Job-Search-Techniques category archive

I have a client who lost a $234,000 a year job because he couldn’t overcome the dreaded weakness interview questions. I don’t want this to happen to you. And I am sure you don’t either right? So the following suggestions are based on the advice I gave my client. To protect his identity I made some of the answers more general than specific.

1. Show a balance between confidence and over aggressiveness: In my clients case he was so excited about working the position that he may have come across as too aggressive. A moderate amount of aggressiveness is good in fact great. But show balance.

2. Relax and make body movements that are not awkward: One of the things you must do is study the interviewers body language. Then you match his or her movements. Don’t mimic or imitate. Just match in a way they don’t notice what your doing. This is a mental strategy to get the interviewer feel more comfortable with you.

3. Ask as much as you answer: Here is where my client got hit really hard on the weakness interview. He answered well. But he failed to followup with details questions before and after the interviewers questions. This part was the essence of a weakness interview session.

That is because it is setup to make you slip and make mistakes. Honestly I that’s why I hate it and consult so many people to prepare for it before it rears its ugly head. My client was advised to ask as many thorough questions instead of assuming and delivering an answer. He didn’t and that is what cost him the job.

4. Make them smile or even better laugh: Don’t be so serious or intense that you can’t turn a tense situation into a light one. For example when getting those tough questions. Be prepared to answer them thoroughly with a little humor/smile. It has been pr oven in studies that if you give someone direct eye contact and a smile. They are 80% likely to return with a smile. The more comfortable you both are during the tough questions the better.

5. You don’t know everything and you shouldn’t be trying to let them think that: Answer the questions honestly and you do that by breaking down your answers into parts. That way you can methodically think things through.

6. Followup and follow through is CRUCIAL: Remember what I said about over aggressiveness? Well apparently my client wasn’t when it came to this part. Again never assume. End with a power statement asking to followup with the hiring process. And then follow through on that with a phone call.

Many recruiters bemoan the lack of a decent job description and person spec being supplied by their client. I agree it’s frustrating when what you get is a series of seemingly unrelated one liners in terms of job descriptions and just the bare bones about the skills and experience you need in order to do the role. But, the emphasis should be on you, the recruiter to eke out the information from your client that will sell the job, not to cut and paste the bare bones of a dull and uninspiring JD and person spec onto a job board entry template. In short – the job description is not a sales tool, it’s merely a checklist of duties

Imagine sitting down in front of your television in the evening and in the commercial break, instead of seeing Papa and Nicole prancing around the French countryside, you were faced with Sid, a mechanic in scruffy overalls, droning on about the technical specification of the latest Renault. Indeed, imagine that no decent or memorable tv ads had ever been made. No ‘vorsprung durch technik’, no secret lemonade drinker, no Smash robots, no Boddingtons top bombing – just dull offering after dull offering after dull offering, every day and every night.

Now think about online job content. A lot of it is recruitment’s equivalent to listening to Sid the mechanic and his monotonous tones. Just as product advertisers go to great lengths and expense to bring memorable and alluring commercial offerings to our screens, so many recruiters pay little or no regard to the need to sell the vacancy they are trying to fill.

There is, of course, an argument that says that people don’t read the ads anyway. They just scan them for job title, salary and location and then hit the ‘apply’ button. But what kind of candidate doesn’t actually read about the job they are applying for? The desperate? The ones with no eye for detail? The ones devoid of decent listening skills? Certainly not the good quality ones I would wager. But then so many recruiters make it difficult to want to read their job advertisements in the first place because they are just so dull and uninspiring.

Here’s a simple test. Would what you post inspire and motivate you to apply if you were qualified to do the role? Be honest now!

I firmly believe that when it comes to advertising, any advertising, you get out what you put in. If recruiters blindly cut and paste job descriptions and fire them scattergun style then yes, they will get a response, but it will invariably be of extremely poor quality – and that will apply whether you put it on a Multipost job board or put a link to it on a social media site.

Allure, intrigue, excitement, opportunity, challenge and reward, the feeling that the ad is talking to the job seeker personally – all are essential ingredients to anyone who wants to get a good response from their recruitment advertising. Unless, of course, you’d rather see recruitment’s answer to Sid reading from his manual littering the job boards and social media sites? But if you would, I wouldn’t hold your breath for a decent response. Remember, one more time, a job description is not a sales tool.

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