Photo by notsogoodphotography

I had another post in mind for this morning but I was over reading my brilliant friend and colleague, Christine Livingston’s blog, A Different Kind of Work, and realized that maybe we want to discuss something different.

Christine’s post is titled: “How the Threat of Layoff Can Scare You Sh*tless (and what to do about it) In her post, she gives firm steps on “how to get a grip.” Here’s part of her post:

Get The Facts

Detail can be thin on the ground during times of restructuring. Part of that is because leadership is often genuinely uncertain about exactly how things will pan out. But while good leaders will be confident about sharing what they do and don’t know, others will add to the air of suspicion and uncertainty by hiding in a cupboard for the next four weeks, or avoiding eye contact with you at all costs.

And scary monsters breed in silence.

You absolutely must put yourself in the driving seat here and make sure you know as many of the facts as you can. How many jobs are going? How many from your team? What processes are going to be used to select in or out? Will you have to apply or interview for your job? What’s that going to look like? What are the timescales? Is there any practical or emotional support being offered to you during this time? How would you be able to access it?

When we are done here, you go read the rest. I wanted to talk about what I said back in the comments:

Everyone who is on the edge should read this and take the steps because I have seen unemployment last a very long time here. Most of the time, it has more to do with the unwillingness to invest in help. But even with help, it can be a long struggle.

Listen to these success stories:

• Last week, I heard that one of my clients who came to me in the middle of his unemployment is now back to work as a Purchasing Manager after 21 months off of work. The bigger miracle was that his unemployment ended just 2 days before he started his new position.
• Another client who took a year off after being let go from a major bank out east and met with me in February, is re-employed as of July 30 and has already been promoted to Assistant Vice President in a regional bank.
• Other transitions are happening. I just had a client move from a smaller cafe General Manager position to a larger restaurant within a hotel as the General Manager to better use her hospitality management degree.
• I also had a post from a young new college graduate on my Design Resumes Facebook page that said: “just got my first job this week, thank you for all your help, miss Julie and Design Resumes!”

You need to hear the success stories. I know, if you are unemployed, you wish it was you. But knowing that people are getting new positions, making career changes and successfully being promoted to new and better positions does this:

It give rays of hope in a dark world. And we all need that.

He told me that for one of the recent positions he had applied for, his networking contact had said that only the president in the company had an MBA and the contact thought he should remove it when he applied there. He did. Even with that explanation, I wasn’t comfortable. Part of me thought that maybe the president would appreciate someone else who had spent time improving his educational background. So I decided to crowd s0urce the question on LinkedIn and Facebook. Here is the question and some of the answers.

I totally agree with the crowd sourcing results, you don’t need to overemphasize your education by putting all your credentials by your name but deleting a degree just to get the job is not a good idea and you need to think hard and long before you wipe out your credentials or dumb down your resume.

Photo by Evil Erin

Hiring and training is a drain on a budget in the best economic conditions so companies want to do it right the first time.

Candidates are in abundance right now so HR and management have an open field. It makes sense that there would be a vetting process to make sure a candidate is a good fit for the organization and brings the right talents to the position.

How many interviews or how much vetting is too much?

Typically most jobs today depending on the field and position start with multiple interviews and / or team interviews.

As my clients move through the resume review process to move on to the interview process, they often touch base to let me know where they are in the process.

Frequently, it starts with a phone interview, perhaps with HR or a recruiter, to determine if the candidate’s qualifications really match the job description. The initial phone interview can be followed with a second phone interview with either the same person or perhaps someone at a higher level in either HR or management.

Eventually, the chosen candidate will move on to an in-person interview with a team composed of HR, management, department staff leadership, or a future co-worker. Or perhaps, the candidate may interview with one or two members and then progress to a second or third interview in the same facility with different personnel.

Increasingly common in the vetting process is the use of assessments. Assessments such as Myers-Briggs, Strong Interest Inventory, Wonderlic Personnel Test, Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument, and others are prevalent as tools to learn more information about the potential employee.

Assessments using the DISC tool are also in my resume packages. My clients love the additional insight about their communication and management styles that assessments provide and the enlightenment of learning more about their ideal work environment.

But if you are the chosen candidate who has been through six or more interviews and then sent a consulting group’s testing information which includes four or more of the assessments you need to complete prior to the interview with the consultant, does it start to be counter-productive?

How about when the questions candidates need to answer are ones like: “Have you ever lied?” Now think about that one… if you are interviewing for a position in financial services or a legal department who works with confidential trust accounts, the whole honesty issue is an important attribute.

Think hard on the question, “Have you EVER lied?” Did you EVER answer your mom when she asked if you ate a cookie before dinner with “No, Mom, I didn’t?” Yes, you lied. If you answer the question, have you ever lied, with a no, well… Catch-22?

How many interviews and how many assessments does it take before your best candidates either get disillusioned or befuddled? Or go find a company that uses a simpler interview strategy?

What do you think? How much is too much?

Photo by Orval Rochefort

Optimizing your Career Fair Experience #3 Dress the Part!

One of my clients was preparing for an interview. This was interview #3 but the first in-person interview. He was an IT Project Manager facing a team of 12 in the interview.

He asked me to clarify dress. What do you wear in today’s business environments for an interview?

He had already checked the corporate dress policy — business casual and had someone at the company define that as Dockers and polo shirts. But he knew that didn’t mean he should dress business casual for the interview.

I decided to ask the opinions of a panel of career professionals: Gayle Howard, Dawn Bugni, Jason Alba, Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter, and Barb Poole. I knew I could trust this career savvy group of colleagues for cutting edge opinions.

Jason Alba: “Just because the environment is business casual doesn’t mean he’s “in” yet. I remember an interview where only ONE person wore a suit… the rest were business casual. It was not too much, and it left a very favorable impression.”

Dawn Bugni: “I’m with Jason. Err on the side of caution. It’s easy to take a tie off and “get casual” if need be. Not so easy to add a tie to a polo shirt.”

Gayle Howard: “I always think of business casual as nice trousers, well pressed, and a shirt with no tie. Maybe (if it’s cold) a sports jacket, but not a suit jacket. Something that tones in but doesn’t look as formal as a suit. Something like you’d wear to a nice dinner out. Shoes wouldn’t necessarily be suit/black leather, but instead maybe a comfortable brown shoe that goes with the rest of the outfit.”

Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter: “If I were to err, I’d err on the side of ‘too-dressy.’ Many suit/tie looks, it seems, don’t look stuffy; they can still be a bit hip/biz casual but still include the closed-button shirt with tie <–that’d be my initial recommendation, based on what I’m hearing.”

Barb Poole: “I missed getting in on the dress comments. You got sage advice from great minds!”

Consensus?

• Dress more conservatively than corporate culture.
• Know the culture going in.
• Determine that you need to go up a notch from the reported dress style.

What to wear to a career fair? — same concept.

Do you want to make an impression and leave an impression?

• Dress up!
• Leave the blue jeans and t-shirts at home.
• Cut the hair, trim facial hair, dress the part.

Job search is challenging enough. Make sure your clothes leave the right impression. Don’t let your fashion statement leave you out of the running for your new job.