Standing Out From the Crowd

Standing out from the other job seekers must begin with your resume, cover letter and the tactics you use. The better job seekers have two-to-five resumes that they selectively send to employers, depending on the type of job they are applying for. Instead of only having one resume, as the average job seeker does, I strongly encourage you to have a base resume for each type of position you apply to. The way to stand out is to make slight changes to both the cover letter and resume to target each job you apply for. 

Changes made are mostly wording, however it might include adding truthful information about you that is not typically needed for some jobs, or removing items that are not needed for other jobs.

Getting to this point requires research on the company, its goals and philosophies, and then determining how you can help the company maintain and exceed those goals. 

Steps:

1. Take your generic resume for the type of position you are interested in applying for and compare it to the job ad or description.

2. Ask yourself the following questions:

• Are you showing in a concise manner all or as many of the relevant requirements that you possess?
• Every job ad has specific key words. What key words from the job ad are you using to start your bullets with?

3. Research the company, taking time to investigate their hiring processes (when possible), the company goals, and their competitors. By doing this, you can learn much about the company and you can demonstrate your research in the cover letter, as well as the resume. This can be done as follows:

• Read the company website, specifically the press releases (or news) and any profiles of senior management (however, do not limit your search to this).
• Also try search engines such as google.com, and look at the links about the company.
• Visit free financial sites such as at hoovers.com and yahoo.com's financials section. These sites show you how well the company is doing, who thei r competition is, and also provide news links and website links.

4. After doing the research, ask yourself this question: “Does my resume and/or cover letter show how beneficial I would be to this particular company and its specific goals?” If the answer is no, then you need to include additional items that will help you stand out among the other applicants and close the deal.

The biggest decisions are those made at the start of your job search, as it then becomes an upward or downward spiral. If you are struggling to match your skills and qualifications to the job ad, then perhaps you need to examine your process of finding a position that is right for you.

Failure to do so, even if you somehow land the job, can result in starting over again in a year or less.

Being confident with matching your cover letter and resume to the position and company will bring the much-needed confidence when you are granted the interview!

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Conquering Competency-Based Interview Questions

I recently responded to a reader asking for help with preparing for competency-based job interview questions. Here's what I told her:

Commonly questioned competencies include adaptability/flexibility, collaboration/teamwork, communication, delegation, conflict management, customer focus, decision-making, and management/leadership.

Most competency-based interview questions are along the lines of "Tell us about a time when you..." They want to hear detailed examples of how you used particular competencies to deal with specific situations. For example, for the adaptability competency, the question might be "Tell us about a time when you had to change plans for a project already underway." If they wanted to tack on a question about the communication competency, they might ask, "How did you explain the need for those changes to others?"

You can anticipate the type of questions likely to be asked by reading the position descriptions and looking for the competencies they mention. Also, a helpful website offering several example competency-based questions is here:Competency Interviews.

With these kinds of questions it's difficult to provide you with sample answers, because your answers must be specific to your own experiences.

The key is to be prepared to talk about specific situations in which you actually used the particular competencies in successful or effective ways.

When responding to the questions, you want to:

(1) Describe the situation you were faced with or the task you had to accomplish. Whenever possible, talk about specific situations rather than generic overviews of what you have done in the past. Give details.

(2) Describe the challenges you needed to overcome. The bigger the challenges, the more impressive your story will be. (But don't exaggerate; stick to the facts.)

(3) Describe the action you took to overcome the challenges and resolve the situation. If you are discussing a group project, it's okay to mention that it was a team effort and share the credit, BUT be sure to focus primarily on the actionsYOU took, rather than the actions of the team.

(4) Describe the results you achieved; e.g., money saved, process improved, customer pleased, etc. Be specific.

You can think of this question-answering process in terms of the acronym SCAR for Situation, Challenges, Action, Results. It's a very effective way to answer competency-based (and other types of) job interview questions.

While it's best to talk about actual situations, if they ask about something you have no specific experience with, admit that and follow up with how you WOULD handle it. Say for example they asked, "Tell us about a time when you disagreed with your boss about how to accomplish a task, and how you convinced him or her to let you do it your way." This could be related to the decision-making competency. You could say "I've never been in a situation where I disagreed with my boss and felt it was necessary to convince him to do something differently, but if happened, I would explain the reasons why.

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Five Things Not to Do in a Job Interview

It doesn't matter what industry you are in, or what job you do, when you're trying to land your next job, you have to have a competitive mindset to win the job offer. You've probably heard or read about the different things you are supposed to do when meeting with a prospective employer. Let's turn our focus from what you should do, to what you should never do during a telephone, online meeting, or face to face interview.

1. Do not be late for your appointment. This shows the employer that you are not reliable from the get-go. Instead, be sure to arrive at least fifteen minutes early, and check in with the front desk or receptionist to let them know of your presense. In the event the time passes, and you have not been called in for your meeting, go back to the individual you checked in with, to ensure they actually informed the interviewer you are there.
2. Do not leave extra copies of your resume in the car. I suggest having a minimum of three copies of your resume prepared on high quality paper available at every interview. In the event the hiring manager calls in a colleague for you to meet as part of the interview process, or has an additional manager sit in on the interview, you are prepared to shake hands and bring them "into the loop." This makes you, as the candidate, look prepared.
3. Do not be afraid to ask thoughtful, intelligent, and deliberate questions during an interview. In fact, it is recommended that you work with your career coach or recruiter to create a list of at least ten questions that show you have researched the opportunity with this company, and further illustrate your competency and ability to perform the position in which you are applying. Keep in mind, you never want to ask questions that are easily answered on the company's website, or is general public knowledge.
4. Do not avoid eye contact throughout the interview. Consider your meeting with the hiring manager to be a performance. The truth of the matter is you are attempting to out-perform other applicants and prospective hires for the same position. If you put yourself in the shoes of the employer, you quickly realize how important behavior and body language is to the interview outcome. By maintaining eye contact with the people you are speaking with, you show that you are confident, and capable of performing the job in which they are hiring for. 

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Leadership Is a Process

By Gbitse Barrow

Do you have a boss, supervisor, manager or CEO who doesn’t meet your expectations as a leader? Are you concerned that your new boss or manager doesn’t have the right attitude, knowledge, skills and behaviour to lead, or are you worried that despite many years in a position of leadership, your boss continues to fall short of everyone’s expectations? These are real life scenarios that play out each day in our workplaces, businesses and communities. Even on a larger scale in society, how satisfied are we of our civil and political leaders and their abilities to lead us effectively and towards success?

If you are dealing with a leader similar to the ones described above, or you suspect that you may be indeed that positional leader who is falling short of the expectation, one of the most important lessons you must learn about leadership is that it is a process, and not an event. Leaders grow each day, and leadership is in itself a journey. The mere fact that you have won an election, started a new business, married a wife,gotten a promotion, or arrived at a position of leadership doesn’t make you a leader. Authentic leadership is about a life-long commitment to learning and transformational change, which is required for you to create the positive influence and success required of you as a leader.

Some of the challenges we have with ourselves as leaders, as well as with our positional leaders is because we haven’t recognized and understood that Leadership is a process and a journey. Through this journey of leadership leaders need to grow and become more aware of themselves by reflecting, asking questions, and getting feedback from the people they lead. The new learnings from this process will enable them adopt different styles and approaches and engage their followers more effectively. A lot of leaders jettison this process, and believe that having arrived at their positions they would all of a sudden achieve a “god-status”, and that all the powers and successes that “leaders” have will suddenly become theirs.

A great example of what I am describing can best be seen when a new leader is promoted from within the team. How can you be so myopic to believe that from the first day you will gain everyone’s respect or buy-in; how can you fit into the shoes of the previous leader so quickly; how can you heal all the wounds of the past and move forward? Honestly, these things take time, which if you do not apply yourself to as a systematic process, may indeed take forever, or actually never happen. A lot of new leaders who were great team members and performers fail to recognize this and fail woefully in their first leadership assignments. I have seen people fall into this trap, and struggle to retrace their steps quickly enough and learn the competencies required to be leaders. Some of them escape, wobble and fumble along to higher positions of leadership, but carry with them forever, the scars of their leadership events, rather than the learnings and changes required of a leadership journey.

Look around today, and think about those examples of positional leaders who are not effective leaders, there is perhaps a lesson or two that can be learned from their first leadership events or positions. As you look at newly appointed or elected leaders who seem not to have what it takes - do endeavor to give them a chance and support them through their journeys. If they are committed to life-long learning and transformational learning like all great leaders should be, then their journey to leadership, although challenging will be blessed with success in the long-run.

As we look around us, we must also look at ourselves, and ask the pertinent questions - How have I dealt with my past and current leadership positions? Is leadership just an event, or am I in a committed systematic process of growing each day as a leader? Whatever your answers may be, just remember that you can re-trace your steps and create a real leadership journey as you continue to grow as leader. Focus on continuous learning, feedback and a willingness to change, and be committed, deliberate and systematic about it!

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Always an Interview, Never an Offer?

For some reason, lately I have been meeting up with several job seekers who have all had the same dilemma: many interviews without an offer. When I say "many," I mean anywhere from 5 to 7 within a 3-month period. By and large, that is a good amount of interviews for this economy, and if you are obtaining this many without getting to an offer, it may be time to take stock.

Of course, industry and level of position come into play here as well as amount of competition for the position. However, the job seekers I have met with have cut across several industries, management levels, and regional markets. And when I have probed just a little bit, it hasn't taken long to discover some of the potential issues.

Although each person is different as well as each situation, in almost every case, there are some similarities to watch out for.

Before I list these similarities, however, I want to make a general observation. If you are a job seeker and you are in this situation, many interviews with no offer, then if you are like my job-seeking clients, you probably aren't going to like or even accept what I have to say here. Period. And that, of course, is what leads me to issue 1.

1. Inability to be objective. Many candidates forget that an interview is as much a personality contest as it is a discussion about ability. Of course, you are capable, but are you likable? For certain personality types, who don't like "playing the game," this can be tough news. This type of candidate comes into the interview even resenting the need for the interview or the need to "play the game." What he or she fails to recognize is that this attitude is annoying, and no matter how much someone tries to hide it, it isn't hard to uncover.

2. Denial about bitterness (and desperation). Like the resentful attitude in issue 1, bitterness and desperation are pervasive, whether you realize it or not. Although not the same things, these two attributes often take the job seeker to the same place: without an offer. Before you tell yourself you are good at covering it up, think again.

I spent hours with a candidate recently trying to convince her that her bitterness was pouring out of her like a bad perfume while she categorically denied it. She refused to see what everyone else could.

To help you uncover whether the two issues above could be affecting you during the interview, here are some questions to ask yourself (or better yet, why don't you ask someone you trust to answer them on your behalf?):
• Are you spending a lot of time during your job search feeling down or sorry for yourself?
• Do you find yourself often talking about how you were wronged by this economy or your past employer?
• When you are in an interview, do you sometimes reach a point of frustration that you have to try and squelch?
• Do you often walk out of the interview feeling badly about the interviewer/company?

3. Failure to seize follow-up opportunities. Very few negotiations are secured in one meeting, even two. Sometimes it is the work you do between meetings that makes the difference. I am still amazed by how few candidates send thank-you notes to interviewers or follow up afterward. When an interview is over, they shrug their shoulders like they just finished taking a college exam. "It is what it is. What can I do now?" A lot!

4. Misplaced trust in references. For some reason, job seekers trust their references implicitly. But in many cases where offers are not being extended, it can be the result of those whom we believed would give us a good reference. Think about it. Almost no one will say "no" when you ask them to serve as a reference for you. And we think because they are seemingly nice to our face and willing to do it, that they will then be a good reference for us. Sorry to say, but this is not always the case. Unfortunately, it may not be that easy to figure out who is the weak link for you either if you are providing 3 or more references to a potential employer. However, if you have had several interviews and have handed over your reference names, only to not receive an offer, it might be time to try out some new references.

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