When you talk with as many job seekers and Human Resource Managers as we have, there are certain truths that begin to emerge. For example, I know without any doubt, that the person who gets the job is not necessarily the person with the most skills and experience. Almost without exception, it will be the person that the interviewer likes the most. It is the person that the interviewer connects with and finds commonality with. It is the person who will fit best with the culture. Getting a job is somewhat of a popularity contest. You have multiple interviews with multiple people–most of whom have no right to be interviewing. What are they looking for in a candidate? Sure they know that you need to have certain skills and experience. But in the end, does everybody like you? If they do, you get the job. If they like you enough they won’t even bother with checking your references.
Over the last fifteen years, my staff and I have been retained to fill close to 6,000 job openings in and around Western New York. Most of these openings have been in the construction and service trades. They have covered a wide range of skills. They include skilled trades such as carpenters, electricians, plumbers, alarm installers, dump truck drivers, and the like. Construction companies also have substantial administrative offices, so as you might expect we’ve also been asked to hire Project Managers, Estimators, and Administrators of all types. In all we have interviewed (or at least had initial conversations) with more than twenty thousand job seekers.
I believe that the process of getting and keeping a job today are vastly different than it was fifty or sixty years ago. We live in a different world. A world in which technology brings the entire globe instantly to your fingertips. A world where relationships are measured in “likes” rather than lunch and a handshake. The experts of old who schooled our grandparents on how to get a job have little interest for me. Their council is no longer gospel.
So where is the relevant advice? Every expert I hear or read, is telling us to apply old school principals to our modern practices and technology. It’s time to rethink our approach.
If you do something enough times, patterns will start to emerge. Certain things will become obvious. We’ve read a lot of resumes. We’ve interviewed a lot of people. We’ve made a lot of connections. We’ve been schooled plenty, and I want to pass on some of what we’ve learned. I’ll do this in a series of posts. My hope is that it will create lots of dialogue whereby we can learn even more together.
Following, is an outline of the areas we will cover.
- How to get the interview
- Your Resume
- How to get your resume into the right hands
- How to dress for the interview
- How to interview well and get the job
- How to keep the job
- How to advance your career
- How to work with agencies