Your Boss" Opinion Matters More Than You Think

We’re all familiar with the phrase “seeing is believing.” Witnessing an unusual or unexpected event increases your ability to regard it as valid. But is the opposite also true? Do we tend to see what we believe? Daniel Kahneman, author of Thinking Fast and Slow, has noted that his overwhelming conclusion about people’s decision-making challenges is that they tend to seek only for information that confirms what they originally believed.

Over the last several months my colleague Jack Zenger and I have been working with a multinational company to assess and coach their top three levels of management. As we completed individual coaching sessions it was apparent that some managers had a positive bias and others had a negative bias in their ratings of employees.

To understand this better we looked at a larger dataset of 360 data. In a recent Harvard Business review article we shared a study where we identified 50 positive and 31 negative rating managers. These managers rated their direct reports significantly more or less positively than the rest of their colleagues. The graph below shows the 5-point rating scale for this 360 degree feedback instrument and the percentage of time each group of managers used each point on the scale.

These ratings represent the following scores:

1. Needs significant improvement—Poor performance


2. Needs some improvement—Inconsistent performance


3. Competent—Good performance


4. Strength—Top quartile


5. Outstanding strength—Top 10%

Note that only 18.4% of the positive managers’ ratings were “Competent” compared to 51.4% for the negative managers.

The Impact of a Positive or Negative Rating Manager

What is the impact when managers inherently rate more positively or negatively? Is the rating an objective and accurate analysis of a subordinate’s performance, or does the rating itself influence the subordinate’s performance?

Anyone who would have joined me in the discussions with the subordinates of the “high” and “low” rating managers would have instantly seen the impact. Those people who had higher, more positive ratings felt lifted up and supported. The vote of confidence from their managers gave them optimism about additional improvement.

But the subordinates who had a negative-rating manager were confused or discouraged, and often both. They felt it was impossible to succeed. They often heard the message as “you are not valued or trusted.” What effect did that have?

We measured employee engagement data for the direct reports of positive and negative rating managers. Direct reports who worked for negative rating managers had engagement scores at the 47^th percentile. Those reporting to positive rating managers had engagement scores at the 60^th percentile. This difference is statistically significant.

We acknowledge that that negative rating managers may select less engaged employees, but the far more likely explanation is that the engagement levels of these employees was roughly the same, but the diverse day to day interactions capped by very divergent performance reviews had a big impact on engagement levels.

Possible Motives of Positive or Negative Rating Managers

Negative raters would typically say something like, “I want my people to get the message that I have high expectations.” The positive rating manager’s motive and message was quite different. They too had high expectations, but the message they desired to send was that they had confidence in their people. They believed that they had selected the greatest people for those jobs and they expected them to succeed.

Impact of Manager Expectations

Did those expectations change the behavior of the subordinates of these high and low rating managers?

The following chart shows the overall leadership effectiveness results for those leaders who worked for the positive and negative rating managers. Negative-rating managers rated their direct report leaders at the 19^th percentile, while positive rating manager rated their subordinates at the 76^th percentile. The ratings of peers, the next level down direct reports and others also tended to be lower for negative rating managers and higher for positive rating managers.

Possible Conclusions

Both high and low rating managers had perceptions that differed widely from all other raters, which suggests that those who are at either extreme deliberately should look for information that is contrary to their bias. “Believing” leads you to see what you want and expect to see.

Believing their perceptions are correct and that everyone else’s are incorrect is akin to the person in the marching band who believes that everyone else is out of step except them.

Having a boss with a strong positive or negative bias appears to influence subordinates’ behavior to the extent that others ultimately can see it. The bosses’ emotions are contagious and infect those who work for them. It is unlikely that these two groups of subordinates started out their careers as higher or lower performers, but it is clear that they have become different.

There is apparently a positive motivational effect that comes from reporting to a boss who is positive. Conversely, there is a demotivating “downer” impact that comes from working for the low rating boss. Should people just accept that getting one or the other kind of boss is to be expected and simply the “luck of the draw,” or should people expect that it is their right to work for an excellent boss?

There is an interesting study that is related to the issue of believing is seeing called “Predicting non-marital romantic relationship dissolution: A meta-analytic synthesis.” This was a meta-analysis of 137 studies collected over 33 years with 37,761 participants. These studies were looking at factors that cause non-married couples to break up or stay together. The number one factor listed in the study that impacted couples staying together was something they called “positive illusion.” In other words, the person you are dating thinks you are “awesome.” It turns out if the person you are dating thinks you are awesome, your satisfaction with the relationship is significantly higher. Is it possible, then, that if a boss thinks you are awesome you then become more awesome? It is hard if not impossible for most of us who have had a boss who thought we were awesome not to believe and embody the description because of the tangible impact their belief had on us. Many people also know the impact of the negative expectation from a boss. Typically our performance went down.

Implications

Having spoken with hundreds of leaders whose bosses thought they were awesome, we know the impact is real. It is our hope these findings can have a positive impact on the ratings—and the messages—leaders are sending to their current and future employees. Your ability to build their engagement is much higher than you may have believed.

 

Your Boss" Opinion Matters More Than You Think

How To Hire Like Google And Facebook: Evaluating Candidates Beyond Their Technical Ability

In a previous Forbes post, we considered the disconcerting reality that even in the midst of an unemployment crisis, employers across industries are still unable to find the talent profiles they need. How is it possible that even highly educated candidates are unable to find skilled work when millions of open positions go unfilled? Evidence indicates that this talent gap is not due to the absence of technical skills, as one might expect, but rather to the absence of “soft skills,” or what we’ll call 21st century skills, in prospective candidates. These primarily refer to interpersonal and general analytic abilities like teamwork, empathy, leadership, negotiation, adaptability, and problem solving.

As we discussed, this is useful information for students and educators, but lessons from this research could be of particular benefit to employers, as well. The problem is that 21^st century skills are very difficult to assess with any kind of rigor, especially before one can evaluate a candidate on the job. Can a candidate think innovatively? Collaborate with other team members? Assimilate feedback and coaching? Will the candidate be adaptable to new environments and successfully integrate with teams? It is very difficult to reduce these questions to discrete qualifications and quantifiable metrics in the same way we assess recognized degrees and numerical grades.

Certainly some approaches exist. For example, businesses have used “type”-based personality tests for decades in attempts to measure the soft skills of prospective candidates, assuming that certain personality types would correlate with high performance. One example is the Jung Typology Profiler for Workplace™ (JPTW), which purports to measure qualities such as “Power” (leadership potential), “Assurance,” “Visionary,” “Rationality,” and so forth.

Despite the promise of measuring key skills, the reality is that personality tests have serious methodological flaws and lack the statistical reliability to predict performance among prospective employees. For example, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a closely-related profiler to the JPTW that also has its origins in Jungian typology from the early 20th century. The makers of the MBTI clearly state in their ethical guidelines that “It is unethical, and in many cases illegal, to require job applicants to take the Indicator if the results will be used to screen out applicants.” Because of their shared methodological limitations, the same restrictions should apply to the JPTW.

It’s clear that we need 21^st century methods to assess 21^st century skills. Unfortunately, that seemingly simple idea proves to be much trickier in practice than it is in theory.

Tools for talent development do not work for pre-employment screening

Part of the problem is that many companies are using the wrong tools for the job.   There is a fundamental difference between tools intended to develop existing teams and tools used for pre-employment selection.

For developing existing teams, there is evidence that “type”-based  personality tests can help managers better develop and deploy the talent they have already hired. For example, Gallup’s StrengthsFinder 2.0 is a tool that helps individuals understand and describe their own talents, and is commonly used by managers to understand and capitalize on the strengths of those they hire. More importantly, it is methodologically sound, and its reliability and validity are backed up by clear evidence.

For example, Facebook uses StrengthsFinder in a clever way to deploy talent efficiently. Regardless of the job openings they have available, Facebook simply hires the smartest people it can find, then uses StrengthsFinder results to understand their talents and create a job tailored to the candidate.

One might naturally assume that the same type of test that helps identify and develop strengths in an existing team could also be used to assess suitable candidates for entry into that team. In the words of Gallup, “Absolutely not… A development-oriented assessment such as StrengthsFinder is markedly different from selection tools because its purpose is not to assess whether an individual is suited for a particular job or role. Instead, it aims to provide talent insights for developing strengths within roles.”

Personality tests cannot be used for the same purpose as pre-employment selection tools because they simply can’t perform the key function: predicting employee performance. For example, two people who have the same set of innate strengths (according to a personality test) could have widely varying job performance. And of course, two people with a completely different set of strengths could do the same job equally well.

Pre-employment selection tools can predict employee performance on the job

Many pre-employment selection tools succeed at predicting performance because they have a completely different design than talent development tools like personality tests. Instead of seeking general traits and preferences, selection tools are tailored to a particular job in a particular organization, and are statistically calibrated to provide reliable predictive results (i.e., candidates who score highly on these tests also tend to perform well after they’re hired). In addition to the StrengthsFinder development tool, Gallup also offers these pre-employment selection tools, which include analytic services to confirm the validity and predictive value of the measures for candidate screening.

Pairin, Inc. is another organization that seeks to combine the personality test approach with specialized testing (for specific jobs, values, culture, etc.) as part of a pre-employment selection system. Using the Job Pairin System, employers can assess the presence of around 100 coachable/changeable behaviors such as emotional intelligence, leadership, attraction of followers, and even character.

A new spin on the behavioral interview

While services from Gallup and Pairin provide strong, evidence-based methods, the debate on using metrics to assess 21^st century skills will certainly continue. For good or bad, it is unlikely that the traditional way to measure 21^st century skills – the behavioral interview – will be unseated anytime soon. (Behavioral interviews are those that include situational questions like “Tell me about a time when you worked effectively under pressure.”)

Certainly, behavioral interviewing has problems of its own – for example, canned and otherwise disingenuous responses are all too common. While most companies still use a behavioral interviewing approach, those with top hiring practices are able to mitigate these issues. First and most importantly: skilled interviewers are often able to weed out rote responses by probing on the details of the situation discussed. This can help get the candidate “off script” and thus generate better insights about their true personality.

The behavioral questions themselves can also be written in a way that yields better insights. For example, Teach for America includes tough questions like “What would cause you to want to dropout of Teach For America if you were chosen?” Questions like these, for which the “obvious” answers might not be the best, could evoke a wider spread between canned responses and those that show more nuance and self-awareness.

As another example of innovation, Google also uses behavioral interviews, but structures them in a way that allows HR to perform analytics and prove that certain responses reliably predict employee performance.

Beyond the interview

Whatever method companies use to assess 21^st century skills in prospective employees, it’s important that they reflect on the key principles behind the assessment approaches. Findings from research on 21^st century skills provide an extremely valuable lens through which companies can view all interactions with candidates. Consider: What can you teach a new hire on the job, and what can you not teach? With information now abundantly available to us, almost anyone can learn basic Photoshop skills, for example, via online seminars. But what about skills like adaptability and empathy – can they be taught on the job?

via How To Hire Like Google And Facebook: Evaluating Candidates Beyond Their Technical Ability – Forbes.

How To Hire Like Google And Facebook: Evaluating Candidates Beyond Their Technical Ability

How to Succeed in any Job Interview [INFOGRAPHIC]

Did you know the average employer may receive upwards of 100 applications per job opening? In addition, even if an applicant does land an interview, it can be difficult to navigate through the process since every interviewer is different. So, how can job seekers ensure they are reading each situation correctly.

This infographic, compiled by Interview Success Formula illustrates how job seekers can read the most common types of interviewers and how to succeed in the process.

• The average duration of an interview is 40 minutes – and there are 5 different types: in-person, phone, testing, video and group.


• There are different types of interviewer – make sure you’re able to read them.


• 17% of candidates believe they were interviewed by the ‘Clueloss Boss’.


• 21% reported that they were interviewed by someone who was bored or not enthusiastic about their company.

via How to Succeed in any Job Interview [INFOGRAPHIC].

How to Succeed in any Job Interview [INFOGRAPHIC]

Top 7 Qualities Employers are Looking for in Candidates

There are three Cs to getting the kind of job you want and earning the kind of money you want to earn. These three Cs basically remain constant throughout your working career.

They are contacts, credibility, and competence.

Do You Have the Right Contacts?

First, the more contacts you have in the marketplace, the more likely it is you will find the job you want. The more people you know and who know you, the more likely it is you will uncover one of the 85 percent or more of job openings that are never listed anywhere.

This is why it is so important for you to network continually. Join clubs and associations. Ask people for referrals and references. Tell your friends, relatives, and associates that you are in the market for a new job. Make sure that everyone you know is aware that you are available and looking for a job.

Nothing is more important than your circle of contacts. The great majority of jobs that are filled in the hidden job market are filled because someone knows someone. And you can expand your range of contacts just by telling people that you are available and asking for their help and their advice.

Your Reputation Is Important

The second C is credibility. This is made up of your reputation and your character. Your credibility is the most important single quality about you in terms of getting recommendations and referrals from your contacts.

Make sure that everything you do is consistent with the highest ethical standards. Make sure that you never say or do anything that could be misconstrued by anyone as anything other than excellent conduct and behavior.

Remember, people will only recommend you for a job opening if they are completely confident that they will not end up looking foolish as a result of something you do or say.

Be Good at What You Do

The third C is competence. In the final analysis it is how good you are and how good you have been in your previous jobs that will determine, more than anything else, how good you can be at the job under consideration. Next to your character, your level of competence will be the single most important factor in determining your success in your career. This is why you must be continually working to maintain and upgrade your levels of competence through personal study all your working life.

7 Qualities Most in Demand:

Every employer has had a certain amount of experience with both good and bad employees. For this reason every employer has a pretty good idea of what he or she wants more of. Here are the big seven:

1. The first quality that employers look for is intelligence.

In every study, it has been found that fully 76 percent of the productivity and contribution of an employee will be determined by his or her level of intelligence. Intelligence in this sense means the ability to plan, to organize, to set priorities, to solve problems, and to get the job done. Intelligence refers to your level of common sense and your practical ability to deal with the day-to-day challenges of the job. The key to demonstrating your intelligence is for you to ask intelligent questions. One of the hallmarks of intelligence that is immediately evident is curiosity. The more you ask good questions and listen to the answers, the smarter you appear.

2. The second quality sought by employers is leadership ability.

Leadership is the willingness and the desire to accept responsibility for results. It’s the ability to take charge, to volunteer for assignments, and to accept accountability for achieving the required results of those assignments.

The mark of the leader is that he or she does not make excuses. You demonstrate your willingness to be a leader in the organization by offering to take charge of achieving company goals and then committing yourself to performing at high levels.

3. Integrity is the third quality sought by employers.

It’s probably the most important single quality for long-term success in life and at work. Integrity begins by being true to yourself. This means that you are perfectly honest with yourself and in your relationships with others. You are willing to admit your strengths and weaknesses. You are willing to admit where you have made mistakes in the past. Especially, you demonstrate loyalty. You never say anything negative about a previous employer or a person whom you have worked with or for. Even if you were fired from a previous job, never say anything negative or critical.

4. The fourth quality that employers look for is likability.

Employers like people who are warm, friendly, easygoing, and cooperative with others. Employers are looking for people who can join the team and be part of the work family.

Men and women with good personalities are invariably more popular and more effective at whatever they do. Teamwork is the key to business success. Your experience in working as part of a team in the past and your willingness to work as part of a team in the future can be among the most attractive things about you in applying for a job.

5. Competence is the fifth quality sought by employers.

We spoke about this earlier. Competence is terribly important to your success. It is really the foundation of everything that happens to you in your career.

In its simplest terms, competence is the ability to get the job done. It is the ability to set priorities, to separate the relevant from the irrelevant tasks, and then to concentrate single-mindedly until the job is complete.

6. Courage is the sixth quality that employers look for.

This is the willingness to take risks. Courage also means the willingness to accept challenges, the willingness to take on big jobs or even new jobs where there is a high degree of uncertainty and the possibility of failure.

Courage also means the willingness to speak up and say exactly what you think and feel in a difficult situation. Employers admire men and women who are not afraid to speak their minds. And you demonstrate this in a job interview when you ask frank and direct questions about the company, the position, and the future that you might have with the organization

7. The final quality employers look for is inner strength.

Inner strength means that you have the determination and the ability to persevere in the face of adversity. Inner strength means that you have the quality of persistence when the going gets rough. You demonstrate inner strength when you remain calm, cool, and relaxed during the job interview. If you are calm and cool during the interview, it is a good indication that you will be calm and cool in the inevitable crises that occur during the day-to- day operations of the company.

Above all, it is your character, which is the sum total of all your positive qualities, that will have the greatest impact on whether you get the job you want. Your job now is to continue working on your character by practicing the behaviors of top people at every opportunity.

via Top 7 Qualities Employers are Looking for in Candidates.

Top 7 Qualities Employers are Looking for in Candidates

How Unconscious Bias Affects Everything You Do including Hiring

As late as 1970, only 5% of the musicians in the most prestigious orchestras of the world were women. Even after a decade of hard-fought battles for gender equality, no major orchestra was more than 12% female in 1980. The bias that held women back was both conscious and unconscious. Regardless of which, it was universal in its impact. And yet, today almost 40% of orchestral musicians are women.

What created the change? Was it a natural outgrowth of the women’s movement?

The drive for gender equity may have been an inspiration, but the changes were the result of a range of activities that orchestras began to engage in that ended up creating the change in demographics. They expanded auditions beyond personal invitation by advertising through the musicians’ unions and other publications. The number of people who auditioned quintupled. The raters for the auditions were expanded.

Most significantly, the musicians began to audition behind a shield that restricted the raters from knowing who they were. They were given numbers instead of names. The raters could only evaluate the music, not the musicians.

How Can We Change Our Unconscious Bias?

Our understanding of unconscious bias has exploded in the past two decades. Over 1,000 studies in the past 10 years alone have conclusively shown that if you’re human, you have bias, and that it impacts almost every variation of human identity: Race, gender, sexual orientation, body size, religion, accent, height, hand dominance, etc. The question is not “do we have bias?” but rather “which are ours?”

But what can we do about it? The impact on work life is dramatic. How can we hire, retain, and develop the best people and make the best decisions in running our organizations if we are not even aware of the forces that dominate the choices we make? It is unlikely that we can eliminate our biases, because they are so natural to the way we are learning that the human mind functions. However, we are learning that there are things that we can do to mitigate the impact of biases on our organizational decision-making.

Initially people within the organization must become aware of the impact of unconscious bias on their decision-making through various forms of education. This will help them realize and accept that we all have bias, and learn to watch for it in themselves as much as possible. We might think of it as similar to what happens when we step on the clutch in a standard transmission automobile. The motor doesn’t stop running, but it stops moving the car. When we are aware of our biases and watch out for them, they are less likely to blindly dictate our decisions.

Secondly, we have to begin to develop approaches that help us make decisions more consciously. These can occur in three areas: priming; reorganized structures and systems; and new forms of accountability.

Priming is an imbedded memory effect that gets created when one activity subtly and often unconsciously impacts subsequent behaviors. By consciously priming people to pay attention to potential areas of bias, we have found that they can be encouraged to be more conscious of their decision-making processes. For example, before reviewing resumes, managers can be asked to respond to a series of questions like:

• “Does this person’s resume remind you in any way about yourself?”


• “Does it remind you of somebody you know? Is that positive or negative?”


• “Are there things about the resume that particularly impact you? Are they really relevant to the job?”


• “What assessments have you made already about the person? Are they grounded in solid information or simply your interpretations?”

Processes like this can be put in place before almost any talent management process–recruiting, interviewing, hiring, promotion, performance reviews, etc.–and can help people be more aware of what’s impacting them. As Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman said, “The odds of limiting the constraints of biases in a group setting rise when discussion of them is widespread.”

The numbers of women musicians increased because orchestras reorganized structures and systems. In businesses this can mean structured interviewing processes; performance review processes that are built more on dialogue than arbitrary numerical ratings that vary from manager to manager; structured mentoring programs in which all employees are provided mentoring and then monitored to be sure that opportunities are systematically distributed.

It can mean helping managers look at how they run meetings and design them in a way that encourages broader inclusion by a wider variety of voices. In fact in virtually all areas of the talent management pipeline there are ways to help people be more conscious about the decisions they make, and why they make them.

Finally, new forms of accountability have to be put in place so that it becomes clear when there are patterns of bias playing out. For example, if a manager gives 10 performance reviews, five to men and five to women, and four out of the highest five are women, it should at the very least call for an inquiry into whether there might be a pro-female bias in the process. It might be total coincidence, but it is worth checking. As the old saying goes, “you can expect what you inspect.”

Bias may be as natural to human beings as breathing, and it may very well be impossible to drive it out of human behavior. But by shifting the mindset of an organization and inviting constant inquiry into how we make decisions, we can create businesses, like orchestras, with a broader diversity of talent.

That will be sweet music to the ears.

via How Unconscious Bias Affects Everything You Do | Fast Company | Business + Innovation.

How Unconscious Bias Affects Everything You Do including Hiring

Avoid These Top 10 Job Interview Mistakes [INFOGRAPHIC]

Some interview mistakes are common sense, but some mistakes aren’t always obvious.

Treat this Independence University infographic as a refreshing recap of the interview essentials, such as: not lying during an interview, showing enthusiasm for the job you’re interviewing for, and don’t fumble your answers.

I’m not trying to tell you how to live your life, but hey, you should consider this advice.

Takeaways:

• Stay alert, make sure your posture is good and that you keep eye contact with the interviewer.


• Tempting as it may be to wear your new gloss-white tracksuit, don’t turn up to your interview casual. You don’t need to go overboard, but dress to impress. Smart casual wins everything forever.


• Talk the right amount is vital. You want to convey you’re able to work with the interviewer, so it’s the delicate balance of speaking just the right amount.


• Keep enthusiastic and positive about the job.


• Don’t use your phone in an interview. Ever.

via Avoid These Top 10 Job Interview Mistakes [INFOGRAPHIC].

Avoid These Top 10 Job Interview Mistakes [INFOGRAPHIC]

How To Understand Your Interviewer"s Hidden Agenda

There can be no mistaking that the reason employers are on the hunt for new members of staff is a need. This need is not about you, it’s all about them and their need. Therefore you have to sell yourself and tune in to their WIIFM. The reason a manager hires somebody is to make their life easier and to help reaching targets. You will have to think about how you could make their life easier and how you could contribute towards reaching targets. Take it one step further and even consider how the manager’s manager would regard you being hired and joining the business.

You will have to tailor your competence, experience, education relevant to them and their needs, targets and objectives. After anything you say to the interviewer, you should aim to add something like “…and this will help you because…” or “…and this will make everyone notice you because…” For every question the interviewer asks, you should mentally add “…and how will this benefit me and my needs?” By tailoring your replies and examples to their needs and, you will let them no know how bringing you onboard will be beneficial to them as well as their company.

Establishing the needs

If we assume that managers hire based on their own needs, you are going to have to uncover and reveal their needs in order to come up with answers that will get you hired. Bear in mind that every time a manager asks you are a question, you have now earned the right to ask a question yourself. Questions serve as a fantastic follow up to a winning answer.

Early on in the interview session you should make use of your questions to find out the agenda of the manager. This way you can then tweak your answers and attitude to demonstrate that you get what their needs are and that you are the perfect solution.

Different agendas for different roles

Every interviewer will have their own hidden agenda which is dependent on their role. For instance, an HR representative is keen to ascertain that you will be comfortable with the corporate culture, you will be a good social fit, you get along with people and you will not stir up any conflicts or be a trouble maker in general. The line manager wants to ensure that you have the right skills, can actually do the job properly and happy to take orders.

As a rule of thumb, the manager will want to hire somebody that that a.) they take a liking to, b.) will make their life easier, and c.) will put them in a good light.

Questions to ask

The interviewers are also going to have their own sets of hidden needs. Pose one or more of these questions early in the session to find out the hidden needs, once you have established these you can tailor your answers better:

• “What would the perfect candidate do in order to make your life easier?”


• “What is the number one ability an individual should possess to succeed in this role?”


• “What are the prioritized short and long term targets and goals for this department?”


• “What are your goals as a manager? What challenges do you come up against?”


• “How do you measure your own success and the success of the team?”


• “What does your manager expect of you and your department in terms of achievements? How do you make your manager happy?


• “What are the main qualities you would look for in the ideal candidate?”


• “What kind of personality traits would be required to really achieve and make a difference at this role?”


• “What top priorities would the person that accepts this job have?”


• “Take me through a typical day for somebody doing this job?”


• “What are the daily tasks and duties of the job? How can that person reach a promotion?”


• “What challenges are you being faced with at the moment? How difficult does this make your position? What would it take to overcome this?”

via How To Understand Your Interviewer’s Hidden Agenda.

How To Understand Your Interviewer"s Hidden Agenda

The Hidden Brain: How Ocean Currents Explain Our Unconscious Social Biases

“Those who travel with the current will always feel they are good swimmers; those who swim against the current may never realize they are better swimmers than they imagine.”

Biases often work in surreptitious ways — they sneak in through the backdoor of our conscience, our good-personhood, and our highest rational convictions, and lodge themselves between us and the world, between our imperfect humanity and our aspirational selves, between who we believe we are and how we behave. Those stealthy inner workings of bias are precisely what NPR science correspondent Shankar Vedantam explores in The Hidden Brain: How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars, and Save Our Lives (public library) — a sweeping, eye-opening, uncomfortable yet necessary account of how our imperceptible prejudices sneak past our conscious selves and produce “subtle cognitive errors that lay beneath the rim of awareness,” making our actions stand at odds with our intentions and resulting in everything from financial errors based on misjudging risk to voter manipulation to protracted conflicts between people, nations, and groups.

In the introduction, Vedantam contextualizes why this phenomenon isn’t new but bears greater urgency than ever:

Unconscious biases have always dogged us, but multiple factors made them especially dangerous today. Globalization and technology, and the intersecting faultlines of religious extremism, economic upheaval, demographic change, and mass migration have amplified the effects of hidden biases. Our mental errors once affected only ourselves and those in our vicinity. Today, they affect people in distant lands and generations yet unborn. The flapping butterfly that caused a hurricane halfway around the world was a theoretical construct; today, subtle biases in faraway minds produce real storms in our lives.

Underpinning his exploration isn’t a pointed finger but a compassionate understanding that our flaws make us not bad but human — and give us the opportunity to be better humans. Vedantam puts it beautifully:

Good people are not those who lack flaws, the brave are not those who feel no fear, and the generous are not those who never feel selfish. Extraordinary people are not extraordinary because they are invulnerable to unconscious biases. They are extraordinary because they choose to do something about it.

One of the most pernicious and prevalent unconscious biases Vedantam explores has to do with gender. Some may roll their eyes and consider the plight for gender equality dated or irrelevant or solved — but, of course, one quick glance at our alive-and-well cultural gender bias renders such eye-rolling the worst kind of apathy. What, then, perpetuates such persistent prejudice?

Illustration from the 1970 book ‘I’m Glad I’m a Boy!: I’m Glad I’m a Girl!’ Click image for more.

Vedantam cites the case of a woman who sued her employer for pay discrimination after finding out through a tip from an anonymous colleague that male managers who held the same position as her were paid significantly more. She was earning 79 cents to the dollar of her male peers, a difference that had consequences not only on her annual salary but also on how much she got paid for overtime, how much she could set aside in her 401K, and even how much pension she would one day receive. It was estimated that if she had been compensated fairly, her income in retirement would be double her actual one.

What made the case extraordinary wasn’t just that it made it to the Supreme Court, but that it was ultimately dismissed, despite the blatant evidence. In fact, the ruling was so controversial that it elicited a historic incident: Legendary Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, at the time the only woman on the court, issued a vocal dissent along with three other Justices — a rather unusual move. Ginsberg stated:

In our view, this court does not comprehend, or is indifferent to, the insidious way in which women can be victims of pay discrimination.

Ginsberg herself should know more than most about the issue at stake. Her personal history in light of the case ruling, Vedantam reminds us, is both a testament to how far we’ve come and how much further we have to go:

When the Supreme Court justice went to law school at Columbia in the 1950s, there were no women’s bathrooms in the building. “If nature called, you had to make a mad dash to another building that had a women’s bathroom,” she recalled… It was “even worse if you were in the middle of an exam. We never complained; it never occurred to us to complain.”

Illustration from the 1970 book ‘I’m Glad I’m a Boy!: I’m Glad I’m a Girl!’ Click image for more.

Vedantam traces this back to our ongoing predicament and one cultural area where these issues persist most prominently — leadership:

When a woman assumes a leadership role, our unconscious stereotypes about leadership come into conflict with our unconscious stereotypes about women… Our hidden brain makes women leaders appear ruthless and dislikeable for no better reason than that they happen to be women leaders.

More than cultural mythology and proverbial anecdotes, however, these biases have shown up again and again in experimental settings. Vedantam cites one particularly striking study:

Madeline Heilman at New York University once conducted an experiment in which she told volunteers about a manager. Some were told, “Subordinates have often described Andrea as someone who is tough, yet outgoing and personable. She is known to reward individual contributions and has worked hard to maximize employees’ creativity.” Other volunteers were told, “Subordinates have often described James as someone who is tough, yet outgoing and personable. He is known to reward individual contributions and has worked hard to maximize employees’ creativity.” The only difference between what the groups were told was that some people thought they were hearing about a leader named Andrea while others thought they were hearing about a leader named James. Heilman asked her volunteers to guesstimate how likeable Andrea and James were as people. Three-quarters of the volunteers thought James was more likeable than Andrea. Using a clever experimental design, Heilman determined which manager each volunteer preferred: Four in five volunteers preferred to have James be their boss. Andrea seemed less likeable merely because she was a woman who happened to be a leader.

But perhaps the most stride-stopping example comes from a unique “experimental design” that takes place not in a lab but in life. Vedantam points to two successful biologists at Stanford, Joan Roughgarden and Ben Barres, who each transitioned from one gender to another late in life. Ben, once Barbara, didn’t transition to being a man until he was fifty. Barbara had spent many years oblivious to sexism, even scoffing at the rhetoric of the second wave of feminism. Exceptional at math, she had ignored her high school counselor’s advice to aim lower and had gotten admitted into MIT in 1972. It was there that she had her first brush with extraordinary sexism, though she didn’t realize it at the time:

During a particularly difficult math seminar at MIT, a professor handed out a quiz with five math problems. He gave out the test at nine A.M., and students had to hand in their answers by midnight. The first four problems were easy, and Barbara knocked them off in short order. But the fifth one was a beauty; it involved writing a computer program where the solution required the program to generate a partial answer, and then loop around to the start in a recursive fashion.

“I remember when the professor handed back the exams, he made this announcement that there were five problems but no one had solved the fifth problem and therefore he only scored the class on the four problems,” Ben recalled. “I got an A. I went to the professor and I said, ‘I solved it.’ He looked at me and he had a look of disdain in his eyes, and he said, ‘You must have had your boyfriend solve it.’ To me, the most amazing thing is that I was indignant. I walked away. I didn’t know what to say. He was in essence accusing me of cheating. I was incensed by that. It did not occur to me for years and years that that was sexism.”

Fast-forward a few decades and, as Vedantam puts it, “things changed in large and subtle ways after Barbara became Ben.” He gives one particularly telling example, in which after Ben had delivered a lecture at the prestigious Whitehead Institute, someone in the audience, unaware that Barbara and Ben were the same person, remarked:

Ben Barres gave a great seminar today, but, then, his work is much better than his sister’s.

The differences also percolated through everyday life as Ben began to notice he was listened to more attentively, serviced more respectfully at stores, and generally made to feel more visible, more like he mattered.

Illustration from the 1970 book ‘I’m Glad I’m a Boy!: I’m Glad I’m a Girl!’ Click image for more.

Joan Roughgarden, meanwhile, experienced the exact opposite. She arrived at Stanford more than a quarter-century before making her male-to-female transition, landing into a “career track [that] is set up for young men” where “you are assumed to be competent unless revealed otherwise.” After the transition, however, Joan began noticing the subtle and not-so-subtle ways in which people were treating her and her work differently, taking her ideas less seriously. When she proposed a controversial theory, she was gobsmacked to see it dismiss not on scientific grounds but on social. She told Vedantam:

When I was doing [my earlier] work, they did not try to physically intimidate me and say, ‘You have not read all the literature…’ They would not assume they were smarter. The current crop of objectors assumes they are smarter.

Vedantam writes:

Joan is willing to acknowledge her theory might be wrong; that, after all, is the nature of science. But what she wants is to be proven wrong, rather than dismissed. Making bold and counterintuitive assertions is precisely the way science progresses. Many bold ideas are wrong, but if there isn’t a regular supply of them and if they are not debated seriously, there is no progress. After her transition, Joan said she no longer feels she has “the right to be wrong.”

[…]

I asked her about interpersonal dynamics before and after her transition. “You get interrupted when you are talking, you can’t command attention, but above all you can’t frame the issues,” she told me. With a touch of wistfulness, she compared herself to Ben Barres. “Ben has migrated into the center, whereas I have had to migrate into the periphery.”

Vedantam’s point, of course, isn’t to urge the less chromosomally privileged of us to change genders. It’s to shed light on an often invisible current of cultural advantage — on what it might be like to be the privileged player in a rigged game, or be the opposite. His most poignant illustration of that rig comes from an allegorical anecdote from his own biography, a beautiful and unsettling read. Vedantam recounts vacationing with his family on a tiny island in Mexico, where he got to experience a phenomenon that gave him profound perspective into how such biases work. He writes:

I have a complicated love affair with the water. I didn’t learn to swim until I was an adult. Well into my twenties, I carried the kind of unreasonable fear of water that you do not have if you learn to swim as a child. A considerable part of my enjoyment of the water lies in demonstrating to myself, over and over, that I have conquered my mortal fear. I am a decent swimmer, but I also know my fear has not completely disappeared. When things go wrong in the water, I easily panic.

After several dips, I decided to take one final excursion — this time around the edge of the bay. I felt happy and wonderful and fit; the water was calm. I suspected some of the best snorkeling lay around the edge of the rocks, two hundred fifty feet away. There were no signs posted that warned of any danger. With a good lunch in my stomach, I felt I could easily swim around the edge of the bay and back. I briefly thought about donning a life jacket and flippers, but decided against it. The life jacket would slow me down, and flippers don’t allow for the kind of maneuverability I like when I am snorkeling over a shallow reef.

The moment I got into the water and headed for the edge of the bay, I knew I had made the right decision to swim without a life jacket or flippers. I felt strong and good. I had done a lot of swimming that day already and was surprised at how smoothly I was kicking through the water. The trip would be child’s play; the way I was feeling, I knew I could easily swim well past the edge of the bay. I struck out purposefully to the lip of rocks. I imagined seeing myself from the deck chairs back on land, disappearing from view around the rocks.

The water felt suddenly cooler as I rounded the lip of the bay. It felt pleasant… My legs and arms felt stronger than ever. Each kick took me several feet; my technique was better than I remembered. I lengthened my stroke, feeling the pull of cool water against my torso. I felt graceful. Without realizing it, through steady practice, I had become a very good swimmer. I felt proud of myself.

Illustration by Wendy MacNaughton from ‘Meanwhile.’ Click image for more.

When he eventually decided to turn around, he quickly became aware of a chilling trick that his brain, conspiring with the ocean, had played on him:

I pivoted and started to kick my way back. A particularly lovely piece of coral lay just beneath me. But as I watched for it to go by as I swam past, the coral did not budge. I kicked again and again. It was as though I were swimming in place, stuck with invisible glue to a single spot. My fear of the water, long dormant, opened one monstrous eye.

I instantly realized my grace and skill on the way out had not been grace and skill at all. I had been riding an undercurrent. I would now have to fight it on the way back. The reef did not look beautiful anymore. The water looked too deep. No one on land could see me. Why had I not worn a life jacket? How insane not to have donned flippers. I kicked and pulled and kicked and pulled. I was working much harder than before, but I was not traveling several feet with each stroke; each effort bought me mere inches. My breathing in my own ears sounded labored, a huge pair of bellows shouting over the din of the sea…

I lived the usual sedentary life of many urban professionals; my athletic exploits were mainly weekend heroics. What had made me think I was really fit enough to swim out so far when I had already exerted myself so much that day?

Illustration by Wendy MacNaughton from ‘Meanwhile.’ Click image for more.

Somehow, carried by an image of his two-year-old daughter on the shore, he mustered the seemingly impossible strength and fought his way back to land, arriving on the verge of collapse. More than a staggering reality check of his athletic capacity, however, the experience provided a perfect and chilling metaphor for how our cultural biases that produce privilege work. Vedantam writes:

Unconscious bias influences our lives in exactly the same manner as that undercurrent that took me out so far that day. When undercurrents aid us … we are invariably unconscious of them. We never credit the undercurrent for carrying us so swiftly; we credit ourselves, our talents, our skills. I was completely sure that it was my swimming ability that was carrying me out so swiftly that day. It did not matter that I knew in my heart that I was a very average swimmer, it did not matter that I knew that I should have worn a life jacket and flippers. On the way out, the idea of humility never occurred to me. It was only at the moment I turned back, when I had to go against the current, that I even realized the current existed.

Our brains are expert at providing explanations for the outcomes we see. People who swim with the current never credit it for their success, because it genuinely feels as though their achievements are produced through sheer merit. These explanations are always partially true — people who do well in life usually are gifted and talented. If we achieve success through corrupt means, we know we got where we are because we cheated. This is what explicit bias feels like. But when we achieve success because of unconscious privileges, it doesn’t feel like cheating. And it isn’t just the people who flow with the current who are unconscious about its existence. People who fight the current all their lives also regularly arrive at false explanations for outcomes. When they fall behind, they blame themselves, their lack of talent. Just as there are always plausible explanations for why some people succeed, there are always plausible explanations for why others do not. You can always attribute failure to some lack of perseverance, foresight, or skill. It’s like a Zen riddle: If you never change directions, how can you tell there is a current?

Most of us — men and women — will never consciously experience the undercurrent of sexism that runs through our world. Those who travel with the current will always feel they are good swimmers; those who swim against the current may never realize they are better swimmers than they imagine. We may have our suspicions, but we cannot know for sure, because most men will never experience life as a woman and most women will never know what it is like to be a man. It is only the transgendered who have the moment of epiphany, when they suddenly face a current they were never really sure existed, or suddenly experience the relief of being carried by a force larger than themselves. The men and women who make this transition viscerally experience something that the rest of us do not. They experience the unfairness of the current.

The Hidden Brain is an altogether spectacular read, the kind that gives the best possible hope for changing our minds in the most necessary direction there is — toward more fairness, greater self-awareness, and a vital integration of our intentions and our actions.

via The Hidden Brain: How Ocean Currents Explain Our Unconscious Social Biases | Brain Pickings.

The Hidden Brain: How Ocean Currents Explain Our Unconscious Social Biases

Why You Should Always Send a Follow Up Cover Letter

When applying for a new job the devil can certainly be in the detail. Two simple words can make a world of difference and they are “thank you”. We all want to be thanked for the effort we put in to our jobs and that goes for any interviewer, be they HR or hiring managers. Be sure to follow up your cover letter that got you the interview with a post-interview thank you note that will put you firmly back on the map for the employer.

Why send it?

Sincere statements like “Thank you for meeting me today”, “I appreciated meeting you”, “I very much look forward to speaking to you later today” should perk up any hiring manager’s mood after another day of sifting the wheat from the chaff. The idea is to stand out from other candidates and leave a favorable impression with the other person by going the extra mile.

The follow up letter is more than only saying thank you, it also allows you to reiterate the points you made in the meeting and to bring up any new points that you forgot to put across. Examples of this could be “great to see that we both like ice hockey, I should have mentioned that I did play semi-professionally back in the 90’s”.

Make the decision today to follow up your meetings with a thank you note sent straight to the interviewer. The note says a lot about you, that you care about others and not just about this particular job. It will also indicate that you will make a great team player willing to go out of your way for others.

How to send it?

Does the not have to be sent by post? Not at all, a phone call or an email will do just as well. Although traditionalists would argue that nothing beats a hand written letter, especially if you want to stand out from the crowd. In any event, what’s important is that you express your appreciation and leave a lasting good impression.

If you really like the idea of thank you notes, you could even send one to the employers that didn’t ask you to interview. Again, you will get noticed and although you won’t be put back in the running for that position, you will be at the forefront of that employer’s mind for the next one.

Sample follow up cover letter:

Dear Employer,

Thank you so much for taking the time to see me today. It was a pleasure discussing our mutual passion for philately and ornithology. I enjoyed meeting you and going through your job opening and to have the chance to state the reasons I am convinced I would be an ideal fit.

The team seems like a lovely bunch of people, the office is very conveniently located and I can really see myself having a long career with your company. Looking forward to hearing from you soon and hopefully another meeting in the near future. Thank you once again.

Kind Regards,

Applicant

Conclusion

Make it a rule to follow up your interviews with another cover letter, including the magic words “thank you” and you will be surprised how people will react positively. Now go on and Make Dale Carnegie himself proud by unleashing the power of good manners on your job search!

Why You Should Always Send a Follow Up Cover Letter.

Why You Should Always Send a Follow Up Cover Letter

How to Stand Out During the Interview: Use These 25 Questions

Interviews can be stressful, but if you’ve done your research, prepared your answers, the next thing is to create a list of questions you will ask during the interview. Remember, the interview really should be a mutual exchange of information, not an interrogation.

When you ask questions is demonstrates your interest in the company and the position. It also shows you have given careful thought to what the job will entail and whether the company will be a good match. Sending these impressions to the employer can work in your favor. Remember, most employers aren’t hiring “butts in seats.” They want the people they hire to perform, and hopefully better than expected.

There are four different categories of questions listed depending on where you are in the interview process and what information you want to gather during your discussion.

Basic Questions

These questions are good to ask during the pre-screening phone interview or in the early stages of the interviewing process. Gathering the answers early will allow you to ask better follow-up questions later on. They will also provide you with a clearer idea of the skills you will want to emphasize.

• What do you see ahead for your company in the next five years?


• What do you consider to be your company’s most important assets?


• How do you rate your competition?


• Could you describe a typical day or week in this position? Or Could you describe the typical client or customer I would be dealing with?


• What are the most important elements of this job?


• Why is this position available?


• What did the last person in this position go onto do — and what were they like?


• How is job performance evaluated, and how often does it occur?


• What are the three main factors you will be using to determine the right person for this job?


• What was it about my qualifications that most appealed to you?

Job-Related Questions

These questions allow you to dig deeper into the job requirements and expectations and are best asked of your future manager.

• What goals do you expect the person who takes this job to achieve during their first 30, 60, and 90 days?


• Could you tell me about the way the job has been performed in the past? And, what improvements you’d like to see happen?


• How does “X” get done here? (Where “X” is a key element of the job)


• What types of skills do you NOT already have on-board that you’re looking to fill with a new hire?


• If I was starting in this position today, what would you advise me to learn first and do first?

Cultural Fit Questions

Finding the right cultural fit is important to you AND the employer. There are many elements to cultural fit: management style, processes and procedures, ethics/values, communication styles, levels of trust and empowerment are just a few. Listen carefully and without bias as you ask these questions. Whenever possible, ask relevant follow-up questions to gain further insight or clarification.

• What do you like best about working here?


• What type of work do you delegate to your staff?


• The company may have a formal recognition program; however, what type of recognition have you recently given to one of your staff?


• Has anyone on your staff been promoted over the last couple of years? If so, what was the reason why this person was promoted?


• What would be the three things that your peers would say you do extremely well?


• What opportunities do you make available for professional development and training?


• What do employees do in their spare time?


• Does the company welcome celebrating special occasions? What was the last occasion your department celebrated?

Trial Close

Sometimes it is a good idea to see if you’ve left the interviewer with questions or issues unaddressed. A “trial close” can be a way for you to see what the interviewer is feeling.

• Are there any reservations you have about my fit for the position that I could try to address?


• This job sounds like something I’d really like to do — is there a fit here?


• Now that we’ve talked about my qualifications and the job, do you have any concerns about my being successful in this position?

Final Questions

There are no exceptions. You MUST know the answers to these questions. It allows you to plan how and when you follow-up.

• What is the next step in this process?


• What is your time line for getting back to candidates about the next steps?

Exuding confidence and interest in the job are two of the most important assets you can possess! Go get the next interview!

via How to Stand Out During the Interview: Use These 25 Questions.

How to Stand Out During the Interview: Use These 25 Questions

7 Reasons Employers Will Hire You

To secure that dream job, you have to think like the person making the final decision. What is going through the manager’s head when they select candidates? This is a list containing the 7 most common reasons people get hired. Use it wisely now and do let me know if you have any questions on any of the reasons.

1. A great resume

Sometimes an average candidate can be hired thanks to a brilliant resume. Your resume is your first impression and you only get one shot at this. Pick a template relevant to your industry, look at other people’s resumes, have them look at yours, get help from experts etc before you send anything out. Remember that your resume has to be updated consistently and it is a living document.

2. Your online personal brand

Personal branding is my personal favorite. Social media and networking has quickly become the preferred method of communication, and you will be found online by your potential new employer. By tailoring what information is available, you can turn social media into a positive when looking for a new job.

Make sure your public profiles are employee friendly and up to date. Establish yourself as an authority online by either starting a blog, moderating a forum or jut being active in a Linkedin group for instance. Get recommendations on your prolife and these will serve as the old school resume references. Social media and online branding will take you a fair bit of time and effort but you don’t really have a choice so my best advice is to embrace it.

3. The right skills and experience

In this economy, you will struggle to find someone willing to hire a candidate that needs training. Think about it, would you want somebody shadowing your work and asking questions for the first 6 months? Or would you want somebody that knows the score and gets busy contributing to your targets from day one? Having the right skills and experience is more important than ever and unfortunately not something you can work on overnight.

4. Staying power with the business

This is crucial as employers want people that stay in their company and work their way up the corporate ladder. This makes them useful (and useful means hard working). Employers will look for people who have multi-dimensional personalities, meaning they can work in different departments, projects or even locations one day. Your longevity with the business and personal characteristics will be the deciding factors here.

5. You get on with people

This is significant as the employer will want you to enjoy spending time at work, thus you won’t mind the occasional/weekly/everyday late night. By having a sense of belonging to the people at work, you are likely to enjoy it more and be less susceptible to other job offers. And in general our ability to work well with lots of different people is a critical key to your success over time within any company.

6. You can bring home the bacon

A classic WIIFM case where you either make money or save money for the company. Any manager has a budget and they want a way to either increase sales or reduce costs. You being able to do one of these will be music to their ears. If you can demonstrate and project how much you will put on his or her bottom line, they will be very tempted to hire you. So your job will be to present your exact plan for doing this and leave it with them. In the end you would be doing them a favor and helping them hit their numbers.

7. Positive attitude and enthusiasm

The business world is full of moaners and the last thing a hiring manager wants is another union card wielding sinker on their team. If you are able to lift the moods of your intervierwers by way of charisma, humor or any other magic, you stand a lot better chance of being considered for the next round. Everyone is attracted to happy and positive people and if you lack experience and skills, this could be your trump card. By staying positive and radiating enthusiasm long after you landed the job, you can inspire others and demonstrate that you are promotion material.

via 7 Reasons Employers Will Hire You.

7 Reasons Employers Will Hire You

3 Ways to Stay Cool in Interviews and Get Your Dream Job

As an experienced counselor with a fairly deep understanding of human nature, I can say this with total confidence: job interviews freak people out!

In my time as a therapist, I’ve interacted with some truly capable people. I’ve coached business professionals who wield a great deal of influence, I’ve counseled semi-professional athletes ready to take their game to the next level, and I’ve mentored bright-eyed college grads who had a lot of ambition and very big dreams.

And no matter who I talk to, I’m always amazed to find that all of them (and I mean, all of them!) experienced a great deal of anxiety at the thought of being interviewed.

From a psychological perspective, the fear is totally reasonable. The dynamics of a interview are wildly unsettling, and play on our innate fear of rejection.

Think about it: an interview is a time-limited interaction with a total stranger, who will judge every single word you say, and analyze every action you make. He or she will openly scrutinize you. A few days or weeks after your meeting with the stranger, you will receive a phone call or an email, and be notified whether you have been rejected or not.

Not fun. Pretty terrifying, really.

So, as I noticed each of my clients was experiencing the same emotion regarding the same event, I put together an intervention to help them relax, focus, and make the most of every interview they find themselves on. The techniques I used are listed below, and each one is simple, actionable, and, most importantly, backed up with a lot of research! Use them to your advantage:

1) Envision your success before you start:

Visualization is frequently used in the sports world, and many public figures (notably Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey) have sworn by the principle’s powers. The idea is simple: condition yourself for the goal you want to achieve by imagining it clearly in your mind.

It sounds simple, but the research backs up the idea. One study showed that “mental practice” is almost as effective as actual, physical practice, and that doing mental practice and physical practice is more effective than either practice alone.

So how does it work? Visualization activities must follow a very specific path. First, find a quiet place and relax. Then begin to imagine yourself with the person or the people interviewing you: what do they ask you? How do you answer some of the tough questions they ask? How do you calm yourself when you begin to feel nervous? The clearer your visualization, the better the technique works.

In truth, visualization is really a form of preparation: you imagine the obstacles you’ll face, and you creative find ways to meet and overcome them.

2) Use social proof to your advantage:

We are intrinsically social creatures, and we are constantly reading the emotional cues of the people around us. It is nature’s most effective way of learning about danger and learning about opportunity, and it is deeply engrained into our psyches.

So how does that affect your job search?

Almost 65% of all new employees at any given company attained their interview through someone they know. There are plenty of conclusions you can draw from this (the most obvious being – if you’re looking for a job, you’re most likely to get it through someone you know, so tap into your contacts), but the important idea is that your interviewer will be more likely to hire you if someone can vouch for you. If you use your network to get your job interview, you are providing powerful social proof, and your interviewer already knows that someone values you.

Unfortunately, many people interpret the 65% statistic to mean that the odds are against them if they’re going into an interview without a connection to the interviewer. Luckily, you can provide social proof in your interview discussion. There are two ways to do this:

1. During your interview, talk about people you know, and share stories about working with your bosses and interacting with decision-makers are your previous company. Don’t be boastful and don’t be a name-dropper, but make sure that your interviewer gets the feeling that others liked working with you and valued your efforts.


2. Provide your own social proof. The trend is to include the words “References available upon request” somewhere near the end of your resume, which is thoughtful – after all, you don’t don’t want to deluge your interviewer with paper (especially before they’re interested in you). But if you’ve made it to the interview stage, do not leave your interviewer’s office without handing him a letter of recommendation. The letter can be from a former employer, an old professor that you’ve worked with, or a community leader that you’ve volunteered for, but make sure it’s a person with recognizable authority, and make sure it details you as competent, motivated, and easy to work with.

3) Give yourself a 24/7 pep talk:

A researcher at the University of Pennsylvania found that personal success was almost invariably related to that person’s “explanatory style”. That is, the most reliable way to tell whether a person will succeed or fail is to see whether they interpret their life in an optimistic or a pessimistic way.

The research makes sense: how you interpret your circumstances determines how you feel, and how you feel determines how well you perform.

So be nice to yourself! When you think about your job hunt, interpret your efforts in an uplifting way that makes the situation seem positive. If you’ve recently been laid off and you’re looking for work, don’t interpret your job loss as a negative: think of the new adventures you’ll have at your next place of employment, and how you’re about to take the next step of your professional career. If you’re looking for your first job out of college, don’t see yourself as inexperienced, but rather as a blank slate ready to dive in and learn all you can at your new job.

Chances are that even though you’re speaking nicely to yourself, you’ll still feel nervous, and that’s normal – expected, even. But you have a choice: you can speak kindly to yourself and foster positive feelings, or you can beat yourself up and feel awful. Not all choices are easy, but this seems simple.

Go get ‘em!

Remember, job interviews can be daunting, but you’ve got some pretty powerful tools to use: you can see the outcome you want, you can use social proof to display your value, and you can get psyched, because the job you want is almost yours!

3 Ways to Stay Cool in Interviews and Get Your Dream Job.

3 Ways to Stay Cool in Interviews and Get Your Dream Job

How Glassdoor Gives Candidates an Inside Look at Employers

Many different integrated apps have tried to introduce recruiting and job finding into Facebook, but none have been entirely successful. I was invited to one I had not heard of before – Glassdoor – and it seemed interesting so I tried it. I will now review this app and website – a new way to find jobs and leave feedback on past and current employers, anonymously.

Glassdoor was voted the ‘Best Employment Site 2012’ by the Webby Awards, and is touted as ‘a free inside look at jobs and companies’. Employees can leave anonymous salary information, reviews, interview questions and photographs from current and past employees. Think TripAdvisor for jobs – if you are considering a job offer from a particular company you probably want to check out what others think of it.

Activation

Whether you are invited to join Glassdoor (as I was) or you search for the app via Facebook, a connection page first appears, where you can alter profile visibility. As with all apps, you can set the visibility as ‘Public’, ‘Friends’ or ‘Me’ – which may be useful if you have current employers or colleagues in your ‘Friends’ list. This automatic connection to your Facebook profile allows Glassdoor to use your original Facebook profile information (such as schooling and jobs) to create a separate Glassdoor profile (you can change/delete this information later on).

A typical Glassdoor profile lists only ‘Work Experience’, ‘Education’ and ‘Connections’ with current job title under your name and uses your current Facebook profile picture (so make sure it’s a good one, as you can’t change it!). The profile information is linked back to Facebook-type pages for each company (to be discussed later).

Profile Completion

Once signed up, I had a 60% complete profile with a ‘Basic’ membership. The first important step was to complete my profile with Glassdoor giving me a list of tasks to do, each with a percentage that would total 100% when all three were done. My three tasks were ‘Add current city’, ‘Invite 3 friends’ and “‘Like’ or ‘+1’”. The ‘Add current city’ was an easy option in the Profile, with drop down suggestions for town names and locations.

The ‘Invite 3 friends’ option was annoying. This is done through a page where you are invited to ‘Include’ a certain amount of Facebook friends (either ALL of your Facebook friends, or all of your colleagues from school, University or a workplace), with the idea that the more friends you have, the more connections you will have. The invite window (a “private” request) is not very helpful either – you cannot remove people – so you cannot choose specific people to invite to the app.

The Like or +1 element of the profile is a clever marketing tool for the company’s social pages. You have to complete both elements – liking the Facebook page and +1 the company on Google+ to gain the added 10%. Once you ‘Like’ the company, it will appear on your profile page, enticing your friends to sign up. This will allow Glassdoor’s presence on both sites to increase.

You are then asked to write a review/salary/interview post or upload a workplace photograph to grant yourself an ‘Unlimited’ membership. There are two types of membership on the Glassdoor website – the ‘Basic’ membership and the ‘Unlimited’ membership.

The website states that “all new members automatically get a Basic Membership with 1-month of access to everything posted by our community.”  However, no payment is needed for unlimited membership (as the site is financed by large ads on every page), as it “only takes a minute” to upgrade. “Simply give back to the community by posting an anonymous inside look of your own — remember, your posts are anonymous.”

The wording is extremely casual and friendly, and shows a sense of applying to a younger generation – maybe graduates or people looking for their first job. It is also a crucial point that everything is anonymous – no matter whether you are posting a positive/negative report, you will never be found out.

Connections

The front page of Glassdoor boasts the bold sentence: “Most jobs are found through an inside connection. Each friend that joins Glassdoor allows you to see more connections at more companies”. The main aspect of Glassdoor is the more people you add (who then accept), the more connections you will have, and also access to a higher number of companies will be granted. However, people have been getting annoyed at the app requests on Facebook (as a simple Twitter search of ‘Glassdoor Facebook’ will show), as not everyone may be looking for a job at the time you invite them!

Writing a Review

When you write a ‘Company Review’ or post a Salary, you are asked to select between Current or Former Employer. If your employer is not yet listed, you are asked to enter some details (website, type and number of employees (from drop down menus), and the Headquarters City).

Once submitted, a new form appears (with again a reminder that it is anonymous at the top) and the user can rate a number of elements of the job, as well as give ‘Pros’, ‘Cons’ and ‘Advice to Management’ as well as whether you would recommend this employer to a friend, and where your job prospects are looking for the next 6 months (up or down). Next to each submission form is an important ‘Message to Our Community’, a sign that fairness and good quality is crucial to Glassdoor.

When submitting a photo, the rules outline that a “behind-the-scenes look” is needed and the user is informed that they may upload 10 photos. All content is reviewed before being posted on the site – a simple way to ensure that people cannot tarnish a company or the website itself.

The website is then split into four sections – ‘Jobs’, ‘Companies & Reviews’, ‘Salaries’ and ‘Interviews’, with a separate blog.

Jobs

‘Jobs’ lists available Jobs in a certain area, with change range and date posted. Each job links to the Company Overview, Reviews, Salaries and Interviews of the company posting the job – and these elements are extremely detailed (the Review has an average rating from all posts).

Companies & Reviews

Under this section, there are the ‘Featured Companies’, with the ‘Most Popular Companies’, ‘Best Places To Work’ and ‘Companies and Reviews By Industry’. Each company is given its own page on the site (which they can edit to describe the company’s missions/morals and other details), and a link to its Facebook and Twitter feed. Everything about this website is based around sharing – sharing information on companies, sharing connections with your Facebook ‘friends’, and sharing your use of the site.

Salaries

The ‘Salaries’ part of the website is the one which may be the most problematic – for two main reasons. Firstly, people may lie about their salaries, either directly (to sound as if they earn/have earned more) or indirectly (mistakenly inputting the wrong salary).

Secondly, current employees of the company could use it to look up other people’s salaries (either for the same job title or the same company), and this could cause friction in the workplace and even complaints (if someone was secretly earning more than you, but doing the same job). This is the section that Glassdoor have to take care with the most, to ensure it does not cause more harm than good.

Interviews

Interviews are listed by job and company, with the most popular from both in separate tables. Interviews are also tagged, with the most used tags in a chart at the bottom of the page. When an interview question is clicked on, it can be answered, tagged or commented upon. This is useful for interviewees (to prepare) and interviewers alike (as they can change the questions they ask, in case it becomes a very popular post on the website).

Is Glassdoor useful for job seekers?

Yes. It is an extremely handy tool which people can use to choose the right company and job to apply for (by using the reviews and salaries section). However, it needs to be handled with caution – rogue posts (both positive and negative) may have passed through the system, and it should be used with a pinch of salt.

Is Glassdoor useful for employers?

It is more necessary than useful for employers. Again, the posts should be taken with a pinch of salt, but may be needed to improve work ethics at the company, and fairness in terms of salaries, as well as changing interviews to make sure that every candidate passes the interview easily.

Pros?

There are many different pros for Glassdoor:

• This website is one of a kind – there is no other major site where you can review your company, post your salary, photos and interview questions, all anonymously.


• Reviews are always checked before they are posted to ensure for a fairness, with guidelines clearly set out so as not to allow any malicious posts.


• Glassdoor uses prizes to get people to write anonymous reviews or salary posts – in this case I was offered the chance to win a free iPad in return for a post – so you may receive a really good prize for writing 100 words.


• It is extremely difficult to find negative reviews – there is no lowest rated company chart etc. This makes it fairer to companies to ensure that they are not brought down or trash talked.


• It has a clear layout, with easy navigation and titles, and an interesting design.

Cons?

• The ‘include’/invite friends element is the main con. Sometimes with these apps, you don’t want to include all your friends (such as bosses/fellow colleagues which you may have in your Facebook friends). A quick Twitter search of ‘Glassdoor Facebook’ brings up a lot of frustration about the app requests sent by friends.


• You cannot change your picture (say if you want a different photo to your Facebook profile picture).


• The website is coded in HTML, and could be made to look slicker and smoother.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Glassdoor is an interesting website with many pros and cons. It works in terms of ‘connections’, so is extremely similar to LinkedIn. Is it trying to be a better LinkedIn or just a simpler LinkedIn (that anyone can connect to), with the added anonymous review elements? I feel that Glassdoor is extremely useful for first-time job seekers (as well as employers), but is more aimed towards the Facebook generation, who like to share a vast amount of information – as it easy to use with its casual language, prizes and large graphics.

via How Glassdoor Gives Candidates an Inside Look at Employers.

How Glassdoor Gives Candidates an Inside Look at Employers