Feedback in the Interview

When it comes right down to it, you don’t know what you don’t know. When it comes to interviewing, you don’t know what you’re missing when you don’t get feedback about how you’re doing; your presentation, articulation, clarity of purpose, listening skills, and ability to respond to the ambiguity of open- ended questions in ways that make sense and advance your case.

If you’re offered the job, you’re not apt to care about what didn’t work. If you’re not made the offer it’s highly likely you’ll want to know why and what you need to do differently so that the job is yours, should you want to accept it.

The people most apt to know and least apt to tell, are the individuals conducting the interview and making the decisions. You can ask for feedback, but most interviewers steer away from those conversations, fearing that they will turn from requests for enlightenment to no holds barred disagreements.

If you can’t ask interviewers, whom can you ask? Just about anyone who’s been reasonably successful working in positions similar to the ones you’d like to have. Are you apt to get the information you want? That depends on how you define feedback and the confidence and willingness the would- be giver has in providing it.

What does it take to be good feedback providers? What do you request of them and what are they likely to require of you?

What does it take to be good at giving feedback? The person providing it should be objective and non-judgmental, have the time, competence, and experience necessary to provide it, have an opportunity to observe you or interact with you in an interview or simulation, be candid and considerate, perceive that you are open to constructive feedback and have the desire to act upon it.

What are you likely to request of them? All the above and the honesty to tell you if they’d rather not participate.

What ought they to require of you? Your definition of feedback, why you want it, how you’d like to receive it, and what you intend to do with it; your respectful appreciation of their perspective, your willingness to listen and your guarantee that you will not argue with them or resent them for having provided what you said you wanted.

Assuming that you’re practicing your interviews with individuals who are willing and able to provide you non-judgmental, accurate feedback that enables you to see yourself as they see you, you’ll benefit most if they can provide it to you in visual, descriptive terms, the kind you’d get if you were watching yourself on television. Here’s an example.

“When I asked you to describe your five- year plan your body slumped

and your face lost color. You took several seconds to respond and when you did your voice sounded weak and lacked energy or enthusiasm. I therefore assumed that you weren’t prepared for the question and that prompted me to ask other questions that had to do with vision and mission.”

As important as it is to see yourself as others see you, it helps to hear

yourself as others hear you. For example…

“When I asked you to give me examples of when you had dealt effectively with a difficult boss, you answered by telling me about a boss who made you angry, how your anger caused you to retaliate, and how your retaliation caused you to get fired. In other words, you talked yourself into a problem I didn’t know you had. That resulted in my asking you questions that took you in a direction you said you didn’t want to go. All that happened because you didn’t answer the original question.”

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Yes! You may use this article in your blog, newsletter or website as long as you include the following bio box:

Joyce Richman (www.richmanresources.com) has been specializing in executive and career coaching since she started he own practice in 1982. She works in a variety of environments including: higher education, manufacturing, sales, marketing, media, technology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, banking and finance, service, IT, and non-profit sectors. A member of the adjunct faculty at the Center for Creative Leadership, Joyce is certified to administer a number of feedback and psychological instruments. Joyce is a weekly guest on WFMY-TV and the career columnist for The Greensboro News & Record. She is the author of Roads, Routes and Ruts: A Guidebook to Career Success and co-author of Getting Your Kid Out of the House and Into a Job. A popular speaker, Richman conducts seminars and workshops throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Her coaching profile can be found at TheCoachingAssociation.com.

Cat Leads to Job? Always Be Open to Unexpected Opportunities

It had been almost a year since my last interview and I had finally snagged one.  I was nervous as a cat all day. Which is ironic because my cat must have picked up on my anxiety. She had spent the day running up and down the stairs, around and through my legs, zipping over the furniture and across the floor. When I opened the door to leave she got out first and took off like a rocket.

What could I do? She’s my cat. I had to find her and get her back indoors. I was already running late so rather than take the time to call the interviewer and describe my predicament (what if she hated cats?) I thought it better to comb the neighborhood and try to catch her. As luck would have it, I spied her under the tree, oops, under the bush, whoosh, under the porch, where I was finally able to grab her. By this time my interviewing clothes weren’t as clean, tucked, and pressed as I had intended, but I figured what’s a little dirt? The important thing was I had found my cat.
Rather than return home and change clothes (I was really late) my cat and I drove directly to the interview. It was a steaming hot day and we were roasting (did I mention that my car’s a/c was on the fritz and that was why I was wearing shorts and sandals to an interview?). Anyhow, because of the heat, I knew I couldn’t leave my cat locked in the car or in the car with the windows open or in the car with the a/c running because the a/c didn’t work. See my dilemma? I had to take her into the interview with me. What other choice did I have?

The parking lot was a long haul from the building. Given my cat’s earlier performance I didn’t trust her to walk so I carried her, something neither of us was thrilled about. When we got to the building I set her down, momentarily, so I could open a mammoth door that looked like it weighed two tons. We entered just as a delivery guy was exiting.  My cat did a one-eighty and followed him out to the parking lot. Another dilemma! Should I follow my cat or announce my arrival to the receptionist? Thinking clearly for a change, I did both. I hollered to her that I’d be right back because I had to catch my cat. (I normally don’t yell in an office building but the receptionist’s desk was half a marbleized football field away from where I was standing.)

I tore out of the building, ran to the parking lot, and got there just in time to see the driver pulling away and my cat jumping into the back of his van. What choice did I have but to follow them to their next stop so I could retrieve my cat? This time I had my wits about me. While in hot pursuit I called the phone number emblazoned on the rear of the van, thinking that I would ask the driver to pull over so I could get my cat. Instead, my call was answered by an on duty robot that wanted information I didn’t have (like my cat’s tracking number).

After chasing the driver across two counties I finally caught up with him. He was a really nice guy who happened to volunteer at the local Humane Society and was impressed by my tenacity and that of my cat.  He suggested that I apply for a job with Animal Rescue, which I did.  I am pleased to report that my cat and I have been working there ever since.

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Yes! You may use this article in your blog, newsletter or website as long as you include the following bio box:

Joyce Richman (www.richmanresources.com) has been specializing in executive and career coaching since she started he own practice in 1982. She works in a variety of environments including: higher education, manufacturing, sales, marketing, media, technology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, banking and finance, service, IT, and non-profit sectors. A member of the adjunct faculty at the Center for Creative Leadership, Joyce is certified to administer a number of feedback and psychological instruments. Joyce is a weekly guest on WFMY-TV and the career columnist for The Greensboro News & Record. She is the author of Roads, Routes and Ruts: A Guidebook to Career Success and co-author of Getting Your Kid Out of the House and Into a Job. A popular speaker, Richman conducts seminars and workshops throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Her coaching profile can be found at TheCoachingAssociation.com.

Getting Back to the Basics

If you’re looking for work and your looking isn’t working, get back to basics.  For example…

Get off your duff. That’s right, get off the couch, the recliner, or where ever else you choose to occupy too many hours of your job search day. What’s that? You’re working hard, looking for a job on the internet, cutting out ads, writing letters, organizing files, and bolstering your self confidence by reading self help books and motivational magazines? You’re doing lots of good stuff but not the kind of stuff that gets you in front of the people who make hiring decisions. Get out there and make your case.

Did I hear you correctly? You don’t want to call those people because they’re busy and you could offend them and they might get angry at you? I’m not suggesting that you call strangers or strange people.  I’m suggesting that you contact people you know and respect, people with whom you share common interests or experience; people who know people who make business decisions (Yes, you do know these people. You sit next to them at church and football games. You know them from your old high school, your neighborhood, PTA, and where you volunteer) and ask for 20 minutes of their time. Why? Because you can benefit from their perspective and if you present yourself well enough, from their contacts.

Just don’t call the meeting an ‘informational interview’. That’s code for “I’m out of work and you aren’t” and a non- starter. You want a meeting with an outcome; you want the people sitting across from you to brainstorm options with you, even make calls on your behalf to other decision-makers. And they’ll be willing to do all this because they respect you and the people who referred you, on this one condition: that you can make your case. You have to describe, in living color, what you do best and how your best has made a difference in the past and will make a difference to the company that hires you.

If you can’t or won’t, the daisy chain of referral is broken and the game’s over.

Whoa. I see hesitation in your eyes. Yes, I know you were laid off. You and plenty of dedicated, hard working people, smart people were laid off and that doesn’t make you less effective, less successful, or less accomplished than your competition. It does make you savvy to vagaries of world economies and realistic about the need to get out there and make something happen. 

So yes, it’s up to you.  Finding a good job that’s a good fit is hard work. You’ll have to network again and again and if you run out of friends and friends of friends and instead of getting referrals you’re getting blank stares, or worse, cold shoulders, you’re making some mistakes.

The likely culprits are how you look, what you say, and how you say it. Bottom line, if you sound down (even if you think you don’t), act down, and look like last week’s laundry, the person you’re talking to doesn’t want to go down with you.

Do a daily sound check. Here’s how: Call your answering machine, leave the same message you’d leave a prospective employer, then listen to it. If you sound gloomy, punch it up. If you sound hyped up, level out. If you sound tinny and tense, do some deep breathing. If you sound toneless and boring, add some expression. Exercise. Watch your weight. Employers hire applicants who look good and sound better because they want to work alongside people who are energetic and have a positive attitude. When you make your case, make sure, absolutely sure, that you look and sound like you mean it.

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Yes! You may use this article in your blog, newsletter or website as long as you include the following bio box:

Joyce Richman (www.richmanresources.com) has been specializing in executive and career coaching since she started he own practice in 1982. She works in a variety of environments including: higher education, manufacturing, sales, marketing, media, technology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, banking and finance, service, IT, and non-profit sectors. A member of the adjunct faculty at the Center for Creative Leadership, Joyce is certified to administer a number of feedback and psychological instruments. Joyce is a weekly guest on WFMY-TV and the career columnist for The Greensboro News & Record. She is the author of Roads, Routes and Ruts: A Guidebook to Career Success and co-author of Getting Your Kid Out of the House and Into a Job. A popular speaker, Richman conducts seminars and workshops throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Her coaching profile can be found at TheCoachingAssociation.com.

Job Searching for the Right Reasons

Spring brings out the job seeker in people: the curious, the bored, the conflicted, the “anywhere but here” and the intentional.

The curious: “I’m not really interested in looking, but if I were to run into something that’s too good to be true, I’d have to consider it.”

The bored: “Since I don’t have anything to do and nobody’s watching, I’ll check job openings on-line. That should occupy me ‘til closing time.”

The conflicted: “The job with the XYZ Company looks good, but I’ve got it good where I am. Yet, no one appreciates me here. I’ll talk to the ABC Company. But we have better benefits than they have. Maybe I should talk to a recruiter. But what if my boss finds out?”

The anywhere but here: “I don’t care where I go and what I do as long as I’m not working here.”

The intentional: “I’m committed to finding a better match than the job I’m in now. I’ve considered the options and consequences, done my homework, updated my resume, cleaned my suit, polished my shoes, gotten a haircut, I know what I want and where I want to go.”

I guess you’re not surprised that the “intentionals” are the most successful of the five job seeking types. Yet, why are the majority of job seekers congregating in the other four categories? Beats me. And rather than have a job search beat you, let’s get it straight and do it right.

Be intentional. You’re ready to conduct a job search when you’ve done your homework. That means completing an assessment of what you do best, what you enjoy most, what others have rewarded or acknowledged you for having achieved, and what you see as having potential for professional growth and development.

An honest, objective self- assessment requires that you examine your curious, bored, conflicted, or “anywhere but here” modality. To do that, ask and answer these questions:

Why do you want to change jobs? What are the barriers that keep you from making a contribution?  Being fairly compensated? Promoted? Matched to your strengths? What’s getting in the way of your success? Who’s responsible for moving the obstacles?

I don’t ask these questions to discourage you from leaving if that’s the right thing to do. I do ask that you take the time to answer them honestly, so that you know the right place to go.

Nadia (not her name) was a competent sales professional, doing a competent job, earning a reasonable salary. She was bored stiff and had been for at least a year. She wanted out but she didn’t know what she wanted to do next. “Anything”, she said, “as long as it’s not here.”

With that mentality she’d get another job, in another place, and odds are, she’d have the same problems. She knew the symptoms (“I’m bored stiff”) but she didn’t know the cause.

Once Nadia answered the questions I’m asking you to consider, she realized that she didn’t believe in the product she sold (“you can do better across the street”), her boss was impossible to read (“ I never know what he’s thinking”) , she had no future (“I don’t care enough to try”) and she didn’t enjoy the camaraderie of a team (“I spend my days in my car, alone”).

Nadia came to grips with the problem by identifying what she needed that her current employer couldn’t provide: a product she believed in and wanted to sell, a boss who clarified expectations and acknowledged success, a team that shared common values and goals, and an opportunity to use her creativity, leadership and drive to advance in her career.

Why are you looking? How will you know that what you find is the right job for you?

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Yes! You may use this article in your blog, newsletter or website as long as you include the following bio box:

Joyce Richman (www.richmanresources.com) has been specializing in executive and career coaching since she started he own practice in 1982. She works in a variety of environments including: higher education, manufacturing, sales, marketing, media, technology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, banking and finance, service, IT, and non-profit sectors. A member of the adjunct faculty at the Center for Creative Leadership, Joyce is certified to administer a number of feedback and psychological instruments. Joyce is a weekly guest on WFMY-TV and the career columnist for The Greensboro News & Record. She is the author of Roads, Routes and Ruts: A Guidebook to Career Success and co-author of Getting Your Kid Out of the House and Into a Job. A popular speaker, Richman conducts seminars and workshops throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Her coaching profile can be found at TheCoachingAssociation.com.

Managing Up Mistakes

Tad was so busy managing up to his boss his subordinates fired him.

“You’re kidding me! What happened?”

Well, it’s the cautionary tale of a high-achieving, very focused fellow who knew the only place he wanted to go was up. With a combination of good grades, dazzling smile, and an ingratiating personality he easily gained acceptance to his first choice in undergraduate and graduate schools. He was first in his class and first of his classmates to get a mega dollar offer to join a mega dollar company and he grabbed it.

Everything was going according to plan. Right schools and right company; check, check. Buy the right car. Wear the right clothes. Date the right women. Marry the right one. Check, check, check and check.

“Enough already. What went wrong?”

Be patient. It’s Tad’s story and just the right length to fill this column.

As I was saying, Tad was doing exceedingly well. His early performance reviews were filled with praise, extolling his ability to both anticipate the needs of his superiors and to deliver on them. He rose quickly through the ranks; the youngest in the company to have achieved so much, so quickly and so well.

“What did he do to mess up? Lie? Cheat? Steal?”

He did none of those things. It wasn’t his style because it wasn’t his boss’s style and one thing our erstwhile star could do better than most was to figure out what was in style. This was a company built on the traditions of honesty, trust and respect. They envisioned themselves the gold standard in the practice of those values and that’s what they rewarded.

And that’s why Tad (that’s not his real name) told his boss, and his boss’s boss, everyday in everyway, that he was the most honest, fair-playing, trustworthy, respectful guy that ever there was or ever could be. He made sure that he referenced those values in public presentations, private meetings, in front of power brokers, and behind closed doors.

He made sure that everyone who was anyone knew who he was, how smart he was, and where he intended to go in his company. And he would have succeeded….

“If…”

If he had put aside his strutting, salivating, and self-promoting self long enough to remember he had subordinates.

Tad was a tad self-absorbed. He wasn’t mean, vindictive, insulting, or cruel. His crimes were of omission, not commission. He was so narrowly focused on advancing his career that he ignored his responsibilities to his team.

And as a result they were failing. Tad was an indecisive boss with an ambiguous leadership style. He was inattentive, disconnected, and consistent only in his maddening ability to procrastinate direction setting, goals and metrics.

His subordinates would ask for assessment, expectations, strategy, and support and Tad was too busy to comply. He had people to see and places to go and it was always without them. Tad’s lust for self- aggrandizement left a vacuum of trust in its wake. Something was bound to happen and it wouldn’t be pretty.

“What was it? Tell me quick, we’re running out of column space!”

Well, Andy ratted him out.

“Who’s Andy?”

Andy was the mail courier and the owner’s grandson, Andrew the Third, unknown heir to the corporate throne. Andy had secretly convinced his grandfather that the only way to learn the business was from the mailroom up.  As the “kid from the mail room” he was able to unobtrusively study people and performance.

Andrew reported his observations to his grandfather who in turn interviewed Tad’s employees, who validated Andy’s perceptions, and in the time it takes to stamp a letter Tad was gone.

Andrew is now Vice President of Employee Relations. Tad’s still looking for a job.

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Yes! You may use this article in your blog, newsletter or website as long as you include the following bio box:

Joyce Richman (www.richmanresources.com) has been specializing in executive and career coaching since she started he own practice in 1982. She works in a variety of environments including: higher education, manufacturing, sales, marketing, media, technology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, banking and finance, service, IT, and non-profit sectors. A member of the adjunct faculty at the Center for Creative Leadership, Joyce is certified to administer a number of feedback and psychological instruments. Joyce is a weekly guest on WFMY-TV and the career columnist for The Greensboro News & Record. She is the author of Roads, Routes and Ruts: A Guidebook to Career Success and co-author of Getting Your Kid Out of the House and Into a Job. A popular speaker, Richman conducts seminars and workshops throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Her coaching profile can be found at TheCoachingAssociation.com.

Ebook for Parents of Job Searchers

It doesn’t seem to matter whether your kid is 15 or 50, when they are looking for a job, parents worry. Getting Your Kid Out of the House and Into a Job is a 68-page ebook by Joyce Richman and Barbara Demarest.

Over the years, I’ve focused on how to turn worry into support and stress into helpful contributions to the process.The ebook is filled with my case studies and exercises and my co-author’s expertise on marketing yourself during a job search.  Click here for more information about ordering. And P.S. if you sign up for my email list, you get a coupon code for a 20% discount.

Fired. What Went Wrong?

If you’re looking for a job and don’t know why you lost your last one, pause.

You have a chance to go back to square one.

“I don’t want to go back to where I’ve been. I’d rather put the past behind me. If I keep thinking about why I got fired I won’t have the courage to get another job.”

That makes sense. You don’t want to start second guessing yourself and as a consequence, lose your confidence.

“That’s right. So, if you don’t mind, step aside, I’m going to keep looking…”

Aren’t you the least bit curious? What if the same situation occurs and you respond the way you did the last time. Do you want to repeat history?

“My boss treated me unfairly. OK? This time around I’m going to be sure I get a better boss.”

How are you going to make that happen?

“I don’t know. I haven’t figured that out. I guess I’ll just go with my gut.”

How did your gut treat you last time?

“Not very well. I thought I was working for a great guy until I realized that he wasn’t telling me the truth.”

Your boss lied to you?

“Let’s just say he made me think I was doing fine. He didn’t tell me that I was in trouble until I was in too deep to dig my way out. What kills me is that I started out great. He even told me so.”

What happened?

“You’re going to make me tell this story, aren’t you?”

If you don’t learn from past …

“I know, I know. I have a bad habit of repeating behaviors that get me in trouble. OK. Here goes…

I’m a quick learner. Show me once or tell me once, and I’ve got it. I was on the job a few weeks and I was able to complete my work in half the time it took everyone else. My boss acted like I hung the moon. He bragged about me to his peers and talked like he got a star when he hired me.

Sorry to say, I get bored quickly. I just didn’t have enough to keep me busy so to occupy myself I’d read the newspaper. A co-worker said she thought I could get into trouble doing that and if I wanted something to do I could do some of her work. I jumped on it. Pretty soon I was doing my job and most of hers. She’d go home early and tend to her kids. Pretty soon the word got around that I was a soft touch. Ask me to do something and I would. After a while I was doing the work of most of the department. Instead of getting thanks and appreciation, I got more dumped on me. Pretty soon I was fed up with the whole bunch of them. I stopped doing their work, went back to just doing mine, and went back to reading the newspaper.

It wasn’t long after that I had an inkling my boss was dissatisfied with the situation. I naturally assumed that he was ticked off by the people who had sloughed their work off onto me. I expected him to lay them out and thank me for going the extra mile for the team.

I waited. And waited. It didn’t happen. I thought he needed some urging. So I started coming in late, doing my work, and leaving early. Just to prove how smart I was and how slow they were. I figured he’d give me a promotion or at least a raise.

It didn’t happen. Instead, and I still don’t get this, he fired me.”

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Yes! You may use this article in your blog, newsletter or website as long as you include the following bio box:

Joyce Richman (www.richmanresources.com) has been specializing in executive and career coaching since she started he own practice in 1982. She works in a variety of environments including: higher education, manufacturing, sales, marketing, media, technology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, banking and finance, service, IT, and non-profit sectors. A member of the adjunct faculty at the Center for Creative Leadership, Joyce is certified to administer a number of feedback and psychological instruments. Joyce is a weekly guest on WFMY-TV and the career columnist for The Greensboro News & Record. She is the author of Roads, Routes and Ruts: A Guidebook to Career Success and co-author of Getting Your Kid Out of the House and Into a Job. A popular speaker, Richman conducts seminars and workshops throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Her coaching profile can be found at TheCoachingAssociation.com.

A Cautionary Tale

I typically dedicate this column to active job seekers, providing strategies, techniques, and best practices to enable them to reach the kind of outcomes that will be personally and professionally satisfying.

I got a call last week from Alex (not even close to his real name) who asked that I tell you his story. It’s not about how he’s looking for a job. It’s about why. Alex was fired four weeks ago. He wants to share his cautionary tale with you.
Alex is a mid level manager who describes himself as intelligent, hard working, and dedicated. He says he’s not the kind of person to whom people are naturally attracted. “I guess you’d call me colorless. I like to stay under the radar. I don’t argue. I don’t push back. I keep my head down and stay out of trouble.” He’s the first one at work and the last one to leave. The janitorial staff has gotten used to cleaning around him.

Alex doesn’t aspire to much more than what he’s doing but admits to being discouraged when promotions and increases don’t come his way. His average performance reviews describe him as “steady,” “reliable,” and “not apt to take risks.”

Alex admits he’s frustrated; he’s working harder and longer and getting less satisfaction from it. He supervises two people who do the minimum, leave at five, and appear to enjoy a very full and happy life.

Alex knows he’s out of balance. His wife told him so, in clear, unambiguous, and highly audible language. She’s said she’s tired of carrying all the responsibility for raising kids and keeping house. She’s tired of living like a single parent. She wants him home, not just to pick up the slack but to reawaken their relationship. They have three children. His kids call him Phantom and seem genuinely surprised and sometimes startled when they glimpse him during daylight hours.

“Why’s Dad home?” they say. “Did he get fired?” Kids can be prophetic.

When Alex is home (a few hours on a Sunday afternoon) he’s zonked out on the sofa in front of the giant TV he bought the family as a peace offering. They like the TV and plan their lives without him. Alex knows that things can’t stay as they are, that he works too many hours; but he’s afraid not to, afraid to fall behind.

“Is Dad divorcing us?”  That’s what Alex’s youngest son asks his mother. When she relays the question to Alex she’s playing more than the messenger. “We all want to know,” she said. “because if you are and nothing’s going to change, we need to make the arrangement permanent.”

Alex swears that he never saw it coming. “I know I sound insensitive, uninvolved, uncaring, everything you associate with absentee dads. I know I should have been more attentive. But everything I did, everything, was for them, for my wife and my kids. I thought they understood that.”

He doesn’t know what to do or say, so he responds the way he always has, he goes back to the office and works harder.
You can imagine his surprise when his boss greets him late one Friday afternoon to tell him, “Alex, this in your last day here.”

“Alex, you spend more time here than anyone else. I don’t know if you’re the hardest working employee we have. You’re definitely the most inefficient. You’re not managing your time and you’re not managing your subordinates. In twelve years you haven’t grown beyond where you were when you first came. You don’t lead, challenge, motivate, or empower anyone, yourself included. And at your level, that’s what we pay you to do. We’re doing you a favor, Alex. We’re letting you go.”

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Yes! You may use this article in your blog, newsletter or website as long as you include the following bio box:

Joyce Richman (www.richmanresources.com) has been specializing in executive and career coaching since she started he own practice in 1982. She works in a variety of environments including: higher education, manufacturing, sales, marketing, media, technology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, banking and finance, service, IT, and non-profit sectors. A member of the adjunct faculty at the Center for Creative Leadership, Joyce is certified to administer a number of feedback and psychological instruments. Joyce is a weekly guest on WFMY-TV and the career columnist for The Greensboro News & Record. She is the author of Roads, Routes and Ruts: A Guidebook to Career Success and co-author of Getting Your Kid Out of the House and Into a Job. A popular speaker, Richman conducts seminars and workshops throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Her coaching profile can be found at TheCoachingAssociation.com.

Basic Interviewing Mistakes

In life, little things can become big things. In job search, little things are the big things. Last week I described some big mistakes that job seekers make and asked you to compare them to the do’s and don’ts you’ve been practicing.

Here are a few more, just to keep you thinking:

What to wear: How to dress is a matter of concern to many interviewees who ask what they should wear if it’s casual Friday (or Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday) or if their chosen workplace doesn’t seem to care what people wear. Play it safe: Whether you’re on a formal interview or informally networking, respect the person who’s taken time to talk with you about your career and dress professionally. That suggests that you are well groomed, clean, fresh, pressed, jacket and dress slacks for men, suited skirt or pants-suit for women. If you wear jewelry, keep it simple. If you smoke or wear a fragrance, air-out. No sense triggering an asthma attack.

Thank you letters: If you send one (a good thing to do) make it work for you. Thank the individuals involved for taking their time to discuss with you the key challenges facing their organization and the role you can play in addressing them. Reiterate your ability to make an immediate difference and your strong interest in the position.

“This is a job I can do and want to do for you and for your company and I look forward to hearing from you.”

Develop a solid close: Most applicants spend so much time worrying about the front end of the interview (what will I wear? what will I say? what will they say?) and what happens next (did they like me? will they call me? should I call them?). that they don’t think enough about the importance of patience, pacing, listening, asking open-ended questions, overcoming objections, responding strategically, and asking for the job.

Negotiation: You haven’t completed your interview prep until you know the fair market value for what you bring to the table. In other words, what’s the going salary for people with your education, experience and track record, in your geographic area, for the position you want and the accountability that accompanies it? Once you know that range, you’re ready to discuss their offer. If it’s lower than what you can reasonable expect, you have room to negotiate. Don’t know how? Try something like this:

“Mr. Jones, I appreciate your inviting me to be part of your team and I’m excited about going to work for you. It’s a job I can do and one I want to do. The only thing that keeps me from immediately signing is the salary. Given my experience, track record of accomplishment, and the accountability that goes with this position, the offer is less than I had anticipated. Can we continue our conversation? If not today, then tomorrow?”

Then sit quietly and patiently and let Mr. Jones respond. Both of you need time to percolate so don’t rush to judgment. Chances are, you’ll get an offer that’s better than the one that’s currently on the table.

Show up: Whether you know it or not and whether they tell you or not, you’re on probation for the first thirty to ninety days that you’re on the job. If you interview over your head, saying you can accomplish great things based on your history, and your history’s bogus, you’re going to be history.

Bottom line, tell the truth. Do an honest self-assessment and find a job that requires what you do best, not what you do least well. Focus on what you know; what you enjoy doing, and what you want to continue to develop through experience, training, and education.

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Joyce Richman (www.richmanresources.com) has been specializing in executive and career coaching since she started he own practice in 1982. She works in a variety of environments including: higher education, manufacturing, sales, marketing, media, technology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, banking and finance, service, IT, and non-profit sectors. A member of the adjunct faculty at the Center for Creative Leadership, Joyce is certified to administer a number of feedback and psychological instruments. Joyce is a weekly guest on WFMY-TV and the career columnist for The Greensboro News & Record. She is the author of Roads, Routes and Ruts: A Guidebook to Career Success and co-author of Getting Your Kid Out of the House and Into a Job. A popular speaker, Richman conducts seminars and workshops throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Her coaching profile can be found at TheCoachingAssociation.com.