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You
can use the interview to turn the odds in your favour. Use subtle
hints to probe for additional details about the position, company
and interviewer, advises Tom Brophy
Speak
from strength rather than from weakness. Sound positive, alert,
happy and secure. By sounding weak and uninteresting, you’re leading
with your chin and you’re apt to get knocked out
After
10 years as a state unemployment counselor, it’s clear to me
that job seekers are wont to follow their same old routine every
day, yet they expect it to yield different results. In doing so,
they set themselves up for rejection. Most of us are allergic to
rejection. The adverse reaction causes our thinking to become muddled,
and we go on to commit even more blunders. The following are the
most common mistakes that job hunters make. Work to eliminate them
from your daily routine and you’ll increase your odds of success.
Doing
what everyone else does
Job
seekers often operate as if the employment process follows a strict
protocol. When they call employers, they very politely ask for “the
manager” or human resources or tell whoever answers the phone
that they’re calling about the ad in the paper. They tell their
story and then later they’re surprised when they don’t
get a call back. If they only knew what they sounded like, they’d
change their approach.
By
doing things the same way as everyone else, you’ll never be
noticed. The resulting traffic jam leads only to a dead end. You
need to learn how to become creative. When making that initial call,
put some inflection in your voice. Instead of hoping to get an interview,
try to meet the hiring manager on neutral turf. Reach that decision
maker and make her an offer. Don’t be afraid that you’ll
offend someone if you take a side street to reach your destination.
Divulging
too much
Some
people who have lost their jobs become bitter and feel they have
the right to vent whenever possible. Others feel an urge to explain
to others why they’re no longer employed and they’ll tell
anyone who will listen. Sound familiar?
When
interviewers ask why aren’t you with your last employer, resist
the urge to blurt out your whole story. There’s no need to
relive the pain. Learn to get comfortable with a simple answer such
as, “There was a reorganisation” or “downsizing.”
Not only is the hiring manager not interested in the gory details,
but you may ruin the rest of the interview.
Leading
with your chin
Job
seekers can lose ground by what they say and how they say it. When
you call an employer and ask for “the manager” or “personnel,”
you’re sticking your chin out so you can be hit. By not knowing
whom to ask for by name, you’re acknowledging that you’re
a stranger and unsure of yourself.
Consider
your reaction when the phone rings at home and the caller says,
“I’d like to speak to the man of the house.” You
immediately think: This is a stranger and he’s trying to sell
me something, right? By not knowing your name, he’s weakened
his position and credibility immediately. So when you call an employer,
ask for a specific person by name. Such questions as “Are you
hiring?” or “Any openings?” are definite “Hit
me right here” introductions that inevitably yield a negative
response.
Speak
from strength rather than from weakness. Sound positive, alert,
happy and secure. By sounding weak and uninteresting, you’re
leading with your chin and you’re apt to get knocked out.
If
you’ve been out of work and are feeling low, you may want to
listen to your own answering-machine message. Your dejection might
be reflected in your tone of voice. If it’s a dry and dull
monotone, erase it and wait for a day when something good happens
and then record a new greeting.
Squandering
the interview
I
can’t tell you the number of times job seekers have told me,
“I thought the interview went fantastic, but they never called.”
When I ask what they learned or what the interviewer was like, they
invariably have no answers. These candidates didn’t know how
to take advantage of their time in front of a hiring manager. In
short, they hadn’t done their homework. They spent the meeting
telling the interviewer all the great things they’ve done and
why they’d make a great employee. There are three reasons why
this approach fails:
No.1:
Interviewers presumably already know your accomplishments because
more than likely they’ve read your resume.
No.
2: Without knowing about the job, you can’t convince someone
you’re the best person for it.
No.
3: If you don’t know about the company, you don’t
know whether you’d like to work there.
You
can use the interview to turn the odds in your favour. Become a
sponge and soak up clues from the office. Notice the fixtures, pictures
on the wall and other furnishings and use these subtle hints to
probe for additional details about the position, company and interviewer.
The interview shouldn’t be a bragging session but rather a
meeting of two professionals sharing ideas.
Overemphasising
your resume
By
far the most common mistake job seekers make is focusing too much
on their resumes. “Oh, I must redo my resume,” or “I’ve
got to send out at least one resume a day.” I hear this all
the time. Somehow we’ve been convinced that in order to get
a job we must fill the world with our resume. We spend an eternity
working and reworking our resume believing it’s the most important
part of a job search. It isn’t. As a matter of fact it isn’t
second in importance, or third, or fourth, or even fifth. Let me
give you some facts about your resume.
Let’s
start with the definition of a resume. What is it? It’s two
pages of all the great things you’ve done. It’s the same
for Jim’s resume and Bill’s and Kathy’s. They’re
all exactly the same. Does it tell me anything about you as a person?
Are you a good listener? Are you trustworthy? Are you fun to be
around? A resume can’t say much about you personally, but we’re
convinced that it’s all-important.
Another
point to consider is that more than 90% of resumes aren’t read.
Yet, your resume is your No. 1 source of rejection. If you send
100 resumes in three months and receive approximately four responses
(which is about average), that’s 96 rejections.
Lastly,
a job that pays $75,000 a year advertised in a national newspaper
can draw 2,000 resumes per week. That breaks down to 400 per day.
Chances are slim that a hiring manager is going to find you in that
stack. That’s why networking is so much more important. You’re
better off devoting the time that you’d spend endlessly tweaking
your resume to developing and tapping your personal connections.
-www.hrhub.com
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