Why going to the day spa may be a fantastic career investment

Posted January 19th, 2011 in blog_news, For Job Seekers

Because 99% of the time, your appearance is saying more about you than you realize

Whether you think wearing flip-flops to interviews is fine, or whether you’re still a believer in a more formal  approach, we all know that clothes are an important part of making a good impression in the interview.  But a great ‘interview suit’ is just the beginning.

Experienced recruiters and hiring managers are sort of like that guy on The Mentalist:  They become so adept at picking up non-verbal cues  during interviews that they seem almost psychic in their ability to accurately assess a person’s personality, working style, life-stage, and what motivates them work-wise – often within the first few minutes of the interview.  (In fact, the best recruiters are so good at it that it happens automatically and unconsciously.)

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Job interviews: Sometimes you gotta fake it til you make it

Posted December 7th, 2010 in For Job Seekers

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:   Job hunting is stressful and ego-bruising, and it’s even more difficult when you’ve been unemployed for a few weeks and are starting to really worry about your finances.  And it’s especially difficult at this time of year, for a whole lot of reasons.

So when you finally get a chance to speak with a recruiter or potential employer in real time – either on the phone or in person – and you’re talking about your career, it can be tempting to vent your frustrations, worries and resentment:  ”I’ve been sending out resumes for weeks now and no one ever gets back to me and I keep leaving voicemails but I never hear anything and I see other people getting jobs but no one wants me…”

Would you want to spend 40 hours a week with Debbie Downer?
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Wait a sec – what did that interview question REALLY mean?

Posted November 17th, 2010 in blog_news, For Job Seekers

You know what they say:  Being good at taking tests is a good indicator of how good you are at taking tests, not necessarily how well you’ll do in later life.

In many ways, the same is true about interviewing skills:  Doing well (or poorly) in interviews is not always a good predictor of how well you’ll perform in a particular job in the long term.

interview skills

Reading this list of Top 25 OddBall Interview Questions reminded me that the best interviews aren’t so much Q&A sessions as they are conversations. They’re like a first date.

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Got sucked into being on an ‘interview committee’? Here’s how to make it work.

Posted November 10th, 2010 in blog_news, For Employers

‘Interview by committee’ can be tough, especially if most of the panel members aren’t experienced interviewers.  Establishing guidelines in advance can make a big difference.

Part of our ROI of Happiness mandate involves using our specialized knowledge and experience  to ‘give back’ to the community, and one of the ways we do this is by helping non-profit organizations recruit, interview and hire staff.

One of the biggest challenges non-profits face is interviewing for senior-level positions:  In many non-profits, candidates for senior roles must be interviewed by a committee (typically the Board of Directors).  Panel-format interviews can be tricky even for experienced interviewers who conduct them on a regular basis; they can be particularly problematic when the committee is comprised of volunteers (most of whom come from other professions and don’t do a lot of interviewing in their ‘real’ jobs) who only convene as an interview panel once every couple of years.

Here’s how to make ‘Interview by Committee’ work better:

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Didn’t get the job, and didn’t get feedback? Here’s how to handle it.

Posted November 3rd, 2010 in blog_news, For Job Seekers

We’ve all been there:  You make the shortlist for a particular job, and maybe even have a preliminary interview; you get psyched up about it, do your research, envision yourself working in a new environment, and check your voicemail and email 42 times a day in case they’re inviting you for a second interview or letting you know you got the job.

But then 3 weeks go by without so much as a generic “Sorry, but…” email, and you start to feel the way you did in high school when that cute guy you had a crush on asked  for your number, then didn’t ever call you:  You’re 99% certain that your dreams of finally getting a popular boyfriend have been dashed upon the rocks of reality, but it’s just possible that he does really like you, but lost your number and/or was hit by a car and the resultant coma is keeping him from calling you.

In dating or job-hunting, we all just need some closure.

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Acing the interview starts with an hour on Google

Posted October 11th, 2010 in For Job Seekers

Last week I had lunch with an independent recruiter who had just received an angry phone call from a client who’d just interviewed a candidate the recruiter had sent over – and it hadn’t gone well.

She (the recruiter) had sent what she thought was a fantastic candidate for a finance-related IT position: With a strong resume, great communication skills, a polished appearance, he appeared to be ambitious and willing to go the extra mile to build his career. She figured he was a shoo-in for the position.

“But the interview was a disaster,” she told me after getting off the phone with her client. “He hadn’t done any research about the company. He kept talking about ‘going green’ was a nice thing to do, but that it should never take precedence over the bottom line, not realizing that one of their top mandates is to become Bullfrog Powered wihin the next 2 years, and lead their industry in environmentally-friendly business practices.  And it’s not like they’re keeping it a secret – it’s all over their corporate website!”

Why did this bug the client so much?  Because it’s hard to believe someone when they say “Oh yes, I’d really like to work at your company…” when it’s clear that they didn’t even bother to visit your homepage before they came to the interview.

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How to hire great Online Media Salespeople

Posted September 22nd, 2010 in blog_news

by Melanie Benwell, Senior Recruiting Specialist here at Poly Placements.

When it comes to Online Media Salespeople, the difference between ‘pretty good’ and ‘really great’ comes down to asking 6 questions

In the past 10-15 years, we’ve seen the birth – and rapid growth – of a whole new sales specialization:  Online Media Sales.

Online Media Sales is one of the most challenging sales specialties:  The technology is always changing, the market fluctuates dramatically and swiftly in response to changing economic conditions, results-tracking is rigorous and real-time, and a large part of the role involves educating and ‘evangelizing’ (car salesmen, for example, don’t have to explain to potential customers what a car is or why cars in general are a good idea).

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What’s in a name? 33% fewer interviews.

Posted September 12th, 2010 in blog_news, For Employers

Last week we discussed diversity in the workplace and how important it is to be pro-active, both within the recruiting department and across the rest of the organization.

That’s great, but before you can have a diverse workforce, you have to hire diverse candidates.  the problem is that discrimination often begins long before the interview process.

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Is your office lobby costing you A-list candidates?

Posted September 9th, 2010 in blog_news

“You never get a second chance to make  a first impression.”

There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that we all make decisions about people based on appearances and a few short minutes of interaction, and that many hiring managers make hiring decisions within the first 5 minutes of the in-person interview.

Your office lobby is the first place candidates ‘meet’ your company in person.  What kind of first impression is it making?

The minute they walk in the door, they’re imagining themselves in the job

Interviews go both ways:  The employer is thinking, “I wonder what it would be like to have this person working here every day…”, while the candidate is thinking, “I wonder what it would be like to come to work here every day…”

So the minute a candidate walks through your door, they’re looking around thinking, “Would I like to come here to work every day?  Is the prospect of spending 40+ hours a week in this environment appealing?  Would I ‘fit in’ here?  Do I really want to pursue this opportunity, or does the thought of walking into this lobby every day fill me with despair?”

What message is your lobby sending to potential employees?

Here’s the lobby of Google Zurich:

This lobby says:  ”We’re creative, non-traditional, and interesting – and we’re successful enough to be able to spend money in our surroundings.  Sure, you’ll probably end up spending a lot of time here – we work a lot – but you won’t mind, because it’s so much fun and we’re all so invested in our work!”

Now let’s look at random clinic office:

This lobby says:  ”We’re serious.  We’re so serious that we don’t believe in having a personality of any kind between 9am and 5pm.  We think that spending a lot of money,time or energy on our surroundings is frivolous.  Hey – this is a workplace, not a funhouse!  We believe competency is more important than innovation.”

If you were an A-list candidate with 2 job offers, which one would you choose?

We’ve picked 2 extreme examples here, of course:  Hardly any lobbies or offices are as consistently appealing as Google’s, and it’s entirely possible that the photo of the ‘boring’ office was taken just after they’d repainted, and they hadn’t yet had time to replace the signage and decor.

But it’s worth thinking about.  Go take a look at your lobby, and try to imagine it through the eyes of someone who’s never seen it before.  Is it an accurate reflection of your organizational culture?  Your brand?  Is it likely to be appealing to your ideal new employee?

There are lots of good salespeople out there. Here’s how to find great ones.

Posted July 22nd, 2010 in blog_news, For Employers

Those of us outside of the sales department often poke fun at – or even deride – the stereotype of the fast-talking, Ari Gold-type ‘Sales Guy’, but the truth is that without a sales team, 99% of the rest of us would be out of work pretty fast.

A good sales team can drive your business success; a great sales team can mean the difference between a $25-million organization and a $250-million one.

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