The Career Clinic Blog

Sometimes when I ask people for an interview, they hesitate. Sometimes in an attempt to reassure them we’ll have fun, I tell them I’m not a 60 Minutes type of interviewer.

I’m not going to use that line anymore, not after talking with Tom Flynn on the show recently. Tom was a writer and producer for CBS News for many years and still works with Dan Rather. He’s done pieces for 60 Minutes, and says founder Don Hewitt didn’t tell his reporters to dig up dirt on people. No? “Don’s rule,” Tom says, “was simple: ‘Tell me a story.’”

Tom reported for CBS from the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001. He’ll share some of that story in my next post.

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A job interview isn’t a competition. You’re not trying to edge anyone out of anything.

A job interview is an opportunity to find out if you’d enjoy working with the person who suggested you meet.

“In my book,” communications consultant Richard Gallagher says, “no one ever blows an interview. Even if you walk in unprepared. The purpose of an interview is to show who you are.”

Maybe you’re the kind of person who doesn’t prepare for important meetings!

An interview is an information exchange. Maybe you’ll click with the person asking you questions, maybe the job will be even dreamier than you imagined, maybe you’re needed this afternoon.

And maybe not.

Then what? What happens if you get an offer for a job you don’t want, or don’t get an offer for a job you do want? And why the heck does it sting if you don’t get an offer for a job you don’t want?

Some thoughts in my final post this week.

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How do you prepare for a job interview that’s over the telephone?

How do you prepare to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth--so the employer will be eager to meet you in person?

Beats me.

But not Knock ‘em Dead author Martin Yate. I’d never suggest you use a template, filling in the conversational blanks, in favor of being spontaneous--unless the template you’re using is Martin’s!

Another expert calls this planned spontaneity.

We use that on the talk show. Sometimes it even works!

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"Tell me a little bit about yourself."

Have you ever been tempted in a job interview to respond with, "What would you like to know?"

Knock 'em Dead author Martin Yate says while there's nothing really wrong with that question, it might backfire on you. His guess as to what the employer will think? "I want to know that I haven't wasted my time inviting you in for an interview." Here's what he suggests you think: "I'm going to give you a quick answer that shows I know how to solve your problems."

It’s fine to qualify a question, Martin says. You'll probably get a more specific question, know better how to respond, and have more time to come up with an answer. But if you do that too early in the interview you'll just look like a weasel.

My word, not Martin's!

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"The ideal candidate will have a colorful tattoo covering every square inch of exposed skin below the neck. A tattoo on the face is also desirable, but not required."

I couldn't imagine a job ad reading like this--until I walked into Hot Topic this weekend. The gentleman who waited on me looked like he'd never met a tattoo he didn't find a place for on his body. I smiled. Then I told him I do a radio show called The Career Clinic. I admitted we don't usually include a tattoo--or multiples of--when we're rattling off suggestions for what to wear to an interview. "But I imagine it may have worked in your favor when you applied for this job." He looked at me. "I think it did!" he said.

He loved his work, you could tell. Well, actually you couldn't--I couldn't. But I also couldn't resist asking. "I do!" he said.

He was a man of few words--aren't they all--but he was polite and attentive and perfect for the part. The place was filled with posters of metal bands, and he looked like he could've stepped right out of one of them.

And Katie, on the outside chance you were kidding when you said you don't read this blog unless forced to pitch in with proofreading--maybe there won't be something in your Christmas stocking from Hot Topic. Maybe I was shopping for Grandma!

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You don’t have to wait until you’re in the potential employer’s office to blow that job interview. You can do it while you’re still in the lobby!

David Couper is an award-winning trainer who shared a story on the show Saturday about a woman he interviewed. Did she want anything to drink before they got started? “Sure,” she said. “I’ll have some tea.”

No big, except by the time he’d found a tea bag and brewed the tea and got everyone settled in for the big chat a half an hour had gone by.

She didn’t get the job.

A coincidence?

Probably.

But of all the things you want to be remembered for, I doubt this is it: “Oh yeah. She’s the one who asked for tea.”

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Write an effective resume. Sparkle in a job interview. Be a great employee. Career consultant Vicki Brackett thinks the fastest route to all three is from the perspective of the employer.

“Your resume should make it clear how you’ve made money, saved money, or minimized risk for other employers,” she says. “That’s what makes you attractive to the next one.”

To ace an interview, Vicki suggests you practice telling stories about (you guessed it) making money, saving money, or minimizing risk. Practice in front of a mirror or--even better--in front of a friend. You’ll feel ridiculous. I promise! But you won’t be sorry. You’ll sound more natural, and feel more relaxed, once you’re in front of the hiring manager. Remember how stressful the experience is for that person, too--which will make it easier to present yourself as the solution to a problem. That’s why you’re needed. You don’t get hired to decorate the place. You get hired to help.

After you are, make sure you know what your boss calls success on the job. Keep that in mind, check in often, and make the world a better place.

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You owe it to yourself to find out as much as you can about the job you're going after before you go after it. One of the best ways to do that is to talk to someone in the same career.

Please don't think of yourself as an imposition. Take it from someone who's constantly interviewing people about their work. The more they love it, the more they love talking about it. Their families and friends have heard these stories before. You're a new audience. They'll appreciate the reminder of how much they've pulled off.

Remember to ask them what they don't like, as well. Brian Kurth of VocationVacations says you may decide to pick a new dream: "Isn't being an innkeeper just the most romantic-sounding thing...until you're scrubbing toilets? Being a winemaker is dreamy, too, until you're schlepping case after case of wine into a shipment truck. And owning a bakery? I hope you like getting up at three in the morning."

It's an acid test. Can you handle the drudgery that's part of even the most glamorous jobs? Will you do that happily, and consider it a small price, for your dreams?

Hired!

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"Why is this position open?" That's one question career consultant Diana Churchill suggests you ask a potential employer.

I wonder what would've happened had I asked it in an interview for a summer job at Dippy Donut in my hometown of Omaha, Nebraska. I might have learned that the young woman who’d just quit had been locked in the bathroom while the coffee shop was robbed.

I’d be working by myself on that same four-to-midnight shift. My soon-to-be employer didn't tell me what had happened, and instead offered this: "If you ever get scared, just call the convenience store next door and have the guy bring you over a pack of cigarettes. That's code for, 'I have a customer who's bothering me.'"

I got scared one evening, the plan backfired, and I'll explain in the next post.

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The morning after I got my first assignment critiqued in a feature writing class, Vince, the instructor, called me with a question straight out of my wildest career dream: "Would you like to help me with a book?" He and a colleague had just sold a proposal for what would become Real Barbecue. I'd be doing telephone interviews, getting stories, and writing up anecdotes. It would involve nine to twelve hours a week, but no pay. "I was never in it for the money," I reassured Vince. "Good thing," he probably said.

A book. A book!

That's how my career change began, with an internship. I took on other projects as Vince came up with them, like writing a regular cover story for his Big Band News. I remember floating through the days, writing stories in my head, having people tell me how "obnoxiously happy" I seemed. I'll never forget one weekend afternoon, helping Vince at his newspaper office. I used the same computers real writers used to file real stories: heaven. I could work my whole life at a sales job, I told him, and never get the satisfaction I was getting from my tiny piece of his barbecue book.

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