Jeff

Negotiating Salary

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Although some advise to never answer the question of how much you are earning when asked, for most people, not answering that question will result in you being given an ultimatum to provide the information or be shown the door. Although for executive talent, the strategy generally works because those rules don’t apply to them, for most mid managers and staff reporting to them,declining to answer questions about compensation is not a viable technique.

So what can you do? How do you viably negotiate? The best strategy is:

Hire an agent to represent you. Athletes and entertainers do it. Business executives do it (they are called lawyers). Hire someone to represent you and your needs and pay them to represent you in any negotiation whether you accept the job or not.

What’s Plan B?

1. Research your value. One thing you can do is use job board listings to give you an approximate idea of value. Don’t just focus on the salary maximum. Look at ranges and the size of the organizations and compile data.

2. When they ask you about salary, state your current salary and and any benefit that you receive that has a dollar value. Say that you are looking for an opportunity, not just a big bump in salary.

“Anyone would be lying if they said that money wouldn’t be a factor. Of course it is and it is for me, too. I’m looking for an opportunity where I can improve upon what I have now both professionally and in compensation.”

AT THE BEGINNING OF THE NEGOTIATION, AVOID STATING A SPECIFIC SALARY FIGURE.

3. Once the offer is extended, do not accept it on the spot. Thank them for the offer and say you are pleased but want to think about it for 24 hours. During that time, make sure you learn everything you can about the terms of the offer and the benefits the firm will give you.

4. If the offer was for less than the salary maximum the company advertised, ask them how they came to that offer given that they were prepared to offer a higher amount in the ad. DO NOT TAKE WHAT THEY SAY PERSONALLY. You are trying to show that you did research and to see if you can get them to feel guilty and offer you more.

5. Use lesser benefits as negotiating leverage. Although for most workers, you may not be able to improve a company’s 401K contribution or vacation policy, if you are giving something up, get something in return.

6. If you are working with a recruiter, remember that they are paid by the employer and are not your friend. Use your mentor for guidance.

7. Be prepared to reject the offer if it does not meet specific goals . . . but also be prepared in advance to know which criteria of yours are expendable and can be given up as part of a negotiation.

8. DO NOT BECOME INTRANSIGENT. I can’t state this strongly enough. If they do not meet every condition you set, it does not mean that they dislike you or think less of you. Be prepared for concessions on your part and on their part.

9. Keep selling yourself and the impact that you will make, particularly with your new boss.  I cant stress this enough. Remember that,in most organizations, HR enforces rules that will not serve your interests. Managers can become your ally and push HR to become flexible.

© 2009, 2012 All rights reserved

FAQ’s on Thank You Letters

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Good recruiters tell jobseekers to send a thank you note after an interview. To address the most frequently asked questions on how and what to send in a thank you note, here are some thoughts.

Won’t the employer think that I am desperate if I send a thank-you letter?

Of course not.

Rarely is an employer unhappy to receive a thank-you letter. It is considered a way of showing politeness, a gesture of courtesy, one way to outshine the rest of the interviewees, and a way to keep your name in front of their thinking.

Won’t it jeopardize the possibility of getting the job? Not in most cases, but it could. So why take the chance?

Answer: Many managers waver between two finalists after the last interview for a position when they receive a thank-you letter from one it made all the difference.

Should it be handwritten or word processed?

What’s most important is the thought of doing it and the speed with which it arrives. It needs be tailored to the specific person and not a standard form note and arrive within 24 hours so as to arrive before a decision is made. Thus, word processing the note and emailing it is the way to go.

So email the thank you note?

YES!

Make sure your note is spell-checked, visually checked for errors, and is grammar checked. There are candidates who were on the verge of being hired but were rejected after emailing a sloppy thank you letters that used poor grammar and typos.

Will a borrowed thank-you letter do?

Yes, but make sure the note written “sounds” like the way you speak and is not a super-polite, formal note. Speak person to person, not person to manager.

If it was a group or panel interview should thank you letters be sent to all interviewers?

Yes

Thank you letters are an extra opportunity to create a favorable impression. They don’t always work AND not sending one misses an opportunity.

© 2010, 2011 all rights reserved.

Should You Bother Sending Thank You Letters?

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Someone in my office sent a video to us showcasing one of his clients being interviewed by ABC News about thank you letters after an interview. Every HR person interviewed enthusiastically approved the notion of sending thank you letters. Some went so far as to lavish praise over those who sent handwritten thank you letters.

Let me let you in on a dirty little secret.

There are three things a thank you note will do.

1. Get you rejected because it demonstrates how poorly you write

2. Give you an opportunity to highlight certain skills you have that may have been either overlooked by the interviewer or because you did a poor job presenting them or

3. Absolutely nothing.

Statistically, thank you letters do nothing because they arrive far after a decision has been made, In 40 years of doing recruiting, I have never heard an employer say, “You know, we rejected this person from consideration but their thank you letter changed our mind.”

But do a poor job and they will definitely get your candidacy rejected. I have heard employers say, “We were going to bring So and So back for another interview but their thank you letter was terrible . . . and they would site poor grammar or spelling as a basis for rejecting someone. There is no excuse for either in a day when spelling and grammar checking is built into word processing software.

From time to time, I hear of a thank you letter persuading an insecure or uncertain manager to have another conversation with someone. No disrespect to HR is meant in this next statement–Despite what those said on video, HR never changes its mind about someone based upon a thank you.

As for handwritten thank you letters, they are a waste of time. By the time they are delivered by the postal service, a decision was made two days before.

If you are going to send a thank you, make sure you

1. Email thank you’s to each person you met

2. Make each one a little different

3. Use them as an opportunity to explain how your experience fits what was specified by them as being sought in the interview

4. Express your interest in the job.

If you are not interested in a position, do not send a thank you letter unless it is to tell someone that you are not interested in the job.

Sending a thank you when you are not interested is like telling someone you dated for the first time that you will call them again and not.

Very bad manners.

So, there is nothing wrong with sending a thank you letter after an interview but don’t expect too much from yours. Statistics bear out that they are a general waste of time.

© 2012 all rights reserved, The Big Game Hunter, Inc..

Thank You Letters

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I worked in the search business for what often seemed like 100 years (in fact, it was 44).

In the good old days, people would mail resumes to companies on great looking parchment paper with a watermark visible to the reader because that meant class!

After an interview, they would send a thank you note (by mail) on either personal letterhead or a card to express their interest in the job.

Now in this mile a second world, thank you notes have disappeared from proper interview behavior and that is a tactical mistake.

Sending a thank you email after an interview accomplishes several things. First and foremost, it leaves little doubt about your interest in the opportunity being discussed . . . and, in a lot of situations, breaking the logjam by expressing interest can be enough to separate you from the pack.

But probably more important is that it gives you an opportunity to (a) address any concerns the interviewer might have about your experience, (b) correct an answer you missed on and (c) give you another opportunity to sell yourself to the interviewer.

So, to be clear, I’m not suggesting that you mail a thank you note; I’m suggesting that you email one within 12 hours of your interview.

 

© 2006 All rights reserved Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter

Job Search Lessons from Celebrity Apprentice

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I realize I should have been writing about ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ a vehicle for learning about job hunting. After all, it is supposed to be a show where “B” and “C” level celebrities are competing for contributions to their respective charities while auditioning for a position as an apprentice to Trump in his businesses.

There are often great lessons that can be learned from each week’s shows. Here are a few from a recent show.

1. Be careful of your reputation. Star Jones has a reputation for doing graphic arts on various projects. Ask a question and Star has the answer. Donald Trump, Jr. points out that it is great that she has the answers but it leaves her vulnerable should her team fail on a task

2. Be careful of your relationship with team members. Gary Busey is seen as being “on another planet.” His teammates are frustrated by him. He survived a number of visits to the boardroom but his team is prepared to fail in order to get rid of him. Busey does not disappoint them and they go out of their way to express their disdain for his leadership. He is, of course, fired.

3. Watch your time. Busey’s team has no time to rehearse because Busey has managed the time for the project poorly. When you are on an interview, you will have a finite amount of time to get your message across. Don’t waste it!

4. Practice. Practice. Practice. Meatloaf (if you don’t know him, he was a rock star at one time and that was his stage name) is asked to cook a meal live and his used to rehearsing. He is frustrated and says something to the effect of, “I have never walked out on stage to perform or delivered a line in a movie without knowing exactly what I was going to say and practicing it.” These are words to live by as a job hunter.

5. Watch your language. Busey infuriates a team member by calling him, “Boy” (at least it was a white team member). It is hard to recover from bad behavior; be careful what you say.

From my own experience, I once had someone interview for a senior position with a consumer products firm. His firm interview was at 8 AM; his last with the head of the function was at 5 PM. I received a call at 4 PM with feedback that heaped enormous praise upon his candidacy. The division head asked him about the people he worked with. “A bunch of slobs and Indians.” Obviously, he was not hired.

© 2011 All rights reserved Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter

Speak to Your References

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Two things came together for me this week that reminded me of something I should have written about years ago.

The first was about someone I represented who received and accepted a job offer contingent upon successful completion of references.

The second was a statistic I saw . . . 70% of managers have changed their mind about a candidate based upon what they heard or didn’t hear when checking a reference.

I don’t believe the statistic. It seems like something a writer might use to make a point strongly. Let’s change the percentage to 5%.

One in 20 people lose out on an opportunity because their references were poor or mediocre.

It is should be obvious but you must interview and coach your references to speak positively and certainly about your strengths, abilities, accomplishments and attitude BEFORE you provide them to a potential employer as a reference.

Often, your references are busy men and women and will be distracted at the time they receive the call to provide the reference. Without some guidance, they may some foolish, dumb or outright critical things about you.

How do I know?

I’ve checked references for one of my clients for years. I have been stunned by some of the references I have heard.

1. Completely bad references

Don’t you know that your boss thinks you did a bad job? Being terminated from a consulting assignment with the original term of the assignment should be a tip off but one man gave out an executive at a former client who told me in no uncertain terms that this person stole money from him by not knowing what it was he claimed to know.

2. Mediocre references

They say things like, “She was OK, (Was she a great employee)” or, “I guess (Would you re-hire this person)” when answering questions. Maybe they were thinking of something else when they were being questioned but luke warm answers like these are as good as bad references.

3. No reference

A reference who says, “Our firm has a policy that prohibits us from providing a reference,” may be telegraphing that you were a problem employee.

Every reference you provide should be pre-screened before you give them to someone who may hire you AND should be alerted to the fact that they may receive a call about you before the call comes to them.

Not doing so is discourteous and just foolish on your part.

Don’t risk everything but having your references speak blindly about you.

Prepare them.

© 2013 all rights reserved

Closing The Job Interview

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Most job interviews follow a fairly predictable pattern.

They start with an open ended question like “Tell me about yourself and what you’ve been doing professional,” that is designed for you to give an interviewer an outline of your experience, it proceeds to an inquisition to determine if you have adequate experience to do the job, and concludes with, “Do you have any questions for us,” where you ask them to tell you about the job.

If you don’t know my philosophy from “The Single Best Question You Should Ask on Any Interview,” I want you to find out about the job first before they even ask you to tell them about your experience so that you can find out the current thinking about the job and target your answers to what they care about in your experience.

But this leaves a hole for you when they get to the part where they ask you about questions you have. I offer up many possible questions in, “No B.S. Questions You Should Ask on Any Interview,” but have a new one that I will be adding to that report in its next edition that I want to give to my readers.

So when you are asked about questions you have the first one I want you to ask is this:

(First name of the interviewer), we’ve been speaking about my background for a while now. Is there anything that you have heard that give you reluctance to recommend me for the role that I might be able to address now?”

Asking this question or one like it that you language so that it is comfortable for you will give you a chance to satisfy the interviewer in case they missed something in your background that you can speak to. It also never allows you to walk out of an interview with a false impression of what the interviewer thinks about you and your experience

From there, ask how you stack up with the other people who they have interviewed. Again, this helps you by giving you the opportunity to speak to elements of your experience that have been left uncovered in the interview that will help you present a better case to the potential employer.

Sometimes, people are stunned by the objections they hear and do not do a thorough job of refuting the negatives they hear. Use your thank you letter to speak to the elements of your experience that need to be highlighted.

You see, most thank you letters are innocuous they say something like:

“Thank you for taking the time to meet with me on January 12th and discussing the opportunity the xxx position with you.

“I believe that my experience with A, as well as my 4 years of experience with B will serve me well in delivering this project for you.

“I look forward to hearing from you about the next steps in the process.

Now, instead of using this innocuous note, modify the second paragraph so it reads:

“When we met, we briefly discussed my qualifications vis a vis those with whom I am competing for this role.

“What I have not discussed until now is my three years of experience with such and such firm where I did exactly that– and then you discuss exactly what you did that relates to the concern voiced to you, the objection raised to your candidacy or the perceived superiority of your competitor.

Send this “thank you sales letter” via email as soon as possible in order to influence the employer’s thinking before they become so hardened to your candidacy that the note becomes purposeless.

© 2010, 2011, 201 All rights reserved Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter

Ending the Interview

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A lot of attention deservedly goes into how to effectively interview. Yet much of what goes into the advice you receive is strategic and not tactical. Most people who interview understand the theory of what they have to do but, because they under under pressure and have little experience with interviewing, miss many opportunities to take control of the interview in a good way and create a great impression.

I can’t help you obtain the experience you need to demonstrate to an employer that you are an extremely skilled and knowledgeable professional; I can help you with tactical approaches that will allow you to positively standout from your competitors.

If you ordered my book, “The Single Best Question You Should Ask on Any Interview” you have already learned the benefit of that powerful question and how it allows you a huge advantage in an interview.

But how should you end an interview? How do you create an impression that sticks in the interviewer’s mind that you are a fit?

Do you know how most people are asked the “Tell me about yourself” question? I want you to use a 30-60 second scripted version of your answer to that question as your closing to an interview.

And, to be clear, I don’t want you to babble some generalities about you and your experience. I want you to give them a 30-60 laser focused commercial that demonstrates your fit with the job that they are trying to fill.

Like in boxing where a fighter will try to end each round with a flurry to create a positive impression in a judge’s mind, answering in this way will help you put information into an interviewer’s mind that will help them see how you can do the job they need done.

Finally, after you have done this, just as you shake hands, I want you to say, “I want you to know how interpreted I am in the opportunity we’ve discussed and I look forward to hearing from you about the next step in your hiring process.”

ONLY DO THIS IF YOU ARE ACTUALLY INTERESTED!

If you do this all the time, you ruin things for other people who say the same thing and eventually people will start to remember you as someone who B.S.’s.

© 2009, 2011, 2015 All rights reserved

“So, Do You Have Any Questions for Us?”

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If you follow my advice about interviewing, you know that I think most people make the mistake of talking about what they have done instead of talking about what they’ve done in the context of what an employer is looking for and cares about.

Thus, you already know I do not believe that you wait for an employer to ask you whether you have any questions to find out about the job. You ask about the job at the beginning of your interview so you can use their description to tailor your answers to what they care about.

But the problem with this is what do you ask an interviewer when they get to that part of the interview when they get around to asking, “So. Do you have any questions for us?”

After all, in my philosophy, they told you about the job long before so when they ask you about whether you have any questions, you need something to ask them instead of the typical question about the job.

So, the best initial question you can ask them is something to the effect of, “It’s 6 months after I’ve started working for you and we are reviewing my performance. What would I have accomplished in those 6 months that would cause you to give me a spectacular review and help you exceed your objectives with your management?”

This question is fabulous because the answer will tell you a lot about your manager’s goals and objectives, it will let them also know that you are their as an ally to help them succeed PLUS a mediocre answer tells you a lot about either your manager and/or how you did on the interview (a mediocre answer may signal that they don’t care enough to try to answer the question).

© 2011 all rights reserved.

Being Flown in for an Interview? The 7 Keys to Succeeding

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After an initial phone interview or two, one of my clients flies people in for in-person interviews at various sites around the US. They don’t, for example bring all the people in the Southeast together in Atlanta or the Northeasterners in New York or Boston. They schedule all the people who they have screened for one type of role to be flown to a location regardless of geography.

Interviews are done of Fridays and candidates are flown out Thursday night so that flight delays generally do not affect the Friday interview schedule (sometimes snow will change things).

Here are a few keys to being successful when you are interviewing away from home:

1. Try to have your interviews scheduled to respect your body clock. It is easy for someone traveling from the East Coast to the West Coast to be ready for a 9 AM interview. After all, for a New Yorker, that feels like noon. For a Californian traveling to DC, that’s 6AM to them and they may have needed to be up at 7:30 Eastern or 3:30 Pacific to get ready. Better to see if you can get yourself scheduled to start at 11 AM instead.

2. Find out the names of everyone you’ll be meeting with, what their title is and how much time you are slotted to speak with them for. Look them up on LinkedIn to get a sense of their background and function. Google them to learn more and obtain texture about them.

3. Have your flights scheduled to give you time to unwind when you get into your hotel.

4. Be respectful of your driver from the airport. They may be asked to report back on your behavior.

5. Don’t deviate from your usual diet. You don’t want to overeat and feel sluggish at your meetings.

6. Knowing your agenda and how much time you are slotted to meet each person, be sure to start each interview with enthusiasm and passion and finish everyone the same way. We all have an internal clock. Use it! End each meeting with a great handshake, smile and eye contact even if you are being hustled out the door for your next meeting.

7. Often there is an HR person in attendance to coordinate the day’s activities. At the end of your visit, before you head to the car to take you to the airport, thank them for their efforts and express interest in the job that was discussed with you (Only express interest if it is true! Otherwise, tell them you have a few questions you might want to discuss).

I cannot help you with how to answer the professional questions you are asked. I can help you with “the wrapper” of everything that precedes and folls your meetings.

© 2011 all rights reserved