A Strong Interview

Once you have gotten to the place where you are getting calls from businesses that want to bring you in for an interview, make sure you are ready to go. Do not think of an interview as just a simple back-and-forth of questioning. This is where the boss will get to know you and your personality so make sure you give them something to remember. No one wants to hire someone who comes off as boring, monotone or disengaged altogether. Make sure you let them know you are the person they want, without actually saying that.

Thousands of case studies can’t be wrong. In more than 5000 documented successful job searches, one of the factors people mentioned most often for their success in interviews was learning how to tell action-oriented stories that were clear examples of how they’ve contributed in the past.

When you think about it, you can see why it’s so effective. To prepare hard-hitting stories, people need to be specific about the challenges they faced, the precise actions they took to get things done, and the results.

When you are specific, you are telling a memorable story that gives you a lot of credibility, and it’s also very accurate, neither overstating nor understating your role. Employers appreciate this, they get a firm grasp of the way you operate, and how your approach would work for them.

Improving interviewing skills is just one of many things ERI does for its clients. We have to give people everything they need to in order to run a successful job search — clear goals, their best industry prospects, a better resume that neutralizes liabilities ahead of time, and dramatically greater exposure to opportunities in the public and private job markets.

Free Job Hunting Info users are 10 times more productive with whatever time they have to devote to their job search, because of our Job Market Access Center (JMAC), which puts at their fingertips 97% of the public openings right for them, and makes them 40 times more effective at accessing private openings that are not published or online. It took years and millions of dollars to develop, but it has totally changed the way people find jobs above $50,000.

Free Job Hunting Info creates a personal marketing website for them so they can network with many more people in much less time. JMAC also provides news that signals emerging jobs in a person’s area, and we also provide research on companies and industries for direct contact with employers who are good targets.

For more Free Job Hunting Info be sure to follow us on Twitter, check us out on Facebook, read our blog, or visit our website!

Create Your Own Job

The job you want may not be out there, not because it is not available, but because it doesn’t exist…yet. With the world of technology changing, so too are the positions being created by companies that need to be in the mix of where their industry is going. This means the creation of new jobs.

Keep in mind this simple thought. We all hire top people when we are persuaded that the benefits of having them on board will sufficiently outweigh the dollar cost.

You can get offers, even if no job openings are said to exist.

You simply need to present yourself as a solution to a problem. The “create a job” approach is for executives who want a job tailored to their best abilities. A few examples might include an executive who can develop new products for a company, a sales executive with contacts in particular markets or a general manager who can start up a division in a specific industry.

Aside from executives, the “create a job” approach can also be considered by anyone who may have difficulty winning offers through other means. This includes those who have a narrow market for their talents, people who wish to change industries, or those who have been unemployed for a while or who want to stay in a specific geographic or industry area.

In these situations, to win the job you want, you may have to create it by making an employer aware of your ability to make contributions. The following pages will give you some guiding principles as you consider this approach. You must focus on small to medium sized firms, go directly to people with the authority to create jobs, have a clear benefit proposition, take strong initiatives in your first meetings, and stir the employer’s imagination.

The first principle to understand is that to have your best chance at creating a job, your highest probability targets are likely to be small to medium sized companies. This includes firms that are growing rapidly, bringing out new products, forming new divisions, acquiring other companies or reorganizing.

These are the firms that need good people, often from other industries. They are free to move quickly. Large corporations are the least likely to respond to this approach. Budgets are usually allocated far in advance, and hiring practices tend to be relatively slow and methodical.

Of course, there are exceptions. All you need to do is assess your talents and contact the firms most likely to need you, regardless of their size. And if you know a market well or have talents in a particular function, just consider the industries where they would apply.

For more Free Job Hunting Info be sure to follow us on Twitter, check us out on Facebook, read our blog, or visit our website!

Consider Your Options

Knowing what you have to look for, and what you should be looking for, is not always clear to people as they search for work. With the economy slowly recovering, it is important to have a keen eye when it comes to looking at the working world so you can identify the options which are best suited to you finding success, the quickest.

The first way to do this is to increase your awareness of the fastest growing industries and companies. These firms have to go outside their industry to find the best talent and skills.

The second way is to list characteristics of your industries and find similar industries. We use software to compare your industry’s characteristics with 2,500 others, e.g., 35 industries may be an 85% match.

Keep in mind that projecting some form of an “industry hook” is the next best thing to having industry experience. Group your possibilities three ways:

(1) close industry hooks, easy possibilities

(2) medium industry hooks, next best

(3) far reach or stretch industry hooks

When changing industries, you also don’t want to overlook your leverage power, the added benefits you may bring by virtue of your contacts or knowledge. You may be able to bring a team with you that helped in similar situations.

Despite our recent economic slowdown, new companies have sprung up throughout America. Established organizations are reexamining the way they do business. Medium-sized companies are expanding. New industries exist that are employing tens of thousands.

The more you appear to know about an industry, the easier it is to generate interviews. Virtually all employers look for “common ground” when hiring a new person. For example, do you have experience in or knowledge of similar product lines, distribution channels, manufacturing methods or problems in their industry? There can be other similarities. Consider the scope of operations, the role of advertising and promotion, the importance of the sales organization, the influence of labor, and other items.

Naturally, the harder it is to demonstrate knowledge of an industry, the less likely an executive is to make a move into it. That rule applies to all major disciplines: sales, marketing, finance, manufacturing and operations. It is less important in staff disciplines.

Gathering as much information as you can while you search will help to give you guidance. Most people are throwing anything and everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. This won’t work as well as having goals in mind as you are hunting for your job as you may not be as focused, which means you could be missing opportunities.

For more Free Job Hunting Info be sure to follow us on Twitter, check us out on Facebook, read our blog, or visit our website!

Job Hunting Goals

When looking for a job, it is better to have goals in mind then to just want a job. You will get a job, but it is important to know what you want and where you want to go. The better your goals, the better your chances at getting a good job, quicker.

It may surprise you, but many people actually pursue the wrong job titles. However, if they understood their real transferable skills, they could be repositioned for different goals, and sometimes for much more advancement than they thought possible. Regardless of your most recent position, you need to think of yourself as “one of a kind” with diverse potentials.

We all have seen many career fields change dramatically over the last decade. Fields that once offered great opportunity have become financially confining with limited growth possibilities. Does print advertising offer the same career possibilities as it did a decade ago? Does selling in the steel industry? Does being a doctor and a general practitioner? Career fields change at a much faster pace than most people realize.

Experience has proven that if you take a narrow view of yourself, you could be making a mistake. For example, if you see yourself as a specialist (e.g., a banker), you may believe you are locked into a given career. On the other hand, you may feel you have few options because you are too much of a generalist.

More and more professionals are finding that they can have several different careers over the course of a lifetime. Sometimes you can’t see them and you stumble into them. Someone could be a radio sports broadcaster, then become an actor, then a politician… and subsequently governor of a major state and president of the United States (Ronald Reagan). And, of course, we all know many other examples, many famous and millions not so famous, but successful at many levels.

It may be that you should consider positioning yourself for more than one possible goal at this time, and running what we refer to as a “dual campaign.” For example, a logical step may be seeking a new job as a VP of Marketing. But you might also have accumulated knowledge and experience that would allow you to seek a position as a General Manager, or perhaps Chief Operating Officer, or even Chief Executive Officer in the right type of organization… in the right industry. Or you may wish to run a search for a higher paying job as a sales producer, while also exploring situations to move into a sales management role.

For more Free Job Hunting Info be sure to follow us on Twitter, check us out on Facebook, read our blog, or visit our website!