Carl Bradford

Archive for the ‘Interviewing’ Category

When you become a job seeker, the situations you face on a day-to-day basis can take a tremendous toll on your emotional and mental well-being. You deal with rejections, frustration, disappointment, limited or no feedback to your employment inquires and possibly disrespect on a daily basis.

You probably experience more emotional ups and downs than most any other time in your professional career. And, no matter how successful you are, your progress is less predictable than you would probably like.  As a job seeker, your level of mental and emotional toughness affects you every day, in everything you do.

It’s More About What You Do

Being mentally and emotionally tough is less about what you say and do than it is about how you feel about what you say and do. For example, if your feelings about asking a another colleague or a professional that you don’t know, to provide you with referrals keeps you from asking, then you start a downward spiral to nowhere. First, you’re uncomfortable asking, so you don’t ask and end up wasting time chasing over marketeted job prospects. You get angry with yourself and/ or potential employers for wasting your time.

All these negative feelings and actions only serve to tear down your emotional and mental well-being.

Here’s a Carl Bradford Rule

“Never become emotionally involved in a networking call, especially a cold call.”

Being emotionally tough doesn’t mean that you have no emotions or that you are a cold person. It means that you have learned how to control your emotions so they don’t keep you from doing what you have to do.

How often do you have to be tough during a job search?

Only for five minutes at a time. There is no need to put undue pressure on yourself to be tough all the time. What’s really important is to be tough during those times when you need to be. It only takes five minutes to be tough enough and bolster your courage to do the things and ask the questions that we find personally difficult.

Most job seekers have reluctance to pick up that 900 pound phone and make that first cold call. It only takes five minutes.

Job seekers are also uncomfortable asking for an interview. There are comfortable ways to do this. Learn them and then get tough with yourself for five minutes to ask the question that will get you the answer.

Another issue is asking for the job offer. We all have trouble with this, but boosting your toughness for five minutes will improve your chances of obtaining a new career opportunity.

Can you spare five minutes?  Be tough and do the tough things in five minute segments.

The score is 21 -20 and your team’s score is 20.   The referee has just called time out at the final 2 minute mark.

Your team has possion of the ball when time resumes and you’re on your own 20 yard line. It’s a one possion ball game. It’s time for your 2 minute game plan.

Like top football teams, every top recruiting team needs a 2 minute game plan.

When You Need a 2 Minute Strategy the Most

You must have a 2 minute game plan when you have to move a candidate through your recruiting process in a very short period of time.

This happens most often when too much time elapses in closing top candidates already in your hiring process and you discover your top candidates now have competing offers.  You do communicate often enough with them to make that discovery don’t you?

This can also occur when you source a top candidate that is already well into their job search and have or about to have competing job offers.

What’s your strategy? How can you benefit from a 2 minute drill and what would that look like?

A Culture of Playing To Win

It starts with developing a winning culture. In today’s fast-paced competitive world, there’s little time for error or waste in hiring top talent.  Just like a well-disciplined football team, recruiters can adapt the techniques of winning football teams to ensure their hiring teams move the ball, score and win.

All too often employers are defeated while the clock is still ticking and they miss out on top talent!  HR/Recruiting Departments and their hiring management are frequently bogged down by sluggish recruiting practices that stifle change. They are unable to pick up the pace when necessary to score and win.

Winning means preparation before the game even begins. Once into the final 2 minutes, it means being able to communicate quickly and effectively, seizing control of the situation, adjusting quickly and – above all – executing!

A Frequent Symptom of Playing To Lose

One telling sign of a culture playing to lose can be seen where employers have adopted an attitude of “if we don’t get this person, there will be others that we can hire” and they just don’t seem to care about winning and getting a top employee.  This would be akin to a football team say, “we’ve already lost this one, but there’ll be other games.”

Any football coach that took that attitude and didn’t play with determination to win until the clock runs out would be fired quickly!

Develop Your 2 Minute Drill with 11 strategies

Improving your recruiting process, especially when competing for top candidates, can be achieved through applying the same principles that football teams do when executing their two-minute drills.

Top professional football teams must combine speed and execution. Winning teams often use both offensive and defensive talent during this time. They aren’t afraid to use talent in different roles during critical times when winning is on the line.

They practice working as a team and execute well-designed “play packages” – especially when there are just seconds left in the game and they need to score to win.

Here are 11 key elements of a winning 2 minute recruiting and hiring drill.

Select a leader. During the final 2 minutes leadership ultimately goes to the quarterback. It’s up to him to execute the 2 minute pre-game plan, but it goes beyond that.  Even after the coaching staff has called the play, he must analyze the defense in a matter of seconds and possibly call an audible play depending on his “read” of the defense.  Who on your recruiting team is accountable for orchestrating the overall 2 minute drill among your players?

Know the score. The quarterback must know the number of points required to win the game. Will that be a field goal or does it have to be a touchdown. Your hiring team must know what it will take to get the candidate to say yes. This goes beyond just compensation and likely includes other factors that are important to the candidate. Have you clearly established what is important to the candidate and whether you can provide that and if not, can you offer other things that might get the yes answer?  Knowing what will close the candidate means you know the score.

Operate with a sense of urgency. Seconds are critical to a football team during the final 2 minutes. Every play counts and every decision is magnified. Every team member on the field must execute their assignment with precision in a time compressed environment. Does everyone on your hiring team do that?

Keep track of the clock. The amount of time taken between plays, stopping the clock, and knowing just when to use remaining time-outs all become critical as the quarterback “manages the clock.”  Do you know how much time you really have before your candidate accepts another offer?  Have you built in some time for quick negotiations before time runs out?

Use the appropriate package of plays. The number of plays available during the 2 minute drill does not include all plays in the playbook. Plays in the 2 minute plan are typically designed to quickly move the chains (see below). This means abandoning certain ‘bread and butter” plays that are part of the overall game plan.

The 2 minute plays are often  much higher risk plays such as long pass plays.  We’ve all seen the “hail Mary” plays before.  When everything is on the line, do you have a plan that might even include higher risk solutions to win the candidate?

Play the right players. Having the right players on the field is critical. Use the talents of individual players for the good of the team. This often means using defensive and special team players in roles that are different from their normal position. Understanding the strengths of players during this time-compressed period becomes critical. Have you identified certain players on your recruiting team – or players who could become part of your 2 minute team – that bring a special background to help close certain top candidates?

Move the chains. This strategy is winning yards in at least 10 yard amounts thereby getting the opportunity to continue get ever closer to scoring the winning points. This means that often the best strategy isn’t the “hail Mary” pass, but getting concessions a little bit at a time in order to improve the odds of scoring. A top 2 minute recruiting drill might include getting a series of smaller yes responses from the candidate in order to overcome all concerns and getting the final yes to accept your offer.

Generate momentum. Positive momentum is contagious and energizing. The 2 minute time frame is as much mental as it is anything else. When your recruiting team consistently wins, every player gains confidence and improves their game. Are you winning most of your games, even the close ones?

Play Hard to the end. Top football teams know that it’s not over till it’s over! They strive to play at the top of their game through the final second. They realize that execution is the key to winning the game. Knowing the plays designed for your 2 minute drill and fielding the best players in each situation can mean the difference between winning and losing. The best hiring teams don’t take no for an answer and never give up till the game is truly over. Close the candidate, then celebrate.

Recognize your opponents 2 minute defense. The team on offense isn’t the only one to have a 2 minute drill. Top football teams know that when they begin their 2 minute drill, their opponents have a 2 minute defensive strategy. The tempo of the game changes. Mistakes are magnified. Split second adjustments are required. Gaining an understanding of your candidates motivators is critical and when they get down to making a final decision on your job offer, you must know how to close them. Time is short. Effective communication is critical. How are you doing when recruiting completion is really keen?

Perform a post Game Analysis. Top football teams video every game from several angles. Every game is put through a post game analysis that includes a careful scrutiny of their two minute drill. This approach allows you to able to better understand your overall strategy and find elements where you are strongest as well as weakest.  From that analysis, you can tweak and refine your 2 minute drill as well as other parts of your recruiting process. When was the last time you conducted a post game analysis of your recruiting process and then purposely improved your recruiting process?  If you haven’t, when will you start?

Conclusion

• Developing a winning 2 min strategy will make the rest of your game plan much better.
• Develop your own 2 minute drill and make it part of your playbook and be sure everyone on your teams knows “the drill.”

Bottom line if you don’t have a 2 minute drill, you aren’t playing to win!

A highly respected subject matter expert in the recruiting field – Kevin Wheeler – wrote an article entitled “We Should be Ashamed“.  As a professional recruiter for over 40 years, I agree!

The author opened his article as follows:

“Top-notch job candidates are tired of the recruiting mess we have created in the U.S. I would guess that well over half of all recruiting functions are dysfunctional. By that I mean they have no standard process for dealing with candidates, treat some candidates much differently than others, respond sporadically to requests and phone calls, fail to follow through on verbal commitments to candidates, and let themselves be constantly swayed by hiring managers who are unaware of the talent market.”

Most of the recruiting professionals that responded to this article agreed and many of these responders are external recruiters who must battle these same dysfunctional processes when recruiting on behalf of these employers.  You’d think that when these same employers pay external recruiters large fees, they’d at least have efficient processes in place to manage the recruiting partnership.

Unfortunately this is not always the case.

One internal recruiter’s response in particular caught my eye.

Among her comments were:

“I would like to call you on this article.” “We are constantly looking for the best.” Our recruitment process is arduous as we are looking for elite developers…”

That prompted me to take a look at this employer’s web site. to see just what she was defending.  As a consultant who has been engaged to review and evaluate company web sites and their related recruiting processes, the FIRST thing I look for is a obvious link on the Home page that clearly directs the reader to their career section.

If hiring great employees and treating them as the important asset they are doesn’t merit a Home page link, I don’t know what does!  If it’s not there, it is the first “red flag” that a job seeker should consider.

This link should always be displayed and visible without having to search to find it.

Guess What?

That link is nowhere to be seen and you have to start guessing just where to find it.  I finally did find it, as a sub-link in the About section of their site.  Strike one.

Next I looked to see what their job descriptions were like.  They were a series of bullet points, not very compelling and well….quiet boring from my perspective.  Strike two.

I really can’t speak to their “back end” recruiting process once a candidate provides their resume, but given the above discoveries, I’m certainly skeptical about the former claims.

As the individual who certifies company recruiters world-wide in the Adler recruiting methods – which requires my review of employers recruiting processes – I’m not surprised.  But I am dismayed that so many employers don’t get it.

It’s not any wonder that job seekers that I hear from are so disillusioned by their job hunting experience.

You can read the article in full here.

A salary increase won’t permanently erase the reasons you accepted a job offer with a new employer!

Mathew Henry, the 17th-century writer said, “Many a dangerous temptation comes to us in fine gay colors that are but skin deep.”

The same is true for counteroffers, those magnetic enticements designed to lure you back after you’ve decided it’s time to leave.

It doesn’t matter whether you were approached by another company, and offered a position that should allow a good career growth opportunity or you initiated a job search on your own.  Counter offers should never be accepted….EVER!

This means NEVER resign until you have all the facts, have considered them and arrived at a final decision to leave – BEFORE you tell your boss.

Here’s what happens

You attempt to resign from your current company. Oops! It doesn’t go as smoothly as you planned. Your boss is upset about losing you and presents you with a counteroffer and asks you to stay.  This appeal is known as a counter offer, or buy back. It’s an attempt by your current company to persuade you to stay.

But take care not to fall into the trap, or be blind-sided to your own detriment.  You should understand what’s about to be cast upon you. Counter offers are typically made in combination with some form of flattery.

Counters usually take one – or more – of these forms

1. More money – “Your raise was schedule to go into effect next quarter, but we’ll make it effective immediately.”
2. Promotion/more responsibility – “Aw, gee, I’ve been meaning to tell you about the great plans we have for you, but it’s been confidential until now.”
3. Modified reporting structure – “As VP, I’ll just have you report directly to me from now on.”
4. Promises of above or future considerations - “The V.P. has you in mind for some exciting and expanding responsibilities.”
5. Disparaging remarks about the new company or job – “You’re going to work for who?”
6. Guilt trips – “I’m really shocked. I thought you were as happy with us as we are with you.”
7. Don’t make a hasty decision – “Let’s discuss it before you make your final decision.”

You can find these tempting gestures inevitably create confusion and buyer’s remorse. Career changes are tough enough as it is….leaving a comfortable job, friends, location, etc. for an unknown and challenging opportunity in which one must reprove oneself.  These anxieties frequently cloud the best of logic.  But just because the new position is a little scary, does not mean it’s not a positive move.  It is just initially feel more comfortable to stay.

What really goes through your boss’s mind when you resign?

• “This couldn’t be happening at a worse time.”
• “This is one of my best people. If I let him quit now, it’ll wreak havoc on the morale of the department.”
• “I’ve already got one opening in my department, I don’t need another right now.”
• “This will probably screw up the entire vacation schedule.”
• “I’m working as hard as I can, and I don’t need to do her work, too.”
• “My review is coming up and this will make me look bad.”
• “Maybe I can keep her on until I find a suitable replacement.”

Why Counteroffers Don’t Work

It’s true: counteroffers very, very rarely work. There are several reasons for this.

Trust. No matter what the company says, you will forever be a “marked” employee. You have demonstrated your lack of loyalty by considering another opportunity. People will feel jilted, even if you accept a counteroffer and stay. Trust and acceptance among your immediate colleagues may be irrevocably lost.

Managers, too, have long memories, and won’t forget your lapse in loyalty –no matter how brief it may have been.

Most likely, your basic reason(s) for thinking of leaving will eventually resurface. There are a myriad of reasons why you may have considered a change: perhaps something in particular bothered you about your position, or maybe you were presented with an irresistible opportunity.

In any case, changes made as a result of a counteroffer may appease you in the short term, but rarely last for the long run. Statistics show that if you accept a counteroffer, it’s still extremely likely that you’ll voluntarily leave or be terminated within 6 months to a year.

Think about it.  If you were worth “X” yesterday, why are they suddenly willing to pay you “X + Y” today, when you were not expecting a raise for some time?

The reality is that bosses/companies do not like to be fired.  Your boss is likely most concerned they may look bad, and that this could jeopardize their career.  One of the key things they are evaluated on is by their ability to retain staff.

Further, your leaving might jeopardize an important project, cause a greater workload, or foul up a vacation schedule. It’s never a good time for someone to quit, and it may prove very time consuming and costly to replace you, especially considering search and relocation expenses. It’s much cheaper to keep you even at a slightly higher salary.  And, it would be better to fire you later, on the company’s time frame.

Here’s are examples of how senior executives have been quoted about counter offers.

“When making a counter offer, it usually is a stop-gap measure because we couldn’t afford a defection at that point in time.  We did not count on those people long term, and usually they’d burned bridges two or three levels up, if not with their immediate manager.  It definitely put them in a career holding pattern.”

He went on to recall a long conference between himself, his boss, and two subordinate managers, in which a counter offer/raise to a person two levels down was approved.  “Immediately after that meeting, my boss called me, and said, ‘We can’t afford to lose him now, but our number one priority is to find a replacement, ASAP!’ And, we replaced him within a few months.”

Another senior executive from a major financial service organization shared the following opinions, “If they’re a real ‘hitter’, I’ll try to get them to stay.  But to be honest, any additional compensation is ’stealing’ from their future earnings, and I’ll always question their convictions, knowing they can be bought. Further, I’ll wonder if I can really count on them (which equates to limited future opportunities). In other words, the damage is done.”

While your employer may truly consider you an asset, and may genuinely care about you personally, you can be sure that your interests are secondary to your boss’s career, and your company’s profit or survival.  In other words, flattering offers and comments are attempts to manipulate you to do something that is in your employer’s best interests, and not necessarily yours.  It’s not about you.

The negative ramifications to accepting a counter-offer are numerous.

Where did the money or responsibility come from?  Was it your next raise – just early?  Will you be limited in the future?  Will you have to threaten to quit to get your next raise, or might your (cheaper) replacement be sought out ASAP?  One client executive who preferred to remain unnamed, commented that “90% of the time, accepting a counter offer is the wrong thing to do.  And, if the business is so dependent on one person, it’s a weak business.”

You’ve demonstrated your unhappiness, or your lack of blind loyalty, and will be perceived as having committed blackmail to gain a raise. You’ll not be considered a team player again.  Many employers will hold a grudge at the next review period, and you may be at the top of the next Reduction-in-Force “hit list”.  “Like an adulterous affair that has been discovered, the broken trust is never fully recovered,” stated one client that requested anonymity.

Apart from a short-term band-aid treatment, nothing changes with the company.  After the dust settles from this upheaval, you’ll be in the same old rut.  In fact, statistics indicate that more than 80% of those accepting counter-offers leave, or are terminated, within 6-12 months anyway. One executive search executive said, “Although counter-offer acceptances are discouraged, 50% of those who did succumb had re-initiated their job search within 90 days.  In fact, one candidate called us back in 5 days!”

One executive candidate told us “It was exactly like you said it would be….they butter you up, give you more money, but nothing really changes.  In fact, they can get worse.”  He went on to say “My immediate boss was really agitated, since his boss interceded.  At raise time he told me that none had been budgeted (since I’d already gotten a raise), and that if I wanted, I could negotiate with the President as before.”  This gentleman, by the way, left the company within months.

Attempted buy-backs demonstrate disrespect for your well-thought-out decision, and your commitment to the new company.  Should your current employer decide to eliminate your position, or skip you for promotion, just try to counter and change their minds.  Fat chance!  You’ve analyzed, accepted, and committed to the new company, which has surely made plans and accommodations around you, and is counting on you. Don’t sell out, or back out.  Stand by your word.  Everyone will respect your decision and integrity, and if the previous employer was sincere about your value, they’ll likely make a spot for you in the future.

Look at the two opportunities, your old job and the new position, as if you were unemployed.  Which holds the most real potential? Probably the new one, or you’d not have accepted it in the first place.

Two things are certain . . . (1) You can normally expect a counter-offer, and (2) you should hold a steady course from the beginning, and stick with your decision to move on to a bigger and better future.

More and more employers are using behavioral based interview methods. it is also referred to as competency-based selection and has become reasonably well-known, yet these methods are often misunderstood by candidates, even those with some exposure to the process.

As part of my responsibilities, I teach a method that is known as Performance Based Hiring – PbH. While PbH is certainly a behavioral-based method, what I am going to describe below is a more generic version of competency based selection.

Here is a brief overview of the concepts and some of the logic behind this method.

There are several Key Advantages being touted by Competency-based Selection

• Improved objectivity, leading to more accurate talent acquisition
• Consistency in all hiring decisions across the breath of the employer population
• Legal protection for the employer, especially with EEO type issues
• Improved consensus on hires across multiple associates, although I’ve often seen this misapplied

How it Works

The intention of a competency-based assessment is to move hiring decisions away from the classic intuition-led (gut level) process (i.e. away from: “I feel that this person would be a great hire”). Instead, behavioral interviewing is intended to bring more objectivity, thus replacing much of the subjectivity of traditional interview methods.

As a candidates you are not primarily evaluated based upon your aspirations, opinions, or similar criteria. Rather, the underlying premise is that the employer can anticipate how you will behave in a specific role in the future through an assessment of your behavior in the past.

In competency-based interviews, you will be asked questions that require reference to very specific events (e.g. “Tell me about a time when you missed your project completion target and described what happened”). You are discouraged from giving general answers and asked to focus on specific incidents. By understanding how you actually approached real situations in the past – situations that are very similar to what the job opportunities requires – the employer expects to more accurately judge how you will act again in similar circumstances.

Defining the interview competencies

In order for the employer to be better make a judgment on your capability, they have to develop a frame of reference to measure you against. Competencies for similar jobs at different employers may be similar, but rarely are exactly the same.  This naturally leads to somewhat different expectations. You can expect to be evaluated against defined competency traits that an employers believes are appropriate to the job opportunity for which you are being considered. Typically these competencies are developed from a large global framework, in combinations that are different for each business unit as well as different departments within each business unit, even though a job may be similar.

Some companies have defined literally hundreds of competencies and it is from this database that different combinations are chosen to use for interviewing against a specific position.

Competencies examples would include behaviors such as Adaptability, Working under pressure, Customer management, and so on. As a candidate, your interview performance will be evaluated against each competency the employer has defined as belonging to the trait being evaluated.

Giving you an interview rating (score)

By asking you a series of specific questions and rating the your answers against the benchmark the employer is looking for regarding a specific competency you will have provided  the interviewer with the information they need to begin the process of making a final decision on your candidacy.

When you finish interviewing with all members of the interview team, they will come together (virtually, where required) to discuss their findings. Each interviewer provides the team with their individual ratings (scores)  they have each given to you as the candidate.  These ratings are then compared and discussed, until an agreement for an overall score is reached for each competency. The employer then uses these competency scores to decide whether to further pursue you as candidate or not.

A new strategy for how you answer interview questions is required

Since competency-based interviewing is a process, how you answer these questions should also be a specific process.  In other words, when you answering questions your answers should use the SOAR interview answering method.  This is not the place for canned answers that are more appropriate for classical interview questions. To do so almost certainly will mean that you will not be offered the job.

This also means that interview preparation is much more important than it ever was.  You will need to think through key accomplishments and note the competencies that you used for each accomplishment and be prepared to illustrate with a concise answer how you used that competency.  Generalized, rambling answers to these questions are also an absolute certainty that you won’t be offered the job.  That is why the SOAR method is critical to learn and understand.