CHILLI am the hiring manager at my company. I have been reading these posts, as I am bored and been having staffing issues recently, and want to send a message to everyone looking for a job... HOwever, I will start by saying I KNOW WHERE YOU ARE COMING FROM>.. and heave made all these mistakes and had all these probelms myself easlier in my career... this is meant as advice TO HELP: 1. I submitted a resume to a super job and no one responded... Ok, well, first some comapnies post as policy and already have a candidate they want to hire, and this is just to seem fair as an equal opportunity thing.. so NOT ALL JOB post positions are TRULY available to the general public. I know it is a dream job... trust me, they know it too and have people looking to fill it and people in mind... NEtwork... you will get there.
2. DO NOT CALL... DO NOT CALL DO NOT CALL DO NOT CALL!!!! END OF STORY! Unless you are asked to call or contact is made or a number is given UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should YOU EVER call a potential emplyer unless they contacted you first or posted a number to call. 3. In interviews DO NOT TAKE CONTROL from the interviewer... NO MATTER WHAT! Participate, act as an equal where appropriate, don't be a wimp... BUT DO NOT interupt the interviewer and do not take the lead. I PROMISE YOU you will NOT get the job.... I know you are eager, but chill out .. if you do that, you come off as a difficult person who does not know his/her place and will be a nightmare employee... DO NOT seixe control of the interview or try to direct it... LIsten to questions, answer, converse, ask your own questions, but the interviewer must controil the interview.. the moment you shut them dowm in any way you have lost a job offer. 4. DId I mention do not call??? 5. Ok, so you have to re-send your resume and cover letter due to some techincal error... most hiring people will accept a mistake and will look to the most recent email... But as of the second sending you WILL ELIMNTE YOUR CHANCES OF AN INTERVIEW, if you continue to bombard them... For a mistake, a one time re-sending is ok... But DO NOT THINK that mutliple applications will get you anywahere.. DO NOT APPLY AGAIN AND AGAIN.. Make sure it went through correctly at least once, explain if need be in an email if there was a mistake or something did not get attached. DO NOT APPLY OVER AND OVER AGAIN thinking it will increase your chances... It is SO unprofessional and seems aggressive, disrespctful ignorant and desperate. You will NOT get an interview if this is your tactic. Speaking as a college professor who has taught job-hunting and advises many job-seekers, I don't feel you speak for all hiring managers out there. I think you're merely speaking for yourself and perhaps your company as well. Perfect example, you say that one should never call unless asked. I disagree with you on this one. There is absolutely nothing wrong with simply contacting an employer to say you would like to apply for a position, and want to know to whom you should send your resume. I've personally done this when seeking employment in the business world and in academia. And I've sometimes gotten interviews and even hired from these places. So it's not an automatice disqualification! It's all in how you behave when calling. And I've done this for both posted and unadvertised (blind) positions. In fact, there was one time when I had been transferred to the hiring manager and got a short phone interview out of it. Yes, if you "demand" to speak with someone, you will come across very badly and probably won't be considered any further. But if you are nice about it, that's a totally different story. Sometimes, I'd be given a person's name and title; other times, no. And either way was fine with me since I never had any intention of pressuring them into giving me a specific person. All I did was ask nicely and one time! The same goes for calling over and over again, or calling lots and lots of people at the company. Doing these will definitely hurt your chances. But making a single call to say HR/Personnel, and asking might not hurt at all. The point is to accept whatever they say and do what they tell you. But it won't necessarily cut you out of a job if you make an effort to send your resume to a specific person! My take (also as a hiring manager): 1 - If I have someone in mind for a job, I am not going to waste the time and money posting a job ad unless that person is just a "reasonable" fit for the job and I may be able to do better. If I know I am putting that person into the job, why waste my time, money and energy with a job ad? 2 - Please call. It tells me you really want the job and just aren't throwing resumes over the transom. If this is for a sales job, you had better call me. You had better find my home number, cell number, track me down in the men's room, wait for me at my car. If you can show me you can do that you will show me you are a hunter. If your job calls for initiating phone calls (research, customer service, etc...) calling me shows you can pick up the phone and take the initiative. 3 - Yes, dialog is important in an interview. But I want you to ask questions as they arise. If I say "red", you should say "why red" right then, not wait 30 minutes until the end of the interview. Stay with the subject, satisfy your curiosity and then let's move on to the next subject. By the way, my questions take five seconds to ask. You answers should take about a minute. If I need more info, I'll ask. 4- Did I tell you to call? 5 - Yeah, one resume is enough. Maybe two with a correction but I'm not sure of the wisdom of pointing out errors. Just my two cents. And my take as a hiring manager in addition to the above: 1. Spell all the words correctly. Every time. Not just on the resume (although for God's sake please do it there), but also the cover letter, any emails, any posts on boards, all the time. Use spell check if you aren't good at it. Do not let yourself think that you can spell poorly in one setting and get it right in another. Same goes for grammar. 2. Tell me why I should hire you. Why YOU instead of anyone else. Show me with your resume, remind me with your cover letter and then tell me in the interview. 3. Ask intelligent questions throughout the interview. Don't get all the way to the end and ask something stupid and made up just to have something to say. LISTEN to what I'm saying and respond to it. Follow instructions. Tess Sooooo, since there doesn't seem to be much consensus regarding how to behave during the interviewing process, I guess it would be fair to conclude that there are no "real" rules apart from dressing well and not being late and, since it's impossible to know each interviewer's views in advance, applicants should just use their own judgement and conduct themselves in a way they personally are most comfortable with. Good to know. "Use spell check if you aren't good at it. " It is OK to use spell check, BUT DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT RELY ON IT AS GOSPEL! (And, yes, I am yelling.) Spell check makes more mistakes than many humans make--it cannot "read" context, and its grammar can be very suspect. I have seen murderous copy that I just know was "recommended" by spell check, and the person who was doing the writing didn't know that spell check was wrong. I have seen sentences that simply did not make sense--another product of spell check. If you know your spelling and grammar are not the best, buy some reference books, then use them! All job seekers should have the following: a good dictionary, a thesaurus, and a business-writing or grammar primer. If you can find or afford one, also buy a style manual such as Chicago or AP. There are no rules. Finding THE job is all about things lining up perfectly--right applicant, right company, right position, right interviewer, right time. If all of these line up, you just can't do wrong. If one of these is off, nothing you do (or don't do) will matter. If the hiring manager wants a go-getter with a type A personality who can't take 'No' for an answer, there is no such thing as too much follow-up. If the hiring manager is a more introverted/laid back type of person who likes things to move at his/her own pace and likes to surround him/herself with like-minded people, they might find this same approach irritating and stalkish. However, if you are a type A personality, you won't be happy working for this person anyway, so what do you care if all your follow-up gets you disqualified? I feel that when interviewing, one should just be him/herself and act in a way that's appropriate according to their judgement. If showing their true personality gets them disqualified, the job wasn't right for them. Here's just one example. I had an interview about a year ago. I showed up 15 minutes late (express service was suspended, so train stopped at every station and took longer than I expected). Some people would say that I had to have been cutting it too close if lack of the express service was a factor, and that I should've allowed more time for commute on the day of the interview than I ordinarily would. These people would be correct. However, I've never been able to leave home early for anything, and it wasn't happening that morning either. That's just who I am and everyone I know has learned to live with it. I didn't want to be late, but I was. Anyway, as the interview got on the way, one of the 2 interviewers asked what my supervisors would say about me. I gave some standard answer. He then asked "Would your supervisor discribe you as punctual?"--what do you know, a not-so-veiled reference to my having shown up late. I said, "No, I don't think he would. He would, however, say that I have never missed a deadline even if that meant staying in the office until midnight or coming in on the weekend". Later, I was asked to talk about my weaknesses or an area where I could use improvement. By then, I felt certain that I didn't stand a chance in hell, so I was just answering the questions honestly. I joked that my biggest weakness was pathological honesty. Both interviewers laughted and one of them said he could see that. Towards the end, the three of us were just chatting about the industry and a recent article and having some laughs, and I felt that, although they seemed to like me personally and we seemed to click, I was no longer being seriously considered for the position. Imagine my surprise when the next day I received a call telling me I got the job. It turned out to be the most fun place I've ever worked at (noone even minds an occasional lateness). Had they not moved to a location that presents a commuting nightmare a few months ago, I definitely would not be job searching today. Even so, since I have kind of gotten used to the neighborhood, and since all of the companies I've interviewed with so far seem considerably less fun, I'm currently reevaluating my decision to switch jobs. Based on my experience, I have come to a conclusion that the only rule to remember while job searching is to be yourself and wait for the right company and the right people to bite. I made all of the mistakes interview books warn us against, I did not answer questions the way textbooks teach us to answer them, and I still got the job. Granted, I am not in a super duper conservative field, but had I not been absolutely positive I had kissed that opportunity good-bye when I showed up late, I would never have allowed myself to be as laid back about the whole thing. So in a way, screwing up from the get-go was freeing for me. So much for rules and keeping the whole thing dead serious and professional. I said it once, and I'll say it again--there is no universal "Do and Don't" list for how to ace an interview. It's all about the right things lining up perfectly. It is OK to use spell check, BUT DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT RELY ON IT AS GOSPEL! Agreed Anne Marie, however, it might have helped the Original Poster in this thread to look like they actually have some business background and thus given themselves the tiniest bit of credibility. I honestly can't take anything they say about being some sort of job seeking authority seriously when they've got a misspelling and serious grammar error in nearly every sentence.
Tess "....when they've got a misspelling and serious grammar error in nearly every sentence...." Oh, agreed, Tess! And certainly spell check would have helped that post out a great deal. But, I get concerned when people seem to think they no longer need tools such as dictionaries because, "Well, I have spell check on my computer...." Duh, yeah, but one does have to use one's brain as well. It is frustrating when people either don't know that they don't know, or know that they don't know, and just don't care! I agree with Pete Hamill (who has a magical way with words) about the dumbing down of America.... "It is frustrating when people either don't know that they don't know, or know that they don't know, and just don't care!" Some of the things I see more and more often are stupid errors like "there" instead of "their", "your" instead of "you are" or "you're", "to" instead of "too, and "then" instead of "than". It's quite impossible to make these mistakes and not come off as ignorant. None of these will show up in a spell check. I used to work with a director who liked to correct the errors in applicants' resumes and cover letters in red ink and send them back. Sometimes when I read resumes, I find myself tempted to do just that. | |
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Career Tips
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