November 30, 2016October 2, 2016

Social Media for Job Seekers Part 3: Lessons Learned

Every day people are finding new ways to use social media to get a job. As a job seeker, creativity will get you noticed. This is the last post in our Social Media series, and we wanted to share some of the successes and failures we’ve come across. I Take a moment to check out Part 1 and Part 2 of our series if you haven’t already.

Socially Awesome

Facebook Ads & a Trending Hashtag

About ten years ago, my close friend Scott decided he wanted to work at ThoughtWorks Australia. He had a tendency to be a bit impatient back then, so instead of waiting for them to get back to his application he decided that he wanted to help expedite the process. He launched a campaign to get hired that included two Facebook ads that led to microsite complete with a slide show and the ability to prank call people.

The slideshow he created demonstrated how his values aligned with those of the organization and included his accomplishments. Scott’s campaign became so popular that the ThoughtWorks Australia employees started #DearScott, which trended on Twitter briefly in Australia. He made it through their interview process and signed on as an employee not long after.

Scott did a lot of things right. He was intentional about his word choices for the advertisement, focusing on being a part of the team instead of being an employee (with/for). When people clicked, the site didn’t just lead to a resume; it was interactive and engaging. He connected to the company values and focused on his accomplishments instead of his previous duties. The prank call aspect let his personality show through in a fun, harmless way.

Lego Girl Gets a Job!

About two years ago a recent college graduate used Legos to apply for internships at creative agencies. She created a mini-scale Lego model, complete with packaging that she used to apply for jobs at her top two companies. She customized the colors on the packages to match the agency branding and included an “instruction book” highlighting her skills. In addition to sending the kits, she posted the photos to Reddit, which got a lot of attention from the industry. Her initiatives worked, and a few weeks later she posted this follow-up.

Socially Awkward

It’s important to be careful because mistakes on social media can cost you a job, or worse, your professional reputation. The next story is about another job seeker using Facebook advertising to get noticed by an employer. This time, it didn’t work out quite so well. The second example is a good reminder to be cautious of everything you post online, not only on your professional social media accounts.

You, Your, You’re…OUT!

One of my marketing friends told me about a failed ad campaign that an applicant tried. The company name and job seekers name are hidden for privacy purposes. From what she tells me several employees spotted the ad, first appearing on their personal Facebook feeds. Then it also popped up in at least one article or blog post an employee was reading.

The ad might have worked if it weren’t for one mistake. The position was in marketing, and this candidate used the wrong version of you’re, not once, but twice in the same advertisement. In a job where attention to detail is so important, the candidate pretty much guaranteed they won’t be getting a callback.

OKCupid to Facebook to LinkedIn to NOPE

An interesting article came across my news feed from SHRM, a professional organization for HR people. The article headline was “Vulgar Comments on Dating App Cause Recruiter to Dismiss Candidate.” The short story is that a recruiter was cruising Facebook when she saw her friend shared a Not Safe For Work Screenshot of some vulgar and threatening messages she received from a man on her Facebook news feed.

The recruiter thought the guy looked familiar, so she did a reverse google image search of his OKCupid photos. It turned out that the picture search led her to the guy’s LinkedIn profile, with the same photo. She rejected him from the candidate pool and sent a note telling him to be nicer to women. Her actions in dismissing the applicant were completely legal. If she had decided to move forward with the candidate given what she had seen and some issue happened at work, the company could be held liable for negligent hiring.

What’s the key takeaway here? Don’t use your professional profile photos in places you don’t want your employer to see. Be careful what you post online in general. There is an increasing blend of people’s personal and professional lives. Anything you put out into the world can be captured and shared. Think about what you’re putting out in the world and who you’re sending these things to. And honestly, just be a nice person.

Attention to Details

The other day this came across my Facebook feed just in time for this article. A friend of mine works at Zulily, and he recently received a mysterious hand delivered letter. Before he opened it, he posted a photo on Facebook. His name and photo are blurred for privacy. The person sending the message put in a lot of work and thought into his efforts. He researched the company, and he included an original signed recommendation, and he followed up on LinkedIn after it was delivered.

Unfortunately, there were critical errors. Remember when we talked about proofreading? Here is another example of a spelling error. It comes across as a lack of attention to detail. The second error was that he had the wrong hiring manager. My friend did end up passing the information along to the right person in the end, but those two mistakes might be a deal breaker for the hiring manager.

Oh, and as far as my friend’s informal survey? Two people said creepy/unprofessional because of the spelling along with sending it to the wrong person, and one person voted for being a go-getter.

Thanks for sticking with us through the series. Have you ever tried any of these tricks? We’d love to hear if they worked out for you. Tell us about them in the comments.

November 30, 2016September 26, 2016

Social Media for Job Seekers Part 2: Using Social Media to Get a Job

In the first part of our Social Media series, we talked about platforms job seekers should use to build connections and find positions. In part two we’re giving you our best tips on how to use social media to get a job, networking and building an audience.

Introduce Yourself

If you want to use social media to get a job, you need a summary. Use this section to talk about your professional skills, experiences, and what interests you. This information should be public, so double-check your settings. If you haven’t told your boss you’re looking for a job, don’t mention it in your profile, unless you are ready for an awkward conversation later.

LinkedIn: Focus on your summary, work history, education, certifications and volunteer experience. LinkedIn allows plenty of space to create an engaging summary and walks you through setting up a complete profile.

Twitter: You only get 160 characters, so focus on your career, industry, and interests, but avoid buzzwords that aren’t meaningful (perfectionist, strong performer, etc.).

Facebook: You can make the “about me” section public, but keep personal details out of it. Recruiters don’t need to read about your home-brew hobbies or the heavy metal band you play in unless it’s related to the jobs you’re applying for.

It’s best to leave out personal information, especially in your summary. Marital status, children, sexual orientation, age, religion and political views are illegal to ask about in the hiring process. Yes, it might be easy to tell from your name or photo some of these things but providing extra personal details isn’t going to help you get a job.

Be Active

Get noticed by posting new content, starting meaningful conversations and asking thought-provoking questions. By engaging with others, you’ll increase your audience and your chances of getting noticed by a recruiter. Search for industry-specific groups to join and events in your city where you can network in person. These groups will help you stay on top of your industry and learn about jobs before they get posted.

Once you landed the job, stay engaged. You’ve spent a lot of effort building a network so don’t abandon it. Keep your network open and post to it at least weekly. You never know when you might need help, or be able to be a resource for someone in your network. Also, hiring managers love to engage passive job seekers, people who aren’t looking for a job because they’re already employed. The next fantastic opportunity could be around the corner

Be Professional

Anytime you are using social media to get a job; your profile should be professional. That includes user names, photos and ‘about me’ sections. Use your real name and a professional email address like first.last@email.com for all professional communications. Ensure that you are using professional usernames, vanity URL’s, and photos for these accounts. Anyone can still click-through your previous profile pictures on Facebook, even if your profile is private.

Ask yourself if you’d be okay with your supervisor seeing your content or comments before you post it. If not, don’t post it. Recruiters and hiring managers will judge you based on your posts. Proofreading is especially important when you are looking for a job. Double check spelling, grammar and content to make sure it’s work appropriate.

Be On Topic

You’ve started a Twitter account, LinkedIn profile, and joined some Facebook groups to begin networking, Fantastic! Now the next step is to make sure that the content you’re posting is on-topic and relevant. Use caution with controversial topics; they are tricky, and it might be better off to avoid them, at least at first. If you decide to go down that road, they should be related to the industry, promote thoughtful discussion, and a have balanced perspective. Watch the content carefully and shut it down if it becomes offensive.

It’s important to keep in mind that just because you have separate personal accounts doesn’t mean that recruiters won’t find them. Recruiters are getting excellent at researching candidates these days. When you post content on your personal accounts, there’s still a good chance it could be seen. Double check your privacy settings and beware, even if you do have strong privacy settings, someone could take a screenshot, and your post could end up all over the internet.

Be Positive

We all know the one person from work or school who is ALWAYS complaining. This person might be fantastic at what they do, but their attitude affects everyone around. Don’t be that person on social media. Consistently complaining or posting negatively will drive hiring managers away fast. Yes, we’re looking for individuals who can do the job, but we don’t want to kill the culture at the same time. So, don’t badmouth your bosses or companies, and don’t vent. It’s okay to disagree with someone as long as you’re respectful. Stay away from personal attacks and negative comments because they’ll just make you look bad.

Be Resourceful

Are you curious about what it’s like to work at a company? Most companies have social media accounts that you can follow. You’ll learn about their values and the initiatives they have in work. Search for people who list the company as their employer and see what they are saying. If you are using LinkedIn, personalize any connection requests that you send!

To connect, send a friendly note introducing yourself and ask a few questions. After you’ve had a successful exchange, consider asking if they’d be open to a short (15-20 minutes) informational interview on the phone. If they agree, prepare questions about the work, company, the challenges & why they like it. The intent is to learn about life at the organization, not to try to sell yourself.

If you have an upcoming interview, you can search for the interviewers to learn about them. Look for things you have in common so you can bring up topics to casually build a rapport. For example, If you learn that the hiring manager is a big baseball fan, you can ask if they saw the game last night (without mentioning you looked them up of course!). Be tactful in how you approach these conversations, though, you don’t want to come across as creepy.

We concluded our Social Media series in Part 3, with examples using social media to get a job (and some that didn’t work so well). Be sure to subscribe to our blog, so you don’t miss out!

November 18, 2020September 21, 2016

Social Media for Job Seekers Part 1: The Basics

More and more companies are using social media as a method of attracting qualified candidates to their positions. In our Social Media for Job Seekers, we explore the what, why, and how to maximize these sites to find your next job.

Why Social Media

A 2016 Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) survey, found that 84% of companies are using social media as a recruiting tool and an additional 9% of organizations are planning to. This number is up from 56% in 2011. The most common sites that are being used by recruiters, in order, are LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Companies are using social media for three main reasons:

They’re seeking out passive job seekers.
They want to attract candidates by showing up as a top place to work.
They are looking for specific skills for some harder to fill jobs.

Social media is a great way for you to connect with an organization. When you apply for a job online, your resume gets thrown into a system that scans and ranks it. It can take weeks to hear anything back if you hear anything at all. The benefit of social media is that you can talk to a real person and build a relationship. However, as companies and recruiters are becoming more engaged on social media, you have to be much more careful about how you are perceived. Everything you post publicly and even sometimes privately can affect your potential employment. According to the same SHRM study, 36% of organizations have rejected candidates based on their public social media profiles.

The Big Three

The most well-known social media platforms are LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. As an applicant, you can use one or all of them to engage with employers. If you decide to use these tools to help with your job search you have to proceed with a bit of caution. Getting noticed by an employer can be excellent for your career, but it’s also easy to make the wrong impression.

If you only choose one social media platform, it should be LinkedIn. It is the most popular recruiting site used by employers. When you set up a profile, include the URL in your resume heading. Since LinkedIn doesn’t follow the normal “resume rules,” you can add additional information that may not make the cut on your resume.

LinkedIn also allows for skill endorsements and recommendations. You have the ability to ask people you’ve worked with to provide a recommendation or to endorse you. Recommendations show up on your profile as a reference or testimonial. LinkedIn is much more professional and work-related. It isn’t the place to debate politics, catch up with your long-lost cousin, or to share cat videos (except for this one).

Facebook

While Facebook can be a successful tool to engage with organizations, it also can expose much more of your personal information than LinkedIn. From an HR perspective, Facebook has been a useful tool in avoiding potentially bad hiring decisions and catching cases of worker’s comp fraud.

If you have a Facebook account, you need to update your privacy settings before you begin applying for jobs. Given my HR experience, I strongly suggest limiting the audience to your Facebook profile. You can still connect in Facebook groups or engage on company pages; it just prevents employers and the public from viewing your wall and other private details. Unless you’re Facebook profile and posts are squeaky clean, do not to friend your employers or coworkers.

Twitter

Twitter can be a great place to interact with organizations and leaders. It’s limitation being that it’s all in 140 characters or less. It’s easy enough to set up more than one Twitter account to keep your personal and professional tweets separate. When setting up a professional Twitter account, create a short username. If you’re going to include a photo, make sure it’s professional. One plus about using Twitter is that companies tend to be pretty responsive. Some executives and business owners manage their accounts directly. A lot of businesses have accounts set up specifically for job seekers. Microsoft runs @MicrosoftJobs and Amtrak has an account specifically for Veterans @AmtrakVets.

Other Social Media

Companies are trying to entice applicants on other social media platforms as well. GE’s recruiting campaign featuring a guy named Owen accepting a developer job has moved into Snapchat. Marriott has the @MariottCareers Instagram account featuring happy employees both at work and enjoying life. To get a good idea of what life is really like at a company you can search for hashtags used by both the company’s page and employees, like #facebooklife, #Lifeatkohls.

Be sure to check out part two and part three of the Social Media for Job Seekers series. We’re focusing on the top ways you can use social media to attract employers and creative examples of job seeker campaigns.

November 30, 2016September 12, 2016

The Resume Objective is Dead.

If it’s been awhile since you’ve updated your resume, you might still have an objective at the top. I remember struggling to write a creative objective to say “Hey you, I want a job. I want this job because it’s awesome”. The resume objective was a nice way of telling the employer that you were interested in the job and asking them to consider you.

Here’s the deal. If you are applying to my job opening, I am pretty sure you want the job. I assume that you think you have the skills and abilities to do the job. In the past five years or so, the objective has faded away and been replaced with the summary.

Changing Career Fields

I’ve seen some sites recommend keeping the objective to let employers know that you’re interested in changing fields. I’m going to disagree respectfully. Tailor your resume to each particular job, including the summary section. My advice to someone looking to change their field would be to start with something like “Experienced accounting manager with a passion for Human Resources.” Then, make sure the skills you list are relevant to the desired career field. Another thing to do is outline the reasons you want to make the change in the cover letter. Start with why you are interested in making the change and how your previous experience can help the organization or department.

New Graduate

If you are a recent graduate, your career center might have told you to include an objective because you don’t have a lot of work experience. I’d much rather read about the skills you’ve gained while attending school, being an active volunteer or extracurricular activities. Talk about your experience leading a team, capstone projects, research, and analytics.

The Resume Summary

The summary is a modern replacement for the resume objective. I’ve seen a variety of resume summaries while working in HR and doing resume consultations. A resume summary should highlight your qualifications and skills very briefly. It’s like the abstract on a research paper or the TL:DR version of your professional experience. Your summary should grab the hiring manager’s attention and hook them into reading the rest impressive resume.

The nice thing about summaries replacing the resume objective is that they tend to be longer than a sentence. The summary can be in a short paragraph, bullets, or a combination of the two. For jobs where technical skills are important, bullets tend to work better because they can list languages or technical skills you have.

Illegal Interview Questions

November 30, 2016August 25, 2016

Have shield-1020318 you ever been asked questions at a job interview that didn’t seem relevant or made you uncomfortable? Illegal interview questions are not job-related and target information about a job applicant that can be discriminatory. Generally speaking, HR teams do a lot of work to make sure that hiring managers don’t ask questions that are above boards, but these questions still get asked from time to time. As an applicant, encountering illegal interview questions should make you seriously consider if you want to work for that company.

One of my friends shared a situation where she was helping a team of managers does some significant hiring. She was the HR person partnering with a manager. They were interviewing their first female applicant when the hiring manager went off script and asked her if she had children. She told the interviewers, no, but the hiring manager continued down the path, telling the candidate that the position was for 2nd shift and that employees couldn’t leave work to go pick up their children. According to my friend, this hiring manager didn’t ask the male candidates the same question.

Fortunately, in this situation, everything worked out okay. The woman was very qualified for the position and ended up getting an offer from the company. As soon as the interview was over my friend reported the situation to the head of HR, who then removed the hiring manager from interviews until he was able to retake the interview training.

What are Illegal Interview Questions

The illegal interview questions below are off limit because they target information that is part of a protected class including gender, sexual orientation, national origin, race, religion, age, and disability. They are not job-related and will not help the hiring manager identify how you will perform.

Are you married?
Do you have children/want to have children?
How old are you/what year did you graduate?
What is your religious background?
Do you have a disability?
Do you have any arrest records?
Are you a union member?
Is English your first language?
Where are you (your parents) from?
Have you ever been hurt at work?
Do you have a car?
Do you own your home?

Hopefully, you don’t ever encounter any of these questions during an interview. If you do, there are a few ways that you can answer. First, it’s always okay to politely decline an illegal question. You could try: “I’m not sure I understand how this question relates to the Sales Manager position, can you please elaborate?” A more direct approach would be: “I am interested in this job, but I’m not comfortable answering that question at this time.” Yes, there is a chance that responding to a question like that could cost you a job offer, but ask yourself if that’s a company where you want to work in the first place.

Parents at the Job Interview

November 30, 2016August 22, 2016

Would you bring you parents to a job interview?

Over the past few years, parental involvement in the hiring and interview process has increased significantly. I’ve seen parents accompany their kids to the job interview and had calls from parents trying to negotiate salaries behalf of their children. At best, it’s something that gets talked about. It becomes a “can you believe what happened today at the office” kind of story. At worst, it could cost the applicant the job. It gives hiring managers the impression that the candidate family-515530 isn’t prepared for the job, not able to advocate for themselves or problem solve.

There’s no doubt that parents want to help their children. They want to stay involved in their lives, especially in that first ‘real’ job. However, parents can do more harm than help in some cases. I’m going to talk about ways that parents can be involved and helpful without getting in the way of the hiring process. If you (as an applicant) are working with a manager directly, keep in mind that filling this position is one small slice of the work they have to get done. Recruiters might be working to fill dozens of positions at a time. Expecting a recruiter or hiring manager to negotiate with an applicant and a parent can leave them frustrated and move on to another candidate.

Applicants need to take the lead

You need be the one talking to the hiring manager and recruiters directly. Parents, please don’t check in on behalf of your child. It’s not a good idea for parents to accompany you to the interview, if they’re helping you with transportation, ask them to visit a local park or coffee shop during the interview.

“My mom is the one who got me the interview at X company so that she can check on the status of the interview, right?”

It’s not a good idea for parents to check on the status of the hiring process, even if they work at the company. Keep the relationship professional and develop your identity apart from theirs. When I was working in hospitality HR, parents would try hard to help their kids get positions there. Some parents would check on the application every day, and get upset when I couldn’t provide updates. The best thing to do is let the process work. Parents, you aren’t going to help move the process along by pestering HR or the hiring manager, I promise!

Parents shouldn’t:

Check on the status of an application/interview
Sit in on an interview or wait in the lobby
Attempt to negotiate salaries or benefits
Act as a reference for a child (even if you have a different last name)
fill out an application on behalf of their child

Where parents can help

Parents and family members can be a fantastic resource to help applicants without overstepping boundaries. I encourage you to use your parents to work behind the scenes with you. If they’re working, ask them to keep an eye out for open positions at their company. Companies sometimes will post jobs internally before they start looking outside for applicants. Another thing that can be helpful is using your parent’s network to connect to other organizations. Set up informational interviews with their colleagues to learn more about different organizations and begin making your connections.

Applicants, ask your parents to:

Proofread your resume and cover letter
Help practice interview questions (samples)
Refer you to open positions within their organization
Keep an eye out for job postings
Use their network to connect you

The hiring process can be intimidating, and it’s understandable to want help navigating it, especially the first time. Show the company the skills and abilities that you bring to the table. Organizations have designed the job interview process to get to know you as a candidate, and that can get muddy when someone else is representing you as well.

November 30, 2016August 19, 2016

Three Common Types of Interview Questions

There are three basic styles of interview questions used by HR and hiring managers. Today, we’re going to explain them so you can prepare for your upcoming interview. We’ll start with behavioral interview questions since they are the most common and then discuss traditional and structured questions as well. When scheduling your interview with a recruiter, HR or the hiring manager, there’s no harm in asking what category of interview questions that you should prepare for.

Behavioral Interview Questions

Behavioral interview questions are by far the most common types of questions asked during a non-technical job interview. These questions are asking for candidates to tell a story about something that has happened in the past. The reason these are so popular among HR is because studies have shown that the way people behave in previous situations is a really good indicator of how they are going to act in the future. Because these behavioral interview questions are so widely used, it is where we focus most of our interview coaching practice.

A few examples of behavioral interview questions:

Tell me about a time you had a disagreement with a co-worker.
Describe a complex problem that you fixed with a single solution.
Talk about a time when you had to work in close collaboration with someone whose personality was very different from yours.
Tell me about a time you had to juggle multiple competing deadlines? How did you prioritize them? What was the result?

Behavioral questions can be simple or contain multiple questions that you need to answer. Take notes on the question to make sure you hit all of the questions the interviewers are looking for and answer the questions completely. The STAR format is an excellent way to organize your response.

Structured Interview Questions

Structured questions are very similar to behavioral interview questions except they aren’t asking about past performance. These questions are more forward-looking and ask ‘what you would do’ instead of ‘what have you done.’ These are beneficial for entry-level positions and internships where people might not have as much background to draw from.

A few examples of structured interview questions:

How would you handle a situation where your supervisor asked you to do something unethical?
Imagine you are very busy with a large company project, and your manager asks you to take on additional, unrelated work. What would you do?
A furious client walks up to your desk. He believes that his being over-billed for services your company provided. After reviewing his information, you learn that the bill was, in fact, valid. How would you handle this situation?

Traditional Interview Questions

We call these the ‘mirror’ questions because they are the answers that candidates can rehearse in a mirror and fine tune their answers. These are pretty straight forward and easy to draft an answer. There isn’t any particular formula for responding to these questions. Traditional interview questions also don’t add a lot of value to the hiring managers, so we are seeing a lot less of them in the interview process.

A few examples of traditional interview questions:

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
What is your greatest strength/weakness?
Why do you want to work for this company?
Why do you want to be [insert job title]?
Tell me about yourself?

The one exception, is the ‘tell me about yourself’ question. In most interviews this question, in some variation is used to break the ice and move the discussion forward. Another variation of this question is ‘tell me about your work experience and education that has prepared you for this position.’ With few exceptions, we recommend that applicants focus on work history, education and any relevant training or experiences that relate to the job. This is not the time to talk about your love for the tuba, favorite cooking shows or your son in cub scouts, unless of course you’re interviewing for an orchestra, the food network or the forest service respectively.

November 30, 2016August 14, 2016

Interview Tip: How to be a STAR

The next time you find yourself in a behavioral interview, draw a little star across the top of your paper. No, I’m serious. STAR is my favorite acronym. It’s a formula for job applicants to use when they’re answering interview questions. STAR stands for Situation, Tasks, Actions & Results. It is well-known by Human Resources and hiring managers, but we’ve found that a lot of our clients haven’t heard of this interview tip before. Let’s break it down:

Situation

Anytime you are telling a story to someone; you have to give them a little bit of context, so they understand what’s going on. Imagine you’re telling your friend about an experience at a restaurant. If you dive into the conversation saying “The food was awesome, we had crab cakes and pasta.” Your friend is going to be caught pretty off guard. The same goes for an interview. The situation helps set the scene. Instead of jumping right into what you had for dinner, you should mention the restaurant name, when you went, who you were with and even a little bit of info on the restaurant.

It’s important to set the scene when answering interview questions, especially if you aren’t currently working at the company. Help the interviewers understand the circumstances surrounding your example and more context. Just recently I coached a client who was telling me about a story leading a team. The example was okay but not incredibly impressive. Once I started asking more questions, I learned his role, the team size, and the budget associated with it. These three things (Director, 150+ employees, and a lot of $) added significant weight to the example.

Tasks

The task is the assignment you are given. In most cases, the situation and task run pretty close together in your significant. In the restaurant example, the task becomes pretty simple, to eat food. However, maybe your friend wanted seafood, or you had to find a gluten-free restaurant that could accommodate dietary needs.

As an applicant, you want to be very clear and concise about what the assignment is. Share where the task came from (boss, owner, co-worker asking for help) and what it was. Explain the scale of the project – how big was the team, what was the timeline, what were some of the significant challenges that you needed to overcome. You want to help the interview panel understand the importance of the story.

Actions

The whole reason companies use behavioral interviews is that a person’s past behavior is a good indicator of how they will behave in a similar situation in the future. The actions in the STAR format are where you get to show the hiring manager that you are capable of handling workplace situations well.

Actions should be the bulk of your story. As a hiring manager, I want to hear about what YOU did. One of the biggest errors we see in interviews is people use “we” instead of I. While this is okay when you’re explaining to your friend about your dinner, “We ate crab cakes, pasta, and ice cream” it doesn’t play well during an interview. Instead, be very clear about your role and the process you took to solve the problem. Don’t get lost in the details and be specific about your role in each example. Hiring managers are looking to hear about your process and how you resolve the story.

Results

Results are where you get to shine. So many times people forget to discuss their results, and it hurts them in an interview. As a hiring manager, I try to ask probing questions in case the job applicant forgot, but usually, I won’t keep asking if they continue to leave out the results on more than one example.

The biggest interview tip on this topic is to avoid using a story that is currently in process. It’s incredibly hard to demonstrate results on a project that hasn’t finished, and hiring managers care about the results. They want to know if your actions were effective or not, and if not what you learned and how you would do it differently.

The next big thing to try to do is to quantify your results. A story is much stronger when you can prove it through numbers. Did sales go up by a certain percentage? Were you involved in increasing customer satisfaction? Did you reduce the number of hours it takes to perform the task? Sometimes it can be hard to put numbers to a story, especially if it’s been awhile since you were in the situation. Try your best to recall but don’t make the numbers up. Honesty is important, and hiring managers might use their networks to fact check your examples.

“What do you do if the outcome wasn’t good?” Proceed with caution. One example with a negative result isn’t necessarily going to hurt you in an interview. I only recommend using this type of story in a couple of situations.

You can explain that the adverse outcome was to no fault of your own
The question is about a time you failed/made a mistake etc
As a last resort, and you can’t come up with another example

In all of these situations, you need to be able to explain what you learned from the example and how you would do things differently.

November 30, 2016August 9, 2016

Resume Tips – Hobbies, References & Font

Awhile back there was an entertaining AskReddit thread that came across my news feed. “Employers of Reddit, what is the most unique/outrageous thing someone has put on a resume?” I love these threads because they are real life examples of what people have done, and how it’s been received by the employer. This one, in particular, had some entertaining resume tips.

Early on in my career, I was helping one of my close friends update his resume. He had an MBA from a well-known school in Washington. He’s a smart guy and just wasn’t getting any interest from his resume. As I was going over his resume, things were looking good, until we got to the hobbies section. In his hobbies section, it said: “Cigar and wine connoisseur.” No joke. I asked him about it. He told me that he included it so that prospective employers would think he was cultured and sophisticated. I explained that while I understood what he was going for, he wasn’t applying for a job in the food, wine or cigar industry. Instead of conveying that he was sophisticated, that statement would indicate that he was a drinker and a smoker to employers. Not the message you want to send as a job applicant.

A few of the best replies:

Hobbies & Interests

I don’t recommend including a hobbies section on resumes. If there’s something that is relevant to the job and there is not another place it fits you could make it work, but it’s not the preferred option. As I mentioned in the example with my friend, I’ve seen all kinds of hobbies and interests listed on resumes. Recently, a client had ballroom dancing, weight lifting, and soccer listed, and was looking for a position as a project manager. In a resume, you need to make every word count.

Hobbies or interests that are not job related take up extra space and don’t add value. If you don’t have a long work history and you are looking to fill space, it’s more efficient to have a volunteer or skills section than hobbies.

References

When I was in school, resumes were supposed to have the tagline “references available upon request” at the bottom. Thanks to online applications, companies can ask for references in the system. Job applicants should have three solid professional references to use, but they don’t belong on the resume. Your references should know that they are your references, and hopefully, have good things to say about you. It’s SO important to ask your reference before putting their information down. Professional references could be:

Supervisors
Co-workers
Teachers/Principals
Volunteer leaders
Clients

Professional references are not:

Family members (even with a different name)
Friends
Neighbors

Font

Applicants have a lot of options when it comes to font choices for their resume. Your font should convey professionalism and not distract from the content of the resume. The biggest thing you want to ensure is that the font is readable. That means a font size no smaller than 10 points and absolutely no script fonts. Personally, my preference is for serif fonts, like Times New Roman, Georgia or Garamond. Sans Serif fonts can work on a resume too if they have clean lines. Examples of san serif fonts that work well are Ariel, Helvetica, and Century Gothic. Please don’t consider fonts like Comic Sans, Brush Script, and Papyrus. They are distracting and confusing to read.

Best of luck in your resume updates. If you’re not sure where to start on your edits, we can help. Visit our Resume Services page to learn more about options for updating your resume.

November 30, 2016July 2, 2016

Interview Body Language & Confidence

Interviews are high-stress situations. We spend a lot of time talking with clients on how to manage stress and be confident. One of the most common pieces of feedback we give to people is “Don’t be afraid to brag.” You will be far more successful at an interview if the hiring manager believes that you are confident and qualified for the job. As a coach, part of our job is to help you build that confidence. You have to believe in your ability to do the job to convince someone to hire you. Remember that your interview body language matters. The hiring manager will notice how you are carrying yourself and it will have an impact on the outcome of your interview.

Interview Math

When you apply for a job, there are anywhere from 50 to 500 people who are also applying. Applications are screened and ranked, either by an individual or a computer program. Interviews cost a lot of money. Companies have to pull people away from their regular job and want to interview the fewest number of individuals to find the best fit. This typically means they’ll interview around five people for each open position. So already, you are at a minimum in the top 10% of the applicant pool. From here, just based on statistics, you have a 20% chance of beating out the other candidates to get the job.

If you make it to the interview phase, you are already one of the top applicants for the position. Someone reviewed your application and was confident that you had the skills to do the job. Otherwise, they wouldn’t waste their time interviewing you. The next step is to show them that you are the best hire for the job, and to do that, you have to believe it too.

Nonverbal communication:

Non-verbal behav Superhero pose ior sends messages to the interviewers about your potential. They also have a real effect on your confidence and impact your hormones. Amy Cuddy is a social psychologist who studied body language and the impact. She found that people who assume a power pose (think, Superhero) for two minutes saw a 20% increase in testosterone and a 25% decrease in cortisol. Testosterone is a hormone that is responsible for making you feel more confident and assertive, while cortisol is a stress hormone. These changes in hormones leave people feeling more confident and less likely to be affected by a stressful situation, like a job interview.

I challenge you to spend two minutes somewhere in private in a superhero pose before your next stressful situation. Put your hands on your hips, take a wide stance, and puff out your chest. You might feel silly, but no one else should be there to see you. Afterward, be sure to sit up straight, take up some space, and put your cell phone away! Practice your interview body language in the days leading up to it. The more you project confidence, the more confident you will become. And remember, you are already in the top 10%!

If you can spare an extra 20 minutes, I strongly recommend checking out the TedTalk. There is a lot of great information that is useful for any situation where you need a little confidence boost.