How to Improve Your LinkedIn Profile: Job Search Tactic #1

Brad and I have talked endlessly about how much easier your job search is to found than to find a job. I recently wrote a post on this exact subject.

We did a radio broadcast on how to improve your LinkedIn Profile. We posted our LinkedIn Self-Assessment Scorecard on our site a few months ago –  a download that has become one our all-time most popular downloads. You can get the download and quickly understand how to improve your LinkedIn Profile for Job Search.

Not only is building an outstanding LinkedIn Profile a job search best practice, but it is also an integral part of personal branding (another key element of an effective job search).

More importantly, every recruiter, HR pro, and hiring manager will google your name and look up on LinkedIn BEFORE they decide to grant you an interview.

Google Profiles will be the focus of our next blog article, Job Search Tactic Number 2.

• Does your LinkedIn Profile capture a viewer’s attention?
• What elements of your Profile are they drawn to?
• Would I as recruiter feel that I just had to call you after viewing your profile?
• Does your profile scream “you’re not going to find a better person” at me?
• What are the steps in creating an effective job search LinkedIn Profile?

Below we’ll list the key elements of creating an effective profile. We could probably spend an entire blog post series on each element of your LinkedIn Profile.

Here are the LinkedIn Profile Best Practices (in no particular order)”:

1. Use a compelling headline
2. Complete all the details of your entire career
3. List all your accomplishments in detail with as much quantification as possible
4. Get a lot of recommendations
5. Recommend others
6. Include Slideshare Powerpoint presentations of your accomplishments
7. List the books you’re ready/comment on other book lists
8. Incorporate Your Twitter Feed and Link
9. Include a link to your blog
10. Include a link to your on-line resume
11. Pull your blog’s feed onto your profile using WordPress
12. Include links for audio/video files of you talking about your accomplishments and achievements.
13. Join Groups that are professionally/geographically appropriate
14. Update your status frequently – as in daily
15. Dramatically build your network with appropriate contacts
16. Make it easy to connect with you – phone #s and email

These are the elements of your LinkedIn Profile that will differentiate you from your peers. Read a couple of our other blog posts on this subject of leveraging your LinkedIn Profile for Job Search, including an article titled “Become a Beacon in Your Job Search” and “Are You Difficult to Connect With on LinkedIn in Your Job Search?“

Barry Deutsch

Don’t forget to join our LinkedIn Job Search Discussion Group to learn more about leveraging your LinkedIn Profile for Job Search.

101 Job Search Tactics to Find a Job NOW!

I’m boiling mad!

I’m offended.

Brad and I put in an effort that exceeds most experts in the job search space. Do we deserve grief and abuse for it?

A recent commenter on my last blog posting inferred that Brad and I publish “fluff” and DO NOT provide specific tactics, techniques, tips, tools, and methods to improve your job search. He inferred that we spout theory, but don’t offer practical advice.

This commenter had the audacity to suggest that Brad and I were in a game of playing bait and switch – which infers I sell you one thing (which I don’t have and then try to convince you to buy a more expensive item).

Brad and I make an extraordinary effort to offer FREE audio, tools, templates, samples, examples, illustrations, and other material that might cost you hundreds of dollars – we give it away. Yes – we do ask that you register on our site to receive these FREE items. Yes – we do send you on-going emails to share with you other products, services, new FREE items, and updates to our offerings.

Here’s some examples of FREE job search tools, information, learning that we offer:

Job Search Preparation Self-Assessment

LinkedIn Profile for Job Search Scorecard

Audio Program on the most common Job Search Mistakes

Sample Cover Letter

LinkedIn Job Search Discussion Group

Best Practices and Job Resources from across the Internet

We’re trying to make a living from our expertise – this is our business – it’s not our hobby. We offer our products and services to those individuals who have expressed an interest in our content and find it valuable. At no time have we EVER sent spam, or made inappropriate recommendations.

Maybe the commenter was just mad at me because I “called him out” or folks like him on conducting an INEFFECTIVE JOB SEARCH. Perhaps, he took the message too personal.

However, to respond to these comments, I’m going to start publishing 101 blog articles on job search tactics – might take me a while to do this. These job search tactics and activities will be specific, precise, executable, realistic, action-oriented, time-based, outcome driven, metric capable, measurable, and achievable.

Then, I’m going to put them all in a self-assessment for you to check off how well you’re doing against each one.

It’s not one particular tactic is absolutely critical – it’s the combination of doing all 101 job tactics or activities concurrently that adds up to something quite powerful.

So, like Bobby Flay on the Food Network, I’m throwing down a challenge to our entire job search community:

Offer your job search tactics up in a comment and I’ll let you know if it falls in the 101 or you’ve come up with something even I didn’t consider (as hard as that might be to accept) and I’ll feature your idea in an upcoming blog post.

Secondly, take the challenge of doing every one of the 101 job search tactics and then let us know if one or more contributed to you finding your next great opportunity.

DO YOU ACCEPT THIS JOB SEARCH CHALLENGE?

Brad and I look forward to hearing from about your best job search tactic and how the execution of 101 job search tactics is helping your job hunt.

Barry Deutsch

If you can’t wait for the entire 101 blog article series, quickly jump over to our FREE Resources Library, our other Blog on Job Search Best Practices and Resources, or our LinkedIn Discussion Group. Just those few sources should keep you plenty busy until we finish the 101 articles on job search tactics and activities.

Is Your Job Search Stuck in High School Time Warp?

Is Your Job Search an Extension of High School?

One of my favorite bloggers, writers, speakers – Seth Godin, published a blog titled “On Self-determination”. After reading the article, I realized, there was a frightening metaphor for most job seekers. I wrote a previous article about this syndrome on our blog titled “Hope and Luck are NOT Job Search Strategies”

I’ll share the example Seth used in his blog article that literally rocked me back on my heels:

Anyway, they asked for my advice in finding marketing jobs. When I shared my views (go to a small company, work for the CEO, get a job where you actually get to make mistakes and do something) one woman professed to agree with me, but then explained, “But those companies don’t interview on campus.”

Those companies don’t interview on campus. Hmmm. She has just spent $100,000 in cash and another $150,000 in opportunity cost to get an MBA, but…

A little later in his blog post, Seth made the comment:

Do you work with people who are still in high school? Job seekers only willing to interview with the folks who come on campus?

This approach of being a “victim” stems from high school where we let events and others dictate what we do, when we do it, how we do it.

I call it the “High School Time Warp Syndrome”.

If we screw up, we could always blame it on others – my coach, my parents, the administration, my teachers, my classmates. As Seth indicates, for many individuals, this “victim” approach – or what he terms a lack of “self-determination” becomes a guiding principle throughout your life.

Brad and I did one of our Radio Programs on how this syndrome of “playing the victim” or “lacking self-determination” in your job search plays itself out every day. The Radio Show was titled “Job Search Mistakes – Part 2”. You can download it from our FREE Job Search Audio Library.

YOU HAVE COMPLETE self-determination in your job search. STOP pretending your still in high school and others are dictating your actions. You have complete freedom to control, change, improve, evolve, learn, grow, and develop an effective job search.

Most candidates Brad and I meet conduct a job search at about the bottom 5% level. Why? Because they pretend they are back in high school where they never grew past a lack of self-determination or being the victim of circumstances. This is exhibited in the excuses, explanations, and rationalizations of why their job search is not working:

• I don’t do well meeting other people
• I don’t know what to do
• That seems like too much work
• I’m too busy answering job applications on job boards
• I’m waiting for the phone to ring
• I’m not really into networking
• My resume speaks for itself
• Why should I invest time to prepare for an interview, doesn’t my background speak for itself?
• The recruiter didn’t call me back – all recruiters are idiots
• The hiring manager didn’t call me back – all hiring managers are idiots
• I sent my resume in – but no one followed up with me

Stop complaining, kvetching, whining, crying, fussing, and acting like you’re back in high school. Like Seth Godin suggests, become Self-Determinant!  Take your job search effectiveness from the bottom 5% into the top 5% and finish your job search. Apply yourself. Reach past your comfort zone in your job search and do something different tomorrow.

Have you even bothered yet to download our Job Search Effectiveness Self-Assessment to determine if you’re in the top 5% or the bottom 5%? Brad and I have talked about this popular self-assessment over and over on our blog. Thousands of job seekers have taken it and dramatically improved their job hunting plans and success.

I spoke with a Senior Sales Executive yesterday in a phone interview and asked him why he had been out of work for a year. His story (and he stuck to it) was that the economy was tough (victim disorder – lack of self-determination – high school time warp dysfunction).

I can’t present a candidate to my client that has been out of work for a year.  They would slap me so hard my head would spin around.

Don’t let this happen to you. Start down the path of Self-Determination in your job search TODAY!

Learn everything you can about job search best practices. Follow the top bloggers on job search – get an new idea every day. (We’re writing another blog featuring the very best bloggers from across the Internet sharing FREE Job Search Resources and Best Practices – subscribe to all their feeds).

Your effort, intensity, focus, learning, trying different tactics all help move beyond the “lack of self-determination” and victimization that categorizes most job searches. It’s NOT one big thing that will make the difference in your job search – it’s the hundreds of little things you do that are different from what you’ve done before.

STOP being caught up in the HIGH SCHOOL TIME WARP DYSFUNCTION!

Barry Deutsch

Join our rapidly growing LinkedIn Job Search Discussion Group to engage in great discussions around job search best practices and how to conduct a more effective job search.

Are You Competing at an Olympic Level in Your Job Search?

Many job search bloggers (and almost everyone else in the blogosphere) have been  making Olympic metaphors for the past two weeks.

So why can’t I try my metaphor? Here goes:

Is your job search like Olympic Competition?

I touched on this subject on our FREE Job Search Resources Blog, where today we named Miriam Salpeter of Keppie Careers as a Job Search Best Practice Blogger. We’re on a search to profile the the very best job search best practice bloggers from across the Internet in our FREE Job Search Resources Blog. Miriam is our first recommendation.

Here in this blog – our Career and Job Search Blog – we focus on sharing the wealth of knowledge Brad and I have accumulated on the frontlines of recruiting top talent over the last 25 years together.

Imagine over 1000 searches, 200,000 interviews, millions of resumes reviewed. Looking back over the past quarter of a century is almost mind-boggling when you consider the vast amount of job search data we’ve collected – mistakes made by candidates, mistakes made by hiring managers, best practices, new technologies, and changing the tribal method of job search one candidate at a time.

Miriam just published a Job Search/Olympics comparison on her blog (which we’ve been impressed by for a long time and have now put up on a pedestal) and it triggered some additional thoughts.

So, back to our original subject – How is your job search like being a top tier athlete at the Olympics?

Top tier athletes prepare long in advance for the actual competition (interview). Your job search is similar – most candidates DO NOT prepare adequately!

Top tier athletes research and study every element of their sport down to the finest detail. Your job search is similar – most candidates DO NOT conduct effective research prior to an interview! Most candidates don’t spend the time on their job to become the best at what they did. Most candidates DO NOT even attempt to master conducting an effective job search – they’re doing it the same way the masses have done it for the last decade and they wonder why mediocre results occur.

Top tier candidates train, learn, have coaches to push them, set high goals, and keep moving to a higher and higher performance level prior to the main event (Olympics – Job Interview). Your job search is similar – Most candidates did not do this prior to needing to look for a job and find themselves unable to compete with candidates who’ve done this for the past 4 years. In addition, most job search candidates don’t take the time to learn about conducting a job search, don’t hire a professional job search coach, and don’t set adequate goals to achieve their desired outcomes.

The actual competition at an Olympic event is anti-climatic. It’s not the ability to perform in that situation. It’s the execution of years or a lifetime of practicing, learning, preparing. Job search is a lot like high level athletic competition. It’s not what you do in that final interview, it’s all the hard work that preceded that final step.

What’s your plan – either in your job right now – or in your job search right now – to become the very best at what you do? What’s your learning, development, reading, training, preparation plan that will enable you to “win” that next great opportunity?

Here’s a start: Have you downloaded our FREE Job Search Preparation Self-Assessment to determine where the gap is in your job search and how you can quickly turn it around to begin conducting an effective job search?

We talked about some of the reasons why most job searches are taking longer – and the key issue was NOT the economy – it was the fact that most job seekers don’t invest the time in job search planning and preparation. Take a look at this previous article we wrote about how you keep landing back at Square One in your job search.

Barry Deutsch

Join our rapidly growing LinkedIn Job Search Discussion Group to engage in great discussions around job search best practices and how to conduct a more effective job search.

The Curious George Approach to Interviewing

As many of you know, I follow an large number of blogs every day on a wide range of subjects – hiring, job search, motivation, blogging, retention, performance management, social media, internet marketing, basketball coaching – every interest that I have both personally and professionally. I get hundreds of ideas about blogging, marketing, FREE tools to offer YOU – the list is endless.

Which begs the question – what are you reading?

Do you have your books list up in the LinkedIn Application? What blogs do you subscribe to and read consistently in some RSS feeder like Google Reader? What blogs/forums are you commenting on what you’ve recently read?

(Little sidenote: There are few activities that a professional, manager, and can engage in that will lead to as many benefits as a high level of reading and exploration – do you make reading and exploration a big priority in your job search?)

Shoot us back a note in the comments about your favorite blogs that keep you informed, moving to a new level of learning, and turned on about new knowledge.

YOU MIGHT ASK  – where are you going with all this? You might ask – how does all this talk about blogs relate to job search and job interviewing?

I was reading one of my favorite blogs on how to blog better, ProBlogger , and Darren Rowse, the blog author, talked about the lessons learned from reading Curious George Books with his 3 year old. You remember Curious George – I still have the ones from my childhood and I had the chance to share them with my kids when they were younger.

Here’s what Darren said in his blog article titled A Lesson from Curious George for Bloggers:

The books of choice at bed time in my 3 year olds room are all Curious George books at the moment. He’s crazy for George.

Needless to say that the 6 Curious George books that we have are getting read again and again – I pretty much know them off by heart…. to the point that I’ve started taking less notice of the story itself and more notice of HOW its been written.

There’s one thing about Curious George Books (or at least the ones we have) that I’ve noticed that really makes them more engaging than some of the other kids books my boy reads.

Do you know what it is?

It’s something that draws my boy further and further into the book.

Any ideas what it could be?

It’s a technique that actually causes my little guy to ask me to turn the page – something that gets him thinking about what is coming next – something causes him to be curious – just like George.

What do you think it is?

This technique is not only a page turner – its something that draws my boy from being a passive listener/reader of the book – but actually gets him interacting with the book – talking about it as I’m reading.

Have you guessed what it is?

The technique is simple – on every second page there’s a question.

It’s not a question that needs an answer – but it’s a question that engages the person reading the book and draws them deeper into the story.

They are questions about what will happen next, questions about what the reader thinks or knows, leading questions that draw readers to keep reading but also to become engaged.

I’m reading the blog article and all of sudden it hit me – this is the same best practice technique that most top candidates use in an interview to engage with hiring managers (Thanks Darren for letting me borrow your analogy). The same concept applied in a writing a popular children’s book can be applied in a high level interview.

Do you engage, build rapport, draw the interviewer toward you, and build passion in them around wanting to learn more about YOU? Think about your last few interviews.

• Did you wait till the end to ask questions?
• Did you use your questions as a technique of engaging and stimulating a conversation instead of an interrogation?
• Did you get ask questions to get the hiring manager talking?
• Did your technique of asking questions last for a moment or two – or were you able to sustain it through-out the entire interview?
• What happened on the interviews you were engaging through questions vs. the interviews where you didn’t ask very many questions?

Download a few of our FREE Audio recordings of past Radio Broadcasts that Brad and I have done on interviewing best practices.

You can also find more details on how to prepare and ACE a “Curious George” Interview in our Job Search Workbook.

Try the technique on your next interview. Let us know what happens.

Who would have thought a simple children’s book could provide so much insight about interviewing?

Barry Deutsch

Our LinkedIn Job Search Discussion Group frequently discusses best practices for interviewing. Learn from some of the best in how the instinctively use the “Curious George” Technique.

Do You Have What it Takes to Succeed?

In over 1000 presentations in the last decade to CEOs, Company Presidents, and Senior Executives, we have heard the vast majority indicate that the number one behavior they have seen lead to success is initiative and self-motivation.

Brad and I have personally screened either in-person or on-the-phone well over 200,000 candidates over the last 25-30 years. We’ve seen young kids come out of college at 21/22 years old and who are now CEOs, company presidents, and senior executives. We’ve also seen many young graduates from 25-30 years ago who have had mediocre careers and are stuck in low-mid level jobs without much success. What’s the difference?

In our Success Factor Methodology that has been implemented as a structured hiring process in thousands of companies around the world, we identify 3 primary behaviors that help lead to success: Initiative and Self-Motivation, Flawless Execution, and Leadership. Each of these leads to a specific question in our 5-Question Success-based Interview.

Initiative/Self-Motivation is the primary behavior that stands head-and-shoulders above all other behaviors in determining job and career success. No other behavior comes remotely close to influencing career and job success IN ANY JOB!

Do you have a high level of initiative and self-motivation? Do you have the ability to prove in a job interview?

How many of the examples that you’ve assembled and practiced contain elements of demonstrating your initiative and self-motivation?

Let’s take a moment and define initiative and self-motivation:

• Going above and beyond the call of duty
• Anticipating what needs to be done
• Not waiting to be told what to do
• Showing INITIATIVE
• Being PROACTIVE
• Being assigned project “A” and returning “A” plus 10%
• “Out-working” your peers – higher more intensive effort
• Helping others when you were not required to do so
• Offering positive suggestions/recommendations
• Solving problems/obstacles without putting the monkey on the back of your boss

Can you claim to have lots of examples that fit the definition above in your last job? How about the job before that? And the one before that?

Here’s a great exercise: Write down every example of self-motivation and initiative from your last 3 jobs. Weave those into your examples/illustrations you offer in an interview or on your resume.

Here’s another great idea: Comment back on this blog post about your best example of demonstrating self-motivation and initiative in your last job. Brad and I will review your example and offer our insights from 25 years in the recruiting trenches.

If you would like to understand, how to prepare your examples, illustrations, and demonstrations of showing initiative and self-motivation, check out FREE audio downloads in our Job Search Library from our past Radio Shows. Brad and I have frequently discussed this topic of initiative and self-motivation.

We also cover the topic of initiative and self-motivation in-depth in our popular Job Search Workbook, This is NOT the Position I Accepted. If you would like to get a feel for the 5-Question Interview of best practice interview questions asked by Hiring Managers, especially the initiative and self-motivation question, take a look at our award-winning book on Hiring, You’re NOT the Person I Hired.

Barry Deutsch

As always, don’t forget to join Brad and I in our LinkedIn Job Search Discussion Group for a lively discussion of interview questions and tips.

It’s play-off time for your job search – what do you have to lose?

Here comes another basketball metaphor about your job search.

A few nights ago, my Varsity HS Girls Basketball Team played in the first round of the State Playoffs. In our section we were ranked 6th out of 32 teams. We played a team ranked 24 and almost lost.

Why? It should have been an easy win – a no-brainer.

At playoff time, teams change – they go from being conservative, playing careful, doing the same old thing, and usually playing within their capability. At playoff time, lower ranked teams hike it up to whole other level. They play with complete abandon – and give it a 110%.

What do the lower ranked teams have to lose? If they don’t win, their season ends right now. And if they can pull off one more win – they get to come back and play another game. Many upsets occur, because lower ranked teams fight as hard as they ever fought, they do everything they can to influence the outcome, and they leave nothing on the table.

If you asked the team last night that lost to us in the last 5 minutes of the game if they had any regrets – if any of the players felt they had not played as hard as they could – and the answer would be an overwhelming “I gave it everything I could”.

When asked that question, our higher ranked girls would have said there was a lot they could have done and they were disappointed in their performance since they didn’t “work hard enough”. They were coasting on their high ranking, thinking their past track record could speak for itself.

Are you guilty of this dysfunctional thinking in your job search?

If you ask most candidates that question about their job search, I would predict that most candidates would have significant regrets about their commitment, energy, and intensity regarding their job search.

Most candidates are not willing to “go beyond the call of duty” in their job search.

Most candidates could not claim that they have “outworked their peers” in their job search.

Most candidates are just doing the same thing over and over (Benjamin Franklin’s Definition of Insanity).

No wonder the typical executive/senior management job search is now significantly over 6 months. Here are some questions to ponder about your job search:

• What are you doing in your job search that your peers are unwilling to do?
• What are doing this week that represents a high level of energy, commitment, and intensity in your job search than last week?
• How would you quantify the effort and intensity of your job search?
• Shouldn’t you be treating your job search like it’s play-off time and it’s the last 5 minutes of what could be the last game of the season or your entire career?
• Are you going beyond the call of duty in your job search?

What could you be doing differently that would represent a higher level of commitment, energy, and intensity?

• Have you assessed your LinkedIn Profile and are making the necessary changes and investment of time to get noticed by recruiters and hiring managers?
• Are you writing custom cover letters for every appropriate job you apply for?
• Are you publishing a blog on your functional expertise?
• Have you joined two local networking groups and possibly a trade/functional group? Are you taking on a leadership role in these groups?
• How hard are you working your network using classic networking principles of being a connector, giving back, staying in touch through nurturing? Have your taught yourself how to be a master of networking?
• Have you continually refined your resume and turned it into a marketing document instead of a factual presentation of your history?
• How many blogs do you read, how many job search E-books have you downloaded, how many comments have you posted in Job Search LinkedIn Q&A sections.

This is just a small list of the hundreds of things you could be doing in your job search to reduce the time it takes to find a great opportunity. Most of your peers are unwilling to invest the time to do these job search best practices. Are you willing be to do what it takes to win – to go beyond what most of your peers do in their job search – or would you rather coast in the middle of the pack?

Have you downloaded our FREE Job Search Preparation Scorecard to see if you’re doing everything you can to conduct an effective job search?

What’s holding you back from pouring everything you’ve got into your job search?

Barry Deutsch

Jump into the Questions and Answers in our popular LinkedIn Discussion Group to discover what some candidates are doing that truly represents an effort to go “beyond the call of duty”.

Don’t Be the Candidate Screened Out by a Recruiter’s First Question

In my last blog post, I described how the best recruiters screen out the vast majority of candidates for their search assignments through one simple question.

Don’t be the one who gets screened out in 30 seconds.

Many times these are great opportunities the recruiters are working on – you’re the perfect candidate for that appropriate position – you definitely do not want to miss out.

What can you do?

I’m going to suggest that there is a simple approach you can use to prepare for interviews, and it mirrors the cover letter strategy.

If the advertisement does not point out precisely what is required in the position, you can make the fair assumption that there are 3-4 primary elements to every senior professional, managerial, and executive position. Putting your comparable accomplishments to each of these core elements of a position in the cover letter, and being ready to address them in the interview is an insurance policy against being screened out prematurely by recruiters.

Let’s run through a few examples:

If you are applying for a CFO/Controller/Director of Finance position in an entrepreneurial to mid-sized non-public company, the primary expectations over the first year will probably include:

1. Process Improvement – reducing the closing process, improving financial reporting, inventory control process changes, order entry processing speed/efficiency.

2. Financial Planning/Analysis/Forecasting – improvements to budgeting, annual planning, cash flow management, strategic planning, monthly analysis, monthly and quarterly projections.

3. Operational Projects – conducting special one-time analysis on leasing equipment, facility optimization, capital investments in equipment, customer profitability analysis, viability of new products, services, markets, analysis of warranty reserves, and cost reduction opportunities.

4. Policies/Procedures/Asset Protection – improving/changing the handling of cash, tracking of fixed assets, credit policies, collection management, purchasing and material management.

If you are applying for a Marketing Manager position at a sub-component manufacturing company, the primary expectations over the first year might include:

1. Marketing/Sales Materials – review and improvement of all collateral material used by the sales team.

2. Business Growth – assessment and recommendation of new markets, products, and services. Launching and managing existing and new services and products.

3. External marketing – branding, positioning, messaging, advertising, and trade shows to increase awareness and recognition in marketing to OEM manufacturers.

4. Lead generation for the sales function – database marketing, trade offers, channel management, website, lead management tools.

Tell us what the 3-4 primary success factors are in your functional role for the type of industry/type of company that you are focusing your job search on.

We’d like to see how many job seekers understand the critical components of being successful for the type of position they are seeking.

Now let’s jump back to the first interview question a recruiter poses to you in the initial phone call:

My client’s closing process takes too long. They need this individual to reduce by 50% the time it takes to close their books on a monthly basis.

Amazing. Astounding. The recruiter is blown away. You’ve got 2-3 great examples of where you solved similar/comparable process problems/obstacles.

Let’s try another one:

My client is looking at expanding their regional electro-optical sub-component business nationally. Do you have 2-3 comparable examples you could share about moving a company into different markets against entrenched competition?

Amazing. Astounding. Once again the recruiter is blown away by the 2-3 examples you’ve shared about successful marketing efforts to move your prior companies into new markets.

The recruiter is doing their job asking the tough questions based on client expectations of success. A little preparation and understanding of what the most common obstacles/problems/opportunities someone in a specific role is going to face will allow you to ace the vast majority of “appropriate” interviews.

Keep in mind that if your background is primarily in marketing management and you’ve done very little in sales management, I’m probably going to quickly screen you as inappropriate for this executive search for a sales management job. If you’re essentially a channel marketing director, I’m probably going to quickly exclude you from consideration for the marketing role in my client’s direct sales model.

The key word is “appropriate”.

One of the greatest frustrations we hear from employers/recruiters is that the vast majority of candidates from whom the receive resumes/calls ARE NOT APPROPRIATE” for their openings on a very basic level – this brings us back to a previous blog posting where I made the outrageous suggestion to stop shot-gunning your resume to jobs that are totally inappropriate and focus your search efforts on “appropriate jobs”.

The shot-gun approach to responding to job advertisements/recruiter job announcements is a complete waste of time. Okay – a miniscule number of candidates will occasionally get lucky – after all – even a blind squirrel will get a nut sometimes. However, do you want to base your job search on “luck” or on a systematic – methodical – structured approach validated as generating consistent results?

You make the choice! If you’re not obtaining decent results from your current shot-gun approach of scattering resumes every time you come across a key word – perhaps it’s time to try a test and see if a more focused effort would generate better results.

Now that I’ve repeated myself for the 100th time on the worthless approach of conducting a shot-gun job search, let’s return to the primary focus of this blog post.

Let’s assume you get screened out for an “appropriate” role.

Shame on you for letting that happen.

If you’ve taken all our recommendations in our FREE Archive of job search best practices including such items as preparing a great job search plan, developing an outstanding LinkedIn Profile, consistently and effectively leveraging cover letters, and investing extensive time in the preparation for an interview – then there is NOT a recruiter, HR staff person, or Hiring Manager who CAN deny you the opportunity to be considered.

NOW we come to the real issue behind why you get screened out for “appropriate” openings on the first recruiter interview question (forget all the  “inappropriate job responses” – you should be immediately screened out for these) – you didn’t do your homework – you didn’t apply the best practices in conducting you job search –  you basically “winged-it”.

STOP being screened out prematurely for openings for which you are perfect. STOP letting this happen. Make a resolution right now that you will never allow yourself again to be screened out prematurely for an “appropriate” position.

START today in changing the way you conduct your job search. Take our entire FREE Archive of Audio Programs, Templates, Examples, and other tools – and start transforming your job search. After you swallow that overwhelming amount of FREE content from us – start extracting the FREE content from all other great career coaches and recruiters on the internet.

STOP complaining about your ineffective job search and the obstacles you are facing. There is an extraordinary amount of great content available to you that is either FREE or can be acquired for a minimal investment. Every candidate I have met in this horrific job market that invested time in discovering and using job search best practices has dramatically reduced the time it took to land a great job.

WHAT IS HOLDING YOU BACK?

DO YOU FEEL YOU KNOW EVERYTHING THERE IS TO KNOW ABOUT CONDUCTING AN EFFECTIVE JOB SEARCH?

ON A SCALE OF 1-10 (10 BEING THE HIGHEST) ARE YOU DOING EVERYTHING YOU COULD BE DOING TO CONDUCT A MORE EFFECTIVE JOB SEARCH.

In this blog post, we just took one tiny element of conducting a more effective job search: How to NOT get screened out by recruiters for appropriate positions in their first interview question.

There are hundreds of activities, tactics, strategies you could use to conduct an effective job search.

Barry Deutsch

Jump into the vibrant dialogue in our LinkedIn Job Search Discussion Group on the most common basic best practices of conducting an effective job search.

The Best Recruiters Eliminate YOU With their First Question

How is this possible you might ask?

How could anyone determine whether I am a fit for a job with only one interview question?

Even more shocking is the idea you could be eliminated through the very first interview question?

Shouldn’t there be many factors which determine whether you will give me a change to prove myself in a phone or physical interview?

NO and NO again.

The BEST recruiters approve or eliminate YOU in the first interview question. Your response to my first interview question determines whether I’ll invest more time probing, digging, and validating your claims – OR we’re DONE. The BEST recruiters live and die by this methodology.

Our clients are expecting us to validate, verify, and vet YOU as a candidate who is capable of achieving their expectations of results. We’re not resume factories and we don’t throw paper in the door wishing it sticks. We don’t cross our fingers and hope you’ll be successful. We take a very structured, careful, disciplined approach to interview YOU.

We don’t measure ourselves by the brokerage model the recruiting industry is so well known for – I toss in a resume and if the Hiring Manager falls in love with the candidate – I get a brokerage fee.

The best recruiters do the hard disciplined work for their clients by validating, verifying, and vetting YOU before they’ll considering presenting YOU to their client.

Now that we’ve drawn the distinction between what most recruiters do vs. the BEST recruiters, let’s refocus on how the BEST recruiters eliminate you in their first interview question.

There are a number of factors in measuring a candidate’s ability to succeed in a job. There are also a wide variety of interview techniques to collect this information.

However, one factor stands “head-and-shoulders” above all others – particularly for high level professional positions, management roles, and senior executives. At lower levels in an organization, the primary focus is on executing tasks and activities that can be taught or learned. With a little bit of skill, knowledge, and training, many employees can master the requirements of entry level to lower level roles in an organization.

A common misperception is that high level professional, managerial roles, and executive positions can be defined through the same techniques of entry level/lower level jobs –  writing traditional job descriptions listing minimums of education, skills, knowledge, attributes, tasks and activities.

At higher levels, employees are not measured for doing tasks and activities and applying their skills. They are measured on their accomplishments, achievements, outcomes, deliverables, and results.

Okay – so now we’ve defined the major difference between entry/lower level positions and management/executive positions. At a lower level, you’re measured for your ability to apply your skills and knowledge in performing tasks and activities. At a high level, you’re measured for delivering results and outcomes.

Now that we’ve got that long-winded explanation of what differentiates lower level roles from higher level roles, we can move onto the core point of this blog post:

How The Best Recruiters Can Eliminate You with the First Interview Question

Once I know the most important outcome for the position (this is an entirely different issue for which many employers fail miserably – read more about the first step of our Success Factor Methodology), all I have to do is ask you if you have a comparable – similar – like – accomplishment to this most important – critical – game-breaker outcome that is the NUMBER ONE determining factor of whether you can be a successful hire.

Every high level professional, managerial, and executive role has one or two critical game-breaker outcomes that are required for success.

If your accomplishment IS NOT COMPARABLE – SIMILAR – or LIKE what needs to be done in the job – defined as similar in scope, size, project duration, budget, number of people, outcomes, resources, timeframe, metrics, deliverables – then it’s unfortunate, but

YOU ARE NOT SOMEONE THAT WILL BE CONSIDERED FOR THIS SPECIFIC POSITION.

Our interview is over.

Time for me to move on and pose this question to another candidate.

The process repeats itself hundreds of times on a typical retained executive search.

Does this sound cold and impersonal?

You might be a wonderful human being with tremendous potential to do lots of different things for a company

However, my client has paid an enormous sum of money for me to efficiently and effectively find them the best candidate. There is no better interviewing method than using behavioral interviewing techniques layered against future results needed.

NONE!

In 25 years of executive search, Brad and I have conducted 1000s of searches, interviewed hundreds of thousands of candidates, and implemented more effective hiring best practices in thousands of companies – NO interview question or technique comes remotely close to the methodology of:

What is the number one game-breaker result needed in the job – and then asking the candidate what is their most comparable-similar accomplishment.

Forget about your skills, knowledge, prior experiences, style, behaviors, values, and all the other little things that make you a wonderful candidate. If there is NOT a high probability based on behavioral interviewing techniques focused on the defined results – you’re too high risk. You might be able to achieve the outcomes required, but the risk of failure is too high to justify investing more time in the interview.

DON’T HOLD THIS METHODOLOGY AGAINST ME! I’m not a bad person. You’re not a bad person. You’ll be a great asset to some company – unfortunately NOT my client at this moment in time. I’m performing my role as a recruiter using best practices of interviewing and effective time management to produce results for my clients. It’s a function of the recruiting business model.

Here are some examples to illustrate HOW YOU GET ELIMINATED IN THE VERY FIRST INTERVIEW QUESTION (We define this structured approach in our best practice methodology which we call the Success Factor Methodology):

Result Needed: Reduce the accounting closing process from 21 days to 8 days within 3 months.

Question: Can you give me an example of a significant comparable accounting process that you improved or changed?

Result Needed: Grow profit as a percentage of revenue over a 3-5 year period regardless of revenue and economic cycles.

Question: Please describe a comparable accomplishment where you were the President of a business over a 3-5 year period  and achieved an improved profit percentage each year.

Result Needed: Increase sales by 15% year over year for the next 3-5 years.

Question: Can you describe a comparable accomplishment of growing sales by at least 15% year over year when you’ve led the sales function/team over a 3-5 year period.

If you can’t answer the first question about the game-breaker outcome, nothing else matters. Neither I OR my clients are willing to take the risk that you “might” be able to do it.

You can learn more about best practices that recruiters and employers use to screen and evaluate YOU as a candidate by reading about our Success Factor Methodology. We’ve named our process – but any effective implementation of recruiting/interviewing best practices encompasses these 5 steps. Discover the primary interview questions that quickly eliminate most candidates.

Barry Deutsch

Don’t forget to join our LinkedIn Job Search Discussion Group where you can talk about the issues, problems, frustrations regarding your job search and get direct answers from two of the top retained recruiters and thousands of other job seekers.

P.S. Download our FREE Cover Letter Sample. The Resume and the Cover Letter are the first two things the BEST recruiters look at before picking up the phone to call you. If you don’t give them a tease/hint that you’ve accomplished something similar to there game-breaker objectives, you will NOT even receive a phone call. Click here to get our FREE Cover Letter Sample Format to address the game-breakers.

What Will YOU Do Different In Your Job Search?

Let’s start with Benjamin Franklin’s timeless definition of insanity: “You keep doing the same thing over and over hoping for different results”.

Do you really believe that wishing and keeping your fingers crossed will make a difference?

Why?

Everyone knows you’ll just get the same mediocre, inadequate, inconsequential results again – so why do most candidates keep doing the same thing?

Let’s pretend for a moment you buy into the Definition of Insanity and you decide you’re going to try something different this month in your job search.

What will YOU do different this month compared to last month?

What did you do different last month compared to the previous month?

Brad and I would love to hear what you plan on doing different this month vs. last month

Here are some examples of things you could be doing differently this month:

• Expand on your LinkedIn Profile
• Write an effective cover letter
• Take our FREE LinkedIn Self-Assessment Scorecard
• Set-up and write a blog
• Read and subscribe to 5 new blogs on job search
• Listen to one of our radio show broadcasts on job search
• Get a twitter account and start tweeting about your job search search
• Search for recruiters covering your industry/functional role on LinkedIn
• Join into a discussion on LinkedIn/Twitter/Facebook about a job search issue
• Join appropriate groups on LinkedIn and become an active member
• Go to 2 new networking groups in your local community
• Take our Job Search Planning Evaluation to determine if you’re conducting an effective job search
• Take a volunteer role and become a leader in a civic/non-profit group

These are only a few of the hundreds of tactics/strategies/initiatives you could do differently this month to improve the effectiveness of your job search.

As you know, Brad and I great proponents of dramatically reducing the time it takes to cut your job search in half – however, if you keep doing the same things over and over —

Your Job Search is going to be a never ending quest – lasting 6-9-12 months or more.

STOP the nonsense now and begin to do things your peers are not doing. Take a step in doing something different this month.

Barry Deutsch

Don’t forget to join our LinkedIn Job Search Discussion Group to explore the best practices in how to conduct an effective job search