Miller Mondays: Nuts and Bolts, part 2

After my brief hiatus, I am back with Part 2 of "Nuts and Bolts" from Dan Miller's 48 Days to the Work You Love Career Kit.



We left off last time after discussing resume writing and developing a creative job search strategy.  This time, we'll talk about the interview and salary negotiating process.

The main points for this week are:

1.  The interview is a selling process.  You are in sales now - you are selling yourself!

2.  Interviewing means "to see about each other."  This is also a time for you to learn more about the company

3.  Most hiring decisions are made very early in the interview.  First impressions are essential!

4.  The first salary/benefit package offered is often open for negotiation.  By all means, negotiate!

First and foremost, it is important to understand that a person who does not interview well will not receive a job offer.  The interview is so essential - you must present yourself with confidence (but not too much).  You are there to tell the interviewer why you are the absolute best candidate for the job (without coming off as a snobby know-it-all).  It's hard to convince them that you are the best candidate when you are dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, or when most sentences start with "um, well..."

First impressions are so important.  Watch your clothing choices, hygiene, breath, you name it.  Watch your etiquette and (obviously) your language.  Watch your body language.  No slouching in your chair, no crossing your arms across your chest, things like this that may make you appear to be disinterested or closed off.  It's the little things that say the most.

Make sure you are prepared for the interview.  It is important to know yourself well.  The early parts of this process were focused on introspection - identifying the skills and abilities that you have that make you an attractive candidate for any job that you want.  Use this information now!  What can you do well, better than anyone else?  What are your values, and how are they reflected in your activities, both inside and outside your work life?  What are your dreams and passions?  Can you communicate these well to a potential employer?

There are a few common interview questions, and you should have answers prepared for them.  When you are asked to "Tell me a little about yourself," the interviewer does not want to hear, "What do you want to know?" in response.  You should have an answer ready that includes a brief personal background, education/work history, career highlights and professional achievements, and why you are looking for new opportunities.

When you are asked to talk about your weaknesses, please don't say that you don't have any.  We all do.  My biggest weakness is patience.  I have had a chance to work on that during my residency training, but it is still a problem for me.  (Something about the slower Midwest pace of life compared to the go-go-go pace I was used to in New England.)  Recognize that you have weaknesses, and tell them what you have done/are doing to improve here.

What are your strengths?  You should be as familiar, if not more, with your strengths as you are with your weaknesses.  If you can't communicate your strengths to a potential employer, how are they supposed to see what your strengths are?

You should also know the basic information about the company you are interviewing with.  Review the company's website at a bare minimum to familiarize yourself with the basics.  The more information you have, the more questions you can ask.  Asking questions (at the appropriate time in the interview), and the questions you ask, often can create a stronger impression than how you answer questions earlier in the interview.

Make sure you know where you are going, and who you are meeting.  Show up a few minutes early, but not too early (5-15 minutes is sufficient).  Do not be late.  If you have the option, schedule your interview for Tuesday-Thursday mornings.  Surveys have shown that most hiring decisions are made before 11:00 am.

Basic rules to remember?  Smile.  Be pleasant and outgoing.  Be self-confident.  Do not speak poorly of previous employers or coworkers.  Show interest in the company and the interviewer.  Know your resume thoroughly and be prepared to elaborate.  This all sounds basic, but as I said earlier, it's the little things that count!

After the interview, send a thank-you note the next day.  This creates another contact point, and helps with top-of-mind positioning.  In the note, say that you will follow up by phone on a specific date and time.  Do follow up when you say you will.  Continue to make follow up phone calls once a week or so until a decision has been made.  Don't pester, but be persistent.

Okay, now you've had the interview and been offered the job.  What's next?  Negotiate!

Most companies will offer a salary/benefit package that is less than what they have budgeted for the position.  Keep in mind that the salary is determined by the job responsibilities, not by your education, experience, or your previous salary.  The salary package should not come up in the interview process until the company has decided that it wants to hire you, and you have decided that you want the job.  If the interviewer brings this up too soon, simply say something like, "Let's talk about the position a little more to see if there is a match."  Once you have decided that you do want this job, you can bring it up again.

Dan has a long list of things that can fall under "compensation," including a company car, country club membership, life insurance, medical/dental/vision insurance, profit sharing, etc etc etc, all the way to a free parking spot and unlimited M&Ms.  (I'm a fan of the M&M compensation.)  What is reasonable for benefits depends on the company you will be working for, and on your needs/wants.

When you enter into negotiations, it is important to know what comparable salaries are for this type of position.  Use this as your bargaining position, not the salary you made at your previous job.  While you should have some fun with this process, there are a few important things to keep in mind.  First, you must make the company money.  If your salary request is more than they can expect to make from your work, they will not hire you.  Second, your compensation package relates directly to your level of responsibility within the company.  Third, the company is trying to negotiate, too.  Their first offer is typically not their final.  Fourth, get your package agreement in writing, with all the details.

Great!  Got the job?  Got the compensation package?  Now get to it!

But, wait...  What if I don't want a "traditional" job?

Come back next week for the section I have been looking forward to "Maybe I don't want a traditional job!"

Miller Mondays: Nuts and Bolts, Part 1

Welcome back to Miller Mondays!  We have been discussing material from the book 48 Days to the Work You Love, byDan Miller.

The next section, Nuts and Bolts, deals with writing your resume, identifying the companies you would like to work for, getting and performing on the interview, and negotiating salary.  This section gets into lots of details, so I thought I would break it up into two parts.  This week we'll go over resume writing and a company search.

The main points for this week are:

1.  Having a clear personal understanding and focus is 85% of the process.

2.  The resume is a sales tool for where you are going.

3.  The creative job search strategy is your most powerful tool to get the job you want.

A resume should not be the tool that gets you the job.  Your resume should be the tool that makes the company want to interview you.  The resume is selling you, but is only giving enough information that people want to learn more about you.  The way you structure your resume and the information you choose to include will position you for landing the interviews you want.

This 85% number keeps coming up.  Remember when we said that 85% of the reasons for success were due to personal characteristics and skills?  Remember last week when we worked on identifying these skills?  Now is one of the times when they come into play.

Most resumes only get 30-40 seconds of time.  You need to use yours to make an impression.  A generic objective statement at the top of the page is not the way to do this.  Consider starting your resume with a skills summary.  Transferable skills are the basic units of whatever career you choose.  Transferable skills are learned in one job/career, in one context, but can easily be transferred to another context and even career.  Good with organization?  Have some computer skills?  Learn how to do accounting?  Have you been a teacher or a trainer?  Use these skills to market yourself into the position you want next.
Don't particularly like the careers you have had in the past?  Looking for a change?  What transferable skills have you developed in your previous jobs that can carry over to other career paths?  Be creative here - there is lots of room for change!

Many jobs are never advertised at all.  Any job that is advertised is seen by hundreds of people (possibly tens of thousands if it's posted on the internet).  How can you compete with these numbers?  Did you know that the best jobs often aren't advertised at all?  So how can you go about finding the 87% of jobs that are never advertised?

First, identify 30-40 target companies that you would like to work with.  Use your own criteria.  Close to home, size of company, lots of travel, type of business, etc.

Once you have these companies identified, send a letter of introduction.  This letter should be addressed to a specific person, not just to the Human Resources Department.  Most receptionists will give out the names of the people who do hiring; many times this information can be found on the internet.  Use this letter to introduce yourself and start name recognition.  Tell them that you will be sending a resume in the next few days.

Send a cover letter and resume, addressed to the same person.  Do not end your letter with a generic phrase like, "I am looking forward to hearing from you regarding an opportunity with your company."  Instead, give them a specific date when you will call for a follow-up discussion (4-5 days after sending the resume).  This takes the need for initiative off the company, and places it on you.

Then, don't forget to call!  Call on the day you said you would call.  Remind them that you sent a resume a few days ago.  Tell them that you are very interested in what their company does, and you feel your skills would be an asset.  Ask when you can come in to speak to them.  This step builds on the name recognition we started with the introductory letter, and gives you top-of-mind positioning, compared to the people who simply sent resumes with no follow-up phone call.

According to Dan, if you only send cover letters and resumes, you will need to send out 254 resumes to gave a statistical chance of getting any job offer.  If you add a follow-up phone call to the cover letter and resume, you only need to send 15 resumes to get a job offer.  Remember, your resume is a tool to sell you; the goal of the resume is to get you the interview, not to land you the job.

Next week - preparing for the interview and negotiating salary.