Tag Archives: job interview

Radio Interview: Informational Interviewing with Marty Gahbauer

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If you want to learn about informational interviewing, then it helps to do so from someone who conducted over 100 of them and learned the nuances of this process. That person is Marty Gahbauer and my radio interview with him was a fun opportunity to go over many of the most important insights he shares during a much longer seminar.

The following link will take you to a site where you can download a free podcast and then listen to it when the time is right. That could be during your commute, at the gym, during a shopping trip, whenever. http://bit.ly/1gCrBlx

I hope you enjoy it and please share it with other jobseekers who could benefit from this approach. In a shameless plug, my book, No Medal for Second Place: How to Finish First in Job Interviews, has a chapter covering the subject.

My best,

Tom Payne

 

The Young and the Unemployed

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This is not the title of a soap opera, it is where the U.S. finds itself and it is a dangerous place.

Almost 6 million young people, aged 16-24, are neither at work nor in school. That’s about 15% of this demographic. What makes this such an unsettling fact is the longer-term implication of a generation waiting for work and failing to develop those skills required for advancement. This isn’t about individuals being unable to climb a corporate ladder; it is about U.S. businesses one day needing talented people to compete globally and finding this talent in short supply, because it never had the opportunity to develop.

The U.S. Capitol Building
The U.S. Capitol Building

Who is at fault? President Obama? The Republican-led House of Representatives? The Democratic-led Senate? With respect to your current state of unemployment, it doesn’t matter. Furthermore, if the unemployed focus on assigning blame, then the struggle to find work will almost certainly fail. Why? Because it requires an incredible amount of energy to secure meaningful work in this environment and wallowing in the comfort of excuses, and blaming others, is a luxury the unemployed cannot afford.

The first step that must be taken by the young and unemployed is to steer clear of blaming the economy, politicians, or anyone else. Young or old, the mindset must be, “I am responsible for my current situation. Therefore,” the responsible jobseeker asks, “What am I doing wrong, and what must I do right, to change this situation?” This may seem like strong medicine, but until we take full responsibility for our current situation we will be distracted by excuses from focusing on what is important.

If you are serious about finding work, then assess your current job search condition with this simple diagnostic:

  1. Do you understand the value your strengths offer?
  2. Do you even know what your strengths are? (If you don’t, that’s okay, because most people don’t.)
  3. Can you articulate them to a hiring authority in a compelling way?
  4. Are you networking effectively? Besides your LinkedIn page, are you pursuing informational interviews to network your way into the hidden job market?
  5. Have you developed stories to share your unique skills in a memorable way?
  6. CTC ChicagoAre you taking advantage of professional help? Coaching? It may be within your financial reach and it will accelerate the growth of your job search skills in ways you cannot imagine. For example, I serve as a volunteer coach at the Career Transitions Center of Chicago and their three month program costs $300. Check your location for similar programs. They may be offered by churches or synagogues, Chambers of Commerce, University alumni programs, but they will give you another perspective which is invaluable.

There is much more to do than answering these few questions, but it is a start. It is moving in the right direction. It is acting responsibly and facing the challenge of this tough job market with a positive, focused, no-excuses attitude that will be far more productive than one that allows the crippling luxury of excuses.

The Cute Puppy

Job Search, Problem Solving, , , , , ,

The pet store owner told the parent, “Just take this puppy home and see if you want to keep it or not. And you are right. She is awfully cute.”

Cute-DogsWe know how this story ends. The cute puppy enters the house, the children adopt her, and there is no way she is ever going to leave. Sold!

One of the most powerful ways to promote yourself in an informational interview, or a job interview, is to create in the hiring authority’s mind the image of you already working for the company. There are several ways of achieving this.

For example, during an informational interview you begin with a statement that asserts the value you can bring to an organization:

“Hi Joe, I thought we’d begin this informational interview by me telling you a little about myself, because many of the questions I’m going to ask are tied directly to this.”

Joe, says, “Sure. Go ahead.”

“Okay. In previous positions I’ve demonstrated the ability to look at hundreds of obstacles, threats, opportunities, and the like, and filter out all but the most important task that deserves my complete attention. And then I focus on it until the task is completed. And this has produced outsized gains. For example, I saw the urgent need to develop a distributor sales training program and it took two months of focused effort, but it resulted in the doubling of revenue and growing our market share from a base of 25% to over 50%. How do you see these analytical, problem-solving skills, combined with creativity, transferring to the challenges in your industry?”

I’ve articulated my strengths, or presented my personal brand, and have now asked the interviewer to imagine these strengths working for him in his industry. I am starting to migrate from my side of the table to his. I continue this process with other questions.

“Some people who are between jobs view themselves as being a problem, a burden, and they are seeking a solution, or a job. But I think I am solution seeking some hiring company’s problems. So what are the most difficult problems you face?”

CuteThen, once they share these problems with you, you begin to ask what their approach has been to solving it, and if they’ve tried doing this and that. By doing this, you’ve assumed the role of an employee doing what employees are hired to do: Solve their companies problems, remove obstacles to growth and profitability, and the more you do this and demonstrate how you are a positive force, the more you become like that cute puppy who has just found a new home.

However, you are not seeking a job during this informational interview. It is an attempt to both get information, and more importantly, to network within a new industry. That said, when you have made yourself so desirable that the interviewer would hire you, if he or she could, then how much more willing will this person be to share with you the names and numbers of potential job sources?

Accessing the Hidden Job Market

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This is the first of several posts on informational interviewing. The final post will have a link to a radio interview I did with a master of this networking technique: Marty Gahbauer.

How do you gain access to a club that is operating behind closed doors? You knock. Requesting an informational interview is like knocking on a door and seeking a day pass to an exclusive club, and depending on how well your interview goes, you might end up getting an offer to join this club.

interview-questionsCompanies frequently have opportunities that the rest of the world never sees. They are never posted and are filled by networking. Therefore, you’re only hope of being considered for these opportunities is through networking.

There are many ways to network beyond speaking with your personal contacts. LinkedIn is a networking tool. Recruiters can be used to network. But informational interviewing is unique in that it intentionally expands your networking into industries different from the ones you’ve worked in. And this is what makes it such a valuable tool.

The purpose of an informational interview is to learn about another field of work and see how well your skills, strengths and interests align with this field. It is also a way of exposing your brand to others in these industries to see if it is valued.

Something I strongly recommend is to choose more than one industry, but no more than three. By putting your eggs in more than one basket you will increase your odds of finding an opportunity. And by focusing on three industries instead of ten you will develop some buzz around your name within those industries. In other words, as you get to know more people in a particular industry, and they get to know you, you will increase the likelihood that your name will pop up in conversations and that you will be considered for open positions.

Next, we will speak about the importance of developing your brand and the powerful impact this can have during an informational interview.

You’re Hired! A Radio Show Supporting Jobseekers

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You’re Hired! is a radio show offering jobseekers powerful job search tools. The attached link will take you to an interview I conducted with Orla Castanien, a sought after speaker on the subject of strengths and how discovering them and articulating them is at the core of successful job search.

I first heard Orla speak at the Career Transitions Center of Chicago and was not just impressed with the logic and strength of her positions, but also with the utility of the exercises she used to help a person learn their strengths. One of these techniques, the peak moment exercise, is contained in this free, downloadable podcast. The link to this show follows:

http://bit.ly/1cNI9oc

I hope you find it enjoyable and I look forward to sharing some future interviews with the CTC’s volunteer coaches and staff, and others, on their areas of expertise.

Communication: The Cognitive Unconscious in Action

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As stated in a previous post, the process of communicating is very complicated. It involves verbal and non-verbal communication. While we speak we are listening, processing how the other person is responding to what we are saying. This is constantly occurring because communication is more than just topical, it is relational.

iceberg
There is a lot going on beneath the surface.

There is too much occurring during face-to-face talk for the rational mind to process and keep up with. It is too slow, working at about 40 bits per second. But the cognitive unconscious is very fast, operating at about 11 million bits per second. It organizes information into patterns called schema. It senses what is going on before our conscious mind does, and it communicates to us through our bodies, through increased sweating, faster heart beat, a sense of uneasiness. The following study shows this process in action.

In this study the subjects were required to choose between a deck of blue cards and a deck of red cards. The red cards produced big gains, but more big losses. The blue cards produced smaller gains, but fewer small losses. By card 50 the subjects had a hunch about the red cards but couldn’t explain it. By card 80 they knew the problem with the red cards explicitly. But by card 10 the cognitive unconscious had solved the problem. This was indicated by an increase in sweating and behavior modification (a slight decrease in red card choices).

The cognitive unconscious is much faster than our rational minds. It recognizes patterns. It anticipates future outcomes and probabilities, because these patterns suggest what might happen next. It is at work in every communication experience including job interviews. This is why our non-verbal behaviors are so powerful. They trigger responses from the cognitive unconscious of the interviewer that can overpower or sway their rational thought process. For example, on paper you may be the ideal candidate for a position, but because you came in looking tense and nervous the interviewer felt you were a poor fit and not up to the task, even though everything in your work history indicated otherwise.

cupidWe are always communicating even when we do not say a word. The classic illustration of this is love at first sight. This strange phenomenon has been known for millennia, and the subject was even found in the writings of the Greek philosopher Plato. It was depicted as being shot in the heart by Cupid’s arrow. Love at first sight was not the result of rational processing of information. Instead, it was the result of the cognitive unconscious responding to what it saw.

What non-verbal messages are you sending during an interview? How can you possibly know? A mock interview that is videotaped is one way of discovering what sort of non-verbals characterize your interviewing style and taking part in mock interviews is highly recommended, because modifying our non-verbal communication is an essential part of the job search process.

Hope

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sunrise-freeJobseekers tend to psychologically relocate themselves during a job search. Hope, or the lack of it, determines the neighborhood they choose. The jobseeker without hope can become the psychological equivalent of a homeless person, a beggar who feels he or she has nothing to offer, and who is crippled by a sense of shame and despair. Meanwhile, those jobseekers who have hope realize that they possess inherent worth and offer genuine value, and by being able to express this they attract the help of others–complete strangers–and find the hidden job opportunities.

I am not speaking about false hope, whistling in the dark when a genuine threat is nearby. False hopes are for the deluded, but 99.9% of jobseekers can have a delusion-free hope. Why? Because their talents and skills can solve the problems afflicting employers. These jobseekers are the solutions who need to seek problems. They are not problems seeking solutions.

Today (10-1-13) I was speaking to Anita Jenke, who is the head of the Career Transitions Center of Chicago (CTC), and she told me how the CTC had to be careful who they allowed to interview them based on the slant of their story. They wanted to avoid giving any interview that fed the pessimism that is so prevalent, the hopelessness regarding the employment situation. Because, as she put it, hope is an essential element in job search; it enables jobseekers to remain positive in their job search and attractive to hiring companies. Yes, complete strangers will help you in your job search, but are less inclined to do so if you are crippled by bitterness or despair.

It’s true! When I went through the informational interviewing and networking process I thought in advance, “Dear God, shoot me right now.” I was fearful of rejection and being considered a burden to others. But after I started the process I found I loved it. I’m serious. I loved it. Because most people, people I didn’t know, wanted to help me. It restored what faith I had lost in humanity. That, by itself, was not a bad return for the time invested.

 

An illustration of the InfernGustave Dore's
An illustration of the Inferno by Gustave Dore

Dante understood the power of hope and had a sign above the gates of his poetic hell. It read, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” In other words, hopelessness is hell.

More recently I have heard the power of hope summed up as follows: You can live without food for around 40 days. You can live without water for about four days. You can live without air for around four minutes. You can’t live without hope one second, because once you abandon hope you abandon life.

Therefore, jobseekers, do not abandon hope. Do not embrace false hopes. Instead, dare to believe that you have value, and that others want to help you express your value in a career. Furthermore, because of the Internet, the ability to research companies and network your way to success has never been greater.

 

Job Search Assets

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Chicago is fortunate. Its Career Transitions Center (CTC) is a low-cost, high-impact asset for jobseekers. I’m unaware of a similar program in a major U.S. city. But that doesn’t mean that programs designed to assist jobseekers do not exist where you live. Here are three potential sources of assistance.

  1. The Chamber of Commerce. Sometimes your local Chamber of Commerce will organize job fairs or have other programs designed to assist people who are out of work and looking for re-employment.
  2. Houses of worship. Mega-churches are the ones that typically offer a fairly extensive array of job search services. An example of this in the greater Chicago area is Willow Creek. It is one of the largest and most influential mega-churches in the country and it offers an array of ministries that include career services. But smaller churches might also offer impressive programs. The CTC was founded by five faith communities: Chicago Temple (United Methodist), Fourth Presbyterian Church, Holy Name Cathedral (Roman Catholic), Old St. Patrick’s Church (Roman Catholic), and St. Chrysostom Church (Episcopalian). Though its roots are Christian, the CTC is a 501(c)3, not-for-profit, secular organization serving all faiths.
  3. University career services: If you are a college graduate, then you should take advantage of the career services provided by your university. Some programs provide free coaching from volunteers and if there is one thing I would encourage all jobseekers to seek out it is coaching.

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As you explore the career search services of your area look at joining a group, or starting one. Groups offer support during a time of stress and an informal venue for the giving and receiving of coaching insights.

 

The Race Where You Need Not Finish First

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I based the title of my book, No Medal for Second Place, on the daunting reality of the job interviewing process. If you don’t finish first in a job interview there is no prize, just a rejection letter or silence. This isn’t some easy competition, like the Olympics, where second place earns you a silver medal. It is closer to the blood sport of the Hunger Games where there is one winner and everyone else loses.

Tom Payne finishing the 2007 marathon, the only one ever canceled because of the heat.
Tom Payne finishing the 2007 Chicago marathon, the only Chicago marathon ever canceled because of the heat.

But that scenario doesn’t apply to running as a way of exercise and, unless you have a medical condition that prevents you from running, I highly recommend it to jobseekers. In this race you needn’t finish first, or run painfully long distances, but don’t be surprised if the running bug bites you. I was when it bit me. My last marathon was in 2010 after minor injuries canceled my 2011 and 2012 campaign. (Foot pain, in both cases, began to develop toward the end of the 20+ mile training runs, and since I run for health I stopped training and didn’t compete. That said, I continued running shorter distances of 5-10 miles without incident. 2013? Nope, I’ve hung up my marathoning shoes..for now.)

Running offers some of the following benefits and advantages to other forms of exercise:

  1. Stress relief. The job search process is very stressful and failing to deal with this stress can lead to debilitating psychological consequences. Another form of stress relief that is available to almost everyone is walking. Whatever exercise you choose, please exercise.
  2. Mental acuity. I used to hear about brain food many years ago, but don’t hear anyone talking about it now. I believe there is a brain food and it is called oxygen. The brain is highly dependent on this food. So if you want to feed your brain, then increase your respiration, and running does this without you having to think about it.
  3. Energy. People feel energized when they are around energetic types and unaccountably tired when they are around the slothful. This is because humans are emotional tuning forks. We begin to vibrate in sympathy with the person we are near. Running ups your energy level like few other exercises.
  4. Appearance. When I started running I quickly lost the 15 pounds that the awesome, fat-rich foods of New Orleans had deposited on my frame. The number one thing I heard from people was how much younger it made me look. The impact of weight loss on our appearance is important to our self-esteem, and it affects our ability to be hired.
  5. Location. The great outdoors are free. No gym fee required. The different routes you can take will be far more varied than the dreary inside of a gym. BETTER YET, let’s say you are obese and very self-conscious about your appearance next to the hard bodies in the gym, who you feel are looking at you with contempt. On the running path people are too busy processing their endorphins to look down upon others. In fact, I just finished my run about an hour ago and I saw several portly runners. Did I look down on them? No, the exact opposite. I thought, “I am glad to see some people out here exercising who need it the most.”

So get out there and run. Make it a part of your job search strategy. It benefits you in more ways than I have time to recount.

The Elevator Speech Redefined

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Yesterday, on my radio program, “You’re Hired!” I spoke with Laura Sterkel, the Director of Programs and Coaching at the CTC, about the Elevator Speech. Laura calls it the Value Statement and this slight modification is more important than it appears. When we label this concise self-description an elevator speech we turn it into a sales pitch. But when we call it a value statement it becomes an expression of the solutions we bring to a company’s problems, the value that we bring to them.

Since no one likes to be sold, but everyone likes to buy, this modification is important. For example, when I am selling someone there is a tension between us. I am on the other side of the table while the potential buyer is guardedly listening to me while I make my pitch. But when I present solutions to a customer the table disappears. I become a part of the potential buyer’s problem-solving team. They listen to me in a different way. My value appeals to them because they can clearly see how it helps them.

This radio program with Laura will appear as a free podcast on October 7th. I’ll post a link to it on my website (www.tompayne.com) and on a future blog post.

Until then, have a great day.