Apr01st
Under: Fun, Interview
Whether anyone likes to admit it or not, interviewing and recruitment are all about politics. And I don’t mean the presidential election. What I mean by politics is that what ultimately determines if you get the offer is whether the company loved you. More specifically, you’ll get the offer if your interviewer loved you. That’s it, plain and simple. If the company loves you, then you’re getting a phone call with the offer. If the company disliked you or just didn’t care about you, then you’re getting the dreaded letter in the mail. This brings me to the point of this blog: should you flirt with your interviewer?No one is going to admit that you should. Career center, career counselors, your friends, recruiters, and company representatives will all tell you to keep the interview professional and to try and find a common ground of interest, but to never cross the “professional line.” However, I want you to take a step back, open your mind, and continue reading what I’m writing.
The fact is that people are attracted to people. I’m going to honestly tell you that during my recruitment season, I knew that I was going to have a terrific interview when I walked into the interview room and the person sitting across from me was a woman. Now, don’t think that I interview poorly with men. I feel that I interview just as well with both, but find it much easier and smoother to interview with woman. The best way for me to relate this to you is by telling you an example:
I made it to second rounds with a company and I wore my best suit and tie to interview at the office. As FD Style tells you to do, I connected well with all of my peers who I was recruiting with and connected exceptionally well with the receptionist at the front desk. My buddy (the office buddy that is assigned to you) and I were chatting and laughing together telling each other stories while she walked me to my interviewer’s office. We walked into the office still laughing and she introduced me to a very attractive woman in her late 20’s who was my interviewer. We sat down and she asked me what we were laughing about. I casually mentioned that we were talking about our experiences with undie run at UCLA. Of course she asked what undie run was and I teasingly said,
“Oh, I don’t think you can handle what undie run is.”
She replied, “Oh really? Try me.”
So I told her what it was and she said, “I wish we had something like that on our campus”
“You would have loved it. So I’m getting the feeling that you went a little crazy as an undergrad, am I right? Were you in any sororities?” I continued
And the conversation took off from there. Lame? You could say that, but you can’t deny the fact that her and I connected well, and she definitely liked having a conversation with me. I made it fun and exciting by teasing her and assuming things about her. We hit it off during the interview and I still keep in contact with her today.
So, am I telling you to go out there and flirt with every interviewer? NO, that is not what I am saying. My point was to give you an example of a time that it worked for me and how it is possible to flirt with the interviewer successfully. If you’ve been reading our materials, then you know that one of the first rules of interviewing is that you must always smile. Don’t flirt with the interviewer if you’re not comfortable, but at least always keep a smile on your face. Smiles are attractive, and you’ll hopefully brighten up your interviewer’s day.
How and what to say to flirt successfully is completely out of the scope of this blog. What I want you to take away from this blog is the knowledge that looks, appeal, and personality play a major role during the recruitment process. Use this knowledge to your advantage and implement it into your interviewing and recruitment strategies.
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Mar31st
Under: Careers, Experienced Hire, Life Coaching, Workplace
You just found a job and now it’s Day 1 of the rest of your life. Welcome to the real world. A life of waking up at 6:30 or 7 AM, putting in 8 – 12 hours a day on completing project tasks, and driving unmercifully through tons of traffic filled with other disgruntled drivers. Oh joy! I don’t mean to sound so bleak about your career and life outlook here, but this is a perception (and ultimately perception can become reality) for most people in the “working world”.We focus so much on how to get a job. But what do we do after we get that killer job? Am I doomed to live in this dreadful “working world”? How do I succeed in this position? What’s my career path? What are my goals? Is this job helping me get there?
If you could change your perception and transition yourself from the “working” to a “career world”, or better yet an FD World, would you want to find out how?
I’m glad you said yes! This is the first of our blog series focusing on what to do AFTER you have found a j-o-b.
Mentor Me!
Find a mentor. The easiest way to define a career path is to find someone in a position that you want to see yourself move into. Once you’ve found that person it’s essential you understand what it took for them to get to where they are. Here are some of the things you want to find out:
- What skills did they pick up along the way?
- Who is supporting them internally and externally?
- What roles and projects did they take on?
- Did they go above and beyond what was asked of them?
- What type of feedback did they get for their performance?
- How do they handle themselves in front of their management and peers?
- How do they handle themselves externally to customers and clients?
Do your homework before you just start on the path of the daily grind. Be proactive. Nothing is more proactive then asking these questions to that person in the position you want. If you’re not in a position to do so, be creative/proactive in finding out those answers.
Mentor (a definition I found on the web): Someone whose hindsight can become your foresight.
Take that definition to heart. You’re not complete by any means. Let’s not repeat the mistakes of others if we don’t have to. Use the answers to those questions above and start introspecting. Ask yourself:
- How do I pick up those skills?
- If I work hard, how do I get noticed internally and externally?
- What roles and projects can I take on?
- What is it going to take to go above and beyond what is asked of me?
- How do I get the best feedback I can possibly get?
- How do I compare to my mentor and what do I need to do to reach that point (or even excel past my mentor)?
It might take some time for you to figure all of this out but hopefully you will have built a relationship with this mentor to help coach you. Don’t just limit yourself to one mentor either. You can have as many as you want!
“Successful people turn everyone who can help them into sometime mentors!” ~ John Crosby
Just like a Nintendo game, let’s press the restart button.
Now you’re in. It’s Day 1 all over again. This time you’re not waiting until the clock hits 5 or 6 PM. You’ve got an idea of where you want to go and how to do it. Welcome to first day of your career.
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Mar30th
Under: Now What?, Undergraduate
Students usually take the wrong approach when they begin to think about searching for an internship. The typical student looks for an internship that is paid, structured, and with a well known, brand-name company. While having a brand-name company on your resume can help you get a job during your full-time recruitment, I feel that the internship is an opportunity to try something completely out of left field and that will expose you to something drastically unique.
Structured vs Unstructured
A structured internship is drastically different from an unstructured internship. The majority of corporate, big-name jobs will give you a structured internship where your every move is calculated and pretty much laid out in front of you. You do not have to make any big decisions as far as your career development. So what personal skill-sets do you improve while working at a structured internship? You learn how to follow guidelines, take orders, and do the grunt work. The great thing about structured internships is that they have specific training programs where you can easily learn software skills such as excel, access, or photoshop. The structured internship trains people to go from A to B through steps 1,2, and 3.
Startup companies will give you an unstructured internship. This means that you will have large responsibilities and have to make key decisions on your own. The personal skill-sets that you will develop are leadership, decision making, out-of-the-box thinking, creativity, and problem solving. If you like to be fed your objectives and do not like to make big decisions on your own, then unstructured internships are not for you. You will in essence gain the ability to go from A to B in the most efficient and effective way that you can think of.
Brand Name vs Small Startup
The Brand Name company will always look good on your resume. It is a fact that recruiters will quickly scan your resume and will give you positive points if they see a recognizable name as a past experience. On the other hand, small startup companies will not draw the recruiter’s attention. So what is the benefit of having a small startup company on your resume?
The difference will be the quality in your experience and the amount of value that you will bring to the company. When you are in a brand name company, you are but 1 out of thousands of employees that the company has. If you don’t do the work, someone else will pick up your slack; if you go above and beyond what is expected of you, your managers may not notice because of the sheer size of the company. When you are in a startup company, you are 1 of maybe 10 people. Every single thing that you do will create great value for the company. The founders of the company will definitely notice your sheer hard work and you will be rewarded with letters of recommendation, greater responsibility, and maybe even stock-options or equity. Your resume should tell the reader how you create value for a company. If you worked at a startup, everything that you did created value for the company and your resume will reflect that.
Paid vs Unpaid
I feel that you ultimately have to figure out the reason you are getting an internship. Are you getting an internship for the money or for the experience? Startups without the capital the compensate you with money can offer you many other great benefits: letters of recommendation, company perks, and stock options. If the company makes it big, you can benefit by writing on your resume that you were a significant contributor to the rise of the company. You have all your life to start working for money; take the time now to experiment and gain some valuable experience that a corporate job could never give you.
I feel that unpaid internships with startups are much more valuable that corporate internships because startups compensate you with hands-on experience. Take a chance and go out there and find a startup company. Who knows, you may just come out of there an entrepreneur.
Popularity: 22% [?]
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Mar27th
Under: Resume
I was reading through some career blogs today and I came across one that mentioned my friend Penelope Trunk. The blog came from Monster’s blog and the author wrote about how interviewers want to know about the nitty-gritty stuff that you did during your internship or experience. Bryan writes that the day-to-day operations of your experience are just as important as what you were able to achieve. I can understand Bryan’s point of view; he is writing that you need to show how you were able to achieve your accomplishments and not just list them out.I understand both points of view, and I must lean towards Penelope’s side. Your resume is a one-page synopsis of you and your accomplishments. Every single bullet point and space on the resume must be optimally used so that it paints a complete picture about who you are and how you can bring value to the company. That is the key phrase, “bring value to the company.” If you are just writing down your responsibilities, such as “Assisted the manager with excel, powerpoint, and word presentations,” then you are not showing how you brought value to the company. ANYONE can “assist a manager”; what you need to show is how you achieved something that no one else could have achieved given that they were in the same positions as you.
Let me put it in a clearer perspective. You are competing with hundreds of other well qualified applicants that have similar experiences as you do. Your peers also come from a top-ranked university, have a high GPA, worked at a finance internship last summer, and are part of a business organization on their campus. Your face, voice, and body language are not on your resume so you cannot use your charm to convince the recruiter that you deserve an interview. All that you have is what is printed on that resume. This is why you need to distinguish yourselves from your competitors with what you write on your resume, and the way to distinguish yourself is by writing about your accomplishments.
When you are writing about your achievements, there is a big difference between an average resume and an optimized, high quality resume. For example, if you worked for a non-profit to raise money:
An average resume would write:
- Worked with a team to raise money by contacting potential funders
An optimized, high quality resume would write:
- Led a team of 5 peers and raised $45,000 through effective cold-calling, emailing, and face-to-face meetings with PowerPoint presentations
Both of them describe what the accomplish was - raising money for the non-profit. However, the optimized resume quantifies and specifies the actual value of the achievement and how it was achieved.
So I agree with Bryan in the sense that you must show how you were able to achieve your accomplishments. That is the KEY FACTOR right there - when you do write about what you actually did at work, you need to keep it in the context of how you achieved something. So ultimately Penelope is right, achievements ARE what matters on your resume. No one wants to read about your day-to-day activities.
Popularity: 14% [?]
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Mar21st
Under: Experienced Hire, Interview, Undergraduate
The best interviews are conversations. What I mean by this is that the interview was NOT in the question then answer, question then answer format. Instead, you and the interviewer actively engaged in a conversation and you connected through similar interests outside of the work place environment. The biggest mistake that students and young professionals make during their interview is that they try to be too professional and are so nervous that they forget that culture fit is just as important as being qualified for the job. Remember, one of the most important questions that an interviewer will ask herself before she gives you an offer is, “Would I like working with this person?” If the interviewer would lose her mind if she had to sit next to you on a five-hour flight, then it doesn’t matter how experienced you are or what’s on your resume. You need to connect with you interviewer.
So how do I establish the connection? Well I’m glad you asked. Here are the five ways to effectively establish the connection with you interviewer:
1. Make your first impression count
When you see your interviewer, you should do three things: shake her hand firmly, introduce yourself confidently, and most important, SMILE! You will of course be nervous for your interview, but that doesn’t mean that you have to show it. Smiling creates a friendly and welcoming feel that will make the interviewer feel comfortable when meeting you for the first time.
Also important is to remember to stay positive throughout your entire recruitment process. The interviewer will ask how you’re doing. Your answer must be something along the lines of, “I’m doing amazing!” Everything is positive when speaking to your interviewer. If you say that you’re stressed because of an upcoming test, then your negative energy will rub off onto the interviewer. They want to know that when there are deadlines due at work and it’s 2am in the morning, you will be the one who is lively and bringing life to the team rather than the person who is complaining and stressing out.
2. Take control of the conversation
Don’t let the walk to your interview room be silent and awkward. Take control of the conversation by asking the interviewer how her day has been or what she plans to do on the weekend. It is your job to initiate and keep a conversation going. Asking her about her weekend is the perfect conversation starter because hopefully she’ll give you a glimpse of what she does outside of work. If you find that you have something in common, then you can build upon that. For example, if the interviewer says that he went to the park and played basketball during the weekend, I’ll immediately build upon this by expressing my interest with playing ball and how I played for my high school team. I can then take the conversation anywhere that I want it to go by asking him if he played high school sports or if there is a company sports team.
3. Tell them your interviewer about your interests and passions
The first question that your interviewer will ask you is, “Tell me about yourself?” This is the perfect time to tell the interviewer about your interests and passions. Most people make the mistake and simply mention their school activities and previous experience. That is important, but finding grounds of similar interest is even more important. A general interest that absolutely everyone shares is traveling. At the end of your answer to “Tell me about yourself,” you can mention that you love to read mystery books, playing soccer, and traveling and experiencing different cultures. You can then quickly transition by asking them if they have ever been to Peru and climbed Macchu Picchu (this is an experience that I use). The interviewer may say no and move on to her questions, but what if she asks, “What’s Macchu Picchu?” That’s perfect! You can immediately engage into a conversation with her by telling he all about your trip and how she should definitely go there sometime.
4. Turn your interview answers into follow up questions
Always find ways to turn your interview answers into relevant follow up questions for your interviewer. This is the perfect way to stay away from the mind numbing question then answer, question then answer format. For example, if I give an example using my experience with my business fraternity, I’ll immediately follow up the conclusion to my story by asking, “Were you involved with the Greek life as an undergrad?” It is a very relevant question because I just told an answer about my experience with Greek life and I am sincerely curious about my interview’s experience with it as well. There is always a way to turn the question around to your interviewer; understand your interview stories and know how your answers can be turned into follow up questions.
5. Use the ending Q&A section to your advantage
At the end of your interview you will always be asked if you have any questions for your interviewer. This is still part of your interview, so make sure you have some meaningful and unique questions. I often use this time to take advantage and learn something meaningful about the interviewer. I will literally ask her, “So let’s get down to the important stuff. What is it that makes you tick? What are your passions?”
Surprised? Do you feel that it is too forward and that it may be crossing the professional line? My answer to you is that you want to stand out above your peers. Show that you are sincerely interested in your interviewer as a person, and not just as a professional.
That’s it. These are the 5 easy steps that you can begin implementing right now in your interviewing strategies. Turn your interview into a conversation and find a way to connect with your interviewer. If you establish that connection and she likes you, then you’re that much closer to getting the offer!
Popularity: 23% [?]
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Mar19th
Under: Life Coaching, Now What?
This is the origin of the FD Lifestyle, living real life like a hardcore gamer, and I want to share it with people around to see if anyone wants to join in me in the passionate path of leveling up and completing cool quests that make a difference in this world.
So in 10th grade, I was a hardcore Diablo II player. I would spend a lot of time figuring out how would I build my character, assign the right skill points, assemble a team, and conquer difficult quests. Then it came to a time where my friends started quitting the game and move on, so I quit too. I was in that transition phase between quitting a game and moving on to the next one, and I felt extremely empty.
I spent thousands upon thousands of hours getting more experience, leveling up, getting more money, getting better gear, and now I have nothing. My account will be deleted after 3 months of inactivity, and a big part of my life is just gone.
So I started to think, what kind of game can I play that a lot of people are playing, and people can’t just quit when they are bored? The conclusion I reached was: it’s pretty much the game of life.
So, if I was my own RPG character, I wouldn’t stay in town all day, be idle, and walk back and forth back and forth. NO, I would go out and kill monsters, get more experience, level up, and conquer cool quests of course. So everyone is playing this game, but not everyone knows it and when they are still in town just being idle,(watching TV, partying, not doing much with life) I am already out there getting more experience, assigning important skill points, and leveling up. Then one day they will realize(out of college), they are playing this game too, and they need experience to level up, and by then I would probably be at level 16 or so.
Ultimately, my goal is to be the strongest player in my field on my server.
And you know how a high level player can help lower level people level up faster? That’s what I like to do too, get people that realize they are playing this game to level up to my level or even higher, and so we can help each other out in life(in FD, we call this Vertical Networking).
So I want to be the strongest in my field, and team up with all the strongest in the other fields. together we can complete cool quests to solve problems that the real world face(global labor shortage of talent, inefficient market, global warming).
In FD, we also call people who just want stability and comfort NPCs. NPCs become the environment instead of living passionately. They live everyday to support their existence and buying some cool stuff on the side. But why do you make money? You make money to increase the quality of life. But you spend so many hours in your life working anyway, that IS your quality of life, and it does not make sense for people to pay you a lot of money to suffer your entire life. It makes more sense to get paid a bit less, but to have your whole life do what you’re passionate about play for a living.
So this is what I do. I work over 90 hours a week. I also play over 90 hours a week. People I have FDtized also spend a ridiculous amount of time trying to become a stronger player while accomplishing amazing things for their age. Because I feel like I have a better life than most people without necessarily being better in person, I want to bring the philosophy of combining work and play to people, whether through myself, my company culture, or the services/products that it provides. I want people to have fun when productive by doing what they are passionate about. I want those who are extreme in what they do(like hardcore gamers) to be extreme in what truly matters in this world. So for those who want to play their entire life and possibly become wealthy on the way, I welcome you to join my FD Lifestyle.
Popularity: 21% [?]
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Mar12th
Under: Interview, Networking, Personal Branding
I was reading Wendy Terwelp’s blog when I came across a post entitled Job Fairs: Matchmaking 101. Wendy puts it perfectly because in essence that is what recruitment is. Recruitment is the matching of a company with the perfect candidate.In her blog, Wendy writes that you must be prepared for a brief interview when you go to career fairs. Now I know what you must be thinking, “Will a company really interview me during a career fair?” The answer is YES, companies will interview you on the spot if they truly feel like they made a connection with you and if they feel you can bring value to the company.
This reminded me of an event that Gabriel went to during his recruitment season. After class, he decided to go to a career fair, literally dressed up in a T-shirt and jeans. He made his round around the career fair and spoke to every company and pretty much every student at the event. He walked up to a consulting firm and proceeded to chat with them about being a sponsor for our consulting organization, Bruin Consulting. As they chatted, the interviewer was intrigued that Gabriel was recruiting this season, but instead of looking for a way to get himself a job, he was looking for a way to help the consultant recruit more qualified students.
During the middle of their conversation, the consultant whispered in the ear of the company representative that came with him and together they pulled Gabriel aside to a separate room of the career fair. Gabriel thought that they just wanted to chat more about Bruin Consulting, but to his surprise, they sat him down and started to interview him.
The real question now is, “How can I do the same thing that Gabriel did?” Well first of all, go to career fairs in a T-shirt in jeans so that you stand out… hahaha, j/k. The truth is, Gabriel got the on-the-spot interview because he connected well with the consultant. It was not about what was on his resume or what organization he represented; what truly mattered was that Gabriel was able to hold his own with the consultants (who were from a very prestigious consulting firm) and match their level of confidence.
This is the kind of confidence that you must portray and the kind of connection that you must make with company representatives. Gabriel was not there to desperately ask for a job; he was there to provide a source of value for the recruiter. Find a way to show that you want to contribute to the recruiter and not just take from them. It pays off as you can see from Gabriel’s on the spot interview.
Popularity: 19% [?]
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Feb29th
Under: Interview, Life Coaching, Now What?, Undergraduate
Everyone going through the interview process is going to feel a different set of emotions against other candidates. Some candidates will walk in feeling nervous while their anxiety levels soar. Did I interview well? Did I forget to mention something that they wanted to hear? On the other hand there will be candidates who walk in feeling confident or possibly, and least desirable, arrogant. Either way you look at it, this person is going to have an interview knowing full well their arsenal of responses and personal anecdotes. Whether or not you fall in the camp of the former or the latter, you will go through the process and will receive a result: pass or not pass.
THE END OF TUNNEL SPLITS INTO PATHWAYS
Passing through a round of interviewing could either mean going to the next round or the big prize: an offer (and hopefully it’s a good one). Not passing means you have fallen out of the current interviewing process. Don’t pass go, don’t collect $200. Sorry buddy. At FD Edge we set you up for all of the proactive tools to help improve your chances of ‘passing’ and positioning yourself closer to the prize. I wanted to focus on the other side of the interview process. The ugly one. The giant elephant hiding in the corner. The rejection.
CINDERELLA’S SLIPPERS REALLY ARE NOT MADE OF GLASS
In this world I truly believe there are only two things in this world that motivate us into action or inaction: pleasure and pain. When we act on something we tend to look ahead and anticipate the result. Otherwise we would be wasting our time wouldn’t we? For example, I volunteered for a camp believing I was doing it for the good of the community. By the end of my volunteering I knew I enjoyed volunteering and that it fed my soul: the pleasure side of things. On other occasions we will act on the belief that what we’re doing will reduce the pain. We fear the pain. The need to protect ourselves is an instinct ingrained into every creature on this planet. When we interview and, hopefully not in every case, are rejected we start to rationalize everything about it.
They weren’t a good firm anyway. They were my backup option. I wasn’t interested in their field in the first place.
I would respond to these three examples in the following ways:
1) Well maybe you’re right, perhaps they’re only a mediocre firm but you must have been interested to some degree if you sent your resume over there.
2) Now that you have been rejected, you don’t have a backup option right now. I think you had a backup option so you could mitigate the risk. Without it, I think you’ve just increased your risk in some ways haven’t you?
3) You sent your resume didn’t you?
Rejection is painful. It hurts. I wake up hoping for the pleasure rather than the pain. The same principle applies to interviewing.
THE FROWN
When I went through the recruitment process for my first post undergrad job (my first REAL job) I used a very well thought out method of applying: applying to every company that ever existed. All in all I think I had sent my resume to over 20 firms, got 15 interview requests, and killed any chance I would be going to class that quarter at UCLA. In the end I received 10 second rounds, 6 third rounds, and 5 final round interviews and 3 offers.
If interviewing could be turned to dating here is what would have happened.
- I asked out 20 women (crazy right?).
- 5 of them said no way would they ever go out with me on a first date.
- Out of the 15 who did go out with me on a first date 10 of them thought perhaps a second date would be fine.
- 4 of the 10 decided to give me a no go after the second.
- On my third dates I received one more rejection.
- And right when I was about to take them to Disneyland 2 of them decided to tell me we should just be friends.
You are going to be rejected in your life at some point. No way around it.
When we are rejected we should start looking at why we were rejected. What were the main factors that I was not selected? Here are the most common (and in no particular order):
1) Other candidates had a better track record (academic or leadership)
2) My skill sets and experiences did not align with the position requirements
3) My personality was not a fit with their corporate culture
4) I showed up 30 minutes late to my interview
Whatever the reason for rejection, there is ‘something’ they were looking for and you did not convey or persuade them to believe you had more of that ‘something’ over the other candidates.
TURNING UPSIDE DOWN
At the end of the day the recruiters are going to go back to their firms and decide who should be on the cast of their next show, who gets the pass. Your day does not end when you receive a rejection. Go home and write a letter thanking them for the process. I highly suggest you write the letter with the intention of having them write you back. Ask for feedback. Ask them what they were looking for. Ask them what you could do to improve not just your interviewing skills but your whole set of skills and to make recommendations. Keep active and do it for the long haul. Find something during the rapport building section of the interview to tie into. Get connected with this person. Something I like to do is to set reminders to send an e-mail every once in awhile to that person. You never know what type of impression you might make and where that could lead you down the road. Stay positive.
THE CORPORATE WORLD IS A SMALL PLACE
Burn your bridges and you will find it much harder to find a job down the road. Suppose you work on a team with four other members and years later they all leave. You burned your bridges along the way. The next year you decide to leave and apply for all four of these firms. What you’ve done is create a negative impression to the four firms that are considering you. Play it safe and don’t play with fire.
Imagine you practicing the principle of continually keeping in touch with people. What happens when you apply to those four firms now? You’ve created a positive and lasting impression to the marketplace.
POSITIVITY
Staying positive and continually creating goodwill will yield results. We receive an education when we make mistakes. We learn when we are rejected. Take any and all rejections to heart and turn it into an opportunity, you never know when it will yield good results.
Popularity: 18% [?]
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Feb21st
Under: Interview, Undergraduate
I was at a recruiting event yesterday for media and entertainment companies. I was with a few of our students to show them how to engage and work a career fair. We practiced networking and building a relationship with not only the recruiters, but all the students in the room as well.
One of our most important rules is to NOT stand silent while waiting to talk to a recruiter. I demonstrated how to do this and we went to every table in the room and simply spoke to the students in line without even talking to the recruiter.
Our second lesson was to build a relationship with the recruiter by doing the opposite of what everyone else was doing. As we were chatting in line - and it was a huge line - the recruiter stops and says, “let me talk to everyone at the same time since there are so many people.” We circled around her and I knew that this was the perfect time to
demonstrate how to take control of a group.
Before I could even say a word, the recruiter points to me and says, “you get to ask the first question because I’ve seen you here before and would like to give you a chance to talk first.” You must understand the importance of this. There were other people there who
had been waiting longer than I had but she chose to talk to me first.
Why did she do this? It is because I had a high value and positive association with my presence. It was because I was talking to everyone in line and she noticed it. She wanted to talk to me because subconsciously she felt that I was a happy, personable, and an
approachable person.
So there you have it. I didnt even have to talk to the recruiter to get her attention. I captivated the recruiters by simply engaging everyone around them. This is what you need to do. Captivate everyone in the room, and people will want to talk to you. Make the recruiters come to you.
Popularity: 12% [?]
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Feb13th
Under: Interview
This morning I was sitting at the coffee bean waiting to meet up my friend when I overheard an interesting conversation at the table right next to me. A male – looked like the manager of a department store – was interviewing a young female (we’ll call them Frank and Tanya) for a retail position.
The interview was very conversational; the interview didn’t have any technical questions nor was Frank menacing or pushy. Such an easy and simple interview, and yet, Tanya absolutely blew it! I could already tell, not 5 minutes into the interview, that she was not going to get the job. She had the looks, the style, maybe the experience, but the way she presented herself and the structure and content of her answers were so bad that there is no way she got the job.
So, if you’re a good looking person, don’t assume that your looks are going to get you the job. Personality, sentence structure, and answer strategy are crucial in making yourself stick positively in the mind of the interviewer. Here are some quick tips for a very casual interview conducted at your local coffee shop:
1. Gauge the “casualness”
a. What type of position are you interviewing for? If it’s a sales position, you want to show that you are lively, can freely and comfortably talk to anyone, and that you have the style needed to represent their brand.
b. Gauging the “casualness” means that you have to determine how relaxed you can be during the interview. Since it’s a coffee interview, you do not need to be business-tie-and-suit formal, and you need to show that you can hang out and fit into their culture
2. Talk as if Frank’s your best friend
a. Have you noticed that you speak in statements when you talk to your best friends? When you meet someone knew, its always question, answer then question, answer. Speak to your interviewer as if they were your best friend. It’s a casual interview, so you need to befriend her and demonstrate how you can carry your personality into the work place and contribute to the team.
3. Take control of the conversation
a. During most interviews, the formality and pressure can lead you to be more closed and talk less about yourself. Your personality tends to not shine when you’re in very formal situation. The beauty of the casual interview is that the formality is thrown out the window and you can let your full-blown personality shine right into the interview.
b. Be sarcastic, lively, and fun. Take control at appropriate times during the interview and ask the interviewer some questions about himself. Develop and establish the personal relationship that is crucial in achieving the job. Its not formal, be yourself and control the tempo, pace, and direction of the interview.
Be happy when you get a casual interview. It’s a fun way to meet new people and expand your network.
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