Category Archives: Interviews

The #1 and #2 way to ruin a phone interview

Posted on August 6, 2013 | Leave a comment

Phone interviews are done to screen you out. It is easier to end a phone interview with you after 5 minutes than to kick you out of their office after 5 minutes.

Phone interviews only allow a first impression.  That is all they want.

 

They will see you in a phone interview

They will see a height, weight, hair color, skin tone and posture. What they will see is a totally fictitious mental picture of you.  They will see you interested or bored, happy or burned out, and translate that into a mental picture similar to someone they know.  Your phone interview will be your first impression.  It may be your only impression.

The good news is, if they like you, they will see a star in their minds.  The bad news is, if you are not sharp, they’ll see you as a skid row derelict.

The way to ruin a phone interview is to: 1. Relax.  2. Don’t prepare.

Next time we’ll talk about preparing.

Something to do today

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

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Coming up

How to prepare for a phone interview

Start a new job excellently

New and better or cheaper

How everyone else sees you

The difference between fertilizer and ****

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A girl phoned me the other day and said “Come on over, there’s nobody home.” I went over.  Nobody was home.  (Rodney Dangerfield)

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6 things job hunters overdo in an interview

Posted on July 19, 2013 | Leave a comment

Telephone call: “Bryan, do you have a minute Bryan?  Well, Bryan, I am representing a company, Bryan, that has a product, Bryan, that will change your life, Bryan.”

Someone taught the salesman that using my name would get my attention.  No one told him that using it too much would get me mad.  I am always amazed when I get a call like that.  How could someone be so clueless? Teaching this guy to use my name to get my attention is like giving a monkey a gun.  He just doesn’t understand when to use it.

 You give a monkey a gun, and it’s your responsibility what happens. (Ira Winkler)

So let me see if I can teach you 6 things to do in an interview with me, and convince you not to overdo them.  This is a list of more things you should do during an interview, but not to an extreme. This is my list of things that are occasionally badly overdone.

  1. Use my name.  You don’t know me well, so just use my name a few times. If you are nervous about it, call me Mr. Dilts instead of Bryan.
  2. Look me in the eye.  Occasionally break eye contact to look at my hands, mouth, what I just pointed to, or the person who just walked into the room.
  3. Sit up attentively and move forward on your seat a little.  I like seeing that you are interested and paying attention.  I don’t want you leaning across my desk, or looking like you are getting ready to attack.
  4. Explain what you mean. I need to understand.  But only take two minutes per question.  If I ask you what time it is, don’t tell me how to build a watch.
  5. Tell me about your accomplishments.  I need to know how you personally made a difference.  Just remember the two minute rule.  I need to ask questions.  If you spend an hour on one self serving discourse, I won’t be able to ask the questions I need to ask, and you come across as an arrogant stuffed shirt.
  6. Let me know you want the job.  Ask for the job.  Be excited.  Just don’t throw your hands in the air every 60 seconds and scream, “I love this place. I am so desperate to work for you! Can I start right now?”

Be a person with a toolbox full of tools.  Use them for what they were intended.  Each one is important in an interview.  Don’t take things too far. Don’t be a monkey with a gun.

Something to do today

Find someone with a video camera and do a fake interview on camera.  You may be surprised what you see.

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Coming up

Salary toy

Working for the Fortune 50

Scrabble and muck and get ahead

When to give up and go elsewhere

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Beating the personality tests and getting the job

Posted on July 16, 2013 | Leave a comment

I applied for a job as an engineer.  I passed the skills tests.  I aced the interviews.  Next came the personality test.  I had taken a similar test in college and had all the best answers explained.  Halfway through the test I became disgusted.  On the multiple choice test I decided to answer each question absolutely correctly in extreme perversion of the real meaning of the question.

I rebelled against the “honesty” questions.  They asked things like, “Would you ever lie to a client if it would hurt the client?”  I answered, “Yes.”  I figured if a terrorist had my family hostage and I had to lie to a client to save them, I would.  I could fix it later.

My rebellion cost me a job.  If I had answered their reasonable questions in a reasonable way I would have gotten a very good job.  I was an idiot. I rebelled.

The best way to beat a personality test is to be real and honest. Getting disgusted like I did never helped anyone. It just proved my immaturity.

Read the questions for what they really are.  Answer them openly.  As I said in my last blog, companies really do try to hire the right person.  Personality tests are scientifically validated.  The trouble is that sometimes companies are looking for the wrong person.  You’ll never know what traits they really prize.  The best you can do is to give them an honest evaluation of your personality.

Beating personality tests is easy.  Be yourself.

Something to do today

If you didn’t do it last week, go out and find a few free personality tests.  Take them honestly and trying to skew them.  See if you can turn yourself into someone you are not.

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Coming up

How the job world really is

Give a monkey a gun

Salary toy

Working for the Fortune 50

Scrabble and muck and get ahead

When to give up and go elsewhere

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Beating the skills and IQ tests for a job

Posted on July 15, 2013 | Leave a comment

True story first.  It applies to how to beat skills and IQ tests.

Anderson grew up in a school district right next to a university with a huge educational psychology department.  He took an intelligence test at least once a month from kindergarten through high school. At times he took one test a week. He knew all the questions and all the answers on every test.  Eight years after high school he was taking an IQ test for a job he was assured he would get.  All he had to do was pass the IQ test.  He knew all the questions from long experience.  He got every question right.  He scored as a super genius.  His hiring manager had no choice but to NOT hire him.  The company had a policy of not hiring geniuses because they left for other jobs too quickly.

At times I wish I had Anderson’s problem. I wish I knew too much.

There are two types of skills tests, the IQ or Intelligence Test, and the true skill test. Personality tests aren’t covered today.

Ask if there is a test before every interview.  If there is, try to get them to tell you the name of the test.  Whether it is an IQ test or a true skill test, you may be able to find an example on the internet and practice taking it.  Don’t be surprised if the questions are different on the actual test.  Most companies know that people will try to get an advantage, so there are several different tests from the same company.

Before every interview, even if there is no test, find and practice true skill questions.  Google “vb.net questions” or “accounting interview questions”.  With luck you will be led to a website like www.geekinterview.com which has questions for computers and accounting.

Spend a little time preparing for tests and interviews in your specific field.  Remember, “Prior proper personal preparation prevents pathetically poor performance.”

Something to do today

Find some practice tests you can take to hone your skills.

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Coming up

Beating the personality tests

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The Arizona sapphire and your interview

Posted on July 11, 2013 | Leave a comment

A professional gem trader decided to visit the amateur rock show at his convention in Arizona a few years back.  As he wandered around the rock show he stopped at the table of a rock hound who had some suspicious rocks.  One rock was in a bin marked “$10″. When he picked it up and looked at it, that fist sized rock nearly stopped his heart. This being the equivalent of a garage sale he offered $5 and got the rock. He took it home, verified that it was a huge sapphire as he suspected.  Raw it was worth $250,000.  After being cut and polished, the gems it produced sold for millions of dollars.

Everyone wants a bargain. Paying $5 for a million dollar gem is a dream.  Every manager and business owner is convinced that he himself is that gem.  There also lurks somewhere in the back of his mind the belief that he will find another gem even more brilliant than himself.  He can then take that gem and make a fortune while polishing and refining it.  You need to convince the hiring manager that you are that hidden gem.  You are that sapphire in the rough.

You need to sit down and think every time you apply for a job, “What would make me a sapphire in the rough?”  Before every single interview you should ask yourself, “What does a sapphire in the rough look like to this guy?” When you are rewriting your resume ask, “How can I make it impossible to miss that I am a sapphire in the rough?”

If you think about it enough, you may really be that sapphire in the rough.

 

Something to do today

Before your next interview figure out what would make you a “sapphire in the rough”. Now prove you are one in your resume and interviews.

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Coming up

Beating the tests

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The 2 most powerful questions to ask when you are interviewed

Posted on July 10, 2013 | Leave a comment

Your new job was not what you expected.  The official job description really only told what you would do 15 hours each week.  The other 45 hours per week you were wrestling alligators or cleaning bedpans. You quit after 1 month.

Keep this from happening to you by asking two questions.

Your two questions need to get you hired too.

Get their attention, let them know you will be a big help, and find out what you really will be doing by asking:

  1. By what yardstick will I be measured in 12 months’ time if I take this position?
  2. Almost everyone is hired to solve an immediate problem.  Assuming I start work tomorrow morning, what pressing problem will I be able to take off your desk?

Both of these questions get you past the job description and into the job expectations.  They will help you find out where the real pressure points are for the new job. They also let your boss-to-be know that you want to work.

 

Something to do today

Write those two questions in your interview preparation notebook.  Practice them in the car right before you go in for the interview.

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Coming up

The Arizona sapphire and your interview

Beating the tests

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Every great leader needs an Ed McMahon. Interview as one.

Posted on July 9, 2013 | Leave a comment

“Here’s Johnny!” Ed McMahon made millions saying that.

Before Jay Leno and David Letterman started doing late night TV there was the great Johnny Carson. Ed McMahon was his assistant.

Ed McMahon spent decades introducing, listening to Johnny Carson, and laughing at his jokes.  His job was to make Carson look good.  He made Carson look smart, witty, and fun. That was also Ed McMahon’s job before and after the show. He made sure a lot of things were taken care of so Carson could focus on more important things like being smart, witty and fun. Ed never forgot his role.  Carson made Ed a multi-millionaire for playing that role.

Whether you are applying for the job of boss or grunt, you need to remember that someone wants you to be their Ed McMahon. They want you to make them look good. They want you to handle a lot of pressing diversions so they can focus on more important matters. You may be called CEO, VP, Manager, Team Leader, or Secretary.  All those jobs are there so you can make someone else look good. The CEO is supposed to make the investors look brilliant.  The secretary is supposed to make her boss look organized and smart.

Can you show how you were an Ed McMahon in your last two jobs? How did you make your last boss look brilliant?

Can you show how you will make your new boss look good and take over a bunch of problems he doesn’t want to deal with?

If you can prove how helpful you are in your interview, you will be a lot closer to being hired than if you merely show you can do everything in the job description.

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Coming up

The most powerful questions

The Arizona sapphire and your interview

Beating the tests

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Posted in Accomplishments, Finding jobs, Focus, Interviews, talent

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How to make your job interview focus on getting you a job

Posted on July 2, 2013 | Leave a comment

In a job interview you have to focus your answers, and you have to focus the questions of your interviewer. In interviews it is easy to focus on the trivial. Here are a couple of quotes that apply:

A chess genius is a human being who focuses vast, little-understood mental gifts and labors on an ultimately trivial human enterprise. (George Steiner)

It’s really hard to design products by focus groups.  A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them. (Steve Jobs)

You the movie – stay focused

What was the last time you went to see a movie made from a book you had read?  They left out a lot of stuff that was in the book, didn’t they?  There just isn’t time to show all the details.  They have to focus their attention on the critical plot.

Employment interviews also need to stay focused. Don’t try to talk about your entire life and career. You need to focus on what the interviewer wants you to be able to do.  Focus on your critical plot. “Tell me about yourself,” should be answered with a short description of your last two jobs and what parts apply to this one.  It will get talk focused on your career plot line.

Often the interviewer has trouble staying focused.  He may be embarrassed to ask you about your experience because he feels like he is prying.  When you start talking about it, he may come alive and ask detailed questions.

Your questions can often pull an interview back on course.  If you are getting a lecture instead of an interview, say something like: “I like what you are saying about my skills being a fit, do you think my experience with (subject) is going to be important?” Sometimes you have to remind an interviewer to ask questions.

If you find yourself talking for more than 2 minutes in reply to a question, stop.  Ask, “Have I told you what you need to know about that question?”  It will allow the interviewer to redirect you down the precise path you need to go.

Don’t take over the interview.  An answer longer than 2 minutes is usually too long. We had one guy in here who wouldn’t let us get a word in edgewise.  He never wound down.  He never stopped pontificating about his wonderful qualities.  Unfortunately he talked about all the wrong stuff.  He came across as arrogant. After an hour he was shown the door and we still did not know what we needed to know.

Sometimes you have to focus your replies and cut your answers short.  Sometimes you have to focus your interviewer and get him to ask questions.  The better you are at getting the focus on your strengths, the more likely you will get the job.

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Coming up

You, as Ed McMahon

The most powerful questions

Beating the tests

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4 things to make the hiring manager believe so you get more

Posted on July 1, 2013 | Leave a comment

Talk about bad hiring interviews.  Here is what happened to the founder of Apple.

So we went to Atari and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us?  Or we’ll give it to you.  We just want to do it.  Pay our salary, we’ll come work for you.’  And they said, ‘No.’ So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, ‘Hey, we don’t need you.  You haven’t got through college yet.’  (Steve Jobs on founding Apple Computers)

Your pay reflects your interview

Two identical openings are being filled.  You are going to be paid just below the listed salary range.  The other candidate, someone with identical experience and the same pay in his previous job, will be paid at the top of the listed salary range and 10% more than you. Why? The interviews.

No recruiter can tell you what you will be paid, not even for working the counter at McDonalds.  The difference in pay reflects how you interview.

Every hiring manager wants you to help with an immediate problem.  They also hope you will help propel them personally to a bigger job and higher income. The trouble is that hiring managers have no crystal ball.  All they have is interviews. So they offer higher pay to the person who impresses them the most in the interview.  If you knock their socks off, they’ll even pay you more than they had budgeted for the position.

Hiring managers want 4 things:

  1. Help with a critical problem right now.
  2. To save money.
  3. To make more money.
  4. To make processes work faster.

If you can convince a manager that you will do all 4 of these things better than anyone on his staff, he’ll pay you very well.

Next we start on how to convince managers you are better than anyone else.

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Coming up

You, the movie – stay focused

You, as Ed McMahon

The most powerful questions

Beating the tests

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Posted in Accomplishments, Interviews, Negotiating, Raises

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How to find out if you really want to join a company

Posted on June 21, 2013 | Leave a comment

Much of the history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good. (Thomas Sowell)

We have a local Fortune 1000 company that has a reputation that makes top local people avoid the company.  That company spends a lot of money on relocating people from out of town.  However, some people love working there.  So how do you decide? Is it a good company for YOU to go to work for?

How to research a company

First off, Google the company and find out all you can about it.  Check out the company website too.  Find the easily accessible information first.

Now start asking people you know.  You can occasionally ask coworkers, but don’t interrogate them weekly about a new company.  Find other people who work there as well as those who used to work there.  If you only ask people who left, you may get a very skewed picture of the company.  The people who left the company, left for a reason.  The people who stayed there, stayed for a reason.  Find out the reasons for both.

If you start hearing a lot of people say they stay for the job security then believe them.  Don’t assume the place reeks for job advancement unless the people you respect who left say the same thing. In other words, believe why people say the stay.  Believe what people say about why they left if you really respect their work and teamwork.

Whether you are using a recruiter for this particular job or not, ask a few recruiters what they think.  You would be surprised what recruiters find out about companies.  We talk to a lot of people who want to quit from, or move to, any given company.  We naturally sift through gossip and sour grapes to find the truth.

Find out what you need to know about a company before the second interview starts.  Be prepared to give a quick “yes”.  If you have your doubts about the company, be prepared with tough questions.  Find out whether you really want to go there or not.  Be ready to “just say no.”

Something to do today

Start talking with people about companies long before you even start to look for a job.  Asking questions is called business intelligence.  Be intelligent.

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Coming up

The jobs on my resume

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Posted in Interviews, Networking, Recruiters

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