Career

Hopefully by now you are at the stage of your career hunting that you could use some help properly following up with the company you are applying to. Every step of your job search is important and deserves an equal consideration before executing best practices. After you’ve updated your resume, found that perfect job, and had your frist interview with the company of your dreams, you’re ready to do your post interview follow up.

As someone who has had many interview experiences, a number of jobs over the past 7 years, and works as a consultant, I’ve come to learn what tends to work as a post meeting/interview follow up. Here are just a few great ideas you can try with your current opportunity:

• Most people follow up with an email to everyone that was part of the interview process. How about leaving the hiring manager or HR manager a voicemail after-hours? When they arrive the following day, they will be presented with a personal voicemail from you, putting you top of mind when they start thinking about potential candidates.
• In most interviews, you learn a few of the current challenges the company is facing, whether it’s a challenge for the position at hand or the persons you are speaking to in the interview. If you believe there are some insights you can offer them, take the time after your interview to compose an email, and express your ideas.
• When the employer starts to contact your references, which typically concludes the first interview (only if you are a possible candidates), have your reference interview the company. Yes, instead of the employer performing their typical review process, have your reference interview them, and ensure they are the right company for you.

Give these best practices a try on your next post interview follow up. You will find quickly that they are going to better your chances as a possible candidate.

We’ve now talked about updating your resume, building your online presence, and 5 great questions to ask in your first interview. Almost as important as the right questions to ask in an interview, are the questions you should never ask – let’s go over three questions you shouldn’t ask in your first interview:

Three things you should ask or say in your first interview:

1. How many breaks do I get (or how many smoke breaks do you provide)? This implies you are someone who values breaks above getting the job done. Every company has a legal obligation to provide a sufficient amount of breaks throughout the work day, so don’t make the mistake of asking that question.
2. How much does this position pay? This seems like a no brainer for most, but you would be surprised how many people forget the unwritten rule, whereby you should wait for the interviewee to ask you about compensation before you ask them. Giving the impression that money is your only determining factor can greatly shy a company away from a candidate.
3. How long until you provide maternity/paternity leave? This is definitely a grey area, and most people will end up being on either side of this fence at some point in their lives. To an employee, this says “this person is only going to provide the minimum required amount of time before taking maternity/paternity, and leaving the company short a person.” The priority of your interview should be how you are going to improve the company if they were to employ you. Of course, everyone deserves the right to maternity/paternity if they have worked the allotted amount of hours, but the fact still remains that if an interviewer senses that you are only trying to bank hours so you can leave, you will find it difficult to get employed by asking that question.

Even if you ask all of the right questions, and you get along well with everyone involved in the interview process, there is always room for error. The lasting impression you want to leave anyone in the interview process is that you are committed to growing their company, and you are looking to better your career skill set.

Now that you have updated your resume, searched and found the perfect job, it’s time to prepare for your interview. It’s always good practice to learn as much as you can about the company you are interviewing with, and if you can go the extra step further, find out who you will be reporting too, and what they are all about.

As someone who has interviewed many people over the past few years, I find it critical that the interviewee asks unique and intelligent questions.

Here are five great questions to ask in an interview (as the interviewee):

1. Tell me something about yourself that I couldn’t read on your LinkedIn profile.
2. What characteristics about the past position holder did you value most?
3. What are some projects I might be involved in, that aren’t necessarily listed in the job description?
4.  What projects are you (the interviewer) currently working on?
5.  What’s the first thing you would like me to get started on? Do you have a list of deliverables for me?

If not to learn more about the potential position, these questions will surely leave a lasting impression on those who are interviewing you, and hopefully push you to the next level of interviews. If you have any other great questions to ask, leave a comment below!

To add to my most recent post (5 things to think about when building a resume), after you have updated your resume to the point where you feel confident about it’s ability to tell your professional story, it’s time to start thinking about what sources you are going to use to find that perfect job. Like most, you can scour every major job website (monster, job bank, Workopolis, etc.) to find that job, or you can let LinkedIn help you find the best job based on the experience you have published on your profile.

As you continue to update and build your professional profile on LinkedIn, in the background they are starting to match your experience with available jobs in the market (near you), so you don’t need to spend all of your time reading job descriptions that might not match your skill set. By now, you have realized that searching for a new job is almost a full-time job in itself, and being able to find more jobs that fit your experience can dramatically increase your productivity during your job hunt.

Here a few steps to help you get better job suggestions on LinkedIn:

1. Finish your profile (get it to 100% completeness).
2. Set your profile so that you are accepting job offers and enable others to message you directly without being contacted as contacts.
3. Check your job tab daily (or set a cal reminder to check at the same time everyday) or subscribe to daily email alerts for all new postings.
4. Upload your resume to your profile, this way you can simply click the “apply now” button on the job you are interested in (it will allow you to use the most recent resume uploaded).
5. If you are set on one particular position, take the time to learn as much about the company as possible, identify who the decision makers are, and try to connect with them before submitting your resume.

Of course, there are always other job websites, but for now LinkedIn is one of the only sites that recommends positions based on your experience.