interviewing Archives - Page 6 of 9

…should you be the first, second, third or last interview

we are often asked: “if there are multiple candidates, should i be the first, second or last interview?”..tough question

here is our experience…if there are only three or four candidates and they are all being interviewed on the same day, it really doesn’t matter much if you are first, last or in the middle…

now if there are more than that, like six or seven on the same day..or the inteveiws are spread out over a few days, it is best to be dead last…if you can’t be last…be first…

if you are first, you “set the bar”…and you had better be good!…over the next day or two after the interview, email or call and remind the hiring authority who you are and how good you are by reinforcing what he or she said they wanted….

if the interviewing process is carried out over a long period of time…like days or weeks…try to be last…it takes advantage of the “law of recency”…people remeber best what they saw last…

so often, hiring authorities leave the decision to hire someone to the very last moment…lets face it, hiring is an emtionally difficult thing to do and since it is uncomfortable, it gets left to the last moment…soooo, if you are the last candidate interviewed, you have a better chance…

now it only ammounts to a 15% or 20% better chance of being hired, so don’t let it go to your head…however, you need all the advantages you can get

By Tony Beshara|2008-12-10T23:26:54-05:00December 10, 2008|interviewing|

…don’t answer a question you don’t understand

…my candidate didn’t understand one of the questions he got asked …and he knew he didn’t understand it when it was asked…

instead of simply saying, “i really don’t understand, could you state it again,”…he started to answer it…he actually started to answer everything he thought the question might be…he went on and on…

the only way he could have said less was to talk longer…and he did..

end of interview…

lesson: if you don’t understand the question, get clarification then answer…

By Tony Beshara|2008-12-02T23:07:41-05:00December 2, 2008|interviewing|

…stories

one of the most powerful strategies you can develope in the interviewing process is to be able to tell stories about yourself that prove you are a good employee and that you will be an assett to any organization..

stories tell…they are more than enertainment, they train us in the art of being human…stories remove the listener’s immediate prejudices to you as a person and get them to focus on what you are talking about…

so, as you develope the presentation portion of your interview, make sure you tell stories that demonstrate your advaqntages and benefits..

keep the stories short and to the point…they will make a difference in how you are received

By Tony Beshara|2008-11-05T22:42:02-05:00November 5, 2008|interviewing, job search strategies, psychology|

…dealing with “bruised credit”

we hear it weekly…candidate gets into the finals of the interviewing process…is told they are a finalist…will have their references and credit checked…

then, oh my, the candidate reveals that they have “bruised” credit…this can be everything from very, very bad credit to poor credit…

in these difficult economic times, it is not suprising that many people’s credit is “bruised”…slightly to very badly..

these days, employers are more prone to check credit on most candidates, even if the position is not a financial oriented job….it use to be that a candidate’s credit was checked only when the job had to do with financial positions…i.e. where money was involved..

these days, though, hiring authorities have a hard time checking references with previous employers, who, more often than not, adopt a “we don’t give references of any type” policy…so, they resort to other objective reports like criminal records and credit reports…

the assumption is that, if your credit is poor, you are a poor employee…

it does no good to argue this issue…if you have bruised credit, best assume you will be eliminated from most any financially oriented job…we even had a candidate lately who was eliminated from an insurance adjusters position because of his poor credit…

we recomend not sharing a poor credit issue unitl you find out that your credit will be checked…(by the way, you can’t refuse this being done without immediately being eliminated from contention)..

once you are informed, tell the hiring authority that your credit has been bruised and ask him or her if that will be an issue…you might share with them the reasons for the situation…we had a candidat a few years ago whose identity was stolen and she was still “recovering” from a poor credit issue through no fault of her own…

some hiring authorities may be able to work with you if they really like you…sometimes they may not have any choice depending on company policies..

you want to be sure that, if you find that a credit report will be reviewed and you have had challenges, the employer does not find out from the credit report itself…especially if you are told that the report will be part of the screening process…

if an employers thinks you are withholding information from him or her, you won’t get hired…

By Tony Beshara|2008-10-31T21:04:33-05:00October 31, 2008|interviewing, job search|

…a little thing you never thought of

your voice mail on your cell phone….make sure is says somethng like, “this is (your name) leave a message and i will return your call.”

why?…well, when people calling you hear a simple number like “214-823-9999…leave a message at the tone” they don’t know for sure if it is your cell phone…and many people ..especially potential employers…are reluctant to leave a message on a voice mail this way…

three years from now, one of those hiring authorities may pull your resume out of the file and try to call you..they won’t know if you still have that number or not…if they get simply “214-xxx-yyyy ..leave a message” they won’t do it

sooooo, record your name on your voice mail…you are missing some great calls

By Tony Beshara|2008-10-29T21:33:49-05:00October 29, 2008|interviewing, job search strategies|

…snatching defeat from the jaws of victory

candidate is in the finals..down to him and one other.. he is going to interview with the CEO and the president…it is a small, $100 million firm..

so, thinking he can wow them, he comes up with an elaborate “future” plan about how he has contacts to help them expand and double their size by adding lines of products he can bring them…instead of interviewing, he comes across as though he wants to create partnerships for them….bad move..

they agree to pass on him…they were simply looking for a sales person, not a new business….he oversold and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory..

lesson: sell yourself to get the job you are interviewing for..don’t try to make it more complicated than it is

By Tony Beshara|2008-10-21T21:51:51-05:00October 21, 2008|communication, employers, interviewing|

…elementary

this seems so elementary, but one of our candidates went to the interview without a hard copy of his resume…the hiring authority didn’t have it on his desk, asked the candidate for one and the interview went down hill after that..

the hiring authority searched his computer for ten minutes… finally found it, had to print it…well, you get the message… bad interview

always, always have multiple copies of your resume with you..don’t assume the hiring authority will have one even if you emailed it…

this week one of our candidates went to his interview…he was confronted by a group of three people in the interview.. he sure looked prepared when he handed out copies of his resume to everyone that didn’t have one..

By Tony Beshara|2008-10-14T21:56:47-05:00October 14, 2008|interviewing|

…monday morning interviews

..DON’T do it…stay away from monday morning interviews…the pressure of monday morning is mostly caused by people’s interruption of their cercadian rhythms that they established over the weekend…they slept later, did fun things, relaxed..and now it is interrupted by monday morning..

if you have to interview on a monday, make it after 1pm or later in the day..

also try not to interview in airports, restaurants, starbucks, at conventions, conferences, social engagements…the day before thanksgiving, christmas or new year’s eve…late at night, i.e. after 7pm

By Tony Beshara|2008-10-06T21:33:21-05:00October 6, 2008|interviewing|

…so, life and interviewing are unfair

..interviewing and hiring are staged, contrived events…they aren’t reality…but, like churchill said about democracy, it’s the worst form of government after all the others have been tried..

candidates complain that hiring authorities ask very unfair questions, that have nothing to do with the job (i.e. “why are manholes round?”…”what is one thing about you, you don’t want me to know?”) …and employers get hung up on one or two answers that aren’t the way they would answer the question..(i.e. define “consultative selling”)…

we have seen candidates and hiring authorities get hung up on the smallest, most silly things that really have nothing to do with a candidates ability to do the job or the quality of a job opportunity…

no sense in getting mad or disappointed about things like this…when they happen, the situations are unfair…not right…just unfair…

but, so is life…get over it and move on…you’ll hardly ever rectify or change the situation…accept what you may not understand …move on..

By Tony Beshara|2008-10-03T21:45:49-05:00October 3, 2008|employers, interviewing|

…i’m getting an offer…no more interviews

…famous words…don’t do that…don’t ever bank on an offer unless you have one…in writing..in your hands..and don’t stop interviewing until you have it..

we can’t tell you the number of tremendously disappointed people we have consoled over the years who thought they were getting a job offer, quit interviewing and never got it…

no company will ever admit to doing this, but we have seen situation where the candidate showed up for their first day of work to find out that there was no job for them…

lesson…don’t stop interviewing until you have an offer in you hands and a start date that is a as quick as you can get it…you never know what might happen

By Tony Beshara|2008-09-28T20:58:59-05:00September 28, 2008|interviewing, offers|