4 Little Known Tools for Managing Your Online Brand

By Jessica Miller-merrell

The idea of brand management is growing and gaining momentum among the corporate and professional communities. Over the last two weeks, I have given three presentations on the topic to business and HR professionals and job seekers and received almost a dozen emails and phone calls. Bottom line is your reputation is everywhere and online is no different.

Just recently, Ad Week released a monetary dollar figure attached to Facebook Fan (now Like) Pages. Based on Virtue's research of their own clients, they determined the average value of a Fan is $3.60. This is the first ROI evaluation I have found that places a value squarely on a personal network. If your friend, fans, connections, subscribers, and followers are now being seen as having value.

Having a strong online brand and presence is essential to your future success in the workforce. I believe over the 12 months, jobs seekers will begin to be evaluated for more than just their education and work experience but social media and networking presence as well. It's already happening by some very progressive companies like Best Buy who requires 250 Twitter followers to be considered for their social media positions.

Since reputation and the perception by contacts, clients, co-workers, and companies are so important. Your online brand should be closely monitored so you can quickly and immediately be alerted to any negative comments or perceptions so that you can work to rebuild or clarify comments, concerns, or misrepresentations expressed or implied by others.

BackType

BackType is a tool that monitors your brand and key words of blog comments. If you are mentioned, represented, or comment on a blog or page, you will receive an email alert. This is a great way to make sure that your brand isn't being misrepresented. As a company or individual, I would also encourage signing up for alerts of company names, competitors and common mis-spellings of your name and your competitors.

BoardTracker

BoardTracker does exactly what it says. It tracks brand and key work mentions on discussion boards and forum sites. You control the key words and when it is distributed. This is a great way to go beyond Google Alerts and really dive into your brand outside of what the Google web crawlers find.

TweetBeep

TweetBeep is not necessarily a new tool but one worth mentioning. It allows you to set up key word alerts from Twitter sent to your email at regular intervals. The basic service is free but if you are looking for instant and real time alerts, you will pay a nominal fee.

SocialMention

SocialMention is another site that manages your social brand and key word content but across social networks and blogs. Visitors can use the key word search option for real time and immediate search or set up alerts. One of the drawbacks to the site is that if you have a large presence on social media, it Social Mention is difficult to navigate, but it does provide you with an all in one option.

About the Author:

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is an author, new mother, and human resources professional with a passion for the job search, recruiting, and all things social media. Jessica has over 10 years of experience in human resources and recruiting industry. She specializes in helping job seekers with personal branding specializing and job search strategies helping others learn the unwritten rules of the job search. Her creative technique and strategies have received national recognition from Entrepreneur, Glamour Magazine, HR Executive Magazine, and Employment Digest. Jessica also is the host of the only live job search web show every Sunday 9 PM EST on MomTV.

Original Article

On Being A Good Fit For The Job

by Tim Tyrell-Smith

This is an interesting topic for me. And I think you will find it interesting as well. Because I spoke to a number of you over the past few weeks. And the subject of “fit” came up.

Some say that the resume is about “qualifications” and the interview is about “fit”. And it is true that the resume is a poor substitute for an in-person interview. And, really, until you meet someone it is really difficult to have any idea as to whether they will succeed at your company.

The resume is largely an objective tool. Although it can be reviewed subjectively. We can all choose to give candidates more or less credit for accomplishments. Based on our own lens and our reaction to the way a candidate writes their cover letter.

But the interview is where the interesting aspect of “fit” really begins to come into play.

And what is “fit” really?

Well the puzzle pieces above give you an idea, but those best represent the objective side, right? A company has a job and you have skills and experience that either match well or don’t match well. Those are your qualifications for the job compared to the requirements for the job.

I think we all get that part. The part that can befuddle and confuse is the subjective fit. The gut call that companies make once all final round candidates have proven their ability to do the job.

And we’ve all been second place for a big job. At least once in our careers.

So what ends up being the criteria for this subjective decision? Here are my thoughts.

1. The first 5 minutes of an interview are critical. My first reaction to you matters. the way you introduce yourself, carry yourself and interact with me early on establishes a first impression. Your success in the first 5 minutes with each interview will greatly influence the decision. And let’s face it. We’re all a bit judgmental. That’s our job for the hiring company.

2. Risk. This is related to your qualifications. If you are a 90% fit in a tough market, there will likely be a few 100% folks in the competitive set. And the only way you will be handed the office key is if your subjective fit value is high. Because that reduces the risk for the hiring manager. She can then say to her boss: “I know Tim is missing that one small piece in his background, but the referral and strong recommendation from Mike carries a lot of weight.” or “Did you see what a great communicator he was during the interviews? We need more people like Tim here.”

3. Work style and work philosophy also matter. How you do your job matters. How well you interact with fellow employees well above and below your level. Are you structured and process oriented or more free flowing and reactive? This can make a difference in a candidate review.

4. Personality and social skills can play a role. The way you interact with interviewers, other employees and the person at the front desk can make a difference. Ask your network about the culture there. Are they looking for social butterflies or worker bees? And don’t forget to identify what you are looking for. Be yourself and pay attention on interview day.

5. The conversational nature of your interviews can be a factor. Not everyone will allow you to get into a dynamic back and forth. Some interviewers force you to answer question after question. But if you can open the door to more of a business discussion vs. a “interview”, you may learn a lot more about what type of candidate the company is really looking to hire. One small risk? Too much conversation can lead to the interviewer being left without enough data on you to convince others that you are the one.

But how else are companies determining fit? There are new tools being built to help companies decide fit in a more surgical fashion. In fact I read a recent story in Inc. Magazine about a new tool called ClearFit. At the time the article was written they had over 500 companies using the software.

It is a test you take (15-20 minutes) and the company pays $100 per candidate. The patented software was written by a bunch of Ph.D.s to “bring the best applicants in to focus and remove the guesswork”.

From the article:

When you upload a profile, the software can flag applications that sound false or over-hyped. You’ll also get a detailed report with personalized interview questions to ask the candidate, as well as a metric that compares their attributes to the best performers in your company.

Not sure how you react to reading this. Some may be glad to know that companies are doing this. Others may be frustrated to hear that a computer is deciding their fate. In the end, though, I recommend the same thing.

Be yourself. Because if they hire you. Not some version of yourself. You’ll be happy in the end.

Original Article

How to use LinkedIn with business savvy

By Mary Ellen Slayter

This post is by Brooke Howell, SmartBrief’s small-business editor.

When Lewis Howes crushed his wrist, along with his dream of making his fortune playing football, and ended up bedridden on his sister’s couch with no college degree and no job, he could have made best friends with Ben & Jerry and whiled away the hours watching TV.

Instead, he spent six to eight hours a day experimenting with LinkedIn — tweaking his profile and learning the ins and outs, often through trial and error. After he was able to get up and about, he cut back to about three hours a day and kept on learning.

Sound like a waste of time? Nope. We’re not talking about Facebook here. Howes wasn’t posting pictures of the people who came to sign his cast and taking quizzes to find out which Disney princess he’s most like. He was doing business and growing into a business pro.

“I believe that LinkedIn is the No. 1 social-networking medium on the planet today … for anyone looking to build their business,” Howes told participants in the Social Media Success Summit on Tuesday afternoon.

For Howes, LinkedIn has been just that — and he says it can do the same for you, too.

“Start using it aggressively every day and testing and tweaking to see what works for you,” he suggests.

Luckily, you won’t have to spend quite as many hours learning LinkedIn as Howes did, because he’s happy to share what he learned, not only at SMSS, but with co-author Frank Agin in their book “LinkedWorking: Generating Success on the World’s Largest Professional Networking Website.”

Howes says LinkedIn is so powerful for a number of reasons, including:

• You can export your contact list into a file that you can keep and analyze.
• You can have an unlimited number of contacts.
• Its members are largely business professionals, many of whom are decision-makers.

Like any powerful tool, though, you have to put some thought into how you use LinkedIn, starting with your profile. And every profile, says Howes, must start with a keyword or two. For Howes, the word is “sports.” For you it could be “kitchen contractor,” “tax expert” or “French chef.” What’s important is that it gets at what you are all about.

That keyword needs to appear in five places in your profile:

1. Headline
2. Current experience
3. Past experiences
4. Summary
5. List of specialties

Putting the keyword in those five places will help move you up in LinkedIn searches and help people who are looking for experts in your field find and connect with you, says Howes, who is often at the top of searches for “sports.”

In addition to putting your keyword in your summary, he says, you need to be sure that summary answers three important questions:

1. Who are you?
2. Who do you want to help?
3. How are you going to help them?

Answer these questions and write them in a narrative format, not in formal bullet points as you would in a resume, Howes says. He gave more good tips and referred SMSS participants to check out free instructional videos on his website for more information.

It is worth your time to get on LinkedIn and learn to use it with savvy as an important business tool. The great thing about the medium is that you can use its best features for free, which is great for everyone and especially useful to entrepreneurs, independent contractors, solo businesses and small companies that may not have the bucks to spend on marketing and other outreach efforts.

Have you achieved business success with the help of LinkedIn? Tell us about it and share your tips.

For more great sessions on how to develop a social-media strategy and maximize your efforts, check out the continuing 100% online Social Media Success Summit that (full disclosure) SmartBrief helped plan. For access to the whole session and many others, sign up here.

Having A Blog Really Can Land You A Job

Last month I got my first job (that pays) since I graduated from college in December, working for a Seattle web design company. It was a humbling journey on the way to employment. I had a lot of phone interviews that went great, but didn’t get an in-person interview. Many more resume submissions were lost in a black hole never to be heard from again. Sounds discouraging, right? Well, it is.

For those of you that are going to be graduating this Spring my advice to you is this: your degree will not get you a great job (unless you are an engineer maybe); you need to differentiate yourself and make sure you are showing employers why they need to hire you; put yourself in their position and ask, “is this person worth the money?”

Think about this sports analogy: professional athletes will get released as soon as they are not producing (scoring points, making tackles, hitting homeruns). You and your job are no different. As your degree won’t get you a job, your resume won’t either. Don’t rely on such things. I’ll talk more about this in the next section of this post.

Another thing I’ve learned is that discriminating among potential jobs is a bad idea. As a college graduate I had preconceived notions about what kind of job I wanted. Marketing and sales (my job now) was no where I my radar. But it turned out that I’m good at these things AND I enjoy them. Just because you don’t think you won’t like the job doesn’t make it true. The key is trying things out and learning more about yourself. After 17 years of school you have know idea what you really want to do. Take Seth Godin’s advice:

“Conventional wisdom is that you should find a job that matches your passion. I think this is backwards. Transferring your passion to your job is far easier than finding a job that happens to match your passion.”

For example I am transferring my interest in social media marketing and writing to my job. I am working on the side to create a social media (mostly Twitter) strategy for the business. I am also working on ideas for the company blog. These are my passions and I’m transferring them to my job.

My job is part-time at the moment until the company (5 people) grows enough to justify more hours for my position. But I really like the job and the people. I was hired to do marketing internally and for clients, but was asked if I wanted to do sales also. In my eyes this was my chance to show WHY I was hired (plus sales is a great skill to learn, every organization does sales). So I’ve been calling all the leads that I have been researching for the past three weeks. I found that I liked the challenge that sales inherently brings.

My point? Do the job you were initially hired to do, but take on new responsibilities and look for new projects that expand your job title. Having this mentality is justification why you were hired in the first place. Taking on the sales role was my first step to becoming a linchpin. Also this makes work so much more enjoyable: doing and learning new things, taking on new challenges. I won’t lie that I was slightly terrified when I first starting making cold calls. But each successive call I got better. And on my second day I landed my first appointment. Now after a week of calls I’m super comfortable doing this work. It’s all about stepping out of your comfort zone and kicking fear’s ass.

I Differentiated Myself

The job I applied for was as a marketing assistant. As you now from this blog I didn’t study marketing, at all. My past jobs were either in restaurants or retail. So the most relevant experience I had was in customer service.

So my strategy to make myself an appealing candidate for the job was to basically say none of that matters. Instead, I explained why my degree in economics would make me a kick-ass marketer and why my lack of experience makes me hungry to prove myself, as shown by my cover letter (shown below) that I sent with my resume. My approach in the cover letter was to be unconventional. All my past cover letter for other jobs were standard and by-the-book. That obviously didn’t work out, so I went in the opposite direction: pointed out my flaws, made bold statements and dare I say, was myself. Read it over and you’ll see. Read the bold parts if you don’t have time for the whole thing.

I have not been a professional marketer. I do not hold a marketing degree. In my opinion, none of that matters. And here’s why: I market myself daily through Twitter and my blog. Using Twitter and blogging has developed many of the skills needed for this position. Here are a few things that I have learned through these mediums and would make me a dependable employee for your business:

• Tweeting is like writing copy. Why? To get people to click on my links – which often times leads to my blog and shows I am a person who provides value – I have to be compelling with a very small amount of words. Thus I have experience writing concise headlines that sell the idea of clicking a link. This skill is obviously a must for this position and I feel confident in my abilities.
• Being on Twitter has also taught me how to add value to others. I try to answer questions and be a dependable person for information. This builds relationships that are strong. And all marketing really comes down to is making connections with people. Making people feel that relationship.
• Through blogging I keep multiple skills fresh: time management and organization, writing, critical thinking, strategic planning, creativity and networking. Consider my blog my writing sample. Here is a link to a post that is more directed to this position: http://www.econapps.com/2010/03/what-the-economist-has-to-say-about-social-media/. Here is another post about blog traffic strategies: http://www.econapps.com/2010/03/the-definitive-guide-to-getting-blog-traffic/
  
• Blogging has also taught me the importance of SEO. Although a lot of my blog’s traffic is from my own guerrilla (social media) marketing tactics, I am trying to integrate more SEO principles in to my blogging, such as using links and keywords that are search-able. I know that if you give me a chance I can be a SEO expert, because A) I love to learn and grow, B) I want to be a great employee and C) SEO is a huge part of marketing products online.
  

Wait There’s More. My degree is in economics. For people that haven’t studied economics it might be seen as a obscure topic. But I have learned many valuable skills/traits from my studies: the ability to put myself in another person shoes, which allows me to see what they really want and how I can give it to them; being able to think about a challenge critically and come up with solutions that are not conventional but often more effective; see connections where they are not obvious; the ability to research a topic quickly, distilling the important information and making actionable outcomes; and the knowledge of how to use incentives to influence behavior.

Lastly I am a new college graduate. I won’t hide that fact because I think companies like yours need more people like me. This recession and subsequent job search has not only humbled me but invigorated my drive to be extraordinary. Throughout college I did well, and got good grades graduating cum laude. Now looking for employment in the real world I know that being mediocre is not an option. You must provide exceptional value to an employee or why else why they keep you around? I am a perfect fit for this Entry-Level position because I have the right mix of already-required knowledge and skills, and potential and drive to learn more. Because I am a new entry to the workforce I have tremendous hunger to learn and prove myself. I am not coming to you with all the answers that older candidates will, but this is what sets me apart. Since I do not have the answers I will not pretend to or be a “yes man.” I will talk problems through and make sure the best solution is put in place. I thank you for this opportunity and hope to speak with you soon.

Cameron Plommer

***

This Blog Got Me The Job

I feel quite proud of myself for “putting it all out there.” As you see I didn’t shy away from being an economics student, a new entry-level worker, or having no marketing experience.

When I asked my “boss” what was the main reason I was hired she thought for moment and said, “your blog.” She said it showed I could write, and thus communicate well. My blog shows that I am doing something that isn’t easy and pushing myself without anyone making me. My motivation is not about money for writing this blog. So they figured, why not hire somebody that likes doing marketing already? After-all being able to write a compelling blog is what I will be doing in my job for the company’s blog.

Overall I’m proud that my work on this blog has paid off already: it has helped me get a job, plus I’ve met so many cool people through it. I can’t imagine the possibilities as I continue to write. I’m also proud that the time I used while unemployed was spent wisely and contributed to becoming employed. My blog has prepared me to think like a marketer and using Twitter has prepared me to be a good salesperson and cold caller. My love of social media combined with this blog made a difference. That’s pretty cool.

Acknowledgments

Two people and one community really gave me the motivation to start this blog. And beginning is always the hardest step.

My first conversation with Laura Kimball (who I met via Twitter) motivated me to begin this blog (and I think I help her start hers as well). Thanks Laura! We will have to get cupcakes soon.

Shane Mac is the second person that kicked my ass in to gear and start creating my own story. Thanks buddy for getting me out of the consumption whore mentality. You are doing great things and make me want to keep killing it.

Lastly, thank you Brazen Careerist. When I got the crazy idea to write a blog about applying economics and first tested my idea by asking for thoughts in the “blogging ideas” network. Because of the great feedback from Kim Campbell, Penelope Trunk and many others I saw that I was not the only one that thought this blog was a good idea.

If you need a website (redesigned or old), or marketing services (SEO, Internet Marketing) hit me up on Twitter or Email me. We are a Seattle Web Design company, but we are not limited to the Seattle area. Check out our newly designed website to get a feel for our philosophy. We are willing to talk with you anytime and are offering half-hour consultations (not a sales pitch, just information).

Read this author's blog.

Original BrazenCareerist Story

How to Share Your LinkedIn Profile

by Jason Alba

Here’s a simple question that a lot of people mess up. Many times I’ll get an email that says “will you check out my LinkedIn Profile, here’s the link: http://www.linkedin.com/myprofile?trk=hb_tab_pro”

Actually, that IS NOT the link to YOUR LinkedIn Profile… what they did was they went to their LinkedIn Profile and then copy and pasted the URL to me… see the red arrow:

The right LINK to share, if you want someone to see your LinkedIn Profile, is down a bit… scroll down to the bottom of all the main stuff… it is just above the LinkedIn Summary… this is the link that you actually want to share (this can go in your email signature, on your business card, etc.):

If this helped you then you definitely need to order one of the Jason Alba Products:

Twitter Turbocharges Executive Job Search and Personal Brand Visibility

by Meg Guiseppi

In a recent chat about social media, a new client and I discussed the value of LinkedIn and Twitter. “Randy” understood that, just to keep pace with his competition in the job market, he had to have a strong presence on LinkedIn and take advantage of all it has to offer. He had already made some strides with it.

But when it came to Twitter, Randy was adamant. “If you think I’m going to waste my time on Twitter telling people what I had for breakfast, you’re crazy!”

Are you Twitter-resistant like Randy, still sitting on the sidelines, thinking it’s a waste of time, and questioning whether there’s any value at all there?

With more than 60 million users, Twitter is a powerful place to:

• Build credibility, visibility, and evangelism for your brand and unique value proposition,
• Extend your online presence.
• Position yourself in front of employers and hiring decision makers.
• Connect with new communities of subject matter experts and thought leaders, and
• Uncover opportunities that may lead to landing a job.

Many, many employers these days are hanging out on Twitter, tweeting job openings at all levels and tweeting about their organizations. Shouldn’t you be there too, connecting with them, learning from them, and staying top of mind with them?

Where else online (or offline for that matter) can you listen in on and learn from conversations your targeted key decision makers are having, without being invited?

It may take a little time to get the hang of Twitter, but soon it will all click, and you’ll get into a rhythm.

Getting started basics

• Set up your free Twitter account claiming your real name, or variation if yours is taken, for your Twitter @username. Or you may want to choose something highlighting your expertise, like “COOBobJames”, if “BobJames” isn’t available.
• Upload a professional head shot.
• Add a link to your blog or website (if you have one), or Google Profile, LinkedIn Profile, VisualCV, etc.
• Create an abbreviated version (160 character maximum) of your keyword-rich personal brand positioning statement for your Twitter “bio”.
• For now, choose a Twitter background other than the default. You can customize this later.
• Noodle around and get comfortable with how Twitter works.

Building out your network with old friends and fresh faces.

Use Twitter Search or Twellow, the Twitter Yellow Pages, to search for, find the Twitter usernames for, follow, and retweet these groups of people:

• Friends and colleagues in your existing real-life and online networks.
• Your target employers. See if they’re on Job-Hunt’s list of employers who are using Twitter to recruit.
• Major players and decision makers in your industry.
• Recruiters in your industry. Also look at recruiter Jeff Lipschultz’s list of recruiters.
• Thought leaders, subject matter experts, and other people who are talking about your industry.
• Top career people. Check out Job-Hunt’s 101 Best Twitter Job Search/Career Experts Plus 6.

See my post, Twitter Personal Branding Strategy: The Beauty of a Retweet. If you do nothing else on Twitter, you can get results by retweeting, but don’t stop there.

Use hashtags in your tweets and retweets (RTs) when you can. Read Ben Parr’s (@BenParr) HOW TO: Get the Most Out of Twitter #Hashtags, at @mashable for all the skinny.

Once you build up a strong and diverse following, tweet what kind of job you’re looking for. Put the information out there. Someone may be looking for candidates just like you. Or someone following your tweets may know someone who needs you.

Through the Tweets of those you follow you may uncover job opportunities, plus gather market intelligence and discover challenges facing your target companies which you may be able to help them overcome.

Twitter is all about micro-blogging “tweets” in 140 characters or less. For best impact, Tweet (and RT) content that is consistent with your brand and will be interesting to your followers and relevant to your target audience.

Google indexes tweets, so the more you tweet, the more you’ll expand your online identity.

A few Twitter tips:

Realize that when people look at your Twitter profile page, they’ll see your most recent 20 tweets and the time line and frequency of your postings. Avoid constantly repeating the same tweets.

Include targeted keywords – including company names, products, industry names, and people – in your tweets to lead hiring professionals to you.

Retweet your own important tweets using hashtags with the keywords.

Mix up your tweets for variety:

• Retweets
• Tweets with URLs to relevant articles and blog posts.
• Tweets that demonstrate your knowledge about best practices, trends and events, and position yourself as a subject matter expert.
• Some tweets with relevant and/or inspirational quotes.

If you’re blogging or publishing articles, book reviews, or anything else online, tweet it.

Use Twitter lists to save time and organize users into groups. Search for lists through individual Twitter accounts and by keywords through directories, such as Listorious. Also curate your own Twitter lists.

Use applications such as Tweetdeck to manage your groups of tweeps and to schedule your tweets.

Bring your Twitter stream into your LinkedIn profile (see applications on your LinkedIn home page).

Original Post

5 rules for asking better interview questions

By Kate Lorenz

With the addition of 573,000 nonfarm payroll jobs since December, American workers are feeling more optimistic about their employment prospects. Those who had all but given up their job searches have started to re-enter the job market, which accounted for the rise in the unemployment rate in April despite the positive job growth.

Fewer job openings for job seekers also mean fewer interviews and it’s possible your once-sharp interview skills are now out of shape due to lack of practice. Today we have a guest blog from John Kador, author of the new second edition of “301 Best Questions to Ask On Your Interview” Practice these before your next interview, which will hopefully come before you know it.

Interview the interviewer: 5 Rules for Framing Better Questions

The landscape for job seekers today is more treacherous than at any time in recent memory. In other words, if you want a job today, you may actually have to work for it.

One way to really shine is by asking questions. Questions are the best way for you to demonstrate that you understand the company’s challenges, emphasize how you can help the company meet them, and show your interest in the most unmistakable manner possible — by actually asking for the position. These rules, excerpted from “301 Best Questions to Ask On Your Interview” will help arm you with new interview questions and techniques for selling yourself and getting the job you want.

Here are five rules for framing questions that will put you in the best light.

1. Ask open-ended questions.
Closed-ended questions can be answered “yes” or “no,” and begin with words such as “did,” “have,” “do,” “would” and “are.” Open-ended questions — usually begin with “how,” “when,” and “who” — create opportunities for a conversation and a much richer exchange of information.

This is a closed question:

Candidate: Does the company have a child-care center on-site?

Interviewer: Yes.

Open-ended question:

Candidate: How does the company support working parents?

Interviewer: Let me show you a brochure about our award-winning day care center located right here in the building. “Working Women” magazine recently rated it one of the top ten corporate day care centers in the U.S. . . .

2. Keep it short
Nothing is as disconcerting as a candidate spewing out a long, complicated question only to have the interviewer look confused and say, “I’m sorry I don’t understand your question.” Restrict every question to one point. Resist mouthfuls like this:

I know that international sales are important, so how much of the company’s revenues are derived from overseas, is that percentage growing, declining, or stable, do international tariffs present difficulties, and how will currency fluctuations impact the mix?

No interviewer should be expected to take on such a complicated question. If you really think a conversation about these points is in your interest, indicate your interest in the issue and then break the question into separate queries.

3. Don’t interrupt
Wait for the interviewer to finish the question. One candidate reported the following exchange:

Hiring Manager: I see by your resume that you’ve had six systems analyst jobs in six years . . .

Candidate [interrupting]: . . . And you want me to explain the job-hopping, right?

Hiring Manager: Actually, I was going to ask what’s one new skill you took away from each job. But since you mentioned job-hopping, I am concerned about your ability to stick with one employer for more than year.

Oops. Better to wait for the full question. How much better it would have been for the above candidate:

Hiring Manager: I see by your resume that you’ve had six systems analyst jobs in six years. Can you mention one specific skill you took away from each experience?

Candidate: You’re asking what’s one important skill I added to my portfolio from each of the jobs I’ve held, is that right?

Hiring Manager: Exactly.

Candidate: Good question. Let’s take my jobs in order . . .

4. Getting to yes
Your goal in the job interview is also to end the interview on an affirmation. In fact, the more “yes’s” and statements of agreement you can generate, the better off you will be. Why? People, including job interviewers, really prefer being agreeable. Few people enjoy saying no. Who needs arguments? The best way to avoid arguments is to say yes.

If the job interview features wave after wave of yes’s, think how much easier it will be for the interviewer to say yes to that last question, whether it’s asked explicitly or implicitly:

I think I’ve demonstrated I’m qualified for this job. I’d very much like to join the team. Can we come to an agreement?

In tactical terms, that means framing your interview questions so the answers you want or expect will be positive:

Candidate: I have long been impressed by Acme Widgets. It’s been the leader in pneumatic widgets for over 50 years, right?

Interviewer: (proudly) Yes!

Candidate: I noticed in the current annual report that the company sets aside $50 million or 2.5 percent of revenues for research and development. That’s more than all of your competitors, isn’t it?

Interviewer: Yes. We lead the industry in allocation of R&D by revenue.

Candidate: As the market for widgets gets more commoditized, the we will have to differentiate the product, right? What specifically is the company doing to preserve the market share it has gained over the years?

5. Use inclusive language
Look at the last dialogue again. Did you notice that the candidate subtly shifted from “you” to “we”? Words such as “we” and “our” subtly give the impression that the candidate is already a member of the team. The more comfortable the interviewer is with the concept of the candidate already being on the team, the better the candidate’s chances. It’s so much easier extending a job offer to someone who the interviewer on some level already perceives as part of “us” instead of “them.”

John Kador is the author of the new second edition of “301 Best Questions to Ask On Your Interview” (McGraw-Hill, 2010). He can be reached at jkador@jkador.com.

Original Article