Interview Tip Tuesday: Long-Term Goals

I don't know about you, but in every interview I've ever been to, I've been asked, "Where do you see yourself in five years?" or, at least, a variation of that question. Like you, I was mostly clueless as to what the interviewers were really saying: Make my job easy. Make me want to hire you. What are you going to do for me in the future, and how are you going to get there?


Lucky for me, I landed in a company with a whole library of questions like this and how to answer them. Not so lucky for you, I'm guessing you didn't.


Here are some actual answers I've received when asking candidates about their long-term goals:
"I'm going to be a fashion photographer in Milan. I just need a job until I can get there."
"I think that maybe someday I'll own my own clothing line. But I really like being a receptionist, so I could do that forever."
"I can see myself being an actress."
"I would like to be a part of the green movement, and achieving world peace. People don't really get how important that is."
"I will probably only stay with this job for a year or so. In five years, I'd like to be running a department somewhere."


I laugh at these, but when I was 19, I told an interviewer that my lifelong goal was to be a famous novelist, and that I would stop working a "day job" as soon as I achieved that. When I was 22, in my final interview for my then-dream job, I was caught off guard by the President's question of how I would develop this role over my career with the company and told him, via live video chat with all the VP's staring at me, that the job was perfect as-is and I didn't see the need to grow into other areas. (You can bet I banged my head on my steering wheel after the interview for that savvy answer.)



So, what's the right answer to this question?
First, focus on what's achievable, like, "I want to be the best manufacturing engineer you have on staff." Put a time frame on it--"within five years," for example. Follow that up with how you plan to achieve that, and what you are already doing to reach your objectives. "I just completed my Six Sigma Black Belt certification, and I've been training employees in my current company to practice Lean manufacturing techniques."



Good luck in your interviews this week!

Getting It Covered: Give Your Resume a Good Face

I've had a lot of people ask me lately how to write a cover letter, when to do it, and why. Hopefully, this will answer all of those questions.

An ideal cover letter will be something like this:

Dear Megan, (or Hiring Manager, Recruiter, Ms. Kuethen, etc.)

I am writing in response to the job listing you have posted on Monster for the Engineering Quality Operations Coordinator position. I have attached my resume for your review (or consideration, evaluation, assessment, etc.) and am eager to discuss with you how my education and past experience can contribute to Amtec Human Capital.

From my resume, you will see that I have five years of experience working in a software engineering environment. In my previous position as the Administrative Coordinator for Barnes & Taylor Consulting, I supported a team of ten engineers by maintaining a customer database, managing QA audits, and assisting offsite and travelling engineers with in-office tasks.

What my resume does not reveal is my exuberance for project management and professional manner. I am well-organised and goal-focused, and am searching fora company that will continue to push me to grow as part of a team and individually. I would be an excellent asset for your company, and my experience and background are truly a close match for your needs.

Thank you in advance for your consideration, Megan. I look forward to speaking with you in an interview!

My very best, (or Best regards, Sincerely, etc.)
Megan Kuethen
(714) 993-1900
-----
In my opinion, the BEST thing you can do with a cover letter is establish that you are not applying to every position out there (even if you are). What I want to see is that someone actually READ my job posting, that they took the time to explain WHY they're a good fit, and that there's more to them than just a resume... What any hiring manager or recruiter knows is that a person IS NOT their resume. Anyone can list a job and some responsibilities, but so much more goes into the hire... For instance, what if I received this cover letter along wiith a resume that looked great... but at the end of the day, I really need someone who is DETAIL minded rather than goal-focused? I can pick up the phone and explore that with her, and often times those are just key phrases that people throw around so I may hit gold (or I may not—maybe she really is all about the end goal).

A well-written cover letter can never hurt your chances. And when you're hardcore looking for a job, my advice is to apply to ten jobs a day. In this case, you NEED to differentiate yourself from others. A cover letter is your first impression.

Final words: Make sure everything is spelt correctly, that you're consistent with your punctuation (i.e. always or never using periods after bullet-pointsentences), and that you're professional. (More on that here.)

Good luck!

Interview Tip Tuesday: Tell Me About Yourself

Most of us haven't had the chance to sit on the "easy" side of the desk in an interview, so it's difficult to know just what to say. When an interviewer wants me to talk about myself, should I tell him about my love of Sea World? My dyslexia? Maybe I should mention that my last boss told me I was like a modern-day Jackie O...

Here's a tip for all you kids interviewing this week: When an interviewer says, "Tell me about yourself," this isn't an open invitation to share about your very smart dog Rex or how much you love to cook. What this hiring manager wants from you is a quick look into who you are and what makes you the right person for the job.

So while you hold back your comments about last night's Angel game, try instead talking about the experiences you've had that make you perfect for this opportunity... What books have you read, what classes have you taken, what real-world experiences have you had that would benefit you in this position? Give some examples of that experience, but remember to keep it brief. You're not there to dictate your memoir, just to find your dream job.

Don't see this as an open-ended question. Instead, when you hear, "Tell me about yourself," try answering these questions aloud:
1. What have you done to prepare yourself for this position?
2. What opportunities have you had to gain experience for this?
3. Why are you the best person for this job?

Good luck this week!





Visit Amtec on facebook!

Spreading Good Cheer

Things are looking up! Check out this article from MSNBC...


You'll also be encouraged to know that our clients are hiring! This week, a customer gave us an order for fourteen positions... and that's only one client. We've received several offers in the last few weeks, and word on the street is that many companies are getting ready to make permanent hires. Our contract division is also swamped--they have more work than they can keep up with, and if we continue in the vein we're in, both our Direct Hire and Contract divisions are going to have to hire internally!


Chin up, things are going well!

Resume DON'T

So, you've been applying to jobs for months now, and it's rare for you to get a call back, let alone an interview. I'm going to talk about why. This is a worst-case scenario--and an actual resume I received for a Ruby on Rails Web Developer--that I guarantee can be flipped around. Let's take a look:

John Smith
123 Main Street
Los Angeles, California 90001
(213) 555-5555
js1987@emailme.com

Entry Level Web Design Skills (I Am The Webmaster/Owner of 2 Websites)
Speed Read Rate: 80-100 Words Per Minute
High School Diploma
Good attendance. Only 1 sick day because I eat a lot of organics.
Got the Highest Score on State Exam English Portion in the 3rd grade.
Certificate of Completion for Customer Interaction Training Program
Multilingual(English+German+Spanish)
IQ 146


Work Experience
Webmaster
11/2009-Present Making Money Off The Ads I Put On My Websites
Janitor
9/2006 - 4/2007(Relocation) ABC Company, Los Angeles, CA
Cleaning tables+chairs+racks
Education
8/2002 - 6/2006 Los Angeles High School, Los Angeles, CA

NO ARRESTS
NO CONVICTIONS


Okay, now let's play a game. Can we find ten things wrong with this resume? Sure, no prob.

1. His first "job" isn't a job at all. It's labeled "Making Money Off The Ads I Put On My Websites." Grammar issues aside, this is NOT work experience. 
2. Can we even count how many useless pieces of information there are? I don't need to know his IQ, that he can read so many words per minute, that he eats organics which caused him to miss a day of work, or anything about his 3rd grade experiences.
3. The description of his duties as a janitor... ? Not very detailed. If I were looking for a janitor who had cleaned windows in the past, his resume wouldn't come up in my search.
4. Formattting... Ugh. I don't even know how to go into detail here. Ideally, I would get a name and contact information at the top, a BRIEF summary of experience, optionally an objective to tell me what kind of position he's looking for, and then we'd lead right into his work experience, cleverly outlined in short bullet points that are easy for me to read since I look at hundreds of these things each day. Below that, I'd want to see his education, possibly his fluency in English, Spanish, and German.
5. NO ARRESTS, NO CONVICTIONS. Other than the fact that, in the U.S., it is impossible to be convicted without being arrested, this just isn't something I walk around telling people. It's the equivalent of telling your boss, "I haven't applied for any other jobs since I started working here." Whoop-de-do. Always implied is "yet."
6. Now we need to address the fact that this guy responded to a position requiring two years of either web or software development experience... and he doesn't list anything to let me know that he's qualified for this.
7. I know how old he is... js1987@emailme.com? Yeah. The kid was born in 1987. He's my brother's age. My brother is still in college, so this guy isn't the degreed and experienced individual I'm searching for. 
8. This may sound obvious, but there's nothing compelling me to pick up the phone. I guess this is a culmination of all the other problems with the resume--no objective or summary, no description of what he's done. The problem is that there's nothing of anything; even a little detail in one of those areas might entice me to pick up the phone if done correctly. 

Okay, so the good news for this candidate is that I couldn't actually find ten things wrong with his resume. The bad news is that for weeks, we debated over whether or not this resume was real or not.

Help! I'm out of a job...

Sooner or later, we're all going to be looking for a new job. It just so happens that there are thousands looking right now.

This doesn't change the game; everything you needed to do before is the same now. You know, show up on time, work hard, don't take an extra five minutes for lunch... don't blog on your company's time...

I'm the first to admit that I'm a newbie to the professional recruiting world, but I've grown up in this business and am learning that I love it! I'm passionate about helping people--about making a difference in the lives of those around me. So I figured I'd let you know about some things I look for when I'm screening and assessing candidates.

Tips for Acquiring a New Job:

1. Be a good employee. Sooner or later, I check FOUR references on ALL of my candidates. If there's a blemish on their record, I learn about it. Believe it or not, the people you think are your buddies and will say anything for you... don't. So give them only the best things to say. In the end, a lot of hires come down to who has the best reference checks.
2. Make your resume clear, concise, and informative. I'll dig up some "DON'T" resumes for you to illustrate this point, and a "DO" resume to help further. In short, a 22-page resume is absurd. Think I made that up? I received one today. Keep it to two pages, tops. If you've only had one real job, it definitely shouldn't be longer than a page. Don't add things like, "I really like to ski," and please, feel free to use short bullet points. We'll get into this in more detail later.
3. Apply to ten jobs a day. If you're not employed, finding work is your job. Unless you work in a highly specialised field (i.e. you're one of three people in the U.S. who does what you do), the jobs are out there. Wake up, take a shower, put on a dress shirt and pants, have yourself some breakfast, and get down to work!
4. Read job descriptions carefully. Don't apply if you aren't an obvious fit. I kid you not, if a junior-level mechanical engineer applies to a quality manager position that he is in NO way qualified for, I put him on my "Do Not Call" list. That is, when a mechanical engineer position comes up which he's qualified for, I'd have to be desperate to reach out to him.
5. Whenever possible, write a cover letter for each position. Include the name of the hiring manager/recruiter, and address specifics about that position and how you fit their needs. The first thing I look for on every resume is the location of the candidate. The second thing I check is whether or not the potential employee wrote a cover letter. If it's a form letter, clearly copied and pasted from one search into another, I ignore it. On the other hand, if someone clearly took time to write a letter, I know they're a good candidate, not wasting my time. One final note on this for now... Check the name of the person you're applying to. Mine is on all of my job postings, and yet several times a day, I still receive letters that say, "Dear Sir." How many calls do you think those candidates get?
6. Join LinkedIn. Really, LinkedIn is for people who are looking for work to connect with recruiters without their bosses finding out. Sure, you'll hear that it's for business, et cetera, et cetera, but let's be honest. It is. I know that it has many other applications, but this one is central. Get yourself a LinkedIn profile and connect with as many people as you possibly can. I heard a statistic last week that every professional has 250 business contacts... That's a great start to getting your name and skills out on the market. Go ahead, connect with me.
7. Find an executive search agency that specialises in what you do, whether that's accounting or engineering, fashion or law. There are firms that work with just about every industry and every level of worker. They'll know best who to connect you with, and they'll have the resources to do it. I truly and completely believe that 100% of hiring should happen through search firms. Why? We'll save that for another post, but for now you can just take my word for it.
8. Give it time. The right opportunity will come along. I recently had a candidate break my pretty little heart when he took a contract position just the week before my client was ready to hire him. If you have stuff in the pipeline, it's going to take some time. Companies are not hiring as quickly as they used to. I know it sucks; I've been unemployed recently, so I've sat in your seat. It's hard to let go of the bird in the hand. But I promise you that the one on the bush is better.
9. Network outside of the web. Between Monster, CareerBuilder, facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Dice, Blogger (holla!) and a few dozen other sites, people have forgotten about the power of connecting in the real world. Maybe you're in introvert and you'd way rather stay home and watch TV than go to your wife's company party. Boy, do I hear you there. But suck it up, put on a suit, and get yourself to that party. Make it your business to talk to everyone in the room. Work the floor, my friend. Collect business cards. Leave an impression on every person you meet. This isn't about your social life; this is about you finding new opportunities.
10. Be open to something new. This doesn't mean that you should apply to an open pre-school teacher position when your passion is banking, or interviewing for a retail sales manager if you really love your manufacturing engineering position. It does mean looking for overlap. Maybe your background and education are the perfect fit for a jump into regional sales (and all that customer service experience you have doesn't hurt), or you're poised for a move into an executive assistant position, thanks to the super demanding customers you had while working as a flight attendant. All I'm saying is that you can get creative. Chances are that you might have more than one perfect job out there.

There are at least a dozen other tips I could give you, but I'm OCD and ten is a beautifully round number, so this sums it up for now. What do you think? Have you tried any of these and been successful? Have any of these failed miserably? What have you done that's worked like magic?