9 Tips to Help You Impress Your Interviewer

Once you master the small talk, here are some tips that will help you impress your interviewer.

• Work on your handshake: Don‘t offer up a flimsy or sweaty hand. Instead, when you meet with prospective employers or interviews, offer a firm handshake, with one or two pumps from the elbow to the hand. It‘s a good way to illustrate your confidence and start the interview off on the right note.


• Get serious: If you take a casual approach to the initial interview with a company, especially with a screening interviewer from the human resources department, you may be sealing your fate. Job seekers should treat every interview as if it‘s their one and only chance to sell themselves to the recruiter.


• Get the practice: If you find yourself being offered an interview for a job you are not really interested in, go on the interview anyway; you can make contacts for future job opportunities and get valuable interview practice.


• Be enthusiastic: Bring a positive attitude to your interview. Most interviewers won‘t even give a second thought to someone who has a negative presence or seems like they almost need to be talked into the job. “You‘re selling yourself, and part of you is the positive approach you‘ll bring to the office every morning,” says Alison Richardson, a recruiter for several New York financial firms. “That smile and friendly demeanor go a long way.”


• Ask questions: When interviewing for a new position, it‘s essential to have a handful of questions to ask your potential employer. Some questions could include: What do you consider to be the ideal background for the position? What are some of the significant challenges? What‘s the most important thing I can do to help within the first 90 days of my employment? Do you have any concerns that I need to clear up in order to be the top candidate?


• Tell a story: Your interviewer wants to know about your skills and experiences, but he or she also wants to know about you. Don‘t fire off routine answers to questions. Instead, work your answers into stories or anecdotes about yourself. People remember the people who are interesting. Prove your value by tailoring stories that address the main concern an interviewer may have: What can you do for us?


• Show restraint: During an interview, what you don‘t say may be as important as what you do say. As a rule, don‘t talk about money or benefits, especially during the first interview. You should already know if you fit the parameters. Don‘t badmouth about any of your past employers. Organizations don‘t hire complainers. Don‘t mention outside career aspirations or part-time jobs. Employers are looking for people who want to be part of their organization for the next decade and beyond.

Whatever you do, don‘t mention the need for an immediate vacation. First of all, you‘re making an assumption that the recruiter wants to hire you. Second, you‘re essentially removing yourself from the list of potential candidates. A job candidate we once interviewed was quick to announce that she needed time off immediately for a two-week honeymoon. We hadn‘t even offered her the job. Needless to say, we didn‘t. Certainly, there are scenarios in which you‘ll need to discuss pending scheduling conflicts, but the interview isn‘t one of them.

• Be memorable: Considering the number of job seekers interviewing for positions today, it‘s fair to suggest that many HR workers can hardly keep track of the differences. That‘s why it‘s important to do or say something that will allow you to stand out in the mind of your interviewer. It will strike a personal note and also provide a point of reference when it‘s time to recall the top candidates. Sure, the job candidate with “American Idol” experience we mentioned in the introduction had no real usable background for the job we were looking for, but he was memorable.

When 24-year-old Noreen Hennessy was looking for a job in marketing in a tough San Francisco job market, she mentioned to one interviewer that she recently ran in a Tough Mudder competition, a hardcore obstacle course that pushes one‘s physical and mental skills to the limits.

“She had a picture of her and some friends covered in mud on her desk,” Hennessy says. “I casually brought up the Tough Mudder, and she had a million questions. Our interview was pretty much over by then, but our conversation went on for another 10 minutes.”

Hennessy says she didn‘t get that job, but because of her interviewer‘s interest in the event, she put it on her resume as one of her interests and activities. “Every recruiter I spoke with after that would bring it up,” she says. “It became a major talking point and I think it said a lot about my grit and determination.”

Hennessy says she took some time off from the job search to assist a friend in setting up an event-planning business, which she says may or may not turn into a long-term job. “I‘m getting paid, working with people I like, learning a lot,” she says. “There are a million shades, but marketing is marketing. What I practice at the startup level will be something I can bring to the corporate level and it‘s certainly something else I can talk about during interviews.”

• Ask for the job: “Tell your interviewer you want the job — period,” says Dana Fulbright, an IT recruiter for Universal Studios in Orlando, Fla. “So many people leave without ever saying they want to be hired. It sounds so simple, but it‘s true. Let your employer know that you want to work there.”

via 9 Tips to Help You Impress Your Interviewer.

9 Tips to Help You Impress Your Interviewer

HR Should Hire "Scary" Data People

Too many people confuse reporting with analytics–and underinvest in making sure they are asking the right questions.

Standard-issue reports about monthly employee turnover rates and average compensation per employee are important glances in the rearview mirror. But today’s savviest chief human resources officers (CHROs) do not spend time obsessing over such reports.

Instead, they are looking for ways to go beyond analyzing the data they expect. They seek real insight. They want to know what they don’t know. They want to discover those elusive flashes that management can use to hone the organization’s competitive edge. They want to create value for customers and shareholders alike.

As highlighted in the Economist Intelligence Unit report entitled “In search of insight and foresight: Getting more out of big data,” predictive analytics were most valued by the 373 global executives surveyed. The main drivers for ROI on analytics investments were found to be the quality of the questions being asked and the availability of talent to look for the right business challenges to solve. The availability of effective technology, potentially useful data, and endlessly curious data scientists asking the right questions are the three legs of the stool.

Going beyond the expected is essential to the practice of analytics and is the fundamental difference between true analytics and reporting. And to achieve this end in HR, you need to hire a scary person.

Known as data scientists or quants, these whizzes can be scary to more-traditional CHROs and HR leadership teams, because they don’t think or speak in traditional HR terms. Nevertheless, their innate curiosity, business knowledge, and supreme skills in finding insights or “signal” in data make them masters of uncovering new strategies for reaching core business goals. In short, they’re the ones asking and answering the question behind the question behind the question.

Here’s a hypothetical. An HR quant may probe the depths of data about what attracts high-performing sales talent in a particular industry and, conversely, what causes these overachievers to leave a company. Using predictive models, this data scientist may identify areas in which an investment of $500,000 could cultivate new talent capable of increasing revenues by $10 million in the coming year. When you start initiating discussions like this, don’t be surprised if the CFO says to you and your quant, “You’d better be able to back this up—but in the meantime, let’s hear what you have to say.”

Some HR applications today provide excellent and easy-to-use functionality that can predict turnover and performance and even model different scenarios to gauge the impact of different actions on predicted outcomes. This functionality can be deployed on mobile devices, requires no training, and delivers unprecedented decision support to front-line leaders, but it should be viewed as just the start.

With the right data wizard and a reliable foundation of human-generated information, CHROs will be on solid ground and well on the way to turning the HR department into a strategic business asset. The critical distinction is that the scope of inquiry should not be limited to traditional HR systems and data. More value can be created when other sources of human-generated data—including location data, activity data, sensor data, financial data, unstructured sentiment analysis, and many more—are in the mix. Although many of these pose potential HR compliance questions, they are too valuable to dismiss and should be considered possible sources of insight.

The Perfect Quant

What makes quants so scary? They exhibit a freakish combination of traits that are rare in any single person. They have a deep and innate curiosity about data, probabilities, and mathematical modeling. They’re also fired by a passion for business. Even more surprising perhaps, they welcome the opportunity to collaborate with HR leaders to develop and answer the questions that will help the business grow.

Data scientists aren’t necessarily the people CHROs already employ to create standard monthly reports. Data scientists perform vastly different roles. They are much more focused on asking “how” and “why” questions than on carrying out typical reporting functions. The same people who provide reporting on core processes and talent reviews may not be the ones who can identify the specific actions needed to elevate the quality of talent in an organization.

So where do you find these endlessly curious, business-focused data geniuses? If you track some HR quants’ careers, you’ll likely find résumés that weave in and out of various business functions. These people may have spent time in finance, developing analytical skills. Then they may have moved to product development and gained a deep understanding of target customers. The latest stop is quite likely the marketing department (take a look at my last post for more on that), because CMOs have hungered in recent years for the right mix of data and analysis to enhance the customer experience and predict and influence human behavior. Who better to satisfy that appetite than a quant?

Time to Transform

With the help of a handful of quants, CHROs can continue to evolve their roles to meet today’s new realities. My Oracle ORCL -0.34% colleague Bob Evans sees a similar transformation occurring among CIOs. “CIOs have never had such a glorious—and challenging—opportunity to deliver significant, enduring, and transformational business impact and customer value as they do today,” he writes. But he also warns that IT leaders who measure their success by server uptime and service-level agreement (SLA) enforcement “should consider swapping out the CIO title for a new one: senior director of infrastructure.”

The same is true for CHROs. If they don’t find a quant to help HR ask the question behind the question behind the question, they also may soon be changing the title on their business cards. And that’s a prediction that can probably be made today without the services of a data scientist.

via OracleVoice: HR Should Hire “Scary” Data People – Forbes.

HR Should Hire "Scary" Data People

What Social Recruiting Apps Actually Work for Candidates?

You’ve read all the blog posts, articles and ebooks. You’ve heard pundits on TV, radio and down your local pub swearing by the power of social media. It’s the solution to everyone’s customer service gripes, online dating, general time waste and of course your job search.

We’re told recruiters and employers spend all day trawling through random social networks to find their next hire. So what are you doing even reading this, you should be busy branding yourself on social media surely?

Which ones should you use?

How do you know which social tools are actually useful for jobs and which ones are a giant waste of time and effort? Well that’s not easy to tell. They all look equally shiny and typically have a decent content marketer pushing out good stories on a blog.

Is BranchOut going to get you a job? Maybe BrandYourself? No wait, try VisualCV or why not DoYouBuzz. BeKnown is definitely the one. Wait, there’s another one…

If you’re a jobseeker (or an employer) you will have noticed that almost every week there is a new shiny tool, app, plugin, add-on, extension or platform launched in the career space. They all have ‘unique’ features and promise to automate your job search (or candidate search for employers).

You might find yourself signing up to new tools every week and going through the motions of filling in your bio, uploading that photo and connecting with the same people again. By doing this it’s easy to achieve a false sense of achievement, just like spraying out 50 resumes to random companies.

Low barriers to entry

The trouble with online technology is that the barriers to entry are very low, meaning anyone can set up the ‘next big thing’ from their garage. This is of course a great leveler and you would hope the invisible hand of business would sift out the inferior products. Not so I’m afraid. Just as it’s easy to set something up, it’s easy to keep it ticking over as well whilst you decide what to do with it (that’s what they call BETA testing). This situation is not something the end-user will benefit from.

Big companies always succeed surely

And just because a large company launches a new application doesn’t mean it’s going to take off; Monster.com launched BeKnown last year. It was billed the professional network hosted on Facebook and was going to be a game changer. A year later you barely hear about it anymore – those guinea pigs that signed up and did up their profiles, connected with others and started ‘engaging’ must be regretting their early adoption.

What are some of the good ones?

There are a few tools that are genuinely useful and they have either been acquired by the bigger players, such as Rapportive or SlideShare which were both snapped up by LinkedIn. The best way to find out which ones are worth bothering with is to take a step back and let others do the testing for you. Instead of jumping on every new plug-in, wait for reviews to come in and ask your network if they get any use out of ‘Super Cool Plug-in 3.0′.

Bottom line

Social media is about people and a hiring process is about people (I would hope). Use social to identify and contact the right people within an organization, don’t sign up for another tool that somehow automagically would contact people on your behalf.

If you think a tool looks useful, take a step back and breathe. Read the reviews, ask your peers and do your due diligence. Then you’re ready to invest your time and effort.

via What Social Recruiting Apps Actually Work for Candidates?.

What Social Recruiting Apps Actually Work for Candidates?

Resigning in style: how to tell your employer

There are plenty of interesting ways to let your employer know you’re leaving. But make sure you don’t burn your bridges

You might be tempted to dance your way out of the door, charm your ex-employer with the message iced on to a cake, or even get your own back by lambasting your boss to the whole office (one of the funnier Twitter hoaxes). But you need to resist these temptations when the time comes for you to resign.

Erring on the side of caution with a polite resignation letter means you won’t burn bridges. You might not want to work for the company again, but remember, paths might cross with your ex-line manager or other colleagues in a different company in the future. Making sure your exit is as professional as possible will help you retain credibility – even if you’re leaving under a cloud.

Letting your manager know

Show courtesy by telling your boss first. Request a meeting to say that you’re leaving, following up soon after with an official resignation letter. Do this before you blast out an office-wide email.

Work out how you can ensure a smooth transition and minimise disruption to your employer. There may be a range of things you can do to hand over professionally, such as completing projects, working out the priorities with your line manager, leaving clear documentation or training up your successor in processes or software.

Before the meeting with your boss, write a list of ongoing projects along with status updates and suggestions for completion.

Use the meeting to clarify any other points, such as your notice period and leaving date, how you will inform others (colleagues or external clients, contacts and suppliers). Ask about references too; your employer may only supply the most basic type (including dates worked, job title etc) but your line manager might also give you a more personal reference. Making sure you get a good written reference before you leave (or trying to agree the wording if you leave in less happy circumstances) can make subsequent job hunting less stressful.

The letter

Keep your letter short. You don’t need to give lots of explanations or justification for why you’re leaving, or even to say where you’re moving to. Don’t be tempted to address the failings of the company or your boss, either. Instead, thanking your employer for the job and mentioning what you appreciated about it is a graceful touch. Here’s an idea of what to include:

• First paragraph – the basics

“I am writing to formally give notice of my resignation from my post/position/role as (job title) at (name of employer).

According to the terms of my contract, the notice period is (length of notice period) and my final working day will therefore be (leaving date).”

• Second paragraph – thank your employer

“I have enjoyed working here and particularly appreciate/would like to thank you for … ”

Mention any particular career-building projects you worked on or opportunities to develop skills and contribute to the employer’s goals and successes. You can also mention your appreciation at being able to work in a great team or to develop your knowledge of the industry, for example.

• Third paragraph – state your willingness to hand over

“I will do my utmost to complete existing projects and to assist where possible in the hand-over process.

Yours sincerely … ”

Letting others know

As well as telling your closest colleagues in person, you may also want to email others. Again, keep this short and sweet, such as: “As you may already know, I’ve decided to leave the company to pursue other opportunities (in … ) /to take the next step in my career.

I’ve greatly enjoyed working with you all and hope that our paths will cross again in the future.”

via Resigning in style: how to tell your employer | Guardian Careers | Guardian Professional.

Resigning in style: how to tell your employer

How Tim"s Strategy Tool Can Help Your Job Search

I recently had a chat with our great buddy Tim Tyrell-Smith, something I like to do on a regular basis (see our previous chat here). Tim is an author, blogger, speaker, coach and consultant in the job search, career and marketing space. He is one of the most genuine and credible guys out there and I always look forward to reading/hearing what he has to say.

This time around, Tim had some exciting news for anyone looking to have a clear job search or career strategy – he and his team have developed a piece of software aptly named Tim’s Strategy:

So, what does the software do?

Tim’s Strategy offers a structured, step-by-step process to establish a job search strategy. As Tim said, “It’s like tax software for your job search”. A complex and often misunderstood process is broken down into smaller, “easier to chew” pieces. And there is significant help (including video) at every step. Specifically, the software delivers the following:

• Identification of clear and specific job search objectives (plus help with target companies)

• A personal branding strategy and profile

• A complete set of personal marketing materials (resume, cover letter, bio, business card, elevator pitch, references)

• A customized networking strategy including targeted introductions

• A purposeful strategy for interview preparation

OK, what doesn’t it do?

• It’s not a job board. It doesn’t let you search for job leads and it won’t send you any. It doesn’t compete with Monster or Indeed.

• It’s not a social network for job seekers or career professionals. So it doesn’t compete with LinkedIn or BranchOut.

• It’s not a CRM system to track leads and manage your ongoing job search. It doesn’t compete with JibberJobber.

• Some of the features (like targeting employers) are limited to the US. Tim will add international functionalities over time but it’s currently most useful for Americans.

To sum up, Tim’s Strategy helps you build a smart, personalized job search strategy. I think the tool looks great and having known Tim for a number of years now, I know how passionate he is about helping people to succeed in their careers.

Special reader offer!

Tim recently completed a third round of beta testing and is now ready to offer early and discounted access to you (or a friend), to take advantage of this offer, go to the site and use this promo code just for readers of The Undercover Recruiter: TIMS4TUR

When you do, you’ll save 67% off the sign up price and pay less than $49.99 upfront. What’s the catch? Well none really. But there is a chance that you’ll find an issue Tim hasn’t seen yet. If you do, please let him know and they’ll get it fixed ASAP.

via How Tim’s Strategy Tool Can Help Your Job Search.

How Tim"s Strategy Tool Can Help Your Job Search

How to Give Presentations in Interviews [8 Tips]

I have sat through no small number of presentations. Many of them left me cold. I wondered if the people giving them really understood the purpose of the exercise i.e. to test in this way is the candidate’s ability to represent and sell an organization, (and in the process themselves). To test their ability to inspire an audience with confidence. To test an ability to persuade and to demonstrate the ability to marshal thoughts and structure something that sounds really impressive. Showcasing. Convincing. Persuading. Getting the message across.

So sitting, as some candidates I have listened to do, in front of a flip chart with some very small handwriting, wiggling across a single piece paper does not really do a deal to impress. Mumbling in a down beat fashion or shuffling pages of A4 on the desk really does not cut it.

I also wonder if few people attend any training on presentations or public speaking. Speaking to an audience is one of the most common phobias there is. Why would you volunteer to go on a course to do something that literally frightens you? Suffers feel that all eyes are upon them – “the spotlight effect” – their acute self-awareness makes it very difficult for them to focus on what is going on around them, to remember their speech, or to read from notes. Their mind goes blank or foggy.

Their distress is further fueled by their efforts to hide or mask their discomfort which may become apparent through blushing, facial immobility, sweating, shaking, twitching, or an inability to speak normally or coherently. And in an interview situation where getting the job depends on success it is all much worse.

So what should the candidates have do when faced with the task…. ‘you have ten minutes to give us a presentation on…’?

An understanding of the audience, what they already know, what language they speak and what they want to hear about. I guess the man from the World Bank had never met a social housing tenant, I think he was an academic. His presentation, although very important, did not set the room alight. Effective presenters know who their audience are and how the message needs to be delivered.

Effective presenters stand and command the room. Presenting is a display activity. Standing indicates confidence and control. It enables a small amount of movement, a little pacing, wider hand gestures; a greater ability to get up close to the audience. Standing enables you to inject more energy into your presentation. If you think of some of the great orators that you have heard, they did not sit behind a desk and mutter.

Clear diction and adequate volume. One of the great bonuses of standing is the way that it will enable you to breath deeply and speak on the out-breath. This will give your voice depth and volume. (But if you have a microphone you need to be careful not to over project.)

Measured delivery, presenters need to relax, speak slowly and use all the techniques of pace and rhythm to ensure that there is clarity and emphasis. Presenters need to recognise the ability of the audience to absorb and give them appropriate time to do so.

Good visual aids, if you have to make your presentation ‘on the day’, and are given flip chart, tuck a ruler and pencil in your pocket. Make your visual aids, helpful, clean and neat. Use them for the emphasis, they should give not for the narrative. If you are given a topic in advance and are using powerpoint, use it sensibly, again it is not the narrative it is the emphasis.

Structure, a presentation needs a clear beginning, middle and end. It needs an overview and a conclusion. And keep to time, nothing annoys a panel more and tells them that you have not planned and rehearsed.

Message, if a presentation is testing oral persuasiveness then there needs to be a very clear message or argument with facts and evidence to support it. Ask yourself, what is the the thing that I want my audience to walk away remembering? you also need great content. You need content tailored to the audience and answering the questions they want answering. Speak with conviction, if you don’t believe your message who else will?

A smile, a sign that you are pleased to be there. Sometimes a touch of humour can help you build rapport with the audience, but how much you can use this will depend on the situation. But your smile needs to be on the mouth and in your eyes and your eyes need to meet theirs.

Yes, I have sat through many hours of very poor presentations and many other hours of very good ones. To be memorable you need, great, relevant content delivered with conviction and style.

via How to Give Presentations in Interviews [8 Tips].

How to Give Presentations in Interviews [8 Tips]

Where Do Recruiters Go To Find Talent?

If you want to get found by recruiters then you need to understand how they think! Bullhorn Reach released their 2013 North American Social Recruiting Activity Report and this information should help you understand how to improve your job search:

Who Is Bullhorn Reach?

In case you haven’t heard or seen this name before, Bullhorn Reach was launched in February 2011 and was designed to help recruiters leverage social media to source candidates more effectively. Over 170,000 recruiters subscribe to this service to tap into social recruiting.

The Bullhorn Reach report is based on data gathered from over 160,000 North American recruiters in 2012 and it examines their social media activity across the “big three” social networks — LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

There’s a lot you can learn from recruiters (both in-house and third-party) and how they source candidates!

LinkedIn IS Where You Need to Be

LinkedIn is the g0-to source for recruiters sourcing candidates because it produces results:

64% of recruiters used only LinkedIn for social recruiting in 2012, compared to 48% in 2011, and with good reason. Jobs posted on LinkedIn received more views than jobs posted on Twitter and Facebook put together!

It is a no-brainer for recruiters – LinkedIn gets results!

What This Means For Job Seekers

You have to have a LinkedIn profile and it has to be keyword rich!

You need to connect with recruiters on LinkedIn.

You also have to monitor your LinkedIn homepage regularly if you want to see the jobs recruiters you are connected to are promoting!

What Types of Jobs Are Being Posted using Bullhorn Reach?

Information Technology

Finance and Banking

Healthcare

These are the top three categories of jobs being recruited for using Bullhorn Reach however, there are other types of jobs recruiters are sourcing via social networks. As jobs become harder to fill, you can probably expect more activity across all job types through social recruiting.

What This Means for Job Seekers

No matter what occupation you are in, you need to be on social networks, specifically LinkedIn.

Expect to see jobs moving away from the job boards (or change) and move towards social networks or become even more integrated with social networks.

Learn how these social networks work! What you can lock down, how to interact, where to find jobs, etc.

Is Bigger Better?

Recruiters with bigger networks did get more applications, but not as a percentage of their connections. So which is better, quantity or quality? That is a question this study doesn’t address. However, Bullhorn Reach’s 2013 North American Staffing and Recruiting Trends Report found:

92.9% of respondents stated that LinkedIn produced candidates they were able to place.

Overall this is a numbers game. Your potential message/reach is only as big as the number of people in your network. If you only have 50 connections, that limits the number of people who know about you (what you are saying, doing and looking for.) This isn’t a good thing if you are actively job searching. Cast a wide net in a sea full of fish!

What This Means for Job Seekers

Your chances of gaining a recruiter’s attention by interacting with them on Facebook or Twitter may allow you to stand out since they aren’t interacting with as many people on these networks.

Recruiters want to connect with you and grow their network! It becomes their own private, more targeted distribution channel for jobs.

Learn the “rules of engagement” on all 3 social networks so you can maximize your presence on all three (at least during your job search).

Important Reminders:

LinkedIn is a must-use resource for job seekers to discover jobs being advertised by recruiters.

Job seekers MUST connect with recruiters on LinkedIn (whether they know the person or not) in order to quickly find the shared opportunities. You must also understand how to work with recruiters, so please read this post!

Individual recruiters might have social network preferences, so don’t give up on Twitter and Facebook (yet!). Just be sure they represent you professionally.

via Where Do Recruiters Go To Find Talent?.

Where Do Recruiters Go To Find Talent?