Day: October 28, 2016

The Two Magic Words to Use in an Interview & The Story Behind The Story | No BS Job Search Advice Radio

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I discuss how to prepare for your interviews, how to improve your resume, and the two magic words to use during your interviews.

 

[spp-transcript]

Let’s talk today about preparing for an interview.  This tactic can also be used for improving your resume dramatically. But, at a minimum. If you haven’t done this before and had just been sending out resumes, it is the gold that will help you excel on your interviews.

Here’s what you did.  You go back to your resume and go bullet point by bullet point and ask yourself the question, “What’s the story behind this statement?”  I made the statement that I did such and such.  What’s the story, what events occurred?  Put in you, talking to a friend or family member about what it is that she did and how you went about doing it as well as what you stepped into at the time.  Prepare yourself with the story behind those facts.

This is an approach that works extremely well and resumes and will help differentiate you from the competition in your resume.  After all, if you just lay out a resume as if it were job description (I do this. I do that.  I am part of a team that does this or that.),  Your resume becomes boring.  But if you put some life into it by giving some texture to it, by contextualizing what you did and giving a bigger impact at your organization, it has enormous results and you will get many more interviews.  When you tell the stories behind the story on your interview, you will stand out from the competition.

I also want to teach you the 2 magic words to use on your interviews to really differentiate yourself.

I’m sure you’ll be asked about what you did and how you went about doing it on your interviews.  You’re the 2 magic words to use on your interviews:

“For example.”

Then you talk about what you stepped into.  Those 2 words, for example, go a long way to allowing people to see you for what you did and what you accomplish at your previous organization.  It allows you to speak freely about what you’ve accomplished and doing it in the way that audiences love– stories. People love stories.

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Do you think employers are trying to help you? You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell you as much as they think you need to know to take the job they after representing so they collect their payday.

The skills needed to find a job are different yet complement the skills needed to do a job.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter has been a career coach and recruiter for what seems like one hundred years.

JobSearchCoachingHQ.com changes that with great advice for job hunters—videos, my books and guides to job hunting, podcasts, articles, PLUS a community for you to ask questions of PLUS the ability to ask me questions where I function as your ally with no conflict of interest answering your questions.

Connect with me on LinkedIn

You can order a copy of “Diagnosing Your Job Search Problems” for Kindle for $.99 and receive free Kindle versions of “No BS Resume Advice” and “Interview Preparation.”

Don’t forget to give the show 5 stars and a good review in iTunes

The 10000 Hour Rule and Job Hunting | Job Search Radio

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More than eight years ago, Malcolm Gladwell released the book called, “Outliers: The Story of Success.” Among the many great points he makes, he popularized the notion of the 10,000 hour rule. On this show, I utilize the 10,000 hour rule to make a point about you and being a job hunter.

 

[spp-transcript]

I want to talk to job hunters and say something that will give you what I think is a Homer Simpson moment. You’ve heard of the 10,000 hour rule, right? It takes 10,000 hours of focus concerted effort under the advice and tutelage of the teacher in order to be an expert.

When you start job hunting, you have exactly how much experience? Think about it. You have exactly how much? And you putting how much effort into preparing? Writing your resume. What do you know about writing resumes? You may have read a bunch of them but how much experience you actually have writing one? Judging by what I see from people, somewhere near zero.

How about interviewing? How much interviewing have you ever done? I doubt it’s anywhere near 10,000 hours and then you wonder why you don’t get results.
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Maybe it’s about networking. You have the LinkedIn profile that doesn’t get results or maybe you don’t even have a LinkedIn profile and wonder and wonder why no one is calling you.

Salary negotiation! That’s the one. But you don’t really have a lot of experience with that either and wonder why you don’t get results.

Let me ask you a question. If you could go to a website and get answers to all the critical interview questions and get advice from a master, without be helpful to you? I’m sure it would be.

I recently launched JobSearchCoachingHQ.com, and inexpensive site, with over 400 pieces of content including all my books and guides the job hunting, lots of videos, a bunch of podcasts, articles that I’ve written, curated so it is really good, available to you on the site for one price.

Plus the ability to ask me questions when you’re stuck with something

. You may think your friends, family, former managers know what they’re talking about when they speak with you but stop and think for a moment. How many jobs have they ever filled?

You may say your boss or former boss interviews a lot of people and certainly they should know. Trust me. When they’re on the other side of the desk, they stink up the joint and if you don’t believe me, point blank you’re wrong. I interview people who are hiring managers and they are awful… But they give you advice.

It’s time to stop giving other people advice about what they should do and take some for yourself.

Figure it out. When you write that resume how much experience that you have? Three hours over the course of 20 years? You don’t know what you’re doing. You think you do but you don’t know what you’re doing.

Again, JobSearchCoachingHQ.com is my site with advice for job hunters good anywhere in the world (you have to speak English to understand me, of course). There is a lot of great material there and you’ll get your questions answered by me and were building the community there were other people will be able to chime in and offer you advice.

Again, JobSearchCoachingHQ.com

[/spp-transcript]

 

Do you really think employers are trying to help you? You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell you as much as they think you need to know to take the job they after representing so they collect their payday.

The skills needed to find a job are different yet complement the skills needed to do a job.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter has been a career coach and recruiter for what seems like one hundred years.

JobSearchCoachingHQ.com is there to change that with great advice for job hunters—videos, my books and guides to job hunting, podcasts, articles, PLUS a community for you to ask questions of PLUS the ability to ask me questions where I function as your ally with no conflict of interest answering your questions.

Connect with me on LinkedIn