Sung to the tune of "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer"
Sung to the tune of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer
The holidays are upon us
Though our schedules remain too tight
For all of us to be with one another
Be merry, eat and drink into the night
We must pick and choose so carefully
Who and when will get together
Sometimes it’s just too hectic
And we wonder if it will be ever
But there are so many ways
For us to stay in touch and be near
LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and others
Make it seem like we’re all right here
I wish you happy safe holidays
With a new year that’s joyous and fun
All together now for 2009
Season’s greetings to everyone!!
I promise not to quit my day job to be a song writer, but you get the idea and I mean it sincerely. Those who know me know that I would be hugging them if I could and to them I say digital and cosmic hugs abound!!!!
-Lesa
Monday, December 15, 2008
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Just moved from another blog site
I just relocated my infant blog to blogger.com and am much happier here. More to come soon!
Lesa
Lesa
Interview Preparation: Candidate
The big day is nearing; an interview with a company that based on your current knowledge, you'd really like to work for. How do you prepare yourself so that you can feel the most confident? There are so, so many resources available with loads of information written by "experts" who have done a great job of making lists of things to do in preparation. When I read them I generally feel like I'm reading the user manual for something as exciting as a lawn mower and when I have finished reading I don't remember much. The biggest problem with interview preparation advice is that it's often based on outdated taboos about interviews leftover from the time when companies were mostly all the same and whether or not to wear a tie or nylons was not even a question.
My advice comes from years of listening to candidates tell me how their interviews went and of course then knowing whether or not they were successful in getting the position that they interviewed for. I am here to tell you that truth is frequently stranger than fiction and one method of preparation does not apply to all interviewing scenarios. But there is a general framework of preparation that is universal in helping you feel good about yourself from start to finish. Following are three things that I believe every candidate should review and implement in every interview situation (even internal interviews). If all you do is read the headings and fill in the rest for yourself you will be miles ahead of half of the people interviewing on any given day:
Know your audience to the best of your ability.
You want to go in to the interview knowing what the company does, who their clients and competitors are, how long they've been in business, how many locations, where the locations are and which areas business is handled in each location. You'll want to know if they are a subsidiary or if they have subsidiaries, and you'll want to know if they are privately held or publicly traded. Of course, don't hurt yourself trying to remember a laundry list of statistics, but review the information so that you can hold your own in any conversation and will ideally be able to ask good questions during the interview based on your general understanding of the company.To find out as much as possible about an organization, visit their web site, read press releases and do internet searches on the company's name to see what's being written about them. You'll wind up finding blogs, message boards, newspaper articles and announcements that will really help you to gain a good understanding of the company's position in the marketplace and as an employer. Ask people you know who currently work for the company and also search on social networking sites and reach out to current employees to ask for their advice. You will be amazed at how much you can learn by doing this bit of research.
Have a plan for answering questions.
It is always a good idea to have a framework in mind for answering questions. You want to be sure to hit on certain key areas with each answer. The easiest comparison is to a spiral - starting from the outside, a spriral circles around until finally resolving itself at the middle. Whatever the question is, try to tailor your answer from the largest perspective to the smallest. For example, the interviewer asks you to tell them about the number of projects that your current team (or yourself) is responsible for at any given time. Your answer should start with the company (large), then touch on the division (getting there), the specific unit you were/are in (closer!), your project manager/supervisor/team lead (almost there!) and finally your slice of the pie. Specifically, the answer would sound like this: "Bubble Tire Pro has a client base of mostly smaller companies, so there are always many small projects in play with all 6 divisions. My group is responsible for the web interface for each client so our project manager works with the project managers from other groups to help make sure that the 13 or so projects we have going at any one time are in step with the other groups' to launch as closely together as possible."
When you answer questions in this way, you're communicating much more than if you had simply answered, "13 or so". You're giving the interviewer a truer depiction of what your workday looks like and your abilities in working with others and operating in an environment where your work is both collaboritive and is highly visible.
On the flip side, if you're coming from a smaller environment, you'll want to follow the same framework concept but instead of detailing how it's been for you, you'll want to carefully place phrases that indicate you understand that working for a large organization is different from your direct experience, and that you're up for the challenge and excited about the opporunity to participate on a larger playing field.
Eat Well
This is an area often overlooked but is so important to the way you will feel during your interview. Eat a good meal before your interview to help your body and mind focus on the task at hand. If you're there on an empty belly then your mind and body will be distracted trying to undersatnd why you haven't eaten yet and how to get by until you do. A well-balanced meal is called for and you should treat this with as much care as your wardrobe to make sure you're operating at optimum levels.
Again, this is a big topic that has many opinions and way too many "shoulds" in my opinion. If interviewing were fun, it would be a pastime. It's an awful lot like going on a blind date and the odds of it working out aren't much better, so you put your smile on, take the plunge and hope for the best! Take the pressure off yourself because nothing good comes from nervousness - breathe.
Consider writing yourself this note the night before and taping it to your bathroom mirror:
-Eat a good meal
-Smile
-Have a Great Interview!
I wish you every success and know that if you keep the above in mind in preparing for your interview, it will be a better experience all around.
My advice comes from years of listening to candidates tell me how their interviews went and of course then knowing whether or not they were successful in getting the position that they interviewed for. I am here to tell you that truth is frequently stranger than fiction and one method of preparation does not apply to all interviewing scenarios. But there is a general framework of preparation that is universal in helping you feel good about yourself from start to finish. Following are three things that I believe every candidate should review and implement in every interview situation (even internal interviews). If all you do is read the headings and fill in the rest for yourself you will be miles ahead of half of the people interviewing on any given day:
Know your audience to the best of your ability.
You want to go in to the interview knowing what the company does, who their clients and competitors are, how long they've been in business, how many locations, where the locations are and which areas business is handled in each location. You'll want to know if they are a subsidiary or if they have subsidiaries, and you'll want to know if they are privately held or publicly traded. Of course, don't hurt yourself trying to remember a laundry list of statistics, but review the information so that you can hold your own in any conversation and will ideally be able to ask good questions during the interview based on your general understanding of the company.To find out as much as possible about an organization, visit their web site, read press releases and do internet searches on the company's name to see what's being written about them. You'll wind up finding blogs, message boards, newspaper articles and announcements that will really help you to gain a good understanding of the company's position in the marketplace and as an employer. Ask people you know who currently work for the company and also search on social networking sites and reach out to current employees to ask for their advice. You will be amazed at how much you can learn by doing this bit of research.
Have a plan for answering questions.
It is always a good idea to have a framework in mind for answering questions. You want to be sure to hit on certain key areas with each answer. The easiest comparison is to a spiral - starting from the outside, a spriral circles around until finally resolving itself at the middle. Whatever the question is, try to tailor your answer from the largest perspective to the smallest. For example, the interviewer asks you to tell them about the number of projects that your current team (or yourself) is responsible for at any given time. Your answer should start with the company (large), then touch on the division (getting there), the specific unit you were/are in (closer!), your project manager/supervisor/team lead (almost there!) and finally your slice of the pie. Specifically, the answer would sound like this: "Bubble Tire Pro has a client base of mostly smaller companies, so there are always many small projects in play with all 6 divisions. My group is responsible for the web interface for each client so our project manager works with the project managers from other groups to help make sure that the 13 or so projects we have going at any one time are in step with the other groups' to launch as closely together as possible."
When you answer questions in this way, you're communicating much more than if you had simply answered, "13 or so". You're giving the interviewer a truer depiction of what your workday looks like and your abilities in working with others and operating in an environment where your work is both collaboritive and is highly visible.
On the flip side, if you're coming from a smaller environment, you'll want to follow the same framework concept but instead of detailing how it's been for you, you'll want to carefully place phrases that indicate you understand that working for a large organization is different from your direct experience, and that you're up for the challenge and excited about the opporunity to participate on a larger playing field.
Eat Well
This is an area often overlooked but is so important to the way you will feel during your interview. Eat a good meal before your interview to help your body and mind focus on the task at hand. If you're there on an empty belly then your mind and body will be distracted trying to undersatnd why you haven't eaten yet and how to get by until you do. A well-balanced meal is called for and you should treat this with as much care as your wardrobe to make sure you're operating at optimum levels.
Again, this is a big topic that has many opinions and way too many "shoulds" in my opinion. If interviewing were fun, it would be a pastime. It's an awful lot like going on a blind date and the odds of it working out aren't much better, so you put your smile on, take the plunge and hope for the best! Take the pressure off yourself because nothing good comes from nervousness - breathe.
Consider writing yourself this note the night before and taping it to your bathroom mirror:
-Eat a good meal
-Smile
-Have a Great Interview!
I wish you every success and know that if you keep the above in mind in preparing for your interview, it will be a better experience all around.
Interviewing - Panel/Group or Individual?
Interviewing candidates is a skill that not every hiring manager possesses. Too often it seems that the interviewing process forms a life of its own that is out of step with the normal flow of the business unit that is interviewing. What that means for both the hiring manager and the candidate is that the true nature of both the position and the candidate remains an unknown until after the hiring decision. Much can be helped by incorporating the use of group/panel interviews in the process.
For starters, I find it helpful to refer to panel interviews as group interviews because the word "panel" suggests that the team doing to the interviewing will be sitting in a row of chairs behind a long table with the candidate sitting on a chair with no desk, in the middle of the room by themselves. A group interview is more like an interview meeting. The hiring manager pulls together key members of their team to conduct the interview in a conference room or all together in an office. Depending on the team and the hiring manager, this may be only the senior members of the team or it may include the entire team.
The benefits of the group interview are numerous, but the most important benefit to my mind is that the team gets a realistic snapshot of how the candidate will operate within their group based on actual experience. Everyone involved is receiving the same information as opposed to attempting to piece together a whole picture from various input received from questions asked in multiple meetings, phrased differently, etc.
I have found over the years that hiring managers who do group interviews have more success in getting a decision made quickly and have a much higher level of interest from the candidates who interview. In every instance where the candidate was offered a position from two different business units where one did a group interview and the other applied the more traditional interview method of meetings with one person at a time, the candidate chose the business unit that did the group interview. Without exception! The group interview provides the candidate with the same level of information as it does for the interviewing team, and it is simply more information than is possible to gather from individual interviews.
In my opinion, the hiring manager and their selected team members should interview the candidate all together for at least one hour followed immediately by a one-on-one interview with the candidate for 30 minutes or so. Even if the hiring manager is only in the group interview for the first 15-30 minutes, some level of participation is ideal. For a second round, individual interviews with senior level staff from other areas of the business or from the executive level are appropriate.
What is most important is the interaction between the candidate and at least some of the people he/she will be working with if offered the position. The experience for both the team and the candidate is richer and full of more relevant detail than any 10 individual interviews.
For starters, I find it helpful to refer to panel interviews as group interviews because the word "panel" suggests that the team doing to the interviewing will be sitting in a row of chairs behind a long table with the candidate sitting on a chair with no desk, in the middle of the room by themselves. A group interview is more like an interview meeting. The hiring manager pulls together key members of their team to conduct the interview in a conference room or all together in an office. Depending on the team and the hiring manager, this may be only the senior members of the team or it may include the entire team.
The benefits of the group interview are numerous, but the most important benefit to my mind is that the team gets a realistic snapshot of how the candidate will operate within their group based on actual experience. Everyone involved is receiving the same information as opposed to attempting to piece together a whole picture from various input received from questions asked in multiple meetings, phrased differently, etc.
I have found over the years that hiring managers who do group interviews have more success in getting a decision made quickly and have a much higher level of interest from the candidates who interview. In every instance where the candidate was offered a position from two different business units where one did a group interview and the other applied the more traditional interview method of meetings with one person at a time, the candidate chose the business unit that did the group interview. Without exception! The group interview provides the candidate with the same level of information as it does for the interviewing team, and it is simply more information than is possible to gather from individual interviews.
In my opinion, the hiring manager and their selected team members should interview the candidate all together for at least one hour followed immediately by a one-on-one interview with the candidate for 30 minutes or so. Even if the hiring manager is only in the group interview for the first 15-30 minutes, some level of participation is ideal. For a second round, individual interviews with senior level staff from other areas of the business or from the executive level are appropriate.
What is most important is the interaction between the candidate and at least some of the people he/she will be working with if offered the position. The experience for both the team and the candidate is richer and full of more relevant detail than any 10 individual interviews.
Recruiting Process Quality
My professional and sometimes personal worlds are full of resumes. I have had thousands of conversations about resumes over the years and one topic comes up again and again. Who are these people who supposedly read our resumes and contact us for positions completely outside of our areas of specialty?
Just yesterday I received yet another form email from a large, well known recruiting firm. I'll spare you the details by not copying it here, but suffice it to say that even though you have likely not seen my resume, you can probably guess that I am not a Java developer. I know that candidates all over the world get these emails claiming that the recruiter has reviewed their resume and have determined that the position described in the email is a great potential fit and that the candidate should contact the recruiter immediately to be considered. Obviously, the recruiter has not even glanced at an actual resume, but has run a search in their database that provided them with a list of candidates who have keywords in their resumes that also appear in a job description.
From the recruiter side of the desk, I am intimate with how cumbersome it can be to go through resumes searching for candidates who fit our requirements. But - call me crazy - isn't that what we get paid to do? We are the professionals who dedicate our time and resources to identifying qualified candidates to submit for consideration. We are supposed to be better qualified for this role than a database.
The calls are even more absurd, are they not? A recruiter calls me to discuss an opportunity for a SQL Server DBA role because I mention SQL Server in my resume as an area of technology that I have experience with. The recruiter who is calling never pronounces my name correctly, never asks me for the correct pronunciation and never pauses long enough for me to point out that I am in fact, a recruiter until they have recited their entire script. It's very embarrassing for them at the end. I ask them on occasion if they have my resume in front of them. Can you believe that 100% of the time they do have it right there in front of them?
I am conflicted about how to feel about this reality of my field. On the one hand, I am very frustrated because I believe that unqualified recruiters contacting thousands of candidates each day in this manner is an abuse of information and an insult to the professional designation of our candidates. On the other hand, these same recruiters make it awfully easy for recruiters like me to stand out like a neon sign on I-40 outside of nowhere at 2am on a Tuesday.
My advice to hiring managers and candidates on this issue has always been to demand quality from the people who you choose to represent your interests in your search. If you do not believe that the person on the phone or the other end of the email is qualified to provide quality service and representation, then move on with the confidence of knowing that you have not missed out on anything. There are many great recruiters out there who work hard for their clients and candidates and I believe these recruiters are worth seeking out and/or waiting for.
Just yesterday I received yet another form email from a large, well known recruiting firm. I'll spare you the details by not copying it here, but suffice it to say that even though you have likely not seen my resume, you can probably guess that I am not a Java developer. I know that candidates all over the world get these emails claiming that the recruiter has reviewed their resume and have determined that the position described in the email is a great potential fit and that the candidate should contact the recruiter immediately to be considered. Obviously, the recruiter has not even glanced at an actual resume, but has run a search in their database that provided them with a list of candidates who have keywords in their resumes that also appear in a job description.
From the recruiter side of the desk, I am intimate with how cumbersome it can be to go through resumes searching for candidates who fit our requirements. But - call me crazy - isn't that what we get paid to do? We are the professionals who dedicate our time and resources to identifying qualified candidates to submit for consideration. We are supposed to be better qualified for this role than a database.
The calls are even more absurd, are they not? A recruiter calls me to discuss an opportunity for a SQL Server DBA role because I mention SQL Server in my resume as an area of technology that I have experience with. The recruiter who is calling never pronounces my name correctly, never asks me for the correct pronunciation and never pauses long enough for me to point out that I am in fact, a recruiter until they have recited their entire script. It's very embarrassing for them at the end. I ask them on occasion if they have my resume in front of them. Can you believe that 100% of the time they do have it right there in front of them?
I am conflicted about how to feel about this reality of my field. On the one hand, I am very frustrated because I believe that unqualified recruiters contacting thousands of candidates each day in this manner is an abuse of information and an insult to the professional designation of our candidates. On the other hand, these same recruiters make it awfully easy for recruiters like me to stand out like a neon sign on I-40 outside of nowhere at 2am on a Tuesday.
My advice to hiring managers and candidates on this issue has always been to demand quality from the people who you choose to represent your interests in your search. If you do not believe that the person on the phone or the other end of the email is qualified to provide quality service and representation, then move on with the confidence of knowing that you have not missed out on anything. There are many great recruiters out there who work hard for their clients and candidates and I believe these recruiters are worth seeking out and/or waiting for.
Changing Professional Directions
Changing professional direction can be an intimidating, frustrating and lonely experience. Quite often people find themselves having a significant amount of experience in a particular area of industry and then realize that they would really like to participate in another area of that same industry. Ideally there is someone in the other area reaching out a hand to bring that person over to the new area based on what they know of the professional in terms of professional capabilities and industry experience.
For example, a web developer may find after a time that they really do enjoy the coding aspect of their job more so than the interface design or execution of design. Ideally there is one or more people in the application development/software engineering group who recognize the talent and drive in the web developer, have seen and approve of the code that he/she has written and invites them to become a part of the application development/software engineering group. In this ideal situation (which does happen all the time), the web developer will not have to take a cut in pay or feel professionally inferior on his/her team because there is an established relationship that already includes respect for previous work.
What do you do when you have identified the area you'd like to be in but do not have an established relationship to bring you over? There is not one answer to all of the possible scenarios, but there are a few things worth trying and they apply to all industries. The first and most important step to take is to reach out to your professional network to let them know that you're looking to move in a new direction. Let's use a technical writer who would like to become a project manager as an example. On the surface, it may seem that a technical writer may not be best qualified for project management since they are not coming up through the normal channels of technical development or business analysis.
The technical writer should reach out to their network of people that should include former supervisors, coworkers and recruiters. If currently working, the technical writer should make as many contacts with the project managers at their present company first. They can ask one they know to make introductions or have a meeting with someone from HR to ask for introductions. Meet these individuals informally over coffee or lunch to discuss the idea for the new direction.
The conversation should go something like this:
TW: Thanks for meeting with me, Cheryl (current project manager). I'm very anxious to talk with you about your role so that I can better prepare myself to make the leap into project management.
PM: My pleasure. What would you like to know?
TW: Specifically, I feel that my experience in technical writing for our company has really taken my skill set to the next level because of the responsibilities that go with the technical writing role here. Unlike at other companies, here I am solely responsible for making sure that the information I need is gathered to a specific timeline, and I am in charge of keeping track of all of that in MS Project as well as making sure that all of the leaders of the groups I support have the information they need when they need it. Furthermore, I have somehow become the go-to person for all of the initiatives that I've been involved in because I have to navigate between groups without a project manager dedicated to this end of the process. I also think that my industry and company knowledge help to balance out my lack of professional experience as a project manager.
PM: There isn't a PM over your role? I didn't know that. Well good for you for stepping up to the plate and taking ownership of that process.
TW: What I'd like to do is make this information known to everyone in the organization who can help me make the transition to project management. Do you have any suggestions?
The conversation sounds cheesey when you read it, but you'll put your own words in place to personalize it and it will flow much better. The point is to identify people who can potentially help you, have a conversation in which you somehow communicate your accomplishments and rationale for wanting to change directions and most importantly ask for their assistance.
Conversely, if the technical writer is not currently employed, the same conversation can be had with the folks in their network that I described earlier. For recruiters in particular, candidates should have this conversation with the understanding that recruiters will likely not be able to assist with a placement outright, but may have other suggestions or people in their own network that might be of assistance. You never know until you have the conversation!
Other avenues include offering service to a non-profit company in order to gain experience that can then be included in a resume, joining social and/or professional organizations in order to grow a network to tap into and participating in on-line forums and discussions to both increase knowledge in the desired area and to build a reputation as a knowledgeable source.
First Steps
This is it; my first ever blog entry. Truth be told, those who know me are shocked that I haven't blogged before as much as I do so love the high horse that I sit upon when I talk about my profession and I do so love to talk. I have refrained for various reasons but have finally decided to take the plunge and make myself a blog home.
I decided to title my blog Mother Recruiter because it truly encapsulates the essence of who I am. I can't turn off being a recruiter when I meet people who need a recruiter's assistance and I cannot turn off being a mother when I'm recruiting. My candidates over the years have expressed their appreciation for my attention and my sincere concern for their experience in their job search. Likewise, my hiring managers (clients) have expressed their appreciation for my attentive assistance throughout their search. Both candidates and hiring managers appreciate the fact that I am honestly interested in their getting exactly what they want.
I am betting everything that I own - and some that I've borrowed - on the idea that the goodwill that I generate through my every day business dealings will reward me with a successful business. I have such great plans for my business and for the people who are working with me.
This concludes my first ever entry. In the next one, I will be firmly atop my high horse. From there I will step deftly between high horse and soap box, with an occasional foray into speculation territory.
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