Monthly Archives: March 2014

This is one of the hardest issues to overcome when you are interviewing for a job… a reader wrote in and asked about how to overcome having owned their own business…I get this question to my radio program at least twice a month…

First of all, you have to understand why having  your own business is such a concern on the part of the hiring authority… the first, and major issue is, that they are concerned  that you’re going to go to work there and start telling them how they are run their business… the “well, when I was in business this is how we ran things…” and then proceed to tell them how they ought to do it.. there’s always the fear that if you don’t like your new job you’ll go into business for yourself again… I know this makes absolutely no common sense, but when you have been in business for yourself, you have one more risk factor and you have what most of the other candidates don’t…

You’re sitting to thinking, “who wouldn’t want someone who has run their own business, who knows the ups and downs of business, who knows how to manage employees, and knows how to manage relationships with the bank, the IRS, etc… you think it’s a definite advantage to having your own business but a prospective employer does not… so quit thinking it and quit justifying it… you need to know it is a big concern, a big risk factor on the part of your interviewing or hiring authority…

So here are some of the “lip loads” and concepts and you can communicate to the employer about having owned your own business that will turn the lemon into lemonade… “I realize that having owned my own business  is usually a concern on the part of the hiring organization, but in my particular case is a great advantage… it’s a very humbling experience to own your own business… first of all, I had tons of people that I ‘reported to’.. first of all, my spouse (chuckle) {that is a joke}.., but seriously I always felt like I answered to my employees, my customers, the bank, the IRS and so forth… I never really felt that anybody worked ‘for me’… I felt they worked ‘with me’… it was a tremendous amount of responsibility and certainly makes me appreciate all business owners and managers … I. certainly know how to treat their money like it was my money and have a keen appreciation more than most ’employees’ might..”

“I learned a tremendous amount by owning and managing our own business… mostly what I learned was that all of us are really ‘self employed’ no matter who signs the paycheck… In the end we all have to look in the mirror and ask ourselves, ‘did we do the best we could today based on the talents that God has given us’… someone else may be responsible for the paycheck, but we are all really responsible for our own performance…”

This kind of approach is the best way to deal with having owned your own business… mostly it’s a humble approach communicating the idea that we all may “work for” someone, but  in the final analysis, we are responsible to ourselves.

Lee was not an experienced or seasoned candidate our client was interviewing… in fact, experientially he was on the way low end of the scale…

When the strongest candidate.. most experienced and accomplished, at least on paper …was finished interviewing with the VP, she asked him how she stacked up with the other candidates and he told her that she was #2… she couldn’t believe it… she had never come in at #2 in any interviewing situation… so she asked the VP what the #1 candidate had over her…

Our client/VP told her… that he had before the interview, contacted a number of the employees of the company to see what they thought of it… he also called three customers of the company and asked detailed questions about the performance of the company’s product, their culture, etc… he even called two prospects that the company was trying to sell to get their opinion of the company and its products.

After he did his research he created a 30, 60, 90 day plan about what he would do in the first 90 days of his employment… he designed a 10 page/slide PowerPoint discussing his attributes and how they would fit the company’s mission and how he would be successful… in the initial interview he made a masterful presentation of himself and what he could do for the company… he even went so far as to research the leaders of the company and drew analogies about himself related to their backgrounds and their experiences…

He spent 2 1/2 hours meeting the hiring authority through his background and experience…

The hiring authority said that in 20 years he had never had anybody Interview so well…

I guess I’m interrupting the normal “knowledge” that I try to impart to vent just a bit… it’s things like this that tell me why people have a hard time finding a job or maybe, in their hearts, don’t want to

Four times in the last two days, candidates… all of whom are out of work… have told me they can’t go on interviews next week because they’re going on… spring break… now these are solid, professional people, having earned in the mid-hundred thousands… all of them are out of work… one has been out of work for six months… one out of work for four months and the other two out of work for two months… they are really having a hard time finding a job…

Call it my dazzling skill or simply luck, but I got them all interviews for next week and they all told me they couldn’t go because they’re going on spring break… one of them is only 150 miles from Dallas and could easily come back to town one day of his interview… the lady that’s been out of work for six months has only had one interview in that whole time… the interview I got for her was for this coming Monday and she says she couldn’t postpone her trip in order to interview…

What is America coming to? Where are our work values? What happened to the work ethic that got this country where it was… I say “was” because, based on this very small sample of out of work candidates our country’s work ethic isn’t what it used to be… one of these guys is living on unemployment and borrowed money from his mother to take the family on spring break… you gotta be kidding me!

It’s really sad…