Star Wars | The Recruitment Desk

January 20, 2016

The Worst Interview Response

I do a lot of interviews.

Anywhere from twenty five to fifty a week. That’s at least five a day.

Of those maybe five will be great. The vast majority will be average to good and a small number will be forgettable. But rarely are interviews ever outright bad. Maybe you catch someone in a tall tale. Maybe you catch someone with more excuses than experience. And in some cases, communication barriers may make the interview incomprehensible.

But rarely ever bad.

There is one brand of interview, however, that can easily be classified as bad. And that is when the candidate gives The Worst Interview Response.

Of course, every Recruiter will have a different variation of what they will consider The Worst Interview Response. For me, it is always the same:

“Have you actually read my resume?”

Nothing brings an interview to a screeching halt quicker than the sound of that response.

Most of my interviews take the same format.

They begin with a confirmation that the candidate is still doing what their resume states they are doing. Once that is settled, the floor belongs to the candidate. Tell me a bit about what you are currently responsible for, will be my opening statement to prompt the candidate into dialogue.

Most candidates will hop right in and happily tell you what it is they are responsible for in their current position. Some will go into great detail. Some require a little more coaxing. Some will give more information than is ever really needed.

But every once in a while, someone will say it:
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“Have you actually read my resume?”

Let’s make something clear. Resumes DO NOT get candidates jobs.

Resumes get candidates interviews.

Interviews get candidates jobs.

Interviews are tests to ensure you can speak to the accomplishments you have listed in your resume.

If a Recruiter has made the effort to get you on the phone, it is because they have given the resume enough thought and consideration to determine that you are indeed someone they wish to interview. Maybe that meant glancing over the document. Maybe that meant reading every line. But no interview with a Recruiter, no matter the circumstances, will come in the absence of a resume review.

This response is the worst because it rings with an air of smugness and automatically implies that the candidate not only thinks very highly of themselves, but consider the person they are speaking with to have not done their job properly. Not a very good way to set the tone with the person who will be responsible for deciding if your resume is getting forwarded to a Hiring Manager or not.

And should you ever feel compelled to utter this response to a Hiring Manager, well…

I have seen candidates who’s experience was perfect for the job, lose everything by giving this response to a Hiring Manager. It Happens.

So be professional. Be courteous and when speaking with a Recruiter, don’t worry about whether you believe they have done their job or not. Worry instead about telling them how good you are at doing yours.

That is what we are looking for. That is what will get you in front of a Hiring Manager. That is what will get you the job.

August 4, 2015

The Curse Of Over Ambition

One of the things I look for in an interview is Ambition. Someone who knows where they are and where they want to be. Someone who has a clear goal in mind. Someone who is going to be happy doing more than the bare minimum required.

That is, after all, the stuff companies want to pay good money for.

I recently had the opportunity to spend a day interviewing students for a former company’s HR co-op position.

It’s interesting interviewing students. You become so hardened over the years with trying to catch people in their tall tales that you forget what it once was to be young and nervous and hoping beyond all measure that you are the one lucky one, out of who knows how many, chosen to be offered a real job.

And when you interview a student, you get to the bare essentials of what separates a successful interview from an unsuccessful one.

Most of the students handled themselves with impressive tact, professionalism, and an arsenal of tips their teachers suggested they try to get the job.

But there was one young lady who stood out.

She’d interned at an office during the summer doing Administration and Payroll. She’d also been involved with imputing data into the company’s ATS (Applicant Tracking System), screening resumes, performing phone screens, managing the Healthy & Safety, updating employee files, organizing the office lunch program, and oh, does our company have a recycling program, because if not it’s something she highly recommends and would implement and manage should she be offered the job. She also offered to teach me how to better manage my Inbox to make it more efficient.

It was an easy no.

But wait…huh?

One of the things I also look for in interviews is Over Ambition. This girl had it. And then some.

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The girl I interviewed was an extreme case of Over Ambition. Instead of trying to understand what the company would expect from her and relating that to her own background, she simply started spouting off. She offered everything and the kitchen sink. The conclusion was obvious: instead of focusing on mastering her job and taking ownership of it, she would instead be busy trying to do mine and maybe even my bosses and that is just no good.

Ambitious people are masters of their domain. They understand the tasks before them and how to best complete them. Over Ambitious people are too busy looking ahead. They are only in their current job so they can get to their next one and usually look at their current tasks as below them. They don’t value learning because they feel they already have it all figured out and because of this, are usually hard to manage. No one, after all, wants to be told that they don’t know how to do their job by the new person. I am perfectly comfortable with the state of my Inbox, thank you very much.

Over Ambition can also be a mask for desperation.

If you were most recently a Technology Manager who was hired to spearhead a major network upgrade that consisted of over 500 servers, then I’m interested. If, in the process, you also discovered a way to reduce network downtime by 60% by implementing a new set of procedures, then you sound like an ambitious person.

However, if you are a Network Manager who single-handedly performed a 500 server Network upgrade, managed all 300 incoming incident tickets per day, implemented brand new software that saved the company a million dollars, was the CEO’s personal point of contact for all technology matters, had your own reserved company parking space, and helped take down the Deathstar, resulting in another 100 million in savings because the Empire was threatening to take over…

You’re probably a little too Over Ambitious for this gig.

Before you start packing your resume with dollar and percentage signs or talking about how you were the MVP of your last company, take a step back and ask yourself: is this point relevant or self-serving? Is it believable? And if someone were to do some digging and inquire about these figures, would your references be able to back them up? If not, get rid of it. These are the things that separate Ambition from Over Ambition.

Next time a Recruiter asks why they should hire you, don’t try to be all things to all people. Don’t position yourself as the all-encompassing centre of knowledge on everything you come into contact with. And don’t promise the sun, the moon, the stars and all the known matter in the universe. Be yourself, be proud of your achievements and know where you want to go next.

That is something Ambitious people know how to do.

April 7, 2014

The Second Commandment: If Brought Up Thou Shalt Revert All Salary Negotiation Back to Thine Recruiter

Let’s Reiterate

The hiring manager shouldn’t ask.

What I send them upon submission is:

-Your name
-Your resume
-Your availability
-A blurb about your background
-Any additional documentation you want to provide
–Your rate/Salary expectation

They know this. If they ask you about salary during the interview, they either haven’t prepared to meet you or are playing Jedi Mind Tricks

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Good thing you’ve come prepared with a Jedi Master of your own.

Let The Recruiter Negotiate For You

Your job is to make The Client want you. Once you’ve done that, we’ll happily take care of the rest.

Everyone is trying to save a buck and Recruitment is expensive. One permanent agency hire could cost a company anywhere from $15,000 to $20,000 depending on the position. Contractors cost even more. Good managers like to keep their costs low and budgets on target. Some prey on the fact that people are gullible, easily intimidated and in most cases, more than anything, just want a job.

I’ve worked with employers in the past who have gone so far as to tell candidates they will hire them so long as they tell the Recruiter they weren’t interested and took another job. The company gets the talent and saves on the finder’s fee. The Recruiter get’s the shaft.

Companies play all kinds of games to try to get out of paying a Recruiter their finder’s fee. We want to keep them to a minimum.

A free word of advice: If the company is trying to pull funny business with you before you’re even hired, imagine what’s going on behind their closed doors. If they don’t want to pay my fee, you think they’re going to want to pay your raise next year? Remember, Past Behaviour Predicts Future Behaviour. If it happens, tell your Recruiter about it. We’ll take care of it.

Because jobs are scarce and people are scared that any wrong move they make will lose them the chance at that coveted position, you’re probably worried about how it’s going to look in an interview if the hiring manager asks you a question you don’t want to answer.

So here’s how you handle it if it arises.

Hiring Manager: So what are you looking for salary wise?
You: I’d prefer all contract negotiation to go through my Recruiter but am ready and willing to accept a fair offer.

Simple. You’ve let them know that you’ll accept if you both agree you’re worth about the same, and that they can have that discussion with your Recruiter.

The Moral Of This Commandment: If the topic of salary arises it could be because the employer is trying to get you to shoot yourself in the foot. Don’t let them put you in a situation where you’re willing to devalue yourself. At any point a negotiable term arises, revert that discussion back to your Recruiter. We’re happy to have it for you.

The Client Interview Ten Commandments

April 4, 2014

The Third Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Talk About Salary

Salary negotiation is one of the many free perks you get when you make the decision to work with a Recruiter.

If You So Choose To Use It.

When we have our initial meeting we’re going to talk about salary.

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What were you previously making? What do you ideally want to be making? How flexible are you for the right opportunity?

When I call you about a specific job we’re going to talk about salary again. This is what it’s paying, this is what we discussed, are you okay with that?

No matter what, I will never submit you to a job until we have discussed how much the client is looking to pay and how okay you are with that amount. Before that phone call ends, you will have agreed to an exact number that will be submitted to the client. Make sure you’re comfortable with that number. Once it’s locked in, it’s locked in for good.

Some people, rightly so, believe Recruiter’s are only out to screw them over. You think they want to keep as much of your wage as profit as they can. That can be true if you’re going on contract and that’s a topic for a post still about a week away.

However, if we’re discussing a permanent job, none of the agency’s profit is coming off of the employee’s wage. We have an agreed-upon mark-up (a percentage of your first year salary) that the client pays as a “finder’s fee.” Think of it like a mandatory tip for the delivery person.

Here’s the reality: We want you to make as much as possible. It’s in our best interest for you to make as much as possible. The higher your first year’s salary, the better your Recruiter’s weekend is going to be.

Which is why we want to do the negotiation with the client for you.

The client, in most cases, knows they shouldn’t be asking you about salary during the interview. Regardless, sometimes they will. If they do, it could be because they’re trying to play Jedi mind tricks.

And guess what young Skywalker? They work.

If I tell the hiring manager you’ll do it for $75,000 and you go to the interview and tell them you’d consider doing it at $70,000, the phone call I’m going to get will go something like this:

Hiring Manager: Mike buddy, listen, loved meeting with Eric. Want him on the team. Let’s make it happen.
Me: Great news. I had a feeling he’s what you were looking for. I’ll get the references going and get the paperwork ready to send over.
Hiring Manager. Great. Thanks Mike. Say, how much did you say his salary was?
Me: I believe, just let me check, ya, we had submitted him for $75,000.
Hiring Manager: Really? Interesting. Could you double check that for me buddy? He said something about doing it for $70,000 during the interview. I just want to confirm that.

You’re mouth just cost you $5,000 and my President’s Club Trip to Mexico next week. Thanks a lot.

The Moral of this Commandment: Recruiter’s handle salary negotiation every day of the week. The more you make, the more we make, so why not leave that conversation to the professionals?

The Ten Commandments of Client Recruitment

The Worst Interview Response

“Have you actually read my resume?”

“Have you actually read my resume?”

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The Curse Of Over Ambition

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The Second Commandment: If Brought Up Thou Shalt Revert All Salary Negotiation Back to Thine Recruiter

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The Third Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Talk About Salary

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