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Dressing for the Interview- Interview first impressions are crucial

Dress appropriately

How good you look in your best dress is no criteria. Interview dressing codes are different.

First impressions are quickly made in the first three to five minutes. Dress neatly, soberly and show that you are a professional.

Every company has its own dress and grooming code standards. The appropriate attire and grooming (e.g., length of hair, and use of cosmetics and jewelry or dress colors and style (Indian or western) is generally what you can see around in their office. If you’re in doubt as to what to wear for your interview, try and pay an anonymous visit to their office or canteen. If that is not possible, look around outside the office when the employees are leaving for home. Or ask your friends or people you know who are working in that company.

Ask your Placement Consultant to advice you on the dress code for the interview.

If you expect the interview to last several hours, plan to wear clothing that will look neat all day. If it’s raining, protect your outfit with reliable rain gear. Get your clothes ironed and keep it ready in advance, so that you don’t waste your time to select a dress on the day of the interview. Never ever adjust your clothing in the interview room. Keep chunnis and pallus pinned if need be. And no soothing down of stray wisps of hair either.

By Manisha Rai

ISSUE 168 Jobnet magazine

Copyright © 2011, Jobnet magazine
Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the publishers of Jobnet magazine

Posted under Job Interviews

Facing the INTERVIEW

Arvind Sharma

Facing an interview is always a scary prospect. The fear is real and there are so many DO’s and DON’T’s to remember. Because of this we tend to make mistakes. It results in creating the wrong impressions which leads losing the job. And the next chance we get we repeat the same mistakes with the same result. This undermines our confidence totally.

Interview success techniques can be learnt just as you learnt to drive a car or solve a maths problem in school.

Let’s keep these basics in mind.

Do your homework.

One of the worst thing you could do is go for an interview badly prepared. Ask yourself; would you hire a person who didn’t know much about your company? This could be interpreted as casual attitude and a lack of preparation of details. Would such a person be good at delivering results or handle team work? Most companies would not think so. You have to find out as much as you can about the interviewer(s): Find out about the company, their business, and the position for which you’re being interviewed. Prepare for the questions they’re likely to ask you, as well as the questions you would like to ask them. Visit the library or use the internet to research the company, and then talk with friends, peers and other professionals about the opportunity before each meeting.

Courtesy Jobnet Magazine issue 107

Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the Author

Posted under Job Interviews

More the comfort level you can generate into the mind of the hiring manager, better are your chances of selection.

Now, why the hell he is looking for comfort levels?

Anil Mahajan

Tells Nokia…… why interview clear aapne na kia?

The Beware Factor

Interview: 10.00 AM

What if…

I hire him…

He wins Pitches…

Mr. Popular…

He Takes my Job!!!

So, I better not hire him.

What we discussed in the last issue on “The Beware Factor” has been amply demonstrated in the recent ad on TV by Nokia.

The power of negative imaging generates fear in the hiring manager – and it is a power that is abundantly & universally present among all professionals. Hiring manager, therefore, tend not to select people who appear better than them.

One notable exception was Henry Rockefeller. He was asked by a news magazine as to what was the secret of his success.

“I always select professionals better than me.”

The stark reality is that almost cent per cent of hiring managers either go for a professional appearing a shade or a couple of shades lower in ability. The hiring manager is not the owner of the organisation, and he doesn’t want to have nightmares about losing his job. He find the easiest solution: REJECT THIS MAN under one pretext or another.

So where is the solution for the candidate?

Either try to appear a shade lower than the interviewer or try to appear like his alter ego (again a shade lower) as a bit of narcissism is present in everybody. You see your face everyday in the mirror & never hate it. Even Mogambo likes himself. Being a hiring manager’s alter ego needs a careful research of the interviewer both offline, before the interview and online during the interview. Relating is a deadly tool & coupled with Alter ego tool generates a strong Potion to effectively nip the “The Beware Factor” in the bud.

Common Ground

One of my readers could not fully understand the Relating concept & called me up. He was to appear in an interview in a durables company & the hiring manager was some Bannerjee. He thought that relating meant the interviewer would select one of his Relations or a Bengali fellow. It took me half an hour to explain the concept of relating which is Continually Building Common Ground. You are not being interviewed for a govt. job where Bhai Bhatijabaad(nepotism) matters the most. It is a case of one of the private sector organizations, where delivery & results are most important. Selection tool “Relating” dwells on the comfort level. More the comfort level you can generate into the mind of the hiring manager, better are your chances of selection.

Now, why the hell he is looking for comfort level? Because, he would find himself comfortable in generating results for the company with you as a subordinate.

By Anil Mahajan, MBA PGDIT (IIFT)

He has made pioneering contributions in the field of Resume Writing and Resume Management.

Courtesy Jobnet Magazine issue 108

Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the Author

Posted under Job Hunting Tips, Job Interviews

No two interviews are the same, so you can’t plan exactly how the interview will go, but it is important to have a Interview Strategy. It is imperative that you face the interview as a selling meeting; meaning building personal chemistry and establishing an open dialogue for free information exchange.

Tells Nokia…… why  interview clear aapne na kia?

Anil Mahajan

Back to Mr. Disaster

Lemme continue with Mr. Disaster attending a mock interview session with me.

Now, I am sick of this man & shoot a question to him. “You left company XYZ in January 1984 & joined company ABC in October 1985. What were you doing all these months? The man, who was no longer slouching, starts tapping his foot more furiously. This is fidgeting. It is criminal to indulge in fidgeting like playing with your hair, clicking pen tops, tapping feet or unconsciously touching parts of the body. Nobody likes others indulging in fidgeting & rejection in the interview is guaranteed 100%.

I have been trying in vain to make eye contact with him for the last 25 minutes. You must build chemistry with the interviewer by looking the interviewer in the eye. You don’t want to stare, as this shows aggression. Occasionally, and nonchalantly, glance at the interviewer’s hand as he is speaking. By constantly looking around the room while you are talking, you convey a lack of confidence or discomfort with what is being discussed.

The bugger is nervously giving incoherent reply to my question on the gap in service again without eye contact. Check your CV for possible gaps! Make sure you know how you are going to explain time gaps on your CV. Write down and practice possible questions! Writing them down and practicing them with someone will make it easier to remember when you get to the interview.

Mr. Disaster is nervous? Neither being nervous nor being incoherent helps. Both these unwanted traits drive the final nail into the coffin. Take a deep breath and remember you’ve already passed the first test, generally a screening of your resume by either a placement consultant or HRD fellas or by both. You better know they’re interested or they wouldn’t be taking the time to interview you. Therefore, go into the interview knowing you’ve already got them on the hook. Be confident, yet not boastful.

I think space constraints signal me to sign off now.

No two interviews are the same, so you can’t plan exactly how the interview will go, but it is important to have a Interview Strategy. It is imperative that you face the interview as a selling meeting; meaning building personal chemistry and establishing an open dialogue for free information exchange.

Success is not necessarily what you say, but how you say it.

By Anil Mahajan, MBA PGDIT (IIFT)

He has made pioneering contributions in the field of Resume Writing and Resume Management.

Courtesy Jobnet Magazine issue 108

Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the Author

Posted under Job Interviews

The Industry Kurukshetra in India has a jobmarket Chakravyu comprising of Placement Consultants guarding the turf in the outer ring & HRD fellas guarding the precious turf as the warriors of inner concentric ring.

Bypassing The Gate Keepers

Anil Mahajan

In today’s scenario, most of the recruitment jobs for the open positions in corporates are outsourced. Pre-screening, for example, is done by headhunters & placement consultants. These placement consultants therefore form the First Ring of the gate keepers & need to be dealt with effectively.

Once you are cleared by the placement consultants, you stand a chance of meeting the Gate Keepers of the inner circle i.e., company HRD folk.

Only then can you hope to get through to the man who actually might hire you!

With an ineffective resume, your fate resembles that of Abhimanyu. You could bombard into the ring of placement consultants but could not get out of it —ALIVE. Your resume gets buried into the files of all the placement consultants. The Industry Kurukshetra here has a jobmarket Chakravyu comprising of Placement Consultants guarding the turf in the outer ring & HRD fellas guarding the precious turf as the warriors of inner concentric ring. Abhimanyu, or your resume personified, has to be totally Flawless, Energetic, Valiant & Appealing to by-pass these warriors. Abhimanyu, while in his mother’s womb, had learnt from his father Arjuna on how to effectively pierce both the rings. Extensive study of articles on resume or your Professional Resume Writer may help you in making your Resume so attractive & luring in the eyes of both the kinds of Gate Keepers that these warriors actually welcome you for meeting the precious turf comprising of Hiring Heads.

You need to develop strong interview techniques to win the fortress or an Offer letter. Career Doctors or good articles on the interview techniques can give you sufficient winning strategies. The JobMarket Chakravyu is impregnable for resumes of ordinary types. Piercing the Concentric circle-I to reach the Concentric circle-II & piercing the Concentric Circle-II to meet the precious Hiring Heads & eventually coming out with an offer or appointment letter is no joke. There are ways and means of developing the resume keeping the psycho-graphic & other factors that govern the working patterns and beliefs of both the kinds of Gate Keepers.

Bypassing the Outer ring comprising of Placement Consultants:

So, simply blasting a poorly written resume doesn’t cut ice with placement consultants. The tribe of placement consultants has developed a keen scanning eye & can easily & fatally bury your resume in his files forever.

The reasons could be many.

Maybe you have no talking personal letter addressed to him. Maybe you never spoke to him. But mainly it is because your resume is badly made & doesn’t give him the feel of a winning professional.

He is certainly not interested in proposing a professional with a losing streak(s) (amply present in your poorly written resume) to his client company. Even if you have never spoken to him, your resume speaks. And a poorly written resume talks death of the professional. Even if you have been speaking to him & cultivating him for years.

This placement consultant gatekeeper has over the years fine-tuned his senses. He is a pucca businessman & he doesn’t relish bidding on an ordinary horse or a donkey.

Your resume should appeal to a placement consultant. It should unleash substantial creative juices flow in this businessman & he should start seeing your resume as a thick wad of money or a cheque to be earned from his client company. This is a psychographic situation to be created by your all powerful & ascending resume being presented as a marketing tool rather than as a stale compendium of history. Your appropriately made resume must put most of the placement consultants in a competition to get you immediate job change.

Bypassing the inner ring comprising of corporate HRD folks is equally important & involves much more than putting together a resume in a layout and format that is pleasing to the eye.

Effective resume writing alone can help you by-pass both kinds of Gate Keepers & it  involves art, science, and a large helping of technology.

Many HRD Gate Keepers trash functional resumes as soon as they see them. Use a chronological resume format. If you apply for jobs online or through e-mail, paper quality and scannability are unimportant. Content, structure, format, and Strategy are much more important. Gate Keepers and hiring Heads view functional resumes with suspicion.

Authors of resume writing books, and unsophisticated resume writers who subscribe to their views, often advocate functional resumes for three reasons: it is a simple solution to a complex problem, the advocates do not know better, and they do not have to live with the consequences. If you assume that most people who make hiring decisions are of above-average intelligence, it stands to reason that they would recognize an overused method of hiding information. If you know how the human eye travels, and understand Gate Keepers psychology, you can hide negative information in plain sight.

HRD Gate Keepers are very fussy about the resume but at the same time they tend to accept the recommendations of the placement consultant. So, if your resume is approved by the placement consultant, most of the job is done & the Inner ring of HRD warriors crumbles to a large extent. It can disappear completely, if the mindset of a HRD Gate Keeper is kept in mind while designing the resume.

And lo! You get a date with the Hiring Head. Here the resume needs certain attributes & you need certain interview techniques to enable you to win the Offer / Appointment Letter Jackpot which we will discuss in the forthcoming issue. Maybe Abhimanyu now needs a charioteer of the likes of  SriKrishna to reveal the Srimad Bagwad Gita for winning the interview war.

By Anil Mahajan, MBA PGDIT (IIFT)

He has made pioneering contributions in the field of Resume Writing and Resume Management.

Courtesy Jobnet Magazine issue 101

Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the Author

Posted under Job Hunting Tips, Job Interviews

The Gatekeepers

Anil Mahajan

The head of HRD of a company, who happened to be a client of mine, read the closing lines in my article printed in Jobnet’s last issue. He was pleasantly furious. “Anil, You are antagonising HRD people by calling HRD people GateKeepers to the companies. What do you think I am  — Head- HRD or Head- GateKeeper?.” I told him that I would call him Head- HRD in my next write-up.

Headhunters and Placement consultants are GateKeepers to the companies.

“Thanx Anil.’ He was relieved.

“Man, you are Head- HRD i.e., Head- Human Rejection Department in expanded form” I quipped.

Readers, you know your days are numbered at your current job, but flooding free jobsites with resumes has yielded zilch. It may be time to take your job search in a different direction and figure out how to get around the main obstacle in your way—the GateKeeper.

Who are the GATEKEEPERS?

What’s a GateKeeper? It is anyone who stands between you and the person who might want to hire you. GateKeepers come in many forms, including receptionists, HR executives, and even placement consultants and Headhunters who are doubling up as resume screeners. Surprisingly, GateKeepers are hired or paid by the company to reject as many resumes as possible. They are also paid by the company to reject you in an interview. This interview issue will be discussed in the subsequent issues.

Resume & GateKeepers- the profile and connexion
Do you know what happens to your resume after you send it to an employer/ placement consultant/ headhunters? Some resumes produce immediate results—others disappear without a trace.  Why?

Just try to put yourself in the shoes of a GateKeeper, in this case the HRD Manager.

Your company releases an ad in the newspaper for the position of a Brand Manager.

You receive around 10000 applications.

Now, nobody can interview all 100000 applicants. You check up with the profile given to you by the Hiring Department and tell your subordinate to shortlist resumes. You give him broad guidelines. Your Subordinate is a qualified professional in HRD with, say, 3 years experience in HRD. He successfully shortlists and flags 100 resumes out of 10000.

You are ga ga over his efficiency.

You work on the flagged 100 and finally shortlist 50 to be given to The marketing head for further shortlisting.

You & your subordinate have removed 9950 people from the live list. Maybe the real, capable person is one among those 9950 destined to die unceremoniously. This is bad for the right person and equally bad for the company.

But this is a cold reality

Neither you nor your subordinate or even your company’s headhunters are technically qualified to reject a person as you are an HRD man & not a Marketing man (the post is for Brand Manager). Even HR persons, nay GateKeepers admit that the job seekers who get interviews and offers of employment are not necessarily the best qualified. Often, they are simply the best prepared.
Anyone who has scanned, reviewed, and discarded tens of thousands of resumes knows that most resumes have serious defects; in fact many resumes have flaws that guarantee failure.  Intelligent, highly qualified candidates often write mediocre resumes because they are unaware of the cold realities of resume writing—realities that can prevent even the most qualified candidate from getting hired.

Bypasing the GateKeepers-Smart work vs. Hard work

No one enjoys searching for employment.  If you are like most job seekers, you spend a considerable amount of time and effort searching job ads, networking, and writing your resume and cover letter.  These simple activities can take as much effort as a full-time job. If you would like to work smarter not harder, you must work smartly to develop your resume to appeal to the psyche of the GateKeepers.

GateKeepers are paid to reject majority of resumes

The target and job profile of GateKeepers is to eliminate majority of resume. Your resume must get you past an employer’s GateKeepers ( HRD & / headhunters ) and into an interview with the Hiring Functional Head. Needless to say, if your resume cannot pass the scrutiny of these GateKeepers, you will not get many / any interviews.

GateKeepers are paid to be conservative and suspicious

If GateKeepers have any questions or concerns about a resume, they rarely try to contact the applicant for clarification; they simply discard the resume and pull up the next one. Most employers receive resumes from applicants who are obviously qualified; they do not have time to contact applicants who may be qualified.

GateKeepers go for 10 second scan

Most GateKeepers scan and discard each resume in 10 to 15 seconds unless the resume provides them with a compelling reason to flag it for an in-depth review.  GateKeepers do not enjoy reading resumes.  In order to process hundreds of printed and electronic resumes a week, busy GateKeepers look for excuses to reject most resumes quickly.  In order to survive a ten second scan, it must stand out and present a good snapshot of your skills

GateKeepers look for an excuse to remove flagged resume from consideration

After surviving 10 seconds scan, your flagged resume must survive a thorough examination by a gatekeeper looking for an excuse to remove it from consideration.  It should provide enough rich and compelling detail to sell you to the reviewer and answer important questions that arise during the in-depth review. These competing imperatives are very difficult to fathom.

In a nutshell- Strong Candidate + Weak Resume = No Interview

In resume writing, mediocrity equals failure. Many discarded resumes belong to qualified candidates who are not aware that they are doing substantial damage to their career prospects by using resumes that do not adequately sell their experience, skills, and qualifications. Resume screening is ruthless, cold, impersonal and unforgiving.

If only 10000 people apply for a desirable position, your resume must tell the GateKeeper in no uncertain terms that you are better qualified than at least 9950 of the other applicants.  If your resume cannot beat over 95% of the competition, you will not get interviews.  Your resume is much more important than your actual qualifications at this stage.

Your resume must sell to two audiences. You must write and format your resume to appeal to two audiences: GateKeepers and Hiring Functional Head. These audiences often have different agendas. Corporate recruiters may be in no hurry to fill all open positions because open positions mean job security. GateKeepers guard their turf jealously, so you can be certain that the Hiring Functional Head will not see any resume that has not been blessed by the GateKeeping crew. You must present a resume that can satisfy GateKeepers as well as seasoned Hiring Functional Heads. If your resume makes it clear that you meet all job requirements, the GateKeeper will be compelled to forward it to the Hiring Functional Head.

There are ways and means of developing the resume keeping the pchychographic & other factors that govern the working pattern and beliefs of GateKeepers. All these factors will be discussed in the forthcoming issue.

By Anil Mahajan, MBA PGDIT (IIFT)

He has made pioneering contributions in the field of Resume Writing and Resume Management.

Courtesy Jobnet Magazine issue 101

Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the Author

Posted under Job Hunting Tips, Job Interviews