Career Q&A: “Will dropping my price help me find a job?”

“Matt: I’m getting pretty anxious to find work and have toyed with the idea of dropping my ‘price’ to employers in terms of the salary I’m asking for.  Do you think this would help me land offers?  I mean, after all, by hiring me an employer could get somebody with Director-level experience at a Management-level salary…”

Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?  If the labor market is a cold, calculated world that revolves around the laws of supply and demand, just like any other market, you’d think that a company would jump at the chance to snag some top talent at a fraction of the price it would normally cost them, wouldn’t you?

Ah, but my readers tend to be pretty savvy business folks, and I’m sure already realize full well that there’s FAR from a perfect correlation between the price of an item and the resulting consumer purchasing behavior!  Numerous studies have revealed, in fact, that lowering the price of an item can greatly reduce the value we perceive we will get from it — even if the item itself doesn’t change one iota.  So as a job hunter, you need to think twice about using “price” as a competitive sales strategy.  In most cases, based on what I’ve witnessed, there’s an awfully good chance such an approach will backfire.

Before I go further, however, and share my own thoughts on the matter, let me first invite you all to review three on-line articles I’ve come across lately that relate to the issue in question.  They’re pretty enlightening.  First, I’d suggest you visit LinkedIn Answer Thread #1, where you’ll find a series of responses to a question one LinkedIn user asked along the lines of “What does lowering salary expectations say to potential employers?”  Secondly, you should direct your browsers to LinkedIn Answer Thread #2, where you’ll enjoy some additional dialogue generated by a NASA Propulsion Engineer who submitted the question “Why does offering to work for less money not help in landing a job?”  And lastly, check out what Nick Corcodilos has to say about the current talent market and the short-sightedness he feels many employers are displaying in terms of not recognizing talent bargains when they see them.  As usual, he makes some great points that are highly contrary to the “conventional wisdom” around this issue.

Have you finished reading the above articles?  What do you think?  Personally, I tend to agree that slashing one’s price tag tends to be a losing strategy in most job search situations.  It reminds me of when I see a grocery cart full of bargain wine in the supermarket, marked down to a few bucks a bottle.  I can’t help but think “this stuff must be terrible, if they’re trying this hard to get rid of it!”  Along the same lines, a professional-level candidate who seems eager to work for much less than his/her competition gives off a similar vibe.  Even if the person has terrific credentials, it’s hard not to question their competency level or get suspicious if they don’t seem to be valuing their talents appropriately, themselves.  It’s one thing if a person offers to do a pro bono “trial run” project or perhaps work at a reduced rate, initially, to prove themselves or help accommodate an employer’s budget.  But if they’re offering to permanently mark down their compensation requirements, that’s a big red flag.

Please note, though, that the concept we’re talking about here is completely different from another salary-related snafu that often takes place in the negotiation process.  We’ve been talking about whether a job seeker should consciously drop their price, and offer to work for less money, as a strategy for incenting employers to hire them over the competition.  This is NOT the same thing as lowering your salary requirements because they’re out of touch with the going market rate in the first place!  So if you’ve been telling employers you want $120,000 a year as a technical writer, and nobody’s biting, you might need to adjust your expectations and start telling employers you’re looking for something in the neighborhood of $50-60K, which is the approximate national median (Seattle figures would be a bit higher) for folks in this field, according to the Payscale.com salary survey tool.  Again, adjusting your expectations is different than using price to try to gain a strategic sales advantage, which would be the case if you said something like “While most people in this field seem to be looking for a package in the neighborhood of $60,000, I’m highly motivated to find work right now, and would be willing to work for $45,000.”

At the end of the day, while I realize it can be tempting to reduce your compensation requirements in an effort to land more offers, employers perceive “value” largely the same way consumers do — and tend to look for confident, self-assured people who value their skills and act like they’re worth every penny of what they’re asking for.  So rather than trying to compete on price, I’d suggest you sweeten the pot by working on other factors that can give you an advantage, such as sharpening up your relevant skill sets or offering some tangible forms of proof that demonstrate how quickly you can solve an employer’s problems and produce the results they need.

This are just my two cents on the matter, however, so feel free to take them for whatever you perceive them to be worth…

Burning Question for Job Seekers #6

“What do you love, I mean really love, about business?”

It’s so easy to bash the corporate world.  In fact, it’s become downright fashionable to complain about the greed, waste, exploitation, and ethically-challenged behavior displayed by a high-visiblity chunk of the business world these days.

Each day, it seems, I’ll come across yet another “corporate refugee” with an amazing tale to tell in terms of the abuses and shenanigans they’ve had to deal with in the workforce, ranging from outlandish cases of sexual harassment to employees being asked to turn a blind eye to fraud.  And if one wanted to get even more worked up about the issue, you could always go see Michael Moore’s latest movie “Capitalism: A Love Story.”  I saw the film not long ago, myself, and can assure you that it offers up ample food for thought, even if we all fully agree that Mr. Moore’s projects are the product of an extremely pointed (and not necessarily unbiased) agenda!

There’s one major problem with jumping on the “bash business” bandwagon, however.  It’s the fact that the vast majority of U.S. citizens currently earn their living working in the private sector and will unquestionably continue to do so for the foreseeable future.  I wish I could track down the exact statistics, but I think it’s a safe bet that at least 80% of the jobs in this country are generated through private-sector employers, as opposed to government or non-profit positions.  So whether you’re a technical program manager at Microsoft, a self-employed marketing consultant, or the receptionist at a small three-person startup struggling to break even, you must embrace the fact that you are part of the business world.  Not exempt from it.  And in my mind, as a career coach, this means that unless 4 out of 5 of us can find some business-related problem that we truly love and enjoy solving 40+ hours per week — it’s going to be a rough ride!

Seems obvious, I know, but I meet a lot of folks these days who instantly give off signs that they are “on the rebound” from a bad employment experience.  They trash-talk the corporate world.  Or seem perplexed by it.  Or don’t seem the slightest bit interested in understanding how the potential employer they’re interviewing with actually makes money — or in discussing how they can contribute to this primary goal.  This attitude is anathema to hiring managers, especially those tasked with the health of the bottom line.  They’re looking for people who want to go to war with them, and win the free market battle, not people simply seeking a paycheck or holding their nose while the company goes about the “nasty” business of seeking a profit.  This is even more the case if you’re seeking a management or leadership position within the private sector.  Being competent at your job is rarely enough anymore.  Companies want to see passion.  They want to hire people who seem steeped in the new realities of the market and are chomping at the bit to help the organization attract new customers…or streamline its finance function…or capture market share from a competitor…or build a new recruiting process that will give the company an unfair advantage over its competition.

On a related note, are any of you familiar with the word “frenemy?”  As in somebody who is “both your friend and your enemy” at the same time?  I’ve heard this new buzzword pop up a few times lately, usually among teenage girls at my wife’s school who seem to find themselves, frighteningly often, in the position of disliking somebody in their immediate social circle — but who feel the need to maintain appearances, as opposed to “going public” with their dislike.  Well, that’s the vibe I get from many candidates these days.  They say they’re looking for a position in the business world, and they clearly want the benefits a job in business can bring, but they don’t act like they enjoy the business world even the tiniest little bit.

So back to my initial question.  What do you love about business?  What part of making a profit spins your jets?  What major or minor role can you play in helping an organization survive during this tough economy — or better yet, thrive?  This question is an important one to ask yourself if you’re targeting a role within the for-profit world.  And if you just can’t seem to muster up emotions such as joy, enthusiasm, passion, or love around the subject of business, that’s a serious sign that it might be time to reposition yourself for role in government, academia, or the non-profit sector — or take aggressive steps to process any “emotional wounds” that capitalism might have dealt you, so you can get back on the horse.  Sure, there are a great many things to despise about the way certain businesses conduct themselves, but the institution as a whole isn’t going away, any time soon.  Find the part of it that amazes and inspires you!

Career Q&A: How to Deal With Gaps On a Resume?

“Matt: Even though I consider myself to be a very loyal employee, I’m afraid that over the last several years I’ve bounced around to several different jobs, due to the economy, and also now have a few ‘gaps’ in my employment record that employers seem to be all freaked out about — to the point it’s costing me opportunities.  How would you recommend I handle these issues on my resume?”

As I’d suspect virtually all resume-writers and career coaches would agree, the issue above is the “big resume question of the new millennium” as companies still appear to place a big premium on finding stable/dedicated employees, but now tend to lay workers off so often, and so quickly, that candidates with unbroken work histories are getting almost impossible to find!  Fortunately, I think companies are waking up to the reality that the best candidates DON’T necessarily have a picture-perfect job chronology and that the hiring process needs to include a deeper examination of a person’s true skills, qualifications, and work capabilities.  Until the day arrives that the stigma around employment gaps disappears completely, however, job hunters will still have to deploy active countermeasures to minimize the impact of this issue on their self-marketing efforts.

In terms of how to do this on the resume, itself, there are only a few options available — and while they may help to a certain degree, I’ll warn you up front, none of them are foolproof.  Here’s a breakdown of some of the techniques you could consider, ranked in rough order of how “risky” or “unorthodox” they are compared to traditional resume-writing standards:

1)  List your employment dates in years, not months. This is the oldest trick in the book and employers are most certainly aware of it, but whenever you’ve got a bunch of short-term jobs on your resume, it often paints a better picture if you describe them solely in terms of years (e.g. 2008-2009 instead of 10/08 to 02/09) instead of listing the actual months employed.  If you worked earlier this year, too, but are unemployed at present, listing your most recent job as being “through 2009″ also camouflages this issue to a certain extent.

2)  Insert the reason for leaving each job. I’ve met several diehard proponents of this strategy over the years, all of whom insist that professionals today should fully “tell the story” of why they left each job so that employers don’t automatically jump to incorrect assumptions (aka “you embezzled funds or had a drinking problem.”)  This camp would suggest you add a “Reason for Leaving:” line under each job title, after which you insert something like “Position was eliminated as part of corporate reorganization” or “Recruited out of company to a more senior opportunity” or something similar.  Personally, I’m not a big fan of this approach and don’t necessarily think it always solves the problem, but in some cases I can see where it might help, especially if the “reasons” you can offer are as pure and innocent as the driven snow.

3)  Leave off certain short-term jobs entirely: In the event you’ve had quite a few short-term jobs within a given year, it might be best to jettison one (or two) of them completely off the resume to diminish the “job hopper” perception, especially if you can employ technique #1 above to cover up the date range inconsistency.  The less relevant some of your shorter-term jobs have been, in fact, the more heavily I’d think about ditching them, unless they were legitimate contract positions — in which case you should identify them clearly as such, since employers are much more tolerant of such situations.  I’ve even had people identify full-time jobs as “contract” in nature, even when this wasn’t technically the truth.  This is a risky strategy, especially when it comes time for reference checks, but I know people who are ethically willing to do this — especially when they felt that the company brought them in for a short-term fix or misrepresented the long-term prospects of the job from the outset.

4)  Rearrange your work history in an unconventional way. Over the years, admittedly, there have been cases where I felt that peoples’ work chronology was in such bad shape, in terms of how it would be perceived by employers, that I recommended they completely break the mold and list their experience in a bizarre, unorthodox way.  In some cases, this meant creating a section called “Relevant Experience” where we presented the individual’s jobs not in date order, but in “relevance” order in terms of how closely their past positions matched their future target goals.  In other cases, we didn’t even include the actual dates of employment, but simply presented the time length of employment (e.g. we put “three years” instead of 2006-2009) and again, ranked the jobs in exactly the order we wanted employers to review them.  This technique is pretty devious, and again, will not endear you to a lot of recruiting personnel, but might still be worth the risk and nab you a phone call if your qualifications (outside of the date issue) are extremely relevant to the job at hand.

5)  Bite the bullet and shift to a “functional” resume format. Alas, once upon a time, a highly progressive resume format called the “functional style” emerged into the world,  where one’s skills and qualifications were liberated from the confines and restrictive nature of pesky employment dates.  If you’re not already familiar with this fairly infamous style, just type “functional resume examples” into Google and you’ll come across tons of them out there.  The problem with this resume methodology?  It developed a very negative rap among most employment circles, since the average types of people who gravitated to the functional style were military personnel, return-to-work homemakers, career-changers, ex-convicts, and the like — in other words, people who had “something to hide” (not in a bad way, please understand) in terms of their work background and employment dates.  As a result, companies now tend to associate this style with “people who are underqualified” and I find that functionally-formatted resumes still elicit a hostile reaction among the HR professionals, recruiting folks, and hiring managers I’ve surveyed.  Still, if you’ve got nothing to lose and think this approach would capture your credentials in the best possible light, go for it!  I still use them once in a blue moon, myself, especially for potential career-changers…

Ultimately, if you’ve only got some mild gaps in your employment history, you’ll probably fare just fine, especially as the hiring world realizes that fewer and fewer candidates are going to fit the “perfect” chronology they seek.  If you’ve got a much choppier story to tell, however, this can spell trouble, and you might test out some of the techniques above to see if they make a difference.  Even more importantly than resume tweaks, though, it will be imperative for you to adjust your job search strategy itself to place far less weight on resume-driven efforts (e.g. published job leads) and more on relationship-driven methods, such as networking, where you can present your capabilities free of intense date scrutiny.

And last but not least, whether addressing the “job gap” dilemma or any other areas of vulnerability you might have as a candidate, I’ll let you in on one additional secret.  As opposed to raging against the injustice of the process, and the superficial assumptions companies make about dates and such, try putting yourself in the employer’s shoes and seeing the issue from their point of view.  While I’m sure YOU are a phenomenally committed employee, I can assure you that there are plenty of slackers, ne’er-do-wells, and bona fide job hoppers around that lead to very expensive, messy hiring mistakes.  What other methods can you use to convince employers you’re not one of these people?  What would persuade you, if you were hiring, to overlook some perceived weaknesses of this kind on the written materials of somebody you’ve never met?  Answering that question successfully might lead you to some strategies and techniques well beyond what I’ve outlined in this posting — in which case, please comment, since I’d love to feature them!

Career Q&A: “How Do I Prove I’m Strategic?”

“As part of my job search, I am running into an issue that surprises me and am unsure how to resolve.  I was knocked out of the running for a position because I was told I was not ’strategic’ enough.  I don’t know the best way to handle this.  I feel that I am strategic and that I couldn’t get the results I’ve gotten to date if I weren’t, but I’m having a hard time demonstrating/articulating this in an interview.  (When I ask what “strategy” means to them, I don’t receive very concrete answers, which adds to my confusion.)  If you know of any resources, tips, etc. that could help me demonstrate my strategic thinking ability, it would be most appreciated.  Thanks much!”

This is a great question, and before I launch into my typical long-winded answer, please note that you could plug almost any desirable trait or requested work strength into the advice framework I’ll be spelling out below and the results should be equally effective.  I will admit, though, that the “strategic vs. tactical” debate is one that has a special status in the interview process, since many employers ask for employees to be highly strategic in outlook — and frankly, I’m not always sure they, themselves, could define what they mean by this!

So let’s start there.  If you keep getting the feedback that you’re not strategic enough for certain positions, I’d ask you to first challenge yourself to define the differences between “strategic” and “tactical” in your own mind.  Are you clear on what it means to be strategic?  Do you have a really crisp definition of the concept, yourself, or are the two things kind of running together in fuzzy fashion in your own mind?  Don’t be embarrassed if this is the case.  It’s pretty common.  But if this is a point of vulnerability in terms of you landing your next job, you can’t afford not to have a crystal-clear command of the differences.  So do some research.  For starters, you could check out the definition of strategy here on Wikipedia.  Or you could Google the phrase “strategy vs. tactics” and find all kinds of fascinating discussions on the Internet in terms of the differences between the two, including a blog post here from marketing expert Seth Godin that makes some good points on the subject.

You could even turn to the popular StrengthsFinder assessment for an explanation of what it means to be strategic, since this is one of the 34 personal strengths this tool has singled out in individuals.  According to this well-respected framework, being strategic: “…enables you to sort through the clutter and find the best route. It is not a skill that can be taught. It is a distinct way of thinking, a special perspective on the world at large. This perspective allows you to see patterns where others simply see complexity. Mindful of these patterns, you play out alternative scenarios, always asking, ‘What if this happened? Okay, well what if this happened?’ This recurring question helps you see around the next corner. There you can evaluate accurately the potential obstacles. Guided by where you see each path leading, you start to make selections. You discard the paths that lead nowhere. You discard the paths that lead straight into resistance. You discard the paths that lead into a fog of confusion. You cull and make selections until you arrive at the chosen path — your strategy. Armed with your strategy, you strike forward. This is your Strategic theme at work: “What if?” Select. Strike.

So again, before I’d even start worrying about proving you’re strategic to an employer, I’d make 100% sure you have a solid grasp of what the concept actually means.  Armed with this understanding, you can then go back through your work history and look for examples that will support your claim.  Have you put together complex marketing plans that show how multiple tactical marketing steps will achieve the overall goal?  Have you identified key windows of opportunity in the market or areas where your competitors have a hidden vulnerability?  Have you helped executive teams decide among multiple choices by playing these scenarios out a few years into the future, to see where they would likely lead?  These are the kinds of contributions, to me, that would qualify as strategic in nature.  And another great way to illustrate strategy is to talk about the activities you convinced a company not to pursue, just as much as the ones you got the green light around.  This really shows you’ve got a strategic outlook, versus just engaging in activity for activity’s sake, which is often a hallmark of the tactically-minded individual.

Ultimately, you may not win every employer over.  Some may simply be using the “you’re not strategic enough” excuse as camouflage for some other aspect of your candidacy that they’re not thrilled about.  But if they keep fishing around this issue, or suggesting they’re not seeing enough strategic thinking demonstrated in your background, you have to be ready to immediately address this issue and put it to rest.  So first, get clear on what it actually means.  Even consider clarifying this definition out loud with the employer, before moving further, to ensure the two of you are on the same page.  And then, when the timing’s right, start walking them through a series of your most strategic accomplishments, one by one, until they throw the white flag and say “We’re sorry we ever doubted you!”

Career Q&A: Will “Settling” for a Job Hurt Me?

“I’m stuck in a quandary.  I’ve been searching for work for about six months now and have received an offer for a role at around half my previous salary.  Several friends of mine are facing similar situations, as well.  And while I’m certainly not too proud to do a job that’s more ‘junior’ than I’m used to, I’m concerned such a move would hurt my future marketability and ability to compete for higher-level positions down the road, when the economy picks back up.  Your thoughts?”

Let’s not kid ourselves.  The honest answer to this question is “yes” and I’d accuse anyone who tells you otherwise of either being out of touch with reality or simply trying to spare your feelings by telling you what you want to hear.  It reminds me of an individual I met a few years ago who had taken a two-year sabbatical to sail the Caribbean, after being an executive in the mobile technology industry, and who was wondering if this would hurt his marketability in terms of landing a new position.  He said all his friends had told him it wouldn’t.  I told him his friends were utterly full of baloney — but that they were probably great friends, nonetheless, since they were likely coming from a place of good intentions and trying to keep his confidence up!

The simple truth, however, which I challenge anyone to dispute, is that every occupational field has some sort of “perfect pedigree” that employers look for when hiring a new employee — especially if they’re searching for one on the open market.  This profile almost always follows the same formula: it involves somebody who has done the exact same job function, for a very similar company, within the exact same industry, within a very recent time frame.  So anybody who gets off this track or falls short of this ideal wish list, by definition, is going to end up with less marketability than they enjoyed previously.

Don’t get me wrong, though.  Despite the potential marketability bruise, there are still numerous cases when I’d encourage somebody to take a lower-level position without even giving it a second thought.  Why would this be?  Well, I’d hope it would be obvious, but given the choice between a career storyline that involves working in a somewhat lesser role versus one that involves a person not working at all for a long period of time, I think the latter scenario is a FAR more dangerous and damaging alternative.  In addition, taking a “survival” job these days is often an inescapable necessity for economic reasons, and also provides many other benefits in terms of helping a person stay confident, keep their skills sharp, and continue building and growing their network.  So if you’ve been looking for a while now, and haven’t gotten any consistent traction for jobs at the level to which you’re accustomed, I’d seriously consider taking just about any relevant job offer that comes your way.  Any port in a storm, as the old saying goes…

Should you choose to do this, sure, you’ll need to be prepared down the road (when the economy perks back up) to explain to your next potential employer why you took this apparent step backwards in your career arc.  This shouldn’t be hard to do, however.  Just be candid, explain your rationale, and position yourself as a highly adaptable human being who decided you’d rather be working and applying your skills, talents, and strengths somewhere than continuing to ride the bench and sit on the unemployment rolls.  Employers are getting more and more tolerant around these types of professional storylines every day, since everybody knows times are tough and that many talented people have been forced to settle for positions that aren’t taking full advantage of their talents.  If you adopt the right mindset in addressing this issue, and don’t apologize for it, you’ll find that most employers get over it with barely a second thought.  Some might even consider it a selling point, if they’re like me and prize flexibility and an “unquenchable work ethic” above a great many other professional traits an individual could possess.

So in the end, each case is unique, and you’ll have to weigh the decision carefully if you find yourself facing the choice of taking a step backwards in terms of your traditional pay and responsibility level.  And yes, making such a move will hurt your marketability to some extent.  But this damage won’t be fatal, if you don’t allow it to be, and in the majority of cases taking a junior assignment will turn out to have been the smart course of action, as opposed to holding out exclusively for higher-level opportunities they might currently be few and far between.

There’s a fierce economic wind blowing out there, and from what I’ve witnessed those people who learn how to bend, rather than break, will be the best positioned to come out ahead in the long run!

Career Q&A: What Interview Questions to Expect?

“Matt: I’ve got an interview coming up and want to make sure I’m prepared for every possible question the hiring manager could possibly throw at me.  Can we spend some time and work on this together?”

I get approached with this kind of request fairly frequently, and while it’s a great thought, I usually tell my clients that what they’re attempting to do borders on the impossible — and would break the bank, in terms of the funds they’d need to invest with me (or any other coach) to pull this off!

Given the enormous range of methods that companies use to interview, there’s just no way to predict what array of questions a given manager is going to throw at you to evaluate whether you’re the right person for the job.   Interviewing is still far more of an art than a science.  This point was validated in a fairly interesting way during a recent episode of one of my favorite shows on the Bravo channel — Top Chef Masters.  In this show, three of the country’s greatest chefs were doing a competitive cook-off for charity and were asked to quickly interview and select three assistant chefs from a group of about 12 candidates.  Surprisingly, each and every one of these culinary superstars took a radically different approach to solving this puzzle.  One master chef asked the applicants to describe the foods they most liked to eat.  Another asked each candidate if they’d ever cooked his particular style of cuisine before.  And the third, Michael Chiarello, gave them a performance test, asking each one to brunoise (cut in a fancy French way) a carrot while he watched.  Several of the applicants, all experienced chefs in their own right, were insulted by this, but it was Michael’s reputation on the line and that was the technique he used to determine who to add to his team.

So the point is, you never quite know what methods a company or particular manager is going to use to evaluate your worthiness for a job — or what questions they’re going to ask you.  Any thought that one can be “perfectly prepared” for every interview, therefore, just isn’t realistic. This being said, there are a half-dozen questions that are so incredibly common that job seekers should always be prepared to address them:

– Can you tell me a little bit about yourself?
– Why are you interested in this job?
– Why are you interested in our company?
– What is your greatest weakness?
– What are your greatest strengths?
– How much money are you looking for?

Beyond these old standbys, there are 10-20 other fairly common ones that come up like “Tell me about a time your work was criticized” or “Tell me what your previous supervisors would say about you.”  Beyond that, though, there a near-infinite number of behavioral interviewing questions you might get asked where employers will ask you how you’d react in a certain situation or to share an example of a time you displayed a certain skill, strength, or personality trait.  And if you’re applying to a company like Microsoft, you might even get hit with some stress interview questions like “How would you move Mt. Fuji?” or “Why is a manhole cover round?”

Given this array of possibilities, I’m just not a big fan of job hunters poring through the dozens of interview preparation books out there of the “100 interview questions and how to ace them” variety, since I don’t believe such rote memorization of questions and answers is a very effective way to improve your odds in a hiring scenario.  Instead, after developing some decent responses to the six most common questions above, and anticipating a few additional ones based on the job advertisement itself, I’d suggest people focus on mastering a few high-level rules of thumb that will help them answer any question more effectively in an interview situation.  Here’s what comes to mind:

1. First, make sure you fully understand the question being asked; always reserve the right to ask a clarifying question back if you’re not 100% sure what the employer is actually asking — just don’t do this every time or it will appear to be a stall tactic!

2. Don’t ramble or go off on tangents; when responding to questions, keep your answers to 1-2 minutes and never lose sight of the initial question that was asked, as you respond, or there’s the potential you’ll start drifting off on a tangent — which interviewers hate.

3. Tell a good story; resist the urge to answer questions in vague terms or high-level resume-speak; instead, pepper your answers with specific facts, names, examples, and details that will keep the listener interested and make your answers stand out from those of your competition.

4. Don’t bluff; if you really get stumped by a question, it’s better to say “Give me a moment to think about that” or “Boy, I’ll confess, I’m really drawing a blank on that one — can we come back to it later?” rather than give a weak, rambling, or factually-incorrect answer; in some cases, too, you could say “While I don’t have that answer right at my fingertips, I’d be happy to walk you through my thought process and explain how I’d come up with the best answer to that question — would that be appropriate?”  And if you really bomb a question, you can (and probably should) follow up after the interview with a letter or e-mail indicating you weren’t satisfied with your own answer to one of the questions asked — and wanted to provide a more thoughtful response in writing, now that you’ve had the chance to think about things further.

5. Spot-check your effectiveness; if you feel that you stumbled on a question, or are getting very little feedback from the interviewer on your performance, you can periodically ask “Did that answer your question?” or “Is that the kind of example you were looking for?” to make sure you’re on the right track.

Ultimately, my belief is that there’s more ground to be gained by job seekers learning the ropes of how to answer any question more effectively, as opposed to saddling themselves with the anxiety of trying to anticipate each and every possible question that a given interviewer could ask.  It’s a little different twist on things, I realize, and takes practice, but once you get the hang of it you’ll be pretty much ready for anything someone might throw at you!

Career Q&A: Are Job Fairs Worth Attending?

“Matt: I keep seeing advertisements for various job fairs around town.  Are these worth attending?  And how about all of these ‘pink slip parties’ and similar events I’m seeing spring up where groups of unemployed people get together for drinks and such?”

Let’s start with the first part of the question, related to the value of attending job fairs.  While these events can sound highly tempting, and the Puget Sound area (like most metro areas) plays host to at least a few dozen such gatherings each year, I’ll confess I can’t think of a single case over the years where a client of mine attended a job fair and walked away with a viable, appropriate new lead to show for it.  Has anybody out there had a different experience?  Do you have a great success story to share, related to job fairs?  If so, please feel free to post a comment about your experience and enlighten us.  From my perspective, however, I find job fairs to be an almost complete waste of time for the average professional-level job seeker.  In fact, in some cases, I’m concerned that they can actually damage one’s search efforts — since it doesn’t do much for your confidence level to stand in a line of hundreds of job seekers at Meydenbauer Center, waiting for a 30-second turn to drop your resume in a basket!

So if these job fairs are so ineffective, why are there so darn many of them?  Well, for starters, it’s important to recognize that job fairs are viewed as a form of public relations by many companies and a way to get their name out in the community, even if they aren’t actually engaged in any current hiring activity.  They are also a way that organizations can pay lip service to certain topics, like diversity, and to publicly reinforce the notion that they engage in open, non-discriminatory hiring practices.  And lastly, on a more optimistic note, there’s no question that job fairs CAN be an effective way to attract lower-level candidates for hourly positions.  In fact, every job fair I’ve attended (especially the big ones) seems to be primarily intended to help companies find staff at this level, whether it involves the recruitment of custodial staff, call center reps, housekeepers, security guards, or valet parking attendants.  For professionals at the mid-to-senior-level, though, you can expect pretty slim pickings.

Long story short, these are the reasons I’d steer most of my clients away from such events, unless the job fair in question has a specific focus to it like high-tech or accounting that would be right up somebody’s occupational alley.  If you need to attend at least one job fair just to get it out of your system, however, go for it.  Or better yet, drag a friend or two along who’s also looking for work so that you can divide and conquer throughout the course of the day.  And how does one hear about such events?  Well, aside from the standard announcements in the media, one can always do a Google search on a phrase like “job fair in Seattle” or visit the WorkSource calendar here for a list of upcoming hiring events.  Remember that most fairs usually have their own websites, too, so you should visit these sites in advance to do some reconnaissance and make sure the list of participating employers is one that has at least some bearing on your own individual background and career goals.

As for that OTHER breed of career event that was asked about, that’s something of a different animal.  When you combine the current economy with a host of new social media tools that can help get the word out about events, in a hurry, it’s no great surprise that a ton of unorthodox and creative new events have popped up where enterprising individuals have devised new ways for job hunters to support one another — and to entice employers and potential employees to spend time in the same room together.  For a sampling of these types of creative new events, check out sites like Pink Slip Party and Seattle Job Social and Job Club Seattle.

Are these newfangled casual job fair + unstructured format + alcohol events worth attending?  It’s too early to say, especially since these gatherings wary wildly in terms of their format and their specific intended purpose.  If nothing else, though, we suspect they’re a lot more fun than traditional job fairs, and one probably can’t go wrong by checking a few of them out to see if they some value to the search process.  We also can’t help but relish the slightly irreverent tone many of them take towards unemployment as a general concept.  Given the cloud of grave seriousness surrounding most job-related events, we appreciate how some of these non-traditional get-togethers are trying to lighten things up and eradicate the stigma of being jobless, if nothing else!  So with these types of events, you might have to play the field a bit to see which ones fit your style more than others.  And again, we’d welcome any comments from people who have attended these kinds of functions and have some feedback to share…

Career Q&A: Tips for Job Hunting Confidentially

“Matt: I took a new job a few weeks ago, but can already tell I made a mistake and that this organization isn’t going to be a good fit for me in the long run.  I don’t want to quit, however, until I have my next opportunity lined up.  What tips would you have for running a confidential job search when one is working full-time?”

Without question, looking for work while employed presents a number of different challenges from the typical job search scenario of somebody searching while between positions.  And while most people would still consider this to be a nicer problem to have than having to deal with the unemployment spectre, there are definitely some important guidelines to follow when you’re searching on the “down low” without your current employer being aware of it.

For starters, one should recognize that many employers will consider such a search by an employee grounds for instant dismissal, should they discover that one of their team members has a wandering eye.  This reaction is often based on the belief that looking for a new job constitutes “disloyalty” on the part of the employee and that the person is not giving 110% to their current assignment.  It might also raise concerns about intellectual property, trade secrets, non-compete agreements, and other issues if the employee appears to be looking for another position within the same industry.

Now granted, most companies seem to have little moral compunction when the tables are turned.  In other words, I don’t see a lot of organizations losing sleep when they decide to keep the news of a pending layoff secret from their employees, which is sort of the exact same issue, in reverse.  But that’s just life — and anybody who chooses to spend time pondering the relative fairness, unfairness, or irony of such behavior is going to get rapidly steamrolled by reality.

So long story short, unless you have an extra-special relationship with your current boss, it’s a very wise idea to keep the news of your job search under wraps and to do whatever it takes to minimize the risk of your employer finding out about your search efforts.  Several steps that will help in this regard include:

• Be extremely selective about whom you network with.  As opposed to a normal job search, when it makes sense to spread the word to the ends of the Earth about your availability, confidential job seekers should be very cautious about whom they entrust with the news of their attempt to line up a new assignment.  People are generally prone to gossip and word can get around if you’re not careful, especially if you divulge your secret to colleagues within your own office.  Even if your co-workers are trustworthy, a lurking manager could easily overhear some water cooler chatter and realize that you’re a “short-timer” whose future with the organization is suspect.

• Leverage your employment status.  When contacting employers, may sure to let them know that you are currently employed with another organization and running a clandestine search, since that puts a “psychological premium” on you as a candidate.  Companies pay big bucks for recruiters to hire away folks who are currently working at other places, after all, under the assumption that if somebody is drawing a paycheck at present, that says a lot about that person’s talent and marketability.  So milk this angle for all its worth, even if you don’t (or can’t) disclose the exact specifics of where you are now.

• Don’t job hunt from your workplace.  You’d think this was common sense, but I’ve come across numerous cases where people have used a company phone or work computer to engage in job hunting activities, without realizing that their employer may be monitoring their transmissions.  As a case in point, the IT Manager at the school where my wife works recently pulled her aside and asked her, out of concern, why she wasn’t happy in her job and was looking for a new position.  My wife initially had no idea what he was talking about.  After a quick chat, however, it turned out that this IT Manager had noticed she was sending numerous e-mails each day to a “career-horizons.com” e-mail address (my own, of course) and assumed this meant she was in conversations with a staffing agency and looking to jump ship!

• Tweak your LinkedIn settings.  If you have a profile on the LinkedIn networking website, and are searching for work confidentially, it’s advisable to go into the “Account & Settings” page of the system and turn off your “Connections Browse” and “Profile & Status Updates” options.  This will prevent people from monitoring what you’re doing on the system and who you’re connecting with, in case such activities could arouse suspicion.  There may be similar features on other networking sites (Facebook, etc.) you’d want to tweak in similar fashion, as well.

• Use the phone instead of e-mail, when possible.  To avoid having a “paper trail” associated with your job hunt, and minimize the odds of the wrong eyes coming across a resume you’ve sent out, try calling the hiring manager directly whenever you can to pitch yourself or respond to a published opportunity.  This will give you plausible deniability should a compromising situation arise.  By immediately stating your confidential search status when calling, too, you can usually pique their interest based on tip #2 shared above.

• Don’t post your resume out there, even anonymously.  Lastly, when job hunting in secret, you’d be well-advised to avoid posting your resume out on sites like Monster.com, CareerBuilder, and TheLadders — even if these sites offer an “anonymous” option that purports to hide your identity.  While such a feature might block your name and camoflouge your current or most recent place of employment, there are usually enough contextual clues in the rest of a person’s resume for companies to put two-and-two together.  Such a move is therefore not usually worth the risk, especially if you know your company’s HR department uses these kinds of sites on a regular basis to source hiring prospects.

Granted, there are probably many other suggestions (readers, feel free to post comments!) that would apply to people who are trying to conduct a “stealth” job search, but the above list represents the first wave of ideas that comes to my mind, judging from my clients who have attempted such searches in the past.  Ultimately, one’s hands are pretty tied in these cases and you won’t get the same results you’d get if you could job hunt on a full-time basis, and shout your availability from the rooftops, but at the same time you’re at least still drawing a paycheck — which is nothing to sneeze at!

Career Q&A: Executive MBA Programs?

“Matt: I am pleased to report that I’ve been accepted into the Wharton School’s Executive MBA Program.  Should I decide to enroll, however, I’ll be on the hook for $160,000!  Do you think this would be a wise investment, especially in this economy?”

First of all, good for you!!!  Regardless of whether you move forward or not, you should give yourself a hearty pat on the back for getting accepted into one of the most competitive business schools in the country.  Wharton’s EMBA program was recently ranked #2 in the country by the Wall Street Journal, beating out every other program aside from the one offered by Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management.

Acceptance aside, however, the question of whether this program would be a good investment for you is a tricky one.  For starters, it’s extremely difficult to value the direct financial benefits one stands to receive from obtaining an advanced degree, especially an MBA, which is a much more “generalized” credential than other Masters-level qualifications one could pursue such as a Masters in Teaching or a Masters in Public Health.  And for those of us to whom $160K would be a princely sum (that would be most of us, I’d assume!) I think it’s smart to do some serious pre-acceptance analysis, rather than get swept into the program on a current of emotions.  If nothing else, it will help you rationalize your decision, after the fact, each time you’re writing that hefty tuition check…

So how would I go about determining the ROI of this educational investment?  Typically, whenever I’m faced with these kinds of questions, I follow a two-pronged strategy.  I first conduct a sweep of “secondary research” and see what useful resources I can find on the Internet at large.  In this case, a quick Google search on “the value of an MBA” turned up a number of useful links.  For example, I discovered that Forbes magazine has a handy “Business School ROI Calculator” available here that purports to be able to directly calculate the break-even point of an MBA investment.  To turn up statistics for Wharton, however, you’ll need to search using the word “Pennsylvania” and you should note also that these figures are for standard MBA degrees, not Executive ones.  There is a link on the left side offering some more information about EMBA programs, though.

Additional web-based resources that looked relevant to your query include a bullish article on the value of an MBA degrees here, a cautionary article on the same topic here, and a theoretically “neutral” article from Monster.com here that cites some specific statistics about what MBA grads earn compare to non-MBA grads.  So long story short, anybody about to make a $160,000 investment should probably surf through all of these divergent opinions, first, to get a detailed sense of the pro-and-con arguments that exist out there.  You might also e-mail a top salary survey site like Payscale.com, too, asking them whether they have any way of isolating the value of an Executive MBA from the millions of bytes of real-time salary data they track.

After this first wave of web-based research is completed, I’d then shift gears and engage in some primary research — which involves direct conversations with people who have obtained these degrees in the past.  The Wharton Alumni Club of Seattle would be a great place to start, and additionally, I’d recommend you jump on LinkedIn.com’s “People” page and run a search for Wharton in the School field, while simultaneously including the phrase “Executive MBA”  OR EMBA in the Keywords field.  When I tried this search in my own network, 281 distinct names came up — more than enough to get a tremendous cross-section advice on the value of this particular degree!  You could also post a relevant question to LinkedIn’s “Answers” page and see what kinds of responses you get.  I’m sure there would be plenty of people willing to chime in on the subject…

Ultimately, of course, it’s unrealistic to expect that there will be one “right” answer or that everybody will consistently praise or pan the value of the degree you’re considering.  Hopefully, however, you’ll see a strong leaning one way or another — or will find some individuals in a very similar situation to your own (in terms of job title, industry, etc.) and whose input might therefore be more valid than that of other people, facing different scenarios.

As for my own opinion, for what it’s worth, I’ll admit that I haven’t seen much of a direct correlation between the pay a candidate receives and whether they have an MBA or not.  I don’t think one magically starts making $20-30K more per year, in other words, by simply adding these four letters to their resume.  I do believe, however, that there is tremendous value in the network one is able to build through a first-rate MBA or EMBA program — especially through a top school like Wharton — and that it’s also hard to argue with the benefits of being able to discuss cutting-edge concepts with some of the brightest minds in the business world.  Money aside, this is a major life accomplishment that nobody would ever be able to take away from you!

Question of the Month: March 2009

“I’m finding that many employers these days are expecting me to settle for less money than my previous position, given the current economy.  Should I just suck it up and accept a lower salary — or hold out for the compensation package I feel I’m really worth?

Whether discussing the compensation needs of job hunters or the world of consumer products and services, in general, pricing is always a tricky issue — and arriving at the right number at which to sell your “goods” (especially in an economy like this one) is definitely more of an art than a science!

As far as how I’d suggest an individual job seeker approach this issue, a lot depends on the person’s unique situation and the amount of leverage they feel they have relative to any particular job opportunity.  If somebody has been out of work for a number of months and is really feeling pressure to get an income stream back in place again, soon, then obviously it might make sense to not rock the boat and to settle for a lower salary offer, if offered.  There’s certainly no shame in doing so — and the days when people could expect their salary to climb continuously upward throughout their career are LONG behind us, if nobody’s alerted you to this fact.  In today’s hurky-jerky world of work, the truth is that almost everybody will end up taking a step or two back in pay at some point.

At the same time, there’s a fine line that must be walked, even if you are willing to “mark down” your price tag a bit.  As has been demonstrated through dozens of economic studies over the years, there is an extremely powerful correlation between the price of an item and the perception of value in the buyer’s mind.  In one famous story, for example, a gift store owner was having trouble selling certain trinkets to the tourist crowd and accidentally marked a basket of $10.00 items up to $100.00 — instead of the $1.00 discounted rate she had been intending.  To her shock and amazement, the items started flying off the shelves.  Apparently, the high price tag instinctively led people to assume that these trinkets (low-quality jewelry, if I recall) had to be something really special and worth owning if they were selling for a hundred bucks a pop!  So job hunters, in kind, must be careful not to slash their price tag so deeply that they come across to employers as desperate and out of options; otherwise, price-based psychology will kick in, and there’s a good chance the hiring manager will start questioning whether the candidate actually has the skills, confidence, and qualifications to do the job.

If we really pay attention to the lessons of the above anecdote, in fact, one could argue that a candidate gutsy enough to raise his or her salary targets in a recession might successfully attach a “premium” aura to themselves that could turn out to have certain advantages.  This is a risky strategy, to be sure, but I’ve seen it work — and I’ve seen  employers willing to pay top-dollar for a candidate simply because the candidate themselves looked, acted, and behaved at all times as if they were well worth the extra investment!

Want to know what this sounds like?

– “While I realize that times are tough and that your company is looking to keep costs to a minimum, I’m sure you’d agree that this role we’re discussing is a critical one to your ongoing success, and that skimping on it to hire a less-qualified candidate could easily come back to haunt you in the long run.”

– “I certainly don’t disagree that there are other folks out there willing to settle for less than what I’m asking for, given this economy.  To be perfectly frank, however, I think you picked me as the finalist for a reason and have noted that my skills and expertise are a cut above the other people I’m competing against.  So at this stage, I’m afraid I’m going to have to stick to my guns and only seriously consider offers that are a lateral move or better from my last position.”

– “Given my proven track record of helping solve the kinds of problems you’re facing here at XYZ Company, and the rapid time frame in which I’ve shown I can do it, I actually think my skill sets are at a premium right now in these recessionary times — and more valuable to companies than ever.  Consequently, I’m really not looking to take a pay cut and must stick to the salary goals that I outlined earlier.”

– “Trust me, I totally get that you want to hire the best person you can at the least expensive price.  Who wouldn’t?  But you’ve talked with a number of my references now, and as I suspect they’ve all told you, I’m worth every penny you’d pay me — and then some!”

Granted, such aggressive negotiating tactics may seem over-the-top to many of my readers out there, especially those of more modest persuasion, but there are definitely job hunters out there who utilize this type of approach — and who seem to be successful, at least a healthy chunk of the time.  Again, though, it all starts with your own confidence in your capabilities and how quickly you feel you can contribute to a company’s bottom line.  If you’re struggling to quantify the exact ROI you can bring to a company, or you’re emotionally bruised from a long stretch of unemployment, these techniques might not be the right ones to employ for you, at least right now.  If your ego is in the peak of health, on the other hand, carrying yourself like a “premium product” just might pay off!