Rude Behavior 2

Last week I described a job candidate I’ll call Sam, who was flabbergasted to find he’d been eliminated from competition because the interviewer viewed his behavior as unacceptable.

This is Sam’s version of what happened: Sam had a busy morning and as a result, was late getting to his interview. When he arrived, the receptionist asked him to wait for an escort to Human Resources. Several minutes passed before he was accompanied to the interviewer’s office where again he was asked to wait. The interviewer had an emergency that he needed to address.

Sam had scheduled another interview with a company across town and he had one hour remaining to get there on time. As the minutes ticked by Sam grew increasingly concerned that he’d miss it. As his anxiety mounted, so did the edgy attitude he displayed to the HR admin, who was making an effort to placate him. Out of frustration, he tried and failed to gain entrance to the interviewer’s office.  Finally, the interviewer agreed to see him, but didn’t give Sam an opportunity to present anything but his resume, indicating that “he had seen enough”, and over Sam’s heated objections and adamant refusal to leave, had him escorted to the parking lot.

What can you learn from Sam’s debacle? Plenty.

Manage your time wisely. Late arrivals and anxious attitudes are noted by everyone including the interviewer and take the interaction in the wrong direction.

Don’t schedule other appointments within three to four hours of your interview. You need to be available in case your meeting is delayed or the interviewer would like you to meet others on the screening team.

Don’t like to be kept waiting?  Occupy yourself by reading company related materials that are typically provided, or read a business magazine or newspaper.

Don’t cop an attitude and think you can later defend or explain your bad behavior.

It’s understandable that you’re frustrated when you arrive at your scheduled interview, on time, only to find that the interviewer isn’t ready for you. If you want the interview, if you believe you’re a good match to the opportunity, if you believe the company is one where you want to work, let go of your frustration. Let it go or it will reveal itself to those who observe you, even casually, and it can hurt your chances for success.

How you react to a negative situation begins with what you think about it. If you want to respond as someone calm and steady, you’ll need to think yourself that way. Change your perspective by envisioning how you want to (respectfully) treat others, how you want to (candidly) answer tough questions, and how you want to (politely/courageously) ask questions of others. Envision how you want to begin the meeting and how you want it to end.

Throughout this mental exercise, you’re neither irritated by, nor fixated on, how others are treating you badly. If you were to be, you’d lose personal power, energy, and control by turning it over to “them” and they win.

You’re right. Life isn’t fair. Good health, wealth, luck, and happiness aren’t equally distributed. It is what it is. We don’t know what demons those who would appear to have it all, struggle with, and we don’t need to know. It’s enough that we struggle with our own.

Given that, we can only make the best choices we can, realizing that there are consequences for the ones that we make. The next time you’re interviewing and you’re ticked off by a company representative’s actions or lack of them, and you’re itching to say something that will show them how wrong they are, take a deep breath and do something far more constructive: show them how a class act behaves.

The First Job

Wake up sleepy heads, today’s the first day of the rest of your young working lives, and you need to walk out the door with your best foot forward.

Speaking of your best foot…fellas, if you’re working with the public, wear socks and serious shoes; big hairy toes or shoe-string draggin’ sneakers just don’t do it for employers or their customers. Gals, if your job requires heavy loading, lifting, cooking or cleaning, chances are you can drop, slop, or slip, so you want those serious shoes to have tread and reinforced toes.

If you want to keep your job, get there on time. If you want to impress your employer, get there early. If you want to be alert and early, it helps to be awake, so get the sleep you need to be at your best.

If you want to keep your job, be polite. It’s a sign of respect to those who pay you at the end of the week, who know more about your job than you do, and have the power and authority to return you to the ranks of the unemployed.

If you want to keep your job, act as pleasant as you are responsible. Managers want to supervise employees who want to be there and want to make a difference while they’re there. Act responsible because no matter what job you have, your safety and security and the safety and security of others are part of the business of being there.

If you want to keep your job, be fully present. Do your work and jump in when someone needs your help. If you prefer talking on your cell-phone, to your work buddies, or to the voice in your head that says you’d rather be somewhere else, count on it, you’re going to be.

If you want to keep your job, respond immediately and energetically when you’re asked a question, and answer it in complete sentences.  If you don’t know the answer, say so, and find out what it is.

If you want to keep your job, don’t gossip. Tell the truth. Accept responsibility for your mistakes and learn from them.

If you want to keep your job, anticipate what you can do without having to be told. Balance initiative with common sense.

If you want to keep your job, be a team player. If you’re in a jam you’ll

want your co-workers to help you out. They will if you demonstrate your willingness to do the same.

If you want to keep your job, make work a priority. You’ll be faced with all

kinds of temptations this summer, fall, winter, and spring.  Everything from a trip to the beach, to sleeping in late after a late night out. When deciding what matters most, honor your obligations to those who pay and trust you to do the right thing.

If you want to keep your job, learn to do more than your job. If you work

with new technologies, processes, and procedures, you’ll increase your income potential and improve your job longevity.

If your parents shoved this column in your face while twisting your nose and pulling your ear, they have a reason. They may have noticed that you’re not a rule follower, and do the opposite of what you’re told. They’re afraid that you’ll push the boundaries and lose your job.

If your parents gently set this column in front of you, and you obediently picked it up and began reading, they may be concerned that you’re not as assertive as they’d like, and are afraid you’ll be overlooked in favor of those who are more forceful, extraverted, and risk taking.

If your parents got your attention by poking you with the newspaper, plastering want-ads on the bathroom mirror, and wrapping your breakfast in this column, they’re afraid you’re in no hurry to get a job and will be hanging around the house for the foreseeable future.

Surprise them. Surprise all of them. Wash your face, brush your teeth, comb your hair, and get out there and make it happen.  Let your parents know through your actions, that you have what it takes to get a job and keep a job.

I Don’t Know What’s Wrong – 2

You can repeat your mistakes or learn from them. That’s up to you. Life’s lessons are many and varied. Some are easier to understand than others.

When it comes to interviewing it’s hard to know what comment, question, response, smile, frown, or explanation got in the way of your winning first prize. There are too many X’s and Y’s, too many unknowns, and too little opportunity to find out what worked and what didn’t.

To be or not to be: Interviewers base their hiring decisions on a variety of technical and interpersonal statements and impressions that emanate from the applicants’ ability to present skills, strengths, and contributions in cogent, convincing, compelling sound bites. Those who are selected come across as open, goal focused and confident while not appearing assumptive, arrogant, or overly ambitious.

Hiring decisions can be imprecise and difficult to justify, which is why even the most objective interviewers would rather not get into extended discussions about the finer points of their process with applicants who didn’t make the grade.

So what can you do to improve on your ability to make favorable impressions?  Practice with individuals you trust that are willing and able to provide you objective and subjective, constructive, honest, direct feedback and insight regarding how you can improve the style and substance of your interview.

Before you involve appropriate acquaintances, friends or family in your pursuit, assess your level of openness to different perspectives and your willingness to do something with what you hear. If you’re not prepared, don’t start.

If you’re ready and so are they, establish the ground rules: when you’ll meet and how often, what’s fair game and what isn’t, and if compensation is involved, how much? Establish an exit strategy. A great idea can sour quickly if either or both participants aren’t as enamored with the process as they thought they’d be.

What’s your starting point? Your ability to describe the job you want and the experience, strengths and abilities you have that enable you to be successful doing it. If you haven’t figured that out you’re not ready for prime time.

What’s the responsibility of the feedback provider? To play the role of interviewer, asking direct and probing questions about your current expectations, perceived value and future aspirations, asking you to describe your setbacks as well as your successes.

What’s the process? Feedback providers ask the questions, listen to your responses and feed back to you the variety of impressions they derive from what you say. If their impressions are positive, you keep going; if their reactions are mixed or negative, brainstorm and experiment with better ways to respond to the question. Practice your changes, don’t memorize them, and when your interviewer-coach gives you the thumbs up, move to the next set of questions.

For feedback to be helpful it should be specific, behavior based, and descriptive. In other words, you want to see and hear yourself as you are seen and heard. Here’s an example:

When I asked you to describe your worst boss this is what you said:

“He made me angry”; “he made me feel badly”; “there was nothing I could do”.

As you spoke, you slumped in your chair, looked fatigued, and your face crumpled as though you might cry. I had the impression that in that circumstance you saw yourself as a victim; that you felt helpless and unable to choose differently.

If I were an employer I’d want to hire someone with the experience and capability of making mature choices in difficult situations. Try again: how would you describe your worst boss in a way that illustrates your ability to deal effectively under adverse conditions?

If you want to learn from your mistakes, ask for honest feedback.

Lost Cat? Found Job.

Do you remember the story about the fellow whose cat led him to the right job?  It went like this…

Apprehensive young man desperate for career and already late for interview has a runaway house cat. After frenzied search, skirmish and surrender, young man and reluctant cat arrive at company’s formidable front entrance. Young man opens resistant door by clamping resume between teeth and wedging cat between sandaled feet. In time it takes to yell, “stop biting my toe”, cat escapes, dashes after delivery truck and leaps aboard. Stowaway cat, unaware driver, and yet to be delivered packages head for highway. After lengthy pursuit young man flags driver to stop. While exchanging cat and pleasantries, young man describes aborted interview. Delivery driver, impressed with young man’s dogged desire to recoup recalcitrant cat suggests career with animal rescue.  Young man turns suggestion into opportunity and works happily ever after.

What’s the moral of the story? To get a great job all you need is a coincidental intersection of people and events?

If that were so there’s little you can do to influence your job search other than stand around intersections, waiting for the coincidence of good fortune to strike you instead of the person standing next to you. I don’t believe that. I do believe that life can be more challenging for some than for others.

Bad things can happen to good people and the best intentions can go ignored; hard working, honest, talented employees can be laid off and the misunderstood can be fired; that some people are born to wealth and privilege and others to misery and despair; that there are many things about which we have no choice but to choose again. It’s in that gap, that place between what was chosen for you and what you choose for yourself that I would hope you would focus.

I’ve worked with a wide variety of clients having to deal with a broad range of job challenges and career issues.  Despite their age or circumstance, education or economics, the majority struggle to answer the question, “what should I be when I grow up?”

Some are locked into the belief that careers should be hard and unforgiving. “That’s why it’s called work”, they say. Others, intellectually quick and hungry for mental stimulation are drawn to what is difficult or unusual, only to find that their learning curve is as short as their interest is brief. “When will I find something that sustains me?” they say. “I’m tired of this endless search.”

Some believe they should set aside the playthings of their youth, that whatever dreams they had as children, of fun, fame and fortune were just dreams, and not to be considered as career possibilities.

I’ve worked with grown children who espouse economic independence from their deep pocket parents even as they accept their co-dependent reality; with young adults who struggle to find an identity that’s not subordinated by a parent’s power or influence.

I’ve worked with not so young adults who’ve overcome poverty and jeopardy to make it on their own and in their own terms; with people who’ve left their jobs and people whose jobs left them; with people for whom English is a second language and want a chance to prove themselves as they are, not as others would wish them to be.

They all have this in common: A desire to enjoy what they do, to be respected, treated fairly, and paid equitably for their effort. It takes courage, not coincidence. It requires stepping into the space between what has happened to them and what they choose to happen next. That’s the place where they improve their self-awareness; increase their self-confidence, and where they take action.

What’s the moral to your story?

Don’t Write Letters

Three employees are headed toward what’s next and appear to be having some trouble leaving behind what was. They’re stuck at a prickly juncture on route to an unfamiliar place. Each wants to even a score:

“I was recently let go from my job and I’m still reeling from the experience. I feel like I was set up to fail. I want to write a letter to the plant manager letting him know just what happened and who he really needs to blame.”

“My boss asked me to sign a letter of resignation. He says it’s that or be fired. I think he’s a loser and this company stinks. That’s the only letter I want to sign.”

“I am leaving my job to join another company, one that’s much better than the sorry place and the sorrier people I’ve been working for the last 5 years. I’d like to write that in my letter of resignation along with a few other well placed zingers.”

No matter how badly you want to set the record straight, how right you think you are and how wrong you think they’ve been; no matter how clear, logical, and rational your argument, please don’t write that letter. You’ll come across as defensive, demeaning, and otherwise unable to accept the reality of your situation. It’s over. Let it go.

You’re working in a small world that’s getting smaller. Odds are, you’ll see these people again. It’s as important to you as it is to them to leave bad situations on good terms. Don’t burn bridges better left standing.

What’s so hard about letting go? In his book, “Managing Transitions”, author William Bridges describes the dilemma of change and our role in it as needing to have endings before we can have beginnings; that until we make sense of where we’ve been we’re stuck in the transition, unable to effectively move toward what’s next and what’s new.

Some employees are stuck in transition, staying with abusive bosses, assuming the insults will decrease or become more tolerable. Some stay in bad jobs, assuming the job will change or become more tolerable. Some employees stay where they are because they’re afraid to leave or stay until they are told to leave. Many employees are unaware that misery has a cost and a consequence that can blindside careers and personal relationships.

Get unstuck. Rather than assume and create different problems or repeat bad history, test your hypotheses and find out what was going on. Get closure on difficult situations by learning from the experience and converting that knowledge into new attitudes and behaviors. Widen the lens through which you gain perspective. Ask those who were present to describe the part that you and others played and what happened as a result.

Heighten your self- awareness. Read body language. Pay attention to the cues around you. Turn on the lights, something’s going on that needs your attention. Ask what it is and do something with what you see and what you hear.

Read the company’s culture, its unique set of values and beliefs. Employees who are attuned to the culture and responsive to it are typically comfortable within it and do reasonably well. Those who are either insensitive to it or disagree with it are apt to challenge and be challenged.

Read books and articles that address best practices in leadership, management, and supervision. Attend workshops and seminars to learn what you know and what you don’t know and need to learn.  Find a mentor, get a coach, learn from those whose interpersonal styles and life skills you value and are worth emulating. Ask for ongoing feedback from objective employees and ask what you can do to return the favor.

Cat Leads to Job

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.

This Might Not Be Pretty

I’ve noticed that you’re making some interviewing mistakes that you’d probably prefer not to repeat. I’ll tell you what they are and what you can do about them but fair warning, this might not be pretty:

• You’re getting there late and when you do, the game’s over. Here’s why: Interviewers expect you to be on your best behavior. If getting there late is the best you can do it’s not good enough. If you want to make the cut, make it across the company’s threshold with time to spare and with your act intact.
• You’re showing up so early you look as though you either can’t tell time or you’re unsure of yourself. If you’re concerned that getting there much later than you are accustomed is cutting it too close for comfort, stick with your early arrival, just don’t present yourself until it’s time for the interview.
• You’re showing up right on the button but you’re as calm as a nervous wreck. Your stomach’s churning, your voice is quaking and your hands are shaking. Rewind. Prepare. Nail what you do best, how you benefit companies you work for, and get used to talking about it. Work with the toughest handlers you can find who will ask you realistic questions and give you honest feedback.
• You describe yourself as confident but you’re coming across as arrogant. That’s a style that has to go. If you’re not sure if this pertains to you, check out the following: Instead of asking open ended questions that get at what the company’s issues and challenges might be, you act as though you already know. You’re making assumptions, drawing conclusions, and solving problems they don’t have and ignoring those they do. You’re eye rolling, sarcastic, and just a little smug. If that’s you, get a grip and get yourself a career coach.
• If you’re coming across as insecure and more than a little lost, the interviewer might offer you compassion and a compass but not a job offer. You might not need a check list for this one but here’s a short one anyway: You’re asking plenty of questions but you don’t appear to have any answers. When you do have answers they sound as though spoken by that proverbial deer in the headlights. You can minimize your problem and maximize opportunity if you immediately apply Practice, the time tested product that gets rid of the most virulent case of the gotcha’s. It’s guaranteed to work if you use it twice daily, every day, for at least two weeks prior to an interview or networking meeting. That way you have time to fill in the blanks, correct your mistakes, or rectify what even the right answers, said apologetically, can sadly say about you.
• You talk too much. It’s not good to chat the ears off interviewers. Pay  attention to their body language and you’ll know when it’s happening: Their eyes cross or look longingly at their computers, telephones, and finally, their clocks. Relax. Exhale. Give interviewers a chance to learn about you in their terms, not in yours. It’s their meeting, their company, and you’re an invited guest. Act accordingly.
• You’re not participating. You sit, listen, and nod approvingly which may be reassuring but it’s just not enough. The quieter you are the less likely it is you’ll be offered the job. Yes, if the interviewer wouldn’t ask so many questions and would give you more time to collect your thoughts, arrange, review and edit them, you’d provide more answers. That won’t happen. You need to practice jumping in and engaging, exchanging insight and information for no reason greater than you have something worthwhile to say and you deserve to be heard.

New Year Resolutions

Up and at ‘em! It’s a few weeks past the honkin’ and hollerin’ dawn of the new year and I bet you haven’t made out your list of New Year’s Resolutions. Surely there are countless things you resolve to do differently this year; dozens of ways you want to be, think, and do that are new and improved over the not-so-hot ways you did them last year. So, get in gear, pencils sharp, paper ready.

“Whoa, pal. First of all, I’ve still got a hangover from 2003, so speak with a little less energy and vitality, ‘cause you’re giving me a headache. Second of all, what’s wrong with my being content with who I am and what I do? I mean, give me a break. Every time I turn around someone tells me how I have to act and what I need to worry about if I don’t act that way. I’m over it with all this changing and rearranging. I’ve had enough of it to last me a lifetime.

In fact, all your noise about making promises has inspired me. I’ve got more than one promise for you, I’ve got three: I’m going to be me, talk like me, and act like me for all of 2004. While I’m at it, I’ve got five more resolutions for you: I’m going to eat whatever I want, sleep as long as I please; work when I feel like it, drink what I choose; and drive in whatever condition I find myself. I’ve done all the changing I’m going to do, thank you very much. Leave me alone and go wake up someone else with your New Year’s Resolution Celebration.”

If that sounds a bit like you on the morning after the biggest ‘make a promise’ day of the year, you’re in some heavy company. The challenge of seeing the world differently, whether close-up or at a distance, and to change your view of yourself and your role within it, can be more than you can manage.

In fact, the thought of making New Year’s Resolutions rings the bells of frustration and exasperation in the hearts of many. Some have had a very tough year making ends meet while staying employed, and some have been working their hardest getting that way again. Some feel that they have been mistreated by hard-working, well-intended businesses that were powerless to take hard work and good behavior into account when having to close doors and shutter windows.

Some don’t feel that way at all:

“For the life of me, I don’t have patience with all this pessimism and the people who persist in it. They wear me out. Look at what we’ve survived. We’ve survived nine-eleven, and we’re coming back; we’ve survived a lingering downturn, and we’re coming back. There are plenty of things to look forward to and plenty of evidence that it’s going to be there when we catch up to it.

I don’t have patience with people who run others down, or lecture everyone they see on what they should do, and how they should think, to be on the right side of political, religious, and intellectual thought. And I don’t have patience with people who are content with standing still.

I think it’s important to make things better than we found them. Sometimes I work on getting my act together, getting done what I need to do. Sometimes I work on learning something new, thinking in different ways. I’m not content to let things be. If I’m not moving forward I’m sliding backward, and that’s not acceptable to me.”

And there are others, finding their place somewhere in the middle, accepting who they are and where they find themselves; learning and growing, not out of a sense of need or resolution but out of a desire to take action when and where the spirit moves them, when and if it does.

And the rest probably resent the notion of being so narrowly defined, pigeonholed, or categorized, as to be in limited to one place or the other.

So wherever you are and whoever you choose to be, I hope you enjoy a year of safety, security, peace and prosperity.

Five Fresh Tips

You’ve asked for more interviewing strategies and here they are:

1. Pay attention while walking around.

If you have a chance to tour the facility where you’re interviewing, go for it. It’s a great way to get a read of the culture and a handle on your comfort within it. For example, if employees appear to move about in stony silence and the place is quiet as a tomb, the company might be a model of productivity and focus, introverted reflection, or reeling from bad news. All or none of the above? Take note, and check out your impressions with the interviewer.

If the place is jumping, employees are laughing and talking, and look like they’re having fun, they could be an extraverted, creative group, enjoying each other and their work, or a chaotic, non-productive, un-structured mess. All or none of the above? Check it out.

Are employees greeting you and your host or keeping a respectful distance? Does that tell you it’s an interactive, manage by walking around company, or one that is formal or remote?  See what I mean? The tour is a gold mine of clues to culture, style, and effectiveness. Don’t assume, check out your impressions.

2. Find out what happens next.

Rather than get frustrated because you’ve had a great interview and you don’t know what happens next, ask.

“Mr. Johnson, I want this job because I can make an immediate contribution to your company. When am I likely to hear that I’m in the running for it?”

“Well, Sally, (if that’s your name) we have several more people we’ll be interviewing. You should hear something in a few weeks.”

Not enough information. If you want more, take it up a notch.

“Thanks, Mr. Johnson. Here’s my dilemma: I’m really interested in this job but I’m in the process of interviewing with other companies. If I get another offer, should I accept it?”

If Mr. Johnson says, “ by all means, take it”, keep looking, because this job won’t happen.  Conversely, if Mr. Johnson says, “Sally, if that occurs, don’t accept until you’ve spoken with me. Here’s my direct number.” Good news. Mr. Johnson thinks you’re a contender. Stay in touch and yes, keep looking. You’re in the hunt until you have a firm offer.

3. Know when to walk and when to talk.

Put everything you have into every interview you take and don’t bolt if after the first few minutes, you don’t hear what you want. There’s always more you can learn about the company’s opportunities and much more for the interviewer to learn, and appreciate, about what you bring to their table, if you’ll  keep your seat.

Having gleaned all you can, assess the potential of your options. If you find that where you’ll spend most of your time is what you do least well, take a pass. If you accept a job that’s a poor match, the likely result will be terminal boredom, terminal terror, or just plain termination: they’ll fire you or you’ll fire them.

4. Know when to accept an offer and when to let it go.

Do you know the full extent of your responsibilities and accountability? Do you know when they expect you to begin making a measurable, quantifiable difference to the department? Have you met everyone with whom you’ll be working? Are you aware of the challenges you’ll face? Are the salary, benefits, and title commensurate with what’s expected of you? Will you be doing what you do best while expanding your learning through training and development because of the opportunities they provide?

If it’s a job with great potential, take it. If it’s just OK on a good day, keep looking.

5. Should you call, wait, or keep looking?

Ah, classic case of the what-to-do’s. You’ve had a dynamite interview. You loved them. They loved you. They promised an offer. Seven days have passed and you haven’t heard from them. Call or wait?

Call. Once. With a positive, confident, energetic tone:

“Mr. Jones, this is Tom Smith and I’m looking forward to hearing from you, working with you, and making an immediate contribution to your company.”

Then lace up your shoes, and keep looking.

Five Fresh Tips

By request, I’ve prepared some interviewing tips for you. If you like these, you’ll get five more next week.

1. Extraverts! Don’t talk too much! You’re so good with words you don’t

seem to know when to stop using them and you’re talking your way in and out of great opportunities.

Instead, stay on point and make your points calmly and succinctly. Don’t repeat yourself. And don’t interrupt.

Sell yourself on track record and potential, not on exaggerated statements and promises that sound over the top.

Limit your responses to a minute or less. If you keep going you’ll fry the patience and attention of the listener. Make your strongest points at the beginning of your response, not at the end.

Go for an airtime ratio of 60/40. The interviewer gets 60, you get 40. Use it judiciously; not all in one breath.

2. Introverts: Speak up more! A stellar resume won’t help if you consistently under-whelm your interviewers.

(“The applicant was great on paper but flat in person. She didn’t tell me enough about her ability, experience, and accomplishments to do herself justice. I had no choice but to pass on her application.”)

Get in the habit of saying more, not less, and elaborate, don’t edit your points. Brag a little. Brag a lot. As understated as you are, it won’t sound like hype.

You’re not prepared for the interview unless you’ve practiced your responses with people willing to distract (a particular challenge for introverts), critique, and coach you so you’re ready for the big game.

Practice your social meet and greet skills so you can carry your weight in the limited but necessary light talk that precedes the heavy lifting of the interview.

3. Don’t talk in circles. Say what you mean! Applicants lose time and ground when they answer questions with responses that go nowhere. Rather than jabber on in hopes of stringing together a series of sentences that make sense, own that you either need time to reflect on the answer, or that you don’t have an answer. If you’re confused by the question, and want clarification, say so. If you want to know why the interviewer asks the question so that you can respond to the intent, rather than the content, say so. Bottom line, come across as someone who doesn’t sidestep the truth, but tells it, straight up. Employers like it that way.

4. Ask more questions! Nothing kills an interview more quickly than the applicant who doesn’t ask questions, even if the interviewer “answered every one of them, before I could even ask!”

Give me a break. If the interviewer answered every one she was a mind-reading, non-stop talker, or your questions were no- brainers. Which isn’t saying much for either of you.

If you wait until the end of an interview to ask questions you’ve missed countless opportunities along the way to learn more and to maximize the information you’ll get.  Timing is everything. When the interviewer discusses job responsibilities that tap into your best stuff, ask questions that probe for elaboration and respond with examples of your accomplishments. If you’re interested in the vision of the company, because that’s where you can contribute, ask. If you want to know more about the challenges they face, because you’re a problem solver, ask. Ask questions that enable you to showcase your talent, and allow you to match your values, ethics, and preferred management style to what you discover, are theirs.

5. Listen! If you want to master the art of the interview, master the art of listening. A good listener can frame questions based on where the interviewer is going, not where he’s been. A good listener knows what’s safe to probe and what’s better left undisturbed. A good listener balances listening with responding, follows the flow, understands context, and asks the necessary questions that fill in the missing pieces. A good listener answers the why of a question, and not just the what. A good listener benefits both sides by asking open-ended questions that encourage dialogue, not monologue. Above all, good listeners model behaviors that indicate when dealing with ambiguity, they choose ready, aim, fire, instead of the reverse.

Next Page »