Didn’t get the job? Here’s why it shouldn’t get you down.

Posted February 17th, 2012 in blog_news, For Job Seekers

Even princesses have to kiss a few frogs before they get a prince.

In many ways, looking for a new job should be a pretty invigorating activity.  After all, you’re exploring new possibilities, thinking of new challenges, anticipating a move up the career ladder…what could be more exciting?

Tragically, all the potential excitement tends to get subsumed under the other side of job hunting:  The (sometimes repeated) rejection.  Maybe you’re sending out lots of resumes and not getting callbacks; maybe you’re getting the interviews but somehow not getting the offers.  Either way, it can take its toll on your self-esteem and your morale.

But you shouldn’t take it too personally, and here’s why:

1.  Maybe it really wasn’t the right job for you

It’s likely that the person (or people) doing the screening and interviewing for the job know the organization and the job better than you do, and have a better handle on the kind of person who’s going to be successful in the role.  Maybe they need someone who is less ambitious than you are and will stay in the job for longer than you will; maybe they can tell that the job isn’t going to be challenging enough for you.  ”I really wished I could have hired so-and-so,” employers have often said to me.  ”I just know they wouldn’t have been happy in the long run.”

2.  Sometimes the person doing the hiring makes a mistake

From time to time, we send a candidate to an interview for a position that we know they’d do well in. But they don’t get hired.  Maybe the interview got off to a bad start and didn’t recover; maybe the interviewer didn’t really understand the role; maybe the hiring manager was simply having a bad day. Stuff happens – you just have to shake it off and keep going.

3.  The job might have changed

Sometimes a company posts an advertisement for a position, gets halfway through the screening and interviewing process, and realizes that the role doesn’t exist, or has changed, or has moved to a different office.  You – the job-seeker – gets stuck in the middle, and no one thinks to explain the situation to you.  It’s not a reflection on your abilities.

4.  You might be spreading yourself too thin

If you’re sending out ‘hundreds’ of resumes but getting very few responses, consider that you might not be focusing on the best opportunities for you.  It’s better to spend an hour or two crafting a very targeted response to a job that really fits with your skills and experience than to fire off applications to every job that looks vaguely suitable.  You’ll get better results, and your morale will take less of a beating.

5.  It’s a risk-averse marketplace

A trend we often see in larger organizations is a job that comes with a very specific checklist:  The successful new hire must have X education, Y experience, and Z skills just to make the shortlist, let alone the final cut.  That checklist may end up excluding some great potential candidates, but in a tough job market, it’s the way hiring managers can protect themselves if a new hire doesn’t work out:  ”But I followed the checklist for this role and didn’t do anything risky like hiring someone without the specified skills and experience…”

Remember, a positive attitude is your best asset when you’re looking for a new job.  It’s okay to feel frustrated and fed up with the process, but don’t let it creep into your communications with recruiters or potential employers.  Go for a run, punch a pillow, or have a glass of wine with a friend – then remember that eventually you will find the right job for you, and it just might be as exciting as you hoped.

 

 

When to say “thanks, but no thanks” to a job offer

Posted April 9th, 2011 in For Job Seekers

It’s flattering to get offered a job.
That doesn’t mean you should accept.

The only thing worse than being stuck in a job you hate for years on end is taking a job only to flee from it 3 months later:  A company who invests time and money to onboard you only to lose you almost immediately is definitely going to be cheesed off, and it’s a small world.  Plus it’s bad for your resume – having 5 jobs in 3 years makes you look like an unreliable job-jumper and a bad bet.

Approach the interview process as you would the dating scene

You already know that you don’t have to go out with everyone who asks you on a date, you don’t have to kiss everyone who buys you dinner, and you definitely don’t have to marry someone just because you met their family last Christmas.   Sometimes you just know there isn’t a future in the relationship.

Think of the interview process in the same way:   You may have a positive interview (or two), and the company may offer you a job – but that doesn’t mean you should automatically accept it.

Here are some situations in which you should probably decline the offer:

1.  It’s a counter-offer

You decided you hated your current job, so you went on a few interviews and now you have a good offer from another company.  But when you tell your current boss you’re leaving, s/he offers you a raise/title bump/corner office/car allowance to try to get you to stay.

Don’t accept it.  With a very few exceptions, all the reasons you wanted to leave in the first place will still be there (you’ll find that, after tax, that $5000 raise doesn’t actually compensate for the 60-hour weeks you’ve been working),  plus now your boss considers you a flight risk and your co-workers think you blackmailed your way to some kind of advantage.  99% of the time, people who accept counter-offers end up leaving within 6 months anyway, so you’re better off sticking to your guns and making a clean break.

2.  It doesn’t pay enough money to live on

Unless you’re living at home with your parents and just need some work experience, fast, you shouldn’t take a job that pays less than you need for basic expenses, even if they promise you a raise within a few months.  You’ll end up stressed out and resentful – neither of which are conducive to giving 100% to your new job.

What’s more, you run the risk of looking desperate, which means that promised raise may not be forthcoming (“If s/he was so desperate for a job that they took the absurdly low salary we offered, s/he isn’t going to leave even if we keep him/her on slave wages…”).

3.  You aren’t excited about the job

If you get a job offer and aren’t immediately on the phone to your best friend or your mother to tell them about it, it’s probably the wrong job.  It’s hard to succeed in a job, especially in the crucial first 6-12 months, if you’re not passionate about it.  What’s more, if you aren’t excited now, imagine how you’ll feel after a year or two.  Right:  You’ll be back on the market again.

4.  You don’t believe in the company or the brand

So you’re a die-hard fan of Brand X footwear, but you get a great job offer from their closest competitor, Brand Y.  Don’t take it. For most people, career success means being able to get fully invested in what they’re doing, and you’re only going to give yourself a serious case of cognitive dissonance when you have to pretend to love Brand Y all day and restrict your Brand X passion to the weekends.

Sooner or later your managers will notice this lack of enthusiasm and you’ll be passed over for promotion, while your co-workers move ahead.

(On the other hand, you should probably check out Brand X’s career opportunities, where your passion can be turned to good advantage!)

5.  You got a bad ‘vibe’ when you toured the office

Most of us have better gut instincts than we realize.

Think about the last job you really loved.  Chances are, the first time you walked into or through the office, you got a good feeling about it.  It may have been that people were friendly to you; it may have been that you picked up on good teamwork among the existing employees; it may have been the architecture.

We call our reactions to these things ‘vibes’, but in fact they’re quite rational:  People who are friendly to strangers walking through their office are likely to be friendly to new hires; people who appear to be working well together indicate a healthy office environment; and architecture you like means you probably have things in common with your potential new co-workers.

Well, these ‘vibes’ work the other way, too.  If you’re getting a bad vibe, it could mean that your potential new co-workers aren’t all that friendly, that the working environment isn’t healthy, or that you won’t have a lot in common with your teammates.  Regardless, it means you probably aren’t a good fit.

The good news?
Getting one job offer is a good sign that another one is on its way.

Job-hunting is funny:  It can take you a while to get on top of your game (finding the right opportunities, writing  a killer resume, getting confident in interviews, etc.), but once you do, it’s surprising how popular you start to become.

So don’t panic too much about turning down a job offer.  The fact that you got one – especially one that was close enough to what you wanted to be a serious contender – is a good indication that you’re putting your best foot forward and are attractive to potential employers.  Which means a better offer – one that’s more suitable for you, anyway – won’t be long in arriving.  Really.

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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5 ways to generate more enthusiasm for ‘older’ candidates

Posted December 10th, 2010 in blog_news, For Job Seekers

Though the recent recession obscured the problem somewhat, North America, the UK, and many parts of the EU are already facing talent shortages which will only get worse in the next few years: Lower birthrates mean that as baby-boomers retire out of the workforce, they aren’t being replaced by new workers entering it.

In some ways, this is good news for job-seekers, especially job-seekers in minority groups:  Employers who continue to discriminate against candidates based on race, religion, skin colour, gender, sexual orientation or anything else simply won’t be able to fill vacancies.  (The Conference Board of Canada, for example, predicts that by 2015, there will be 160,000 more jobs than workers to fill them in Alberta alone.  By 2020, the shortfall across Canada could be 800k+.  Similar studies in the US, the UK and the EU make similar predictions.)

However, while job-seekers from most minority groups are receiving a more enthusiastic welcome in the talent marketplace than they used to, one group continues to get a lukewarm  reception:  ’Older’ job-seekers.

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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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