Helping You to Manage Your Career to Get and Keep the Job You Want and Helping Recruiters to Be More Effective

Thursday, March 31, 2016

Success and Knowledge


"Tom Sheppard, Success is..."
I have heard it said that knowledge is power. And, knowledge shared, is power squared.

It is impossible to succeed at anything without knowledge.  Louis Pasteur is credited with saying that luck is an acronym for Laboring Under Correct Knowledge.

Many unsuccessful people look enviously at successful people and say, "she was lucky."  Unsuccessful people don't realize how many times that lucky gal failed, and learned from failure, before she gained enough knowledge to succeed.

A smart person will learn from their experiences. A truly wise person will learn from the experiences of others.  If you don't know how to succeed, learn from someone you know who has succeeded.  

Pay them to teach you.  Trust me, they paid for their knowledge.

If you are too poor to pay them with money, then trade them your time and labor for their knowledge.  Find out a need they have and fill it. Make yourself valuable to the person you want to learn from.

And, give them value before you ever ask for value in return.

Why?  Because they already know their knowledge is valuable.  And if they are wise, they will have learned that if they give you their knowledge for free, you won't place the proper value on it. Then, you will squander the valuable knowledge they have given you by ignoring it.  You will have wasted their valuable time.

But, when you pay for something, you place a value on it. And the more dear the price you pay, the greater value you will place on that knowledge.

Every successful person I know has paid dearly for the knowledge that allowed them to succeed.

I don't care if you define success in terms of relationships, inner peace, fame, fitness, things, or all of these, your success will only come through the correct application of knowledge coupled with the effort or price you pay.

A friend of mine, Leeza Donatella (Spiritual Spew), enjoys an higher than ordinary level of inner peace than most people I know.  For her, part of the price was three weeks of silence and meditation in a painful yoga pose.

No success is free. The price may not be exacted in dollars and cents, but the law of exchange is immutable, irrevocable, and inescapable.  If you think otherwise, you have some high prices to pay to gain the knowledge you need to succeed.

You just paid for this bit of knowledge with your time. Leverage it for your success.

Tom Sheppard

PS: If you know someone who is having trouble getting the job they want, tell them to check out www.TipsForEffectiveInterviews.com. It has already changed failure into success for many job seekers. It is filled with powerful knowledge.

(C) copyright 2016 A+ Results, LLC. All rights reserved.

Thursday, March 17, 2016

Tips for Effective Interviews

Well, I did it!

This St. Patrick's Day, the second edition of my book Tips for Effective Interviews: Get and Keep the Job You Want hit the bookshelves.  

I am excited about this for several reasons.  First, this is the fourth paperback I have published from all my business titles.  Ebooks are great, but for me, being a reader from way back, there is something very satisfying about holding a printed and bound copy of a book with my name on it in my hands.


http://www.TipsForEffectiveInterviews.com

The second reason I am so excited about this is because this new edition is so much better than the first edition.  I was able to take many of my recent hiring experiences and fold them into the book to add even more value to my readers.

Now, before I gush anymore, I want to be totally transparent with you.  This is not a big book.  It is about 70 pages.  And you know what?  It is worth its weight in gold!


That is no exaggeration.

Really, it is.

Why would I make such an exorbitant claim?  Because it is true.  Here is my evidence...

According to Google results, on this Saint Patrick's Day, the price of gold is $1,232.30 per ounce.


My book weighs 5.6 ounces.  This makes its worth in gold an astounding $6,900.88.

Now, suppose you are earning a median income in the US.  That is about $43,000 per year. 

If you use the techniques I teach you in Tips for Effective Interviews, and you get a job earning just 10% more than you earn now, that is an extra $4,300 in income to you in the first year alone.   Add in your merit pay increase of 3.5% in the first year ($1,290) and now you are up to $5,590.  Now, multiply that number by the number of years you hold that job (let's just say 2), and you are more than $11,000 to the good.  All because of investing less than $10 in yourself to learn how to interview right.

The power of correct knowledge is really pretty amazing, isn't it?

Most people I interview for jobs, don't know how to interview well.  Very few of them have invested the time and energy to research how to do it right, and most of the information they get is pretty spotty and some of it is downright wrong.

When you add to that mix the fact that most people conducting interviews have never been trained in how to conduct an interview, and you have a perfect storm where unqualified candidates get hired and qualified people like yourself are left thinking that the person who got hired must have had some incriminating evidence on the decision-maker.

The good news is that you don't need to be a victim of poorly trained interviewers any more.  And, you don't have to be a victim of the lack of solid, proven, reliable information on how to nail an interview every time.

Now, with Tips and Tricks for Effective Interviews, you can know how to control the interview and land yourself in the top tier of candidates every time - assuming that you are actually qualified for the job.

I do have to add that last disclaimer, because even if you ace the interview and you aren't qualified to do the job, you will probably not last a year in the new role, if they hire you.

I confess that this past year, I hired one really bad candidate.   I will call her Ms. Mystery.

Ms. Mystery had a very strong resume.  It was nicely formatted.  It had all the right key words.  It showcased accomplishments, not just responsibilities.

Ms. Mystery interviewed extremely well.  Her answers were concise.  They showcased her experience.  I thought we had a winner.  We made an offer and she accepted.

Three weeks in it was obvious that there was a problem.  She was stressed to tears every day, and she wasn't able to deliver the kind of results that her resume and interview indicated she could.  A week later, we let her go.

She is still a mystery to me.  I don't know how she could have fooled us all so well, unless she had a brilliant job search coach and lied through her teeth.  I liked her, but we couldn't carry her.  She had to carry her own weight.

She had gotten the job she thought she wanted.  Unfortunately, she didn't have the skills needed to perform so that she could keep the job she got.

That is not a situation I would wish on anyone.

It is also not something I can prevent you from doing if you insist on doing that to yourself.  And my book, Tips for Effective Interviews is powerful enough to let you get yourself in over your head.  So, use it wisely.

Get your own copy in paperback now at www.TipsForEffectiveInterviews.com


Tom Sheppard has helped hundreds of people to get and keep the job they want.  If you would like personal help from Tom in your job search needs go to www.ResumesByTom.com. 




(C) Copyright 2016 A+ Results LLC.  All Rights Reserved


Saturday, March 12, 2016

Real Life Resume Horror Stories

I have recently had the 'pleasure' of interviewing candidates for positions as project managers on the same contract I am currently working.  My recent experience demonstrates that in spite of my books and others out there, people continue to mess up their chances for a job by either doing the wrong things or doing the right things the wrong way.

I am going to share some real-life, current examples of resume mistakes that prevent job seekers from getting an interview and then some interviewing problems that keep them from getting a job offer.
Of course, I have changed the names to protect the guilty. 

Ms. Mia (or should I say, MIA?) – her most recent experience was left off of the resume. Since her resume was redone on the recruiting company letterhead, I can’t say whose fault this was, but it didn’t help her case.  

When we asked, are you still with Company XYZ?  She had to say, "No.  I have been at ABC since 2014."  My reaction was, "Oh!  Well then, tell me about what you are doing for them?" 
The bad news about that is that with very limited time for an interview, we chewed up valuable talk-time which could have been avoided if I had seen the position in the resume.  Then, I could have asked specifically about anything in that experience that seemed relevant.

Unfortunately for Ms. Mia, having the up-to-date resume wouldn’t have made a difference, because Ms. Mia had interviewing skill issues that kept me from moving her to the next round of interviews.
Her resume had indicators that she might be qualified for the role, which is why she got the initial interview.  Her problem was that during the interview she failed to articulate her answers in ways and words that made it clear that she had actually worked in the same kind of role I was looking to fill.  This left me uneasy and without a clear understanding of her skill set.

Mr. Nickels – After looking at his resume, I wouldn’t consider him for this role.  He had PM experience but not at the right level.  His budgets were $1.5mm to $2mm.  This is not comparable to the $10mm+ level of experience/impact/seasoning that is needed for a PM in where I am working right now. 

In this case, Mr. Nickels didn't do anything wrong.  His resume gave me the numbers I needed to know  that he would not be a good fit.  I know from situations where it has occurred that hiring a person into a role that is too far above their skill set level is bad for everyone.

I remember the first time I experienced this.  In spite of my reservations (which was really just a gut feel which I couldn't clearly articulate), my teammates decided to hire a new team member.   Within weeks (literally less than a month) she began to fail because her skills were a match in type, but not in level for the job.

She protested that she could bring in her deliverables in three months, not the three weeks the timeline called for.  All the rest of the team members could meet those deliverables in that schedule, because their game was that much better (higher level) than hers.

We had to manage her out, which is a painful HR nightmare for everyone involved.  And it is one I am not eager to repeat.  

The woman in question suffered financially and emotionally from the process and our team suffered from the lost productivity and missed client expectations from her sub-level performance.

So, I learned how to match both skill set and level of skill to positions.  I also learned how to discern it in resumes and uncover it in interviews.

Mr. Fantastic – I might have interviewed him based on his resume.  But if his “multi-million dollar … complex healthcare systems” project listed in his most recent experience turned out to have a budget of less than $10mm, I would have wanted to end the interview right then.  

What really kept me from wanting to interview him was his liberal use of hyperbole in his resume.

He had “Excellent” skills – excellent compared to what – a shoe shine boy? 

He had a “razor sharp focus.”  Is anyone going to confess to being unfocused in a resume?

He would “skillfully apply” – would any candidate note a skill in their resume that they applied clumsily?

He was “highly effective.”  How high is up?  Is highly effective delivering an ROI of 500% or 5%?  I guess that depends on if the project cost was $5 or $50 million.   A 500% ROI on a $5 investment means you turned $5 into $25.  And although 5% on $50 million means $2.5 million, it also means that the payback period is 10 years.

I suggest you purge your resume of these kind of adjectives and adverbs.  They convey ego, not facts.

Ms. Madeup - Ms. Madeup is not a specific person, rather she appears in many resumes in the form of something referred to as "resume inflation."  Resume inflation most commonly occurs in two ways:

1) Your resume summary or skills list mentions a skill set, but your resume experience (and maybe your actual experience) does not reflect any role where you actually had to work in roles that required that as a primary skill set.

What I saw in this space for candidates seeking the PM role I was considering them for was 
o   Their resume summary mentions project management as a skill – BUT -
o   Their resume does not reflect any position where they held the title of project manager
o   Their resume experience does not reflect experiences where they had to display key PM skills such as project planning, risk management, issue escalation, stakeholder management, etc.

Often this happens because they held roles that may give them some PM skills, but it is not the same as actually having the PM role.  

Many of these are people who were asked to act as the PM while also working as an individual contributor in the project.  Experience has shown that people in this situation are exposed to PM deliverables and skills, but have not had the opportunity to develop those skills to the level required to manage a project of significant size and complexity.   They are an entry level PM, at best.

2) Your resume lists skills as “responsibilities”, but doesn't contain any “accomplishments” that reflect those skills.  Providing a list of responsibilities without accomplishments that relate to those responsibilities may be read as you were responsible for a lot of things, but didn't do them, and that is why you are now looking for a new job.

Resumes that lack facts
Resumes that are laced with "excellent skills" often lack cold, hard facts.  Facts and numbers tend to tell their own story and often your willingness to put out your numbers for all the world to see suggests a level of confidence and self-awareness that is too frequently missing in job applicants.

I suggest that you put cold, hard numbers into your resume wherever possible.

Instead of saying, “large, complex multi-million dollar projects” provide some numbers.  For example, “Project Manager for Project X, consisting of a team of 14 top-level executives from across the enterprise, bringing approximately 300 team members from their organizations to work full-time and part-time on this project.  Budget of $15mm with projected (or realized) $300mm profit lift to corporation.”  

And When You Get an Interview
Okay, if you managed to avoid those resume pitfalls and you actually got an appointment for an interview, now, you need to do a few things to nail it in the interview.

When you are asked a question in the interview make sure you answer it in less than five minutes.  If you cannot give a clear and concise answer in five minutes, then you haven't practiced your answers.  If you don't think you can practice your answers, then you haven't given enough thought to what you have actually done in your career.  

If you are  unable to quickly and clearly cite specific experiences that answer interview questions your actual experience will remain unknown and you are unlikely to progress to an offer.

Consider your answers carefully and listen to the questions you are asked.  Even when asked a hypothetical question (e.g., “how would you …?”), instead of saying what you would do, you should respond by pointing to a specific instance in your experience where you handled this kind of situation.  You should explain the situation, what you did, and what resulted from your actions.  Even for interviewers who habitually ask these (in my opinion worthless) hypothetical questions, answers that highlight actual experience over theory are more impactful.

Hypothetical questions and hypothetical answers are, in my view, only useful when interviewing an entry-level candidate.  Unfortunately, many interviewers have never received good training in how to interview in ways that allows them to uncover the relevant experience a candidate has to offer, so these hypothetical questions are very common.

When a candidate tells me what they “would do” or “typically do” (the latter is slightly better), they are talking theory rather than experience.  They might be using Google while on the phone to scan the highpoints from an online article to answer the question, or they may be relying on what they learned in a class.  In either of those instances, they are talking theory because they have never actually done it.  When the candidate says what they “typically do”, that is a stronger response, but it still lacks the validation that comes from telling about a relevant experience and what they actually did do.

Avoid using “we-speak”.  You should be very clear to delineate what the team (“we”) was asked to do, and what you (“I”) did.  I know that we are all indoctrinated in team mentality and not hogging glory, but you are being hired, not the team.

Personally, when a candidate consistently says “we”, and fails to tell me what “I” did, I read that (right or wrong) as someone who is trying to benefit from what others on the team did, regardless of how little the individual actually contributed to the success of the endeavor.  We need individuals who can pull their own weight, not people who rely on others in the team to make up for their weaknesses.


Tom Sheppard has helped hundreds of people to get and keep the job they want.  If you would like personal help from Tom in your job search needs go to www.ResumesByTom.com. 

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(C) Copyright 2015 A+ Results LLC.  All Rights Reserved

Friday, March 4, 2016

Advice for Recruiters (and Job Seekers)

Today, I looked at a resume that a recruiter had submitted for a job opening.  After reading the resume, I refused to give the candidate an interview.  The candidate was clearly not a fit for the role and I wasn't willing to waste my time and energy interviewing someone who I definitely was not going to hire.

A couple of days ago this same recruiter noticed that a lot of his candidates were getting rejected without even getting an interview.  He reached out to my colleague and I expressing his concern that he wasn't meeting our needs.

Here is a portion of what I told him that he and his compadres needed to do differently if they wanted to have an higher success rate with the people they are trying to get hired.

If you are a recruiter, consider what I say below.  If you are a job seeker, pay attention and do what you can to fix this situation on your own.  And, while some of this is specific to project management roles, consider your own field of expertise and apply these lessons to your resume.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Regarding several recent candidates from your company and others, here is what I have seen.

Candidates whose Project Management experience is legitimate, but not sufficient for this role (this is a Sr Enterprise Project Management role).
  • They typically have not managed projects with enterprise-wide impacts
  • They typically have not managed projects with $10mm budgets or larger
  • They are a tier 1 (Jr/entry level), tier 2 pm, or tier 3 (Sr PM), and lack the experience that a Senior Enterprise PM typically brings to the table.
Candidates whose Project Management experience is manufactured (aka “resume inflation”)
  • Their resume summary mentions project management as a skill – BUT -
  • Their resume does not reflect any position where they held the title of project manager
  • Their resume experience does not reflect experiences where they had to display key PM skills such as project planning, risk management, issue escalation, stakeholder management, etc.
  • Often these latter are people who have held roles as Business or Systems Analysts or Project Leads.  Those roles may give them some PM skills, but it is not the same as actually having the PM role.
  • Many of these are people who were asked to act as the PM while also working as an individual contributor in the project.  Experience has shown that people in this situation are exposed to PM deliverables and skills, but have not had the opportunity to develop those skills to the level required to manage a project of the size and complexity that we are handling here at FutureCore.  They are an entry level PM, at best.
  • Resumes which reflect PM skills as “responsibilities”, but do not contain any PM “accomplishments.”
Resumes that use hyperbole (Dictionary.com defines hyperbole as obvious and intentional exaggeration. 
  1. “Excellent” skills – excellent compared to what – a shoe shine boy? 
  2. “razor sharp focus” – is anyone going to say they are unfocused?
  3. “skillfully apply” – would any candidate note a skill in their resume that they applied clumsily?
  4. “highly effective” – how high is highly effective?  Did it have an ROI of 500% or 5%?

I suggest you purge your candidates' resumes of these kind of adjectives.  They convey ego, not facts.

Resumes that lack facts
I suggest that you get your candidates to put cold, hard numbers into their resumes wherever possible.

Instead of saying, “large, complex multi-million dollar projects” provide some numbers.  For example, “Project Manager for Project X, consisting of a team of 14 top-level executives from across the enterprise, bringing approximately 300 team members from their organizations to work full-time and part-time on this project.  Budget of $45mm with projected (or realized) $300mm profit lift to corporation.”  

If you want to increase the percentage of your candidates who get interviewed (or who get beyond the initial phone screen) there are several things you can do in advance of submitting them:

1.       Carefully study the candidate’s resume
a.       Ignore the skills mentioned in the resume summary and carefully scrutinize the experience to see if they actually delivered PM deliverables (accomplishment vs responsibilities).
b.      Did they actually hold the title of Project Manager?
c.      Does the resume lack hard facts?
d.      Is the resume inflated with:
         i.      Hyperbole and useless adjectives/adverbs
         ii.     Do they list responsibilities instead of accomplishments?  Just because someone was supposed to get something done, doesn't mean that they actually accomplished anything.
2.       Pre-interview the candidates to ensure that they actually have experience at or above the level required for the position.
        
3.       Ensure that the candidate can clearly articulate his/her relevant experience (this applies to any candidate for any position).
  • If the candidate is unable to quickly (< 5 minutes, preferably < 2 minutes) and clearly cite specific experiences that answer interview questions their actual experience will remain unknown and they are unlikely to progress to an offer.
  • Coach your candidates that even when asked a hypothetical question (e.g., “how would you …?”), instead of saying what they would do, they should respond by pointing to a specific instance in their experience where they handled this kind of situation.  They should explain the situation, what they did, and what resulted from their actions.  Even for interviewers who habitually ask these (in my opinion worthless) hypothetical questions, answers that highlight actual experience over theory are more impactful.
Hypothetical questions and hypothetical answers are, in my view, only useful when interviewing an entry-level candidate.  If I am looking for a potential performer who has little actual experience in the role, I might resort to hypothetical questions.  Usually, even in those situations, I can ask questions that reveal situations where the inexperienced candidate has actually demonstrated the qualities I am looking for.

Unfortunately, many interviewers have never received good training in how to interview in ways that allows them to uncover the relevant experience and aptitudes a candidate has to offer, so these hypothetical questions are very common.

When a candidate tells me what they “would do” or “typically do” (the latter is slightly better), they are talking theory rather than experience.  If it is a phone interview, for all I know he or she might be using Google while on the phone to scan the high points from an online article to answer the question, or they may be relying on what they learned in a class.  In either of those instances, they are talking theory because they have never actually done it.  When the candidate says what they “typically do”, that is a stronger response, but it still lacks the validation that comes from telling about a relevant experience and what they actually did do.

We Speak
"We speak" is very common.  We are so indoctrinated that "there is no 'I' in team," that we often talk about our experiences through the lens of what the team was supposed to do and what they accomplished.  Unfortunately, in a job interview this kind of talk hides the candidate's skills behind a smoke screen of team actions.

Coach your candidates to avoid using “we-speak”.  They should be very clear to delineate what the team (“we”) was asked to do, and what the candidate (“I”) did.  I know that we are all indoctrinated in team mentality and not hogging glory, but the individual is being hired, not the team.

Personally, when a candidate consistently says “we”, and fails to tell me what “I” did, I read that (right or wrong) as someone who is trying to benefit from what others on the team did, regardless of how little the individual actually contributed to the success of the endeavor.  We need individuals who can pull their own weight, not people who rely on others in the team to make up for their weaknesses.

Most candidates who have interviewed with me will tell you that at some point I probably stopped them and asked them to tell me explicitly what they personally did and how it came out, rather than what the team (or we) did.

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So, that is my advice to recruiters so that they can get more of their candidates to get interviews and increase their chances of getting an offer.

What do you think?  As an individual job seeker, did you find anything there useful?  I hope so.  I know that there is lots in there that you can use.  And, if you are working with a recruiter to get your next job, be aware of the things they do (like what I mentioned above) which unwittingly sabotages your efforts to get the job you want. 

Tom Sheppard has helped hundreds of people to get and keep the job they want.  If you would like personal help from Tom in your job search needs go to www.ResumesByTom.com. 


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(C) Copyright 2015 A+ Results LLC.  All Rights Reserved

I read the first version of this book several years ago and I found it invaluable in helping me to learn how to interview effectively to get the job I want.

Best of Luck,
Tom Sheppard

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Interview


Many years ago, for the first time, I watched Zero Mostel perform "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum", a farcical comedy that borders on slapstick in places.  I laughed then, and I laugh now when I see it as a play or a movie.  The story is full of funny, unexpected and unbelievable twists.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Interview
Much like in the play, I had something funny and unexpected happen to me the other day when I was interviewing a job candidate - he quoted me to me.

An associate and I were doing a phone interview for a project manager position.  When I introduced myself, the candidate said, "Tom Sheppard, the author of 'Fire Yourself: Get the Job You Want', and 'Five Ways to Blow an Interview'?"

Clearly, the candidate had done some in-depth research on who was going to interview him.  I was impressed, but I didn't let it go to my head and influence the interview.

Fortunately, his research also extended to the project and he was able to give my associate an overview of our work here that was as concise and comprehensive as any I have heard her give to the many job candidates we have interviewed together.  That left us both with a very positive impression.

(Take note any Recruiters out there - if this guy could get a good read on our project, you should be able to as well and use it to both screen and prepare your candidates for their interview.  Too many job candidates come to the initial interview with faulty or totally wrong ideas of the what the project is and the role itself.  That wastes everyone's time and effort.)

Then, during the interview he did a couple of things right out of my book "A Job Hunter's Primer."  And he pointed out that he had learned them from me.

What He Did
Answering a question, he made it a point to use the 'star' technique of telling us about a situation or task (ST), the specific actions he took (A), and the results of his efforts (R).  And then, he followed up by asking, "did I answer your question?"

These are both techniques I have taught many people over the years for how to nail your job interview.

I learned the STAR technique when I was trained in behavioral interviewing.  I realized then that it was a valuable tool for any job seeker, because it would allow them to answer questions with facts from their backgrounds instead of giving hypothetical answers.  And, it would allow them to give those factual answers is a way that delivered a powerful impression of a person who can think clearly and has experience to back up the claims in their resume.

Ever since then, I have been using that technique when I conduct interviews - to cut through the BS and uncover proven performance and work attributes in action.  And, I have religously taught it to my job-seeking clients (and coached them on it) to give them the best possible chance to get the offer for the job they want.

In spite of using and teaching these tools, I confess, I was a little bit discombobulated by his blatant reference to having learned this from my me. However, his application of the lesson allowed my associate and I to determine that he was sufficiently qualified for the job to move him up to the next round of interviews, which would be face-to-face.

Now, I would love to play Paul Harvey's here and tell you "the rest of the story", but it isn't done yet.  He came in for a face-to-face and did pretty well.  But, there are still other candidates for the role and no offer has gone out yet.

Now, here is the rest of the story.  Today, my colleague extended an offer to the candidate.

Tom Sheppard has helped hundreds of people to get and keep the job they want.  If you would like personal help from Tom in your job search needs go to www.ResumesByTom.com. 


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(C) Copyright 2015 A+ Results LLC.  All Rights Reserved