Interviewing Archives - Page 12 of 18

Readers’ Forum: When to tell all

On February 1, 2010

Discussion: February 2, 2010 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter

A reader asks for advice:

After several years of being a single mother I am now looking for work. However, due to family obligations I do not wish to work full time; ideally 20-30 hours per week. I have successfully found work using your approach in the past and would definitely use it again. However, I’m not sure at what point in the discussions to bring up that I’m only looking for work part time. Should I mention this right off the bat? Or wait until a job offer is being discussed? I’d love to get reader feedback here. (My gut says to mention it earlier, rather than later.)

Can a job applicant interview for a job without disclosing she’s interested only in part-time work? The obvious answer might seem to be no. But put your thinking caps on: What would justify pitching a part-time solution to a full-time job?

Stretch your mind without stretching the truth or your integrity.

How to Say It: Boo! to the employer

On January 25, 2010

Discussion: January 26, 2010 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter

A reader’s query: In today’s newsletter, a “less than qualified” job applicant wonders how to shake the interview up.

Is it ever proper to tell the interviewer that looking for “exact skills” will result in hiring someone who is likely to get bored easily and move on when the economy improves? Or that the best hire may be someone who doesn’t have the exact skills, and as a result may “see” something an experienced employee won’t? I feel like I’d be saying Boo! and scaring the employer off!

How should I say it?

What’s a good way to say Boo! to a nervous employer who wants to hire only the perfect person? How do you startle him into thinking out of the box and hiring you?

Readers’ Forum: Is this company worth working for?

On January 11, 2010

Every January, pundits publish their predictions for the new year. I don’t make predictions because I prefer not to be judged when I’m wrong ;-)

But it’s not hard to surmise that if the economy improves this year, the employment shoe will be on the other foot. The personnel jockey who has routinely been spitting rude questions at job applicants and challenging them to accept 20% lower salaries will likely wind up swallowing bile in 2010. Time to get out the kleenex and wipe up the drippings.

Computer World's Between the Lines by John Klosser

My favorite IT (information technology) publication is ComputerWorld. The first 2010 edition includes a cartoon from the very pointed pen of John Klossner that every smart employer should take a look at. (And if you’re a job hunter, take note: Employers can whip you only so hard in job interviews before you instinctively tell them to shove it.)

There are two messages in this cartoon. First, challenge employers to assess whether they are qualified to hire you. Maybe the company isn’t a good place to work. Second, Pursue Companies, Not Jobs.

While the demoralized guy in the applicant’s chair says he’s “looking for someone,” he’s really looking for a company.

A sound company.

And that’s the point. You may need a job and a paycheck, but you also need a future that doesn’t require going job hunting again in a few short months. While you’re sitting across the table from that interviewer, figure out, Does this company suck?

Yah, there are other ways to say what the guy in the cartoon is saying. What are they? How do you politely but clearly challenge the employer to make sure it’s a company worth working for?

[Computerworld does not seem to publish the cartoons from its magazine in its online edition, or I’d link directly. Credit where it’s due: Computerworld, January 4, 2010.]

How to Say It: I have no degree, but hire me

On January 11, 2010

Discussion: January 12, 2010 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter

In today’s newsletter: A reader without a college degree wonders how to win a job where a degree is required.

I have ten years of work experience, but I do not have a degree. What is the best way to answer when an interviewer asks why I do not have a degree? I know that my experience is more than sufficient to do the jobs that I am applying for. How should I answer this question? Can I get around my lack of a degree?

Can it be done? Have you done it? How would you advise this reader to tell it to the manager?

How do you say it?

(If you’re manager, when is a college degree negotiable, if at all?)

Readers’ Forum: How to learn from failure

On December 21, 2009

Discussion: December 22, 2009 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter

Usually the Readers’ Forum in the Ask The Headhunter newsletter starts with a problem or scenario posed by a reader. Then we all pile on it, here on the blog.

This week I’d like to pose a problem myself. The current edition of Wired magazine features an article about failure that occurs in science labs. It set me to thinking. (Everything I read flows through my headhunter filter.) How can this be applied to solve job hunting or hiring problems?

A sidebar in that article is titled How to Learn from Failure. It suggests that when scientific experiments fail, the outcome of the effort is an anomaly. Anomalous outcomes should makes us analyze failure in these four steps:

Check Your Assumptions
Ask yourself why this result feels like a failure. What theory does it contradict? Maybe the hypothesis failed, not the experiment.

Seek Out the Ignorant
Talk to people who are unfamiliar with your experiment. Explaining your work in simple terms may help you see it in a new light.

Encourage Diversity
If everyone working on a problem speaks the same language, then everyone has the same set of assumptions.

Beware of Failure-Blindness
It’s normal to filter out information that contradicts our preconceptions. The only way to avoid that bias is to be aware of it.

Can these failure analysis tools be applied to job hunting and hiring? Here are my four suggestions about how to apply these tools to a failed job interview. Rather than think you failed at the interview:

Ask yourself, “Is this the wrong job for me?”
Explain to someone outside your business what the job is about, and what happened in the interview. Ask for their insight.
Do (2.) with someone way outside your field. Ask your grandmother or a 12-year-old. If you’re forced to change the vocabulary you use to describe the failure, you might learn something new.
You might believe that the salient take-away from a failed interview is that you failed at the interview. Is it possible you failed to pursue the right kind of job, company, manager?

I think there’s something here. Help me find it. How can these four failure analysis steps be used to learn from failed job interviews?

Puppy-dog headhunters

On December 16, 2009

Is the job market picking up? If headhunter activity is any measure (and I’m not sure it is), then maybe hiring activity is on the upswing…

A reader asks:

A recruiter I know (but have never met in person) called me about a position. I told him I was interested based on the description, reporting chain, location and salary range. After our conversation, he talked to his client about me. Before asking for my resume, the client asked him what my previous salary had been, which was about $30K more than this position’s upper limit.

Without asking me and without having received my permission previously, the recruiter divulged my salary, and the client would not proceed further based on the fact that I was “too expensive.”

Again, I knew the range of the position and had told the recruiter specifically that I was fine with that salary range. As far as I am concerned, the recruiter had no right whatsoever to divulge my salary, which I consider confidential. I believe this was a breach of ethics. What do you say?

This is very common. Once a headhunter gets your “permission” (translation: interest) regarding a position, he’s likely to discuss you in detail with his client, and any info you provided is fair game.

Remember that the headhunter’s fiduciary duty is to his client, not to you. That said, headhunters are dopes when they do what this one did. He could easily have told his client that he needed to confirm your salary history and call back with the information — and in the meantime discussed the position with you as well as how to handle your salary history with your permission. But this headhunter seems to be the client’s puppy — eager to please, loathe to take time to be a good advisor to his client. Puppy-dog headhunters are such pushovers that they do a disservice to their clients. You might have been an outstanding hire, but the client will never get a chance to find out. And that costs the headhunter, too.

He should have asked your permission before divulging your salary. But like most HR people, headhunters consider salary info no big deal. Worse, they quickly use it to decide whether a candidate is “a fit.”

And that’s stupid.

Next time, be explicit about what info you want kept confidential when you talk to a headhunter. So, yah, I think it’s an ethical breach, but it’s “industry standard” with too many headhunters.

If you want to know more about the in’s and out’s of dealing with headhunters, check out How to Work with Headhunters.

How to Say It: Women need not apply

On December 7, 2009

Discussion: December 8, 2009 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter

A reader asks:

I’m an award-winning sales rep. I’m also a woman. I applied for a job at a company whose #2 sales rep is female. After interviewing with the head of sales, I contacted the HR person to follow up. She dismissed me, saying, “We’ve found men do this job better.” I wish I’d recorded the call. I checked and found out the woman who is #2 was hired by a previous sales manager, not the current one. I want to call him or the HR person to tell them they’re making a mistake. How should I say it?

How to Say It: I wouldn’t waste time with an HR person who made a statement that suggests the company violates employment law. But don’t assume the head of sales is just as corrupt. When there’s an obstacle, go around. But don’t call the manager.

I’d call the #2 sales rep. Introduce yourself, then say: “I’ve heard great things about you from headhunters I know. Like you, I’m very successful in sales. Can I ask your advice? Should I consider a job at your company?”

If the answer is yes, she’ll share more advice about getting a job there. My suspicion is she’ll tell you something else — maybe even ask you for advice about finding a better employer.

That’s my advice. What would you tell this reader — and what would you do in this situation?

Readers’ Forum: Avoid disaster – check out the employer!

On November 16, 2009

Discussion: November 17, 2009 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter

In today’s Q&A a reader says he goofed when he didn’t check out his new employer carefully enough.

After I accepted a position with a local company it became evident that the way the leadership of the company was managing internal operations was going to sink it. Three months later, I left after the operations exec left. Shortly thereafter the company was on life support. How could I have done a better job investigating this company before taking the job?

Have you had a close call? To what extremes have you gone to check a company’s bona fides and to avoid career disaster? Our reader wants to know so he can avoid making the same mistake again. Good idea!

Readers’ Forum: Initiative or exploitation?

On November 9, 2009

Discussion: November 10, 2009 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter

In this week’s Q&A, a reader worries that the Ask The Headhunter method of sharing a sample of your abilities with an employer in an interview means you are “less mentally adept” and that I’m exploiting you. (I guess that means the employer is exploiting you, too.)

Uh… say what?

Have you ever tried doing the job in the interview or presenting a brief business plan to demonstrate that you are worth hiring? What happened? Did you get exploited?

How to Say It: I can handle it!

On October 26, 2009

In today’s October 27, 2009 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter a reader has it up to here with employers who really, really want to know whether she can handle it…

I’m an administrative assistant, customer service, and office support worker and I’m very good. I have tons of experience under my belt working successfully with people of different titles, personalities and attitudes. Every interview I go on I’m asked whether I’ve ever worked with “this kind” of personality or “that level” of management. They invariably say that the people I’d have to deal with are the smartest or the rudest or the most demanding or the most temperamental. They are looking for an exact match. How do I deal with this question and say that I can handle anyone so they will believe me?

This is the sort of interview question that makes me groan. Clearly, employers are worried they might hire someone who isn’t capable of dealing with difficult people. “Uh, can you handle difficult people?”

I can hear the perfect reply. “People like you? Of course!”

How should this job candidate say it? (And what should she say?)

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