Research the company before you walk through the door

In my last post I talked about the importance of researching the person conducting the interview.  This time its the company I want to focus on.

The first place to start is the company website.  Look at all the pages but specifically look at the language they use on the site.  What phrases or terms are consistent throughout?  These are the internal messages prevalent throughout the company, the buzzwords, the chatter, the noise that permeates all corporations. 

List them.  Make sure you understand them, if you are unclear use the words as a premise for an interview question.  If nothing else, it will evidence to the interviewer the fact that you have done your research and taken an interest in the company. 

How you can weave these key words throughout your response to interview questions.  Interview success is like success in sales.  Know your customer, mirror their language.  People feel comfortable talking with people they understand and importantly understand them.  Talking the same language triggers a familiarity that will stand you in good stead throughout the process. 

Know products, customers, new technologies, innovation, key people, where they have come from and what people are saying about them online.  If you have time, why not consider conducting your own market research with a little mystery shopping?  Telling for example a Sales Director or Managing Director that you have been to one of their stores and (politely and respectfully) making constructive suggestions as to what you think can be improved will be viewed positively even if they don’t agree with your views.  The point is you put yourself out and went that extra mile to try and understand your customer.    

Review the news pages of the site.  What are they doing that’s making the press?  Review blogs, google them, what are people saying about them on Facebook, Twitter?  What issues are they facing and how are they addressing them?  This can again prove a great basis for interview questions.   

Research the industry, not just the company.  Who are the major competitors?  What are they doing that your prospective employer isn’t?  Why (?) might be a great question to be asking at interview.   What issues is the industry facing and how is your prospective employer addressing them? 

Remember getting the job you really want has the power to fundamentally change your life.  This is your sales pitch.  Take it seriously and prepare for it.

The secret to interview success is in the preparation.

There is so much information in the public domain today that I would argue it is almost unforgivable to turn up to interview without having done your homework.  Indeed you could argue that there is almost too much information, so where do you start! 

You should approach an interview in the same way that you should approach any other form of major sales presentation, because that is exactly what it is.  It is your ultimate sales pitch and the advantage that you have is that you are selling a product that nobody knows as well as you do.  Take confidence from that fact. 

However, the secret to a successful sale is in knowing your customer, their needs and wants, inside out.  You would never expect to win a critical business pitch with out ensuring you are fully prepared beforehand, why should you expect to nail a job offer without the same degree of preparation. 

No startling reservations is a common theme throughout my blog posts, not least because in my view so much of this is about the practical application of common sense.  So where do you start? 

We all love people who take an interest in us, so first things first find out something about the person you are meeting.  Use Linkedin, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Google, Blogs, whatever tools are at your disposal to understand more about your Interviewer.  You are looking for the IceBreaker, something that can give you a “connection” with the person you are meeting. 

If you are aware they support Arsenal, love Fly Fishing, Susan Boyle, QI, Windmills or The complete works of William Shakespeare then use such facts as an Icebreaker.     We all love to talk about subjects that we are passionate about.  Accepting the premise that the interviewer is as nervous as you are this gives you the opportunity to settle the conversation down whilst the interviewer makes a mental note that you are prepared, resourceful, interested, a “people” person and numerous other positive attributes before the process is even under way. 

Next time I will talk about the importance of researching the company or organisation you are interviewing with.  For the time being, happy researching, you’ll be amazed just what you can find out!

You only have one opportunity to make a great first impression, make it count!

Never a truer adage that you only have one opportunity to make a good first impression than in a job interview.  Studies have evidenced someone will have formed judgements about you within four minutes of meeting you and that those judgements will inform their subsequent impressions (known as the Halo effect).  So what can you do to ensure that you maximise those crucial early stages of the interview process?

The truth is none of this stuff is rocket science.  It is however about applying some fundamental principles of simple human behaviour that can make for a successful outcome. 

Undeniably we are all nervous when it comes to job interviews.  Take great comfort from the fact that the person on the other side of the table is likely to be as, if not more, nervous than you are. 

So what about some practical tips, what is that you can specifically do to ensure maximum impact in such a small time scale?

Number one, make direct eye contact.  It shows you are interested, engaged, focused, ready to do business.  Be careful of fixing a steely stare!  However eye contact evidences an inner confidence and strength that will prove invaluable no matter how nervous you may be feeling inside.

Number two, smile!  This will help with ensuring the eye contact doesn’t end up coming across as the stare of a serial killer!  This should be a genuine, warm smile.  If the person you are meeting does little to provoke such warmth, have something in mind that does!  This will also help to ensure that warmth is reciprocated. 

Number three, make a strong introduction.  Specifically, “my name is Lee Cooper, it is a pleasure to meet you”.  The emphasis is on “meet you”.  We all love people who are interested in us.  Making the specific point before the interview is underway that you are interested in the person who has the potential to play a vital role in shaping your future prosperity ought to be obvious. 

Number four, a firm handshake.  No vice like grip, this is not an opportunity to evidence the strength of your forearm!  However a firm handshake evidences confidence and strength of character that will be vital to your success.

All of the above cost nothing and yet by investing in them you have the ability to improve your success rate at interview.  Start practicing today, in 16 years of interviewing it never ceases to amaze me just how few people take the time to consider the importance of making the right first impression.

Identifying genuine management talent is key to success

I read an interesting article recently in which Ruth Spellman, the Chief Executive of the Chartered Management Institute, highlighted the CMI’s drive to sign up both private and public sector organisations to a Manifesto for a Better Managed Britain. This it would appear had come from a survey the CMI conducted, which highlighted some frightening statistics. More than half of all employees have quit a job because of bad management. Half believe they can do a better job than their boss. Perhaps most worrying was the fact that 85% of those surveyed did not trust the information they were being provided with by their managers.

This economic climate has created a lot of bad publicity for leaders, in particular from the banking sector, and redundancies always create an environment of mistrust and fear amongst workers. However the article got me thinking, is it that we are behind the rest of the world when it comes to management development or is it the way we select our managers that is actually the problem?

In many businesses I would argue that employees are picked for promotion on the basis of being very good at their job. The Sales Manager invariably has been promoted because he or she was the best Sales Person, not necessarily the person with the best Management Skills or potential. Does the best brick layer necessarily make the best Manager on a building site? Can a great Actor direct great movies? We can all think of examples of tremendous Footballers who have not gone on to make successful Managers. Arsene Wenger and Jose Mourinho never made it as professional footballers and yet are arguably two of the most successful managers in the modern game. By all accounts Sir Alex Ferguson was no superstar on the pitch, but his record as a Manager is unrivalled in modern times.

Back to the star Sales person who has been promoted to Sales Manager. Maybe he or she has great management skills and the company they are working for provide great management training, but they will be among the lucky ones, as will the staff that work for them. In this example, Leaders promote their top Sales person to a Management role with little formal training and expect them succeed. They then fire them because the sales force is de – motivated and under performing due to the lack of management expertise leading them and the Leaders are angry at the lost revenue stream caused by them having promoted the person who generated it. All of this pails in to insignificance when compared to the impact on the self-esteem of the new Manager who is lacking support, direction, achievement and understanding simply from being promoted in to a job that they weren’t equipped for.

In order that we can develop great Managers and Leaders and give UK plc the platform it needs to compete in the new world order, we need to give people a greater understanding of the leadership and management role and the skills you will require to be successful. We need to identify management and leadership potential at a very early stage in the individuals employment with an organisation. This requires significant investment in research to understand what characteristics truly work in Management (undeniably it varies between organisations).

Employees need absolute clarity of understanding as to what they need to achieve in order to move in to a Management role. Employers need to ensure that such objectives are entirely aligned to the strategic objectives of the business. However if the investment in gaining that detailed understanding of the strengths of your people is not made, then the cost implications are enormous. We need to invest in understanding our people far more, develop far greater rigour in our selection processes and be brave enough to pick out management talent from the crowd if we really want to deliver great managers and leaders.

 

The importance of Social Media in your job search

Recently I have had a number of requests to comment on people’s Linkedin profiles, specifically how profiles could be improved in relation to job search.

I am certainly not evidencing any cutting edge thinking when it comes to suggesting the strength of personal branding and its place in the job search. Experts have been blogging about the subject of personal branding for some considerable time, with the likes of Dan Schawbel leading the way.

Personal Branding is not however a new phenomenon. It is something that we have had to contend with since the day we were born. How we view ourselves, market ourselves and as a consequence how others view us. Whether we acknowledge it or not, we market ourselves throughout our lives. People buy from people and we are all promoting ourselves in some way to get ahead, even if we are not doing it consciously. We may not all be gaining the maximum leverage from our personal brand, but we all have one.

The strength of social media lies in the opportunity to decide exactly what we want our personal brand to represent and to market it relentlessly to a global audience. So what basics can you apply to the profiles out there that represent your window to a world of opportunity.

Your profile is your elevator pitch. It’s your 10 second (if you are lucky) opportunity to make a lasting impression. Start with a decent up to date photograph, preferably with you smiling! You don’t have to be grinning from ear to ear, but at least look like you are someone with whom you can engage. In the same way that your CV is a catalyst to a conversation, so is your social media profile.

Choose your photograph seriously, it will say a lot about you. Think about the audience you want to look at the photo and the image you want to portray. In Speedo’s on the beach may be fine for the family album but for the Headhunter looking for the next CEO of MegaCorp Plc, its unlikely this will be well received.

You should start with a statement that defines what you are about as a person, not a job title. Incorporate your passions, values and ambitions. Be honest with yourself, this will help to ensure consistency in all your messages. Remember this profile should be like a really good look in the mirror and what you see staring back at your you should feel extremely confident about. If you don‘t, then you have work to do. Don’t stop until you feel ready to take on the world.

Start with the end in mind? What is the outcome that you want your profile to achieve? Then what statement will help you to achieve it?

Your profile should be achievements focused. These were my actions, these were the results and this was the impact on the organisation I was working for. If you can quantify those achievements, make them tangible with some numbers, then all the better. It needs to scream out if you hire me then this the value I bring.

You should view your profile as if it were the most critical, life changing pitch you were ever to make. Cobbling something together in five minutes and never updating it won’t achieve the desired outcome. Approach it as if it were a presentation to the biggest client you will ever land. Dusting off the standard company presentation in such a scenario will never be enough, you have to be prepared to go the extra mile. The same must be said of your online profiles if you really want them to work in the job search. It should absolutely reflect your values, personality and talents. If you don’t feel it absolutely achieves this, don’t go live.

Gone are the days when first impressions were based on a CV and that first handshake before the interview is underway. That first impression starts the day you post your first profile, article, comment, picture, whatever it may be online. Once something is on the web, it’s always on the web. Make sure you feel intensely proud of it.

Why is “attitude” to often overlooked in favour of experience when hiring?

We hire for experience and fire for attitude. Why not therefore make attitude the basis of our hiring decisions? Clearly experience is the one thing that we can give any candidate coming in to the business. Attitude is one thing that for sure we can’t give them.

All of us at some point are guilty of making experience the basis of our selection decisions. By this I refer typically to who the candidate has worked for or the sector they have been employed in. Whilst I understand the need for having easy ways of pre – screening CV’s I would go so far as to suggest this is lazy. Is it really risk averse to hire someone who understands our industry language, systems and processes, products or services and indeed customers without considering whether they truly fit with the values, culture, vision and strategy of the organisation? .

To make matters worse, us recruiters can be the worst exponents of putting job seekers in to convenient boxes, not least because of the increasingly key words search based recruitment environment in which many now live. This is exacerbated further with the increasing pressure on frontline recruiters in a tough climate to focus on the short term and generate fees based on perceptions of best fit and lowest risk in order that they keep their own jobs.

I genuinely believe employers lose out by making previous experience the basis of the hiring decision. Experience is the one thing as employers we can give the candidate; attitude is the one thing we can’t give them. How often as employers do we hire for experience and fire for attitude? Make attitude, chemistry, fit, the intangibles in the recruitment process the basis for hiring and invest heavily in training, development and employee engagement in order that your key staff are entirely aligned and equipped to meet the key objectives of your business. If you can achieve this the impact on the attraction and retention of people who can transform your business will be greatly enhanced. You may well be losing out on a potential superstar but not opening your minds to those from outside your sector.

What now the future of recruitment?

Traditional recruitment is undeniably facing a huge number of significant challenges. With advances in technology and in particular the gathering pace of Social Media, the opportunities for employers and employees to engage with an ever widening pool of prospective candidates are enormous. Therefore we might argue that recruiters have an opportunity to continue to evidence value to clients with our ability to cut through the numbers and provide a well thought through, pre – screened shortlist to clients.

Does this happen? From the feedback I receive from customers, increasingly this isn’t the case. Technology has seen recruitment become an ever more transactional experience for customers and many recruiters as a result are relinquishing accountability in the process. The contents of a database are unleashed at a customer via email; they do the screening and are then sent a bill for the privilege of doing the work. They are right to question the value in this process.

From a candidate perspective the experience is in many cases equally as poor. Come in, fill out a form and we will find you a job. In principle, commendable and it is this service that we are here to provide. Ever more so in an environment of rapidly rising unemployment. However, shouldn’t our raison d’être be to find the right job for the candidate as opposed to attempting to shoe horn them in to a post just simply to generate a fee? I may be accused of looking at life through somewhat rose tinted specs, but too often the major impact a new job has on peoples lives or alternatively a new hire has on a business is overlooked and the need to generate fees takes priority over the needs of candidate and client.

I love the recruitment industry. I love the fact that as a recruiter we change people’s lives (and if not careful not always for the better). I love the fact that every candidate that I meet has a unique set of skills, aspirations, talents and personality traits, that every company we meet has a differing culture, vision, set of values and strategies. However unless we recognise as an industry the impact we have on so many through our behaviour the value we can generate for customers will continue to be questioned. We have an important role to play in ensuring the global economy rises out of recession fast through our inability to unearth and deliver talent to the workplace to enable people and businesses to thrive. That focus should be on engendering long term working partnerships based on ensuring best fit for all, not just any fit at all.

A matter of opinions!

Standing out in the ever more crowded place that it is the job market is a real challenge for jobseekers. How do you present that critical information on your CV that sets you apart from your competition? What format should you use? Where do you get the information you need to understand how best to prepare your CV in order that it reflects what Employers are looking for? I am not even scratching the surface of the multitude of thoughts and questions that enter the mind of the job seeker.

How do you prepare that perfect CV? The truth is that this is all very much a matter of opinion. To prove my point, I googled “How do I prepare my CV” this morning and my search returned 13.7 million search results! That’s a lot of opinions! However I do believe that there are certain fundamentals that you should at least consider.

Firstly what is the CV? Well in my view very simply it is a catalyst to enable you to engage in a conversation about a subject that you know better than anyone else, namely you. So it should be something of which you are intensely proud, that reflects a genuine sense of what you are really about, a document that portrays you in the best possible light.

It is your elevator pitch, your sales document. You only have that one opportunity to grab the attention of the person who can change your working life. It should be something that you prepare with great care. It should be the document that in terms of your career requires your greatest investment of time and effort. Would you consider going in to a critical presentation without taking the time to prepare that killer presentation? I guess not. Why then should your CV be something that you knock up in five minutes?

Your CV should ensure you are extremely accessible. As the Hiring Manager, I want to be able to contact you easily, I don’t want to search high and low to find your email or contact telephone numbers.

Should you have them, relevant qualifications should be listed after your name. You work hard enough to achieve them, you should shout about them. They portray you in a very positive light and create very positive impressions of you as an individual before starting on your career history. If you are professionally qualified, your CV should be a document that reflects entirely your professionalism and integrity.

Hobbies and interests should reflect subjects or interests that you are genuinely excited by. You never know if the person doing the hiring isn’t an expert on a hobby that you last engaged in 20 years ago. Make sure they are up to the minute, relevant and genuine.

Your profile should be a genuine reflection of your personality, characteristics, attitude and experience. Think of this as an honest look in the mirror. You don’t need to be an elaborate wordsmith. In order that you can tap in to the mindset of the person making the hiring decision, thing back to your own hiring experiences and ask yourself what language, words or phrases did you look for in a CV. Do you have those skills and traits? Instead of opting for “buzz words” think back to your previous roles and consider what the key words and phrases were in your industry, company or responsibilities. Then look for ways in which you can employ these key words throughout your CV. You want to be talking and using the language of the employer.

Another way of enhancing the power of the words you use is to study the words your target employer uses in their own job advertisements, marketing literature, press releases or financial reports. Look on the company website, what language, words and phrases do the company use? Try and consider ways of using these key words in your own CV.

If you have recruited in the past and now find yourself looking for a position, this can be a huge advantage. Think back to those CV’s you liked and those you didn’t? Take the best and worst of what you have seen before and use this as a guide to shape your own CV.

Its extremely important that your CV reflects not simply your experience, but the skills you possess. I will always argue employers should hire for attitude and skills, not experience. Start with a blank sheet of paper and brainstorm your skills. Leave no stone unturned. Ask yourself what skills you feel you have acquired not just in your career but in your life. Can you talk evidence those skills with confidence? Your CV should reflect the entire range of skills and capabilities you posses. Your work experience should reflect how those skills have been employed in the workplace and importantly what the benefit has been to your employer of those skills.

Your work experience should not be simply a list of “things you do”; it should reflect entirely your achievements. Specifically you should look to tangibly evidence just how your employer has benefited from that which you have achieved. If you can quantify such achievements with a number or provide evidence of bottom or top line benefit to the company, this will certainly help to strengthen your case.

Include in your work history a brief description of your employer. References to turnover, number of employees and industry type all help to paint a picture of your responsibilities. Don’t assume your prospective new employer knows anything about those organisations that you have worked for in the past.

You should refer to your reporting lines, the size of team you are working in and the number of staff you are responsible for. This again helps to paint a picture of your responsibilities. The job of Financial Controller in a £5m turnover business where you are reporting to the Managing Director is distinctly different to the Financial Controller post in a £500M business with a reporting line to the Finance Director. Similarly managing a team of 3 direct reports is distinctly different to managing a team of 10.

The issue of how long is an interesting one. For recruiters knowledge is power – the more information we are equipped with the better placed we are to understand your skills fully and to represent you appropriately. However employers don’t want to read pages and pages. Ideally your CV should be a two page document with a detailed career focus of the last 5 years. This is the experience on which employers will focus most of their attention.

Consider having a flexible document, one that perhaps you can tweak for specific applications. All this takes time and effort, but you are talking about an individual pitch on each separate occasion. A one size fits all approach to your job search may not be enough of a catalyst to get you in to those critical conversations that can dramatically shape your future. It should be a document that is a constant work in progress that is continually updated to reflect your ever evolving skills and experiences.

Ultimately with 13.7 million opinions available on line, there are no right or wrong answers to the question of the perfect CV. Take your time to ensure you produce something of which you can be intensely proud.

Stand out from the crowd in tough times – stick your hand up and volunteer

I gave a presentation recently to a group of Accounting Students. Just coming to the end of their studies, they were full of hope for their future careers and were keen to understand what the prospects might be for them to find the job of their dreams. Having given them what I considered to be an extremely honest assessment of the employment market, I wanted to give them at least something positive to take away in order that they might stand a greater chance than most of really standing out to the extent that employers feel compelled to take them on.

Despite the fact that so many organisations are reducing headcount or freezing hiring activity, I would argue that the principle barrier to any organisation realising its goals lies in its ability to attract and retain, engage with and develop great talent,. On many an occasion it has been said that people are a company’s greatest asset. Arguably it’s more specific than that. It is the right people and in the right seats that can mean the difference between business success and failure.

It strikes me that there are a number of potential subjects for a blog here, not least how should an organisation ensure it is at the forefront of attracting the best talent. However I want to focus on something that I passionately believe affords job seekers the opportunity to really stand out in a crowded space.

Volunteer – yes consider doing something for nothing! Revolutionary I know.

Increasingly I am struck by the entitlement culture that we live in, driven by the question “what’s in it for me” a view that roughly translated tends to mean what am I going to get paid for doing it? If I’m not going to be paid for it, frankly why should I bother to do it?

Life shouldn’t be about what you get, it should be about what you give. Get out there and make volunteering part of your job search. It may be as simple as writing to your local accounting firm and asking them if they would be prepared to let you work with them for nothing in order to gain some valuable work experience. It could be something as incredible (as I witnessed only this week) as volunteering to work in an orphanage in Bulgaria. Whatever it may be, it need not cost you anything other than your time, energy and commitment and it could prove an invaluable way of evidencing to a potential employer your desire to do that bit more.

Volunteer work should be shouted about loudly on your CV. It offers a great topic of discussion at interview and gives you the opportunity to talk passionately about something that you did. It creates a favourable impression with a prospective employer and affords you the opportunity to genuinely set yourself apart from all the other “self motivated, ambitious, hardworking team players” that just about every CV includes on personal profiles.

It also offers you the opportunity to broaden your skills, your network of contacts, increase your self confidence, and importantly helps someone else whilst you feel good about what you are doing. So go on, stick your hand up. Volunteer for something and use this as an opportunity to genuinely make yourself stand out in a crowded space.

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