The Questions You Need to Ask in an Interview

7 Jul

We all know that when you’re interviewing for a job, it’s all about the answers you give. Right?

If that was true, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

Sure, answering questions that show your experience, knowledge and general ability to string two sentences together back-to-back is an important part of the interview process. But don’t let yourself be fooled into thinking it’s the only part that matters. Toward the end of almost every interview there comes a time when the interviewer will look at you and say “So, do you have any questions for me?” While there are many right answers to this question, there is only one wrong one (hint: it starts with n and rhymes with dough.)

The floor has been opened up to you for questions – this is your time to shine! So why do so many people fail at the very moment when they should be soaring? Simple preparation. Putting the time and energy into coming up with some compelling questions will pay dividends. Knowing this, what kinds of questions should you be asking? How can you ensure that you’re standing out and that you sound like the smart, hungry, savvy professional you know you are? Fear not, friends, for I have put together some questions that are guaranteed to not make you look like an idiot (and some that are guaranteed to do the opposite). These aren’t the only questions you should be asking, and they aren’t even questions that you should necessarily be asking at every interview. But they are some ideas to get your brain working. The questions I like best are the ones that put you squarely into the position in the interviewer’s mind. Instead of asking about benefits or making small-talk about how the interviewer came to the company (which isn’t a horrible question, by the way), create a solid image in the mind of the interviewer of you in the job. Here are some questions that do just that.

  • Day one, what is the most important project/task that you would have me tackle? What’s the most urgent fire that needs putting out?
  • What do you think would be my biggest hurdle in handling this task?
  • Six months into my time here, what has to have happened for you to know you made the right decision in hiring me?

On the other hand, if you find that you really don’t want the job after all and want to make sure you don’t get called in for the next round, here are some great questions to help you achieve your objective.

  • So what are the hours here? Will I need to put in a lot of overtime?
  • I’m looking to keep my stress level down. This isn’t a high-pressure environment, is it?
  • Are there any hot chicks/guys that work here? I’m single, you know.

This is not meant to be an exhaustive list by any stretch. There are so many great questions you can use to place yourself in the job and to create the image of you and the hiring manager working together.  And there are even more questions that you can use to ensure that you lose the job. Another solid line of questions would be around specific news about the company. Check your potential employer’s website, Google the company name for any press releases or articles. If there’s been a major announcement, launch, or change recently you want to make sure you know about it before you walk in the door. And you want to make sure you ask about its impact on the company and/or your function.

By positioning yourself as committed, curious, and genuinely engaged, you can help to create the impression you want to make in an interview. And since your questions will usually be at the end of the meeting, this is your chance to end things on your terms. You get to shape the last impression that your interviewer walks away with. So what are you going to do with this opportunity? Are you going to run with it and be the star that you know you can be, or are you going to say “Nope. I think we pretty much covered everything already.”

It’s up to you.

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How to Stand Out (the Right Way) at a Job Fair

5 Jul

For years, I held onto the notion that job fairs were a complete waste of time for everyone involved. For job seekers it was a waste because you get to meet a bunch of companies that you probably don’t want to work for, and have to suffer through your “elevator pitch” and your whole dog-and-pony show for each one. Then as a reward for your efforts you get to go home with more company-logo pens and flash drives than you know what to do with, never to hear from anyone again.

For employers, job fairs were a chance to meet candidates who were either not qualified for anything, or at least not qualified for anything you were hiring, and who probably don’t know what they’re looking for and are generally clueless about how to get a job in the first place – I mean, why else would they be at a job fair in the first place?

Yes, to me job fairs were something that companies felt obligated to attend and that job seekers felt were a legitimate way to feel like they were taking action on their job searches.

I don’t feel that way anymore. I did some real thinking about the few job fairs that I’ve attended as an employer/recruiter, and what I’ve discovered is that if I thought they were a waste of time I wouldn’t have been there in the first place. I’m sure that there are some that are still a complete waste of time and energy for everyone involved, but I’ve gotten some great candidates from job fairs.

What made them so great? What allowed the good ones to stand out from the crowd? It’s actually pretty simple. So job seeker, here are some things you can do to ensure that you’re making a good impression at a job fair. Be warned in advance, this isn’t rocket science.

  1. Dress appropriately. This doesn’t always mean a suit, and it never means a suit that looks like you borrowed it from your mom or dad (splurge on a good tailor – it’s so worth it). It means know the field. If it’s a general job fair, a suit never hurts. But if it’s for a more casual industry such as technology, you can still look nice. Don’t look like you just rolled out of bed. And don’t smell like the bar from last night.
  2. Focus your efforts. I’ve seen job seekers go from table to table at a job fair, talking to all kinds of companies that are all looking for something different. Do yourself a favor and skip the ones that aren’t right for you. Not looking for an overly corporate environment? Stay away from the big banks. Want to work at a startup company? Just talk to the startups. Each time you give your pitch to a new table, you lose some energy and enthusiasm. Don’t waste it on the companies you don’t really want. Save it for when you want to be your best self.
  3. Know what you want to say. Have your pitch rehearsed and ready to go. Be able to talk what you do and what you’re looking for quickly and effectively. Know what you want to ask (hint: it’s more along the lines of “as an employer, what differentiates you from Competitor X” than “So, um, what do you guys do?”) This isn’t an interview, it’s an in-person cover letter.
  4. Bring your resume. You’d be shocked by how many people don’t do this. Shocked.
  5. Follow up, but not too much. Recruiters at job fairs are inundated with faces and names, and generally will be pretty judicious about giving their contact information/business cards out. If you get someone’s email address or phone number, it probably means they wouldn’t mind hearing from you. Once, or twice at the outside. Before you call or email, make sure you’ve gone through the appropriate steps with the company. Check out their job openings on the corporate site, apply through the right channels, and THEN you can contact whomever you met at the job fair, let them know you’ve applied and thank them for their time at the event. If they were truly interested, they’ll remember you and will get back to you. If they don’t get back to you after 1 or 2 communications, they were never that into you in the first place.

Job fairs can be great tools in your job search arsenal. But like any tool, they’re only as effective as their user. Following these basic but often overlooked tips can help you to make sure you don’t get lost in the crowd at your next job fair. So before you head out to your next one, just do yourself a favor and think for a minute. Recruiters remember the best and the worst, and forget most of the middle. So think about whether, and how, you want to be remembered.

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Absence Makes the Search Grow Harder – The Stigma of Extended Unemployment

30 Jun

I received the following email from a reader who is concerned about the current state of her job search:

“I don’t know if you’ve heard the recent debate/theory over whether companies avoid reviewing or hiring job applicants who are or appear to be out of work for a long period of time. I’ve been out of work since last November and I find as the months go on I’m getting fewer responses from companies I submit my resume to. What is your take on this? I try to keep myself current with professional development classes and side work, but wonder if I am missing something.”

I can tell you that I am intimately familiar with this school of thought, and have been guilty of subscribing to it from time to time. I’m not proud of the fact, but it’s a fact nonetheless.

In many circles, conventional wisdom dictates that in a healthy job market, the “good” candidates are employed while the “undesirables” remain on the market. This line of thinking is more prevalent than I’d like to admit, and is certainly responsible for keeping some very qualified people out of work longer than they should be. It’s a self-serving and self-sustaining principle, in that it can falsely create the appearance of a more severe talent shortage than actually exists – while employers are busy trying to poach employees from one another, a sizable population of unemployed and qualified candidates goes un-noticed. The longer this goes on, the more unemployable the unemployed start to appear and the more heated the battle for the employed becomes.

In long-term good economies, I think there’s certainly some validity to this theory – in a good job market, the qualified candidates will get jobs in relatively short order while the less qualified will remain unemployed. The past few years, however, have thrown a few monkey wrenches into the equation. In early 2010, for instance, it wasn’t uncommon at all to find very qualified candidates in a variety of fields who had been out of work since late 2008 when the market fell apart. These unfortunate souls were among the first casualties of the recession, and found that things only got worse as they remained unemployed. So as recently as a year ago, many of these long-term unemployed were considered readily hirable and perfectly untainted by their hiatuses. As the market began to pick up in 2010 and into 2011, however, the old thinking about the unemployed started to creep back into the psyches of recruiters and hiring managers alike. The thinking was “if nobody else wants them, why should I? I don’t want someone else’s rejects.” I know these are harsh words, and they may sting. But I want to make sure you know the reality of what you’re dealing with – it’s not pleasant, and it’s not an easy thing to overcome. I’m not saying that it’s right, mind you. I’m just saying that it’s there.

So how can someone combat these harmful negative perceptions? What can you do to not make yourself appear so unwanted? The answer is simple. Work.

“But HR Dave, it was as easy as that we wouldn’t be having this conversation!”

A fair statement, but I’m not talking about working in a regular job for a regular employer. I’m talking about finding a way to do something that’s worthy of putting on your resume. If you’re an accountant, offer to do your friends’ taxes. If you’re in marketing, find someone who’s starting a business somewhere and offer your services for free or almost free. If you’re a shepherd just go find a flock somewhere and tag along to make sure no sheep get away. Trust me, no matter your profession there are people who would love to take advantage of your services. Especially if they’re free.

Once you’ve found your opportunity, frame it in a way that will make employers take notice. At the top of the “experience” portion of your resume, put the company name “(Your Initials) Marketing/Accounting/Shepherding/Whatever it is that you do.” Then list your position as “Consultant.” Then put the dates in from whenever you became unemployed until present. Then bullet-point your tasks, responsibilities and accomplishments just as you did for your other positions. If you find more than one “client” to take on, you can list your multiple clients to make it clear that you haven’t just been sitting around.

Once you have this on your resume, you’ll never guess what happens. All of a sudden you’ve gone from the chronically unemployed to an entrepreneurial go-getter whose services are in demand. Now that’s something that companies are looking to hire.

In addition to the usual comments and questions I would like to open up the comments section on this post as a sort of classified ad. If anyone is unemployed and has a service they would like to offer, let it be known below. If anyone is in need of a service for your business of any size, let it be known. In the spirit of community, we can all keep our eyes open for opportunities to be matchmakers. We can do that, can’t we?

Do you have a question you’d like to see answered on this site? Send an email to HR.Dave1@gmail.com.

Questions or comments about this topic? Please leave them below.

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Opinions are Like Cover Letters – Everybody Has One, and Most of Them are Wrong

28 Jun

Ah, the magical cover letter. We slave over our sentence structure, we toil over getting just the right words. We stress over balancing the “what’s in it for me” with the “what’s in it for you”. We ask ourselves:

“What’s another word for excited?”

“Does it sound too forward to say that I’m positive I can make a contribution, or should I stick with confident?”

“If I say ‘seasoned’ does it make me sound old? Or like food?”

The age-old questions we ask ourselves are, for the most part, moot. I’ll tell you why.

First, let me qualify this opinion piece by stating that it’s exactly that: an opinion. I’m sure that there are plenty of experts out there who will disagree with me, and I hope they do (and I hope they comment – I love comments!) But for the moment I have the floor; so I shall pontificate.

In my opinion…

There are two Universal Truths about cover letters (and by universal I mean, well, more often than not. And I capitalize the words to give myself and my opinions an inflated sense of importance – don’t judge.) These two Universal Truths are:

  1. Cover letters don’t matter.
  2. A cover letter will never get you a job, but it can certainly lose you one.

I certainly don’t mean to say that if an employer asks you for a cover letter that you should refuse. (And if you needed me to tell you that, your problems are bigger than your cover letter.) I’m just saying that 9 out of 10 recruiters that I know don’t read them, and 10 out of 10 recruiters that I know don’t pass them along to hiring managers.

I’ve said before that if you have something specific you want to say, you should say it in your cover letter. If you’re relocating, especially at your own expense and very soon, this should be mentioned. If, um, well, I can’t really think of another example of something that would make a cover letter necessary, but I’m sure there must be one.

Amendment to Universal Truth #1: if you’re moving into the area where the job is, please disregard this truth.

Now, on to Universal Truth #2. I have NEVER read a resume of someone who was unqualified for the job and thought “well, if they have a great cover letter I’ll reconsider.” Never happened; never will.  However, I have on several occasions read a resume of a qualified candidate, then moved on to the cover letter out of curiosity, and have promptly removed that candidate from consideration. Maybe there was one too many typos. Maybe s/he had the name of the wrong company or the letter was addressed to someone I had never heard of. Maybe s/he couldn’t string two sentences together coherently or couldn’t conjugate verbs. Maybe s/he used a background on the document that contained butterflies, skulls, unicorns, stars, or any combination of these. The bottom line is that there are so many things that can go wrong with a cover letter that at times it hardly seems worth it. On the flip side, unless you’re an exceptionally gifted writer, your letter has very little chance of coming off as anything but generic. Wit is a dangerous thing in a cover letter – you never know who’s reading it or how they’ll take your jokes.  So if the best you can hope for is forgettable, is it really worth a ton or stress and time to make it “perfect?”

I know that, despite my efforts to remove cover letters from the business vocabulary, you’ll likely have to write several during a job search. With this in mind, here are my best tips for how to make your letter as good as it can possibly be.

  1. Address it to the correct company. Please.
  2. Keep it brief. No more than a couple of well thought out paragraphs.
  3. Outline two things: why you want the job and why you’re right for the job.
  4. Don’t repeat your resume. They’ve already read that.
  5. Try to keep it conversational – this is your chance to show your personality.
  6. Don’t show too much personality. Failed attempts at humor are deadly in cover letters.
  7. If your personality sucks, ignore #6 and stick to a very business-like tone.
  8. Read it out loud. If it doesn’t sound good out loud, it doesn’t look good in writing.
  9. Proofread it. Check for spelling, grammar, punctuation, sentence structure. Spellcheck is your worst enemy. Just because there are no red squiggly lines doesn’t mean it’s right.
  10. Proofread it. Again. You missed something the first time. Trust me.

If you’ve followed these steps, you probably are now sitting in front of a document that is inoffensive, vanilla, and could have come from 1000 different candidates. If that’s what you have, congratulations! You have a perfect cover letter.

Now go send that puppy out – recruiters everywhere are waiting to not read it.

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“Thanks for Applying, But the Job is Filled.” What’s the Deal?

24 Jun

A reader wrote in with a question about her job search experience. It’s an issue that many of us have probably faced, and the answer is more hopeful than you probably thought. She writes:

I’ve just started looking for a job and have applied for just a few, but I’ve already heard, “Thanks for applying, I reviewed your resume and you sound great! Unfortunately, the position was filled a few weeks ago. I will definitely keep you in mind for future opportunities…” Needless to say, I don’t want to waste any more time applying for jobs that have been filled. It’s frustrating and time-consuming, considering the time it takes to write cover letters, tailor resumes, etc.

First of all, bravo for taking the time to actually write cover letters, customize your resume to the specific job, and all of the steps that make a job search feel like, well, work. These steps are the difference between making the right impression and making no impression at all. Kudos to you for realizing what needs to be done and just doing it.

“But HR Dave,” I hear at least one person thinking (yes, I’m a part-time psychic), “what’s the point of all the work if I’m just getting rejected anyway? Can’t I get rejected on a lot less effort?” The short answer is yes. The real answer is slightly more complicated.

The fact is that even though you’re getting rejected, the kind of rejection is what matters here. That a recruiter took the time to respond at all is a good sign that you’re applying to the right companies and the right jobs. The fact that you’re getting feedback like “you sound great” and “will definitely keep you in mind” should actually be very encouraging. You could just as easily, or more easily, be getting canned responses like “Dear Candidate, Thank you for your interest. Unfortunately we are not able to move forward with your candidacy at this time. Best of luck in your search. Sincerely, Auto-response.” Considering the fact that most people are getting the latter, you’re way ahead of the curve. The recruiter who sent that email is actually pretty likely to mean what he/she said. You will be kept in mind. You did sound great. These are things to feel good about.

The question about how to find out if a job is really open is a tough one to answer. There are a multitude of reasons that jobs you’re seeing online might not be current. Some companies and recruiters just forget to take postings down. Sometimes companies leave a posting up even when there’s no immediate need if it’s a position they think they’ll have open in the future or one that comes up frequently. Sometimes you’re just getting your data from bad sources. Third party job sites like Monster aren’t always up to date – A job could have been posted, filled, and just not taken off the site. Other job boards like Indeed aggregate postings from a multitude of sources and are often out-dated, since they’re drawing from third party sites and corporate sites alike.

So what are some hints as to whether a job is actually open? Some recruiters make it easier than others to find out. The more digitally active recruiters are easy to find on Linkedin or Twitter, and are usually posting and tweeting about the jobs they’re looking to fill. Other things to look for are fresh postings. If you check the same sites and job boards frequently, look for the postings that you haven’t seen before – those are the ones that are most likely to be the real deal. On the other hand, jobs that you see for weeks and months at a time, or job postings that seem to appear, disappear, and reappear the next week, are probably not worth a ton of your time.

The bottom line is that there’s no real way to know for sure if a job posting is current or actually available. But there are some definite signs to look for. The bigger take-away from this situation is that if you’re making good impressions and getting positive feedback, it’s really just a matter of time. The job search is a longer process now than it used to be. Every positive response is a step in the right direction. When those recruiters tell you how great you sound, make sure to send a response thanking them for the correspondence and reiterating your excitement about working for their company. Then make sure to save that email and stay on top of their activity. Follow them on Twitter; follow their companies on Linkedin; keep checking their corporate career sites. That way when the right position opens up again you can respond to the email, at once reminding them that they liked you, showing your enthusiasm, and getting yourself to the top of the candidate pile.

So if you find yourself in the same situation as this reader, take a minute to pat yourself on the back for a job well done so far.

OK, enough patting. Now get back out there and get a job!

Do you have a question you’d like to see answered on this site? Send an email to HR.Dave1@gmail.com.

Questions or comments about this topic? Please leave them below.

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Why I Do It

23 Jun

By far my favorite email in the HR Dave inbox right now comes from the reader who inspired my overqualified post. She writes:

Hi Dave,

Overqualified [name witheld] here–just wanted to give you the fantastic heads up that after following your advice and drilling in my willingness to do administrative duties beyond any level of reason, I very promptly landed a full time EA position at [a great National magazine]! I wouldn’t have thought that downplaying my experience and accentuating the opposite would be the key to finding success–thank you so much for your help and feedback. I can’t tell you what a difference it made and how much I appreciate it! This is something I’ve been working to achieve for over two years, despite constantly hearing the same things, so there’s no question your input made a big difference.

Thanks again!

It absolutely warms my heart to see someone’s hard work pay off like this. Kudos to you, and congratulations on a well earned victory!

Taking My Own Advice – The Job Search, Part 2

22 Jun

In the last installment of this piece I told you about all the things I had gotten wrong in my job search. As I said, it was a learning experience. Thankfully, however, I wasn’t wrong about everything. There were a few things that I had right.

What I knew I knew:

  1. One resume isn’t enough. True. Over the course of my job search, I had and used no fewer than 7 different versions of my resume. There were some that highlighted different aspects of my work (recruiting, management, digital experience, etc.) as appropriate to each company and job that I applied to. There were some that omitted certain unrelated job experience. There were purely chronological resumes and those in which I lumped together like experiences. Why do all this? One thing that I know for sure is that most hiring managers and recruiters don’t use a lot of imagination in their resume screening. They’re looking for almost spot-on experience and if they don’t see it in 30 seconds they’ll move on to the next resume. I got calls to interview based on each of the 7 versions, so I’m pretty sure I was on the right track.
  2. Not every job is the right job. True. As I mentioned earlier, I applied to about 25 positions throughout my job search. Perhaps a more important number is the jobs I didn’t apply to. I can’t say exactly, but I’d put the number of jobs that I decided not to pursue at close to 100. Why did I leave 100 seemingly appropriately leveled HR/Recruitment jobs on the table? Because they just weren’t right. They were jobs that were in industries I didn’t want to join, in companies that I had heard not-so-great things about, or just job descriptions that looked like they weren’t any fun. Managing a job search is a serious undertaking already – there’s no need to add to the workload by pursuing jobs you don’t even want. Besides, as a recruiter there’s nothing I hate more than calling a candidate who applied and that candidate saying “Wait, what job was that again?” That’s clearly someone who applied to too many positions. I don’t ever want to be that guy.
  3. There’s no such thing as too prepared. Interviews can be great if you let them be great. Know how to make that happen? Know everything you want to say and everything you want to ask. Have your talking points down to an art. A great achievement? No problem. A time you overcame an obstacle? Got it. Disagreement with a boss and how it was handled? Ready. Why I want to work for this company in this job? You betcha. In the dozens of interviews I had with several companies, I was almost never hit with a question I wasn’t ready to answer. It’s all about preparation. And it’s not enough to have your script memorized – you have to anticipate their script as well. Study that job description and customize your talking points to what they’re looking for. Does that job description stress project work? Get some good project stories together. Is it a management position? Be ready to talk about some times your management skills were challenged. A job description is so much more than just a job description; it’s a preview of the interview. The tone and the content can give you spectacular insight into what’s going to be asked of you once you’re sitting at that table. Don’t forget to use this valuable tool.

At the end of the day, I know I was one of the lucky ones. Not everyone has as much success or finds a great opportunity as quickly as I did. But as I’ve maintained since I can remember, half of luck is being lucky. The other half, you make for yourself.

Going forward, I’ve identified a new challenge that I’m excited to face. When I’m doling out advice or tips for getting a job, it’s easy to rely on the same answers I’ve been giving for years. They’re second nature to a point, and usually founded in some kind of experience. Now that I’m fresh out of my own career transition, however, it’s time to take another look at what I’m saying. Before I answer a question I need to make sure I still believe that my answer is true. Because there are some guns that I’m sticking to, and some that I’m turning in. And if I can keep them straight (which I’m pretty sure I can) then I know I can be a better recruiter, a better adviser, and a better coach than I’ve ever been. So thanks, life, for handing out those lemons. The lemonade really hit the spot.

Do you have a question you’d like to see answered on this site? Send an email to HR.Dave1@gmail.com.

Questions or comments about this topic? Please leave them below.

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