The Executive Update

Who’s Hiring Whom? How to Spot a Bad Boss During the Interview

Too many job candidates fail to grasp that they have power during the interview. Too often a candidate walks into an interview setting trying to determine the best way to grovel to get a solid job offer. Instead, they should be approaching the interview as an opportunity to assess their potential employer, and not only impress them with his or her credentials but to create an opportunity to be impressed in return. It’s a golden opportunity for you to interview the interviewer.

A job interview is a two-way interaction. The job candidate is interviewing the company to see if he or she is a good fit for the position, and that includes interviewing the boss. Checking out your prospective boss in advance is essential. According to a recent study by Baylor University, an abusive boss can have a huge effect on your health and your family life, so you want to make sure you know what you are getting into. There was an interesting story in Forbes this week on how to spot a bad prospective boss in an interview. Here are some tips to consider:

1. “You” versus “we.” Pronoun usage is a telltale. If during the interview the hiring manager talks about how “you” will be responsible for tough challenges or dealing with something negative, he probably won’t be a mentor. And if he talks about “I” in the context of department successes, then he is not a team player and may deflect blame. Observe how he talks about his employees and his department.
2. Fishing for personal information. It is natural to try to get to know a candidate and learn about some of their outside interests. It is something else to ask probing questions about life outside of work. Be wary if the hiring manager moves from a healthy interest in your hobbies or charity work to a nosy interest in your personal commitments. The interviewer can’t legally ask about your marital status or your family, but by probing about your personal life they may be trying to get you to surrender information to determine if you have too many commitments outside the office.
3. The distracted interviewer. You should command respect during an interview, including the undivided attention of the hiring manager. If your prospective boss is distracted by his iPhone, or email, or telephone calls, of if he is late for your interview, that’s an indication of their normal operating style, and you probably can’t expect them to make much time for their staff, including you.
4. You can’t get a straight answer. If you can’t get a direct answer to a direct question, that could be an indication that they are covering something. For example, if the last person who held the position for which you are interviewing may be characterized as a “bad fit,” which may be an indication that the company didn’t spend enough time on employee development. Listen for awkward pauses and evasive responses. Also look at things such as turnover rates and where others have a path for advancement.
5. What’s the hiring manager’s track record? How long as he or she been with the company? Where did they come from? Look for indicators about their performance and management style. For example, bosses from large companies may want more formality where managers with a history at start-ups may have a less formal approach. Which suits your work style?

Be sure to ask around about the company and your new potential boss. You can search sites such as eBossWatch or ask your network on LinkedIn. There’s nothing wrong with getting references about your prospective employer. You will want to think about the context of what you might uncover, but look for glaring inconsistencies or differences between what you were told and what you discover on your own. It’s better to have more information in advance and avoid a potentially disastrous job than to realize your mistake after you have been hired.

Five of the Biggest Blunders of Online Job Search

We have been talking a lot about networking lately, and I thought it was time to get back to basics with a short blog post on some of the most common blunders job applicants make when submitting their resume or other credentials electronically. These five points seem basic, but it’s amazing how often even the most experienced professionals forget the basics, whether they are looking for full-time or consulting work:

1. Keep it relevant. When searching for work, the natural tendency is to want to make things easy on ourselves. Often we reuse cover letters, resumes, or other content to apply for a position, which means we often fail to customize the message to suit the situation. If you insist on using cut and paste, review your text to make sure it’s on target. If you are asked for work samples or examples of your expertise, keep them relevant to the role. If you are using an online portfolio, consider splitting it into sections to keep your samples focused. Take the time to focus and give your prospect the information they are looking for, not just what’s at hand.

2. Use the subject line. Most of our communications these days is electronic, which means it’s easy to create and just as easy to ignore. Electronic mailboxes fill up fast with junk mail, and it’s easy for your communications to be lost or ignored. You can overcome that with a strong email message, starting with a catchy subject line. Sometimes companies specify the topic of their email correspondence to help filter email messages. Keep the subject line relevant, interesting, and be sure to check your spelling.

3. Ask simple questions. Show your interest by posing one or two leading questions to help promote a dialogue, but keep it simple. Don’t ask obvious or annoying questions, or questions that require a long explanation. Those are better left for an interview. Instead, use simple questions such as “can you tell me more about your company’s specific goals?”

4. If you are overqualified. Portraying yourself as qualified but not overqualified can be tricky, especially if it’s clear you have more experience than the job requires. Don’t sound arrogant or dismissive; “Of course I can do this…” Don’t offer a long list of relevant achievements. Instead, be focused, be positive, and let your marketing documents speak for themselves.

5. Follow directions. If you are applying for a specific position or if an ad or request has specific criteria, follow them! It’s amazing how many people fail to follow simple directions. If you don’t, it shows you lack an attention to detail and it could offer a precursor to your on-the-job performance. Be sure you provide the information requested, or at least acknowledge there is information missing to demonstrate you understand the directions.

Common sense counts for a lot when you are looking for a new job or contract, but we often get so busy that we forget the basics and overlook the details. When you are looking for a job, the details matter so slow down, take a moment, review what you are sending, and think before you click the “send” button.

The Face-to-Face Interview: Maximize the Opportunity

The Face-to-Face Interview: Maximize the Opportunity

Guest post by Randy Block

Randy Block is an executive coach specializing in career transition. He also serves as a staffing and onboarding consultant for high tech start up companies. He has over 30 years experience in executive search/recruiting. Randy’s executive consulting practice includes both tactical and strategic issues; i.e. Interview Preparation, Personal Branding, Onboarding, Consulting/Freelancing Opportunities, Boomer issues, etc. Randy will be the featured presenter on this month’s Experts Connection. His topic, “The Face-to-Face Interview: Making the Most of Every Minute” will be presented on Wednesday, October 26th.
experts-connection.com

From my perspective in working with executives, particularly over the past few years….two things have become apparent:

1. Everyone purports to know how to interview…but few execute well.
2.The most qualified candidate does not necessarily get the offer…the offer usually goes to the candidate who interviews the best.

So, if you have survived the emailing, the phone interview(s) and made it to the face to face interview, you’ve done well…and you really deserve to maximize this opportunity that you have earned.

In my workshops on interviewing, I ask the audience this question: “If you are going to paint a room, what is the most important step in that process?” The answers vary from picking the paint color to choosing the right brush. The answer I’m looking for is “the prep.” If your masking is sloppy or you have not filled in the picture hook holes, you could pay $50/gallon for the paint and it will still look unprofessional. Your prized antique furniture or meaningful art will not cover up the mistakes.

When it comes to interviewing, we all know the preparation is important. So what do most people do for prep…check out the company website, study industry/product trends and Google the interviewer. And of course, review the job description. After all, we want to be knowledgeable and “right” with our answers.

This is helpful, but there is much room for improvement. Let’s examine one of these more closely; the job description. The job description is typically broken into three general parts:

1.Description of the company products and its industry.
2.The title, job duties/responsibilities and reporting structure.
3.The candidate profile –the person with these skills and qualities.

Numbers one and two are quantitative and the basis of your research. In my view number three is the most important part of the interview preparation. Here is where the all important “fit” comes into play.

The candidate profile is divided into “hard skills and experience” and soft skills i.e. leadership, decision making, management, etc. And of course all of them are grouped into “required” (usually in descending order of importance) and “preferred.” The “fit” is determined by relevancy (your skills and experience against their definition of what skills the successful candidate should have) and that indefinable something called “will you like doing the job and will I like you doing the job”.

To determine relevancy, I recommend the following as a guide. (Excessive humility or braggadocio will not help you here.)

1. List their required skills (again, whether you agree or not)
2.Then evaluate your skills (both hard and soft) on a scale from 1 (never heard of that acronym let alone do I know what it means) to 10 (I have current and direct experience, achievements and knowledge.)

Companies today want 8’s, 9’s and 10’s.

• For any low scores (7 and below) prepare an “equivalent answer”. For example, if the position requires an MBA and you don’t have one, your response might be “I have 20+ years of successful business experience.”

• For all of the soft skill questions, prepare a story of about 3 minutes that is a solid achievement supporting each soft skill.
Let’s consider the elements of that softer side of “fit” by today’s definition.

(Your technical competence is assumed at the time of the in person interview. Yes, they will check your references. Initially, technical is the focus of the phone screen with soft skills to be screened in the face-to-face meeting. You don’t even get the face-to-face interview unless you have the right background.)

1. During the interview, they want to know how excited you are about the position and the company. Have you chosen them? Be prepared to discuss why (from your heart as well as your head)
2.Will they like you doing the job? (This will be influenced by how you express yourself in #1) It is my opinion that #2 is at least 50-60% of the hiring decision today.

There are definite measures and tactics that you, the interviewee, have control over: your preparation, the interview itself and the followup. When following up with clients and their interviews, the question comes up …"would you do anything different?" If yes, we learn from it and move forward. If the answer is no, then we know we maximized the face-to-face interview. In these cases, we get and go out on another interview stronger and wiser and increasing the probability of success.

Ask the Coach: Where are the Holes in Your Job Search Template?

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.

Do you have a job search template?

This is a very common question that was raised again this week. You are entering the marketing phase of your job search. What is the schedule you should follow now?

There are templates or procedures that can help you on the way; that can assist you in staying “on top” of things. However, there is no “one-size-fits-all” template. There are basics that everyone needs to follow, but depending on your executive level, how long it has been since you last looked for a job, and how strong your professional network is, your needs will vary. If you have been maintaining your professional network and maintaining your personal brand, then your list will be shorter.

Networking is your most important step. Barbara could not emphasize this enough. Every one you have worked with, worked for, or who has worked for you is potentially a valuable contact. You could get assistance from an old schoolmate, parents from your kid’s soccer team, your mailman – you never know what might lead to your next job. Take five minutes each day to connect with someone from your past. Never ask for a job, but ask how they are doing and make the connection personal. Start a dialogue.

Prepare your marketing documents. Before others can understand your value, you must understand it yourself and be able to articulate it. What is it that you do better than anyone else? That is the essence of your personal brand, and it should be the cohesive glue that holds together all your marketing materials. Step one is to identify the components that make up your personal brand.

Your marketing documents include a resume and cover letter, but you also need an executive bio. Create an online profile that summarizes your value for use on online networking organization such as NETSHARE, LinkedIn, ZoomInfo, Facebook, Google+, Plaxo, Ziggs, Spoke, and Naymz. If you have a common name, such as Barbara, you can use Vizibility.com to fine-tune search results that lead to you. But whatever you do, make sure your brand is consistent throughout.

Promote your personal brand online by writing articles, commenting on industry forums and blogs, and if you have the inclination, start your own blog. Remember that companies want to find you, so leave an online trail for them to follow back to your posted branding materials, like your LinkedIn profile.

And you should have replying to job listings posted in targeted web sites as part of your job search strategy, but only devote about 5 percent of your time. You will get more results from proactive outreach rather than competing with everyone else for jobs posted on the web.

Where you need to focus your energy depends on your situation, but the basic elements are the same for everyone.

If you want more insight into how to take charge of your job search, join our Experts Connection teleseminar next week with Randy Block on how to handle face-to-face interviews. As Randy notes, most jobs don’t go to the most qualified, but they do go to those who interview the best.

Ask the Coach: Talking to Potential Employers

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

This week, job search expert Christine Dennison fielded questions from NETSHARE members about handling outreach to potential employers:

Q. Is it worth cold calling or sending a blind inquiry letter and a resume to a potential employer?

Yes if you use a targeted approach. Your best strategy is to build a list of companies that interest you, whether they have posted openings or not. Then research the companies; gather information from their website, use Google and LinkedIn, and research the executive profiles. Then draft a cover letter or make a phone call that is focused on the company, the company’s executives, and their needs. For example, “I see that you have just given a keynote speech…” or “I see you have just launched a new product line. Can we spend a few minutes talking about the industry…?” Focus on an industry issue, not on you.

Q. Companies often ask for a salary history. How do you deal with that?

Do everything you can to avoid the salary question until the final stages of negotiation, when you have a better sense of what they need and what it’s worth. When you do address the question, address the salary question confidently, firmly, and in a way that moves the dialogue forward. For example, “I’ll be happy to discuss compensation when I have a better understanding of what you need. What has been the main challenge in the last quarter?” Also know what a competitive salary range is. Review Salary.com, Payscale.com, and other resources to determine what the market rate looks like.

Q. How can I keep my job search a secret from my current employer?

Stealth marketing can be a challenge. First, don’t “hang” your resume anywhere where it can be discovered. You will need a LinkedIn profile, but set the tone to demonstrate that you are a subject expert looking to build your network. Turn off the “announcement” settings and don’t check the “career opportunities” box. Also don’t apply directly to posted positions. Instead, use research, talk about the industry, and be active in a way that it opens up confidential conversations.

Q. What’s the best way to spend your time in a job search?

Spend most of your time developing relationships and finding out what’s on the horizon for your target companies. Go after the decision-makers and try to catch them at the start of the search process. Talk to them about their business and competition before they talk to HR or a headhunter. When you approach them, don’t ask if they are hiring but try to spark ideas that demonstrate how you would be valuable to their business. Be curious, have your radar running, and see if you can turn the conversation into the possibility of hiring for an existing position, or even creating a new position. Show you understand their problems, and know how to solve them.

Ask the Coach: “Be Yourself, Everyone Else Is Taken”

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 career transition coach and career management consultant Randy Block.

One of the persistent problems in job search is prevarication. Applicants may not actually lie on their marketing documents or in an interview, but they are certainly capable of exaggeration. Of course, the problem with manufacturing credentials or overstating your qualifications is that it takes a lot of work to keep up the pretense. Usually one lie leads to another, and another, and you may be called upon to prove false claims. It becomes exhausting to keep up, trying to remember what you told each party in the hiring process. Of course, candidates do land positions for which they are not qualified, but when that happens, everyone loses.

This week, career coach Randy Block reminded those who attended the call of the words of Oscar Wilde, “Be yourself, everyone else is taken.”

Don’t try to change your qualifications or adjust your personal brand to fit every job application or job posting. Don’t try to second-guess what others think or what you believe they want to hear about your qualifications.

If you aren’t real, or authentic in your pitch, everyone will come to see that in time, and that could negatively affect your future. You are the only one who knows what you enjoy doing and what you are truly good at. Randy said he works with executives to help them uncover their brand and capture it in a few short sentences that make them unique and relevant to the right company. Your personal brand helps attract the right companies and promotes symbiosis, while repelling those hiring companies that aren’t a good fit.

If you can be true to your strengths then you can find work that challenges you, drives you, and engages you. Aligning your brand with the right company means the company finds the right executive to solve their problem. In exchange, they get a happy, engaged employee willing to make a real contribution to the company. It’s a win-win situation.

Your best strategy is to be true to yourself and then disseminate a consistent brand message across all your marketing documents and social media profiles. Make sure company recruiters can find you on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Plaxo, Klout, Google Profiles and Google Plus. A good place to start is the executive bio. Randy advises all of his clients to use an executive bio rather than a resume to make introductions. The bio says “let’s talk” rather than “I need a job” and tends to be a good conversation starter.

Don't limit yourself. Make sure your tool kit has all the right tools in it, including a dynamite executive bio. If you need help NETSHARE can recommend excellent, dependable professionals who can assist you with your marketing documents.

Ask The Coach: The Resume is Misunderstood

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 .

This week’s career coach is veteran Don Orlando, who reminded callers that the resume can be a powerful tool when it is used properly.

As Don noted, the resume is one of the most misunderstood documents used in job search. It’s important for job seekers to understand its role and how it’s used by hiring managers and recruiters.

The Folklore of the Resume:

• It is arcane and has ever-changing rules as to what it looks like, the appropriate length, and what to include.
• It is used to Sell YOU! Which seems demeaning since you are not a bar or soap or bag of dog food.
• It is not something used to try to “game” the APS (applicant tracking system) used by companies and recruiters.
• It is not something that is full of traits, generalities, etc, that don’t differentiate you. These terms show mediocrity, e.g.: Works well in teams, Good team leader, conscientious, diligent, etc. (These can describe many people, including those who are flipping burgers and selling fries.)

The Resume Reality:

· Your resume explains who and what you are. It is the document that best describes who and what you are and clearly shows decision-makers where your value lies compared to their needs.

• It showcases your brand, vividly. Your resume should contain your pledge of value in the top-most section. This is how you intend to make your prospective employer money (or save them money)! You support this brand promise with stories and examples of your successes.
• Your resume demonstrates what problems you solve. Be sure that you dig deep to distinguish the symptoms from the real problems. And explain how you solved them.
• What were the results? Quantify your successes whenever you can. Use comparisons and show context.
• Are those successes transferrable? Be sure to show your successes in context.

You want to make the story told in your resume your story, not the company’s story. Use it to market your potential, not to serve as a history of your past accomplishments.

When done right, your resume can serve as a template for an outstanding interview. It will entice the interviewer to ask the right questions; those questions where you have prepared answers that show you can shine. The resume can be leveraged to not only get you the job, but also the pay you deserve.

Ask the Coach: When Everything is Hurting, Offer Targeted Pain Relief

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 career transition coach and career management consultant Randy Block.

This week, career coach Randy Block observed that in hard times, gift stores tend to do well, where in good times high-end stores do well. When things are going well, we tend to go to great lengths to impress others through our shopping habits, spending money at the high-end stores that have a lot of offer. However, when times are hard, we tend to gravitate to the gift stores and target our shopping to meet a specific, immediate need.

The same is true in recruiting. Companies can’t afford to shop for high-end talent that offers multiple skills. They are not looking for a jack-of-all-trades. They need a skilled expert who can stop their pain in one specific area. If you muddy the waters, and your value proposition, by bundling your specific value with other traits, it will be lost. You need to be able to address their specific point of pain without making them wade through excess information.

Be sure to present all the pertinent information right up front! Make it easy to find and easier to understand. There can be no question about the value you bring and that it’s aligned with what the target company needs now!

If you are worried about your age getting in the way, turn it to your advantage. Offer to use your expertise and wisdom to help solve their problem through a specific assignment. Contract work is less “age sensitive” and can lead to full time positions.

Ask the Coach: The Recruiter’s Resume Viewpoint

Every week, NETSHARE hosts Ask the Coach, a phone-in career coaching session with leading career management experts. Here is an excerpt from this week’s session with Kristin Speer of Accelerated Search Consulting.

The first thing we do when we start to look for a new job is dust off and update our resume. But do any of us really understand what role the resume plays in job search? In this week’s call, career coach Kristin Speer gave NETSHARE members an unusual look from the other side of the recruiter’s desk, sharing what she knows about how recruiters look at a resume and what they look for. When you are brushing up your resume, see if you know the answers to these critical true-or-false questions to see if you know the recruiter’s perspective:

Q. The resume is supposed to be a reflection of your experience on paper.

A. FALSE: The resume is supposed to get you an interview. Since most job seekers think the resume is supposed to provide a comprehensive work history, they tend to stuff their resume with lots of information which makes them harder to scan to see if the candidate is relevant for a specific role.

Q. The executive resume should be no more than two pages long.

A. TRUE: You should be able to present your marketability in two pages, except in the case of a technical management resume that may require more technical details.

Q. An introduction page outlining accomplishments is a helpful preface for your resume

A. FALSE. They don’t help and just clutter the presentation

Q. The preferred resume format is to start with an objective or summary, then a list of accomplishments, and then a bulleted section of skills.

A. FALSE. How many ways can you summarize your value? Stick with a simple summary sentence or two, then offer no more than four key accomplishments but get to the chronology of your experience right away.

Q. Putting “consulting” on your resume is the kiss of death.

A. FALSE. How you present your consulting expertise is important. If you have been working with impressive clients doing long-term projects, then it can be useful, but only if you highlight these projects clearly on your resume.

Q. Numbers are really important to list on your resume.

A. TRUE and FALSE. You need to list the right numbers to make your point. The number of dollars in your P&L responsibility; the amount of revenue you generated for the company, the size of the deals you closed, improvement metrics – those are numbers worth listing. But don’t overdo the numbers and don’t overuse percentages, since they can hide low numbers and undermine your credibility.

Q. Leave white space on your resume.

A. TRUE. Leave room to read and let the reader’s eye only deal with relevant information. White space makes the resume easier to read.

Q. The number of jobs listed on your resume isn’t as important now that people change jobs more frequently.

A. FALSE. The number of job changes is still a key marker on resumes. The percent is that a really good executive will be able to stay at the same company and see a few promotions, which makes him a “keeper” when others are laid off.

Q. Recruiters look for “brand name” companies when they source candidates.

A. TRUE. The main search criteria used by recruiters almost always includes a company name, usually someone in a similar business or industry. A recognized name also makes you easier to sell.

Q. Executive recruiters are not using LinkedIn to find candidates.

A. FALSE. Even large retained search firms use LinkedIn to source candidates.

Resume Errors: How Computers Are Making Us Dumber

If you work with hiring managers and recruiters, you will hear all kinds of horror stories about receiving resumes and samples. It appears that job search can impede common sense, and living out loud online has made us less concerned about how people perceive us as we rush from email to blog post to get the word out.

In many ways, the personal computer has made it easier to look foolish to a hiring manager or recruiter because computers make it possible to work faster without necessarily checking what we are doing. It has become too easy to send a resume at the click of a mouse or post material on the web to use as a reference, whether that material is a fit or not. One recruiter recently posted to her Facebook page that she had just received a cover letter directing her to a blog site for writing samples, and the blog site bears the disclaimer, “not suitable for readers under 18.” What was that job seeker thinking?

The computer age has made it easier to reach out to prospective employers via web, e-mail, e-forms, Twitter, LinkedIn, you name it. And that’s the problem, it has become so easy to reach out that the proprieties and protocols are suffering as a result – candidates don’t take the time they need to think and review before they hit “send.”

I recently saw a blog post from Peter Shankman, social media expert and author, and founder of Help A Reporter Out, who was seeking to hire an assistant editor. His experience is all-too-typical what recruiters and hiring managers are seeing today:

• He received 481 resumes, of which 33 were sent to the wrong email address so were disqualified for failure to follow instructions.
• Of the remaining 449, 184 had the resume attached to an email without a cover letter, note, subject line notation, nothing. They were immediately eliminated. As Shankman says:

“We didn’t specifically ask for a cover letter, but come on – Nothing? That doesn’t give us much to go on. That’s like a guy walking up to a girl in a bar and just screaming “SEX!” It doesn’t work. Give us some reason to look at you – This is your first introduction to us. “JOB!” doesn’t cut it.”

• Another 52 were immediately eliminated for spelling or grammar errors, or because they were addressed to the wrong person or the wrong company (the curse of cut-and-paste in haste).
• 213 resumes left, and 28 were eliminated for their email addresses (e.g. poopiepants47@hotmail.com)
• Of the 185 left, 20 were selected who matched the job criteria

So nearly half of the resumes he received for this job were eliminated for stupid errors and because the candidate did not stop to think or check his or her work. Maybe computers don’t make us dumber, but they do tend to make us more careless, and those mistakes will eliminate you from the running before you can even show your value.