Without a doubt, those who set themselves apart -- way apart -- in the interview process are the most memorable. More often than not, they're also the ones getting the jobs.
(Repeat: Please do not confuse "memorable" with "freaky," "creepy," or "offensive.")
Here's a cool way to set yourself apart:
Spy for your potential employer.
That's right, spy.
No, no, this does not mean go dumpster diving in the parking lots of their competitors. It means do some sleuthing online, then provide them with intel that will be valuable to them, whether they hire you or not.
What's the competition up to?
My 4-year-old doesn't want the Easter Bunny to bring her chocolate in the form of, well, him.
Nor jelly beans, Peeps, or any of the other traditional crap we sugar-ify our children with this time of the year.
She wants a chocolate chicken.
And, based on how many times JobJenny has been reminded of this, I know she is quite serious. And will settle for nothing less.
It kills me, as I have no clue yet where I'm going to find such a thing.
Yet also endears me that she's setting herself apart.
She's articulating her needs/wants specifically, at quite an early age.
A woman in Scappoose, OR is/was being considered for a new job. Which is/was good, since she's a jobless single mother.
Well, she needed a reference from her former employer, Wells Fargo. Unfortunately, they have a policy that they charge $20 for employment verification. And her potential new employer asked her to pay it.
Instead of doing so, she ran straight to the local news station, who for some completely unknown reason actually consider her story news... and they put out this heartfelt story about her plight.
The part that killed me the most? That the angle of this story was not about how big business sometimes sucks, and sometimes makes the job search process annoying (a la the $20 fee).
The angle (get ready for this) was about how this poor woman will never work again because she "can't afford" the $20. And the news story was appealing to the viewers to "raise the money" for her.
This is not a joke.
I had (until yesterday) a candidate in the final stages for a reasonably lucrative engineering position. He's very technically capable, and my client was most enthused about meeting with him to discuss the possibility of his joining their firm.
He's been unemployed for more than a year. Which isn't uncommon today.
But in his case? Turns out, it may well be due (at least in part) to his anger, and his difficulty managing it when he most needs to manage it. During the interview process.
This very capable candidate will not be getting the job. He bombed the interview.I don't have full detail from the hiring managers yet, but I already know what they're going to say.
Because this same guy has shown me strong evidence in the past week or so that:
- He's incredibly pissed off that he has no job;
- He blames the world, and definitely the companies that won't hire him; and
- He is completely uninterested in any feedback that may help him succeed in the next round of interviews.
So a few weeks ago, I was contemplating how to best tackle the stack of candidate resumes I had in front of me for one particular engineering position.
To be quite honest, I was dreading the afternoon of phone calls, and really didn't know where to begin.
And munching on a messy, overcooked bean burrito.
When suddenly....
I just returned from a regional search marketing/social networking seminar. Totally a place where I expected to hear a whole bunch of 2010 buzz words and cutting edge biz nomenclature. Words that, when uttered, I'd nod like I knew what they meant, madly scrawl them in my notes, then go home and Google them to figure out what they hell they even mean.
But it just wasn't the case.
In fact, I heard more overused cliches in five hours than I typically see printed in a 10-inch stack of resumes. In one presentation alone, the speaker said "niche" eight times. It did me in. I actually had to walk out of the conference (for good) after lunch to spare myself further cliche agony.
Which brings me to the topic of resumes.
It's the same thing: If you torture your audience (a.k.a. recruiters and hiring managers) with overused terms and blather? They're going to walk out after lunch. Or before lunch. Or before they get through the first page.