Job Ads: A Moment of Refreshing Clarity

Do you feel confused, overwhelmed, and/or intimidated by many of the job advertisements you find on-line?  If so, you’re certainly not alone, since it’s an inescapable fact that companies these days tend to pack their ads with massive amounts of qualifications and assorted gobbletygook.  Back in the old days, when they had to pay for every word they ran in a newspaper listing, employers tended to be more precise with their requirements.  Now, with the complete lack of space limitation available, courtesy of the Internet, organizations can ramble on for pages and make even the most qualified applicant feel grossly inadequate!

For this very reason, I find it enormously refreshing when I spot a passage in a job advertisement that is written in PLAIN ENGLISH and that clearly explains what the manager is looking for in the ideal applicant, instead of obfuscating things with a battery of 20-30 requisite qualifications.  In the particular case that prompted this posting, the opportunity in question was for an Organization Development Manager at a local technology organization.  The passage that jumped out at me (admittedly from an internal job posting, not an external advertisement) was right in the middle of the job description, and read as follows:

“The person I hire must be deep in Organization Assessment, Organization Design, Change Management, Transition Management, and Building High-Performance Teams following change.  Of these five things, the hardest one to find so far has been the expertise in designing organizations.  I need a person who could sit across from a VP in a line of business on Day 3 and feel comfortable and be perceived as credible in a discussion around any of the topics above.”

Is it just me, or is the above paragraph an abnormally cogent description of what the hiring manager in question is really looking for?  To me, it gets right to the desired “solution” or “outcome” instead of approaching things indirectly through a tired laundry list of desired skills, abilities, and qualifications.  It also sets up a near-perfect interviewing scenario.  All the hiring manager would really have to ask a candidate is “Given your interest in this job, tell me about your experience designing organizations and how you’d go about establishing strong trust/credibility with our existing line executives in a rapid time frame?”  Or better yet, the interviewer could conduct a role-playing simulation to this same effect, either acting the part of the line manager themselves or bringing in an actual, bonafide manager to assist with the selection process.

At any rate, maybe I’m just too close to this stuff, but the above paragraph stood out like a sore thumb to me among a sea of corporate job blather.  Let’s hope this type of direct communication becomes more common as part of the hiring and recruitment sphere.  If so, I think a lot less time would be wasted on both sides of the desk.  There’s no point to the average job seeker investing hours of interview prep around dozens of requested qualifications, only to walk in and hear things like “Oh, that?  Yeah, we really don’t care about that so much.  Not sure why we put that in there.  We really just want to find somebody who has experience in X or who can accomplish Y for us…”

Ideas vs. Execution: An Interviewing Wedge Issue

Recently, I came across a blogger (can’t seem to track down the post) who said he’d come up with what he felt was the “ultimate question” that employers should ask candidates during the interviewing process.  This question was along the lines of “What are the biggest misperceptions you feel your former supervisors and coworkers have about you?”  His feeling was that the indirect, unexpected nature of this question would not only demonstrate how the candidate deals with pressure, but would also get the person to reveal some important (and often hidden) clues about their personality, strengths, and weaknesses.

Do I think this is the “ultimate” question for helping employers find their dream candidate?  Not necessarily.  But it’s certainly an interesting one and I can see how asking it could produce some intriguing answers along the lines of “people think I’m much more serious than I really am because I tend to focus on my work, rather than chit-chat” or “I don’t think I was ever given enough credit for working hard and staying late.”  Such answers might indeed give a truer reflection of somebody’s work style than a series of more traditional point-blank strength/weakness questions.

At any rate, this recent article reminded me of one of MY favorite interviewing questions of all time, so I thought I’d jot a quick post about it while the idea was still fresh in mind.  What is this killer question, you ask?  Well, as one might expect given my coaching focus, this question is designed to be voiced from the candidate’s side of the desk, as opposed to that of the employer as in the above example.  Over the years, I’ve recommended to many people (especially executive-level candidates) that they find an appropriate time during the hiring conversation to ask: “In terms of hiring for this position, would you say you’re looking more for somebody who can bring some great new ideas to the team — or for somebody to take the reins and implement a number of key ideas and initiatives you already have in mind?”

This question, in my mind, cuts through a great deal of clutter and immediately provides the applicant with some useful insights into the hiring manager’s personality, needs, and expectations.  Essentially, it communicates whether the interviewer wants a “leader” or a “follower” in terms of this new hire, a distinction that can radically affect a candidate’s interviewing strategy.  If asked early enough, too, this question also protects the candidate from committing one of two very common interviewing “sins” I’ve observed over the years.  On one hand, I’ve routinely seen eager interviewees come in and start rattling off tons of exciting new thoughts, ideas, and suggestions about all the great things they could do for the company — totally missing the fact that the future boss already has HIS OR HER OWN IDEAS in mind and is simply looking for a confident, effective person to implement them.  Conversely, I’ve seen candidates show up to interviews touting their flawless execution skills, but then get shot down because they didn’t seem to bring any real creativity, spark, or fresh thinking to the table.

Sure, I suppose that once in a blue moon, a hiring manager could respond with a non-committal answer along the lines of “both are important” or something similar, but the ideas vs. execution topic is usually pretty polarizing so I’d expect this to be a rare occurrence.  Additionally, even in cases where the interviewer starts out on the fence, they often reveal their bias in one direction or the other with follow-up comments such as “I mean, we’re always looking for new ideas here at X, Y, Z company, so don’t get me wrong, but right now I’ll confess I really need somebody who can first get this critical IT project wrapped up in the next 90 days…”

Whichever way the interviewer seems to lean, the savvy job hunter should pick up on this cue and immediately adjust course.  If they’ve found themselves across the desk from a stressed-out manager who’s got a bunch of “shovel-ready” projects that need implementing, they should put all of their brilliant ideas/suggestions on the back burner for the time being and focus, instead, on convincing the interviewer that they can pick up a shovel and start digging at a moment’s notice!  Alternatively, if the interviewer is a straightforward implementation type, him- or herself, and seems to be more in need of some outside-the-box thinking that challenges the status quo, that’s your cue to jump up to the whiteboard and start sketching out some innovative ideas you have that could help the company prosper, develop, and thrive!

Career Poll: How Handle Age Discrimination?

Just for kicks, I wanted to conduct another quick survey among all you readers out there, this time around the issue of how to best handle the issue of age discrimination as part of the hiring process.  If you have a moment, please weigh in with your vote and let me know your thoughts…

Career Website: WhosTalkin.com

Got another Internet-based “power tool” to pass along, if you haven’t already heard of it!  The website WhosTalkin.com is essentially a “social media search engine” that stands to become a valuable part of any serious job seeker’s repertoire, since it can help you sleuth out some great background information on the various executives you’ll be interviewing with — as well as tap into some deep, thought-provoking discussions on thousands of business topics, in general.

Here’s a more detailed description of the site’s capabilities, taken directly from the site itself: “WhosTalkin.com is a social media search tool that allows users to search for conversations surrounding the topics that they care about most.  Whether it be your favorite sport, favorite food, celebrity, or your company’s brand name; Whostalkin.com can help you join in on the conversations that you care about most. Our search and sorting algorithms combine data taken from over 60 of the internet’s most popular social media gateways.  We take this data and display it to you through our carefully designed interface that harnesses the power of AJAX to give you a seamlessly well organized user experience.”

I suppose the non-engineers among us don’t really need to know that least part, about AJAX, but you’ve got to give the owners of the site credit for being thorough!

As for how to integrate this tool effectively into your own job search campaign, I’d recommend you first save it as a “bookmark” or “favorite place” and then get into the habit of running any contact/company names through it, prior to upcoming interviews.  In fact, just to get the hang of it, you might try searching WhosTalkin.com right now using the names of 5-10 executives or influential folks you’ve worked with in the past, just to see if anything shows up.  Alternatively, you could also search on some specific topics (e.g. employee retention, business intelligence, financial analysis, cloud computing, etc.) that are closely related to your background and field of expertise, just to see what kind of information is out there on the social media channels.

One tip, though.  When searching for any company, topic, or contact name containing more than a single word, make sure to encase your search phrase in quoteation marks (i.e. “matt youngquist” instead of matt youngquist) so that the search looks for your keywords together, as a single phrase, as opposed to seperately.  You’ll get far better results…

Empathy: Key Job Search Weapon?

Are you empathic?  In other words, do you (thanks, web dictionary!) routinely demonstrate “the ability to sense and understand someone else’s feelings as if they were your own?”

Well, I’ve got news for you.  While you may be a fairly empathic person under normal circumstances, there are pretty good odds that this ability of yours is going to diminish to a certain degree if you find yourself in a job search situation.  In my experience, the stress and pressure of looking for work often causes people to get overly focused on the nuances of their OWN needs, worries, and emotional state — and consequently will tend to drown out the amount of attention they pay to the emotional state of the others around them.

You’ll see this tendency displayed by many job hunters during networking situations, when a person will talk for 4-5 minutes straight about themselves, and their employment goals, without ever giving the listener the chance to reciprocate or share some thoughts about their own situation.  You’ll also see it in interviewing scenarios, where candidates will sit through an entire hour-long interview without ever expressing any real interest or curiosity around the hiring manager’s needs and problems.  And you’ll also see a lack of empathy displayed (and this is the kicker) in the tendency of many job hunters to complain bitterly about the way that they’re treated by recruiters, or by HR professionals, or by the various hiring managers they encounter during the course of their search.

C’mon, admit it!  We’ve all got a built-in, reflexive bias for engaging in this behavior, and few can resist taking pot-shots at employers that give us negative feedback or that are perceived as not giving us a fair shake in the hiring process.  And yet, is it really all that likely, statistically, that a preponderance of the jerks, idiots, and fatheads of the world just so happen to work in the HR or Recruiting fields?  Or end up in charge of all corporate staffing decisions?

As simple as it sounds, I believe it bears remembering that the individuals on the other side of the desk, or on the other end of the line during a phone interview, are people, too.  Their behavior may seem confusing at times, or inappropriate, but you can take to the bank that it makes perfect sense from their point-of-view — and that their actions would seem indisputably logical, if you only understood the range of pressures that they are having to deal with as part of the hiring process.  In fact, my contention is that the more you seek to understand the wants/needs of hiring managers — and express your appreciation of them — the more attractive of a job candidate you’ll become in the majority of cases.

So the next time you come across an anxious and inexperienced phone interviewer, rushing frantically through a list of questions, perhaps you could take a moment to remark “Wow, it must be hard to have to sort through so many resumes, and talk to so many candidates, hoping to find that one perfect person who will knock this job out of the park!”  Or if you call up a headhunter and they seem a bit snappish over the phone, you could make the comment “You know, it might not be my place to say this, but I would imagine it would be awfully hard being in your shoes and having desperate and/or arrogant people calling you all day, expecting you to get them a job.  Especially in this economy!”  While I see a lot of run-of-the-mill politeness practiced by job seekers, rarely do I observe memorable and noteworthy moments of empathy such as the ones demonstrated in the examples above.  So I think there’s some ground to be gained here.  I think empathy sells.  And I think many employers would respond favorably to a candidate who doesn’t seem to be bringing a “me, me, me” or an “us vs. them” mentality into the conversation, right from the get-go.

Perhaps it’s just me, but personally, I know that whenever I see somebody practicing an uncommon amount of empathy, it makes a huge positive impression on me.  For example, when I finished up with a client the other day, and we were discussing payment, this individual almost knocked me off my chair when they asked how much I had to pay in credit card processing fees — and then insisted on paying me by check, instead of by card, since they didn’t want me to have to eat the extra 2.9% fee!  Compared to the average person, who would be focused on their own convenience or on racking up a few extra frequent flier miles, this gesture really stood out.  (Editor’s Note: Don’t worry, dear clients!  I’m just making a point here, and Visa and Mastercard are still accepted, quite gladly, at Career Horizons!)

In closing, this whole topic keeps bringing me back to a quote that was posted behind the desk (for some strange reason) of my orthodontist during the eight grueling years I was an ortho patient: “That which you perceive to be the problem is likely somebody else’s attempt to solve a different problem.”  Interesting way to look at things, no?

The “Inch Wide, Mile Deep” Phenomenon…

Okay, for those of you who haven’t yet discovered the LinkedIn “Answers” page — and who don’t monitor it on a regular basis — I’d highly encourage you to start!  Some fascinating discussions erupt on this site constantly, spread across dozens of highly specific business categories, and many of the commentaries that develop essentially serve as a cutting-edge (and free) form of professional development when you examine the backgrounds of the people weighing in on certain topics…

For example, I use an RSS feed to monitor all of the career-related “Answers” topics on a daily basis, and while some of the stuff is garbage, occasionally you’ll come across a real gem of a discussion thread.  Case in point?  I thought there were some brilliant points made (especially by Tim Heard of eSearch Associates) in a recent discussion that broke out around the subject of whether companies were being too narrow-minded in their parameters for hiring employees in this day and age.

If you click here, you can read through the whole conversation and the wide range of feedback it generated.  See what you think!

Public Speaking (& Interviewing) Tips

At one of my recent networking events, I had the privilege of being joined by Leo Novsky, CEO of Golden Wellness and Chair of a local Toastmasters Chapter.  Leo was kind enough to speak on a subject he’s immensely passionate about, public speaking, and he passed along a number of tips on how people could improve their presentation skills — and by extension, their interviewing skills, as well!

While I certainly can’t do justice to the full scope of what Leo shared, here’s a quick breakdown of some of his main suggestions:

•  Leverage the use of silence; instead of trying to fill every second of a conversation with noise, pause occasionally to let certain important points sink in and to keep the listener engaged and interested
•  Ask clarifying questions that engage the listener, create dialogue, and ensure you’re staying closely in tune with their needs/interests
•  Know where your hands are at all times and keep them still, unless you’re purposely using them for emphasis; don’t let them talk behind your back!
•  Use the company’s own vocabulary (based on their website, job description, etc.) when talking with them, since this language will resonate the most, emotionally
•  Avoid the destructive influence of filler words (e.g. umm, ah, like, you know…) since these will weaken your message
•  Don’t shy away from practicing your presentation skills, using a video camera or tape recorder, since this will be the fastest to improve your skill sets in this area; better yet, if you feel you’re really behind the curve, consider joining a Toastmasters group where you can practice your speaking skills and get constructive feedback on a regular basis!

Last but not least — and perhaps most importantly of all — Leo stressed the importance of trying to connect not just with an audience’s mind, but with their heart, as well.  He summed up this point beautifully by sharing this quote from renowned communications consultant Tony Pearce: “While the mind looks for proof, the heart looks for engagement. While the mind looks for information, the heart looks for passion. While the mind looks for answers, the heart looks for experience. The mind makes a decision, and it’s the heart that makes a commitment.”

Great pointers, Leo.  Thanks again!

Top 100 Women in the Seattle Tech Scene

I can’t believe I didn’t spot this resource earlier, but better late than never!  About a month ago, TechFlash (the Seattle tech industry website hosted by John Cook and Todd Bishop of Puget Sound Business Journal) posted a great list of the “Top 100 Women in Seattle Tech” that you’ll find here.  This detailed breakdown of the local technology scene is not only fascinating, in and of itself, but if you read through the 70+ comments posted AFTER the article you’ll pick up some pretty intriguing market knowledge, as well.

This article is also a useful reminder that despite the temporary slowdown in the economy, there are still a ton of creative, entrepreneurial-minded folks out there “pushing the envelope” and working on ideas, products, and concepts that could lead to significant spurts of job growth around Puget Sound.  Enjoy!

Is Your E.P. a Snoozer?

Years ago, I remember seeing a Saturday Night Live skit where Chevy Chase (playing his famous news anchor role) said something like: “In other news, social scientists have announced that the world’s population continues to grow at a steady 5% a year and that there are now an estimated 5.3 billion people on the planet.  The number of interesting ones, however, hasn’t changed.  That number is still 17.”

Okay, fine.  This might be a little over the top, but I’ll tell you, it hit me the other day that there’s a grain of truth in this sketch that actually has a serious bearing on the fortunes of many job hunters.  As obvious as it sounds, what struck me was the fact that so many elevator pitches one hears out there (“Hi there.  My name is John Smith and I’m a seasoned, results-oriented operations manager with over 27 years of diverse experience in…”) suffer from a fatal flaw: they’re just unquestionably, undeniably, painfully BORING!

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m saying this with love in my heart, as well as a big “mea culpa” in recognition that I haven’t done a better job recognizing and promoting this idea in the past when helping people with their elevator pitch development.  After chatting with a number of clients lately, however, and asking them what stood out about some of the people they’d met with recently, I realized that the amount of the standard “resume stuff” like job titles, industry background, and the like that they were retaining was roughly zero.  The things they were remembering about people were almost always more personal.  Or unique.  Or off the beaten path.  Things like “Oh, that guy!  Isn’t he the one who just moved here from Rhode Island?” or “You know, I really liked Steve, the Eagle Scout” or “Betty…Betty…oh yeah, she’s the one who shows her toy poodle at Kennel Club shows!”

Again, this realization was so obvious when it hit me that if it were the proverbial snake, I’d be a severely bitten man right now.  But I sense I’m not the only one out there who has overlooked the importance of making sure, first and foremost, that you come across as INTERESTING when you introduce yourself to people.  In hindsight, it’s hard to deny that this is the greatest single ingredient in an effective pitch, since without it, you’re clearly sunk.  You may get a string of courtesy nods and some polite follow-up questions from the folks you encounter — heck, this is Seattle, after all — but the moment you walk away, they’re going to be flushing their short-term memory of anything you said that didn’t have any oomph or sticking power behind it.

So at the risk of being presumptuous, since I’m somewhat late to the party with this realization, I thought I’d quickly outline my own personal thoughts about what tends to make for MORE vs. LESS interesting material when it comes to personal introductions and networking banter.  Feel free to agree, disagree, or add suggestions accordingly…

MORE INTERESTING:

•  Geographical places (e.g. where you live, where you grew up, where you came from originally…)
•  Specific company names (e.g. where you’ve worked, where you’ve applied for jobs, where your spouse works…)
•  Passionate feelings (e.g. core beliefs, convictions, solutions you’d enjoy providing, what you love most about your life/career… )
•  Interesting observations (e.g. market predictions, business insights, trends, surprising developments…)
•  Humor (e.g. this is dangerous and highly subjective ground, but if you make somebody laugh, they’ll remember you!)
•  Personal breakthroughs (e.g. key milestones you’ve reached, successes you’ve had, challenges you’ve overcome…)
•  Hobbies (e.g. as long as they’re genuinely interesting and appropriate for mixed company…)

LESS INTERESTING:

•  How many years you’ve been in the workforce
•  Your skills, experience, and qualifications
•  The job titles you’ve held in the past or are targeting now
•  Your own personal wants and needs
•  Your current job situation (and any related anxieties about it)
•  Your setbacks (e.g. interview failures, frustrations, etc.)

This is just what comes to the top of mind when I mentally thumb through the list of people who have recently made a distinct positive impression on me, versus those I’ve bumped into and now only seem to have fuzzy recall around.  So again, whether you’re a professional in transition or somebody else (business owner, sales rep, etc.) who needs to have a high-quality pitch under your belt, I’d urge you to seriously evaluate the “interest quotient” of how you’re introducing yourself to people.  You may feel you have to keep things strictly business and within a sanitized comfort zone, but my personal experience is that this approach will fall short of accomplishing your ultimate goal — which is to be somebody who people will remember and be willing/able to help out, going forward!

I’ll be retooling my pitch, accordingly.  How about you?

Be the “Santa Claus” of Intangibles!

In my blog entry a few days ago, I praised Liz Lynch (author of Smart Networking) for her wonderfully simple advice to those job hunters (and other folks) who want to be reciprocal in their networking efforts, but feel they just don’t have all that much to give, at least of a tangible nature.  Her advice?  When all else fails, you should focus on giving people a feeling that they’ll enjoy, cherish, and remember.

Maya Angelou once made a similar observation, which a good friend of mine recently reminded me about.  Ms. Angelou remarked: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Do these statements hold true in your own life?  Can you cite instances of where somebody did a good turn by you, however small, that made your day and impacted you in a positive way you’ll remember for the rest of your life?  I know that I do.  And if you don’t, boy, I’m not really sure what to say.  All I can assume is that you must be wired pretty differently from the rest of us…

So if you’re a professional in transition, trying to master the subtleties of the networking process, I’d urge you to heed the above thoughts and observations carefully.  In my experience, they represent one of the most significant realizations that can help a person take their networking efforts to an entirely new level, both in terms of their short-term job hunting prospects as well as their long-term career success.  In all likelihood, after all, you’re going to be rubbing elbows with hundreds of different individuals throughout the course of your search.  And the one thing all of these people have in common is that they’re human beings — and few human beings have a maximum upper threshold in terms of how much appreciation they enjoy receiving, as long as they perceive it to be genuine in nature.

So while it can be hard to think beyond your own immediate wants and needs during the turbulence of an employment search, you should strive to develop your “giving” muscles and to focus on ways that you can consistently uplift and raise the spirits of those around you.  Do you routinely go out of your way to make the people around you feel respected?  Important?  Appreciated?  Entertained?  Special?  Helpful?  Or that they’ve made a difference in your life or job search?  If not, it’s never too late to learn, since there are a near-infinite amount of ways that you can impart these feelings to people and the good news is that they”re all free — or nearly free, depending on the gesture.

On that note, here’s a list of some simple and proven techniques you can add to your networking repertoire, until you develop your own signature methods:

– Remember people’s names and use them often (Was it Dale Carnegie who said our own names are the sweetest music our ears ever hear?)
– Send a handwritten thank you card expressing genuine appreciation for the person’s time (this display of gratitude never gets old)
– Surprise somebody with a LinkedIn endorsement, letter of recommendation, or another form of written testimonial (not just a nice gesture, but a potentially profitable one for the other party, as well)
– Make a thoughtful, relevant introduction on somebody’s behalf (tells a person you’re proud to have them in your network)
– Point out the qualities you admire in a person (don’t overdo it, of course, but sincere flattery can get you everywhere at times…)
– Pass along a book, article, CD, or some other small token gift that you know a person will enjoy (shows you listened to what they like and care about)
– Make a donation to a person’s favorite charity (if not immediately, then down the road, when asked, without hesitating)
– Put a person’s advice to good use and then circle back around, a week or two later, with an update (home run! home run!)
– Express genuine appreciation for people’s time; don’t act obligated or entitled to their assistance (sadly, this behavior still stands out; I can’t tell you how many contacts of mine have told me they’ve been “stood up” by other people lately who asked them for their help)
– Give the gift of your full, undivided attention (as above, it’s sad that this gesture will differentiate you from others, but trust me, it will)
– Offer to return the favor, however possible, down the road (shows that you recognize the value of what you were given)

This is just the tip of the iceberg, folks.  There are so many other examples I could share of where savvy networkers have found imaginative and inexpensive ways to make a person’s day and make themselves “memorable” for all the right reasons.  In fact, if you yourself have been the recipient of any such gestures, I’d urge you to submit a comment on this posting and share your story with the rest of us.  Speaking for myself, I know that I can personally recount dozens of people who have made a lasting positive impression on me through some small gesture or the other, over the years, and that these people hold a “special status” in my life/business sphere that money alone could never, ever buy…