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Andrew:  One of my biggest obstacles is getting through the initial phone interview and on to a face-to-face interview.   What do I need to know to ace the phone interview?

I’ve interviewed hundreds of human resources professionals.  HR professionals are trained experts whose jobs depend on hiring the best possible talent for their employer.

A phone interview is usually conducted as a preliminary step in the hiring process; an HR recruiter has seen something on a resume that sparked their interest and is calling to get more information before the candidate is asked to attend a more formal, face-to-face interview.

Make no mistake: a phone interview is an interview.  Even though it is over the phone, it is an important first opportunity for you to make a great impression and be invited to the next step in the interview process.

Here are some tips on how to ace the phone interview.

1.)    Don’t wing it.  Most likely, you will receive a phone call from a recruiter asking to talk about position X with company Y.  Under most circumstances you will want to politely ask to call them back at a mutually scheduled time.

Why?  There’s a good chance you are not in front of your resume when they call and most likely you do not have the job description in front of you.  You might be driving, at the store, or somewhere else. In addition, if you are like most job seekers, you’ve been applying for a lot of jobs and it can be hard to keep track of each position. You want to be in a comfortable space with both your resume and the specific job description in front of you and you want to have given yourself the opportunity to review in detail the job description they are calling about.

2.)    The preliminary phone interview will be aimed at specific areas of your background and experience.  They are determining if you meet the key qualifications to be considered amongst those candidates that will be asked to a face-to-face interview.  Remember, the HR professional doesn’t want to waste anyone’s time – yours or the department they are representing – they need to make sure the candidates they are ranking have the right qualifications.  Be prepared to talk about specific dates in your work history, companies you’ve worked for and your specific levels of experience.

3.)    Be prepared to talk generally about your salary requirements and other job-specific details.  A big part of the phone interview is to feel you out to make sure you are on the same wavelength with the company about the job.  HR recruiters don’t want to take you through the time and effort of the job interview process and then find out later that your salary requirements are much higher than what’s being offered.  In addition, they might explore other job-related requirements: Is being on the road 30% of the year okay with you?  Are you comfortable with possible relocation?  Are you okay with the commute?  Are you okay working under contract for the first three months?

4.)    Don’t be shy to ask about the job interview process so you know what to expect. It is reasonable to ask when you should expect to hear back and about the interview process.  It is also reasonable for you to ask about the salary and benefit package if the recruiter does not bring it up.  You also want to make sure that you are not wasting YOUR time.

5.)    Try to get contact information of the person who is calling.  You want to respond with a thank you note/email and to be able to reach out later if you have not heard back.  Remember, even if you do not make it to the next step, it is a good idea to keep in contact with the recruiter. You might see a different job at the company later on that you recognize as a good fit and it is helpful to have a contact there.

As a job seeker, it seems rather abstract to think of yourself as a ‘product,’ but in fact, much like a brand of peanut butter, an automobile or a type of orange juice, as the job seeker ‘product’ you too are trying to satisfy the desires and requirements of a specific target audience.  And in the employment marketplace, your target audience also has a lot of choices to consider.

In the job seeking marketplace, you must compete strategically to persuade and influence your audience’s perception of what you have to offer so that you will get the upper hand in the interview and ultimately, the job offer.

So it is important to consider the ‘brand’ of your product.

One of the most common strategies in successful branding is to develop a believable brand promise that creates a positive perception about a product in the eyes of the targeted audience the product seeks to influence.  As a job seeker, you must develop a strong, consistent and believable brand promise about what your ‘product’ has to offer in terms of skills, talents, experiences, accomplishments and, of course, how these things differentiate you from your competition.

As a ‘product’ in the employment marketplace, we have the power to create our own brand promise and influence the perception of a targeted audience – in the job seeker’s case, the audience being a potential employer.

The successful brand will trigger a response from the targeted audience, which will initiate a call back for an interview and ultimately, if the job seekers is successful in demonstrating the relevance of their brand promise to the position they are applying, a job offer.

The resume, the cover letter and the interview are the three most common touch point opportunities a job seeker has to influence an employer’s perception and opinion.  The job seeker wants to persuade the employer that s/he matches the requirements of the job posting in every way – from the experience, the talents, the qualifications, the skills and expertise; and prove added value to the company and to the department.

In most cases of job postings, it’s not too difficult to  determine the most essential requirements and skills the employer is searching for. But in each stage, it is up to the job seeker to connect their relevance to the job posting’s requirements.

The resume and the cover letter are the first touch points and it is up to the job seeker to make the connection from the job posting requirements to their ‘brand’ in order to influence an employer to contact them.

The interview is commonly the most difficult part for job seekers.  It is at this point where you must translate in a person-to-person conversation the elements of your ‘brand promise’ that came across in the resume and cover letter that influenced the employer to contact you (trial) for an interview.

Dear Andrew:  I’ve been a working professional for more than 20 years and was recently laid off.  I’ve been following your site, applying for jobs and networking like crazy.  My problem?  I don’t have a college degree.  Seven years ago, I was half-way through college and began an internship my junior year and it quickly turned into a full time job and I put my degree ambitions on hold.  I always told myself I was going to go back to school, but never did.  Now, I find that many of the jobs I know I’m qualified for require a college degree.  I can’t lie, but how do I make my real-world experience count for something.  Should I get a college degree?

Bottom line – yes! Get a college degree!

The dilemma of not having a college degree is faced by many job seekers. It becomes particularly difficult because of those dreaded Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) that are programmed to ask qualifying questions. In the case of a college degree, if that’s a requirement, even if you have ‘real-world’ experience, you most likely will never be considered if you don’t have one.

In today’s economy, the skills and expertise you obtain from going to college pays off in big ways.

Consider this:

If you are from the baby boomer generation, you are one of about 76 million people that were born in the United States between 1946 and 1964.  Baby boomers make up more than a third of the nation’s work force and fill many of its most skilled and senior jobs. However, these college-educated, highly skilled boomers will be leaving the workforce in droves over the next 10 years and as a matter of fact, the first class of baby-boomers reached retirement age last year.

Now consider this:

There were only 46 million born in the era following the baby boomers, known as Generation X.

While this huge gap is one of the things work force planners worry about, it also provides the greatest opportunities for younger workers, particularly those with a college degree.

If you have a college degree, your chances of finding a job are improved overall.  I know a lot of people whose liberal arts degree has no connection to their current career.  In these cases, employers might require a degree simply an indicator that you took the time and dedication to get the degree, or it is simply an across-the-board equalizer for employees or job candidates. In other cases, degrees are required because they are specific to the position, whether it be scientific or technical in nature or requires a specific training and accreditation, such as teaching.

Now I know there are stories of great and successful people who never got a college degree. I know of a few successful people who never earned a college degree. But these are the exceptions; the majority of professional, white collar jobs require you have a college degree and your chances of success are improved greatly by having a college degree.

For those who think that obtaining a college degree is too expensive think about this: According to the US Census Bureau, during a lifetime, the average earnings of a person with a Bachelors degree is $2.1 million.  The average lifetime earnings for a person whose education stopped at a high school diploma is $1.2 million – almost $1 million less!

How do you complete that degree program you started?  Here are some suggestions:

If you are currently employed, find out if your employer offers a tuition reimbursement program.  Often, employers are willing to foot part of the bill for you to gain new skills.  Now is the time to take advantage of this benefit.  It is often as simple as filling out the paperwork.

One big advantage is that the traditional culture of college today is very different than what you may have experienced 10 years ago.  For example, you can earn or complete a Bachelors or a Masters degree from one of Colorado’s most respected colleges through CSU Global.
Part of the Colorado State University system, CSU Global is Colorado’s only online-oriented campus.  While many colleges might allow you to take a few online classes as part of a degree program, CSU Global is designed specifically as an online campus and is set up so that you can get the most from an online educational setting.

CSU Global offers an 8-week course format and multiple start dates that allow students to start when the time is right for them.  For the adult learner, the convenience of 100% online classes is ideal, particularly for those who work full time, have families and are unable to get to a traditional campus.

CSU Global’s degree programs provide real knowledge for real world applications in career-relevant, accredited degree programs.  A quality degree from a reputable institution really does matter to employers and also provides you with the competitive edge you need to succeed.

Recently, CSU-Global announced five new online bachelor’s degrees and two new online master’s degrees designed to provide students with career-relevant skills and knowledge. Each new online degree was developed for an industry of rapid growth where highly qualified employees are in demand and each has been fully accredited by The Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. The new degrees are:

• Bachelor of Science in Accounting
• Bachelor of Science in Communication
• Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice and Law Enforcement Administration
• Bachelor of Science in Healthcare Administration and Management
• Bachelor of Science in Interdisciplinary Professional Studies
• Master of Criminal Justice and Law Enforcement Administration
• Master of Healthcare Administration and Management

Their Bachelor’s degree programs are designed specifically for students who either have Associates degrees from a 2-year college or for students who want to complete a degree program they may have already started earlier in their lives.  CSU Global allows credit hours already earned at another college to be used towards the completion of your degree at CSU Global. In addition, the online campus experience is designed to provide the maximum interactivity. All of the classes are online and through this unique experience you communicate with your professors and other students from throughout the globe in tailored online chat rooms at times that are most convenient to you. CSU Global is also one of the most affordable ways to finish your degree and provides a full range of assistance to help you apply for student loans and scholarships.

Click below to find out more about CSU Global.

About CSU Global
Degree Programs
Admissions
Tuition and Aid

Andrew -

It happened again.  I saw the most perfect job!  I had all the right qualifications, experience and skills and the company was exactly where I saw myself working.  I was so excited as I wrote my resume and cover letter!

I waited and waited and I didn’t hear a peep!  Not an email, a phone call or even a form letter.

Why don’t employers call me back?!!  It is so frustrating and I feel like I keep sending my resumes to the proverbial black hole!

Perplexed in Superior

Dear Perplexed:

One of the most common complaints and the most frustrating experiences for job seekers is finding the perfect job posting, putting your blood, sweat and tears into your resume and cover letter, following all the application instructions to make sure it is sent in on time and then not hearing back from the company!

The job seeker is then left to sulk and rationalize as to ‘why’; and then the voices start.
My resume stunk.
I’m too old.
I’m too young.
I’m over qualified.
I asked for too much money.
My resume didn’t reach the company.
Should I call? The job posting says no calls!
I’m no good.

And on and on and on it goes…..and before we know it, these ‘stinking thinking’ thoughts have dampened your confidence, courage and overall self esteem.

So why don’t companies call back?  It seems simple enough. Send everyone who applies an automatic response that says something like:

“Thanks for applying. We are honored you want to work for us.  We’ll be reviewing resumes through June 30 and then making some decisions and will contact you if we believe you are the right fit moving forward.  If you don’t hear back from us, please know that we truly appreciate your interest in working for us and will keep your resume on file.  Again, thanks for applying!”

At the very least, this response lets the job seeker know that the resume was received and that there is a date in which decisions will be made.

But a lot of employers choose not to respond to resumes that have been submitted and believe it or not, it usually has nothing to do with you personally or professionally.  It has more to do with the process of applying and how companies go about searching for talent.

For example:

•    You’ll see a few job postings in today’s list that say something like ‘…we will accept resumes until such-and-such a date or until we receive X number of resumes.’   OK – so that’s the clue to get your resume in quickly….for all job postings!  The fact is that HR offices are overwhelmed with resumes applying for the various positions they post.  HR executives have told me that many times, they will only review the first 50/75/100 etc. resumes simply because they don’t have the bandwidth to review more than that and they are usually successful in identifying candidates in that first batch of resumes.

•    Computerized Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) are searching for keywords and phrases in each resume and will identify the candidates with the highest ranking for the position. Yes, a computer is determining if you will be hired!  Some may call it cold and heartless, but HR execs call it efficient.  If your resume does not match the keywords and phrases the company is looking for, your resume most likely will never be seen by an HR recruiter. How do you overcome this? The job posting is a road map for the job.  In your resume and cover letter, use EXACT keywords and phrases listed under requirements, qualifications, years of experience, background, etc.

•    The job is not ‘real.’  Yes, it’s true, from time to time, companies post jobs that have either already been filled internally or positions that are not going to be filled at all.  Often, it’s a diversity requirement to appear that their hiring practices are fair, but in reality, they have different motives in mind.  But, they can say they posted the job and it was advertised to a ‘wide-net’ audience.

•    The HR recruiter has identified someone outside of the pool of candidates that have applied.  In fact, over 60% of new hires come from referrals. Often the referrals are from an employee of the company through their referral bonus program where employees get paid if they successfully refer someone to be hired.  Other times, it is simply through networking where a candidate has heard about a job and has worked his networks to have calls placed and secured an interview.  The important thing for all job seekers is to try and identify people you know – former colleagues, bosses, neighbors, whoever! – and make connections to the company this way.

•    Should you call if the posting says “no calls” but you haven’t heard back?  Absolutely!  Wait at least two weeks and if you haven’t heard back, contact the company and make sure your resume was received.  Try to contact either the HR department or the hiring department.  Be very polite and explain you’ve sent in a resume and hadn’t heard back and wanted to know the status of the position.

Bottom Line:  Keep applying and keep confident in what you have to offer to employers.  Your education, experience, background, accomplishments etc. are valuable and sooner or later you will find the perfect fit!

New study finds well-organized resumes get first glance

A recent published study by my friends at http://www.theladders.com sheds a new light on how recruiters review resumes they receive for open positions.  Click here to read the synopsis.

In the past, the standard initial resume review time as self-reported by HR professionals averaged 3-4 minutes. The Ladders followed 30 recruiters for 10 weeks (or more accurately, it followed their eyes using eyetracking gear) and it turns out that recruiters on average spend only 6 seconds on the initial resume screening.

Only 6 seconds!  That is the average time a recruiter in the study spent to decide if your resume went into the initial ‘yes’ pile or the ‘no’ pile.

In short, the study confirms what we’ve talked about here before on AH Jobs List before: Resumes must be succinct, easy to follow, written with confident language and relevant and specific connections to the job you are applying. The study also confirmed that it is important to create your resume with strategic, visual patterns that allow the reader to quickly grasp ‘bursts’ of relevant information.

In fact, the study says, “…recruiters tend to follow a consistent visual path when reviewing both resumes and online profiles, so an organized layout is crucial. Because professionally written resumes have a clear visual hierarchy and present relevant information where recruiters expect it, these documents quickly guide recruiters to a yes/no decision.”

The study’s “gaze tracking” technology showed that recruiters spent almost 80% of their resume review time on the following data points:

* Name
* Current Title/company
* Previous title/company
* Previous position start/end dates
* Current position start/end dates
* Education

CLICK ON IMAGE FOR LARGER VIEW There was a 60% improvement in how recruiters responded to professionally written resumes compared to self-written resumes.

A final point of the study is that self-written resumes fared much worse than resumes written by a professional. For most job seekers, it is difficult to understand their key areas that make a resume ‘pop’ for success. Professional resume writers have experience in understanding the critical points of your background, expertise and accomplishment and more importantly, they know how to craft a resume that helps to define these important areas of your history that will grab a recruiter’s attention.

According to the study, “…..the ‘gaze trace’ of recruiters was erratic when they reviewed a poorly organized resume, and recruiters experienced high levels of cognitive load (total mental activity), which increased the level of effort to make a decision. Professional resumes had less data, were evenly formatted and were described as ‘clearer.’”

So what can you do to improve your resume?

1.) Invest in having your resume created or re-done by a professional.

2.) Don’t try to get creative. Photos, info graphs, or other clutter are a distraction.  Specific jobs that require creative work will ask for portfolios or other examples of your work.

3.) Make your resume easy to read. It should have a natural rhythm that allows the recruiter to easily understand your career progression based on the six points mentioned above.  In fact, the recruiters in this study responded positively to ‘bursts’ of informational bullet points that helped them to easily grasp the career history and the experience the resumes were touting as relevant to the job opening.

Andrew:
I’m unhappy with my job.  I’ve been here for 6 years, the pay is OK, but the work environment sucks!  I’m surrounded by power and money-hungry bosses which has created a toxic, back-stabbing culture!  I’ve witnessed illegal things here and I’ve personally been the subject of sexual harassment.  I feel guilty even feeling this way knowing that there are a lot of people out there who are unemployed, but I feel more guilt enduring behavior and a culture that is completely contrary to my personal values.  I dread going to work and I have no sense of pride or accomplishment when I leave.  What should I do?
– Bored in Denver

Dear Bored:
This is a pretty common complaint. You HAVE a job, it’s a paycheck so you should be happy and quit complaining, right?

But actually, its not that simple.  As a matter of fact, of the 25,000 subscribers on AH Jobs List, 60% are CURRENTLY EMPLOYED!  That’s right, 6 out of 10 currently employed professionals are regularly looking for a different job!

Let’s face it: All too often, our lives are our jobs.  Our self identity is tied to what we do for a living.  We spend more time at the office with our colleagues than we do with our spouses, kids and significant others.  When you think of it this way,  it is a totally acceptable expectation to be happy and fulfilled with your work. In fact, far too many people forget to take a gut check about their jobs and ask themselves if they are fulfilled and if not, why and what can be done about it.

In many ways, a job is like a relationship.  Everyone remembers those first few months at a new job.  It is exciting, challenging and fun.  There’s the ‘newness’ factor of meeting new people, learning new things and being part of a new team; you getting to know your new colleagues and them getting to know you.

But eventually, what was once ‘new’ now seems routine.

People who you work with who were once fun and exciting now appear normal and boring.  The energy and creativity you brought to the job screeches to a halt when it meets the hard, cold reality of entrenched bureaucracies, policies, procedures and budgets.  Throw in a good dash of passive-aggressive personalities and office politics and it doesn’t take long for you to begin wondering if you made the right decision committing to this new job.

So, as you consider your future ask yourself if your core values match your job, your company’s culture and your overall profession in terms of doing what you really WANT to be doing. In addition, use these tips as you consider applying for a job to make sure that they are in line with the job you are taking.

Values important to being happy at work:

Being paid what you are worth.  For many people I’ve met, money is not the most important thing; however, believing that they are being paid what they are worth is critical to feeling valued at work. It is reasonable to be compensated fairly in terms of your skills, your years of experience, your education, your accomplishments and how much you contribute to the team and the company in general.

Doing what you WANT to do.  This one seems simple but it is easy to feel unhappy at work if you are not doing what you want to do. If you have skills and expertise that are not being utilized in your job, it is easy to get bored or worse, resentful and unmotivated. Talk to your boss and find out if there’s a position that you can cross-apply to at your company where you can use the skills that will keep you fulfilled.

Being recognized for the work you perform.  It’s easy to feel like a bump on a log if you are not recognized for the work you perform. Yes, most employees are required to perform exemplary work and shouldn’t expect a pat on the back for EVERY thing that is expected of you. But when you’ve put in overtime after hours and on the weekend, volunteered for the new project no one else wanted, helped solve an unexpected client crisis or anything else that is above and beyond your normal duties, you should be recognized.  If you are not, it is easy to feel under-appreciated and it can easily turn to resentment and unhappiness.

Respecting your colleagues and your bosses.  You work hard and value honest and integrity but you constantly see your colleagues flaunt company policies and display boorish and unacceptable civil decorum. It could be a boss with an anger management problem who yells at everyone creating an environment of anxiety and tension. You witness regular sexual harassment by a superior and don’t feel there’s anything you can do about it. Your colleague constantly pads his expense report or takes an extra 45 minutes at lunch. You witness an inappropriate romantic relationship that results in an unfair promotion.

Respecting your company.  It is important that the values of the organization you work for are in line with your own values. Often I hear stories from employees who work at companies they claim are unethical. They witness client bill padding, illegal financial reporting, or excessive officer bonuses. These types of work conditions are reflective of the company’s overall culture and in general, are easy to detect. A culture of success is not a culture of do anything necessary (even if it is unethical or illegal) to show profits.

Life/Work balance.  While somewhat cliché, there are things that can help us to balance our professional lives and our personal lives. Often it simply starts with our commute in the morning. Spending an extra two hours on clogged highways to get back and forth to work is not a great way to start and end your work day.  Some people love to travel, others feel that spending two weeks out of the month away from their family is unacceptable. Feeling as if you are always having to put in extra time after hours and on the weekend and not being able to concentrate on your family, hobbies or other priorities is a one-way ticket on the burnout express.

Hey Andrew – I was recently laid off.  I gave 15 years of my life to this company and thought I was a model employee.  I added value with my talents, motivated others with my enthusiasm and had progressed into three higher level management positions.  As a matter of fact my boss cried when she told me the company was ‘reorganizing’ and my job was being eliminated.

It hit me out of left field.  I was surprised – shocked actually – and then started experiencing emotions I never even knew existed.  A combination of anger, denial, hurt, sadness, embarrassment, ego-shattering failure and humiliation, betrayal, frustration, fear and, in some cases rage.

Fortunately, my employer gave me a couple months of severance, but now that this is running out, I realize I need to get my job-seeking mojo happening.   My problem?  I just can’t get into the job-seeking groove.  I’m overwhelmed with insecurity about my age, the quality of my resume, my skills, etc.  I got off to a good start and sent out a half a dozen resumes and I had two interviews with companies but they didn’t lead to a job.   Now I’m finding myself always finding an excuse to do things other than looking for a job.

What can I do to get motivated?

– Down in the Dumps in Denver

Hey DDD –

The first thing you need to realize is that what you are experiencing is completely normal.   Psychologists tell me that the range of emotions you go through when you lose a job is often more difficult than experiences of a divorce or the loss of a loved one.  

Let’s face it: Our jobs are a major part of our lives and we are often identified with what we do for a living.  We also are so used to our daily routines and the habits of our job as well as our work relationships with colleagues, vendors and clients.  The cold, heartless experience of being laid off is a major shock to the system.   Getting used to NOT going to the place you’ve called work for 15 years takes some adjustment.

And on top of that, you are now somehow supposed to sweep all of those difficult emotions under the bed and put on a happy face and find a new job!

There are a lot coping tools that people use to move forward in such a rotten set of circumstances.

Here are five things you can start doing right now.

1.)    Surround yourself with friends.   Friends will let you grieve what you are going through and let you express your emotions in full.  Friends are people you can call at any moment to get some advice, bounce ideas off of, to give you frank and truthful feedback and are people who can you trust are honestly looking out for your best interests.

2.)    Don’t lose your sense of power or control over your life.  Yes, the fates have dealt you a tremendous blow.  Remember, the trauma you are going through is IN your life.  It is not your WHOLE life.  It is important to keep this perspective as you move forward.  You lost a job.  You didn’t lose your skills, your experience, your accomplishments, your expertise.  It might not seem like it, but you do have a lot of power; power to decide your future, power to do something with your life that YOU want to do. You have the control to determine the next direction you want your career to go.  Don’t allow yourself to accept being a victim to serve as an excuse for not moving forward.

3.)    Get out of the house.  Socialize.  Hang out with friends. Go to networking groups.  Call up former colleagues.  Let folks know you are on the market and looking for your next opportunity.  Sign up for a class to learn a new skill.  Make some cold calls to companies you are interested in.  Attend a lecture or a job seeking seminar.  Limit the amount of time you are spending on your computer looking for a job to only 20%.  The rest of the time be engaged and social in your job search.

4.)    Healthy body, healthy mind.  Yes, this is the BEST time to concentrate on your health.  It is a fact doing something physical for only 30 minutes a day will put you in a better mood, will provide you with clarity of thought and will give you an amazing boost of energy. Working out is inexpensive to do and the benefits of becoming healthy are off the charts.  Take regular walks.  Lift weights or do yoga.  Eat well.  Train for a 5k or if you are feeling really ambitious, train for a half or full marathon!   You will see that your getting-healthy goals quickly become aligned with your job-seeking goals.  

5.)    Create your personal vision for the next chapter in your life and go for it.  Many people who are laid off say “I just need a new job!”  However, those that approach this hiccup in their life as an opportunity to create a new vision for themselves are ultimately more happy and more successful in their job search.   Instead of asking yourself “What do I want to do?”  Ask yourself, “What’s my vision for my new job that will allow me to contribute my skills and talents in a way that is going create more meaning in my life?”  It’s a very different question and puts you in the driver’s seat for your future ambitions.  You then can start searching out the types of things that you WANT to do that are relevant to your skills and background but you also will begin searching for companies that reflect your values and the vision you created for yourself.

Remember, there’s a long list of successful people in this world who have been laid off, fired or have experienced failure of some sort.  They’ve learned from the experience and used it as leverage to push themselves up even higher.  Your rebound will require all of the strengths of your personality, your fire-in-the-gut attitude and keeping the bigger perspective that this is part of the adventure of life.   Resilience and determination and motivation will soon follow.

Over the past two months, I sat on three interview panels to help different organizations in their hiring process.  In each case, these panels were interviewing mid-senior level candidates for positions of great responsibility.

I write and lecture a lot about self-branding and how to connect the relevant skills between a job seeker’s resume, cover letter and interviews; and participating in these panels reinforced my theories about successful job seekers and the things that job seekers do to sabotage their chances.

In general, the most successful candidates created a ‘sigh-of-relief’ connection with the interview panel.

Following these interviews, the words and phrases that were used to describe the most capable candidates included:

• “Exactly what we were looking for; ready to go…”
• “Confident with bold answers to our questions…”
• “They would have a short learning curve and would fit in quickly.”
• “Really made me believe their skills were aligned with this job…”
• “She could solve our problem.”
• “They displayed specific experiences that are tied to this job.”
• “They really took the time to research and understand us.”

And while these described their capabilities, the ‘soft-skills’ of the successful candidates were described as:

• “I got a really good feeling from him.”
• “She had great energy and got me excited listening to her describe her history!”
• “She sounds like she’d be easy to get along with.”
• “He comes off as a good people person.”

For those that didn’t interview as well, the words and phrases used included:

• “Disappointed; based on their resume, I expected more…”
• “They were way too general – it made it sound as if they were making up answers and hoping we didn’t notice.”
• “He didn’t do much research on us.”
• “Wow – what a blown opportunity.”
• “Where do I go to get my 45 minutes back?”
• “He was so stern!  I wish he’d smile a bit and show us some likability.”
• “They were so nervous, it was difficult to understand their answers.”
• “I never heard anything specific to how they could do the job.”
• “They were trying so hard, they sounded desperate.”
• “I felt they were lecturing me.”
• “They had problems even answering the softballs we threw them.”

An interview, for the most part, is a traditional sales pitch.  In a sales pitch, you must be the champion of your product; deftly and confidently describing and persuading why the benefits of your product create the strongest differentiators from your competition.  You are showing how your product will best help create a desired outcome – perhaps addressing a problem, increasing sales, or providing a specific result that is not available at the organization.

As a job seeker, an interview is the best opportunity to get a job offer.  In your discussion with employers, your goal is to capture their imagination and give them that ‘sigh of relief’ moment that says ‘the search is over, we’ve found the right employee for this job.”

Find more articles on interviewing strategy at www.andrewhudsonsjobsblog.com

To find the best jobs in Colorado, go to http://www.andrewhudsonsjobslist.com

Many job seekers feel as if they are powerless in a job interview.  

After all, you are the one ANSWERING questions, right?   It’s normal to feel as if you are shooting at an invisible target trying to connect your answer with what an interviewer wants to hear.

But actually, that’s the wrong approach.

You DO have a lot of power and opportunity in an interview. You CAN turn a one-way interview into a two-way conversation that is engaging, interesting and interactive and that creates a clear picture in the employer’s head of why you’d be successful in the job you are applying for.

The goal of an interview is to verbally connect the relevant threads that exist in your resume and cover letter to the job you are applying for.  In other words, the interviewers already have an idea about who you are from the resume and cover letter, now you have to create an ‘in-person’ perception that shows you are for real and that you can masterfully describe why your relevant skills, background, expertise and accomplishments are the right match for the job.

The job posting provides a map – read the job posting and know what 3-5 points are the most important to the employer.  In every touch point you have with the employer – through your resume, your cover letter and through your interviews – you are attempting to create a consistent perception that you are the best person to be hired.

If you think about it, you’ve already been qualified.  I mean, particularly in the final interview, you are one of maybe 3-5 final candidates who conceivably do the job if you were offered it.  So now, the interviewers are looking for the intangibles that they weren’t able to get off the resume.  Are you confident?  Is your personality the right fit for the culture of the company and the department?  Do you REALLY want to work for the company?  Can you weave your background into a believable scenario of how you fit at the company you are applying?

I’ve heard from many HR recruiters who have told me that the most difficult thing for them is to find someone whose resume is a true reflection of the job seeker in person.  One told me, “It’s like reading a really awesome book and then you go to see the movie version of the book and its nothing at all like the book!”   In other words, we can all spin a good yarn on paper, but can we tell the story in a compelling way out loud?

Believe me, I empathize with job seekers.  Talking out loud about yourself is the hardest thing to do.  You don’t want to brag and sound egotistical and you don’t want to understate yourself and sound desperate.

There’s a sweet spot that exists between arrogance and desperation: it’s called CONFIDENCE – knowing what you bring to the table and having a laser-like focus that connects your skills, differentiators, background and knowledge to the job and the company.  People respond to confidence – it gives them a sense of strength and reassurance in your qualifications.  Remember, those that are interviewing you are constantly imagining you in the position and whether it is a fit.  It is up to you to help create the picture in their minds that you are a good fit.

An important interview technique is “bridging.”

Bridging is a powerful means for taking charge of and controlling an interview. The goal of an interview is to focus the interviewer on a few key messages that are true, accurate, clear, concise, brief, and memorable. If done well, bridging significantly increases the probability that your key messages will get across.  By using bridging techniques, you can re-focus or re-direct the interview to the points that are most most important, relevant and critical to YOU.   Bridging phrases allows you to always bring back the topic to your core and confident focus areas – the issues that best describe your strengths and abilities.   Using bridging phrases also keeps you away from trying to answer a question in a way that you ASSUME they want to hear, but in a way that best connects your relevance to the job you are applying.

Here are some key bridging phases that you can practice and consider trying in your day-to-day discussions as well in your interviews.

• “And what’s most important to know is…”
• “However, what is more important to look at is…”
• “However, the real issue here is…”
• “And what this all means is…”
• “And what’s most important to remember is…”
• “With this in mind, if we look at the bigger picture…”
• “With this in mind, if we take a look back…”
• “If we take a broader perspective…”
• “If we look at the big picture…”
• “Let me put all this in perspective by saying…”
• “What all this information tells me is…”
•  “And that reminds me…”
• “And the one thing that is important to remember is…”
• “What I’ve said comes down to this…:
• “Here’s the real issue…”
• “Before we continue, let me take a step back and repeat that…”
• “Before we continue, let me emphasize that…”
• “This is an important point because…”
• “What this all boils down to…”
• “The heart of the matter is…”
• “What matters most in this situation is…”
• “And as I said before…”
• “And if we take a closer look, we would see…”
• “Let me just add to this that…”
• “I think it would be more correct to say…”
• “Let me point out again that…”
• “Let me emphasize again…”
• “In this context, it is essential that I note…”
• “Another thing to remember is…”
• “Before we leave the subject, let me add that…”
• “While…is important, it is also important to remember…”

Continued good luck in your job search!  Go to http://www.ahjobslist.com to look at the most updated jobs list in the Rocky Mountain Region.

So you see the perfect job!  You match the qualifications, have the background, industry experience and accomplishments.  You immediately fill out the online application and send off your resume and cover letter to the company outlining why you are their next rising star!

And then?

Zip.

Nada.

Nothing.

Not even a courtesy email saying your resume was received.

WHY?

A good guess is that a living, breathing human being never actually saw your resume.

Not getting a response back from an employer is the number one frustration amongst job seekers according to the hundreds of job seekers I’ve surveyed.  According to a recent survey by Information Strategies Inc., publisher of Your HR Digest, an online newsletter, only 19% of hiring managers at small companies actually look at a majority of the résumés they receive, and 47% say they review just a few.

The rise in the use of Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) is the main reason why.

The Wall Street Journal writes this morning about the widespread use of computerized Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) to screen resumes in their search for qualified job seekers.   You can read the entire article by clicking here.

Here’s basically how an ATS works: a corporate HR recruiter will program qualifying questions into corresponding fields that a job seeker is required to fill out on an online application.  A job seeker will then fill out the online application and the ATS will actively search for key words and phrases and then rank each applicant based on their responses.  In addition to the responses from the job seeker, the computer will also search for terms and words that are in the resumes and cover letters of the job seekers.

If you think that its not a fair process, you are not alone.  Even HR professional agree that they might be overlooking the best candidates.  But think about a large company: they are receiving literally millions of resumes per-year to fill perhaps only 50,000 openings.  Even with a large staff of HR recruiters, there’s simply not enough time to go through each resume.  On a smaller scale, a small business might have to wade through hundreds of resumes for one position.

For this reason, job seekers have to take control of the process by understanding how an ATS works and using that knowledge to better position their resume to get a higher ranking.

Customize each of your resumes sent to an employer in order to conform to the widespread use of Applicant Tracking Systems.  Search for keywords and phrases in the job posting and match your relevant skills, experiences and past jobs to the job you are applying.  Don’t be shy!  Use the EXACT phrases and words they are using in the job posting.  You are not trying to ‘trick’ the ATS, you are conforming the language that best describes you and fits the words and phrases they are specifically looking for.