We discussed the Hot Potato Method of responding to a job advertisement in my last blog post. Everyone recognizes it’s both dysfunctional and ineffective – so why does everyone keep doing it? The other day on our once-a-month candidate open forum – this exact issue came up. The participant indicated that they keep applying for jobs – but are getting no responses – Duh!
A much better approach is what I would like to term “The Swarming Method” of responding to a job advertisement.
Back to basketball metaphors. My HS team plays an upbeat, fast-paced pressure style of basketball. We press constantly. In one of our presses, we swarm the ball handler to the point where they are so overwhelmed they almost just hand us the ball on a silver platter. You want to accomplish the same outcome when applying for a job – your campaign is so intense and overwhelming to the company/hiring manager, they have no choice but to grant you the interview.
The Swarming Method of Applying for a Job combines an effective cover letter, a strong resume, social media leverage, and deep networking to produce the desired result – GIVE me an interview!
We could extend the same metaphor to football where the defensive line charges the quarterback and tries to “sack” him before he can run or throw a pass. The pressure applied to the opposing team is overwhelming. The same strategy needs to be applied to your responses to job advertisements.
From this point forward, I would like you to make me a promise: No more passive job responses, no more walking away and forgetting about your response to an advertisement has a campaign, a blitz, a press, an overwhelming amount of pressure brought forward in the goal of securing an interview.
I thrown out some ideas you could use in the press or blitz attack on a response to an advertisement. Let’s hear from our subscribers and readers:
What do you do that’s most effective in obtaining an interview?
What tactics have you not yet applied to your job responses?
How effective is your network, social media activity, and connectivity to hiring managers/executives, HR professionals, and recruiters? For example, have you downloaded our FREE LinkedIn Profile Assessment to discover if your Profile is effective in capturing the attention of hiring managers and executives, HR professionals, and recruiters?
When was the last time you tweaked your resume for a specific job and wrote a well-thought through custom cover letter?
Brad and I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas – we’re preparing a special report on the Swarming the Job Response Approach. Perhaps, we’ll feature your idea as a best practice suggestion.
I get this all the time from candidates I’m working with in our job search coaching program. It usually starts with, “The holidays are here and nobody is hiring during this period.” or “Why look now? I will wait until the new year. It is time for a break.”
As succinctly as my mild manner can put it, DUMB MOVE. Sorry to yell, but that is what this attitude is. So let’s call it dumb.
In almost 30 years in the search business I have weathered 4 recessions, including this one. In every recession, including this one, I have active searches underway. I have filled many searches and started many searches during the holiday season. You don’t want to be left behind. For example, I will be starting a VP of Sales search today. Do you think I will wait until the new year to start the search process? NO WAY. I will be actively sourcing, interviewing and presenting candidates to my client as quickly as I can find them.
If you put your search on hold until 2010 I will probably not find you, not consider you, and by the time you reactivate your job search, I’ll already have candidates going through the hiring process. That means only one thing for you, you are probably going to end up in the backup group of candidates.
Let others put their job hunting activity on hold. You should continue yours, as aggressively as always.
5 reasons why you should:
1) If everyone else puts their search on hold, then there is less competition out there for you, making it easier for you to be discovered.
2) As stated earlier, the hiring process doesn’t stop during this period. It may slow, but it doesn’t stop. You only need one job opportunity. Don’t let that one opportunity pass you by.
3) Why stop the momentum you have built up? This by itself is a good reason not to stop your job search activity. Why on earth would anybody want to restart a job search? It is hard enough work to begin with, so let’s do it twice. Are you serious?
4) Use this time to establish momentum going into the new year. If you think hiring will wait until the new year, fine. Doesn’t it make sense then to proactively get a jump on this hiring activity? Why would you want to be reactive? Being reactive is rarely a good job search strategy.
5) This is a great time to re-evaluate your job search. Take a look back on 2009 and do some objective analysis of what worked and what didn’t work. Use this time to get help. Read some books, listen to CDs, engage an expert. Every process needs to be analyzed. The key is objectively. If you can’t do that, then get someone to help you. You can’t fix what you don’t know isn’t working. Download our tool, Job Search Self-Assessment Scorecard, to help with this analysis. It is FREE and a good place to start. CLICK HERE to download yours.
This is the time to put your ego aside and listen, learn and adapt.
Don’t put your search on hold during this holiday season. Instead use this time wisely to out-smart the competition, get a leg up on the competition and be proactive.
Another tool to help you is our skills assessment worksheet. This is a good time to take an inventory of your transferable skills and put a plan together to get whatever skills you may be lacking. CLICK HERE to get your free skills assessment. Scroll to the bottom to the What’s New Section.
Finally, join our Job Search Networking Group on Linkedin. Over 3300 members have joined. This is an active group with a wealth of resources, discussions and articles to make sure your job search stays on track. It is FREE to join. CLICK HERE to join.
This was a question a potential job search coaching candidate asked me. Although frustrating, at the same time it is a very good problem to have. At least she was getting interviews.
In today’s world just getting up to bat can be difficult, but striking out is frustrating. So what do you do if this is happening to you? Over 30 years of working with candidates and over 10,000 interviews, it is my experience that when this happens the candidate is generally making some fatal mistakes in the interviewing process. They don’t need a major overhaul. They are either doing something small, that is easy to fix, or in most cases NOT doing something that eliminates them.
After all, the hiring manager has seen their resume, often interviewed them and asked them back, and they may have even come in second place a couple of times. So rarely, if this happens a lot, is it always experiences, skills or abilities. Those have already been taken into account. Also, as everyone knows that has done extensive hiring, the most qualified person doesn’t always get the job. Often, and unfortunately, it is the best interviewer that gets the job. A fact candidates have a very hard time accepting.
Many candidates have this happening to them and never really understand, “why?” The sad part is the candidate ends up spending a lot more time in job search mode than necessary. Often months and that is expensive. To help, our job search workbook, “This is NOT the Position I Accepted” deals extensively with this exact issue.
The first step in dealing with this issue is knowing the answer to this critical (yes critical) question, because if you don’t know the answer chances are very good you will never know what’s wrong, so you can’t fix it. What are the most important three words in a job search and interview? Hint, they are the same words for both a job search and interview.
If you guessed preparation, good guess, but wrong. Preparation is the outcome of these three words.
Presentation is key, and the answer. Candidates are judged so much on the their presentation that it is often a bigger factor in getting a job than qualifications. For example, I heard on a news channel that Whole Foods will not hire anyone that shows up to an interview wearing a suit. I don’t know if this is true or not, (just because it was on the news doesn’t make it true) but that is presentation. Show up in a suit, and before you even leave the lobby, before you introduce yourself, in less than 1 second the hiring manager has already decided you won’t fit in their company’s culture. They assume you didn’t research the company or you would know this.
If this is happening to you, I have found from coaching candidates that it is time to take a hard look at their presentation. This is very hard to do. It means I have to be tough, possibly risk hurting feelings, get critical, tell people they come across too casual and therefore possibly signaling a lack of energy, and for older candidates this is often interpreted as burned out or just waiting to retire.
None of these may be true. It doesn’t matter if it is true or not. It is reality. A dose of reality is often exactly what many candidates encountering this issue need.
Another issue is confidence. Too often when candidates become desperate and really need a job they are too afraid to engage the interviewer. This lack of confidence comes across as weakness. This is the kiss of death especially if you are interviewing for a manager.
You should always interview the same way you would if you had a great job and didn’t need this job. That confidence will come out. Most companies want to hire people that are leaders, and confidence is an essential element of leadership.
Join our Linkedin Job Search Networking Group along with the other 3300+ members. The discussions and articles will do nothing but make your time looking for a job shorter. CLICK HERE to join.
If you are getting interviews but no offers, you should consider reading our job search workbook, This Is NOT The Position I Accepted. It was written to get you through the interview with confidence. We will send it to you to review for just$5. CLICK HERE to get your copy.
I welcome and encourage your thoughts and comments.
Changing a few basic interviewing techniques can dramatically change your interviewing success rate. Whether with a recruiter, HR or hiring manager these few Do’s and Don’ts will prove to impact your job search. We discuss the three or four most common mistakes candidates often make, what you can specifically do to fix them and provide you with simple solutions. Few candidate even know they are committing these do’s and don’ts. In just 45 minutes you can be on a path to a great interview.
Download free sample cover letter to help get your resume noticed at http://www.impacthiringsolutions.com or CLICK HERE
I was reading a golf magazine recently and a particular article caught my attention. It was about what one of the top pros on the PGA tour does when he gets stalled or in a slump. He simply goes back to basics. He goes back to when he first started playing golf to review if one of the 4 basics of golf have changed. He indicated most of the time this fixes the problem.
Your job search may need the exact same thing. If your search is stalled, not attaining the traction you want, or the level of traction you were getting isn’t happening now, going back to the basics may be the ticket.
Like golf, there are basics in a job search that get out of alignment. What once worked, isn’t any longer. We often blame something or someone else. Anyone who plays golf knows this and always blames the equipment for the problem. It is never operator error. If only just getting a new putter or driver would fix the problem. It rarely does, but at least it’s fun to try new equipment.
Rather than blame others it probably makes sense to first look at, “have you changed” or “have you picked up a bad habit along the way without even know it.” Chances are these have a higher probability of being the problem.
So let’s take the search back to basics.
1) Start with you. After 3 or 4 months in a job search most candidates have gotten so much input and help they no longer know what is right and what is wrong or what they were doing well and what wasn’t working. It all starts to blur together. It may be time to stop getting input from all of these sources.
I recommend limiting your input to a few select people/experts. Preferably to those that have knowledge in the specific area of your search. By now you should have identified the experts you trust, those that have given you honest and often tough advice, those that excel in job search knowledge and/or someone that brings a unique talent to your party. For example, if you need help in selling yourself, find a sales trainer or expert in sales and ask them to help you. Try to develop a “Personal Advisory Board.” Some may want to be paid, but most will not.
2) Focus on what isn’t working and what is working. For example, if you are getting interviews but not the offer, chances are your resume and networking is working and your interviewing skills are what needs to be fixed. On the other hand, if you are no longer getting interviews and once were, chances are your marketing plan or networking plan needs to be looked at or redone.
Don’t waste time trying to fix what isn’t broken.
3) Evaluate the fundamentals of your search.
A) Take a look at your preparation. Consider videoing yourself, review what questions to ask in an interview, how do you prepare for an interview, have you identified the right companies and people, are you relying too heavily on the Internet, etc. This list could go on and on. You need to be objective.
B) Has your resume changed? Has it gone through so many version changes it no longer really reflects your abilities and accomplishments? It could also be the opposite problem, it is too generic and doesn’t really sell you. It is not properly marketing you. Maybe you should talk to a marketing or sales expert for help.
C) Is your marketing and networking plan still effective or has it gotten outdated? Go back and identify more company targets, especially if your geographic requirements have changed. Make a serious evaluation about how you are networking and who you are networking with. Consider some new networking groups to get involved with, reestablish some old connections, and identify new connections that are focused in the area you need.
Stop meeting people for the sake of meeting people and comparing whose business card stack is highest.
D) Conduct and video a mock interview. Take a serious look at yourself on video. How do you come across, what is your body language saying, how do answer the question, do you actually answer the question asked or what you think they asked, do you have eye contact, etc. This can be key to those getting interviews and not offers.
Consider getting back to basics. Take a fresh start on your search to re-energize it.
Join our Linkedin Job Search Networking Group. The topics, discussions and articles will be a good place to start. Over 3300 people have joined. It is free and should be a major resource during your search. CLICK HERE to join.
Download our FREE Job Search Self-Assessment Scorecard as a place to start. It will help you identify your search strengths and weaknesses. CLICK HERE to download your scorecard.
I welcome your thoughts and encourage your feedback and comments if this was helpful.
When was the last time you thought about your career? NOT your job – your long-term career. Is your career a series of flopping around from job to job, floundering like a fish out of water – or is there a coherent, obvious, planned approach to moving your career forward?
In 5 – 10 –15 years – what do you want from your job at that point, what do you want to be earning, what do you want to be learning, what impact can you make, what will you be known for, what lasting impression will you leave upon your organization?
Is your career strategy fall into the category of “I hope my next job is better than my last job?”
Brad and I have had the great pleasure of having interviewed well over 100,000 in the last 25 years. We’ve had the opportunity to see kids come of school at 21/22 years old and who are now CEOs, company presidents, key executives. We’ve observed why some people have great careers and others fail miserably. One of the traits of top performers is that they plan their career steps and job moves carefully. They don’t jump for the sake of jumping. They don’t flop and flounder.
Here’s an exercise I would like to recommend for anyone interested in a successful career:
Take a blank sheet of paper. Make a matrix. Across the top write NOW – 5 years – 10 years – 15 years. Down the left hand side write:
Impact desired
Projects I’ll be working on (scope/size/budget/people)
Scope of responsibilities
Realistic compensation desired
Personal growth and new learning
Once you’ve completed this exercise, I would like to recommend you create a “plan of action” of how you are going to position yourself to get that next opportunity along your career path. What are the projects, steps, accomplishments, new skills you must learn and master to ensure you will be considered for the next step in your career.
Careers are not made by jumping from job to job every time a recruiter calls or you are a little ticked off at your boss and you jump onto CareerBuilder.com to see if the grass is greener somewhere else. Careers are built through a focused approach to continually asking yourself if the new job is moving you toward the next step of your career.
Brad and I explore this approach to career management with numerous other exercises in our series of products centered around our book “This is NOT the Position I Accepted”. These products include a home study job search kit, a resume kit, and other templates, audio, and useful products to enhance your career and job search. In addition, there is a wealth of FREE content on our web site for those seeking to build a strong career through effective job search.
Don’t get caught in a job that sets your career on a backwards path. Be aware, focused, cognizant of how each job in your career moves you step-by-step in your overall career plan. Don’t be that fish out water floundering and flopping around.
I touched on this idea the other day in a blog article when I mentioned the idea that you should have a plan for how to attack or blitz a job opening. Let’s explore this idea a little further.
Most candidates treat responding to job advertisements like they are a hot potato – touch and get rid of it. Some of the girls on my HS basketball team play basketball in this same manner. OMG – somebody threw me the ball – I better get rid of it quickly. I’ll treat the basketball like it’s a hot potato.
Why does this happen – even after I suggest ever so politely to the young ladies on my basketball team that we are NOT playing hot potato basketball. It happens due to a lack of knowledge in what to do with the basketball, fear of screwing up, fear of being embarrassed, just plain “freaking-out” over the pressure of having to do something.
Why do so many candidates play hot potato with their responses to job openings? They respond frequently with a standard resume and a standard cover letter and that is the extent of their effort in applying for a job – let’s call this method “Hot Potato Job Responding”. The overall process of responding to a job opening takes perhaps 3 seconds – much like tossing the proverbial hot potato.
You’ll never get a job using the Hot Potato method unless random luck intervenes in the process. It’s passive! You sit by the phone praying it will ring. Your investment of 3 seconds yields nothing!
STOP playing “Hot Potato Job Responding!”
It’s depressing, dysfunctional, and reeks of desperation.
Start creating a campaign around every job response: custom cover letters, custom resumes that address the job requirements, targeting the hiring manager, connecting through social media, beating the bushes in your network for referrals and introductions. Imagine yourself as a linebacker rushing the quarter on a blitz. The same strategy should apply for every job opening.
Don’t be the one who waits helplessly like a victim for the phone to ring. Make the phone ring by shifting your approach to answering ads from “”Hot Potato Job Responding” to the football “blitzing” approach.
This is the winning formula for getting interviews. There are exceptions for personal referrals and networking contacts, but often even with these they will first ask for a resume.
It has been my experience recently that many candidates “know” this formula intellectually but few convert from the knowing to “doing.” And that after all is the key.
I’m currently conducting a search and as one might expect the number of resumes received is almost overwhelming. I spend my weekends and nights just trying to empty my inbox. Not an easy task. About 65% of the resumes I receive have cover letters. Most to some varying degree give me the standard, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. Once in a while one will stand out so I take the time to read it. I particularly like the two column format as it quickly aligns their experiences with what I’m seeking for my client. (If you want to get an example, a free sample is available, just CLICK HERE).
These types of cover letters can get me very excited to actually read (not scan) your resume. The problem is too often the rug is pulled right out from under my high level of excitement. Simply put the resume sucks. There are many reasons for this, but regardless, this person had me and other recruiters, hiring managers and HR professionals right where they want them. They overcame one of the biggest issues with resumes, getting the resume read not just a 10 second scan. Only to disappoint the reader. What a tragedy.
In this example the formula was: great cover letter + average or below average resume = trashed resume.
Anyone who has been following Barry and I know we have written extensively that in this economy it is greatness that counts. Good only works in good times. Greatness works all the time, but is positively, absolutely, a must in bad times.
A great cover letter with an average or below average resume, is like a bad book with a great dust cover. It is still a bad book. How many times have you sat in a movie theater watching an upcoming movie trailer, then gone to the movie and it was really bad? Remember the excitement about waiting for the movie to come out, the excitement as you sat waiting for the movie to start, and then the disappointment when the movie was so bad you walked out. A great movie trailer doesn’t make a bad movie better.
A great resume starts with understanding how a resume is scanned. Start with the basics:
Your contact information including a phone number. Sounds pretty basic to me. For some reason many candidates are starting to have only an email address on the resume.
Basic information about the companies you worked for (unless they are household names), such as sales, number of employees, and what the company does or the industry.
Basic information regarding the scope of your positions. Number of people supervised, basic duties and responsibilities, if multi-location, international, functional area managed, etc.
Education. When appropriate additional certifications or courses that enhance your marketability.
Company ownership. Is it a public company, owner operated, private equity owned or something else?
Some bullet points that directly align as closely as possible to the two column cover letter you included.
Bullet points that include results in dollars or percentages as to the impact on the department or company.
These are basics. There are more that will get your resume from good to great. At least review your resume to verify you have met the minimum.
Join our Linkedin Job Search Networking Group. Over 3200 members. CLICK HERE to join.
Download a free sample cover letter – that is the first step. You still need a great resume. CLICK HERE to get the FREE cover letter.
Over 90% of companies post their entire job description or some modified version of it as a job advertisement.
Why?
Is it because they don’t want to take the time to write a real advertisement?
Is it because they’re taking the easy way out – posting something that was downloaded off the internet in 1999?
Is it because they think the job description is the job?
As you probably know, Brad and I teach workshop for Hiring Managers and Executives on improving their hiring effectiveness. Over 35,000 Managers and Executives worldwide have seen this program, titled “You’re NOT the Person I Hired”. One of the key recommendations in this program is STOP posting job descriptions masquerading as job ads.
Job Descriptions DO NOT define the work to be done. Job Descriptions are worthless as a predictive tool to measure or evaluate success. Finally, Job Descriptions focus on the wrong criteria for hiring. Using Job Descriptions both for defining work and advertising for potential employees leads to multiple mistakes and errors we’ve identified in our research of the Top Ten Mistakes in Hiring.
If you’re responding to job descriptions and wondering why you don’t get call backs inviting you to interview – wonder NO MORE!
You’re not getting call backs because you’re not being evaluated on your ability to help the company – instead you’re being evaluated on whether there are words and phrases on your resume allowing a recruiter, human resource admin, or hiring manager to “box-check” whether you should be called.
BREAK this dysfunctional cycle right now and raise the number of invitations you receive to interview for an open position.
Here are some ideas to break this cycle:
Find the Hiring Manager on LinkedIn and contact them directly to ask your questions about what someone in this role would need to do to be successful.
Offer 4-5 major accomplishments for the functional job in your cover letter – such as finance, marketing, operations, sales. Every job has these 4-5 core elements.
Ask questions in your cover letters and correspondence: If you’re applying for a controller role, you might ask “Are you satisfied with the speed, efficiency, and accuracy of your monthly closing process?
Publish a blog article on your key accomplishment in the functional area for which you are applying. Send the hiring manager the link to the article.
Keep firing off emails seeking additional information. If they haven’t called you yet – do you really care if they think you’re a pest? Worst case is they’ve already decided not to call you and whatever you do will not change their impression. Best case is that one of your letters, emails, LinkedIn notes, or Tweets changes their impression of you.
Create a marketing campaign that has a goal to be granted a phone interview. Put on a full court press. What are the top ten things you could be doing to grab the attention of the hiring manager?
STOP being passive in responding to job descriptions masquerading as job advertisements. Break this tribal cycle that has gone on for generation after generation. The vast majority of candidates answer ads and pray the phone will ring. STOP waiting – force the phone to ring through the campaign or blitz attack you put on the hiring manager to convince them to speak with you about the job.
It really doesn’t matter if you have 20+ years of experience in your profession, or that it has taken you 20+ years of learning from your mistakes, or that over that 20+ years you have taken on-going educational classes to perfect your talents.
I can still do your job, if not better, at least as well as you do.
For example, maybe you are a:
VP Manufacturing. I have built and made a lot of things in my life. I’ve assembled many items from toys to bookshelves. I’ve walked through so many manufacturing plants that they all look the same, so I am qualified to be a VP Manufacturing. How tough can this stuff be?
CFO. For me this is an easy one. I use QuickBooks for my company and even do a home budget, so I know budgeting. Fear not, should you be an international company foreign exchange is my niche. I’ve exchanged currency in many different countries. How tough can this stuff be?
VP Operations. This is so vague anyone can do it. Just go to the office, send out a weekly policy and procedure change or update and never be in your office so everyone thinks you are busy. If something goes wrong, send out another policy and procedure update and of course hit the quota of 100 emails a day and copy everyone in the company so you really appear to be important. How tough is this?
VP Sales. This really doesn’t count because sales really isn’t a profession. It really doesn’t take any special training. Just meet people, know the product, have the gift of gab, and complain. Anybody who has kids is a professional sales person. I bet if you search Amazon for books that teach how to be a professional sales person nothing will come up. It is too simple and doesn’t require training.
Sound ridiculous? I sure hope so.
So then, what makes you think that you are an expert in the job search arena? Why do you think that because maybe during your career you hired a few people and interviewed a lot of candidates, you are an expert in this profession? Sound ridiculous? I sure hope so.
There is a learning curve like any other profession to effectively conducting a job search. In 30 years as a recruiter, the number of problems, issues, challenges and mistakes one has to endure to become the best are just the same as anyone endures in their chosen career.
This is not about us or recruiters, it is about helping you find a job as quickly as possible. I have never understood why candidates think they can enter a search and think they know all the ins-and-outs of an effective job search. The fact is, candidates are no more an expert in conducting an effective job search, than recruiters are at doing your job.
If I have convinced you of that, then the next step is what to do. As my partner Barry recently wrote in, “What Are You Doing To Sharpen Your Job Search Saw?” The fact is there is an enormous wealth of information available to candidates, much of which is free. We offer an extraordinary amount of free resources on our Web site. All candidates have to do is reach out and take it. Why so many don’t mind boggles us.
I know you are thinking, “There is too much to choose from. As candidates, we are inundated with stuff. How do we know what is good and what isn’t?” Valid point, but weak at best. It is no different than when you buy a car, choose a doctor, hire a mechanic, or when working, selecting the right software, hiring a consultant, choosing a recruiter to fill an opening, deciding to select a particular vendor and so on. You do your research, look for qualifications, get referrals, ask questions, and look at the person’s or company’s qualifications.
It is called doing your, “DUE DILIGENCE.”
Candidates can do the same thing in a job search. I recommend:
Reading blogs and articles. This will help you determine credibility.
Select three or four experts and follow them diligently, just like you would in business. There may be many consultants that do the exact same work, but once you select the one you like the most you follow them.
Review the background of the person or company you decide to follow. Does this background meet the test of time? Have they been doing what you need, in the area you need, and at the level you need?
Once you start following specific experts, don’t be afraid to invest. Often an investment of under $100 can pay back huge dividends. You invest in experts when you are working to improve your performance or your department’s performance. If investing a little up front gets you working one month sooner what is that ROI? Just like in business it is all about ROI.
Identify where you are weak and get help. Some help will be free and some may cost a little (rarely more than $100). Don’t be afraid to invest in yourself. For example, most candidates don’t know how to properly use their voice and body language to communicate effectively. INVEST in yourself and get some professional help. Our Job Search Self-Assessment Scorecard will help you identify where you need help. It is FREE. CLICK HERE.
You are not a professional at conducting a job search. Years ago a person said to me,”Amateur golf instructors make amateur golfers.” Well I say to you, “Amateurs at conducting a job search, spend a lot more months looking than necessary.”
Don’t be afraid to reach out and get help. Do your due diligence so you choose wisely. There is a lot of free information to help you. Don’t be one that ignores it.
Join our Linkedin Job Search Networking Group to start. It is free and the articles and discussions are very helpful. CLICK HERE TO JOIN
Download from our home page the FREE Sample Cover Letter and Job Search Self-Assessment Scorecard. Scroll to the bottom in the “What’s New” Section at www.impacthiringsolutions.com
