The Executive Update

How to Answer the Three Most Common Job Interview Questions

We have all been through more than a few job interviews, and there is a lot of common sense advice on how to prepare for an interview, what to wear, how to present yourself, etc. And although every job has a different skill set and every company has different hiring criteria, there are common threads and common questions asked in every interview. Here is one way to think about dealing with the three most common interview questions that are often the hardest to answer (with thanks to Penelope Trunk, the Brazen Careerist, and her original article on BNET):

Tell me about yourself.

This is not an invitation to talk about your family or interests, but it’s the question that opens the door for you to create a framework for the interview. Be prepared with a considered reply. Tell the interviewee what’s important to you; what you want to talk about; and most importantly tell a memorable story that explains why you are interested in the job, and that makes you sound interesting. This is your opportunity to turn your resume into a story that seamlessly leads into the current job opportunity and why it’s the next logical step for you.

The narrative response is very important here. People remember stories, so you need to make your narrative interesting and memorable. You also need to be focused and coherent, which means leave some things out and add some flourish to others. You want the interviewer to remember your story, and be able to recount it to others.

What salary are you seeking? How much do you need to make?

You should not answer this question. The hiring manager knows what the salary specification is, but you could never guess, and it may or may not be in line with current industry practices or your last job. Rather than just duck the question, respond by politely saying you would like to decide what the position is worth before suggesting a salary figure. Remember, the first person to name a salary figure sets the benchmark. If you guess too low, you will never know. If you guess too high, you may put yourself out of the running without knowing it, although they will usually tell you if it’s too high.

Any interviewer should be prepared to offer a ballpark figure based on the budget or they are not playing by the rules. If he or she insists you make the first move by offering an opening number, ask yourself if you want to work for a company that will take unfair advantage from the outset.

Do you have any questions for me?

This is a standard closing interview question, and it’s designed to put you on the spot because when the interview is over, you probably don’t have questions but you do want the job. It’s at the beginning of the interview that you ask the important questions, like what the perfect candidate looks like, what are the metrics for success, etc. If you ask the important questions at the beginning, then you can tailor your responses based on what you learn in the interview. If you wait to ask the more important questions until the end of the interview, it’s too late.

The last thing any smart interviewee does is close the deal. Like any salesperson, you need to be focused on the close, so ask for what you want, and look for barriers to get what you want. Penelope suggests using the following script:

“Thank you for taking the time to talk with me. I want this job very much. Do you have any reservations about hiring me?”

Some professionals feel that this approach shows insecurity, but the objective is to allay any fears the hiring manager has about adding you to the payroll. Most people will answer the question directly, especially if you assume they are being honest. If you go into an interview with optimism, assuming you will like the interviewer and they will like you in return, then chances are that will be the end result.

Ask the Coach: Timing Your Responses and Follow-ups

Every week, NETSHARE hosts Ask the Coach, a phone-in coaching session with leading career management experts. Here is an excerpt from a recent session with Christine Dennison, The Job Search Coach.

Christine Dennison was the host for this week’s career coaching session.  Christine has more than 20 years of experience helping senior executives and middle managers through the maze of resume creation, branding, Internet strategies, networking, and interview techniques.  Her prior experience includes business operations, marketing, corporate HR, training, and headhunting.

At the start of the call, Annette DiSano, COO of NETSHARE, noted that based on the number of job postings with salaries of $200,000 or more that came in this last week, the executive job market seems to be improving. This led to a discussion of how to engage with hiring managers and keep the conversation going.

Unlike past coaching calls, this week’s call centered on timing your follow-up approach and how to pursue actual activity, rather than fielding questions about how to get noticed. Some of Chris's tips for effective follow-up include:

• Always ask about the timetable following an interview or during the early stages of the communication. It doesn’t matter if you are working directly with the hiring company or going through a recruiter, they should be able to tell you how soon they want to hire. Then, no matter what you are told, give them an extra few weeks grace period.  As Chris explained, hiring companies are being extra cautious right now (some might even classify them as "nervous"). Hiring anyone appears to be more of a consensus-driven decision now than it has been in the past.  There are a lot of stakeholders who are very concerned in NOT making a hiring mistake.
• When you are interviewed by several people, Chris advises that you reach out to each of them individually to express interest and inquire about timing.  She pointedly suggested that you not copy the addressee's boss in any communication – that could send the wrong message.
• When asked how much is too much follow-up, Chris responded, as you might expect, that it depends on the situation.  She offered the phrase, "professionally persistent" as a guideline for the amount of follow-up and timing.  She also suggested that some of the follow-up communication could include recent information that corresponds to your discussion during the interview... don’t just send a "what is the status" kind of note.  Chris also mentioned that keeping the relationship "open" is the goal; this increases the odds of getting called for another position when that opportunity comes up.

The Joys of Consulting – Part 3

This is part three of a three-part guest post to Executive Update contributed by Kenneth J. Cole, a career coach and search consultant. Ken welcomes your comments and queries at kennethjcole@aol.com.

If you are a C-level executive considering consulting work while you look for your next job, here are some things to consider:

Cash Flow is King – There is a saying in consulting you might want to remember, “We live by the roast turkey principle – first, we eat the meat, then we eat the bones. Finally, we eat the feathers." With 30-some-odd years at this, I can speak with some authority that I've eaten at least my share of feathers.

If you are jumping into consulting, you might want to warn your spouse or significant other about what you might call "the consulting lumpy cash flow." This is a serious issue, and many consultants will fail even though they are great consultants because of the uncertainty of bizdev and getting paid. Remember you also are your own credit manager and will need to put on a black hat from time to time to deal with collections – this is as certain as gravity. There will be breaks between projects where you are staring into space, with no income and no prospects (again, as sure as gravity). Not everyone can handle that (and even if you can, can your partner?).

Setting the Right Rates – What to charge? Holtz says consultants should charge two to two-and-a-half times the rate an employee would be paid for the same work. There are several critical factors that cause consultants to need to charge more for the same work as an employee, e.g. picking up both sides of FICA, providing your own benefits, liability insurance, and most importantly, to compensate yourself during consulting breaks. You also need to consider the costs of taking yourself out of the job market while you are consulting. I suggest you get Holtz’s book for a comprehensive list to help you defend your fee schedule.

For what it's worth, Accenture charged an average of $180 per hour for management consultants and $126 per hour for technology consultants in 2009. I've seen posted rates of $2,500 to $3,000 per day for partner-level work.

"Project" pricing may offer a better solution for you. That allows you to avoid the apparent lofty hourly rate. One of my individual clients was able to negotiate long-term overrides on deals he was able to help the client close during a consulting assignment. As Gerard Nierenberg famously told us, "You get what you negotiate.”

Here’s an example from my own consulting practice. For several years, I had a search partner who was my technology alter-ego. He had retired from the U.S. Navy where he had served as a "boomer" captain, and held a Master's degree in nuclear engineering. He could handle just about anything tech-related that we could encounter. We were making a pitch for a search for a Director of Engineering at a global telecommunications company. The VP asked if we could really find an individual with the qualifications they wanted, and my partner smiled and replied, “Piece of cake!” I kicked him hard under the conference table. On the way out, my partner said to me "Cole, I know I screwed up big time in there, but before I break your neck, tell me what I did so I'll never do it again?" I said, "Don't ever tell a client what we do is easy. Roll your eyes and tell them "That's going to be really hard, but you've picked the right people and we can do it for you.

Prospecting and Bizdev – Remember selling consulting services is like selling insurance – you'll run out of family quickly. I often include a consulting prospect/target list for a client’s chosen field as part of my basic consulting package for senior executives. If you're going to jump into the consulting field, do it rigorously, not ad hoc. You can get started using a service like Dun & Bradstreet’s Zapdata. These tools can help you identify early-stage companies, and public/closely-held, financially-stressed companies, as well as providing information like the usual SIC, sales by dollars size, and geographic sorts.

If you plan to get serious about consulting, I strongly recommend getting the best book ever written on solo consulting, How to Succeed as an Independent Consultant by Herman Holtz and David Zahn, published by John Wiley & Sons. This book is literally worth its weight in plutonium to anyone interested in becoming a consultant.

The Joys of Consulting – Part 2

This is part two of a three-part guest post to Executive Update contributed by Kenneth J. Cole, a career coach and search consultant. Ken welcomes your comments and queries at kennethjcole@aol.com.

If you are a C-level executive considering consulting work while you look for your next job, here are some things to consider:

Job Hunter or Gatherer – Every day you spend on a consulting assignment has the effect of taking you out of the job market for that day. Even if you are a great multi-tasker (and you probably are, if you have been a successful C-level executive), it's difficult to serve two masters simultaneously. The downside of this is stark--When you complete the consulting assignment, you could easily find yourself starting over on your job campaign.
There is an interesting corollary to this for beginning consultants, as pointed out by Herman Holtz, author of How to Succeed as an Independent Consultant (More on that book in a minute). Holtz points out that successful consultants develop the discipline of reserving a full day per week for bizdev. That's the only way to prevent "beaching" yourself--finding yourself high and dry with no business and no prospects--when you complete the current consulting assignment). Here’s a suggestion. Establish an understanding with your client before initiating your project that you are in the job market but that you will not leave them high and dry with an incomplete project. You will give them plenty of notice--at least four weeks--that you will be wrapping up the assignment, should you get an employment offer you must take (and that they will have the opportunity to take you on as a regular employee). And, you'll need to tell the new employer that you're wrapping up your consulting assignment for your client and will be available in four weeks (this is just about the safe limit).
Do I need to say you should do this after you have the consulting offer, not before? Then, be ready to walk this back a week or so if necessary to protect your employment offer. Don't expect much (if any) sympathy from your client about the interests of your future employer, or from the employer about the needs of your client – you won't get it. You should however, complete your consulting assignment. Walking away from a contract could haunt you for years.

Consulting Means Unemployed – Beware that too many executives have attempted to list "consulting" on their resumes to cover up significant breaks I n employment. Good headhunters are on to this ploy and have a favorite question to quickly determine whether you were a "real" consultant or playing resume games, “I see you were a consultant from November '08 though 2010. What were your Schedule C earnings from consulting for 2009 and 2010?" If you stumble over this answer, you lose and it's all over, with no chance of recovery. You must know what a Schedule C is and what those numbers were--instantly. If you don't know (or the numbers were too small), you were not a "real" consultant or you were lying to cover up the employment break. Also expect the headhunter to ask to see your Schedule Cs to confirm the numbers. (Sorry, but we do that these days because so many executives have lied about consulting earnings to us too many times before. We have to confirm these numbers. The search client will expect that and ask us if we did).

Show Me the Money – Also beware that potential clients will want you to low-ball your offer since you are a consulting beginner, and the same is true for a potential employment package. They are going to use your novice consulting credentials to get a better deal. A favorite trick is to attempt to pay you what they would propose to pay an employee for the same or comparable work. This is especially true for technology and defense contractor consulting. This is a deal-breaker, as I will explain further.

(to be continued with the next blog post)

The Joys of Consulting – Part 1

This is part one of a three-part guest post to Executive Update contributed by Kenneth J. Cole, a career coach and search consultant. Ken welcomes your comments and queries at kennethjcole@aol.com.

If you are a C-level executive in a job campaign, you have certainly thought about consulting, which can have several important benefits:

• Consulting can provide important cash flow relief at a time when you really need it. (Consulting project fees earned can at least partially replace the lack of paychecks during an employment break and you might do a lot better than that. It's a life changer for many executives and becoming more popular every day.)
• The extra income can increase your "staying power" in the employment marketplace by reducing the need to compromise and accept a position with compensation/responsibility/location/corporate culture you do not like, while suitable "regular" jobs for you are immediately scarce (like now, during the "unpleasantness").
• Consulting can dramatically increase your exposure to useful decision-makers who can hire you (there is a high networking value to high-level consulting), both to increase their confidence level in you (and you in theirs) in a project or interim role.
• Since you are already well-connected as a senior executive and your skills are fresh and well-known, you probably have a leg up on consulting arrangements without too much trouble (especially as compared to someone without your credentials). Consulting is also certain to help you maintain your functional and industry-specific skills and will probably improve them.

OK, great. Go ahead and chase some consulting assignments. There are some important downside issues to consider, though:

Business Development – Even though you have/might have a project or two lined up, you have to contend with "bizdev" or business development. "Bizdev" is consulting language for "sales," something that might be more difficult for you than you think, especially if you have no sales experience. Bizdev is about 10 times as difficult as actual consulting. (You might want to remember where you read that).
Bizdev is difficult under any circumstances, but breaking in is the toughest. You don't have a satisfied repeat client list. You don't have a list of successful projects completed to wave at a potential client. (Note that your opinion of your successes as an employed executive as they relate to consulting will likely differ from a prospective client's.) Don't underestimate the competition - there is probably an established consultant interested in the same project who has consulted for this client before and who has that successful completed project list to wave at the new client you want.

(to be continued with the next blog post)

Ask the Coach: Federal Hiring Practices Are Changing with the Times

Every week, NETSHARE hosts Ask the Coach, a phone-in coaching session with leading career management experts. Here is an excerpt from a recent session with career coach Don Orlando .

Don Orlando was this week’s career coach, and Don has extensive experience in military and government recruiting. Don noted that with the changes in the economy, many job seekers are finding new opportunities in the government sector; opportunities they may not have considered before. And he also sees big changes in the way government agencies are approaching hiring.

Don shared a memo he received from the recent Federal Jobs Conference in San Diego indicating that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) will not be renewing its contract with Monster Government Solutions, the company that powers the Federal USAJOBS.com web site. Instead, the OPM plans to host the USAJOBS.com site itself, as part of an effort to create a more open Applicant Tracking Software (ATS) platform that can be integrated with all commercial ATS platforms. This is part of a new initiative to make federal hiring practices more competitive and help government agencies recruit the best and the brightest. As stated in a May 11 memorandum issued by the White House:

“To deliver the quality services and results the American people expect and deserve, the Federal Government must recruit and hire highly qualified employees, and public service should be a career of choice for the most talented Americans.  Yet the complexity and inefficiency of today's Federal hiring process deters many highly qualified individuals from seeking and obtaining jobs in the Federal Government….”

The overall objective is to make federal hiring practices more competitive, and to start adopting the same best practices used for hiring by the private sector. For example, changes to be implemented by November 1 include:

• Eliminating any requirement to respond to essay-style questions when submitting an initial application for a federal job.
• Allowing individuals to submit resumes, cover letters, and applications using plain language, and assessing applicants using “valid, reliable tools,” and
• Selecting qualified applicants using the “category rating” approach, rather than the so called “rule of three” where candidates are limited to the top three scoring applicants.

There are some significant changes afoot in government hiring practices that will make it easier to compete for federal jobs. As with most bureaucratic changes, they won’t come overnight, but there is a sea change coming and more job seekers will start looking to government jobs as a more viable career alternative.

Trigger Events Can Help You Get Your Foot in the Door

If you are a regular reader of The Executive Update, you know that I have said time and again that when you are looking to make a career change or find a new job, no matter what your profession, you are now in sales. You are selling the product with which you should have the greatest passion and familiarity – the product called YOU! That’s why I thought a recent article by Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big Companies, on trigger events was quite interesting, because the same techniques can be readily applied to job search.

Konrath notes that sales cycles, like hiring cycles, are getting longer because decision-makers are risk-averse and want to make sure they are delivering value. And decision-makers are busy, letting e-mail and voice mail shield them from actual meetings. However, there are some strategies you can adopt to get the right kind of attention by tracking trigger events that can provide an entrée to decision-makers.

Once you have identified your target companies you should be tracking the news, looking for watershed events that could give you a chance to show your value. Look for trigger events such as a poor sales quarter, a new IT contract, a new re-branding initiative, M&A, IPO, anything that gives you a chance to offer a solution to the company’s latest problems. If you really start thinking about events that occur as part of a natural corporate lifecycle, you will see all kinds of opportunities where you can step in with a solution to the latest problem.

Trigger events can be internal or external. For example, you should track internal events like sales performance, layoffs, expansions, personnel changes, new funding, or new customer acquisitions. You also should track external events like legislative changes, competitive changes, new standards or technologies, and natural disasters – anything that could affect the business climate.

If you have done your homework, you will have an inventory of your own skills and expertise (with proof points) and be prepared when an opportunity presents itself. Map your skills to trigger events:

1. Identify common objectives that map to your skill set, such as streamlining operations, opening new markets, or increasing sales.
2. Identify common challenges that you can help overcome, such as ensuring compliance with new standards, overcoming poor productivity, or hiring and retaining key talent.
3. Review events that are creating rapid changes, since these are the pressure points that are driving the company. Determine how you might help affect those changes.

If you have a firm understanding of where you offer value, it becomes easier to map your expertise to the inflection points or trigger events that present themselves. If you can keep track of events affecting your target companies’ business, then you can map your skills to their needs and use trigger events to get a foot in the door.

The Building Blocks of Your Personal Brand

Despite the fact that the idea of personal branding has been around since 1977 when Tom Peters penned an article called “The Brand Called You” for Fast Company magazine, the concept of personal branding is still elusive for some professionals. I often am asked about how to create a personal brand, or what it needs to consist of or what it should look like.

A personal brand is not one of your personal marketing documents, like a resume or an executive bio. It’s not like a mission statement, although a personal mission statement could be part of your personal brand. Rather, a personal brand is built around those characteristics that make you unique; that help you stand out from the crowd. The concept of brand itself is elusive, since it is based on an overall impression rather than a specific, concrete formula. Think about the consumer brand experience. What makes McDonalds different from Burger King, or Target different from WalMart, or Macy’s different from Bloomingdales? Those brands are generated by a wide range of variety of expectations and experiences that give those stores and restaurants a unique personality. Your personal brand needs to convey that same sense of uniqueness and differentiation.

When you apply for a position, your professional expertise, your credentials, are a given as part of the price of admission. If you are competing with other professionals for a role as a vice president of engineering or CFO, then you have to possess a specific set of skills to be considered for the role – that’s the price of admission. What will make you stand out are those characteristics beyond your job qualifications.

Megan Koehler, founder of ContempoResume blogs about personal branding, and she recently posted a recent blog explaining what she calls “The Five Ps of Personal Branding.” These five characteristics are common to all of us, and if you can find a way to capture and package them and incorporate them into your resume, marketing documents, blog, interviews, and everything you do as part of your professional persona, you will be well on your way to developing your personal brand:

1. Personality – Everyone has one, but the hard part is taking a look at your personality and define yourself.
2. Perception – How do others perceive you? Ask a few trusted colleagues (rather than friends) if there are areas where you can improve.
3. Passion – What drives you? Do you like to look at different ways of doing things, or are you a people person? What makes your life complete? It reflects on your personal brand.
4. Presence – How do you present yourself? Unlike how you are being perceived, this is what you are projecting to others.
5. Principles – What do you stand for? What values and ethics do you live by? These are also core to your personal brand.

Ask the Coach: Adjusting Your Strategy to Address Today’s Job Market

Every week, NETSHARE hosts Ask the Coach, a phone-in coaching session with leading career management experts. Here is an excerpt from this week’s session with Barbara Safani, owner of Career Solvers based in New York City.

What came to light in this week’s Ask the Coach call was that even though the basics of executive job search remain unchanged, you do have to make some strategic adjustments to deal with the current economic downturn.

According to Barbara, searches are still taking longer, but across several job sectors, hiring is now at the level they were in 2008, which is ahead of last year. Your best strategy is to continue to stay in front of hiring authorities and recruiters, but the trick is not to look like a stalker. Use natural touch points. If you read an article or a blog that looks interesting, share it with a cover note like, “thought you might find this interesting” or “this relates to our last conversation about…” If you are strategic with the information and insight you send to prospective employers you will position yourself as a knowledgeable candidate who stays current with the market.

Once you get in front of those hiring authorities, you have to be prepared to deal with other realities of the current job climate, like talking about compensation. If you are a "seasoned, experienced" executive, what can you do to mitigate the stigma of "high" earnings as you navigate the hiring process?

It’s a common complaint that the topic of salary comes up too early in the conversation these days. If you don’t know the scope of the position, how are you supposed to “price” yourself? It’s a given that most salaries aren’t at the levels they used to be; that’s the reality of today’s economy. And there is no time to build any trust between the company and the candidate before you start talking compensation.

You can take a proactive stance by opening with a discussion of market conditions and what the market will bear for the position, showing your understanding of your value in the marketplace. This demonstrates that you understand that conditions have changed, and by offering a compensation range they have a better understanding of you and your expectations. Once you establish trust, you can more comfortably discuss specifics.

You also need to be prepared to address their concerns about taking a lower salary and continuing to look for a better offer. In other words, why should they invest in you? You need to address this concern head on, without being confrontational. Explain where you see yourself with the company in the next five to 10 years. This shows that you have no plans to retire and should set them at ease.

Everyone is looking to control costs. Your job is to get them to think about long-term benefits, not immediate expenses. And the basic strategy for salary negotiation remains the same, even in a tight economy. You need to determine what is truly important to you and remember that companies will pay for value.