Selling Yourself: A Resume Rethink
There’s one thing that can make the difference between a good resume and a bad one, and can help you turn a good resume into a great one. It’s relatively simple, but it means thinking about your resume in a different way than you may be accustomed to.
The shift is this: if your resume were a person, it should be more like a salesperson than a biographer.
I’ll explain what this means for writing your resume in just a moment. But first – for those people who have no experience in sales – let me give you a quick lesson in sales theory. (If you do have some sales experience, keep reading. The most challenging product to sell is yourself, and this will help you do that.)
A salesperson can try to sell a product or service by focusing on its features or its benefits. In simple terms, features are the attributes of a product. The benefits are how it helps the buyer. In sales, it’s not either/or; features and benefits are both important. It’s just that the features are only important because they give the buyer the benefit they’re looking for.
Think about how you make decisions about a major purchase. When buying or renting a home, the layout and size of the rooms are important, but only because they allow you to live the life that you want to live in that home. You check out and compare the specs of the phone or tablet models you’re considering buying, but mostly because those specs determine whether you’ll be able to do the things you want to do with that device. You may look at the picture and sound quality specs of a big screen TV that you’re thinking of buying, but what you’re really thinking about is the quality of the movie-night experiences you’ll have with friends and family.
Far too many resumes are written like a spec sheet for one of these purchases. Your work experiences, the tasks you did, the responsibilities you’ve held in your jobs … those are your ‘features’. It’s not that they’re not important – they are. But they’re only important to the extent that they demonstrate the benefits you’ll bring to a prospective employer.
When writing or updating your resume, think like a salesperson. Your ‘customer’ is a potential employer. What are they really looking for? What value are they hoping to get from bringing on someone new? What benefits will they be looking for you to provide? The answers to these questions will depend on the kind of work you do, but generally speaking, they’re usually about improving the company somehow. The information you include in your resume should show that you can increase revenue for the company, or lower their costs, or make things run more smoothly and efficiently.
A resume that really sells you focuses less on what you did, and more on how that work created value for your previous employers. That’s what’s most relevant to your next employer. Every part of your resume can be viewed through that lens.
Your summary statement - if you have one - should paint a picture about how the experience you bring with you will allow you to create value as an employee in the specific position you’re applying for. (This is why a summary is preferable to an objective, which is less about what your prospective employer wants and more about what you want.)
The skills you choose to highlight on your resume should validate and support the specific benefits that you want the reader to see in you. Same with the training and certifications you choose to list. Each of these adds a level of objective credibility to the experience you’re outlining.
When you describe your work experience in each of your previous jobs, don’t just list all the things you did in that role; the tasks you were responsible for. Most of the lines of content in this section of your resume should focus instead on the impact that your work created for the company.
This shift to a sales mindset is also why keeping track of specific achievements, and including them on your resume, is so important. Accomplishments – particularly those that are quantifiable, expressed in percentages and monetary amounts – underscore how you benefited your previous employers. This, in turn, helps your ‘customer’ - a prospective employer reading your resume - more clearly envision how you’d benefit them.
When you strip away the ‘features’, refining the content in your resume to leave the most valuable benefit-related content, you may end up with a document that has fewer words (more white space) and fewer pages. That’s fine: quality is what counts in a resume, not quantity. The more text there is to read, the less likely that a reader will notice what you really want them to see. Decluttering is good, because the reader is left with the content that really shows what you can do for them.
Testing, testing .. 1, 2, 3: Are assessments a useful addition to the recruiting process?
Candidate assessment tools have been used for many years by recruiting firms and hiring companies alike to – in theory – introduce some scientific objectivity to the otherwise highly subjective process of determining whether someone would be a good fit for a job and for the team or company. Their promise is an appealing one, to be sure. Who wouldn’t want a ‘crystal ball’ to take away the guesswork? One that could predict whether a prospective hire will work well with the rest of the team, whether they have a leadership style that will fit well into the organisation, and whether they’re likely to be a high performer in the long run?
So, are they worth it? The right assessment, used correctly, certainly can be.
Let’s start with technical assessments; they’re a clearer choice. If there are specific technical skills that a candidate requires to be successful in a position, a well-designed technical assessment can help assess those skills. Naturally, this shouldn’t be done instead of the appropriate questioning during an interview, but rather in addition to it. The caveat with technical assessments is to determine whether they’re really necessary for that specific case or not. They shouldn’t be done just for the sake of doing them; neither should they all be the same. Ideally, a technical assessment should be customised to each specific position (rather than a standard assessment for each new hire), and should test only skills that are necessary for that position.
The question of whether to use personality and soft skill assessments is more complicated. As with any product or service, there are good assessment tools and bad, and some are better for some situations than others. The science behind these assessments has evolved over the years, and the tools available now are far more robust than those available even a decade ago. If you do plan to incorporate them into your hiring process, there are a lot to choose from, and it makes sense to shop around and ensure that the product you select is the best for your specific circumstances.
The other question – an equally important one – is how a company puts these products to use.
No assessment tool can, or should, ever replace human decision making in the hiring process. No software algorithm can reliably predict an uncertain future. Aren’t people liable to make mistakes, though? Sure, of course. Humans are fallible. But so is technology. A software program is no more or less error prone than people who are using solid interview techniques, plus good judgement and reasoning skills, in a well-structured hiring process. Putting the human and technological elements to work together can be highly effective.
People are most likely to make errors resulting from subjectivity. Simply put, we tend to want to hire people that we like. If someone is friendly and engaging, and builds rapport quickly, we tend to see them through rose-coloured glasses. We exaggerate points in favour of their candidacy, and overlook things we shouldn’t. A robust selection process mitigates this bias by using well-designed questioning techniques, applied consistently, to get as close as possible to comparing ‘apples to apples’ when shortlisting and selecting final candidates. Incorporating assessments into the process can counter that human subjectivity further, giving us the reason and the opportunity to examine some of the decisions we’re making.
Along the same lines, assessments can help mitigate some of these biases for organisations that make DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) a priority in hiring. The objectivity of assessments - good ones, used well - can help to level the playing field, and advance candidates who don’t necessarily fit a particular mould.
As with many things in life and work, timing is everything. There’s a trend towards companies incorporating assessments in the very early stages of the hiring process. Some even require a candidate to complete an assessment in order to apply. This is wrong, because it’s actually counterproductive. Companies who do this see it as a filtering step - one that weeds candidates out, shortening the list to be considered. They’re right, but the candidates being filtered out, in most cases, are the wrong ones. A good candidate is a professional who knows the value of their time, and they want to be treated with respect in the hiring process. The vast majority of these candidates will abandon an application process that includes a required assessment.
Where these tools really shine is when they’re put to use in the latter stages of the hiring process. Here, they can unearth useful, objective, and data-driven insights that may not have surfaced in the interviews. Generally, no assessment report should be an immediate and automatic deal-breaker, immediately ruling a candidate out. Instead, they should point towards additional probing questions that can be asked in final interviews. These questions will be unique to each candidate, and the answers can help hiring decision-makers make better – and still human – decisions.
(It should be acknowledged that in an increasingly litigious labour law environment, it can be helpful in some cases to have the objectivity that these assessments provide, in order to defend hiring decisions when necessary. That said, the assessments should still complement, rather than replace, the decision-making of the people involved.)
One final note on the reports that are generated from assessments like these. Smart organisations use them long after the day an employee first starts working with them. The insights and information the best of these programs provide can help you align your new hire with the right team, the support they need, and the kind of leadership that will result in the highest level of performance and job satisfaction possible.
Algorithms will never take the human touch out of human resources, nor should they. Whether you already use a tool to assess candidates, or are thinking about starting, we’re happy to work with you to ensure that a well-structured hiring process complements – and makes the most of – the insights and information you receive.
Curating Your Online Life: Social Media and the Job Seeker
In a remarkably short period of time, social media has changed just about every aspect of our lives. Many of those changes have been good; the ability to connect with distant friends and family and share what’s going on in your lives, to meet new people, and to promote businesses and brands. Needless to say, the proliferation of social media has also brought some negative changes to our world; particularly, the deepening divisions between people. The pandemic and its various impacts - masks and vaccines, especially - politics, and world events are all fertile ground for disagreement and debate.
The pros and cons of social media aside, it also is a consideration for job seekers - an increasingly important one. Our presence on social media has become part of our identity - at least our online identity. While it’s not universal, it’s becoming more common for recruiters and employers alike to check out the social media presence of candidates they’re considering. Whether right or wrong, it’s possible that a hiring manager could discount a candidate based on an opinion that disagrees (or is perceived to disagree) with a company value, on lifestyle choices (being perceived as a party hound and a heavy drinker, for example), or on something as harmless - and ubiquitous - as venting and complaining about your current or previous job. That being the case, if you’re in the market for a job (or might be at some point in the future), you’ve got to consider what they’d see.
Let’s look at the three most common personal social media platforms - Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook - and the ways to protect your online brand on each one.
This photo-sharing platform is the easiest to cover, so we’ll start here. Instagram has been around long enough - twelve years, believe it or not - that its first users (who were probably quite young at that point) are now well into their careers. The biggest risk with Instagram is photos that show aspects of your lifestyle that don’t reflect well on you at your current career stage. To be safe, there are two simple steps to take with this platform. First, set your account to ‘private’, so that anyone who wants to see the content you post must be a follower of yours. Since you’re at it, you may also want to take a look through your followers list to make sure that you still want to be connected to the ones who are already there. Then - if you’re in any doubt - simply scroll back and ‘curate’ your posts, deleting anything that you feel could come back to haunt you. If you don’t want to delete posts altogether, you can also set the privacy on individual posts so that only you can see them. That takes care of your own activity on Instagram, but there’s one last setting you should consider: making it so you have to approve being tagged in someone else’s photo.
Twitter has become known as a platform where differences of opinion can become heated, and the nature of the platform makes each user’s activity very public, by default and by design. This makes Twitter the social media platform where even innocuous opinions can be misconstrued or taken out of context, and blown out of proportion. If you tend to use Twitter as a platform for engaging in healthy debate, the good news is that it has no requirements for users to use their own name. You can therefore create a completely anonymous account to weigh in on politics or anything else (being mindful, of course, that it’s always possible - with enough knowledge and time - to trace an account back to its owner). If you’ve posted tweets in the past that you’re concerned about, there’s an easy fix. Set your account to ‘private’, and once again, only your followers will be able to read your posts - current and past. This covers both your original posts, as well as any replies to others. Other users will now need your approval to follow you and see what you’ve posted. Like Instagram, you may also want to review your current followers and trim that list down to people you know and trust.
Facebook is a somewhat more complicated platform to curate. Your own personal Facebook page is quick and easy. With one click in the privacy settings, you can make it so that only your direct connections on Facebook can see what you’ve posted on your page, ever. (Of course, it’s not a bad idea to take a run through your list of ‘friends’ to make sure that they are, indeed, still friends.)
Simple, right? Not so fast. Your privacy settings have no effect on things you’ve posted on other people’s pages, on business pages, or in groups. In those cases, what others can see depends on that page’s privacy settings. On a public page or group, for example, anyone can see every post and comment ever made. Facebook also doesn’t make it easy to view all of the comments and posts you’ve made on other pages, so - for better or for worse - consider what you’ve posted as being more or less permanent. With Facebook, then, the best approach is to let time take care of the past. The nature of the platform is that new content buries the old. Be aware, then, that some of your previous activity is visible, and from this point forward keep that in mind when posting anything new on any page other than your own.
When using any one of these platforms (or any others that are sure to follow), there’s one caveat to keep in mind: a screenshot is forever. Someone who’s connected with you can capture something you’ve posted, and if they do, that post is no longer assured to remain private. A hasty comment, later deleted, can still hurt you. So think before you post.
A job seeker on the market has always had employers and recruiters evaluating their presence. In the past, it was resumes and cover letters, and the third-party perspective of your references. Now, your digital footprint is a significant part of your identity. Maintaining control over that presence is crucial. (On that note, you may be wondering why LinkedIn isn’t mentioned here. The use of LinkedIn as a job seeker is less about editing what’s there and keeping it private, and more about building the kind of presence you want to project. For that reason, we’ll look at LinkedIn in a separate article later.)
I’ll leave you with one failsafe strategy for using social media - as a jobseeker or in life generally - that has become a bit cliche but no less true for it: In a world where you can choose to be anything, choose to be kind.
From the Trenches: When Cheap is the Costliest Option of All
For any product or service that one can buy, there are several levels of cost and quality to choose from. In our lives outside work, we’re generally not surprised to get what we pay for. We don’t expect luxury car quality, options, and durability, for example, from an entry-level vehicle. In the world of business, however, it’s fairly common to choose the lowest bid. Is that always the smart choice?
We’ll come back to that question, but with your indulgence, there are a few stories from just the last few months that I’d like to share with you.
The first concerns a fairly common situation for us: a ‘needle in a haystack’ assignment, in which the client was looking for a candidate with several skills and experiences that are quite rare. The difference in this case is that when they came to us, the client had already been trying to recruit for this position for upwards of two months, working with a different firm. The new hire they were looking for wouldn’t be just an additional resource, they would be a central figure in several lines of business. That being the case, in those two months, the company had pushed back two critical projects and completely shelved a third. This ongoing situation had already cost the company significant revenue, so when we began discussions, the need was urgent to say the least.
We jumped into action right away, and I’m very happy to report that - with some very creative sourcing and fortuitous timing - we were fairly quickly able to identify two candidates that had the capabilities and experience we were looking for. Both progressed through the interviews, and one accepted the company’s offer at the beginning of March. (At the culmination of the search, the client had still never received a single qualified candidate from the first firm.)
The second instance concerns a different company, a relatively new client for us. This company had been working with another recruiting firm for a year or two, and had hired a handful of candidates through them. Overall, they were fairly happy with the service. At least, they had been, until one day when a senior member of their engineering staff submitted her resignation. She mentioned in passing that she had been connected with the opportunity through that recruitment firm; the same one they’d been using to hire candidates.
To be fair, there was never a written agreement in place preventing the firm from representing candidates from the client company. That said, the company felt that it was a breach of ethics for them to have approached their former staff person. We agree, and based on what we’ve heard, it’s unlikely the company will be working with that recruitment firm again anytime soon.
The last of the three stories is a bit more complicated. The company in this case has been a client of ours since the start of Excelsis. Someone in the company had thought it a good idea to broaden their supplier network - an absolutely fair decision, and we certainly don’t have an issue with competition. Ultimately, they hired a candidate from another firm. That candidate, however, didn’t stay. Only a month after starting in the job, they were recruited away to a different company. The firm had offered a guarantee, and our client went back to them, looking for them to provide a replacement as per the terms of that guarantee.
That was nearly three months ago. In several conversations with the client, they’ve been understandably frustrated. To be fair, a recruitment is never easy, but - in their view - the original firm’s heart just doesn’t seem to be in it. Our client feels somewhat ‘trapped’: they need the position filled, but feel locked in to filling it with the candidate they’re promised under the guarantee.
Working with the client, we came up with a solution to mitigate their risk. There was a vacancy coming up in a team adjacent to the one with the open position. We developed a position description that - should the other firm be successful in the replacement - would allow a new hire to fit well into the position that was coming up. If the replacement took much longer, however, candidates we identified could also be considered for that original role. At this point, we still don’t know for certain which role the successful candidate will ultimately fill. The candidates we’ve identified are in their final stages of the interview process for the new position, and the original one - the job for which a replacement is owed - still hasn’t been filled.
Practice Makes Perfect
When it comes to interviewing for jobs, do you see yourself as being good at it?
That’s sort of a trick question, because the truth is that nobody is inherently good or bad at interviewing (although it’s certainly true that some people are more comfortable in interviews than others). Mostly, it’s a learned skill. The good news is this: just like any other skill, it’s entirely possible to improve through practice.
Why Do I Need to Practice?
The irony about this particular skill is that we become really good at interviewing when we’re actively on the market. We attend one interview after another, honing our skills, then finally perfecting them … just in time for us to land a job. Then - happily employed once again - we fall out of practice, and go through the whole process again the next time we’re on the hunt for a job. (As an aside, this is a great reason to interview occasionally for jobs when you’re not actively looking. It keeps your skills sharp for the next time you really need them. And in the process, you just might unexpectedly stumble across your next great job.)
If you’ve got an important interview coming up, investing a bit of time and effort in preparing and practicing can help you get the outcome you’re hoping for.
How to Practice for a Job Interview
The first step in preparing for interviews is to think about the common questions you’re virtually certain to be asked. ‘Tell me about yourself’ is a common opener, so you’ll want to have a concise and compelling elevator pitch ready. Your strengths, your weaknesses. Your proudest accomplishments, and moments of failure. These questions are fairly ubiquitous, so it makes sense to think about your answers ahead of time and make note of the points you wish to make.
After preparing for these common questions, you could certainly try to figure out what other questions you might be asked. The problem is, there are literally thousands of possibilities.
Instead, forget about questions, and turn your attention to stories.
Whether a question you’re asked is a behavioral interview question or not, stories are the best way to describe your past performance and most effectively demonstrate your value as an employee. When thinking about the stories you could tell, there are four target areas to focus on.
The first two are achievements and accomplishments, and failures and missteps. Everyone has highs and lows in their career, and interviewers ask about them because they’re great ways of learning how you define and pursue success, and how you deal with and learn from failure when it happens. The next two areas to think about are difficult people, and difficult decisions and situations. These are important to interviewers because they demonstrate how you overcome obstacles (human or otherwise), and they also often speak to the way you solve problems and make decisions - important skills to any employer.
Questions about your work history often fall into those themes, no matter the specific wording. So, if you have a few stories reflecting each of those four areas, you’ll be able to ‘re-purpose’ them in response to a wide variety of questions.
When you’ve got your answers mapped out - your answers to common questions, and some good stories to tell - it’s time to practice.
It’s tempting to just think about your answers, maybe even rehearse them in your head. It may be uncomfortable, but resist that temptation. Speaking your answers aloud is much better. There are a number of ways you might approach this, depending on your situation.
At the very least, use your phone (or some other device) to record yourself. Listen to the recording, critique yourself (don’t forget to note the things you did well!), improve, and do it all over again.
You can take it one step further using video (and this is particularly helpful if you’re doing a lot of virtual interviews, as many of us are now). Use whatever hardware setup you usually use, and video yourself answering questions and telling your stories. With video, you can not only critique the content and delivery of your answers, you can also evaluate your body language and facial expressions. This is also a great time to practice maintaining eye contact with the camera (instead of watching yourself on the screen, a very hard habit to break).
If you want to go all in, you might consider looking for someone to do a mock interview with you. This doesn’t tend to work all that well with a friend, since it’s not a realistic representation of the real thing. It’s better to do this with someone who interviews and hires people as part of their work, and who doesn’t know you too well. (All that said, it’s still better to just apply and interview for jobs occasionally as mentioned above; there’s no substitute for the pressure and unpredictability of a real interview.)
Managing your Emotions
Unless you’re one of the very fortunate confident few, a job interview can be a very stressful experience. For the rest of us, managing this anxiety is an important part of being prepared for interviews.
This may seem a bit counter-intuitive, but once you’ve prepared and rehearsed, put it all aside and give your brain a rest. Overthinking can be just as harmful as under thinking. If you know you’re prone to anxiety and stress, meditation and deep breathing (regularly as part of a routine, and then especially just before an interview) can help calm the jitters. Don’t underestimate the power of visualisation, either. You may be skeptical, but picturing yourself being confident in the interview can really help boost your confidence when it comes to the main event.
Money on My Mind: How to ask for a pay rise
Money is on everyone’s minds these days. Our lives are costing us more; even though January’s year-over-year increase of 5.4% was likely an anomaly, 2022’s annual rate will likely be higher than the 2.6% we saw in 2021. Surveys report that UK employers are set to offer their employees an average 2.9% in 2022. The picture is rosier in some sectors; increases in the technology sector, for example, are nearer the 3% mark.
With all that in mind, are you thinking of asking for a pay rise? Or perhaps asking for a larger one that’s been offered?
It’s a discussion that very few people look forward to. Money is a difficult topic at the best of times for most of us. But with some planning and preparation, you can put yourself in a good position to negotiate.
Choose your Timing
What you’ll say is critical, of course. When you’ll say it is nearly as important. There are two aspects to consider when picking the right time to make your request.
The first is your own performance. To increase the odds of getting the increase you’re hoping for, make sure you’re asking at a time when your abilities in the job are clear, when you can show how you’ve gone above and beyond the minimum expectations, and when your tenure with the company (and the time since your last increase) is of an appropriate length.
It’s also important to consider timing from the organisational perspective. If the company is struggling financially, a request for a pay rise is not only unlikely to be successful, it also may be rubbing salt in a painful wound that your manager is already nursing. In this case, it may be better to hold off until the financial picture is rosier. If the company is doing well, it still pays to time your request with the annual budget cycle. If budgets have just been set for the year, your manager may not have as much flexibility as he or she would when the budgets are still being developed.
Plan Ahead
Before setting a meeting to talk about an increase, take some time to build your case.
The first step is to understand your value. You’ll want to go into the meeting with a range in mind; that’s the first question you’re likely to be asked in a negotiation, and you can’t be caught unprepared. Research salary ranges for your kind of job and company, and through that research determine your ‘bottom line’ – the number that you are determined to reach as a minimum – and an aspirational top figure to shoot for.
When determining your range, don’t overlook non-monetary aspects of compensation. If you’re not granted a salary increase – either at all, or at the level you’re hoping for – there may be other things you could propose as a compromise. You might consider a few more days of vacation time, for example, or perhaps more flexibility in remote or hybrid working arrangements. When it comes time to negotiate, having these cards in your back pocket can provide alternatives for your manager to consider other than a flat ‘no’.
Next, support your request with the business case. Although your own personal financial needs are likely foremost in your mind, the business case must be based on the value you bring to the company. In doing this, people tend to focus on their performance in the recent past. Certainly pointing out the ways in which you’ve been performing above expectation is important, but don’t only look to the rear-view mirror. A manager doesn’t necessarily want to pay you more for what you’ve already done. They’re more willing to pay for increased contributions and performance in the future. Consider and include a few forward-looking aspects as part of your business case.
Make your Pitch
When you’ve put together the aspects of your business case, it’s time to practice. Don’t plan to go into the meeting with a presentation, though; the meeting should be a conversation. The part to practice is your introduction, the first few things you plan to say. In addition to starting off with a well-structured intro with the key points you most want to make, this practice will help you move smoothly through the part of the meeting when you’re most likely to be anxious.
Finally, set the meeting. Don’t ambush your manager by walking into their office and expecting the meeting to take place then. Ask for the meeting ahead of time, being clear that you want to discuss your compensation. This will give your manager time to reflect and plan, which will make the meeting go much more smoothly.
Finish Strong
When planning for the meeting, plan also to be prepared for any outcome. If you’re granted the increase you were hoping for, that’s fantastic. Your manager may ask for some time to consider it, or they may say no. Be prepared with a ready response for any of these scenarios, and follow up points. If you weren’t granted the increase you wanted, for example, you should ask for feedback. What, specifically, can you do to demonstrate more value to the company and position yourself for an increase next time? If the ‘no’ was more about timing than it was about your own performance, when would it be appropriate to ask again?
Lastly, be ready to finish the meeting in an entirely professional manner. No matter the outcome, don’t apologize for asking. Compensation discussions are important in every employer-employee relationship; you never have to say sorry for making a well-supported request. Do say thank you, though, once again no matter the outcome. Show appreciation for your manager’s time and consideration (even if you’re feeling more disappointment than gratitude). Ending the discussion with consummate professionalism will leave a positive impression and pave the way for a more successful outcome the next time.
When Good Interviews Go Bad
Naturally, the goal for an interview is to find that one excellent candidate that knocks your socks off. But when you’ve been involved in hiring people for any length of time, it’s inevitable that you’ll see the opposite. Interviews with candidates that just … well, that simply don’t go well. Suffice it to say, when you’ve been in this kind of work for as long as we have, you begin to collect some stories.
We’d like to share with you a few of those stories here. To be clear, we’re not doing this to shame anyone. We’ve changed some details to protect the innocent. There’s a reason why we think you’ll find this both interesting (and possibly funny) but also constructive. It’s because smart people learn from their mistakes; truly wise people learn from the mistakes of others. Let’s see what we can learn from these mistakes.
The Small Talker
For everyone except extreme extroverts, meeting new people is an experience fraught with at least some anxiety. To quell this anxiety in business meetings, some people - often, those in sales - advise pointing out some personal object in the office as a means of making small talk. Sometimes, this works. Other times, not so well. One memorable candidate interviewing with me pointed out a few items of football memorabilia in the office, talking at length about his World Cup memories and a few of his favourite players over the years. It was fascinating, so I let him continue on (possibly for longer than I should have). It was only when he finally stopped for a breath and asked me a question about football that I told him I was only using one of my colleagues’ offices, and quite honestly had relatively little knowledge of the sport.
The takeaway? Making small talk is difficult, and finding something personal and important to your interviewer is certainly one strategy to make it easier. It’s perhaps a better strategy, though, to start with a question rather than a soliloquy.
The Accidental Host
I remember one particular instance where I was led down the hall as my host - already in interview mode - chatted about their day. They led me into the meeting room, sitting down in one of the chairs. There was only one problem: they had taken my chair. You see, this person had come to my office to be interviewed by me, and it was only by virtue of good luck that they had found the correct room. It was a somewhat awkward moment when I indicated that I really would like to sit by my notes, and asked him to take the other chair.
The lesson here: when meeting an interviewer at their place of work, you’re a guest. If you’re either highly dominant, or - conversely - highly uncomfortable meeting new people, it can be easy to forget this in your haste or your discomfort. When you’re waiting for your interviewer, take a few breaths. Slow your mind down. Remind yourself to be a gracious guest, deferring to the host to indicate when and where you should follow, and following their lead in the initial conversation.
The Hard-to-Get Player
It’s an effective negotiating tactic to show the other party that you have less interest in the outcome than they do (even if it’s not entirely true). And while it’s true that competing for a job is a form of negotiation, this tactic can be taken too far.
One candidate had clearly received the advice that it would best serve her to play hard-to-get. Granted, we found her, contacting her about an opportunity that could be a fit. From the start, it was challenging to find an interview time that worked for her hectic schedule (which might have been our first warning sign). During the interview, her body language and facial expression communicated what I can only describe as acute disinterest. At the end of the interview, she might as well have said, “I suppose I could make myself available for an interview … if I really must …”. Needless to say, she didn’t have to in the end.
The working relationship between a candidate and a recruiter isn’t a game. We treat candidates with the utmost respect, as equal partners in a business discussion, the objective of which is to determine whether a job is a good fit. The lesson here: we don’t play games; neither should you.
The Sour Grapes (of Wrath)
Speaking of respect, if we determine through the course of an interview that a candidate really isn’t a good fit for a job, we tend to let them know right then. It’s not fair to leave someone believing they might be in the running when they’re not. In most cases, candidates appreciate our openness, and are very happy to hear we’ll keep them in mind for other opportunities.
In one particular case, it was quite the reverse. We discovered through the interview that the candidate’s goals weren’t aligned with what the hiring company would offer, and we were upfront about that. The candidate reacted in dramatic fashion, angrily saying that they had never been interested in the job anyway, that they had only come in to be courteous, and that we had wasted their time.
I suspect that the takeaway here is fairly obvious, but I’ll point it out anyway. When a business discussion of any kind comes to a close that isn’t what you’d hoped for, it’s critical to respond professionally. That means being civil and courteous on the outside, no matter what you may be feeling inside. Particularly in this day and age, when everyone is so connected, it doesn’t pay to burn bridges.
A Few Wins: Success Stories from the Trenches
We’ve said this here before, and we’ll say it again: the current labour market is a very complex one. If you’re involved in recruiting and hiring people, you know this is the case. We’re in the market every single day, and we wanted to share some stories from our recent work that illustrate just how challenging the market for talent is right now.
In the first instance, our client was seeking a highly specialised set of skills and experience. In our consultation with the client, they warned us that there were very few people within a reasonable geographic distance - even beyond - that had the experience they were looking for. We’re not afraid of a challenge, and we’re accustomed to projects requiring highly targeted sourcing, but this project took that to a new level.
We embarked on the search, and - to make a long story somewhat shorter - we were successful in identifying several candidates who qualified for consideration. The job wasn’t done, however. Finding qualified candidates was only half the battle; we then had to secure their interest. In several cases, this simply wasn’t possible. One excellent candidate, for example, lived too far to commute and for family reasons couldn’t consider relocating. The candidate who was ultimately hired, in fact, turned us down the first time we spoke. She was very happy in her current job, and in fact was soon to be promoted. It took three separate conversations with her, nurturing and building a relationship over time, to encourage her to consider the role and agree to interview. The key was understanding that, even more than a promotion, she really wanted the kind of learning opportunities that our client offered. She’s been in her new role for a little over a month, and because of her performance to date, she’s already been approved for a course she was hoping to take.
The second situation is a study in contrast with the first. Is it possible to have too many candidates? Our client was seeking a supervisor who had a fairly common managerial skill set … with one exception. They required someone who came from a very particular kind of work environment. We can’t get much more specific without identifying the company, but suffice it to say that the candidate required proficiency with a certain kind of technology. Without it, the learning curve would simply have been too steep.
The phrase ‘needle in a haystack’ doesn’t quite cover our work on this project. Our team reviewed potential candidates numbering into the thousands, diving deep into our existing network and aggressively sourcing to find a selection of candidates who had the technical experience our client was looking for. The story has a happy ending: our client’s offer was accepted last week, and their newest employee is excited to start. Our client is thrilled too; they know just how much time we saved their team.
The final story we’ll relate here began with a recruitment assignment that was relatively straightforward. It was at the end where the story took a turn that could have left our client in a pinch. At the end of the interview process, their chosen candidate was the only one that they truly wanted to hire. You can imagine their alarm, then, when that candidate was made a very generous counter-offer by their current employer. It wasn’t too surprising; he had been with the company for nearly ten years, had accumulated a lot of highly valued corporate memory, and was a key player on several teams. Naturally, they didn’t want to lose him.
We weren’t surprised. That’s why we had spoken with him about the prospect of a counter-offer, long before it happened, just as we do with all our shortlisted candidates. We had talked through the pros and cons of accepting such an offer. Even still, the offer he received was generous enough that it caused him a moment of indecision. We revisited our earlier discussion with him, however, and we’re happy to report that within the day he signed our (very relieved!) client’s offer.
It’s a strange time to be in the trenches. Recruiting and hiring has never been easy, but we’d wager that it’s never been as difficult and complex as it is right now. We know a lot of you are facing these same kinds of challenges. Stay strong, and get in touch if we can be of help.
Should I Stay or Should I Go?
How do you know it’s the right time to leave a job? Leaving the security and tenure of an established position, especially if you’ve been there for some time, is never (well, almost never) an easy decision, and it’s an important one. By definition, it sends your career in a different direction. It may also play a part in future interviews, when interviewers ask about the factors you considered when you chose to move along.
Bear in mind the truth of the adage, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. If you’re thinking of moving on, make sure you’ve done the self-reflection to be confident that the move you’re making is the right one.
To help make the best decision possible, there are two important questions to consider:
What are you trying to get away from?
What are you trying to move towards?
Most job changes are a combination of the two. There are undoubtedly certain things that you’re dissatisfied with in your current role, and you want to get away from those things in a new job. There are likely also things missing in your current job, and ideally a new job would include those aspects. Unless you take the time to understand your motivations for making a change, it’s highly likely you’ll continue to be dissatisfied, perhaps jumping from one company to another, never feeling that the role is a good fit.
All that said, there are a few reasons why people tend to choose to leave their job.
One of the most common reasons is a lack of appreciation.
For some people, it’s a question of money. You might feel that your company isn’t giving you the salary (or the increase) you deserve. Sometimes it’s not about the money. Most people work best when they’re given validation and recognition for the work they do, even a simple ‘thanks!’ or ‘good job!’. If you don’t receive this kind of recognition, or if your performance reviews are mediocre, it’s easy to feel unappreciated and undervalued.
In light of the questions above, the first step is to figure out what appreciation means to you. Once you know what that is, you then have the opportunity to seek it out. If you’re not making as much money as you believe you should, you might ask for more. There may also be things you can do (taking on additional projects, for example, or enrolling in additional training of some kind) to position yourself for a larger increase. If your last performance review was lukewarm, did you get feedback about how to improve, and did you act on that feedback? It’s human nature to seek appreciation. If you don’t feel valued where you work, it’s natural to start thinking about moving to another place where you are.
The second very common reason people move is a lack of opportunity. This also can mean a number of things. For some people, opportunity means career progression with increasingly senior titles and growing teams. For other people - particularly many in technical careers - it’s more about learning and development.
If you’re feeling stagnant, think about what’s missing for you. If you want to be promoted to higher levels of responsibility, have you demonstrated the kind of initiative that gets you noticed? Have you put your hand up for opportunities to demonstrate leadership, regardless of title? If the lack of opportunity for you is more about opportunities to learn and grow, perhaps consider narrowing your focus, determining a direction for your learning and even seeking out specific courses. Many companies are quite willing to support their employees’ learning, if the investment will pay off in increased performance and capability. It just might be a question of asking for it.
Once again, if you truly feel you’ve plateaued, with no opportunities to move ahead in your career, it’s quite normal to turn your eyes to other opportunities.
The third most common reason people tend to move on is bad culture and poor management. The sad truth is, some workplaces are truly awful. People may be verbally abusive. Some workplaces can be literally unsafe, with safety violations to which management turns a blind eye. If you have the misfortune of working in such a place, and you can’t resolve it through legal means or regulatory bodies, the right choice may be to move on. Perhaps even without another job to go to, if your financial circumstances permit. No one should be expected to stay in a job that risks their mental, emotional, or physical health.
Talent Magnet: Retaining the Best
When recruitment is your business, as it is ours, there’s one question that’s central to every conversation we have with our clients: How can we attract the very best candidates for every position?
Our work gives us uniquely valuable insight into this question. Speaking with people every day about changing jobs, we hear why some want to leave their current employer, or why others choose to stay. We also hear what they’re looking for in their next company and job; the things that will attract and keep them performing at their best.
All this leads to one fundamental conclusion: attracting top talent begins with retaining the best.
It makes sense to approach this from the inside out: if a company can’t retain great employees, it won’t be able to recruit great employees either. This was always true, but it’s even more so now. Between social media generally, and employer-rating sites (like Glassdoor) specifically, word gets around more quickly and broadly than ever. This is great for transparency, but it puts more pressure on employers to make sure that the experience they offer their employees is a good one.
When considering this question, it’s tempting to jump to ‘culture’. It’s true that corporate culture is part of the equation, but it’s a bit of a red herring for several reasons. First, it’s subjective: what constitutes a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ culture varies from employee to employee. Secondly, because culture is something that management can influence, but not control or create. Culture develops organically within an organisation as a result of day-to-day actions and decisions. Below are the five most controllable elements that influence culture, and can create a great employee experience that retains - and attracts - top performing employees.
Compensation
Compensation and benefits are fundamental to employee satisfaction. This is the main reason most employees work in the first place. Not every company can match the highest salaries in the market, and the good news is that no company needs to. Money isn’t usually the primary factor an employee considers when choosing to take a new job. To successfully recruit great employees, companies just have to be competitive. Above the median range for comparable positions, and offering decent benefits. These benefits can have monetary value like healthcare coverage or training stipends. Increasingly, non-monetary benefits like flex time and the ability to work from home are equally valuable to many employees (and accessible even to organisations with limited budgets).
Communication
One hallmark of companies that attract and retain the best employees is the quality of communication throughout the organisation. Highly engaged employees want to know that they can speak openly about opportunities and challenges they see around them, and they want to know they’ll be heard. Top performers also generally seek out more information about their own performance. Annual performance reviews may still be a necessary formality, but great companies - and the managers in them - know that ongoing dialogue is necessary to keep their best employees fully engaged.
Trust and Respect
These attributes are flip sides of the same coin. The best employees choose employers who trust them to do their work, and who show respect for them. Micromanagement is the fastest way to undermine trust and respect. Instead, great companies foster an environment in which performance is measured by clear expectations and results, and employees are trusted – and held accountable – to deliver those results. Great companies also show respect for results through frequent recognition. Bonuses and other perks can be part of the picture, but more often it comes down to simple acknowledgement. Whether verbally or in writing, public or one-to-one, a sincere ‘excellent work, thank you’ carries immense value for employees.
Opportunity to Perform
Getting the right people ‘on the bus’ is half of the job. The other half is making sure those people are in the right seats. Top performing employees seek out roles where they have the chance to do their best work every day, and to get even better over time. Great companies provide them with this opportunity. They consider the skills and strengths of their current and prospective employees, and they take advantage of opportunities to allow them to stretch the boundaries of their role and responsibilities. In doing so, they provide the opportunity for their employees to learn, grow, and develop their knowledge and abilities further.
Connection to Mission
No matter the level of organisation they’re at, great employees aren’t generally satisfied with being a ‘cog in the machine’. They want to know how their work connects to the bigger picture. Great companies, and the managers within them, make this connection clear to their people. They’re always looking for opportunities to show how each person’s daily tasks contribute to the mission and purpose of the organisation, helping to move it forward and achieve its goals.
If you’re not already doing so, it pays to keep your fingers on the pulse of employee satisfaction and engagement. This can be done through well-designed surveys (the Gallup Q12, for example), and also by monitoring what people are saying about your organisation – on Glassdoor, if nowhere else. Looking at sources of information like this can provide helpful direction about ways in which you can take your employee experience from good to great, and retain your very best.