Blog

A few pointers to consider before meeting somebody for lunch interview.

Do some background checking online who you are meeting and make sure you have their phone number.Be sure you know the place and be punctual. Better be overdressed, adapt to the restaurant. Firm hand shake for greetings, eye contact and smile. Table manners are important, chose something easy to eat (not spaghetti), neither the cheapest nor most expensive. The food is secondary. Keep off alcohol.

Have a few light chit-chat topics ready from the news, sports, hobbies, food talk etc. Do not feel though you need to filling in the silence gaps all the time. Smile a lot and when talking, look at the person in the eyes.

Practice brief introduction about yourself, why you moved here and there, milestones
⇒ Help them understand you better.

Key strengths vs job criteria
Highlight these and give example briefly with figures to back up if necessary
⇒ Help them assess the match

Think through your expectations as not to be taking by surprise if they talk about these. Do not open this topic first. If questioned, be vague, get them to put down figures down first. Ask for package details etc
⇒ Flexibility without closing nor breaking

Prepare questions as if you were meeting a company for first time as a consultant.
⇒ Show motivation and intelligence

Ask for next steps before departing
Send thank you email

Too many people maintain their CV by adding their latest experience to the next, layer on layer. Take some distance and review your CV asking : Does this really reflect my accomplishments from my current job? Is this the message I want to portray for this position? Does this really relay my true value?

The truth is you only have a few seconds to impress employers. Hiring managers only care about the value you have to offer as a candidate. Here are four things employers will notice immediately when they read your resume:

1. Keyword research

First and foremost, employers want to know if you are qualified for the job. Hiring managers spend most of their time skimming through resumes to identify keywords that match the job description.

Each time you apply for a job, carefully dissect the job posting. Create a list of skills, knowledge, and experience required for the position that match your experience. After you have created a list, identify the strongest matches. These will be the keywords you will use throughout your resume.

2. Embellished skills

As you write your resume, be careful not to include keywords, skills, or experience that do not genuinely reflect your abilities as a professional. To avoid this mistake, include supporting achievements with each position.

3. Overall career story/progression

Give the hiring managers a career story to read. This story helps them understand your motivation quickly and identify your fit.

Make sure your resume outlines the key responsibilities you have held in each position and highlight your progression/promotion. While job titles are often played down, they do give the employer an idea of the type of experience you have had over time.

4. Personal brand and online presence

Hiring managers want to see your personal web presence because it gives them the opportunity to learn more about your network and person. Make sure your LinkedIn profile is also up-to-date and your Tweets professional.

While this might seem like a lot, many hiring managers will digest this information in 30 seconds or less. By following these tips, you will create a stand-out resume that will get you noticed by employers in a positive way.

There can be conflicting advice when it comes to preparing your CV; some people suggest getting creative with paper, fonts and formatting to stand out (my experience tells me recruiters don’t like that much), while others stress making sure your resume has keywords that are machine scannable (not as important as human readability). So here are the classic rules for preparing your CV / résumé (shorter).

Do:

• Review professionally written resume samples to familiarize yourself with what a strong resume looks like and contains.
• Make your resume is as easy to read as possible, using bullets, a font size that’s comfortable to read, and so on.
• Customize your resume based on the position for which you are applying.
• Include a career objective that is focused on what you can do for the employer — not what you hope to gain from the position.
• List your past positions in reverse chronological order.
• Include for each job: title/position, name of employer, city/state of employer, dates of employment.
• Include measurable results you achieved at each job rather than listing job duties.
• Lead with action words instead of passive words. Avoid the word “work.”
• Include publications, patents, presentations, honors, relevant volunteer experiences, and professional licenses or certifications, especially if they pertain to the position.
• Emphasize transferable skills, especially when changing industries.
• Provide relevant contact information including one phone number, email address, website, and city.
• Proofread meticulously.
• Consider including a “summary of qualifications” or “profile” at the top of your resume to provide a clear focus.
• Test how your resume will look when emailed or submitted online, as well as printed.

  Don’t:

• Put the word “RESUME” or “CV” at the top.
• Copy any part of a resume sample posted online word-for-word.
• Worry too much about the old one-page resume rule, especially if you have a lot of experience or are using more of a CV format. But make sure that the first page can stand alone if the pages get separated.
• Provide personal data like marital status, date of birth, height, weight, etc.
• Repeat the same action word over and over again. Find different ways to say the same thing.
• List your job duties. (focus on accomplishments.)
• Go into detail on howyou achieved results at each job. Save that for the interview.
• Use a lot of acronyms or jargon, especially if you’re changing fields.
• Don’t abbreviate words that aren’t normally abbreviated, even to save space.
• Emphasize experience more than 15 years old.
• Bother to list high school or secondary school if you have college or university experience.
• List a funny or crude email address; get a new one for business use if necessary.
• List references on your resume; have them on a separate document, and only provide them when requested.
• Include hobbies or skills that have nothing to do with the position.
• Sacrifice clarity or readability for creativity when it comes to format.
• Print on colored paper.
• Use graphics.

It’s important for you to know that the highest salary increases come when you move to a new employer and negotiate a new package.

Today’s employers are being tricky when they make a job offer. They often beginning with a low-ball salary offer, but many hiring managers do make a 2nd or 3rd offer if a candidate seems unwilling to accept the first one they put on the table. At the end of the day a few k more for the ‘right’ one is not a big deal, right?

A key thing for you to understand the employers situation, if the previous occupant of the job has already left, how long they have been looking, get a feel for the urgency and where it is hurting them most.

Employers are finding it much harder to find talented employees to hire. Why? The employer sees a lot of applicants that just aren’t qualified to do the job. When they do find a good fit, they worry the person won’t take the position. Numerous hiring managers are now saying they must pay more to get the right talent. Many are doing just that.

Here are some guidelines to go about asking for more salary.

Know what your skills are worth.  Don’t guess, KNOW! People often exaggerate with their salaries. It is a big mistake to believe such talks. Yes, it can happen you were underpaid at your last or current job, often when you have been with the same employer over several years and mostly got small cost of living raises. You can check with your professional association – almost all publish salary ranges based on job title and experience level. Another online sites have pay scales though use this only as guide lines. Likewise, if relocation is a necessary part, use online tools to compare housing costs, and earnings levels in different regions, etc.

Whoever mentions money first loses. To preserve your negotiation power it’s critical to never reveal what your salary is (or was).  Plan for these salary questions and arm yourself with appropriate answers that always keep an employer guessing. For example, an ambitious woman was too open in her interview and told the hiring manager her true salary, which was low because promises of raises had never materialized at her current job. As she found out later through her friend at that company, once the hiring manager heard the low figure of her current employer paid her, he changed his opinion of her and downgraded all of her achievements and abilities.

Not Trying is a BIG mistake.  Some people never even try to negotiate at all. Women are particularly unskilled and most accept the 1st offer, which is one of the key factors in why women are still paid less than men. Too many people today simply accept the offer as given. Prepare in advance what you’ll say ONCE the offer has been made. Knowing what the average salary is for your job level should allow you to have a realistic idea of what range you are in. Asking for a bit more and then offering 4-5 good reasons why they need your talents, will help convince the employer that you would be a valuable addition to their team and are worth paying up for.

Drawn from an article by Robin Ryan

A candidate called in a panic needing job search help because his employer had suddenly decided to eliminate his job after 16 years of great performance there. This person sadly learned that there is no job security anymore. No one is immune. Layoffs continually happen with automating now being a factor in replacing people. Seniority is no longer the yardstick when employers are cutting back. This insecure environment makes many employees feel powerless over their long-term future security, and pessimistic concerning their career.

The average worker will change jobs about every 4 years, or put differently have about 10-12 job changes over their working lifetime. Whether you seek to just keep your job, aspire for a promotion, or want a new position, begin today to prepare to safeguard your future.

Practicing these five steps will help you control your future and remain in the driver’s seat of your career and livelihood.

1. Keep progress reports of your accomplishments and update your resume every six months or so. Keep track of new duties, cost saving measures, and projects you have completed. Especially note any specific results. Make a list each month to include any new professional accomplishments in your work, service organization, associations or community service. Your records should also include new training acquired. Update your resume to reflect these accomplishments so that when a good career opportunity comes along you’ll be ready to go after it quickly. Also keep copies of emails and letters of praise for jobs and projects well done. Good performance evaluations can also be used to attest to your abilities and attributes – be sure you have a copy of these at home.

2. Choose visible projects. Getting noticed sometimes means volunteering for a committee or dreaming up new projects. Ideas you might implement could include: new office procedures that streamline paper flow, hiring new staff, conducting presentations or training sessions, working on a special projects with upper level executives and other departments. Seek out projects that will be recognized as valuable to management as well as attractive to competitive employers. Remember many accomplishments derived from new projects are a result of your suggesting the idea to your boss or company initially.

3. Develop your list of skills and acquire new ones. Do not be appear complacent. Employers look for people who are flexible, constantly learning who produce results. List all your present skills and abilities acquired through work, associations, and community service. Target two new skills to obtain in the next year either through reading books, manuals, taking classes or just some extra on-the-job training. Employers value computer skills, communication skills (both verbal and written), team building ability, leadership and technical expertise. Select one or two skills that will add to job mastery and work to perfect them in the upcoming year.

4. Develop your network. Promotions can come from networking well inside your company. And it’s also nice to know that using contacts are how two-thirds of all people find their jobs. Continuously develop your professional contacts. Keep track of old bosses and coworkers when they move to new companies through your LinkedIn account. Start collecting business cards at meetings, association events, and conferences– anywhere you meet others. When you decide to move up or on, your network is the most powerful asset you have to accomplish that goal.

5. Keep an eye on the job market. Great jobs are often heard of by word of mouth (80% are never formally advertised). You must be able to respond and apply quickly. Once or twice a month checkout the jobs listing on your professional association website and LinkedIn. A new job often brings a much higher salary if you negotiate strategically so be open to applying for new opportunities as they arise.

This may be the hardest. Map out a plan of what you want for your career at this stage of your life and outline the steps you need to make yourself a highly desirable employee – the perfect way to safeguard your future forever.

inspired by Robin Ryan, Career Counselor

“So why do you want this job?” Answering that question should be really easy! Often the answers are:
Well, I want a job…
• I want to work…
• I want to pay the mortgage/rent….
• I want a promotion, it’s a bigger job…
• I hate the job I’m in, I need to do something different…
• My family are moving so I need to change jobs…
• I got made redundant…
• I’m a bit bored…
• I like the sound of it…
I could go on.

The difficulty with all of those answers is that they may well be true and they may well explain why you have applied for a new job but they do not tell the interviewer any good reason why you should have the job. When you are going for an interview or applying for a job you need to give the interview compelling reasons for giving you the job and that starts with the basic question: Why do you want it?

So how do you give them that compelling reason? By treating this question as an opportunity for your sales pitch. By thinking about what it is that the interviewer wants in a candidate and what it is that they need to hear.
Ever been turned down for a job because you did not sound very enthusiastic? Been told that they were not sure if you really wanted it? It is actually a pathetic bit of feedback to give someone. Surely the correct logic is that they offer and if you don’t want it, you turn it down. If you are the best person for the job they should offer, but, it happens, so you need to make sure that it does not apply to you. This is your chance to sound enthusiastic, if not actually passionate, but how do you do that without sounding gushing and false?

Here are 4 key steps to selling yourself into that job:

When you are asked about why you have applied for this role, why you want it etc… start with:

 Step 1:
‘This is a great company /organisation because…….’ Everyone likes to be flattered, so tell them why you think they are a good company, what it is you like about the company….

Step 2:
Describe the challenges of the role, even if it is a job that is pretty routine. What are the issues they face in getting someone to do the role well?

Step 3:
Tell them the things that float your boat, the things you have just been doing, the challenges you really enjoy and give some brief examples.

Step 4:
Think about why they might not want to hire you and refute their logic.

This is an example of what one could say during an interview:
I think the Co-op is a great organisation, I admire their ethical stance and I was very impressed when they had no issues over horse meat. That’s the sort of company I’d like to be in. I know you need staff who can work long hours, who are good with customers and who will make sure that there is no pending backlog. I really enjoy working with customers, helping them find things, explaining the difference between products and I hate leaving the office before all issues are covered.  It’s really important to me to be on-top-of-my-work, when I worked at ABC I tried also to meet every customer as to improve the relationship! It has been a while since I have done this work but I don’t think you lose the passion to please the customer – I haven’t.

Remember this is your sales pitch and this is where you can bring together your knowledge of them and your enthusiasm. It is all about why they are great to work for not why you need the job.

This article was written by MARY HOPE

1. Are you currently recruiting or selecting?

Recruitment is about attracting people, being in a position to work out whether they are what you want and whether they want you. Some organisations have more applications than they can handle without actively looking, some need to advertise, and some use services of  professionals and outsource.

Selection is picking, from those you’ve attracted, people who can do the job you need doing.

Decide where you need to spend money, is it finding people at all, selecting ones you want from people you already know, making sure the ones you want also want you or some combination.

2. Do you know what you want?

You can talk (and people do, endlessly) about hiring for attitude and training for skill, competence frameworks, the relative values of experience and education or, as Warren Buffet says, factors like intelligence and energy (that you can usually measure pretty accurately and simply) and integrity (which is more important, but a lot harder to measure at all). But if you don’t actually know what you want, you’re likely to end up with someone you find you don’t want, or that can’t do the job that you only discover wants doing when you find they can’t do it.
That means doing some job analysis to identify what you need so that you can match it to what potential hires can supply. Otherwise they may bring in great skills that you have no use for, like fantastic intelligence and energy and lack the one thing you really need, like integrity.

The identification needs to come first – it’s a bit like DIY paintwork, if you prepare properly rub the surface down, clean it etc. anybody can paint it tolerably well. Similarly, if you’ve got a clear idea of what you need in the organisation (whether it is competences, natural attributes, a description of a contribution to the team, whatever) then you’ve got a foundation. If you have a flaky, greasy surface then Rembrandt couldn’t make it look good. In the same way, if you just see what you’ve got and who impresses you when people turn up, you’re not likely to add much to the organisation with the new hire.

And if all you’ve got is a “job description” that requires undefined and potentially vague attributes that frequently represent opposite ends of the scale for real people (like somebody with critical, analytical intelligence that is good with detail allied to a sunny confidence and optimistic outlook and a strategic view) you’re likely to be disappointed with whatever you get.

3. 
   Do you rely on CVs, resumes and the like for a basic opinion?

They are marketing documents. When coaching candidates, the standard advice is to make yourself sound like superman or wonder woman on your CV, to make sure you get an interview. As a buyer, you wouldn’t purchase just on the company’s marketing material, or even believe most of the claims. Why buy a person on, or be influenced by, their marketing material?

4. Analyse your hiring and keep good records.

It’s very hard (for many reasons) to calculate return on investment (ROI) on projects involving people. But keep records of the costs of hiring, the costs of high turnover, of failure to perform and do exit interviews – they tell you where you’re losing people you wanted to keep. The data allow you to work out what it costs to get it wrong – and so how much it’s potentially worth spending to get it right.

Many people think they are great interviewers and selectors of staff, because they don’t have too many failures, everybody they hire performs at least adequately. Of course they don’t know how the people they didn’t hire would have done and usually have no real idea of the performance of those they did, because they don’t have any decent records. And human memory is selective, we remember our successes and forget failures (that’s why all gamblers think they’re making money).

You can try to play safe with selection and hire the people who have done the job before and were paid big money by somebody else, which sounds fine, but it can mean that you miss potential stars who would be great but you won’t give them the chance. It also means that you may hire people who have done the job adequately or badly somewhere else (if they were fantastic, why are they leaving and why are the employers letting them go?). The banks are a good example, they pay the “top people” a fortune because they make huge profits, but, let’s be honest, a gibbon in a nappy could make millions at a bank they have a licence to print money. The real test is whether the second string – or the ones the system rejected for “lack of experience at the top level” – who are much cheaper to employ could make as much or more money, and make it more safely!

Drawn up from an article by Kim Stephenson

Lou Adler: “It’s what you do with what you have that makes you successful, not what you have.”

Long ago, I was a full-time executive recruiter. At one meeting for a VP Marketing search for an industrial products company, I was given 30 minutes to make my pitch. In the room was the CEO plus all of his senior staff. To start the session, I was handed a piece of paper gloriously titled “VP Marketing – Job Description.” I was asked to read it and describe why my firm was entitled to the fee for finding the person. I glanced at it for less than 30 seconds, crumbled it up and tossed it the wastebasket six feet away in the corner.

Swish. (I actually missed the basket, but the point was made.)

I then said, “That is not a job description. What you handed me is a person description. A job description is what a person needs to do. A person description is what a person needs to have. If you’d like me to handle this assignment, tell me what the person in the job must do to be considered successful. More important, if we can prove the person is capable and motivated to do this using a Performance-based Interview, you’ll discover the person has exactly the skills and experiences necessary.”

Since I didn’t get tossed out at that moment, I used the next few minutes to make the following case that the use of skills- and experience-laden job descriptions were useless for advertising, screening, selection and hiring.

Why Skills-infested Job Descriptions Prevent Companies from Seeing and Hiring Stronger Talent

• I asked if they had ever met a person for any job who had all of the skills required, but who wasn’t a top performer. They all agreed this was a common problem.
• I then asked if they had ever met a top performer for any job who didn’t have all of the skills and experiences listed on the job description. They all enthusiastically agreed.
• I then asked a trick question. It went something like, “Would you agree that a high potential person has less skills and experiences than an average performer? The reason a person is a high potential person is because they accomplish more with less skills.” The CEO enthusiastically agreed.
• I then concluded my opening remarks with the statement, “It’s what you do with what you have that makes you successful, not what you have. So let’s define what the person needs to do before we define what the person needs to have.” They enthusiastically agreed.
• I then asked, “What does the person in the VP Marketing role need to accomplish in the first 6-12 months in order for everyone in this room to agree you’ve hired an outstanding person?

We soon had six performance objectives listed on the whiteboard. I pulled the original job description out of the wastebasket, unwrinkled it and asked, “Who would you rather hire, someone who could achieve the results listed on the whiteboard, or someone who has all of the skills listed on the original description?”

“Results” won by acclamation.

Six weeks later, they hired someone who went on to accomplish all of the objectives listed. Over the next four years, my firm placed eight other executives with the company using the exact same process. A number of years later the CEO told me that the only hiring mistake he subsequently made was when he didn’t prepare the type of performance-based job descriptions we suggested at that first meeting. He has never violated this rule since. You shouldn’t either.

Here are just a few reasons why every company should banish skills- and experience-based job descriptions from existence:

• They preclude the hiring of high potential candidates.
• They preclude meeting great people who have all of the skills listed since the jobs appear to be lateral transfers.
• It’s problematic if the person hired will be motivated to do the work required, if they don’t know what work is required before they’re hired.
• They prevent the hiring of diversity candidates who by definition have diverse backgrounds.
• They force the hiring of people for economic rather than career reasons.
• They are discriminatory if there are people who can do the work who don’t have the skills listed.
• They ensure the talent shortage will never be closed.

Fixing all of these hiring problems starts with getting a very big wastebasket. Then when opening a new job requisition, ask, “What does the person need to do in order to be considered successful?”

This article was written by Lou Adler

Not only the people over 50 worry that they’ll be considered overqualified for the job.
Until now, you may have believed that it was a good thing to have lots of skills and an over-abundance of job experience. After all, you’ve worked hard over the years to build that portfolio and to earn every line on your resume. In the sometimes-backwards world of the job hunt, that gold-plated resume may actually be sending up red flags to your prospective employer.

The manager may be concerned that you won’t be willing to accept direction, that you’ll get bored or that you won’t work well with co-workers, or that you’ll continue to look for a more senior-level (and higher-paying) position. Or, the real reason could have something more to do with your age. (Not that you’ll hear about it: for legal reasons, most prospective employers are a bit more delicate about insinuating that you’re too old, or that you’ll be retiring in a few years).

When you first hear the feedback that you’re “overqualified,” it may feel like a slap in the face. You may wonder how it could possibly get worse.

Fortunately, you can take action to correct the stigma, and to overcome those “overqualified blues”:

1. Resume: Trim it down. Only focus on those skills that are relevant to the current job opportunity. You may also consider reworking your resume into a more skills-focused or platform-focused document (making sure that you’re addressing the job requirements that are relevant in your background). Also list all technology credentials, including recent training and certifications. Consider designing multiple versions of your resume, specifically targeting varying levels of experience. That way, it’ll be ready to go when you need it — perfectly proofed.
2. Words: Be aware of those tell-tale signs that you’ve been around a while (and/or that you’re nearing retirement). Those potentially problematic buzzwords can creep into your resume, cover letter, and interview. You may reference your years of experience, or an event that happened before the hiring manager was even born. If the “overqualified” feedback is associated at all with your age (or ability to learn), focus instead on recent innovations you’ve incorporated into your work, writing, or life. Using the research you’ve already conducted on the company, you can also specifically reference how you would use what you’ve learned to benefit the company.
3. Education: Leave the Ph.D. or M.B.A. off your resume and cover letter, unless it’s required for the job. Those few extra letters could make prospective employers fear that your advanced degree is also indicative of your career goals (which may run counter to their job offering).
4. Salary: You must address the money question, head-on. When pay is the “elephant in the room”. Do not sound desperate. Sound flexible. Sound realistic. Assure the prospective employer that salary is not your only or most-important consideration, and that you’re looking at other factors (like passion, co-workers, etc.) in your ideal workplace.
5. Acceptance: Ultimately, if you’ve addressed all the potential concerns, and your name still didn’t make the cut, there may be more to the decision than simply your over-abundance of skills and experience. You can get upset, or depressed, but the reality is still going to be the same. You didn’t get a job. Let yourself feel the loss (it’s inevitable, particularly if you loved the job, and thought you’d be the perfect fit). Then, move on. Go back to your job search with the same passion — the next one may just be your dream job.

While most of these techniques will get you past the hiring manager’s initial qualms, sometimes, you’ll still wind up with the “overqualified’ label. Instead of getting the blues, or feeling like a failure, celebrate the wealth of knowledge that you’ve earned. It’s not always easy, but if you’re able to focus on the positive, you’ll find more opportunities right around the corner.