interviewing

I’m firmly convinced that the majority of people that are out of work and claim they are looking for a job really aren’t… When you look on the Internet about “how to find a job,” 90% of the stuff you see talks about how to craft a resume and how to send a resume to a company…Sending a resume is NOT Looking for a job… It just isn’t… On top of the entitlement attitude of “where’s my job?…can you email it to me?” People really don’t do all of the things they need to do to get a job… To get a job, you gotta get interviews… Face-to-face interviews… those are absolutely the only things that matter… and then you have to do a lot of it… It’s gonna take, on average, 16 interviews to get a job offer… even if you don’t like that job offer… In the last blog post I wrote, I explained how many calls and how many presentations of yourself it’s going to take to get one person that might listen to you and how many of those it’s going to take in order to get somebody interested in you and how many of those it’s going to take to get somebody to interview you… I can’t change the stats… your effort to get interviews is going to take one hell of a lot of work… And then you have to sell yourself, really, really hard… most people just plain don’t interview very well… they don’t sell themselves… they say stupid stuff… they don’t ask for feedback… they don’t ask for the job… so they don’t get hired… 60% of the people who were hired are hired through personal contacts… relatives, friends, acquaintances, present and previous peers… Everyone knows at least 200 people… Remember there are 7.4 million business establishments in the United States with an average of 15.4 people working in them… and every one of them needs help… every one of them!… If one person made an offer to one business that they could show that business how to make them more money or save them more money and really did it,  7.4 million people could go to work tomorrow… Pretty simple!

…i read ’bout every book on finding a job i can find…new one on the market “Get the Job You Want Even When No One’s Hiring”

now, being an author and wanting people to like my books, i am real flexible and forgving about most errant stuff about finding a job..

but this guy actually tells you to act like you aren’t looking for a job when you interview

go ahead, do that…other candidates, especially mine, will eat your lunch…that is the biggest piece of terrible advice you will ever get…it is clear that this guy never found anyone a job, or if he did it was an accident..

One of our candidates was eliminated because he was asked this question…in a phone interview, no less…He said, “I guess I don’t …you have told me everything I need to know.”

Oh, my…not good…first of all, always have decent, intelligent questions about an opportunity…if you can’t really think of any…and you can if you try…ask the interviewing authority about themselves…”tell me, why do you like it here at ABC Corp.?”…” I have heard a lot about you and your success here, how have you done it?” If you can’t think of any business questions…ask them about their favorite subject….themselves!

Secondly, an interviewing authority doesn’t care about what you need to know…they care about what they need to know…so keep that phrase out of the conversation…So you say, “Damn that is really picky!”…you are right…it is…even unfair…what is even more sad about this particular situation, is that our candidate was exceptionally qualified…a top performer…

In this market, where companies and the hiring authorities in them think that there are hoards of quality candidates available… (There are hoards…but not necessarily qualified)… you have to interview almost perfectly…Every interview guide and coach teaches you to have one or two questions to ask…our candidate had been one of our client’s top competitors…he could have had a dozen questions…He thought he had done so well on the interview that he didn’t have to ask any questions…very sad

the past two weeks have been hectic…appeared on one dr.phil show…took two days…and “appeared” on another one over the phone..

one of the dr.phil guests i am helping…you can see the show on april 29th…lost his job last december…here it is april and he has only had three interviews…

why???..’cause he is just plain scared…pure fear…simply paralized by fear…he has been so afraid of getting rejected he doesn’t try to interview..

fear is overcome by massive action…in the words of babe ruth, “never let the fear of striking out get in your way!”

..top flight candidate…successful everywhere he has ever been…earned close to $1 million a couple of times…

goes to an interview i get him and call the receptionist “sweetie“… unbelievable…cost him the opportunity for the job..

twenty years ago, that would have been OK…not great, but OK…but it won’t work today..

never, ever be condescending, flirty, cutesie…anything but business…what a screw-up

..one of my candidates has been out of work for three months…i get him a very rare inteview and he tells me he can’t go because he has to go on spring break with his kids..

they are planning  a trip to san antonio for a week and he just can’t go….

now, keep in mind that he is almost broke..or so he says…desperately needs a job….and he is missing an interview to go on spring break….

can’t he join his family after the interview…or go down and come back for it???

where did our society get this attitude…maybe that is why he has been out of work for three months..

i’ve been doing this since 1973 and have seen ’bout everything…and am pretty understanding about most things

but i will never get this approach to finding a job….

i know i’m old…but when i was a kid, “spring break” was Good Friday, you got off from school so you could go to work at your part-time job…