Off and travelling ...

Hi Everyone!

I hope that everyone is keeping well.

Sorry I'm not neglecting my blog or other bits of social media responsibilities. I'm in Vietnam at the moment fighting off mosquitoes. I'll be back in Sydney on the 16th of May 2011 and blogging, tweeting, Facebooking (? is that the term) and posting job adverts etc again; hopefully all refreshed and relaxed.

The Interview

Perhaps the most daunting aspect of the job seeking process is the actual interview be it in person, by phone, or via a video hook-up; the interview is seen as “do or die” for many job seekers.

You can eliminate a lot of the associated stress though; as they say “prior preparation prevents poor performance”. Ideally, you should have begun preparing for your interview a few days in advance. You will want to know things such as:

·         Who is the company, are they private or public, any parent or sister companies or are they a stand-alone?

·         Where within the company will your position sit?

·         Why is the position open?

·         Who you will be reporting to?

·         What is the proposed role and what will the responsibilities be; what’s expected of you?

·         Why are you being interviewed for the role, what experience or qualifications identified you for this particular role?

·         Any pertinent company information such as; working environment, restructures, mergers and financials?

·         Where is the interview, best method of getting there (parking), who do you ask for and at what time is the interview?

Some of this information will be important when you embark on your pre-interview research. Use the web, there are a multitude of tools and social media sites that can help you; Google, LinkedIn, Naymz, Xing, ZoomInfo, Ibis, Hoovers etc. I would utilise these sites not only in researching your prospective new employer but also to look at who will be interviewing you, who you may be reporting to and who’s running the business, General Managers and Directors for instance.

Aside from researching for the role you should also be preparing “yourself” and by that I mean putting together a detailed and current resume and if you’re using a folio to show your works, start working on this so that it’s coordinated with your resume. Also, don’t forget to update and I would advise mirror your work history on any Social Media that you may be using such as LinkedIn or Naymz. Now is also a good time to consider “scrubbing” your online profile, I’m talking about things such as Facebook; as an example un-tag any photo’s which may not show you in a favourable manner, that big birthday bash with you passed out in the corner although perhaps memorable should really go … you can’t lock down social media, what you put out there pretty much stays out there and stays there for a very long time but you can control it to a degree.

Obvious points of preparation such as what you’re going to wear should also be considered a good day or so before you interview, just in case all of your shirts are out at the dry cleaners or those shoes that have been so comfortable for the past 5 years are showing some adverse wear and tear. I’d mentioned preparing a resume earlier, also print out a couple of copies for the interviewers in case they’ve come from back to back meetings (you’ll look efficient and organised). As well, while you’re at the printer, print out a couple of copies of your academic qualifications and transcripts to take a long with you. Familiarise yourself with your resume; projects (size, value, client) and companies that you’ve been a part of, who you’ve reported to, why you’d left, what was good, and what was bad (advice: sugar coat this bit, slating a previous employer in an interview is a big “no”). On the subject of resumes and folio’s; if you are going to use a folio to showcase designs or concepts that you’ve been a part of firstly make sure that you have permission to do so and is your name actually on the items being presented. While you’re familiarising yourself with your resume also start working in your folio to your presentation so that you easily reference items on the fly during the actual interview. Organise your folio in a way that works well in the interview; be it by project type, or historical. This is to save any fumbling around during the interview, treat it like a presentation, practice it while you’re doing dry runs for your interview questions.

Have a friend, partner or flatmate go through some interview questions; take a good 30 minutes to an hour. There are plenty of examples on the web but “screw” down on the companies and projects that you’ve been involved in; size of projects, value, any direct/ indirect reports (how many), who did you report to, who was the client, did you have any difficulties and how did you overcome them … don’t answer questions in the third party or hypothetically, answer them from real experience. Also, highlight for your faux interviewer (dry run) some company information regarding your prospective new employer; how old is their business, when were they established, how many employees do they have, what sectors are they involved in, what do they do etc. You may also be asked about your salaries in the interview; be honest and transparent, there’s a good chance that either Human Resources or the Interviewers already have a fair idea of what your remuneration package is.

I won’t go into a lot of depth about the actual interviewing, personally I have over 100 questions which I juggle around depending on who I’m interviewing and at what level they’re being interviewed for. There are a couple of well used methods; one is the Experience based interview where you will be asked about your experience to date and to chat through your CV and the other is the behavioural (or competency) based interview where you will be asked questions based on specific behaviours that an employee would like to see demonstrated in the position. In reality, many recruiters use a mixture of both techniques to interview candidates. Be sure to have some insightful questions ready for your interviewer at the end of the session. These should demonstrate your knowledge of the company and convey a genuine interest in the role. Questions regarding the remuneration package should be left for the second interview.

On the day of the interview after a good nights sleep you will arrive at your prospective new employers’ offices. This is now the time to switch on (if you haven’t already); everyone from the foyer through to the elevators and lobby is a prospective manager or colleague. You will arrive at reception announcing your arrival and asking for whoever you will be meeting with. Be courteous and polite to the reception staff, a canny manager may even ask the reception staff what their thoughts were regarding you as a potential new employee. I’ve known of companies that have moved their entire offices so that the Reception team were more integrated into the rest of the group, throughout the day everyone has some sort of interaction with the Reception team; this is meet and greet central for both the internal and external traffic of the business.

If I can emphasise anything it would be; for you to be on time, be prepared and to present yourself in the best possible light. Be confident and friendly, engage with the interviewer/s but remember and keep in mind that this is a professional meeting. If there is more than one interviewer remember to involve everyone in your responses.  The key is to engage and communicate effectively throughout the interview … and last but not least “Good Luck”.

The Application

My thoughts are that if you’re serious about the job which you’re applying for then the application should be serious, well considered and thought out. Like most things the “Garbage in, Garbage out” rule applies.

Often I’ll be working on a particular role and see an application come through which raises the question in my mind “have you even read the advertised role … “ I think some people do take a hopeful shotgun approach to applying for a job rather than the surety which can achieved with a rifle. This experience should lead us into the first consideration of applying for a job and that is “Are your skills and experience relevant to the role which you’re applying to?” There is a lot of talk about transferrable skills but this I think is best approached with some common sense; a refrigerator mechanic for instance isn’t going to be given the opportunity to work on a HVAC system going into a 5000sqm commercial building. However, I have seen engineers that have been a part of designing and assembling aircraft bodies transferring across to designing and assembling passenger rail carts, and power transmission line design engineers transferring to overhead line design for rail projects etc. In saying this though many roles will detail what is called “essential” which is pretty much mandatory skill sets and others which are ”ideal”, or nice to have in conjunction with the essential skill sets. If you don’t have what’s listed as being essential then I think, as a rule of thumb that that’s pretty indicative that the role isn’t for you and to continue looking, be patient there’s something out there for everyone. If in doubt contact the recruiter or the hiring company for greater clarification.

When planning your application, everything should be taken into consideration. I would even go so far as to create an email account with your provider or Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail for instance solely with the express purpose of applying for work. Use a semi-professional naming convention such as firstname.lastname@mymail.com or initial and surname jsmith@mymail.com put a “.” or an “_“ in there to break it up if need be; just avoid those emails which you may have thought fun five years ago but aren’t really something that you’d pot on a business card … there have been some doozies and I dare say that there’s a few recruitment firms out there with a white board listing the most inappropriate email addresses listed by seemingly oblivious job applicants.

The Subject Line and the Body of your email are vitally important in the application process. If you’re under the impression that your application is one of a few, try one of hundreds and then multiply that by other roles which the Recruiter or Internal Recruitment staff are also looking after; this makes what I say next quite poignant. The Subject Line should identify the actual Job Title and Job Number (if quoted) and personally I think that you should also add your name to the Subject Line as well for easier differentiation. Often the Subject Line acts as a quick reference allowing the Recruiter or Internal Recruitment staff to quickly identify and organise applications for open roles, depending on the time available they may also at that moment open your email and peruse your Resume with regard to the role which you’ve applied to and/ or forward your details onto the hiring manager. Making your application orderly and easy to identify considerably speeds up the process and takes the guess work away from the Recruiter or Internal Recruitment staff.

The Body of the email should I believe identify “who you are”, “what role you’re applying to” and “why you’re applying for that particular role”. This is also an opportunity to introduce any extra files which you may have attached such as appendices; again we are trying to be intuitive and take the guess work away from the recipient. A tip on files is to name them accordingly such as; jsmith_resume, jsmith_coverletter, jsmith_appendix1, jsmith_appendix2. I recently had a coffee with a friend applying for a role internally within her existing company and we had discussed Appendices and where do we put them, separately or at the bottom of the Resume. I think that either is fine but I do believe that the Body of the email represents a good opportunity to introduce the existence of these appendices or other supporting documents to the intended reader. This is also a good time for those of us who are a little bit tentative about having recruiters or prospective employers calling us in our current workplace; you can indicate a best time/day and number for them to give you a call should they be interested. Most recruiters and internal recruitment staff are quite good anyhow but at times you can get the overzealous type that will jump on the phone at any time of the day without too much of a thought.

I’m not going to go into writing a resume as this can be contentious and there’s a million different ways. In a very simple overview I always have “Education”, “Summary”, and “Work History” sometimes I’ll finish off with “Hobbies & Interests” as it’s good to see that people also have a life outside of work and that they have some balance. If you’re using LinkedIn or such sites, keep it on the straight and narrow, don’t embellish your career, make up titles or have friends give you false or overly grandiose recommendations. It should be a mirror, perhaps in summary so a little shorter but quite close in comparison to your actual resume. You will more often than not find that someone within the company potentially hiring you has worked with you before or knows somebody that knows you, transparency and honesty will go a long with your application and as well we hope with your soon to be new employer. There are professional Resume Writers out there in the industry and I won’t get into a spat with them as somewhere along the line they serve a purpose. However, I would personally prefer that someone made the effort and attempted for themselves to write a Resume and Cover Letter, for me it represents your ability to communicate, not just the written word but also communicate your actual experience so it should have your voice. You will certainly need to demonstrate suitable communications skills via email, a tender or slideshow, perhaps even in written form at some stage in your career and this will be seen by staff both within the firm and outside the firm.

Your Cover Letter is similar to the Body of your applications actual email but expands into much greater detail discussing your skills and experience as it fits the requirements of the role, arguing why your application should be successful and why you’re the best person for the job … in reality this is your sales case for the role, you can’t do this in your Resume, a Resume simply states and maps your career experience from the start of your working history to now, what you’re doing currently. I would do my research on the company and projects that they’ve been involved in, projects that they’ve recently won and explore avenues so that you can build this information into your actual application and Cover Letter, show them and demonstrate to them that you’ve researched the role and the company themselves. It can be a page or longer but make it concise, don’t just add paragraphs for the sake of adding paragraphs. At the level of staff that I work with I will pay attention to the Cover Letter and what has been written, have they put the effort in, or is this document a generic letter which has been copied down off of the internet as a “filler” in the application. A good well constructed Cover Letter will always demonstrate to me someone that not only communicates at a high level but also someone that’s a thinker and has considered the role and the actual company that they are applying to, effectively detailing and confirming to me their understanding.

Not everyone is a great writer. I’m certainly not one; this blog is more a vehicle which allows me to share my personal experience and knowledge with Job Seekers and Hiring companies alike. If you do lack confidence or haven’t picked up a pen in a while, or perhaps English isn’t your first language, go and do a creative writing course or at the very least pick-up a couple of books. One book that I highly recommend is “Eats, Shoots & Leaves” by Lynn Truss you can buy this is most bookstores or on amazon. I have a copy and constantly find myself thumbing back and forwards in its pages. Unfortunately the digital age makes it all a little too easy on many of us but not necessarily better especially when it comes to communications. Let’s face it there’s a very very good chance that you will be expected to communicate both with internal and external assets on projects, or tasks in your workplace. It’s better to acknowledge communications as being a potential weakness and working towards developing those skills more, just as you would any other skills which you rely on for your work and to progress your career then to rely on someone else doing it for you. It just takes some time and solid application.

Note: Our next blog will be on the Interview itself, going over some preparation before you walk through the door or take the phone call … thanks again for taking the time to read my blog and I hope that it’s been of some benefit to you.