Career Coach Office Hours: June 21 2022 | JobSearchTV.com
By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter
I answered questions about #jobsearch #hiringstaff #management #leadership #workplace issues. Join me at 1 PM Eastern on Tuesdays and Fridays. You can also message me on Linkedin before the show and I will answer it, too. #careercoachofficehours #careercoaching #careercoach #jobsearchtips #jobsearchadvice #interviews #hiring #managingpeople #leadershipskills #linkedinlive #linkedinlivestreams
Recruiters Are Not Your Friends
03:37 How long after a reference check should I contact my potential employer?
05:01 What should I do if I declined an interview with a company, but now I’m thinking I should have accepted? Should I wait until I have new skills added to my resume? Or should I just send an application and see what happens?
06:22 What should one do if the hiring manager appears incredulous about one’s projects and experience in an interview?
07:15 Can I ask the recruiter about a startup companies stability before I sign an offer?
08:16 What is the first and most important thing an interviewer notices about an interviewee?
09:25 Do hiring managers frown upon someone who responds with no, but I can learn when asked about a particular skill set?
10:46 What is a good way to truthfully doctor your resume to catch an employer’s attention?
12:49 Is it better to apply for a job directly on the company’s website, or to apply on a career site like Monster, or Indeed, or LinkedIn?
How Do I Follow Up on an Application When I Haven’t Heard Back for 2 Weeks?
How long after a reference check should I contact my potential employer? I’d wait a day or two. Now ideally, what you do is when they say we’d like to check references, and you provide them with with the names and contact information, you say to them about how long does it usually take for the references to be completed? They’ll say something along the lines of that depends on how responsive your references are. And obviously, you’d let your references know that they’re going to be contacted by someone representing the firm that’s made you the offer, or that’s making you the offer. And thus, there’ll be alert to the contact that respond quickly. And that’ll move things along. So, in finding out the answer at that point, you know, when you should follow up. Now, let’s assume that you haven’t done that. Two days, day after the day you provided the references just to say, ‘Hi, I just want to make sure that you’re not having any difficulty reaching my references. If so, let me know who you’re having trouble with. And I’ll push them along. You see, what that allows you to do is to check in in a graceful way and not seem like the nagging. Are they done yet? Are they done yet? So that’s how to handle them.
What should I do if I declined an interview with a company, but now I’m thinking I should have accepted? Should I wait until I have new skills added to my resume? Or should I just send an application and see what happens? I made a mistake. Absolutely right, you made a mistake. And what you need to do is to call up the person who contacted you or respond to the email that was sent to you and say, ‘you know, I realize I made a mistake, I should have taken the interview. And, you know, I’ll just simply said, if the position is still open, I’d like to be reconsidered for it.’ They’ll say, ‘Why did you say no the first time and why are you saying yes now?’ And you better have a good answer. It better not be something like, ‘you know, I’m not getting any interviews. And thus, I decided I should do yours.’ It has to be a mature answer. So one option is to say, ‘it seemed like I was about to get an offer, but the position was put on hold I didn’t want to start a process with with you only to pull back on it because of the other offer.’ So that becomes a mature way of responding. Not the ideal situation you put yourself into. But that’s a good way to handle it.
What should one do if the hiring manager appears incredulous about one’s projects and experience in an interview? Ask them about it. Really, that simple. Ask them about it. ‘Yeah, the expression on your face kind of looks like, you don’t believe I’ve done this kind of stuff. If I reading your face correctly.’ And they’ll say, ‘Well, yeah,’ or ‘no, no, I was just distracted for a moment.’ But you can’t ignore signals like that. Signals like that are the kiss of death for most interviews. And thus, by putting it on the table, by being overt with it, you’re forcing them to say, ‘Well, I’ve done this, you know, I did this! So just recognize that’s the right behavior to have.
Answering Behavioral Interview Questions The Right Way
Can I ask the recruiter about a startup companies stability before I sign an offer? Absolutely, you should have been doing this all the way through. You should be doing research on the firm independently of what the recruiter, whether it’s their recruiter, or the search firm recruiter, says to you. Give me a sense of your financials, like how many people do you have? You know, what’s your burn rate? What was the last time you took in capital? Where are you in the process of fundraising? What’s going on? What this does is it will help you see where they are in their capitalization. Knowing how much they have in the bank, knowing what their burn rate is, just gives you an idea of how long they have before they might have to raise money again, or shut their doors. So yes, by all means, you should ask questions like that.
What is the first and most important thing an interviewer notices about an interviewee? To me, those are two separate things. The first thing they notice is, well, if it’s a phone interview, it’s your voice. And then the second thing or the answers to your questions, if it’s a video or in person interview, of course, your appearance. What do you look like? How are you dressed? Is your hair out of whack? You know, there are cosmetic things they may notice first, but the answer this question really depends on the mode of interview. And thus, there’s too much variation on this. And remember, if they are escorted to your office or to a conference room to meet you, you may see their walk, and whether they walk with confidence. Now, the most important thing that they notice about you is your answers to the questions. But the things that are superficial normally precede that in most interviews. The next question is
Do hiring managers frown upon someone who responds with no, but I can learn when asked about a particular skill set? The answer is not necessarily. Now, I think that’s an expected response so there’s nothing unique about it. It’s also the response a less experienced person might give. So, in dealing with the less experienced person, they’ll expect you to sound like the eager individual. I can learn. I can learn! Of course you can learn, but they may want someone who has done, not who can learn. And also remember that the skill that they’re asking you about may be relatively insignificant in their thought process. So just remember, it’s important for you to know what they’re looking for on the way into the interview to get yourself adequately prepared. On that subject, I want to remind you, there are two dirty words in interview. The first dirty word is ‘only,’ as in I’ve only done this or I’ve only done that. The second dirty word–light, as in I have light experience with this or that. I’ve recently added a third one, which is ‘just.’ I’ve just done this or that. Tell them what you know and what you’ve done. Period.
FEELING DEPRESSED About Your Search? Struggling? Feeling Fatigued?
What is a good way to truthfully doctor your resume to catch an employer’s attention? This is telling me you’re applying for a job, rather than networking your way over to a hiring manager, so that this way, you can get answers, you can be walked in the door. So the idea is to truthfully doctor your resume. The problem word is ‘doctor’ because usually, that translates into why? You don’t want to ever be lying. What you want to be doing is to edit it to call attention to how your background fits the role. Now, assuming you’re applying for a job, you may be uploading your resume to an applicant tracking system. Thus, you can make page one of your resume, the cover letter. And the cover letter, somewhere in there, ‘let me give you a sense of what to do. ‘I’m uploading my resume to you for the position of such and such I saw advertised on fill in the blank. Let me walk you through how my background fits this role.’ And flush left, you put the skill that’s being sought, flush right how long and how recently, you’ve used it, then underneath that section. And by the way, if you have not used one of those skills, you just omit it. Go to the ones that you have. And underneath the skills in the job description, there will be . . . I want you to list the functionality that you’d be performing in the job that comes from the job description. You put that flush left and flush right, how long how recently you’ve performed them. What you’re doing with page one, then is stacking the resume with keywords and thus, the applicant tracking system will think that this is what your background is. And thus, you will enhance the probability that you’re going to be pursued by them for an interview.
Is it better to apply for a job directly on the company’s website, or to apply on a career site like Monster, or Indeed, I’ll add or LinkedIn? Most of these third party systems are connected with the applicant tracking system. Now the question comes down to whether that individual employer has a preference in the morning or during the day to go into their ATS or going to the job board itself to see who’s responded. I personally think most of them go to their own systems, because those are open when they walk in the door and require no effort. So to me, the correct answer for most people with some exception is going to be their applicant tracking system. There’s also less likelihood of a problem because problems do come up, obviously, from time to time in the handshake between the job board and their system. So just stick with their system if you have a choice. Now, the other thing to remember is sometimes the job on the job board may not be on the applicant tracking system. It’s less likely these days, but it can happen because firms may have a lot of positions open and only a certain number of job slots available. So it may also be on their own site and not on the job board. So I’ll just simply say it ultimately translates into ‘it depends.’ It depends on their behavior. It depends on your workflow, things along those lines.
7 Things to Do When Your Job Search Calendar is Empty
[svp]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA8z-GdwjHM[/svp]
ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER
Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter is a coach who worked as a recruiter for what seems like one hundred years. His work involves career coaching, as well as executive job search coaching, job coaching, and interview coaching. He is the host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 podcast in iTunes for job search with over 2400 episodes.
Are you interested in 1:1 coaching, interview coaching, advice about networking more effectively, how to negotiate your offer or leadership coaching? People hire me to provide No BS career advice whether that is about a job search, hiring better, leadership, management or support with a workplace issue. Schedule a discovery call at my website, www.TheBigGameHunter.us
My courses are available on my website, www.TheBigGameHunter.us/courses The courses include ones about Informational Interviews, Interviewing, final interview preparation, salary negotiation mistakes to avoid, the top 10 questions to prepare for on any job interview, and starting a new job.
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