by Alison Green
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Copyrighted, U.S.News & World Report, L.P. All rights reserved

We actually want you to be honest.
I see too many job applicants who approach the interview as if their only goal is to win a job offer, losing sight of the fact that this can land them in the wrong job. Think of it like dating. This means being honest about your strengths and weaknesses and giving the hiring manager a glimpse of the real you, so he or she can make an informed decision about how well you’d do in the job.

You are unique and each company is unique.  You do  yourself no favors by trying to get the job at any cost, despite what others will teach you.  For starters, if you don’t know what you want and take the time to find out if they’re what you want, you may find out you’re miserable, only it will be too late.  Additionally, honestly should be paramount.  You don’ t have to bleed all over everyone, but don’t try to hide or change things to protect yourself and make the interviewer like you better.

We pay attention to the small stuff.
Frequently, I see candidates act as if only “official” contacts—like interviews and formal writing samples—count during the hiring process. They’ll send flawless cover letters and then check up on their applications with sloppily written E-mails with spelling errors. Or they’ll be charming and polite to me but rude to an assistant. I pay attention to how quickly a candidate responds to requests for writing samples and references, and even how fast he or she returns phone calls.

“Small things telling…” I had a client once who did a retainer for one month.  Squeezed it like a sponge – that’s okay.  That’s what I’m here for.  The program can be done in two months, but he made it through only about 1/3 of it.  Jovial, jolly, friendly – didn’t do a thing without asking me my opinion.  At the end of one month, he cut loose.  Hardly answered my emails and when he did, he was brusque.  Didn’t want to comment on what he’d learned because he hadn’t gotten a job yet.  Very unimpressive behavior.  I can’t imagine he’s very pleasant to work for.  

We want you to ask questions.
I encounter many candidates who don’t have many—or even any—questions when I ask what I can answer for them. Your interviewer wants to know that you’re interested in the details of the job, the department, your prospective supervisor’s management style, and the culture of the organization. Otherwise, you risk signaling that you’re either not that interested or just haven’t thought very much about it.

Not only have you not thought very much about this job, this interview, this company, but you haven’t thought much about your career, the next step, ot in what kind of company you are most happy or to which you can contribute.  Your career is reactive.  No one wants to hire someone like that.

We’d like a thank-you note right away.
E-mail is fine for this and has the advantage of arriving faster, but handwritten notes are still appreciated (and are increasingly unusual so will stand out). And if there are multiple interviews, send a thank-you note each time.

There is no excuse for not writing a thank you note.  Not only is it rude for not expressing appreciation for the time they spent with you, but you’ve missed a valuable opportunity to sell yourself by reinterating why you’re right for the job or clearing up a point that perhaps was left hanging.

We’re hoping for some enthusiasm.
Commonly, job seekers are too worried about looking desperate. It doesn’t look desperate to express your interest in the job or check in to ask about the hiring timeline. However, enthusiasm does cross the line if you are calling more than once a week, calling earlier than the date they said they’d get back to you, sounding like you’re eager to take any job as opposed to this one in particular, or appearing as if this is the only option you have.

When you’re searching for a job, enthusiasm is a good thing. But some job applicants cross the line from enthusiastic and proactive to obnoxiously aggressive—and, in doing so, kill their chances at a job offer. You have crossed the line if you are doing any of the following: Checking on the status of your application daily; calling and hanging up when you get voice mail, over and over; cold-calling numerous employees in the same company.

Desperation does not breed objectivity.  Companies want to be liked for who they are – because you know what you want and you’ve spotted it in them.  Just like you want them to like you for you.  And be truthful – who are you more excited to have lunch with – the old friend who is hugely excited to run into you? Or the one who didn’t crack a smile once and had little to say?

We need to know your real weaknesses.
Claiming that your biggest weakness is perfectionism and you work too hard is disingenuous. It looks like you’re avoiding the question. Candidates who can’t or won’t come up with a realistic assessment of areas where they could improve make me think they’re lacking in insight and self-awareness—or, at a minimum, just making it impossible to have a real discussion of their potential fitness for the job. I want to know about your weaknesses not because I’m trying to trip you up, but because I genuinely care about making sure you’re a good fit for the job.

It’s not a trick question.  Let’s go back to every company is unique and every person is unique.  Your job isn’t to get the job at any cost, it’s to find out if you’re right for them and they’re right for you.  It also shows maturity and self – awareness.

You should address being overqualified in your cover letter.
If you don’t acknowledge it, we’re afraid that you’ll be bored, that you don’t understand the position, that the salary will be too low for you. We need to hear things like: “At this stage in my career, having a job I enjoy is more important to me than salary. I have no problem earning less than I have in the past.” Or, “I want to move into this field, and I know that I need to start at a lower level in order to do that.” Or, “I wouldn’t take a job I’m not excited about.”

Don’t even get me started on this one.  Candidates tend to think a company should be eager to get someone with strong experience and all those skills.  But they’re thinking from their own viewpoint – not the hiring authority’s.  I’ve got a special report on this very topic.  It’s a good six pages long and will tell you just how to deal with it

Your resume objective usually hurts you.
Your resume gets tossed when it lists an objective totally unrelated to the position I have open. Really, just get rid of the objective altogether. It rarely helps, often hurts, and always takes up valuable real estate that could be better used to showcase your accomplishments. If you want to talk about your career objective and how this position fits it, use the cover letter for that.

An objective shouldn’t be on there at all.  It doesn’t inform, it’s all about you, and it’s selling you short in multiple ways, including the one in the above paragraph.  Job finding is a skill.  Sometimes it’s just common sense.  If you went into a store and asked for running shoes,  what would your reaction be if the salesperson brought you basketball sneakers?  Same thing.  Use your head.   It’s one of the many reasons why you’re sending out resumes and not getting any response.

The phone interview is not a casual chat.
While the interviewer wants to get a sense of your personality, a phone interview is still an interview, not an informal phone call with a friend. Don’t sound stiff, but don’t use the same tone you’d use to talk about your date last night. I’ve phone-interviewed candidates who I’m pretty sure were lounging on the couch, watching the game with the sound down, and snacking while we talked.

Have your resume in front of you, smile when you speak, and be somewhere it’s quiet where you won’t be interrupted.  Anything else and your sabotaging yourself.   Your job is to get in the door because that’s where you get the meat of the information about the company.  The phone interview is for the company to decide if they like you or not and if they want to bring you in for a face-to-face.  You can’t get what you need on the phone interview, so you should be focused single mindedly on helping that decision be a “yes.”

You shouldn’t count on our job offer.
Whatever you do, don’t let up on your job search, no matter how confident you are that an offer is coming. Things change; other candidates come along; plans for the position evolve or even get canceled. Until you have a firm offer in hand, you have to proceed as if you don’t, since ultimately you can control only your side of the process—so keep setting up those other interviews.

But it happens.  That’s because people hate job searching so they tend to delude themselves and be pretty sure they have it in the bag.  And then when they don’t get the  offer…..they’ve lost all that time.  Don’t learn the hard way.  It ain’t over til the fat lady sings – or in other words, until you have an offer in writing and a start date set.

We may check references beyond your list.
Simply not listing that person as a reference isn’t enough; Reference-checkers can call anyone you’ve worked for or who might know you, even if they aren’t on the list you provide. In fact, smart reference-checkers will make a point of calling people not on your list, because presumably you’ve only listed the people most likely to present you in the best light.

I did this all the time as a recruiter, especially a contingency recruiter because I focused on a specific industry or narrow geographic area and thus knew all the players.  When I did construction, I knew the subs.  It wasn’t uncommon for me to do twice as many “unofficial” references as “official” ones.  Sometimes I got mixed info or had a hunch and had to chase things down.  But that was what my clients expected so I made sure I knew the real scoop. 

Some of us actually care about candidates.
One of the biggest complaints I hear from job seekers who write to me at Ask a Manager is about companies that don’t respond to job applicants: no rejection, nothing. Personally, I think it’s inexcusable—throughout the hiring process, but particularly after a company has engaged with an applicant in some way, like a phone interview or an in-person interview. It’s callous and dismissive and lacks any appreciation for the fact that the candidate is anxiously waiting to hear an answer—any answer—and keeps waiting and waiting, long after a decision has been made.

I agree.  It’s egregious.  But see above….”small things telling.”  Would it kill them, especially in this day and age, to cut and paste (or whatever) a stock response so that people have closure?  The worst one is the new thing of companies not hiring unemployed people (see my previous blog post).    

You can gain an edge with your cover letter.
Individualize. Yes, it takes a lot longer than sending out the same form letter over and over, but a well-written cover letter that’s obviously individualized to a specific opening is going to open doors when your resume alone might not have. These account for such a tiny fraction of applications that you’ll stand out and immediately go to the top of my pile. And I’ll give you an extra look, even if your resume isn’t stellar.

Don’t get me started on this one either!  I say and say and say til I’m blue in the face “Don’t send a generic cover letter.”  The ad is the company telling you what they want.  Why do so many people ignore it?  It’s not about what you want to say, it’s about what they want to hear….and make it truthful when you tell them.

You can be too early to the interview.
Many interviewers are annoyed when candidates show up more than five or ten minutes early, since they may feel obligated to interrupt what they’re doing and go out to greet the person, and some (like me) feel vaguely guilty leaving someone sitting in their reception area that long. Aim to walk in five minutes early, but no more than that.

You many need a job, but don’t make it look like you don’t have a life.  Plus, it’s not as impressive as you might think.

You can leave the subjective descriptions off the resume.
Your resume is for experience and accomplishments only. It’s not the place for subjective traits, like “great leadership skills” or “creative innovator.” I ignore anything subjective that an applicant writes about herself, because so many people’s self-assessments are wildly inaccurate and I don’t yet know enough about the candidate to have any idea if hers is reliable or not.

Exactly.  It’s just like when they say “Objection, your honor! Hearsay!” in the movies.  Accomplishments – that’s hard results and benefits because of something you did - are objective.  Your opinion is subjective and carries no weight.  That’s another one of the many reasons you send out resumes and hear nothing back.

Your resume should answer one key question.
The vast majority of resumes I see read like a series of job descriptions, listing duties and responsibilities at each position the job applicant has held. But resumes that stand out do something very different. For each position, they answer the question: What did you accomplish in this job that someone else wouldn’t have?

Again….exactly.  Between the person who had the job before you and the person who will have the job after you, and you….the job will be done 3 different ways.  Factor in the hundreds of thousands of people in the US who have your job title, and you have an infinitely large number of different performances.  How many CFOs do you think there are in the US?  Do you think they are all doing the same job the same way with the same results? Of course not.

New grads need work experience.
I receive all too many resumes from recent grads who have literally no work experience: nothing, not internships, not temp jobs, nothing at all. Find a way to get actual work experience before you leave school. Do internships every semester you are able, so that you have experience on your resume. Paid, unpaid, whatever it takes. If a part-time job of a few hours a week is all you have time for outside of your classes, that’s fine. Do that. No one will hire you? Find work experience as a volunteer—that counts too

It provides an indication of how self motivated and responsible you are.

We think a lot about your personality
You might not get hired because your working style would clash with the people you’d be working with. Often, one personality type will simply fit better into a department than another will, and that’s the kind of thing that’s very difficult (if not impossible) for a candidate to know. Remember, it’s not just a question of whether you have the skills to do the job, it’s also a question of fit for this particular position, with this particular boss, in this particular culture, in this particular company.

Kind of like dating.  If you like Michael Buble, drive the speed limit, and like to watch old movies, do you really want to date someone who likes Metallica at top volume, gets into testing the centrifugal force effects on the road, and prefers to stay up late going dancing at clubs?

We want you to talk in interviews, but be concise.
There’s always at least one otherwise-qualified candidate in any hiring round who kills their chances by being too long-winded. You might think, “Well, some people are long-winded, but it doesn’t mean he wouldn’t do a good job.” The problem is that, at a minimum, it signals that you’re not good at picking up on conversational cues, and raises doubts about your ability to organize your thoughts and convey needed information quickly.

I interrupt a lot of my clients and freely admit it and explain why to them.  And it comes up when we talk about interview skills.  Lots of  candidates find interviewing gets easier after they’ve done it a few times.  Even as a recruiter I suggested role playing.  Formulate your thoughts and sentences and get the practice runs out of the way before hand.  Ask your friends and family if you have any quirks (like endlessly talking) so you can stimulate your self awareness and make an effort to overcome it/them.  Not just for the interview, but maybe even in general!

Be honest in interviews, but don’t spill about a bad boss
You’re far better off explaining that you’re looking for new challenges, excited about this particular opportunity, taking the time to find something right, and so forth. I’m not crazy about advising someone to be anything less than forthright, and I don’t normally recommend it, but in this area, the potential for giving an employer an bad impression is just too great to do it safely.

It’s tough to do.  I’ve been able to give some clients wording in conjunction with what they’re looking for, but it takes specific knowledge of the instance.  By and large, she’s correct.  Don’t even attempt to explain it.   Because it’s a one-sided story, you may come off like you’re playing the blame-game (which means you might have a hard time accepting responsiblity for your actions) and on occasion, people sense they’re sticking their foot in their mouth, and then in an effort to take it out, make the situation worse.