seriously considering suicide.”

I deal with that problem for real, literally.  Forgive me, please, all of you suicide counselors, but I react the same way to that statement as I do to a threat on my life.  The people who make that comment are a threat to me, my family, and my job. We have literally locked the front door of the office when worried about someone who made that comment.

You tend to infect people with your attitude.  We locked the door because we were physically scared.  Of course, we didn’t physically expect to get infected, but becoming psychologically infected is worse than a physical problem.  When your mind is infected with hopelessness and negativity it takes a lot of work and treatment to become employable.

Nowadays men lead lives of noisy desperation. (James Thurber)

There are ways to change your attitude.  If it really is caused by your job, you may want to quit right now.  The trouble is that most of the time the job does not cause the attitude, and quitting may make it worse.

What you need to do is grab a book that helps you change that attitude. Go to Amazon and under books search for “attitude”.  I like to get samples of the books delivered electronically to find out if I really want to buy them.  You can get a Kindle reader for your PC just for that purpose.

No one has to give you a job.  You have to earn a job.  Figure out what you can do to have an attitude that someone else wants to get infected with. Work at it. Get a book or get a counselor.

————————-

Something To Do Today

Check out two books on changing your attitude from the library.  One interesting one is “Learned Optimism”.  There are a lot of books that can help.

—————————-

Later:             Inferiority

3-do’s

Networking facts

Leave a comment

Posted in Attitude, Interviews, Quitting or Fired

Tagged ,

One huge secret to escape a stalled career

Posted on September 13, 2013 | Leave a comment

Nerds don’t just happen to dress informally.  They do it too consistently.  Consciously or not, they dress informally as a prophylactic measure against stupidity. (Paul Graham)

My partner changed the career of a man stuck in a job rut.  He was looking for a job and no one would hire him.  His current boss wouldn’t promote him.

Dress for your career, not your job

He was a banker.  He had a great personality, was a hard worker, smart, self assured, and educated. He got things done. He was going nowhere in his career.  His white shirt under that nice suit and tie was slightly wrinkled and just didn’t look sharp.  Karen gave him one piece of advice that made all the difference, “Get your shirts done at the dry cleaners.” He got the job and rose like a rocket in his new bank. 20 years later he came into our office and expected her to notice that he still got his shirts done at the cleaners. She noticed.

The secret

If you are applying for a job, you have to be dressed in at least the same crispness as the hiring manager.  A little better is okay.  The hiring manager has to get the first impression that you will work as hard as he does.  That first impression is often the only real thing that keeps a job candidate from being hired.

When you dress up to the level you want to rise to, you are seen at first glance as someone to be reckoned with.  People will automatically figure out where you want to go. Your clothes need to be clean, pressed, and sharp.  Your shoes need to be nicer, cleaner, and shinier than the shoes of your boss’s boss. And wear nice socks that never show skin at the bottom of your pants leg.

Look at how your boss’s boss dresses.  If you want to impress him, you are going to have to look like him.  Sorry. That is just a fact. If you are of the opposite sex, it only applies more strongly.  You have to look like you are in his circle of acquaintances in order to be invited to work directly for him.

The way you dress will actually change your performance.  Other people will subconsciously give you more respect and more opportunities.  Take advantage of it.

Instead of dressing like all the rest of the nerd herd doing your job, dress like the person whose career is going places.

————————-

Something To Do Today

Ask your boss to tell you how you should dress.

—————————-

Later:             Resume blasting

Certifications – gold and lead

Recruiter motivation

Leave a comment

Posted in Interviews, management, Promotions, Raises, talent

Tagged , , ,

How to find the technical interview questions you will be asked

Posted on September 6, 2013 | Leave a comment

Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer. (Charles C. Colton)

Passing technical interviews used to be the bane of my company’s existence.  I would send very qualified individuals for programming jobs.  They would come back from their technical interview bleak and hopeless.  They had failed.  They knew it.

Then I bought 3 copies of the book, Ace The Technical Interview.  I lent the book out before the interview.  All of a sudden I had more people getting jobs.

Get an unfair advantage

You don’t need to buy that book.  I have something better.  You can get great questions for review.  You may also be able to get the exact questions you will be asked.

Go to your favorite internet search engine and look up “interview questions forklift”. You will find a list of typical technical questions for forklift operators.  Now replace “forklift” with the technical part of your job you get questions about.  An accountant can put in “audit”.  A programmer can insert “Java” or “J2EE”.

Even if you aren’t technical

Are you in Sales?  Check out “interview questions sales”. Try this technique out in your field.

The final query

Make sure you check out the name of the company you are interviewing with.  Some people have made a habit of collecting interview questions from various companies.  They have put them on the web.  You may be surprised when your interviewer asks you the exact questions you have prepared for.  You’ll love it.

————————-

Something To Do Today

Google: “interview questions programmer Microsoft”. Then try some that apply to you.

—————————-

Later:             Resume blasting

Certifications – gold and lead

Recruiter motivation

Leave a comment

Posted in Interviews

Tagged , , ,

The technical interview secret they never tell you

Posted on September 5, 2013 | Leave a comment

I did great in my first interview for my first job as a programmer temp. Then they started asking questions about exactly how a database control statement was written.  I had written the crazy things, but I couldn’t remember exactly how it had to go.  I was forced to admit I just couldn’t remember.

That was the answer they were looking for.

A lot of interviewers start asking picky technical questions, not just to see what you know, but to see if you will admit you don’t know everything.  The most common technique is “drilling down”.  They start on a subject you know, and then they drill down to a level of detail you don’t know.

Any job can have a technical interview: accounting, computers, sales, management, assembly line, or forklift operator.  You need to prepare for the interview by going over some likely technical questions.  You also need to admit at some point that you do not know everything.

————————–

Later:             Technical questions

Resume blasting

Certifications – gold and lead

Recruiter motivation

Leave a comment

Posted in Interviews

Tagged , ,

The biggest lie about phone interviews and what to do about it

Posted on August 28, 2013 | Leave a comment

They don’t really call them phone interviews in HR, they call them phone screens.

Don’t be fooled that you are ever being called on the phone for a job interview.  The only reason you are ever “interviewed” on the phone is because they hope to keep from having to meet you.  The idea is to keep from wasting their time….and yours. The words “phone interview” constitute a lie.

So, how do you act differently in a phone screening?

First, don’t give them any reason to exclude you.

Don’t talk about WIFM (What’s In It For Me). Do not ask them about pay, benefits, time off, or vacation.  You can ask that when they make you an offer.

Don’t tell them about your horrible job, terrible coworkers, or your boss who tortures children for recreation. Forget your job wound.  Anything negative you say will hurt you 10 times worse in a phone screen.

Second, give them something enticing.

Make sure that they have to invite you in to see you in person.  What have you actually done better than the average person?  No, I am not asking what your responsibilities were.  What did you do very well?  You were a programmer….big deal.  There are 50 of them applying for the job.  You are a salesman…whoopee.  20 other salespeople want the job, and half are better looking than you.  So, how did you excel?  What were you an expert at?  What does that company need that you do very well? Can you prove it?

Sit down for half an hour in a quiet place with a list of everything you know about the job you will phone interview for.  Make a list of the things you have done better than other people.  Prove you can do this job well.

There really are only two things you have to do in a phone interview phone screen: keep from being excluded, and entice them to invite you in for a face-to-face meeting.

————————–

Coming up

Back to job hunting

Leave a comment

Posted in Interviews

Tagged , ,

What to do about serial disasters in your job search

Posted on August 22, 2013 | Leave a comment

I lived a couple of summers on a dairy and hog farm.  There were only two things to do with manure, put it on the fields or in the creek.  Yes, once it went into the creek. The manure that went on the fields helped grow more corn and alfalfa.  The manure that went into the creek was a shame, dangerous, and very easy to get rid of. Dumping in the creek eventually became illegal.  It’s a good thing.  That was a bad choice.

The difference between fertilizer and pollution was not the ingredients, it was what we chose to do with our time and resources.

When you spend your time job hunting poorly, you flush your work down the creek.

You can be getting killed before you are interviewed, after the first interview, or when references are checked.

Killed before you are interviewed

If you make one poor resume and send it out 500 times in a year with no interviews, you are polluting, not fertilizing.  That resume goes on file at many companies and keeps you from being hired for job after job.  If you are getting no response, either:

  1. you are not qualified for the jobs
  2. the resume is not working
  3. you have a bad reputation

In any one of these cases, you need to change what you are doing.

If you are not qualified, get experience and certifications, or lower your sights to the jobs you really are qualified for.  If the resume is not working, you need to fix it.  Go to www.dilts.us/books to get the best resume book ever written. If your reputation stinks, you may have to move or try a new field of work.

Stopped after your first interview

If you are getting interviews every week, but never being called back for a second set of interviews, you are polluting.  The companies you are interviewing with are putting you on their “Not Good Enough” list for some reason. You need to do some practice interviews on camera, and practice with managers who can’t hire you but will critique you. You need interview help. You also need to get back with every interviewer you can find and beg them for honest feedback.  If they consider you a really bad match, they will often hide that for fear of angering you.  When you ask for feedback, listen meekly and probe.

Ruined by your references

Does your job search fall apart every time it gets to the reference check phase?  Someone or something in your background is killing you.  You may have a reference who is polluting your job search.  It could be a lukewarm or hostile person who smiles at you and moans during a reference check.  Some people are just negative.  They hedge and hold back and wouldn’t give Superman a good reference because of his “Kryptonite problem.”   If you know a credit check or criminal background check is stopping you, you may have to back down your job aspirations or get to know which companies will hire you anyway. Sometimes an industry change is necessary.  Changing states may help.

 

If your job search is not working, there is always a reason.  Always.  Where your search is falling apart may tell you what the problem is and how to fix it.  Getting to the same place over and over only to lose out because of YOUR problem pollutes the job market against you. Find out if you have a problem.  Honestly work to correct that problem and you’ll find a job.

Something to do today

Keep track of where your job search is falling apart.  Figure out if it is your resume, interviews, or reference checks that are killing you.  Now, start researching ways to overcome that problem.  Work at it.

Leave a comment

Posted in Focus, Interviews, References, Resumes

Tagged , ,

The 4 most critical phone interview prep steps

Posted on August 7, 2013 | Leave a comment

Phone interviews are done to screen you out. Phone interviews only allow a first impression.  You have to prepare for your phone interview, so you can get to the next step, an in-person interview.

Prepare

  1. Find the right place.  You cannot interview well at your desk at work if others can hear you or interrupt you.  At home with kids is better than the office if you may be interrupted.  At home you aren’t hiding anything. You don’t sound secretive.  Outside the building on your cell phone is better than worrying about the guy in the next cubicle as you talk. Reserve a conference room or shut your office door if you can. If you have to be secretive, you will sound like a lying sneak. Find a place where you can talk openly.
  1. Look good.  Sit up or stand.  Smile.  Your posture affects the way your voice sounds. A smile or frown has a huge effect.  You really can hear what a person looks like.
  1. Pause before the call.  Get mentally prepared for the interview 5 minutes before it starts.  Grab a piece of paper and write down the questions you want to ask. Make a list of your accomplishments that will most impress the interviewer. Make notes about the company on a piece of paper just to reset your mind.  You need to be thinking about the phone interview 5 minutes before the call starts.  You will be much sharper.
  1. Do your research. At the very least, read their website.  If you don’t know what it is, call the company switchboard and ask.  Google the company and the person you are interviewing with. Go to LinkedIn and see who you can find that works there. You may get lucky and find out some information that will be helpful.  It will show you really are interested in the company.  Figure out who you know in the company and give them a call. Don’t forget to grill your recruiter if one got you the phone interview.

A phone interview is only going to be a first impression.  Take a few extra minutes to be positive it is a good impression.

Something to do today

Do it again: Next time you talk to a stranger on the phone, decide what they look like.  Were they smiling, attentive, and interested or bored?  Are they liars or scrupulously honest.  What do they look like?  Hair, height, skin, clothes.  Figure out why those pictures come into your mind

Leave a comment

Posted in Interviews

Tagged ,