What job interviewers and recruiters are really assessing

Some people love going on interviews, others hate it. Some people are comfortable disclosing information about themselves, others are not. Which- ever category you fit into, interviewers/recruiters are paying attention. True, some are looking for dirt and gossip, but mostly they want you to succeed so they can hire/refer you and get on with their busy lives.

In preparing yourself for the interview stage of a work search, be sure you have done all your venting and released all your anger and negative energy of your past employer before you even begin to put yourself in front of a hiring manager or recruiter.

Have an agenda when you go into an interview. Prepare specific points you want to make and don’t allow yourself to get derailed. If the tables get turned in an interview with poor questioning be prepared to highlight your strengths and bring the conversation back to what you can do for the company.

“In an interview, the focus is about you, not the organization you just came from,” says experts. “You should have control over your search, not your search have control over you,” they both declare.

You theme yourself. Identify your accomplishments and achievements, but also leave the interviewer with the correct image and perception of who you are and what you can bring to the position. You pick one of 12 themes such as creativity, people skills, innovation or problem solving and then help you thread it through all your responses. This common thread, this continuity, should leave an impression which is of importance to the company and their value system or work ethic.

Know what a recruiter wants to see when you meet them for the first time:

    1. A candidate has to know the company directives and their values. If possible, network within the company to come up an insider’s perspective of the business. Ask the interviewer what the company’s values are and make the connection between your values and theirs. Don’t expect an interviewer to make the co-relation, you need to do it for them.

    2. Illustrate that you have a sense of purpose, a goal for your career path. Know the answer to where you want to be in 5 and 10 years from now.

    3. Show an interest in the job, that this is the job you want.

    4. Express yourself in such a way as to sell your passion without using passion words. Smile, use positive verbiage, use your hands when you talk, ask questions and show enthusiasm.

    5. Last but not least, be yourself, and be honest.

And what behaviours turn off recruiters/hiring managers:

    Poor eye contact
    Poor grooming, dressing and posture
    Swearing/slang/poor grammar
    Not listening and inappropriate reactions to questions
    Taking too many notes
    Cockiness or chit chatty
    Inappropriate use of personal physical space
    Not staying focused

Getting too familiar with an interviewer is to your disadvantage. Keep a comfortable guard up, remember this is a total stranger and they don’t need to know you intimately at this point in time. There are some smooth operators out there whose sole purpose is to get you to relax, trust them and dish the dirt. Stay alert in an interview, be cautious but warm and discerning and you’ll be sure to leave a positive impression and hopefully a call back.

Working with your Team

When you reach certain position not necessarily departmental head you may have to lead at least a small group of people. To achieve performance you are also depending on their performance. Therefore it is also a must that the group of subordinates working under you as your team must be molded to suit your style of working and achieve performance or complete the work or task in time and quality. For the above you may have to take some initiatives.

Bosses like people who show the inclination to be future leaders. By taking initiative you will be doing just that. People who come up with new ideas or take new ventures are deemed to possess leadership or management skills, which is viewed favorably by top bosses.

When you take an initiative you understand your office environment. If your boss and colleagues support you wholeheartedly you’re in the right place, otherwise you might have to think about shifting offices. As a rule, organizations that support new initiatives have more successful and happier employees.

Taking initiative helps us not only in our professional life but also in our personal and social life. And, at times even a small step can do wonders.

When you take the initiative to do something new you step out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself. This is a very important for both personal and professional development. The entire exercise of attempting something new and executing it helps you grow faster, which is the key to success.

Sometimes you run out of ideas to advise your team as to how to go about further in completing a task. At such   juncture, taking an initiative can help you revive interest in your job. You can start off by taking a small initiative, say by organizing an office picnic and move on to bigger things. By doing this, you will soon finding yourself getting out of the rut and thinking anew.

You can go on and on about the successful team building. After all, there’s no fixed rule to what makes a group of people click together.

It’s very important for a team leader to be honest to his / her team. S/he should tell them exactly where they stand within the organization. A team leader should convey the right information in a positive manner. Once your team members know they are positive in the organization they will take your instructions in a better manner.

Be consistent about your communication with your team members. You will lose credibility with your team members if you communicate differently with different team members about same situation. If you project a professional behavior whatever the situation your team will surely respect you.

Always be open with your team members if there is some bad news coming for your team or the organization. Employees find out about the bad news. They can handle bad news as long as their managers are concerned about them.

Your team members work hard, and by giving feedback you show that you appreciate their efforts and the difference they make to the team. A team leader should also make it safe for team members to give feedback. Let them know that you value their inputs.

The solidarity of a team is an important indicator of how much influence the group has over its individual members. The more cohesive the group the more strongly members feel about belonging to it the greater is its influence. If the members of a group feel strongly attached to it, they are not likely to do anything against the group or team.

Team cohesiveness also plays a role in small companies. Team cohesiveness is critical in helping the individual feel good about his or her contribution to the effort. They also made sure that all employees understood that no improvement is too small. Over a period of time, they can make a major difference.

Highly cohesive teams often have less tension than less cohesive groups do. Additionally studies have found that cohesive groups tend to produce more uniform output than less cohesive groups, which often have problems with communication and cooperation.

Some talented individuals cannot flourish in a team oriented environment. If team cohesion is not to be eroded, management must recognize such a mismatch and address the problem before team goals go haywire.

Managers can improve solidarity of a team by introduction of competition, increasing interpersonal respect in the team, increasing interaction and create common goals for employees.

Be careful in what you plant to reap

If you plant honesty, you will reap trust.
If you plant goodness, you will reap friends.
If you plant humility, you will reap greatness.
If you plant perseverance, you will reap victory.
If you plant consideration, you will reap harmony.
If you plant hard work, you will reap success.
If you plant forgiveness, you will reap reconciliation.
If you plant openness, you will reap intimacy.
If you plant patience, you will reap improvements.
If you plant faith, you will reap miracles.

But

If you plant dishonesty, you will reap distrust.
If you plant selfishness, you will reap loneliness.
If you plant pride, you will reap destruction.
If you plant envy, you will reap trouble.
If you plant laziness, you will reap stagnation.
If you plant bitterness, you will reap isolation.
If you plant greed, you will reap loss.
If you plant gossip, you will reap enemies.
If you plant worries, you will reap wrinkles.
If you plant sin, you will reap guilt.

So be careful what you plant now, It will determine what you will reap tomorrow, The seeds you now scatter, Will make life worse or better, your life or the ones who will come after. Yes, someday, you will enjoy the fruits, or you will pay for the choices you plant today.

Managing Up: How to Do It Effectively

Face it: You need to manage up. At least if you want to succeed in corporate America. It’s as important as getting the job done. Managing up gives your leaders a way to see the work you do in a way that will benefit you. It also creates job security. And let’s be honest: When layoffs hit, the boss’s favourites never gets cut, regardless of their skills and talents.

Here are five ways to manage up that will put you in line for raises, security, and a fulfilling career.

1) Don’t blame your boss for anything. There is no point. Your boss is in charge and you are not. Make a note of what annoys you and tell yourself you won’t do it when you are boss. (Although beware, there are no perfect bosses. Just like parenting, you will suck as a manager in your own special way.)  When you manage up properly you will be able to turn your bad boss into a good boss. For you. Because you can work around your boss’s foibles if you stay focused on your goals. And yes, this is even true for bosses who micromanage.

2) Don’t wait for your performance review to fight for a raise. Find out the salary politics way before your performance review. What’s your boss up against when it comes to approving a raise for you? What do you need to do for him to help? Who are the influencers?  Start managing all of them. Your salary review will need to be approved by a bunch of people. Make sure they love you BEFORE performance review time. By the time approvals come around, it’s too late to ingratiate yourself. And, if it should come down to your boss really having no power over the purse strings, ask for nonfinancial compensation, like conferences and gadgets or whatever it important to you.

3) Find out what your boss is being measured on. Your boss definitely cares more about his own salary review than about yours. The more you help your boss to meet his goals, the more likely he is to go to bat for you to meet your own goals. If you do lots of work but it’s all outside the parameters of your boss’s goals, your boss won’t notice.  Do the work that matters, and then translate that strong performance into action from your boss. This means that the person who puts their head down and gets all their work done perfectly is not smart. There is no point in being the hardest worker in the office because all work is not equal. The work that is important is the work that gets noticed. Do less work so you have more time to understand what work matters?

4) Get benchmarks early, but be open to them changing. Your boss just wants you to make a difference on the team. He doesn’t really care about your performance goals, per se. He cares about his own, his team’s, and your participation to meet those goals. So help your boss to keep track of you by shifting your goals to be in sync with the company’s goals. Your boss will be surprisingly open to shifting goals in the name of helping the company. And you’ll find that shifting makes you look more like a team player, and like your irreplaceable to your boss.

5) Be nice. Really, there is no better way to ensure a good performance review if you are well liked by your boss. People get hired for hard skills to get the job. But they get fired and promoted because of their soft skills that make people like them. So really, the performance review is a great time to solidify your relationship with your boss after a year of hard work creating that relationship.

Key to Success? Stop Being So Cheerful

So, it turns out that people who were really happy as children tend to not pay attention while crossing the street and die young, or something else just as miserable.  (I made up that part about cars because I’m cranky and I’m feeding into my bad attitude in the hope of living longer.  If you die young, you never get to be one of those crabby old ladies that do whatever they want because they are old and I so want to do that.)

But seriously, they did find out that happiness isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.  The Longevity Study began tracking a group of kids when they were 10, in 1921. (They didn’t track them continuously–the study picked up again in the early 1990s.)

“We came to a new understanding about happiness and health. One of the findings that really astounds people, including us, is that the Longevity Project participants who were the most cheerful and had the best sense of humor as kids lived shorter lives, on average, than those who were less cheerful and joking. It was the most prudent and persistent individuals who stayed healthiest and lived the longest.”

Part of the explanation lies in health behaviors – the cheerful, happy-go-lucky kids tended to take more risks with their health across the years, Friedman noted. While an optimistic approach can be helpful in a crisis, “we found that as a general life-orientation, too much of a sense that ‘everything will be just fine’ can be dangerous because it can lead one to be careless about things that are important to health and long life. Prudence and persistence, however, led to a lot of important benefits for many years. It turns out that happiness is not a root cause of good health. Instead, happiness and health go together because they have common roots.”

Patience and persistence.  I think the big difference is focusing on long term happiness rather than just immediate pleasure.  If you are thinking about the long term, you look before you cross the street and you eat your green vegetables.  If you’re all about the pleasure, you’ll find reason to pass up that broccoli in favor of brownies.

They also found out that it is the productive among us who live the longest.  Those with good family and friend relationships also tend to thrive.

So, what does this mean for your career?  Don’t worry about seeking out the coolest job possible.  Work steadily.  Keep your relationships up.

And be just a little bit cranky.

How CEOs Really Spend their Time

Does your CEO seem to spend a lot of time meeting with people you’ve never heard of? And should it matter to you?

Given how much CEOs are paid, how your CEO spends his or her time should have some impact on how profitable or productive his or her company is. But at companies with weak governance, nobody’s really keeping an eye on the CEO, and it seems the CEO knows it.

According to research from four professors-Oriana Bandiera and Andrea Prat, of the London School of Economics, Luigi Guiso of European University Institute, and Raffaella Sadun, of Harvard University–at those companies, CEOs spend much more time on activities that are personally beneficial to them and less time on activities that help their companies thrive.

To figure out how CEOs spend their days, the researchers enlisted 94 Italian CEOs and their personal assistants. The assistants kept a diary of everything the CEO did during the week. Some time outside the office and on weekends wasn’t counted, so if the CEO had dinner every night with a big client or supplier, the researchers didn’t know about it.

What exactly are they doing?

As you might suspect, CEO’s go to meetings. A lot.

• Some 60% of CEO time was taken up in meetings
• CEOs spent 25% of their time on phone calls and at public events
• Only 15% of CEO time was spent working alone.

The researchers then split CEO time into three categories: Time spent with outsiders, time spent with other employees of the company, and time spent working alone.

On average:

• CEOs spent 42% of their time with insiders-other employees
• CEOs spent 25% of their time in groups that included both insiders, such as employees, and outsiders, such as suppliers.
• CEOs spent 16% of their time as the only company representative with one or more outsiders.
• Among insiders, the finance department got the most time, or an average of 8.6 hours per week. Human resources got the least CEO time, or 5.5 hours per week.
• Among outsiders, consultants dominate CEO time, getting an average of 4.7 hours per week. Suppliers get the least attention, or only 1.3 hours per week.
• As CEOs worked more hours, those extra hours went to meetings with people inside the company, so the hardest-working CEOs spent more time with their own people.

More Productive CEOs Spend More Time With Employees

Time spent with insiders seemed to improve firm performance, while time spent with outsiders didn’t seem to make much difference. A 1% increase in the amount of hours a CEO spent with his or her own people correlated to increase in productivity of 2.12%. It appears, instead, that the time a CEO spends with people outside the company mostly enables him or her to build their network with other business leaders. This flies in the face of the theory that says a CEO is the public face of a company and therefore should be out meeting, greeting, and golfing as much as possible.

Another factor leading the researchers to suspect that these outside meetings did more for the CEO personally than they did for the company is that these meetings were more common companies that had lax accountability or weak governance. CEOs with smaller boards of directors spent less time alone with outsiders, as did CEOs whose boards included at least one woman. So did CEOs who were hired into a family-run firm.

What do you think your CEO is doing with his/her time?

8 Easy Rules for Cold-Calling Customers

I’ve been getting a lot of emails about cold-calling lately, so I thought it might be a good time to revisit the art of using a telephone to generate new leads.  Here are some quick tips:

• Rule #1. Set the right goal. A cold call can be used to sell outright, to set up a face-to-face meeting, to set up for a longer telephone conversation, or even just to nurture a relationship.  Make sure that your script and your attitude match the goal that you’re trying to reach.
• Rule #2: Do your research. Find the “hot buttons” that will motivate the prospect to take the next step (whatever that is). For example, if the prospect is a CFO, your best opening is to point out difference between the financials of the prospect’s firm and other firms in the same industry.
• Rule #3: Never try to wing it. Knowing what you’re going to say ahead of time helps ensure that your message will be heard. Have a script that maps out the basic conversation, potential objections, and the “close” on whatever action would fulfill the goal of the call.
• Rule #4: Rehearse until its second nature. Rehearsal transforms the script into a more natural dialog. You must internalize the rhythm of the call, so that your statements and questions flow more naturally. Rehearsal will also reduce the anxiety that you may feel about making the call.
• Rule #5. Assume the prospect needs you. Approach the call as if you have information and perspective that the prospect truly needs. Emphasize in your own mind that you can contribute to both the success of the prospect and the success of the prospect’s business.
• Rule #6. Differentiate yourself within 15 seconds. You have fifteen seconds (more or less) to communicate to the prospect that you’re somebody worth talking to. This is not enough time to convey much information.  See the links below for advice on scripting a cold call.
• Rule #7: Don’t sell prematurely. There will be times when a cold call might engender an in-depth conversation.  Even so, you must remain aware of the intended outcome of the cold call (like setting up another meeting). Without being pushy, move the conversation towards that goal.
• Rule #8: Every cold call is a victory. A cold call that eliminates a prospect is just as good (better maybe!) that a cold call that puts a prospect into your pipeline. Therefore, every cold call is a victory and should be celebrated as such.

The above is based upon a conversation with the brilliant and fascinating Wendy Weiss, aka “The Queen of Cold Calling”.