Top 5 Tips For Job Seekers

Episode #13 Transcript

PUBLISHED ON OCTOBER 21, 2010

Welcome to Onward Search Career Cast; the podcast that brings you the latest insight and career advice from experts within the internet marketing and creative space.  Onward Search is a leading nationwide provider of web-based talent and offers a full range of recruitment and staffing solutions.

If you’re looking for a career in search engine optimization, interactive design or emerging technologies, you should apply online at onwardsearch.com or call 1-800-829-0072 and speak with an experienced recruiter today.

Peter Clayton: Welcome to episode 12 of the Onward Search Career Cast. This is Peter Clayton reporting from the headquarters of Onward Search in Wilton, Connecticut. I'm back with two senior members of the Onward Search Executive Search team; executive recruiter Jamie Young and Vice President of Executive Search, Tom Hull.

In the last episode of the career cast, we covered the top 5 tips every hiring manager and employer needs to know to be able to attract and recruit the best talent.  In this episode, we're going to turn the tables and focus on the job seeker perspective with the top 5 tips candidates must remember in order to land the job of their dreams.

Tip #1, according to our experts is preparedness. Jamie, when it comes to preparation, what absolutely must be on a candidates list?

Jamie Young: For a candidate that’s about to go into the process of an interview, you want to make sure that you know what you’re getting into and where you’re going.  Do the research, get on their website, go to the company website, Google the company, find out any news that they’ve been in; anything that you can do that will be doing your homework, is going to be ideal.  You want to make sure that you have all that taken care of, so if a   question comes to you, you’ll be able to answer it.  But it also helps in providing yourself with going into the process with open ended questions that you have might for the company.  In coming with this research, you maybe identified some things that you want to find out that you didn’t know before and opens up the door for open ended conversations instead of just as typical yes/no questions.

Also, some people may laugh, but practice makes perfect.  If you want to practice in a mirror, don’t be afraid to do so.  I sometimes tell people to practice in front of their loved ones, because lets be serious, they’re the ones that will critique you in the highest fashion. So, definitely just be ready to go in and have all your homework done.

Peter Clayton: I think that’s some great advice because there’s no excuse.  As competitive as the job market is, you have to know exactly what this company is all about, know something about their background, because they’re going to ask you.  That’s going to be one of the questions – What do you know about our organization?

Jamie Young:   The information is too easy to obtain now with just getting on the good old world wide web and finding it out.

Peter Clayton: Tip #2 – Presentation is Key.  Tom, what should candidates remember about how they present themselves during the interview?  Is this more than just appearances?

Tom Hull:  Yes of course, appearance is going to be important, but when you’re going through the process, first you get prepared.  Now you want to be able to make sure that you’re presenting yourself effectively. 

One common mistake that people going o an interview do, is they’re getting into the habit of saying, ‘we’ as opposed to ‘I’.  Now granted, in their corporate environment, they’re going to say, “Here is what our team did and here is what we did as a group.”  Well the whole group isn’t interviewing. You’re the one who’s interviewing. So you need to make sure that you’re saying, “Here’s what I did,” because quite frankly, they’re going to be hiring you for the success that you’re going to be able to build.

With your presentation, if you’re able to bring a spreadsheet that can attest to or expand upon your experience, if you’re going through the interview process and they ask you a question you say, well let me explain it to you, but even better yet, I’m going to show it to you with this PowerPoint that I have – it’s a really good and effective way to show that you are prepared and that you have the ability to present specifically to what they’re looking for.

Another good technique is to speak with confidence.  That’s talking like you already have the job.  If they say a major initiative that we want to have covered is for our new hire to do this, instead of saying, well here’s what I think your new hire would do; you would say something along the lines of, well once I’m in this position, here’s what I would do to help solve this problem.

Peter Clayton: I think the idea of going in with confidence is so important and let’s face it, if you’re going in to an interview through an executive recruiter; you’ve been vetted, right?  They’re bringing you in because they’re really interested in you.  No one goes into interviews anymore face to face, especially in executive positions, without already have been vetted very extensively by an organization.

Tip #3 is sort of getting back to as what Jamie and I we’re talking about, is Know your Specifics.  Tom is this more than just how a candidate answers their interview questions?

Tom Hull:  Well it is.  I think it goes hand in hand with what we’re going to do.  We wanted to have a theme with this; you’re prepared, you’re able to present. 

What is a client really looking for?  The most important thing that I’ve heard from clients is, be specific with your answers.  If you answer a question in general terms, it either means you don’t understand the question, or you don’t know the appropriate skills for it.

A good way to prepare yourself for the interview and to present effectively is to look at the position description that you have.  There’s going to be bullet points.  Break down each of those bullet points with a specific answer.  What did you do…how did you accomplish it… what are the results?  And more importantly, back it up with quantitative numbers. 

We’re working in interactive marketing, so if you’re a director of online marketing, and you’re responsible for online acquisition for search and affiliate in display, talk about how your efforts have impact the bottom line and be able to speak through a return on ad spend.

Peter Clayton: That’s terrific.  Let’s face it; because it is online, the metrics are all there.

Tom Hull:  Absolutely.  If you’re able to back up everything that’s in a position description with specific answers for what you’ve done, not what you’d like to do or what you think you can do; everyone wants someone who could walk through the door and do the job.  The opportunities are too critical to have some timeframe to be able to get ramped up.  You walk through the door able to do the job, and to make sure you minimize any of those concerns, be prepared with specific answers.

Peter Clayton: Tip #4 on our top 5 from these experts is, Sell Yourself.  Jamie, this is something we’ve heard a lot about, but what does that really mean?  Is there are right or wrong way to do it?

Jamie Young: I think going back on what we’ve talked about on the last three tips is being prepared, because in order to sell yourself, have those details, have those specifics, have those quantitative results that you’ve accomplished and have them with you.  Make sure that you have everything you can to make yourself look the best.

The common mistake that a lot of our candidates make is assuming that because they’ve sent their resume, because they’ve set up an interview with this new company, they assume that the company knows they’re interested.  We have many, many, many candidates that will go through the process and leave the interview that day, but never ever express that they’re interested.  It’s so important that so many people kind of forget, because they want to get everything out there, and it’s something so small but so big at the same time.  So make sure that when you’re in there, you let the company know, “I’m interested in this. This is something that I know that I can do.  I have the confidence that I can definitely fill this role and do a great job at it,” which kind of brings me to my next point of being enthusiastic.

No matter what anybody says, enthusiasm matters. I have a specific example because I was working with the company, and it came down to two candidates who had the exact same skill set, were pretty much head to head at the end of the process, and the company was coming down to the fact  who do we want to choose?  They chose one candidate.  When I went back and asked what was is that made up your mind for this candidate?  They said throughout the whole process this person had enthusiasm.  They had desire, they had enthusiasm and ultimately it was the reason that we made this decision and we thought they were the best fit. 

It is extremely important and sometimes goes unnoticed.

Peter Clayton: We are up to tip #5, which I love and it’s, Have Fun!  This seems like an easy one to do but perhaps one of the most overlooked.  How much does this really weigh into the hiring process?

Tom Hull:  We think it’s very important.  You want to be able to make sure you’re going through this process and the company is seeing you for who you really are.  A mistake that I know people will say you go on an interview and they say, “Be yourself.”  What exactly does that mean?  That doesn’t really tell you that much. 

What you want to be able to do is establish a rapport with the people you’re talking to.  Like we mentioned before Peter, with all of the technology that’s out there, everyone is on LinkedIn.  If you’re doing it correctly, you’ll know ahead a time who you’re interviewing with, you could see the school they went to, the companies they’ve worked for, and then the common connections you have.  Sometimes having that common connection to just break the ice, is going to go a long way to just establishing an easy environment to have a conversation as opposed to feeling like you’re under that white hot spotlight for an interview.

Another thing to remember is that technical skills can be taught, but you can’t teach somebody a personality.  People like to work with people and hire people specifically that they like.  Even if you don’t get the job, you want to make sure you’re presenting yourself in a professional manner.  You never know where these conversations and their connections can lead to, either internally or from their colleagues at another company.  Make sure you have fun with the process, go in prepared, know your stuff, talk specifics, and then through that process, you’ll be able to make some connections for an immediate or future next opportunity.

Peter Clayton: Any hot jobs that you want to share with us?

Jamie Young:  Currently we work nationwide on the Executive Search permanent placement, so we’ve got wide variety of opportunities within the internet marketing world.  We’ve got a few things going on with some hot internet retailers, large agencies, and also some boutique agencies that are really making a push to build up their search teams right now as well, whether be paid search or organic, so, we‘ve definitely been keeping busy with new hot jobs coming in.

Peter Clayton: Any geographies that are specifically hot right now?

Tom Hull:  What we find is that we’re concentrated around the major metropolitan markets.  We have our freelance offices in New York, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, LA, San Francisco and Dallas.  We have a lot of business around them, for search particularly it seems to be a hot bed of activity in New York, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and LA.

However, some of the other searches that we bring on for internet retailers, there in these places that are little bit off the beaten path.  Some of them are pure plays that are set up in remote locations that I wouldn’t even consider them second tier major metros.  However, they’re great opportunities.  We have to make sure that we prepare our candidates for more than just the job.  It’s going to be a lifestyle change because of where it’s going to be located.  There anywhere and everywhere.  If it’s in within internet marketing, we’re the company that can help you find the right people.

Peter Clayton: Thanks guys.  Good talking to you again.

Jamie Young:   Absolutely.

Tom Hull: Thanks a lot!

Jamie Young:   Thank you.

Thank you for tuning into Onward Search Career Cast.  For more information on the career opportunities available through Onward Search, you should visit us online at onwardsearch.com or call 1-800-829-0072 and speak with an experienced recruiter. And you should also follow Onward Search on Twitter at twitter.com/onwardsearch.