Category: Charting Your Career for Success

Charting Your Career for Success:
Feeling a pull towards something different in your work life? This category is your compass for navigating the exciting and sometimes challenging journey of career change. Whether you’re contemplating a slight pivot or a complete industry leap, you’ll find guidance and resources here to help you:

Explore new career possibilities that align with your passions and skills.
Identify your transferable skills and how to leverage them in a new field.
Develop a strategic plan for making a successful transition.
Learn practical tips for networking, upskilling, and adapting your job search materials.
Find inspiration and real-world stories from others who have navigated career changes.
It’s never too late to pursue a more fulfilling and meaningful career. Let’s explore the possibilities together and help you confidently chart your new professional path.

Hey, Catch! Interview Preparation

Have you ever had someone toss a ball your way and let you know it was inbound after the person had thrown it?

If you have good reflections and a clear mind, a surprise ball toss can be easy to handle.   Personally, I need to know the ball is coming and preferably have a bucket to catch it in.

I have found that thinking on my feet in business can  be similar.  In my basic training at Procter & Gamble, the instruction booklet on persuasive selling included the recommendation of anticipating objections and preparing for these objections before entering for my presentation.

The Sacramento Kings  had a point guard named Jason Williams, who was a real gym rat, street ball, highly gifted athlete.   He was a lot of fun to watch and so unorthodox that the other players on the team had to maintain total mental presence lest they catch one of Williams’ no-look passes on the nose.  Obviously, the players on the Kings team had an advantage in knowing what was coming next from Williams.  They spent hours practicing with him and playing on the same team.

Giving a persuasive presentation in any situation, whether it is a job interview, a sales call, a meeting with peers, I find that I am more comfortable if I take a minute, write a few notes, research material I think might come up even if I believe that I know the answer, and try to think of information that might add value to the presentation and offer solutions where needed.

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Another thing that I have learned to do is position material so I show I am interested in the point of view of the other person or people in the meeting.  For example, without even agreeing with another person’s position, I have found that it sometimes helps to say something such as if I were in your shoes I am sure that I would feel the same way.  I also try to make sure that the other person or people in the meeting have an opportunity to speaking through to the conclusion of what they have on their mind.

Some people find it helpful to call other people before a meeting and in that call, present what they plan to share in meeting, especially when the stakes are high or on occasions where there might be a lot of resistance to his or her position.

In closing, I am reminded of the famous statement regarding directions:  “How do you get to Carnegie Hall? The answer:  practice, practice, practice. ”

The World’s Noblest Headhunter!  

Cocktail Napkins, Interview Questions, and Landing a Job

Cocktail Napkins, Interview Questions, and Landing a Job

I have a friend who has a way of making people aware of his interest in them as friends. He always greets people with questions that allow people to talk about themselves and their families. With me, for example, he asks how I have been. He asks about my wife and each of my children.

In a job interview, there are questions both sides should ask.  Standard questions to establish rapport and build knowledge.  Standard company questions about why you would want to work for this company, why the job is vacant, or the career path to which this job leads.

In a social setting, asking questions that you have typed on a written agenda would not seem appropriate. However, in a job interview, asking questions from a typed agenda is the best way to stay organized, on balance, or regain your balance.

I often find that the person who does the better job of preparing typed written material before an interview comes out way ahead of applicants who interview without a typed up agenda.

The Power of an Agenda

Comically, an applicant of mine actually went into an interview without any prepared material except for questions that he had written on a cocktail napkin.  The company had two applicants and one job.  This guy finished second.

If you are interview with several people in the same day, should you ask the same questions more than once?  I would say that you should definitely ask the same question more than once.  You may learn a lot about a company and its people by comparing their answers.

What do you do if you want a job but do not have any questions?  You should ask questions that enable you to know that the reasons you want the job are in fact true.  For example, you want a job because you see the company is in a safe convenient location or that the company has an excellent benefit program or wonderful work environment.  Ask about the location, the benefit program, or the work environment.  I have had hiring managers tell me that they already know if they are going to hire a person within five minutes of the person walking in the door and that they spend the next hour asking question to confirm what they believe to be true.

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The Power of an Agenda

The Power of an Agenda for Your Job Interview

During lunch with a field sales manager of a major consumer goods company, I heard again the importance of preparing an agenda before each call.  He told me about a day in the field he had recently spent with the Chairman and CEO of his company.  At the end of the day, the Chairman pointed out to the field sales manager that throughout the day the Chairman had maintained control of the discussions. The reason he said is that sales manager had not prepared an agenda for the day.

The first sales call I made with my supervisor’s supervisor at Procter & Gamble, he asked me, “What is your objective for this call?”  Fortunately, perhaps out of nervous anticipation, I had made scripted a call sheet for each place I planned to go that day.

When I entered the recruiting industry, I went to work for a search firm that had a former Pfizer executive for a CEO.  The only thing that the CEO asked of us recruiters is that we sit down at the beginning of every day and go over a single sheet that contained a list of search assignments and prospects and that we update that sheet every day.

So began a practice of having a plan written out on a sheet of paper, reviewed daily, updated as the day progressed and then created anew or further updated as the passed into the next day.  Managing my business became a process of following an agenda.

The same practices can apply to any business, including the business of managing your career. The following outline is the agenda that my daughter Heather used for her interviews with a National Basketball Team (NBA).  She got the job. Using this type of outline to prepare for an interview, helps a person anticipate and practice how to manage many of the questions and the direction of the discussions in a job interview.

Interview Agenda Summary

Why I am interested in working for your company?

  1. The reputation of the company as a customer-based marketer
  2. The long history of success of your company
  3. The opportunity to work in an environment that enables me to use the promotional and marketing tools I have developed for my career
  4. The commitment to respecting and honoring all employees for their service
  5. The opportunity to work in the field of my choice: sports promotion and marketing

What I bring to your company

  1. Team skills with work with other people in all departments
  2. Experience in creating promotional marketing programs to target community customers
  3. A successful history of developing marketing strategies that include customer service, pricing, product choice, graphic design, and product presentation at retail and in the media

My thoughts on marketing and sales promotion

  1. Does it present value to the customer?
  2. Does it create the correct brand image?
  3. Does it reach your target customer base?
  4. Does it make a buyer out of your customer?
  5. Does it create repeat customers?

Ways that I can make sure that you reach your goals.

  1. Identify the target customer
  2. Identify the message that will reach and draw that customer
  3. Create a consistent brand image that will build customer loyalty

Create your own agenda.  Prepare for the interview with research and outline your research results in an agenda that you take the interview.  Show interviewers that you have an interest in their company through the agenda you bring to the interview.

Working with Recruiters: The Different Types and What They Do

Working with Recruiters: The Different Types and What They Do

If you are working with recruiters, you will find it helpful to understand the relationship between the recruiter and the hiring company and the relationship between a recruiter and a potential employee.

Recruiter or Placement Agency

The companies that use recruiters to fill a position pay recruiters for their services. Hiring companies do not accept unsolicited resumes from recruiters. Therefore, all recruiters are working under contract, and they work on behalf of the hiring company. If you are a working with recruiter, you are valuable to that recruiter. The recruiter will not charge you a fee.

There is a different type of staffing firm called a placement agency. These agencies work on behalf of job seekers and may charge job seekers a fee for finding them a job. The distinction between a placement agency and a recruiter is that placement agencies find jobs for people, and recruiters find people for jobs.

Contingency Recruiter or Retained Recruiter
Sometimes, people try to explain the difference between contingency recruiters and retained recruiters in terms of the compensation. There was even a benchmark set at $100,000-a-year for a point where a person would rise above contingency recruiters and pass into the realm of retained recruiters. At that time, I had contracts for retained work under $100,000 a year and contracts for contingency work above $100,000 a year. My relationship to the applicant did not change based on these contracts. I had jobs to fill and needed people to fill them. At times, a recruiter may have some contracts that pay them a non-refundable advance payment (a retainer) for their services and have contracts for payment after the job has been filled.  More recently, retained firms have also done contingency work (The Directory of Executive and Professional Recruiters).

In practice, how hiring companies pay a recruiter is not important to you as a potential employee. The contacts the recruiter has in relation to the type of contacts you need to further your career is important. Since contingency recruiters and retained recruiters both work under a contract and given that financial benchmarks are not that useful in the changing landscape of compensation, the best way to work with a recruiter is to help the recruiter understand your experience and the type of job you are seeking. If the recruiter has jobs that fit your experience, he has a network that is valuable to you. Typically, the sterling silver of retained search firms are conducting searches where the level of contact is with the board of directors and the level of search is for “C” level managers, that is, Chief Executive Officers, Chief Revenue Officers, and so forth. When people at that level of experience contact me, I refer them to Tom Snyder, who hired people from me when he was an executive in the CPG industry. Tom has placed over 50 C-level executives. The Chicago office of Spencer Stuart, where Tom works, is the most effective consumer goods executive staffing practice in the country.

You and the Recruiter

Recruiters hunt for people: they are, figuratively, headhunters. They get on the phone and call people. They email people. They research for prospects. They are looking for fits like ring sizes. Hiring companies pay recruiters for their skills in finding those fits. Applicants as a potential employees have value. They are the diamond ring. The hiring company is the ring buyer, the customer. The recruiter is the jeweler. He takes a measure of what will fit the hiring company. If recruiters do not have a fit in their jewelry case, they hunt for one by calling people in their network. They often look for rings that are not yet on the market. Therefore, whether the applicants are rings in the jewelry display case or ones who are not yet on the market, the applicants and the hiring companies have value to a recruiter. If recruiters have the network to fit the needs of the hiring companies and the experiences of the applicant, the recruiters have value to both based on that network.

 

Interview Tips: the Chemistry of the Job Interview

For some hiring managers, the chemistry of the job interview influences hiring decisions as skills.  Hiring decisions have so much to do with chemistry that personal chemistry might be the biggest element in the interview process.  Think about it.  The interviewer has read your resume.  This person must have some reason to believe that you are qualified for the job.

I have heard more than one hiring manager say that they have made their decision within the first five minutes.  They spend the rest of the time reconfirming their decision.

Therefore, from there, the interviewer is interviewing you to learn five things:

    1. Confirm the details from your resume
    2. Determine whether you can successfully apply your skills to the job you are seeking
    3. Get an understanding of your interest in the job and whether the job is a fit for you
    4. Evaluate your reliability and your potential
    5. Decide if your personal chemistry will mix with the culture or personal chemistry of the company.

If you spend an hour interviewing for a job that matches your skills and qualifications, the factor that determines whether you get the job is whether you have the chemistry to fit into the company as well as other candidates.

Therefore, put effort into putting your best foot forward and making a great first impression.  Show an interest in the interviewer and in the hiring company.  Use open gestures.  Sit up straight and comfortably.  Smile.  Show the interviewer you have prepared for the interview by talking about the things that interest you about the company.  Have a meaning list of questions and ask them as the interview progresses.

When you meet the interviewer, you should smile.  Give them a firm handshake.  Listen to what the interviewer is discussing.  Listen to what the interviewer is asking you to discuss, and just be honest.  Your smile, your interest, and your chemistry will increase your chances of getting the job.

6 Steps to Making a Great Job Interview Impression

Great Job Interview Impression

Fine tuning your ability to make a great job interview impression will make you more competitive against other applicants.

Dress the part.

If you are going to meet people for the first, dress appropriately.  If you are going to a swimming party, take a bathing suit.  If you are going to a job interview, wear a business suit.

Be Odorless.

Aftershave or perfume may smell great to you, but also may annoy other people.  If you are wearing aftershave or perfume on your hands and leave those smells on the hands of the people you meet, you will offend some people.  I have having breakfast at a national sales meeting for Polaroid Corporation, and two women at the table were talking about the lack of professionalism of one of the men at the meeting.  They said that his wearing aftershave into the meeting rooms was unpleasantly distracting and unprofessional.  Everything that I have read about aftershave and perfume for business meetings says that you might as well have body odor as applying a distracting perfume or aftershave.  Neither one will make people want to meet you again.

Be Prepared.

Always have an agenda for your meetings.  Ask yourself, “What things do I hope to do in this meeting?”  Write them down.

Focus on Listening.

“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” Epictetus

Listen to what other people have to say and respond in ways that help them feel you have connected with them and their message.  If you have things that you want to say, you may find that those things are better said at another time that will allow you to make a point and not distract from the impression you want to make.

Sit up straight straight, open your arms, and smile.

Actors are professionals at communicating a message through body language and facial impressions.  With simple gestures, sometimes with no dialogue, an actor is able to project an image of a character who is powerful, weak, sad, happy, confident, uncertain, and so on across the range of character traits and emotions.

Make Eye Contact

Most people look at another person’s eyes.  I have read that for some people looking at a person’s nose is easier.  If you have difficulty making eye contact, just pick a point on a person’s face and softly focus at that spot.  I have found that if I am paying attention to what a person says, I will forget that I am looking at a person’s eyes.  Rather I tend to have a broader focus of the person’s entire face.

Give Compliments that are In Line with Your Meeting

When you make relevant, positive comments about the interviewer’s career or education, the company’s performance or the workplace appearance, you show interest in the person and in the company.

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