Do You Have What it Takes to Succeed?

In over 1000 presentations in the last decade to CEOs, Company Presidents, and Senior Executives, we have heard the vast majority indicate that the number one behavior they have seen lead to success is initiative and self-motivation.

Brad and I have personally screened either in-person or on-the-phone well over 200,000 candidates over the last 25-30 years. We’ve seen young kids come out of college at 21/22 years old and who are now CEOs, company presidents, and senior executives. We’ve also seen many young graduates from 25-30 years ago who have had mediocre careers and are stuck in low-mid level jobs without much success. What’s the difference?

In our Success Factor Methodology that has been implemented as a structured hiring process in thousands of companies around the world, we identify 3 primary behaviors that help lead to success: Initiative and Self-Motivation, Flawless Execution, and Leadership. Each of these leads to a specific question in our 5-Question Success-based Interview.

Initiative/Self-Motivation is the primary behavior that stands head-and-shoulders above all other behaviors in determining job and career success. No other behavior comes remotely close to influencing career and job success IN ANY JOB!

Do you have a high level of initiative and self-motivation? Do you have the ability to prove in a job interview?

How many of the examples that you’ve assembled and practiced contain elements of demonstrating your initiative and self-motivation?

Let’s take a moment and define initiative and self-motivation:

• Going above and beyond the call of duty
• Anticipating what needs to be done
• Not waiting to be told what to do
• Showing INITIATIVE
• Being PROACTIVE
• Being assigned project “A” and returning “A” plus 10%
• “Out-working” your peers – higher more intensive effort
• Helping others when you were not required to do so
• Offering positive suggestions/recommendations
• Solving problems/obstacles without putting the monkey on the back of your boss

Can you claim to have lots of examples that fit the definition above in your last job? How about the job before that? And the one before that?

Here’s a great exercise: Write down every example of self-motivation and initiative from your last 3 jobs. Weave those into your examples/illustrations you offer in an interview or on your resume.

Here’s another great idea: Comment back on this blog post about your best example of demonstrating self-motivation and initiative in your last job. Brad and I will review your example and offer our insights from 25 years in the recruiting trenches.

If you would like to understand, how to prepare your examples, illustrations, and demonstrations of showing initiative and self-motivation, check out FREE audio downloads in our Job Search Library from our past Radio Shows. Brad and I have frequently discussed this topic of initiative and self-motivation.

We also cover the topic of initiative and self-motivation in-depth in our popular Job Search Workbook, This is NOT the Position I Accepted. If you would like to get a feel for the 5-Question Interview of best practice interview questions asked by Hiring Managers, especially the initiative and self-motivation question, take a look at our award-winning book on Hiring, You’re NOT the Person I Hired.

Barry Deutsch

As always, don’t forget to join Brad and I in our LinkedIn Job Search Discussion Group for a lively discussion of interview questions and tips.

Don’t Be the Candidate Screened Out by a Recruiter’s First Question

In my last blog post, I described how the best recruiters screen out the vast majority of candidates for their search assignments through one simple question.

Don’t be the one who gets screened out in 30 seconds.

Many times these are great opportunities the recruiters are working on – you’re the perfect candidate for that appropriate position – you definitely do not want to miss out.

What can you do?

I’m going to suggest that there is a simple approach you can use to prepare for interviews, and it mirrors the cover letter strategy.

If the advertisement does not point out precisely what is required in the position, you can make the fair assumption that there are 3-4 primary elements to every senior professional, managerial, and executive position. Putting your comparable accomplishments to each of these core elements of a position in the cover letter, and being ready to address them in the interview is an insurance policy against being screened out prematurely by recruiters.

Let’s run through a few examples:

If you are applying for a CFO/Controller/Director of Finance position in an entrepreneurial to mid-sized non-public company, the primary expectations over the first year will probably include:

1. Process Improvement – reducing the closing process, improving financial reporting, inventory control process changes, order entry processing speed/efficiency.

2. Financial Planning/Analysis/Forecasting – improvements to budgeting, annual planning, cash flow management, strategic planning, monthly analysis, monthly and quarterly projections.

3. Operational Projects – conducting special one-time analysis on leasing equipment, facility optimization, capital investments in equipment, customer profitability analysis, viability of new products, services, markets, analysis of warranty reserves, and cost reduction opportunities.

4. Policies/Procedures/Asset Protection – improving/changing the handling of cash, tracking of fixed assets, credit policies, collection management, purchasing and material management.

If you are applying for a Marketing Manager position at a sub-component manufacturing company, the primary expectations over the first year might include:

1. Marketing/Sales Materials – review and improvement of all collateral material used by the sales team.

2. Business Growth – assessment and recommendation of new markets, products, and services. Launching and managing existing and new services and products.

3. External marketing – branding, positioning, messaging, advertising, and trade shows to increase awareness and recognition in marketing to OEM manufacturers.

4. Lead generation for the sales function – database marketing, trade offers, channel management, website, lead management tools.

Tell us what the 3-4 primary success factors are in your functional role for the type of industry/type of company that you are focusing your job search on.

We’d like to see how many job seekers understand the critical components of being successful for the type of position they are seeking.

Now let’s jump back to the first interview question a recruiter poses to you in the initial phone call:

My client’s closing process takes too long. They need this individual to reduce by 50% the time it takes to close their books on a monthly basis.

Amazing. Astounding. The recruiter is blown away. You’ve got 2-3 great examples of where you solved similar/comparable process problems/obstacles.

Let’s try another one:

My client is looking at expanding their regional electro-optical sub-component business nationally. Do you have 2-3 comparable examples you could share about moving a company into different markets against entrenched competition?

Amazing. Astounding. Once again the recruiter is blown away by the 2-3 examples you’ve shared about successful marketing efforts to move your prior companies into new markets.

The recruiter is doing their job asking the tough questions based on client expectations of success. A little preparation and understanding of what the most common obstacles/problems/opportunities someone in a specific role is going to face will allow you to ace the vast majority of “appropriate” interviews.

Keep in mind that if your background is primarily in marketing management and you’ve done very little in sales management, I’m probably going to quickly screen you as inappropriate for this executive search for a sales management job. If you’re essentially a channel marketing director, I’m probably going to quickly exclude you from consideration for the marketing role in my client’s direct sales model.

The key word is “appropriate”.

One of the greatest frustrations we hear from employers/recruiters is that the vast majority of candidates from whom the receive resumes/calls ARE NOT APPROPRIATE” for their openings on a very basic level – this brings us back to a previous blog posting where I made the outrageous suggestion to stop shot-gunning your resume to jobs that are totally inappropriate and focus your search efforts on “appropriate jobs”.

The shot-gun approach to responding to job advertisements/recruiter job announcements is a complete waste of time. Okay – a miniscule number of candidates will occasionally get lucky – after all – even a blind squirrel will get a nut sometimes. However, do you want to base your job search on “luck” or on a systematic – methodical – structured approach validated as generating consistent results?

You make the choice! If you’re not obtaining decent results from your current shot-gun approach of scattering resumes every time you come across a key word – perhaps it’s time to try a test and see if a more focused effort would generate better results.

Now that I’ve repeated myself for the 100th time on the worthless approach of conducting a shot-gun job search, let’s return to the primary focus of this blog post.

Let’s assume you get screened out for an “appropriate” role.

Shame on you for letting that happen.

If you’ve taken all our recommendations in our FREE Archive of job search best practices including such items as preparing a great job search plan, developing an outstanding LinkedIn Profile, consistently and effectively leveraging cover letters, and investing extensive time in the preparation for an interview – then there is NOT a recruiter, HR staff person, or Hiring Manager who CAN deny you the opportunity to be considered.

NOW we come to the real issue behind why you get screened out for “appropriate” openings on the first recruiter interview question (forget all the  “inappropriate job responses” – you should be immediately screened out for these) – you didn’t do your homework – you didn’t apply the best practices in conducting you job search -  you basically “winged-it”.

STOP being screened out prematurely for openings for which you are perfect. STOP letting this happen. Make a resolution right now that you will never allow yourself again to be screened out prematurely for an “appropriate” position.

START today in changing the way you conduct your job search. Take our entire FREE Archive of Audio Programs, Templates, Examples, and other tools – and start transforming your job search. After you swallow that overwhelming amount of FREE content from us – start extracting the FREE content from all other great career coaches and recruiters on the internet.

STOP complaining about your ineffective job search and the obstacles you are facing. There is an extraordinary amount of great content available to you that is either FREE or can be acquired for a minimal investment. Every candidate I have met in this horrific job market that invested time in discovering and using job search best practices has dramatically reduced the time it took to land a great job.

WHAT IS HOLDING YOU BACK?

DO YOU FEEL YOU KNOW EVERYTHING THERE IS TO KNOW ABOUT CONDUCTING AN EFFECTIVE JOB SEARCH?

ON A SCALE OF 1-10 (10 BEING THE HIGHEST) ARE YOU DOING EVERYTHING YOU COULD BE DOING TO CONDUCT A MORE EFFECTIVE JOB SEARCH.

In this blog post, we just took one tiny element of conducting a more effective job search: How to NOT get screened out by recruiters for appropriate positions in their first interview question.

There are hundreds of activities, tactics, strategies you could use to conduct an effective job search.

Barry Deutsch

Jump into the vibrant dialogue in our LinkedIn Job Search Discussion Group on the most common basic best practices of conducting an effective job search.

What Will YOU Do Different In Your Job Search?

Let’s start with Benjamin Franklin’s timeless definition of insanity: “You keep doing the same thing over and over hoping for different results”.

Do you really believe that wishing and keeping your fingers crossed will make a difference?

Why?

Everyone knows you’ll just get the same mediocre, inadequate, inconsequential results again – so why do most candidates keep doing the same thing?

Let’s pretend for a moment you buy into the Definition of Insanity and you decide you’re going to try something different this month in your job search.

What will YOU do different this month compared to last month?

What did you do different last month compared to the previous month?

Brad and I would love to hear what you plan on doing different this month vs. last month

Here are some examples of things you could be doing differently this month:

• Expand on your LinkedIn Profile
• Write an effective cover letter
• Take our FREE LinkedIn Self-Assessment Scorecard
• Set-up and write a blog
• Read and subscribe to 5 new blogs on job search
• Listen to one of our radio show broadcasts on job search
• Get a twitter account and start tweeting about your job search search
• Search for recruiters covering your industry/functional role on LinkedIn
• Join into a discussion on LinkedIn/Twitter/Facebook about a job search issue
• Join appropriate groups on LinkedIn and become an active member
• Go to 2 new networking groups in your local community
• Take our Job Search Planning Evaluation to determine if you’re conducting an effective job search
• Take a volunteer role and become a leader in a civic/non-profit group

These are only a few of the hundreds of tactics/strategies/initiatives you could do differently this month to improve the effectiveness of your job search.

As you know, Brad and I great proponents of dramatically reducing the time it takes to cut your job search in half – however, if you keep doing the same things over and over –

Your Job Search is going to be a never ending quest – lasting 6-9-12 months or more.

STOP the nonsense now and begin to do things your peers are not doing. Take a step in doing something different this month.

Barry Deutsch

Don’t forget to join our LinkedIn Job Search Discussion Group to explore the best practices in how to conduct an effective job search

Job Search is Taking Longer – Duh!

Does it feel like you keep falling back in your job search to square 1?

In a front page article in New York Times today, the point was made that the average timeframe for conducting a job search is now 6 months. Executive and Senior Management Job Search is typically 2X-3X the average professional job search time period.

Although this is NOT earth-shattering news, it does reflect a confirmation in a well-known publication of the obscene length of time it is taking most job seekers to find a new job.

Here’s the bad news: not only is it taking longer to conduct a job search in one of the worst job markets in the last 25 years, but the worst job market is far from over. Given what we see going on in managerial and executive hiring, if the market returns to “normal levels” within the next 18-24 months, it will be a quick recovery.

The length of time it takes to complete a job search will only increase.

Can you imagine being out of work for a year – 2 years – longer?

Forget about the difficulty on finding a job, as the front page article declares – a larger problem is the long-term financial impact. Let’s not dwell on that issue in this blog post. You can read the depressing article for more information.

I’d like to dwell on why it takes most managerial and executive job seekers 12-18 months to find a new job.

Our experience is that if you use the most common and simple best practices in job search, you should be able to cut the time it takes to find a job in half. Imagine that instead of taking 18 months, it only takes 9 months.

Simple Job Search Best Practices — we talked about this a few blog posts ago – you don’t really have to master each one – you just have to do each one! Skipping one of these best practices is what causes your job search to be a never ending quest.

We call our framework of Job Search Best Practices the Career Success Methodology. This is an integrated and structured approach to executing flawlessly against the most common best practices in conducting an effective job search.

Are you using job search best practices to systematically reduce the time it takes to find a great opportunity?

Benchmark yourself by taking our Job Search Plan Self-Assessment Scorecard.

Rate yourself on 8 different dimensions to determine if your job search plan encompasses the necessary best practices required to conduct an effective job search.

Barry Deutsch

Join us in our LinkedIn Job Search Discussion Group to discover the most common job search best practices and benchmark the effectiveness of your job search.

How to Give Your Resume a Booster Shot

Your resume needs a booster shot.

No longer is a simple 2 page resume enough to capture interest.

It’s boring.

It’s mundane.

It’s ineffective at fully telling your story (especially if you missed the last dozen or so blog posts that Brad and I wrote about putting together a good resume and cover letter – cycle back and read some of the posts first).

Along comes the explosion of social media/social networking and like magic – instant resume booster shot.

So, if social media/social networking is so darn powerful, why are so few executive and managerial job seekers NOT using it effectively?

Let’s zero in on one specific tool – LinkedIn.

LinkedIn could be a panacea for job seekers. First, almost all recruiters, HR people, and hiring managers are doing two things when they see a resume that is a potential match for their open position – they Google your name and they search for you on LinkedIn.

Personally, I go to LinkedIn first.

• As a Retained Executive Recruiter, I want more information about you.
• I can’t get enough.
• I’m insatiable when it comes to learning about who you are even before I pick up the phone and talk to you.
• I’m trying to leverage my time, and this discovery process is far quicker than wasting time on the telephone.
• I want the kind of depth of who you are that I cannot glean from your resume and cover letter.

This approach to researching job seekers is becoming more common.

Don’t be the one who misses the train.

You’ve now read about it in almost every business publication, heard from the experts, read about it on blogs such as this one, and your mother last week pointed out the growing importance of building your profile on-line when she saw the segment on the CBS evening news.

Unless your resume literally “blows me away”, I need more information to decide if I want to talk with you about one of my open executive searches. By the way, I might come across one resume every quarter that “blows me away”. Most just fade into the woodwork with their “bland” approach. I want your information to leap off my computer screen, smack me in the forehead, and scream at me that I would be an idiot not to want to learn more about you by immediately pick up the phone to talk with you.

Don’t fall victim to being “vanilla”

Don’t fade into the woodwork.

Some might call me lazy – I prefer to think of myself as highly effective at leveraging myself in time management. This process of quickly discovering whether you’re worthy of a phone call from me as recruiter – by matching your resume with your LinkedIn Profile has probably boosted my productivity by a factor of 2X-3X. I’m now able to spend time on the phone and in-person with the right candidate.

In the next few blog posts, we’ll re-visit how to specifically leverage LinkedIn as a Job Seeker to give your resume a booster shot in the arm. If you’re not effectively using LinkedIn as a resume enhancement tool, shame on you. If you’re not even on LinkedIn and you’re a manager or executive – sorry – but the train has left the station without you!

Here’s a suggestion I would like to toss our to our readers: In preparation for the next blog article in this series titled – “Job Search Marketing 101 – Your LinkedIn Profile Heading”, I would encourage you to complete our one page scorecard for assessing the effectiveness of your LinkedIn Profile for Job Search.

Download our FREE LinkedIn Profile Self-Assessment

Thousands have used this FREE tool to dramatically give their paper resume an on-line booster shot in the arm. Now armed with your self-assessment of your LinkedIn Profile, you’ll be well prepared as we dive deeply into the various components of leveraging LinkedIn to create a powerful online personal brand for yourself, a powerful magnet to attract recruiters and hiring managers, and a beautiful enhancement to your resume that was not possible just a few years ago.

Barry Deutsch

Join the conversation in our LinkedIn Discussion Group as other managers and executives discuss how they’ve leveraged LinkedIn to give their resume a booster shot.

What are Job Search Best Practices?

Do you know the core best practices of conducting a job search?

Could you rattle these off the tip of your tongue right now?

Here’s the killer question – are you executing flawlessly against these best practices in your current job search?

If either you don’t know the core best practices and/or you are not executing flawlessly against them, your job search could be taking 2X-3X longer than necessary.

In our work with over 200,000 candidates over the last 25 years, we’ve discovered that most candidates are not up-to-speed on the latest job search best practices, nor is there an effective leverage and execution of the best practices – what’s the result of this lack of best practice knowledge:

• Mental anguish
• Burning through your savings account
• Wasting precious time on the wrong activities
• Taking too long to find a job
• Humiliation, rejection, and despair

But wait – there is hope. You can create an effective job search around the most common best practices.

Over the last 15-20 years, we’ve been continually working on and refining a simple structured approach to conducting an effective job search. We call that process the Career Success Methodology. As many of you know, Brad and I have published a book on the Career Success Methodology called “This is NOT the Position I Accepted”.

Here are the simple 5 core best practices of an effective job search and the terminology we use in our Career Success Methodology to describe each one. There are a number of job search systems “out there”.  We happen to be slightly biased and think ours is the most comprehensive. However, at a basic level – there are a few best practices that regardless of the system, terminology, or trademarked name – all have the same basic elements.

1. Introspection – this is the stage of honing what you are looking for, what you bring to the table, what will bring you joy – the ideas behind one the most popular job search books ever – What Color is Your Parachute? Before you can start putting a resume together, thinking about where to send your resume, and prior to interviewing, you must go through this deeply reflective process.

We call this best practice in job search: Create a Personal Success Profile

2. Uncovering Job Leads and Referrals – this is the blending of traditional networking with social media to cast a large net and generate an abundance of opportunities from the hidden job market – the 80% or more of job openings that are never advertised. The vast majority of candidates rely on job postings in their job search – which at best yield 15-20% of the available opportunities.

We call this best practice in job search: Develop a Targeted Plan

3. Resume and Cover Letter – This is one of the most important documents you’ll ever create – yet most candidates give this the least amount of time in their job search. Very few understand how to create an exciting marketing-oriented document that captures the attention of HR, Hiring Managers, and recruiters. The vast majority of resumes and cover letters yield a response rate of less than 1%. You cannot conduct an effective job search if your response rate is less than 1%.

We call this best practice in job search: Compelling Marketing Brochure

4. Interviewing – Very few candidates recognize that the secret to acing the interview has nothing to do with what goes on during the interview. It’s all in the preparation. The small amount of time and effort most candidates spend in preparing for interviews is a complete waste of time and is essentially worthless. Interview preparation is like preparing for a battle – was it not Napoleon Bonaparte who claimed that battles were won in the planning tents of the generals – not on the battlefields?

We call this best practice in job search: Prepare for Interviewing

5. Closing the Deal – Just because you had an interview does not mean you’re going to get an offer – and even if you get an offer it might not be appropriate for your ability and market potential. This best practice is about showing your value, keeping the process moving forward, convincing the company to extend an offer, and negotiating a great package. Many “deals” that should have come together as perfect fits for company/candidate fall apart at this stage due to poor management of the “deal closing” process.

We call this best practice in job search: Win the Opportunity

FIVE Simple Best Practices that result in reducing the time it takes to conduct a job search by at least 50%.

How are you doing against these five simple best practices of conducting an effective job search?

Barry Deutsch

Don’t forget to join our LinkedIn Job Search Discussion Group to benchmark yourself against other job seekers in their execution and application of the 5 core best practices in conducting an effective job search.

Major Controversy – Why Bother Sending a Cover Letter?

There is a raging debate in many LinkedIn Professional and Networking Groups, on our own LinkedIn Job Search Discussion Group, hundreds of emails we’ve been sent, numerous blog comments, and an overwhelming number of tweets – all related to our last blog posting – “Pet Peeve – Your Resume and Cover Letter.”

Obviously, a few people have strong opinions on this subject.

Let’s review the debate:

We recommend you customize both your resume and cover letter for the specific job you are applying for.

Arguments for doing a cover letter and/or custom resume:

• Employers and recruiters consider it disrespectful if you do not include a cover letter or resume
• Employers and recruiters are looking for a reason to exclude you from consideration if you do not match up with their criteria. The custom resume or letter specifically addresses the key points in the job posting.
• Employers and recruiters are overwhelmed in this poor job market with hundreds, if not thousands, of job applications per opening. They want to see an “extra effort” by applicants rather than a cookie-cutter shotgun scattered approach to applying for jobs.
• Vast majority of job responses fall into the “Hot Potato” Method of applying for an opening.
• The bland generic information in most resumes DO NOT give a recruiter or hiring manager enough information to decide whether or NOT to extend an interview invitation.

Arguments for NOT doing a cover letter and/or custom resume:

• Low response rate from recruiters and employers – what’s the use. Even if I did one, the investment of time wouldn’t justify an improved outcome.
• It takes too much time, is way too hard, and requires far too much effort.
• Recruiters and Employers don’t read resumes or cover letters deeply enough, so why even bother?
• It’s all a numbers game – the goal is to broadcast as many resumes to jobs I’m remotely qualified for, and maybe something will stick. I’m overwhelmed applying to jobs – no time to customize my response to each job posting.
• Recruiters and Employers don’t provide enough information in their job postings to customize the cover letter and resume. They don’t list the important elements of the job or they have a laundry list of criteria that superman/superwoman couldn’t meet.
• Recruiters and Employers are doing nothing more than box-checking resumes – a custom cover letter and resume will not help in this process of asking for everything under the sun and eliminating candidates if they don’t have one little inconsequential element checked-off.
• Recruiters and Employers are using low level unskilled and untrained clerical staff to review resumes. Not possible for this level of person to accurately judge the resume of a managerial or executive candidate. Custom cover letters and resumes will NOT help (see bullet point about box-checking above).

Have I missed any of the arguments from each side? These would comprise over 90% of the responses to our last blog posting.

So, what to do from this point forward?

In my ever so humble opinion, I am going to stick by the perspective that for management and executive positions, a detailed cover letter should be written specifically addressing the top 3 points identified in the job posting and a custom resume should be submitted. If you don’t have the time to customize your resume, then at least have 3-4 versions of it and submit the one that matches up most closely with comparable accomplishments for the level of the job, the industry segment, or the common core success factor of that position.

We’re open to hearing from you as to your experience in this job market if you’ve really tried the custom approach. If you’ve not tried it yet, please don’t knock it. Test it and play with it. This strategy is but one of the many we recommend in our Career Success Methodology®. We’ve discovered that most job seekers at a managerial and executive level DO NOT conduct an effective job search. Implementing a few best practices in a structured framework can make an enormous difference in reducing the time it takes to find a great opportunity.

As a special offer to our job search community which includes:

Managerial and executive candidates who read our blog

Following us on Twitter

Participating in our LinkedIn Job Search Discussion Group

Following us through our discussions in a variety of LinkedIn Groups

You’ve downloaded our FREE Job Search tools and content

You’ve attended one of our webinars

You’ve bought one of our job search products

You’ve engaged us in one of our Job Search Coaching Services

We are offering a deep appreciation discount on our upcoming Webinar about resumes and cover letters this Friday January 29th, titled:

GET JOB INTERVIEWS WITH

POWERFUL RESUMES AND COVER LETTERS

This offer of over 50% off the public quoted fee is a special one-time appreciation offer for our job search community and is available only to a selected group – such as our loyal blog readers.

Click here to join the webinar

Please don’t be mad at us for making this offer.

We also have to make a living. It’s very hard to be successful by constantly giving away free tools, templates, audio programs, examples, illustrations, responding to requests for help, and responding to hundreds of comments on our blog and within LinkedIn. We are both trying to build a successful business around effective job search and hiring top talent.

Sometimes, we’re going to make special offers to our job search community for products, services, subscriptions, and webinars. Don’t hold it against us.

If the content was crap – then you can complain. However, Brad and I believe we provide some of the very best content on the Internet for job search and hiring. As many of you know, we give away an extraordinary amount of information in solid tactical tools to improve your job search – maybe to a fault.

We believe the best way to build a loyal following is to give away a lot of our content and as a consequence many job seekers or hiring managers who have found the information useful will move to investing a few dollars in our professional products or services.

Brad and I would like to extend a big thank you of appreciation to all our loyal fans and readers.

Barry Deutsch

PS – The coupon discount you’ll find on the webinar page is only good for the first 50 who register. After that, the price reverts back to our standard pricing for this webinar. Oops – I forgot to mention – the special offer webinar for you includes a number of EXTRA items that doubles the value of the webinar. You couldn’t find this much content about cover letters and resumes in one place if you searched for days.

Job Search Networking Using LinkedIn

Using social media in your job search can be the key to your success. Recruiters, HR and hiring managers are using social media sites like LinkedIn more and more every day.  As a job seeker you should be using LinkedIn daily. This program outlines 5 or 6 techniques you can use that don’t take a lot of time but will have tremendous impact on your job search. These few things will make you findable, will set you aside from others, will ensure your network expands, will guide you through the maze of social media traps and most importantly help you move rapidly down the path to your next job.

While listening to the radio program be sure and download our 8 Point LinkedIn  Profile Assessment guide so you can follow along. ow.ly

All our radio show recordings are in our audio library for you to download and listen to anytime. CLICK HERE to review the programs by title.

You can’t interview yourself out of a wet paper bag

The vast majority of candidates Brad and I meet are horrific at interviewing. It’s bordering on embarrassing and humiliating. WHY? (Here’s a little hint to keep your interest – it has nothing to do with the actual interview presentation)

Before we get into the WHY – let’s establish our credentials for making this bold and outrageous claim:

Job Search and Interviewing Expert Credentials

Brad and I each have over 25 years of executive search experience. We’ve interviewed hundreds of thousands of candidates.  We’ve worked on over a 1000 executive searches, trained over 30,000 CEOs, Presidents, and Senior Executives in how to make better hiring decisions. We’ve written THE definitive guide for executives on hiring top talent called “You’re NOT the Person I Hired”, have over 10,000 copies of our book in print, and have been awarded Speaker of the Year by one of the most prestigious CEO organizations in the world, Vistage International.

On top of those credentials, we’ve developed an award-winning job search process called the Career Success Methodology, which we’ve been teaching to candidates for a quarter of a century. We wrote a book on this Methodology called “This is NOT the Position I Accepted”. The Methodology is based on our extensive background as recruiters interviewing candidates every day of the week for real world assignments. We’ve researched it, field tested it, and validated it as a methodology to reduce the time it takes for you to find a great job by at least 50%.

I felt it necessary to pull out the proverbial brag sheet and first establish our bona fides before I jump up on my soapbox and lay on you one of the biggest contrarian pieces of research you’ve probably ever heard.

Interviewing Mistakes and Failure

Most candidates stink when it comes to preparing for interviews. I’ll bet that’s shocking to most of you.

Everybody thinks they do a great job preparing for an upcoming interview and then they wonder why their “hit rate” – the percentage of offers to interviews is below 1-2%.

The ability to screw up the interview becomes obvious minutes into the discussion. Most of you lack a command of details, specifics, and quantification for your claims. Brad and I eliminate over 90% of all executive search candidates in the very first question within the first 5 minutes on a phone call.

Here’s how it goes:

Please share with me your most significant example of taking initiative in your last job – where you went above and beyond the call of duty to deliver a significant result to your (company, team, department, function, office, group).

Deafening silence.

Let’s ask it a different way: How about sharing with me your most significant example of where you were proactive – where you achieved a great result for something you thought needed to be done but you were not forced or required to do it.

I helped to create a new process.

More silence.

Tell me about the process. For example, why did it need to be created. When did it start. Who else was on the team. What was your contribution? What was the quantifiable outcome of creating the process – what business result was achieved? Did you win any rewards or recognition for it? What would your boss tell me about your achievement? Would they consider it a significant example of initiative?

5 minutes later it’s obvious you’re trying to make up the answers OR you really didn’t drive the project results OR it’s an insignificant example – but it was the first thing that popped into your mind.

If you’re not prepared at a management or executive level to delve into the depths of your most significant accomplishments  – scope, pace, size, outcomes, timeframe, problems, issues, conflict, people, resources, budget, changes, learning – then prepared to be blown out after a couple of minutes.

The vast majority of candidates we meet at a managerial and executive level treat interviewing like “I’ll just waltz in and take the questions as they come – my background speaks for itself.” I cannot begin to tell you the number of times I’ve seen candidates look down at their resume and try to remember what the details were behind a bullet point they listed.

You  might be able to fool a few ignorant and ineffective executives with this form of interviewing, but the vast majority of sophisticated and capable hiring managers and executives will cut you off at the knees after a few minutes. Here’s the sad part – they’ll give you hope by granting a courtesy interview and then telling you at the end “we’ll get back to you” – yet your phone never rings. 90% of the reason you never got asked back was that you FAILED to prepare properly.

Your ability to ACE an interview is not how you do in the interview, it’s what you did to prepare before you ever got to the interview.

Action Steps to Correct Interviewing Failure

Take a few minutes and listen to our archived audio programs on interviewing from our Internet Radio Talk Show or join our LinkedIn Job Search Discussion Group to learn more about effective interviewing. Have you downloaded for FREE our most popular chapter on the phone interview from our workbook? Finally, a significant element of our Home Study Job Search Kit is focused on how to prepare for an interview.

Have you gone through the chapters in our Job Search Workbook that take you painstakingly step-by-step through how to effectively prepare for an interview. Exercise and exercise, template after template, writing down your accomplishments using a structured response approach, practicing it until your head is ready to explode.

You could be the world’s most introverted and shy individual, and still perfectly ACE an interview. Success in the interview IS NOT about making a great presentation – it’s about the preparation required before sitting down with a hiring executive or manager.

Your effective preparation gives you the confidence, content, and capability to ACE most of your interviews and get a high percentage of call-backs for additional interviewing.

Barry Deutsch

PS – Remember the key to effective interviewing is preparation, preparation, preparation!

photo courtesy of NickySmith

LinkedIn – Your Online Resume is Worthless

Not having an effective LinkedIn Profile for your job search is the same as having an ineffective resume that gets tossed into the trash can all the time. STOP letting your online resume (LinkedIn Profile) be thrown in the trash!

LinkedIn provides an extraordinary online tool – your profile – a virtual resume and portfolio for you to do personal branding, self-promotion, and lay out a portfolio of your abilities, skills, and accomplishments.

The entry level account is FREE. This is the proverbial “no-brainer”. So, why are most profiles WORTHLESS? Why don’t professional job search candidates at managerial and executive levels consider this an important part of their job search?

TEST OF LINKEDIN PROFILES FOR JOB SEARCH

I’m in the middle of conducting a retained executive search for a Sales Executive. Like most recruiters, I’m using the search function in LinkedIn to find executives in specific industries and geographic areas. Everyone knows that LinkedIn is a significant tool for sourcing in the hands of recruiters, human resource professionals and hiring managers. I’m only searching for candidates that have flagged their account that they are open to career opportunities. I’ve now reviewed over 400 profiles.

Less than 20% have anything beyond a “skeleton” set of information.

Less than 2% have a decent profile fully completed with extensive descriptions of their accomplishments, an outstanding summary, lots of recommendations, and have their contact information (such as phone number and email address) available.

Less than 1% have taken the time to really leverage all the tools LinkedIn provides on your profile – slide presentations, attaching documents, reading lists, linking your blog and twitter accounts, and on the list goes. It’s absolutely amazing the value LinkedIn provides to job seekers.

As a recruiter reviewing profiles, it takes me about 5 seconds to look at a profile and make a first impression of whether I want to continue looking at it. If the profile is not complete, I will not bother to spend any more time with that potential candidate. You’ve just missed an opportunity which could have been the ideal job to move your career forward after you’ve been out of work for 9 months.

CONFUSION – WORTHLESS LINKEDIN PROFILES

I DON’T GET IT!

WHY DO THE VAST MAJORITY OF JOB SEEKERS HAVE A WORTHLESS ONLINE RESUME (LINKEDIN PROFILE)?

IS IT NOT TIME TO FIX THIS OBVIOUS OVERSIGHT?

HOW MANY JOB OPPORTUNITIES HAVE SLIPPED BY YOU BECAUSE RECRUITERS LIKE ME HAVE SKIPPED OVER YOUR WORTHLESS ONLINE RESUME (LINKEDIN PROFILE)?

IMPROVE YOUR LINKEDIN PROFILE NOW

Brad and I have spoken extensively about the need to fully flush out your LinkedIn Profile as one of the tactics in an effective job search. We’ve talked about it in our weekly Internet Radio Talk Show. You can download the specific episodes about LinkedIn from our broadcast archive.

We even put together a FREE one-page LinkedIn Profile Self-Assessment Scorecard to determine if your LinkedIn Profile is effective in being found by recruiters, HR professionals, and hiring managers. You can download the Scorecard right now and frighten yourself on your inadequate profile. You might want to also bang your head on the wall a few times over the potential job opportunities for which you’ve been ignored.

Take action right now and fix this simple element of your job search. STOP being ignored. Create a profile that allows you to instantly capture the attention of recruiters, HR professionals, and hiring managers that are looking for someone JUST LIKE YOU.

Barry Deutsch

Don’t forget to join our LinkedIn Job Search Discussion Group and learn how to improve the effectiveness of your job search through leveraging the tools LinkedIn provides to create a powerful job search profile.