I recently met a young man who had gone to the same school as my children. I learned he has been interviewing for a new job. He has gone to interviews with three companies but nothing seems to be happening. I asked about his approach. He said everything has been great in getting the interviews. They seem to go well, but then he gets the "We're just not sure there is a match reply.
I asked about what the interview discussions covered and a pattern immediately surfaced. When each interviewer asked him if he had any questions about the position he was applying for, this young man asked about benefits, vacation, profit sharing, 401k, and so forth. His fatal mistake was asking what the company can do to meet his self-interest.
But the company wants to know what HE can do for THEIR bottom line. Period.
Make yourself stand out in an interview by asking your interviewer questions like these: ask informed questions about the company, ask about what they value in their employees, and ask what you can do to help the company become more profitable.
Ask About the Company
Learn everything you can about the company: their services, their products, their market visibility, and their clients. Visit their website and read the pages other than the "Careers" page. Learn who runs the company, the company officers if they are a large corporation, and their company locations. Understand exactly what products and services are provided by the location where you are interviewing. When you show you are willing to do preparation like this, they will see you are willing to be thorough and informed, and that you are actually interested in them.
Ask About What They Value in Employees
You will always get some boilerplate answers: honesty, integrity, creativity and so forth. But you might get some other useful information as well: willingness to work long hours and weekends, willingness to travel 50% of the time, and so forth. This will tell you a lot about the management and company culture. When they state an attribute that aligns with your personality or skills, you can reply with a statement such as "I am glad to hear that. One of the areas I have focused on in all of my work is being sure I am always working on what will give the company the highest value." Reinforce what you can do to meet THEIR values.
Ask What You Can Do to Make Them More Profitable
You might have specific, valuable skills such as project management. But don't start by telling them what a good project manager you are. Ask them where the company needs additional or improved capabilities beyond what they have now. What are the company's plans to improve their bottom line over the next year? When you hear what THEIR plans are, you can then describe what you can to do help them achieve THEIR goals.
It's really simple, but too many job seekers fail to look at the job process from the company's perspective. And this is the only perspective that matters if a job offer is desired. The young man above fell into the trap of thinking his job search was first about him and his goals. These are important, of course, but getting to the offer requires convincing the company that you are the one who will help them meet THEIR goals. After we talked a bit he started to realize that his next task was to see job search from the other side.
Monday, May 27, 2013
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Dinosaurs Don't Buy iPads
A bright note in May's jobs reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is that one sector of our economy is growing: construction. This is a big turnaround, driven by low mortgage interest rates and pent-up demand. But in January 2007 this sector tanked and pink slips were hemorraging throughout the U.S.
Which brings me to the issue of: what if your sector is dying, or hanging on only with life support? What do you do if "your job" is just not viable anymore? A prudent person recognizes that a dead-end is...a dead-end. So the prudent person changes direction, changes his or her thinking, changes his or her goal. In other words, a prudent person adapts.
Dinosaurs don't adapt. They didn't adapt...that's why they are called dinosaurs.
I write about this a lot in my book, Hired!. Let me explore the plight of the construction worker after 2007. Up until that date residential and commercial building was exploding in the U.S. housing bubble. Then the bottom dropped out of the U.S. and other national economies. Millions of U.S. construction workers were laid off. Some chose, or fell into, a period of living off government unemployment benefits. Some found sporadic construction work. Others found entirely new areas of work.
It is this latter group who will be the survivors in the coming years. Because they adapted. They did not limit themselves to thinking only "I do concrete" or "I do drywall." They were willing to accept that while their last job in construction required specific skills needed in the construction industry, they were not limited to that. Survivors see themselves as possessors of skills that can be applied in many, many areas, and do not limit themselves to thinking "I do this and only this."
But what of the others? What of the construction workers who did not find other positions, or fell into government welfare?
Perhaps no jobs were available. In some rural areas this is a real possibility. Or, perhaps jobs were available but they paid less than what the previous job paid. This is very probable. The dark underbelly of our pathetically slow, anemic jobs recovery is that the new jobs are primarily in service industries (a fancy way of saying "low-paying, fast-food and retail jobs"). Or, perhaps the worker discovered that government unemployment benefits pay even more than working. This has been a rational economic decision for many people. Everyone will choose the biggest income option of those available. But, there is a dark side to the upside of unemployment welfare: the longer you are out of work, the more difficult it will be to find a new job. It is a depressing dilemma.
After a prolonged period of unemployment one does become a dinosaur. The stigma, the loss of existing skills, the inability to obtain new skills eventually can be fatal as one fails to adapt, and merely adopts a passive posture. Dinosaurs don't buy iPads. They don't change. They don't learn. They don't adapt to new realities. That is why they are not here today.
A new reality in the construction industry is that it is opening a whole set of employment opportunities that have not been around for five years. Perhaps this is a time you can return to this industry. Perhaps you have never worked in construction, but it could be a worthy area to explore. You don't have to know how to frame a roof. Construction companies needs administrative office help, inventory, procurement, accounting and contract sourcing help.
Adapt. It's all about whether you are willing to think outside your old title or job name, and adapt.
Which brings me to the issue of: what if your sector is dying, or hanging on only with life support? What do you do if "your job" is just not viable anymore? A prudent person recognizes that a dead-end is...a dead-end. So the prudent person changes direction, changes his or her thinking, changes his or her goal. In other words, a prudent person adapts.
Dinosaurs don't adapt. They didn't adapt...that's why they are called dinosaurs.
I write about this a lot in my book, Hired!. Let me explore the plight of the construction worker after 2007. Up until that date residential and commercial building was exploding in the U.S. housing bubble. Then the bottom dropped out of the U.S. and other national economies. Millions of U.S. construction workers were laid off. Some chose, or fell into, a period of living off government unemployment benefits. Some found sporadic construction work. Others found entirely new areas of work.
It is this latter group who will be the survivors in the coming years. Because they adapted. They did not limit themselves to thinking only "I do concrete" or "I do drywall." They were willing to accept that while their last job in construction required specific skills needed in the construction industry, they were not limited to that. Survivors see themselves as possessors of skills that can be applied in many, many areas, and do not limit themselves to thinking "I do this and only this."
But what of the others? What of the construction workers who did not find other positions, or fell into government welfare?
Perhaps no jobs were available. In some rural areas this is a real possibility. Or, perhaps jobs were available but they paid less than what the previous job paid. This is very probable. The dark underbelly of our pathetically slow, anemic jobs recovery is that the new jobs are primarily in service industries (a fancy way of saying "low-paying, fast-food and retail jobs"). Or, perhaps the worker discovered that government unemployment benefits pay even more than working. This has been a rational economic decision for many people. Everyone will choose the biggest income option of those available. But, there is a dark side to the upside of unemployment welfare: the longer you are out of work, the more difficult it will be to find a new job. It is a depressing dilemma.
After a prolonged period of unemployment one does become a dinosaur. The stigma, the loss of existing skills, the inability to obtain new skills eventually can be fatal as one fails to adapt, and merely adopts a passive posture. Dinosaurs don't buy iPads. They don't change. They don't learn. They don't adapt to new realities. That is why they are not here today.
A new reality in the construction industry is that it is opening a whole set of employment opportunities that have not been around for five years. Perhaps this is a time you can return to this industry. Perhaps you have never worked in construction, but it could be a worthy area to explore. You don't have to know how to frame a roof. Construction companies needs administrative office help, inventory, procurement, accounting and contract sourcing help.
Adapt. It's all about whether you are willing to think outside your old title or job name, and adapt.
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