I’m Getting Interviews But No Offers. WHY?

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.

Brad Remillard

Job Search Stalled? Do What the Pros Do.

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.

Brad Remillard

Are You Responding To Job Descriptions Masquerading as Job Advertisements?

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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?
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.

Check out our resources of how to get an interview, including our Resume Kit, our FREE Audio Programs from our Internet Radio Show, and our paradigm-shifting book, This is NOT the Position I Accepted.

Barry Deutsch

Don’t forget to join our LinkedIn Job Search Discussion Group and join the conversation on how to get an interview, especially when you’ve responded to a job description masquerading as a job advertisement.

Is Your Job Search Saw Sharp or Dull?

One of my favorite books is The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey.

Over the past two decades I have constantly referred to this book for insight and personal growth. Covey describes one of the habits effective people embrace as “Sharpening the Saw’”.

Sharpening the Saw is the process of becoming better, learning more, seeking knowledge to improve what you do. It’s a life-long desire to improve yourself through deep learning, uncovering best practices, learning from others, adapting the techniques and stories you find on blogs, books, workbooks, iTunes, YouTube, and other sources.

Through an informal survey of thousands of executives and managers conducting a job search – less than 10% are investing time to “Sharpen their Job Search Saw”

Why? Does this seem dysfunctional?

It’s NOT brain surgery – there is a wealth of material out there that is both inexpensive and free – why are the vast majority of job seekers NOT taking advantage of it?

Let’s take the content Brad and I publish on Job Search. I’m biased – but I do think we offer some of the very best tools, techniques, methods, and framework for implementing job search best practices. Our ecommerce site offers a wealth of job search materials that are easy to use at a price that is embarrassingly low.

Layered on top of some of our kits, workbooks, audio, and other tools is a vast archive of FREE tips, tools, templates, and audio. Why do most job seekers NOT take advantage of the inexpensive best practice tools to improve their job search. Okay – forget inexpensive tools – let’s just talk about the FREE content Brad and I publish. Wait – Brad and I are not the only job search experts out there writing, recording, and publishing great material on improving your job search.

There are some extraordinary experts on personal branding, resume writing, cover letters, interviewing, and networking. Yet, less than 10% of all job search executive and managerial candidates would be able to identify who are the top three writers/publishers on personal branding for a job search, who are the very best content providers for networking?

If you are in a job search, how could you not know this information – it’s because you are not continuously Sharpening the Job Search Saw.

Let’s agree you will begin to Sharpen the Job Search Saw from this point forward – no more excuses about not having time or resources to improve your job search. Here are 5 immediate things you can do to Sharpen the Job Search Saw:

1. Listen to our FREE Audio Programs on Job Search from our weekly Radio Show
2. Test drive our Job Search Workbook for the cost of shipping
3. Get the Self-Assessment Scorecard on Evaluating Your Job Search
4. Subscribe to this blog to stay up-to-date on all our latest audio releases, new templates, and tips on how to implement the Career Success Methodology in your job search.
5. Try our Home Study Job Search Kit to cut in half the time it takes to complete your job search – if you’re not completely satisfied – return it

Don’t wait another day to start Sharpening Your Job Search Saw!

Barry Deutsch

Are You Speaking the Right Language During the Interview?

Candidates too often focus exclusively on the verbal communication aspects of a job search. How much time have you spent on the body language aspect of communications?

Some say body language is 70% of communications. Whether or not you agree with this  percentage is irrelevant. All will agree it is a high percentage. So that begs the question, “What have you done to ensure your body language is communicating the right way?”

Knowing I was going to write an article on this topic, for the last two weeks I have asked over 100 candidates, “What have you done to ensure you are using proper body language during your job search?”  Not surprisingly, most just looked at me like a deer in the  headlights.  A few actually knew what I meant and one even admitted they had thought about it. The famous thought about it, not necessarily done anything about it. Two indicated the outplacement firm had videoed them so they could see themselves.

Given this incredibly high percentage, I would think more candidates would at least have read up on the subject, maybe videoed themselves in a mock interview, or practiced so as to be aware of what to do and not to do.

The reason for this topic is because of feedback I received from an interview one of my candidates recently had. The problem wasn’t regarding the person’s technical abilities, it was around the candidate’s body language and what it conveyed. Right or wrong, it doesn’t matter. In this economy the company can move on to the next candidate, get the same technical abilities and body language that conveys the right message.

When I met with the candidate, I noticed a couple of issues and mentioned them to the candidate. One was poor eye contact and the other was how he sits in the chair. He looked at me when the question was being asked, however, as he started to answer the question he would lose eye contact. He would look down, glance up from time to time then look back down, adjust his glasses, and then look down. I mentioned this to him. At first he was shocked, denied it, and flat out didn’t believe me. I have mentioned this hundreds of times to candidates over the last 30 years. This is a common reaction by most candidates. They don’t even realize they are doing this. Nobody has ever told them, and since they have never been videoed, they can’t see it for themselves.

The second thing I mentioned was how he sits in the chair. He was rather tall so he tended to slouch down in the chair almost like one does at home on the couch while watching a baseball game. I strongly recommended sitting up straight, and when wanting to stress a point, he could even slightly lean forward to engage the interviewer. Coming across overly relaxed in a somewhat formal setting of an interview is not the proper presentation. As my client said, “This would not look appropriate during a board or investor meeting.”

As a candidate, you should not assume you have good body language. You should test it. Consider videoing yourself. You will not only notice  poor body language,  but you will also pick up little nuances that you don’t even realize you are doing. This is a powerful tool. Most candidates have or can  borrow a video camera to work through this exercise.

Don’t underestimate body language. It not only applies during an interview, but also in your networking. People only want to refer others they are proud of. If you present poor body language in a one-on-one networking coffee you probably will not receive any referrals.

Download our free LinkedIn Profile Assessment and make sure your profile is as compelling as it can be. CLICK HERE to download your free assessment.

Our Linkedin Job Search Networking Group has over 3000 members and provides a wealth of topics and resources for you. CLICK HERE to join, it is FREE.

Also, our Web site has a sample cover letter for you to use that will help you stand out and align  your background with the job needs. You can find it at the bottom of our home page at  www.impacthiringsolutions.com in the “What’s New” section.

I welcome your thoughts and comments. If  you have a story about poor body language, please share it so others can learn.

Brad Remillard

There is No Time for On The Job Training While in a Job Search

A job search is much like a cable news show,  you have to get your point across in sound bites. You often don’t have time to give a detailed answer. Candidates need to get comfortable with doing this.

Think about all the times during your job search when you are required to give the famous, “30 second talk.” Many times during the interview process you have a short period of time to answer the question or give your introduction, you use bullet points on your resume and even your business card,  and all of these require you to express yourself in just a few words.

This is one reason why a job search is so difficult. Not only is it very difficult to speak in sound bites, most candidates are not prepared on how to do it. This technique takes practice and fore thought. This is not a case where you can just wing it. How many times have you left a meeting, only to realize you didn’t give a great answer to a question, didn’t get your point across as well as you would have liked to or thought, “OOPS I forgot to say ___.” This happens mainly because the candidate hasn’t taken the time to really get prepared.

A job search is not the time for on-the-job-training.

It is our experience that candidates wait too long to understand this point. You can’t wait and hope you will do just fine. First off,  “just fine” in this economy doesn’t cut it. Secondly, in this economy, there may not be a second chance for months.

As part of our job search coaching programs, we spend a lot of time preparing candidates for these short sound bites.  Although frustrating for candidates, we have seen these sound bites pay off so many times, we have to continually reassure the candidates of the need to prepare for them.

Candidates need to spend more time preparing and less time running to networking meetings, coffees, and one-on-ones until they are completely prepared. We find that candidates waste  excellent opportunities because they were not prepared on how to communicate in sound bites. I get calls weekly asking how best to do a do-over because the candidate believes they missed an opportunity.

There are rarely do-overs in a job search.

To learn how to speak in sound bites consider:

1. Write out what you want to say. Then wordsmith it until it is less than one minute.
2. Get help. This is a difficult task that takes experience. Don’t be afraid to invest in some professional help.
3. Take the known items and the comments or questions, such as your introduction, elevator talk, the question,”Tell me about  yourself,” or “So, what do you do?”  Most of you know these, after all you have been asked them many times during  your search, and convert them into short sentences that get the point out in less than one minute.
4. Practice them. Go to people in your network and test them. This is like any marketing campaign.
5. Once you have the answers for these then add one more set of comments and answers. Having two different sound bites is always a good thing.

Take some time to step back and get prepared. I know every candidate wants to jump into a job search as soon as possible. The problem is this jump is often in the wrong direction.

Like most things in life, if  you do the ground work, get prepared, and do some planning things go a lot better.

Our Linkedin Job Search Networking Group has a lot more resources to help with your job search. Join the other 3000 people in this group. It’s FREE to join, just CLICK HERE

If you would like a free sample cover letter to help you stand out and align your experience with the job, you can download it for FREE at www.impacthiringsolutions.com and scroll to the, “What’s New” section at the bottom.

I welcome  your thoughts and comments.

Brad Remillard

Why Most Interviews Are Box-Checking

The traditional process of interviewing is typically an exercise in box-checking.

Hiring Managers and Executives use the traditional job description to check off whether you meet the criteria for the job. As we described in a previous blog posting, the traditional job description is a set of minimum and mediocre criteria. We’ve identified the use of inadequate criteria in a job description as the Number One Hiring Mistake made by CEOs and Senior Executives. You can download a copy of the study we conducted to identify the Top Ten Hiring Mistakes Made by CEOs and Senior Executives.

In the face of all rational thought and objectivity – why do most hiring executives and managers still cling to the outdated and ineffective job description? By all standards, it is a worthless document to measure and predict future success. Let’s explore some of the reasons why the traditional job description is the primary tool you’re evaluated against in a job interview:

1. Hiring Managers don’t know any better. No one has ever taken the hiring manager by the hand and shown them a more effective method of defining success for a position. We cling to tribal hiring methods passed down through the generations without thought as to whether or not they are effective.

2. Hiring Managers refuse to accept accountability. Defining success and then publishing the definition of success (we call this a Success Factor Snapshot) is high accountability. As a Hiring Manager, if I define success and you as the candidate don’t achieve the expectations, then I’ll be forced to do something about it – as will my boss when the department/team misses their overall goals.

3. Hiring Managers give lip service to the hiring process. Saying that people are NOT your most important asset and consequently it’s NOT worth spending much time on the process is akin to being against motherhood and other cherished traditions. Instead, many hiring managers and HR professionals talk about how important hiring is in their company, but their actions convey something else entirely – they are unwilling to invest the time it takes to define, measure, and predict success.

How can you overcome these 3 obstacles to winning the interview when you don’t match up perfectly with the job description? Who could ever match up to a job description – one that has a list of random and arbitrary criteria which has nothing to do with the real job – it’s not a job or role description – it’s more of a people description.

Over 25 years in executive search, 1000 executive search assignments, interviews with over 100,000 candidates has shown me that top talent rarely meets the criteria described in the job description. In fact, if I had to make my living as an executive recruiter who depended on candidates meeting the box checking of the job description, i would have been bankrupt long ago.

Sorry – got sidetracked there for a moment. Back to the core question – how do you succeed in a box-checking interview when the criteria established is guaranteed to exclude you from consideration??

You do it through asking the most important interview question “How will you measure my success?” (or other variations of this question such as “What do I need to do in the job for you to consider me a success”?” What are the top 3 things I must achieve in this role to be successful?”). I discussed this idea in a previous blog posting regarding the syndrome of most candidates to interview blindly, flailing away with irrelevant information that the hiring manager most likely couldn’t give a darn about.

It’s like a magical question! Suddenly the interview transforms itself from an interrogation of bright lights and rubber hoses over box-checking your background to the job description to a discussion and consultative dialogue about the work that needs to be accomplished. Now you have an opportunity to demonstrate how your unique accomplishments and abilities will ensure the expectations of the hiring manager can be met.

Shame on all candidates who don’t ask that magical question. You are doomed to a prolonged job search and constant rejection. STOP allowing the tribal hiring methods used by most companies to dictate your career and job search success.

Barry Deutsch

STOP Interviewing With Your Eyes Closed

If you’re not asking a version of the question “What are top 3 things I’ve got to do in this position to be successful” in the first 5 minutes of the interview – you might as well shut your eyes and put your hands over your ears – the effect will be virtually the same.

Without a specific list of what defines success, you’re “flying blind” as the metaphor goes for pilots.

How do you know what to talk about?

What points will the hiring manager be most interested in?

Not understanding quickly what defines success allows the hiring manager to trap you into a box-checking discussion of the job description. Very few candidates can survive box-checking (more about the syndrome of box-checking against the job description in the next post).

Without extracting the performance criteria for the job from the hiring manager, the interview is a worthless exercise in futility. Giving examples, sharing skills, articulating your knowledge on box-checking job description criteria posed by the hiring manager (which is the tribal methodology of most hiring practices) leads to interview failure over 95% of the time.

You cannot possibility meet this unattainable list of silly, inane, inconsequential, and irrelevant criteria for the job. It’s almost like failing to interview before the interview really starts.

Once you know what the “REAL” criteria for success in the job is – then you can tailor your answers around that criteria.

Let’s take a real example (names have been changed to protect the innocent):

Bob is being interviewed by Mark for a position as Chief Financial Officer. In summary form the job description is:

12-15 years of experience in a technology-oriented business

CPA and a BS in accounting or Finance – MBA preferred

Good understanding of international accounting, GAAP, Tax Planning, Banking Relationships

Ability to supervise and develop the staff in accounting/finance

Put budgets, forecasts and special analysis together as required

Candidate should be self-motivated, multi-tasker, high initiative and a strong team player

Good systems skills are important

You get the idea – it’s a laundry list of experiences, skills, attributes, and activities. However – it’s NOT the job – in fact, it has NOTHING to do with the job.

In this form of the tribal interview, the questions go like this:

Do you have a CPA?

Have you had experience with international accounting?

How strong are your systems skills?

And so on until you fall asleep!

Let’s take our imaginary candidate Bob and have him pose the “What are the top 3 things I’ve got to do to be successful in this job over the next year” question.

The CEO thinks for a few minutes, remarks that no one in the interview process has yet asked that question and proceeds to describe the following three objectives:

1. You need to identify specific strategies in the next 60-90 days to lower our costs by 10% over the next 12-18 months.

2. Our budgeting/forecasting/analytical systems and processes are out-dated and need to be revamped over the next 6 months.

3. We need to convert our existing old disjointed, hodge-podge, home-grown systems to a new ERP comprehensive system within the next 9 months.

Based on knowing this information, would the interview be different? Would Bob structure his responses differently given what he now knows is important to the CEO?

Are you praying that the traditional shotgun approach to interviewing by spraying the hiring manager with as much information as possible will work – or would a more laser-focused approach be better?

Have you had an opportunity to download the FREE Chapter from our Job Search Workbook on Phone Interviewing?

Have you read the Chapter in the workbook on preparing for an Interview?

Have you gone through the exercises in our Job Search Home Study Course on Interviewing Techniques?

Finally, have you downloaded the FREE Audio Programs Brad and I have posted on our website from our weekly Internet Radio Talk Show regarding interviewing?

Have you signed up for our webinar on effective phone interviewing?

How can you get better at interviewing if you’re not taking advantage of best practice information on how to interview effectively?

Barry

PS – Jump into our LinkedIn Job Search Discussion Group to pose your questions about interviewing.

Hope and Luck are NOT Job Search Strategies

Why do so many candidates rely passively on hope and luck to end their job search?

This is not like spinning the roulette wheel in Atlantic City or Las Vegas. Our life is passively dictated by what number comes up.

You cannot afford to be passive in your job search. The risk of being passive is a job search that takes 2X-3X longer to complete. We’ve documented in a previous blog article the painful cost of an extended job search.

You don’t want to see your savings account evaporate, you don’t want to wonder how you’re going to make the mortgage payment next month, and you don’t want to network since talking with people who ask “How’s it going” trigger a set of painful emotions you’d rather not face right now.

So, instead of playing the victim from a reactive angle – how about starting to play the proactive angle. STOP waiting for the phone to ring and start doing the best practices in your job search that makes the phone ring off the hook with job leads, referrals, and interview requests.

Where to start you might ask?

The place to start is with a frank appraisal of your job search. What are doing wrong, what’s working, what can you improve?

We’ve developed a widely popular tool called the Job Search Plan Self-Assessment. Thousands of candidates have completed this self-assessment and shared the results with us. The stats are both depressing and insightful about how most candidates conduct a job search. As the title of this blog posting suggests, most job search strategies are based upon hope and luck.

Our self-assessment tool is a one page scorecard that zeros right in on whether your job search is effective. Overcoming many of the classic job search mistakes and errors is the only way you’ll ever reduce the time it takes to find a great opportunity.

Do you know what the Top Ten Job Search Mistakes and Errors are that limit job search effectiveness? Brad and I did a radio show on this subject. You can download it from our FREE Radio Show Library. Have you assessed the effectiveness of your Job Search Plan. We did another radio show on this topic built around our FREE Job Search Plan Scorecard.

Barry

P.S.: Don’t forget to join our Job Search Discussion Group on LinkedIn where we facilitate a wide variety of Job Search Discussions, ranging from overcoming job search mistakes to winning the phone interview.

You Must Adapt Your Job Search To The Company’s Culture and Style

Our job search coaching and facilitation programs for candidates take us down many different paths. Every program has to be unique to the needs of the candidate. No two job searches are alike and there is never a one-size-fits-all approach to a job search. Customizing our coaching programs is the hallmark of our success.

One example of this happened towards the end of the process with one of our sales and marketing executives.

The candidate had been interviewing with a small, very entrepreneurial company for a VP Sales and Marketing position. We had been working together, all along the way, to ensure he was properly preparing for every interview. It was now down to the final two candidates and the company asked each candidate to put together a short presentation on how they would market and sell the products to new customers. Nothing elaborate, just a half hour presentation.

Some background information is important. The CEO and founder of the company was a cigar chewer, speak your mind, no B.S. type of person. Some might say very rough around the edges. He wore as a badge of honor that he never graduated from high school and still had built a very successful business from scratch. The company was a plastic injection molding company that made custom plastic parts for a variety of industries. The CEO may not have graduated from high school and was rough around the edges, but he had a lot of common sense.

The other candidate was from Xerox and put together a very nice PowerPoint presentation that identified markets, market shares, potential customers in a 30 mile radius with charts/graphs and a lot of detail. I was later told it was a very polished presentation.

In discussions with our candidate, we talked about the company’s culture, the personality of the CEO, and the other people on the management team. Many on the team were well educated and from well know companies. However, as we discussed these issues, it became clear they all really liked working with the CEO for the simple reason that he was blunt, called it like it was, wasn’t one for a lot of staff meetings, liked blunt and direct people, and most said he was a very, “get to the point type person.” The candidate was  told by the team if he wanted to be successful, he needed to be able to work in that culture.

After all of this, we decided to take a completely different approach. The candidate scrapped the PowerPoint and instead simply started researching the market for potential customers and why the company would be a potential target. The day of the presentation my candidate walked in with a stack of magazines, business journals and trade publications. Every publication was dog eared, had stickers on pages and highlights on different pages. The candidate sat in front of the CEO and for his presentation all he did was start opening each periodical to a page and said, “see the company here, this should be our customer, here is why, here is how I would approach them, and here is how we can benefit them.” He did this for almost 20 minutes. That was his marketing and sales plan.

Which one do you think adapted to the company’s culture and the CEO’s style?

Needless to say, if the candidate we were working with didn’t get the job, I wouldn’t have written this article. Although the person from Xerox did a great job, he didn’t adapt to the style of the company. My candidate took all of this into consideration before going in. He also demonstrated to the CEO that he understood how to adjust to the unique styles and cultures of the customer. One type of sales pitch doesn’t work for every customer.

Have you ever had a situation where you could have adapted?

Never forget the importance of the company’s culture and management style you are interviewing with. The better you can adapt to their style and culture, the better you will fit in during the hiring process and after going to work for the company.

Join our Job Search Networking Linkedin Group. There are over 2700 members and an extensive supply of resources for you to tap into. CLICK HERE to join. Membership is FREE.

For information on our job search coaching programs, visit our University at  http://www.impacthiringsolutions.com/index.php/candidates/candidate-services

We have numerous free downloads on our Web site to help you in your search. Sample cover letters, audio downloads from past radio shows, a transferable skills list, Linkedin Profile Assessment Matrix, and our Job Search Self-Assessment Scorecard. All can be downloaded from our home page at www.impacthiringsolutions.com.

Every Monday at 11 AM PDT listen to our radio show anywhere in the world on www.latalkradio.com on channel 2.

I welcome your comments and thoughts.

Brad Remillard