How to alienate a recruiter..

Recruiters should be a candidate’s friend? After all there are no fees if they can’t fill the jobs. So they should treasure you and be delighted to hear from you on any occasion.  And what a recruiter thinks of you can make a significant difference to your career prospects, so why do candidates fail to build successful relationships with recruiters? What are the pitfalls of building a positive relationship with recruiters. How do candidates alientate  recruiters?

1. 1.       Don’t read the information provided. Many adverts include weblinks to further details.  Just calling up the recruiter without reading those details first makes you look idle.. you are soaking up the recruiters time when you could have answered the questions without bothering them.
2. 2.       Talk more than you listen. When you do speak to a recruiter about a vacancy, ask questions and listen to the answers. Yes,  you want to impress them but when candidates get onto ‘broadcast news’ and don’t listen, it can just suggest your ego is rather larger than you emotional intelligence.
3. 3.       Send a previously constructed CV and supporting material. Sometimes people send the wrong version and their paperwork has the name of the wrong organisation on it. This makes you look sloppy.  Or they send the same paperwork for every job they apply for.   This makes you look like a serial applicant and desperate rather than a ‘hot property’. Read any instructions about how to apply, follow them and tailor your application, carefully.
4. 4.       Applying for everything. Well clearly you are desperate if you do that and you are not thinking realistically about your  marketability in this current climate. It is fine to be ambitious but being overly ambitious is being foolhardy.
5. 5.       Fail to turn up for the interview. Well just failing to show needs no further comment.  But ringing the office on the morning of the interview and saying you are too busy is also a poor show.  Try at least to re-arrange.
6. 6.       Not doing your preparation. The job market is a generally still crowded. In the private sector there are skills shortages but in the public sector senior roles are over subscribed and there are lots of well experienced candidates, so showing up at an interview without having really done your preparation and researching the organisation will put you at a disadvantage and let your recruiter – who ahs recommended you be seen – down.
7. 7.       Being critical of the client/employer. However badly the employer has treated you, which you don’t deserve, the recruiter will want to have an enduring relationship  with that client. So sounding off, sending letters of complaints or claims for the ‘time wasted’ on the interview may make you feel better it will not improve the relationship between the client and the recruiter. And that will knock on to you.
8. 8.       Turning down an offer. Whilst I often say to coachees ‘you don’t have to accept it’ (and you don’t) turning down an offer will not endear you to the recruiter. Their job is to present a great short list, part of their ‘due diligence’ is to make sure you are a solid and firm candidate. So rejecting an offer for no good reason (and the only good ones are another offer or failing to agree terms with them) you will upset your recruiter.
9. 9.       Pester the recruiter to find you a job. Executive search consultants  make their money from the clients and to make more money they need to get more clients not candidates. Once you are in their database and their brain then let them get on with finding more clients to put you in front of rather than making weekly calls to ‘catch up’.

No doubt when you have been reading thinking… I would never do this… great.. build great rapport with your recruiters and be a fabulous candidate! And have  a great career!

Power up your networking skills - workshop

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If your resolution is to get out more....

If you need to develop your confidence as a networker...

 

Are you a networking virgin?
Do you loath the thought of it?
Are you keen to start but not sure how?
What is networking?
How do successful networkers do it?
Is it critical to career success?
Are you just wishing you did not have to?

If you are asking those questions but don't have the answers then this workshop is for you!
22 January, Central London, afternoon and at a bargain price.

By the end of the session you will have a strategy which will be comfortable to you, you will have

• developed your own unique approach to extending your network- not everyone subscribes to the philosophy of 'Never Eat Alone'  - work out what will work for you
• planned your strategy on how to extend your contact list - the more 'weak ties' you have the better your chances of finding the information or opportunities you want
• developed and practised your elevator pitch - in other words know what it is you want others to know and how to say it
• learned how to change your mindset, what's holding you back? how can you develop a positive mindset towards this strategy?
• integrated social media into your strategy- does one have to tweet? blog? poke? put oneself onto the www?

Come and learn these techniques and find new confidence in your strategy.
A special half day workshop for networking innocents or the reluctant networker. Only  £125

contact me on www.maryhopecareersuccess.com/contact/

 

Related articles

• The power and potential of networking
• How to Perfect Your Elevator Pitch For Your Business - 5 Tips
• How to network with the best-connected people at an event

Lessons for your next interview from Dragon’s Den, can you do the interview numbers?

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Watching Dragons Den, there are a number of points when you can see that the Dragons lose interest. One of the critical ones is when they start exploring the numbers. Sometimes the reason they don’t invest is that the numbers just don’t stack up. There is no profit to be had. Another reason they don’t invest is that people don’t know their numbers. Or are confused about the numbers and what they mean. Over and over, under the pressure of the interview, people lose the plot about their costs, revenues and profits.

When you think about it, that makes perfect sense, the Dragons are putting their personal money into someone elses’s business. If that person does not know the difference between, turnover, profit, and margin then why would anyone have confidence in the individual’s ability to increase margin, build turnover and deliver profit? Knowing the numbers is critical to success in the Den, and critical in giving the Dragons confidence in the entrepreneur.

Can you see where I am going with this? All senior roles have budgets, some of them very big budgets; interviewers need to be sure that the candidates can handle those  budgets and that they will be good with the money. The challenge for the interviewer is how to assess that.  It is one of the most difficult areas of skill to really test. Numerical reasoning tests can test arithmetic, but that is not the whole answer. Commercial reasoning tests can test the ability of a candidate to think commercially (understand turnover, margin and profit but not deliver it). Questions in interview tend to be bland and relate to ‘how do you ensure you don’t  overspend?’, ‘how do you deliver increased productivity?’, ‘ tell us what you have done to deliver savings/reduce costs?’. Ok those questions will get you some information about whether the person understands processes.

How can you, as a candidate, give the interviewers confidence that you are good with money?

It starts in the Cv and application: if you don’t talk the language of numbers then you are missing a trick. You need to shown in your Cv that you know the cost and value of everything. You need to demonstrate that you know and understand the metrics of performance.

In your interview you should not wait for the interviewer to ask about money, budgets or revenues, you should be talking naturally about your income, your expenditure and your costs. By knowing and talking confidently about those things you are demonstrating that you think about the financial implications of all your activity. Once you do that, you give the interviewers confidence that you will pay attention to those things.

What is it that makes the difference between someone who is a good financial manager and someone who is not? Being able to see the patterns in the numbers, being able to project. to identify and spot trends all make someone good at managing the money. But, I think one of the absolute key things is that good financial managers pay close attention to the numbers.

 If you talk about the money and know your numbers you can convince the interviews that you are one of those people who pay attention to money, and that you can do all those things you need to do to balance the books or turn the profit. If you think money, talk money and build confidence that you are good with money.

For more career advice and interview support go to www.maryhopecareersuccess.com

Mary Hope is an experienced senior recruiter and career coach.

budget (Photo credit: The Survival Woman)

How to be interviewed.. 8 different types of interview

In the rich and varied  tapestry that is my life,  as well as career coaching, I do recruitment interviewing and experience what it is like to interview job applicants. And often what I experience is a real mismatch between what people appear to have done (on their CV etc) and how they perform in interview.

I wonder how they prepare for their interview and what they actually think the purpose of the exchange is.

First you need to understand what kind of interview you are having. Ask if it is not clear from the invitation. this is a guide to the main interview types you might encounter. They may be one on one, they may have two or three people interviewing at the same time. 

If it is a competence based interview or a behavioural interview you need to be able to describe your achievements and the way that you have overcome challenges and difficulties in detail. You will be asked to 'tell me about a time when...' The interviewer wants to hear about what you do, about how you achieve things. They want to hear about the way you operate. So your preparation needs to focus on unpicking the things  you do, making those things you 'just do' explicit. You need to understand how you influence others, manage your team and achieve results.

If you are having a technical interview then the emphasis is less about style and more about knowledge. The interviewer wants to know what you know and what you are able to do. You are likely to get asked about your opinions of 'hot topics', you will be asked 'how you would ensure...'. You will be asked about what you would do. The interviewer may well ask you to substantiate your opinion or the theoretical answer by an example. You need to know your stuff, you need to be able to evidence that you really understand what is happening in your trade and what is coming over the horizon. The difficulty of answering these questions orally means that some organisations, such as Judicial Appointments Commission,  will set written tests to see which candidates have the best knowledge. At a more practical level you may be asked to complete a relevant task or exercise which mimics the job. 

The critical incident interview is a mix of both of the above, you will be given a scenario and asked how you would respond. If the incident is relevant to the job, then your technical knowledge and behaviours are being tested at the same time. So in an HR interview your might be asked what you would do if a manager phoned you and said they had sacked someone they had caught stealing. Your ability to understand the legalities of this and your style in dealing with the manager are being tested. 

The bio-data or biographical  interview is one where the interviewer will take you through your biography and seek to understand your motivations and drivers. they will ask you what you learned, felt and what motivated you to do what you did. Whilst this interview is exploring your experience and precisely what you did, how much responsibility you had, it is seeking to understand what makes you tick.

The stress interview. Another way of testing you out is to deliberately put you under pressure in a stress test. This rather contrived and manipulative way of relating to candidates seeks to see how you will re-act under pressure. 

The phone interview. Phone interviews can be brief or they can be the substitute for a face to face interview. the short version could be a quick interview to see if you meet some key criteria. They may want to check out your ability to travel to the location, your salary expectations and your motivations. Often these interviews are used to screen out candidates who don't have the required interpersonal skills, diction, verbal ability etc. It is so easy to apply for jobs online that employers use this device to check out that you are really interested in the role and do have the relevant experience.

The video interview. This is a recent innovation and is growing in popularity, especially in high volume recruitment where interpersonal skills/appearance matter. You will be invited to submit your videoed response to either standard questions that the computer will give you, or in some cases you may be asked to submit a 60 second video saying why you want the job. You will usually be given an opportunity to practice answering and employers can watch your answers when they choose to. 

The lunch interview or as I call it, trial by knife and fork. An employer may want to give you an opportunity to meet key stakeholders of the role, or the team you will manage or the colleagues you will work with. It is probably not possible to know whether this is part of the formal selection process or not. I have been involved where all participants have had to talk to all guests and then the guests score the candidate or asked for an opinion. On other occasions the guests go away without having an influence on the process. Never do anything but take this sort of occasion as an opportunity to launch the charm offensive. And you do that best by listening.

Whatever type of interview you are having you must prepare and you must, must, must think about what your audience want to hear you talk about. Which experiences, which opinions and what key stories you need to tell them. What will impress? What is most relevant to the audience? the answer to my question, what is the purpose of the exchange is - to convince and persuade the interviewers that you can do their job. So think about what they will want you to do and tell them about similar things that you have already done.. that is what will win you the role.

For more interview tips and techniques visit www.maryhopecareersuccess.com  and discover how to turbo-charge your interview confidence!

The Benefits Of Good Career Management

Careers advice is what you get at school or university  after someone has given you a questionnaire test, chatted to you and then they tell you what job you should do. Or something similar.

But career management? What is that? In this rapidly changing world with organisations and sectors making huge changes and adjustments.. how can you mange a career? And  why should you bother?

I work in the field of career management and coaching so obviously I do believe that people can manage their careers but sadly not enough people do that. They drift, they hop, they jump in what they perceive to be an upwards direction. Sometimes they are pulled by the attractiveness of a new opportunity, sometimes they are pushed by unhappiness in the role or organisation they are in. Few people plan strategically.

Career management is a process by which individuals develop, implement and monitor career goals and strategies. It may be art or it may be a science;  in my book it needs to be a bit of both. Whichever, it delivers huge benefits.  Research shows

·         Having career goals means people outperform those  who do not have goals or who only have a weak commitment to their goals.

·         Those with goals are more optimistic, they are more resilient,

·         Those with goals are more focused , they work harder at job search, are engaged and are more successful at finding new roles.

·         People who engage in career management generate more job interviews and more offers.

·         They obtain higher salary offers and are more realistic about their job expectations.

·         They are more effective in job interviews.

In other words their careers are more successful.

The cornerstone of good career management  is research: research about yourself and research about the world of work. That’s the science part. It is making the decision once you have got the information that leads into the world of art and metaphysics.

Career management is not a one off activity; it is on going throughout life. It is an adaptive process. But it is particularly important to engage in active carer management when you are at career crossroads, when facing the decision on whether to move from a technical to general management role, when your family circumstances change, if you are facing job loss, when you face a set back in your career , when you are offered a dramatic job move, when you feel the dissatisfaction of boredom or frustration with a difficult boss. These are critical time to make the right decision rather jumping into something because of the expectations of others, the opportunity is there or because  you feel  you have no choice.

What does it take to be good at career management?

1. There a six key elements of this iterative, messy process:
2. ·         Know thyself
3. ·         Understand the environment
4. ·         Develop realistic goals
5. ·         Adopt strategies that can deliver your goals
6. ·         Be prepared to adjust those strategies when new information comes to light
7. ·         Learn the skills of finding opportunities and of succeeding in selection exercises

Are you doing all you need to in order to manage your career well?

For a reality check on your approach to career management visit (www.topcareerstrategies.info)

Mary Hope supports people to manage their careers more effectively and get paid more, promoted faster and feel more satisfied. She has over 30 years of experience in business, teaching, HR, headhunting and coaching. She believes passionately that people need to understand their own drivers and needs to find fulfilling careers.

Fast changing job search world

Our world is changing faster than we can realise it is. No sooner have we learned new skills and new ways of doing things than some new idea comes along.
I spent a lot of time last year learning about social media and starting to use it.. twelve months later I find that things have moved on.. and not always in a way that is helpful! Google keep altering their algorithms, Linked In have stopped putting my Twitter feeds through to their site  ... And the challenge is that the recruitment market is changing all the time too. Employers and recruitment agencies are constantly looking for new and more cost effective ways of attracting the candidates they need. And whilst lots of that effort is targeted at attracting passive job hunters, it also means that those who are actively job hunting need to shift how you do it.
Major employers, including those in the public sector no longer spend their recruitment budgets on print but on social media. In 2005 UPS spent 90% of their budget on print and now they spend 97% on social media. Deloittes have a dedicated career website which is populated with blogs from their staff and has three distinct sections targeted at graduates, young professions and professionals. The site is content rich and attract traffic through well managed twitter streams, facebook pages, and Linked In company pages. Employers seek to build long term relationships with people who have common interests with them rather  than waiting until they have a specific job to advertise. They want to hook your interest before they recruit you by building communities of interest, what is known as 'crowdsourcing' (I think!)
The recruiters placing a single advert in a magazine or newspaper are in the minority and nowadays on line advertising is much more common. So if you are looking for a job you need to be on line as well. NB yesterday's Telegraph had a single page of jobs! But where to start?
To make life easy there is a brilliant tool called 'indeed.co.uk' This is a web crawler, you set your search parameters and then let it do the work. By 'crawling the web' it will bring you the jobs that you have specified by salary, location and title.
You need to sign up to major jobs boards and post your CV, CV Library, Monster, Total Jobs, JobsGoPublic. And whatever professional Boards apply to your work. Again set your parameters, search, press email alerts and wait for the vacancies to drop into your in box. Job Boards are the second largest source of hires.  And don't forget Linked In. For professionals it is the 'go to' source of candidates for head hunters. It is also increasingly a place where vacancies are advertsied. get into the Groups and see what is happening and what openings you can spot.  At least 90% of recruiters are already using social media to find, source and connect with talented candidates.

English: Infographic on how Social Media are being used, and how everything is changed by them. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What you do need to do is to ensure that you have your target list of employers and that you have a routine of checking their job sites and if you can register for alerts from them. See if you can register your CV. Follow them on Twitter and on Linked In.
Sadly, the public sector seems to be lagging behind the other sectors in embracing all this technology. When I checked half a dozen County Council's in the South East, only one was posting vacancies on Linked In. However there are new products around that are designed to catch your attention even when you are not job hunting. JGP have developed 'smart search' which uses digital marketing to place a vacancy in front of  people who are looking for information and not just for jobs.
I can remember laughing when they told me that people would use their phones to job search,  (well I also laughed at the idea of mobile phones back in the 1980s) but there are now Apps which will help you search and bring alerts to your door. eg  Jobs.ac.uk,   this free international jobs board has launched on the Android and iPhone platforms with more than 3,500 employment opportunities in universities, research institutions and commercial organisations.
It s not all bad news for the job hunter.. as long as you are looking where today's vacancies are to be found and not using the tricks from twenty years ago.

The rise of social recruiting

• 66% of recruiters have used Facebook to find new talent
• 54% of recruiters use Twitter
• 93% use LinkedIn
• 71% of HR and recruiting professionals consider themselves moderate to exceptional social recruiters

Source:2012 Social Recruiting Survey, Jobvite (base: 1,000 HR professionals)

Interview questions that spell danger.....

Interview questions that spell danger.....

When you apply for a job you fill out a form or maybe prepare a CV, you do a covering letter  or sometimes a longer ‘supporting statement’. You send it off and if you’ve been persuasive enough on paper you get to an interview. So you set off in best suit and shiny shoes and someone; maybe an employer or maybe a recruitment consultant sits you down and says:

So give me a quick trot through your career... or tell me about your career, or give us an overview of your career, what have your career highs and lows been.

And this is a dangerous question because your answer can say more about you than you realise.

Now the sharp and alert candidate may just be tempted to say ‘you’ve got my Cv, need i say more?’ But interviews are very disempowering to  individuals (all the power seems to be on that other side of the desk) and I’ve rarely come across someone who responded in that fashion.

But why do the interviewers ask that? May be they have not read the paperwork. It does happen that the person who screens the applications is different from the one that is interviewing.  I did once go to see a recruitment agency/consultancy and discovered that actually they had not read the Cv properly and seemed to have started reading at page 2 and thought I was working in a job I’d left 10 years before!  So help them out with a précis.

The way you answer can, just as your CV and letter does, reveal a lot about you that you may not have intended to reveal. My heart always sinks when a candidate starts with job number one and then takes me through their life history brick by brick. Dry, tedious and full of information that i already have infront of me. (and I do read the paperwork) It often takes forever. So top tip number one, clarify with the interviewer if you can, is this a bio-data interview or a warm up question.  And the best way to do this maybe to ask ‘where would you like me to start?’ If they say at the beginning it is more likely to be  the former and then they will be looking for a detailed analysis of what you did where, what you achieved and why you changed jobs. If it is a bio-data interview the interviewer should be probing and prompting, giving you a steer about the sort of detail they want.  If the latter they will be listening to what you select to mention and include.

So what can emerge from ‘the trot through the career ? patterns about why you moved on;

·         repeatedly being made redundant  (smokescreen for sacked?),

·         deciding to leave because of differences of policy, (awkward customer does not get on with people?),

·         looking for ‘new challenges’ when the moves have been between similar jobs (low boredom threshold?)

·         moving around very quickly for more money (no loyalty)

·         staying a long time in jobs (lacks appetite and drive)

There are numerous permutations and not all of those are negative indications. A thirst for variety is no bad thing in a job that offers considerable variety or an organisation that does not expect people to stay long.

But you also reveal how you look at the world. If you take a linear approach and describe  each job etc you are suggesting that that is your approach to life. It’s linear, it’s detailed, it’s prosaic. If you give chapter and verse on every employment when not specifically asked for it, you really do risk boring the interviewer to death!

So if you are grey hair/no hair, going for a senior role and someone asks that question, what is it that they really want to know?

Well they may be trying to understand your career drivers or motivators, what is it that makes you tick ? are you the sort of person they want on board? Do your motivators align with their values.

They may be looking to see if you can helicopter and identify themes and patterns. Well of course you can and you can ensure that they are the ones you want them to hear about!

If they are looking for someone with strategic thinking ability, give them a strategic answer.

Most interviewers have read your cv and don’t want to hear it all again they want to hear more and different so think about what you want them to hear.

The danger is that you take the interviewer too literally and ‘trot’ them through your career until all they want to do is put you out to grass. Take a thematic approach and you can be enthusiastic and energetic, succinct and enlightening whilst retaining their interest. If they want to probe they can do so but please, what ever you do: be interesting!

The UK is loving Linked -In

As if you had not realised; the UK has embraced Linked in in a very big way. London is the busiest place on earth for Linked In. But the most astonishing stat is towards th end of the article.. who knew there were so many???
Jorgen Sundberg writes:

• 150 million worldwide members of LinkedIn
• 8 million UK members
• Almost two thirds of all professionals in Britain are on LinkedIn
• Almost a third of members use LinkedIn to grow their business
• 64% year on year membership growth
• 82% use LinkedIn for business purposes
• 74% use LinkedIn to network with other professionals
• 30% use LinkedIn to look for a new job

Conclusion: Brits have taken to LinkedIn in a very big way. Unlike France (Viadeo) and Germany (Xing), this country never really had a professional network contender to LinkedIn and it's showing in the figures.
I hear on the grapevine that it's actually closer to 9 million UK users of LinkedIn, most of them are based in London. In fact, London is the no.1 city on LinkedIn in terms of user activity. That means the royal capital has more logins, clicks, comments etc than any other place in the world (including Menlo Park, CA where LinkedIn are based).
Two thirds of all professionals on LinkedIn is very good going, looks like we're almost on par with the Dutch who have the highest rate of LinkedIn users per professional capita.
It's no surprise that most users use LinkedIn for business purposes; to grow their companies and network with professionals. If you want to use social networks for that very purpose, LinkedIn is definitely your best bet.
Finally, 30% use LinkedIn to look for a new job. That figure might seem low to you but I believe they mean these people are currently looking for a job. Yes, most folks will use the professional network for job search at some time or another but at any given time about a third are looking for a new opportunity.
The rest of us are known as 'passive' candidates - meaning we're probably open to hearing what jobs are going but will only move for a spectacular opportunity.
LinkedIn is in my book moving away from being about careers and more about giving you a professional identity online. It's going mainstream and becoming an essential for most people that work in an office. Having said that, remember that there are about 110,000 recruiters on LinkedIn in the UK so there will be plenty of jobs coming your way in future via LinkedIn.

Five Reasons why this is the most important interview question.

Five Reasons why it is the most important interview  question.

There are lots of questions that can been seen as ‘killer’ questions in an interview. Employers interview in order to assess your skills, your knowledge, your experience and your ‘fit’, but there is one question that can kill you before your have even get going. And that is the motivation question. Why is it so critical, why can one small question, used as a warm up, be so important?

For many years and in many organisations the influence of equal opportunities policies meant no one asked it; what does it matter why they are here? The fact that they applied and  have turned up to the interview means they want the job. You don’t need to ask them, it is not competence related etc etc. However there is a real curiosity in the employers mind abut why people want to work for them and they want people who are keen. So agree or disagree the ‘why do you want the job’ question is on the agenda  and you need to be ready to answer it because a duff answer is just not acceptable. So why is it so important?

1.       It usually comes first; as the saying goes you only get one opportunity to make a first impression. And if this is the first time you open your mouth you need to impress. If you score 2 out of 10 on that first question it is a very steep climb back up the hill to be appointable. If you score 9, you are in a strong position for the rest of the interview.

2.       This is your sales pitch. Most jobs involve selling and persuading, influencing others, convincing people. So this is an ‘on the job test’; you need to influence and persuade. This is a test of your selling skills and your communication skills.

3.       You should have been expecting it.  If there is one question that you can reliably anticipate it is this one. It may not be phrased as ‘why do you want the job?’, it may be ‘what has attracted you to apply?’ ‘what will you bring to the job?’ ‘where does this fit in your career?’  however the question is framed the meaning is clear, why do you want to come here and you should know that it is coming, so you should be prepared to answer it. An employer will expect that you know the answer, that you know your own mind and can express it.

4.       Not to have an answer well prepared shows a lack of planning and preparation. You should be able to demonstrate your understanding of the role and why the organisation is attractive and one you want to work for. Preparation and planning.. two more qualities that every  employer will be looking for.

5.       Your answer sets out your stall and gives you an opportunity to ‘deal with’ any unspoken objections that the panel may have but not want to ask about. If the big question mark about you is why you are looking for a side ways move, or geographical move or even a down step: they may not directly ask but in your answer to the motivation question you can get rid of that question as a problem. It may be the only chance you get.

So that first question performs a number of functions and doing well at that point may create a rosy glow that can last to the end of the interview. So get prepared to deliver your pitch really strongly, serve an ace and win the game, the set and the match.