Preparing For The Interview: Indy-Goth-Grunge-Punk Style

Ready to rock, but at the interview, not.

“You never get a second chance to make a first impression”. True enough. When it comes to hair, makeup and physical adornments at interviews, there seems to be a theme running through much of the literature on the shelves and online: WATCH IT. There is a definite prejudice towards contemporary styled, neat hair, and  clean, hairless faces. For many of us that translates into these kinds of admonitions:

Keep the haircut conservative.

Keep the pink coiffed, bed head, and emo-black hair for the weekend–and don’t have any pictures of it on Facebook. Some ethnic hairstyles in the eyes of some executives still denote a rebellious attitude, so it pays to understand the corporate culture before showing up in dreads or twists. The grunge-y stubble that looks so great on George Michael might not be a good idea at the interview. Beards, van-dykes and other facial hair styles should be neatly trimmed. Women should not wear beards. Generally, arts industry professionals have much more leeway to express personal style in comparison with, say, bankers or Wall Street stock traders.

Keep jewelry near the face conservative.

Many interview advice comments I have heard from recruiters are along the line of small, non-pendulous earrings for women and no earrings for men. A woman with more than one piercing in her ears should decide which two to wear a small stud in. Generally, ear jewelry should not make noise or be a distraction. Believe it or not, large hoop earrings still have a negative connotation.

Hands should look neat and cared for; conservatively adorned.

Clean and clear. A man’s hands should be clean with neatly trimmed nails–all of them. Having a longer nail on the pinky finger used to mean a certain social status, but it does not translate well at the interview today. Likewise, a woman’s hands should be clean with neatly trimmed nails. Trade the robin’s egg blues and safety orange for closer to natural tones for the interview. For men and women, dial down the finger bling. That means Diamond Jim should wear one or two rings on each hand instead of the usual fistful. The same goes for Sophisticated Lady. One or two rings will do. Neither should be sporting noisy wrist wear.

I put on the single strand of pearls (good fakes that do not show wear) and ear studs with my suit. My artsy stone pendants  and talismans stay at home when interviewing for the corporate office. Never a sell-out in any sense, it is merely one more classic move in “the game” of getting the job.

Preparing For the Interview: The Sweet Smell of Excess?

My mother’s perfume

I love perfume. So did my mom. It must be genetic.

As a child, my merchant seaman father would come home with gifts of fragrance from around the world and I used to love rummaging through mom’s dressing table testing for treasures of scent. There in that alchemist’s collection of  mysterious bottles  lived the captured souls of romance  with names like “My Sin”, “Tabu” and my favorite, “Shalimar“. To this day whenever I can find it, I enjoy daubing on a little of the classic Avon fragrances. Perfume is the most affordable of luxuries and the essence of womanliness.

Most times, job loss  means shedding things to save money, so there is a sad, gradual loss or downgrade of items like hairdresser appointments, salon shampoo, new clothes, new shoes,  makeup, and finally perfume. If I am rendering the research correctly, the human sense of smell is the most powerfully evocative of  all the senses. One whiff of warm granny apples with cinnamon and suddenly there is a desire to run up the front steps of the “old house” two at a time. Caught downwind from “Old Spice“, tears well up as it conjures warm memories because that was “his” scent.

On an emotional level, I get it. One never knows what dreams or nightmares will be called forth in an interviewer by an applicant’s wearing a certain scent. Know, however, that scent is part of  image strategy. Beware. The choice of scent must be contemporary, tasteful, complementary to business wear/hairstyles and light. Wearing some scents that were popular a generation ago actually say, “frumpy and old-timer-ish”;carries peppermints in the bottom of her hand bag. Scent could give your age away in that case.

Dangerous drink, intoxicating perfume?

Then again, interviews  held in tiny, ventless inner  rooms dictate that neither recruiter nor applicant wear highly scented cosmetic products to avoid triggering allergies or the gag reflex. I have stopped thinking that the often given advice against wearing my incense woods-heavy signature  fragrance in interviews as another shameful loss of freedom in the USA and started thinking of it as a courtesy; like graciously not sharing  information too intimate for that venue. It might just be best to keep this emotionally loaded potion bottled up on the dresser until the ink on the new-hire papers is dry.

Gleanings on wearing scent in an interview or at work

http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/beauty/recipe-for-conflict-perfume-v-bo-20120501-1xwv8.html

http://www.volt.com/Blog/Should_you_wear_perfume_or_cologne_to_an_interview_.aspx

http://www.examiner.com/article/is-wearing-perfume-or-cologne-on-a-job-interview-a-bad-decision

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Preparing For The Interview

Ready to meet the queen

In thinking about the reasoning behind preparing well for the interview, I have to pass by part of the tale of Cinderella…

If you remember, Cinderella lived in a household headed by her widowed stepmother and shared the place with two step sisters. The king and queen of the realm where this little family lived had a prince who stubbornly remained unmarried which exasperated his royal parents. Invitations went out to all the eligible ladies in the kingdom to a ball where the prince would find and select a suitable bride (the royal couple hoped!). When the invitations arrived at Cinderella’s house, all the ladies began preparing for the ball.

In another narrative from the Bible, a certain king exiled his queen when she embarrassed him by refusing to appear at a party one day. To cure his equally embarrassing lack of a queen, this king decided to have eligible ladies brought to the palace for a contest to choose from them a new queen. The contestants were prepared to meet the king with beauty treatments given over an entire year.

Again, a prospective bride will starve herself into a smaller size, take up residence in the spa and spend thousands to make sure she looks her best on her wedding day.

One year to prepare for one night

How important is it and how serious a matter is it to consciously prepare for an interview? I am not saying it compares to the extreme conditions of contests to be a king’s bride or a fairy tale princess or even a wedding day, but preparing for the interview is no less a matter of deliberate preparation. Many people miss this point and show up at one of the most important events in life in almost laughable conditions. So, the first rule of the “corporate mating ritual”, or, the interview is, PREPARE.

The Ritual of The Interview:Before The Dance

Male peacock's mating display

In the last post, our discussion about interviewing parsed naturally into general segments  centered either around  “applicant states of being”, “gathered from the resume” or “don’t tell, don’t reveal”.  I have said in earlier posts that the job search is a game and games have rules. If the search is a game, the interview is its object and the best at the interview wins the game.  If the search for work is a hunt, the interview is its quarry and getting the job is the ultimate victory. The victorious hunter gets to “hang it on the wall”.

Everything a job seeker does points to the interview and once the interview is gained, another dynamic comes into play. This is the next phase. This is level two of the game. The quarry runs out into open field. In theory, interviews resemble theatrical auditions or panning for gold. The company is the panner and the applicant is the gold. The company is the art director and the applicant is the chorus girl. Applicants are the gold river and the company uses progressively finer sieves–many interviews– until the best two nuggets remain.

Again, for the applicant, the interview is the field for an intricate  mating dance ritual where several rival suitor-applicants vie with brilliant displays to attract the attention of the mate-company. The contender the company chooses becomes the new hire, the accepted  mate.

The ultimate object of the courtship is a marriage

Interview Red Flags

The Interview (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Danger, Will Robinson! This could be a bad employee!

It’s time to hop back into the discussion about the interview. It is a given that the seeker is at the place where candidates are in process of being chosen to compete in the great arena–the interview(s) and the seeker is one of the chosen.  After all, this is what all the hub-bub is about, bub: being one of those too big to pass through the “coarse sieves” of the “first cattle call selections” . Now the finer sieves come out.

Company and independent  recruiters give the thumbs down on the following  ”red flag” parade of behaviors–things that make a candidate look like a potential bad hire–in interviews. This list is a compilation of all the red flag behaviors I have learned to avoid. This wisdom is  collected from seminars, recruiters, online articles and many job searches. Of course, lack of contact information on the resume or an email address like, “honeylocust.com” reduces the chances of being called into the arena to zero!

Applicant States of Being

Did I really say THAT

• currently unemployed
• Mature worker
• Worker of different gender, race, color or weight than expected
• arriving for interview late
• disorganized
•  inappropriate attire
• out-of date appearance
• smoke/alcohol on breath
• perfume/cologne
• Lack of preparation
• nervousness
• over confidence/over familiarity
• desperation
•  negative attitude
• low energy

From a Quick Look At the Resume

• Out of date resume
• Mature candidate
• Pure functional resume
• long gaps between jobs termination(s)
• unstable job history -  “job hopping”
• social media reputation
• overqualified (setting your bar too low)

hauling emotional baggage into the interview

Don’t Ask, Don’t Reveal?

• Prison terms
• mental illness hospitalization
• “Monk”-isms
• conditions and health issues
• Child/Adult care issues

Yes, it might take a few posts to get through all of these, but I feel it well worth the time.

Related articles

• Do You Really Want To Know What My Real Weaknesses Are? (victoree.wordpress.com)
• 7 Steps to Finding & Hiring the Best Employees for Your Company (grasshopper.com)
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Notes From A Bad Teacher About Education Careers

Education Calculator on Notebook (Photo credit: nniknak)

Some people seriously consider going into education as their “encore career“.

Let me whisper something in your ear: fuggedabowdit.

Ask me what prompts that venomous phrase. I want to do my part in strengthening education by preventing one more idealistic, romantic  person with the wrong personality configuration from becoming one of the 50% of educators who leave the profession in the first five years of practice (and head off some chocolate OD’s and soggy-pillow-at-3am moments).

Yes, truly monstrous people continue to slip through the cracks and end up in education  judging from some of the  lurid stories in the news these days about abusive teachers. However, this is not that kind of discussion. This is intended  to influence people who ought not teach lower school grades to put the cap back on the pen before the application gets filed to any system anywhere. This is about the “rightness of fit” issue in the job search. I am lifting the example of early education because it is what I know, but the lessons can be widely applied to jobs anywhere:

when you don’t belong somewhere, you don’t belong. Move on.

In earlier posts this year there is a discussion about discovering the most appropriate place of employment. I collected the discussion in the section of the blog, “Victoree’s Shape-Shifting Job Gypsy Card Game”. Click on the tab  to review.

While re-doing my MBTI assessment with a professional counselor it finally dawned on me why I had so little success as an early educator. Education systems, like many other companies, slide up and down the scale of being candid about  fully disclosing why an employee “didn’t work out”. It seems companies rather go to great lengths to couch  bad comments on the “final report card” in vague terms, probably to deflect a possible wrongful termination/discrimination lawsuit.

The truth surfaced for me in cross referencing the results and finding several of the same traits  surfacing across several assessments, including the MBTI, skills, and strengthfinder2.0.  I came to the conclusion that I am basically unsuited for the lower school classroom. No shame.

The release of that shame felt like finally being able to wear a pair of jeans one size smaller. Releasing the shame might even make my dream of shopping in that lower-sized section come true! (You know stress makes you fat, don’t you?) I made a cowardly decision to look for “job security” and “normalcy” early in the job search and ended up in a place where I did not belong.

Wherever the ”ah ha” breaks through,early or late in the job search, give yourself a gift and let the revelation “work you”.

Related articles

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Do You Really Want To Know What My Real Weaknesses Are?

Nooooo!

In a word, no…

especially if the weakness is one that will  in any way negatively impact the company or the potential employee’s ability to do the job being interviewed for. Again, there are some things an applicant should never admit in an interview. Re-read that last sentence. I did not say, lie in an interview. I said, never present any weakness in an interview that will speak of the lack of an ability essential to performing the job. Why set up for failure? Interviewers ask applicants about their weaknesses to tease out several things, according to the headhunters and human capital experts I have met in my travels. When they ask this abominable question interviewers really want to know:

• Are you humble or do you take yourself more seriously than  you ought?
• How well do you understand yourself? Are you self-aware?
• Are you honest? Can you admit making mistakes and able to own up to it?
• Can you really do this job or is your resume a crock?
• Are your intentions honorable or is this just  a “one night stand’?

The next few posts will be a casual but serious discussion of the interview including dealing with the mystery of what to tell potential employers about things like Swiss cheese resumes, a stretch in the slammer, family care issues, and other “red flags” that give applicants and recruiters alike nightmares.

In one article I read entitled, “How To Answer the Question, What Is Your Greatest Weakness?”, featured below,I found one intriguing statement: “The questions you hear in an interview will reveal a lot about the mindset of the organization…”  It immediately sets up questions in my mind:

• Exactly what kind of weaknesses pose the biggest threat to that company?
• How is my kind of weakness going to bless or curse the company?
• Is there already a full complement of my kind of nut in the tree?
• is one of those nuts going to end up being my supervisor?

They hired my brother!

This suggests to me that if job seekers empower themselves they can take the body of questions corporations ask in interviews together and read them like tea leaves to find things out about the company what should be known before saying yes to a potentially toxic or abusive work relationship. 

• Candidate Tool Kit, Part 1: Interview Do’s and Don’ts (govigseniorcare.wordpress.com)
• Ten Things Not To Say During An Interview (therantingrecruiter.wordpress.com)
• Your Achilles’ Heel(s) (caitlindurkin.wordpress.com)
• What Questions Should I Be Ready to Answer at Just About Any Job Interview? [Ask Lifehacker] (lifehacker.com)
• 5 Things Not to Say in a Job Interview (money.usnews.com)
• Feb 16, 8:27pm “Good Interview, but unwanted job” (ilovemycrazyboss.wordpress.com)
• How to answer “What is your greatest weakness?” (patchspace.co.uk)
• 21 Things Hiring Managers Wish You Knew (sweetbriarcareerservices.wordpress.com)
• The Mystery Of The Interview (dougnewmanpro.wordpress.com)
• 15 Biggest Job Seeker Mistakes (frankcrumstaffing.wordpress.com)
• Interview Rules to Break (cmcacorner.com)
• Candidate Tool Kit, Part 1: Interview Do’s and Don’ts (govigseniorcare.wordpress.com)
• The Trick To Answering ‘Trick’ Interview Questions (personalbrandingblog.com)

Meditation at Equinox: A Job Seeker’s Rite of Spring

Image via Wikipedia St. Patrick's Day Parade, Dublin Ireland

Rite of Spring California farmer applies fertilizer to his farm

Spring approaches! Having made the daylight time adjustment (hopefully) we are sidetracked with wonder at the outburst of color and life everywhere. Personally, I begin dreaming in the Aisles of Michael’s Craft Store and  dive into a little “default activity”: crafting spring-themed wreathes and arrangements to cheer myself up after the seemingly endless grayness of the past season. Sometime during the week of St. Patrick’s Day, I clean out my closets and put my warm  winter interviewing suit away for the season (it’s one of those personal  rituals that helps me keep track of the passage of time without the artificial fixtures–like counting down the days to vacation– usually given by employment. Creating these personal time keepers is one of the other things that happen after 1/2 year of non-employment).

It is time to quicken winter’s snow-encumbered pace; to clear away the winter-kill of past failed projects; to lay out  new gardens and plant fresh seed of an effective search. Last season’ lessons  informs this season’s efforts. Some ancient cultures called this “horse back season” too, because it begins the time when plans for conquest and acquisition laid in winter’s cold can now be acted upon. A few centuries ago, a land owner would ride throughout the property to review the condition of the real estate holdings while collecting rents in person. Battles were scheduled to be fought. So it is with the job hunt.

Equinox is a point in the cycle of the year where the hours of  daylight and darkness balance. From that point, the light advances, becoming longer and stronger into the decadent  high productivity days of summer. If there was any time to “work your plan” this is it. Taking a lesson from the early rising bees, we know in our aching bones that all the hard work will pay off somehow at harvest time.

Beloved Eire

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Just Being Me: “Default Activity”

a featured illustration from Shay's Word Garden on Blogspot

Some people actually cannot imagine themselves alive on earth having nowhere to go every day that promises a monetary reward at the end of a week. It was from graduation to first job. No space between. It is simply mind-boggling for some folk to consider there could possibly be other places to be during the day and none of them involve parking on the living room sofa watching daytime TV.  ”Being me” happens in the spaces not filled up by “the job”. Satisfying the need for a more meaningful life while having a low-paid, boring job causes this space.”Disassociation” from a former job will open more of this space too.

When I'm not working, I'm at...

Let’s play a game.Pretend suddenly you flew off to your favorite place to be; the place that could be called your “second address”…a place where if anybody goes there, they would find you. Are you there? Answer me honestly from where you are hiding. MARCO!

Who said, “POLO!”?

Found you. I know where you are. After the initial drama of joblessness, what might begin to happen is a rediscovery of joyful activity engaged in before there was any thought about paid employment. I call that “default activity”. For some, this kind of activity is laced up tightly into weekends and often called, “hobbies”. For others, it is what one naturally turns to when the day is over. It is what people do to “decompress” or “unwind”. Another word for it is “pastime activity”. Some people take chunks of time to do special projects like teaching kids to read in another country. Still others are gaming, treasure hunting, cooking, painting, sitting in front of the fridge inhaling more than the fragrance or on the dock of the bay “watching the tide roll away”. Default activity. It comforts; it relaxes; it probably started in childhood and it is organic to the personality. After the six-month anniversary of joblessness, default activity might be just the ticket to realign the soul with  authentic purpose. Who knows where a default activity might lead? A business, ministry and yes, a new career, may suggest itself that way.

SHAPE-SHIFTING: A JOB SEEKER BECOMES–HOW THE PROCESS HAPPENS

http://depression.wikia.com/wiki/Clinical_depression

Last time I told a little tale about “disassociation”, my view of what begins to happen as a former employee has less and less contact with the former job over time. I said that ex-employees slowly begin to think of themselves in terms other than associated with the company. The morph begins here. Some people, extroverts especially, begin to show withdrawal symptoms from mild to severe from the instant social network that the old job used to provide so finding a new job might in reality be an attempt to quickly end the uncomfortable position of not having a social “nest” to be in. The introvert may show withdrawal brought on by the absence of a “place to go every day”;  the background noise of the old job in another way. However, since the greatest problem for an introvert might be “invisibility” on the job (what do you DO here anyway?), the task of finding a new place with the right background noise is agonizing and tiring because of suddenly having to talk  so much to so many new people. Please put an end to this agony quick once again.

Six months later, however, in some job seekers‘ heads  attention and interest begins to wane. It may take more effort to keep focused on the passion As the “old work identity” begins to dissolve like an Alka Seltzer tablet. The dispossessed, disincorporated former employee begins the real search for a new home; a new body,  I would say. This is stage two of the shape shift; a place where the seeker is not what she was nor what she will be.

As I remember, this was the place in the process where my self-image imploded. I tried on jobs and titles one after another and became increasingly frustrated because none of them felt “right”. Questions about where exactly I fit in society got me out of bed at 3:00a.m. for weeks. Nothing is more stressful than to have to put some title, any title on a resume. Nothing is more mortifying than stumbling through a makeshift answer to “what do you bring to the table?”, another form of , “tell us about yourself”. What belongs in that blank space? Nobody I knew had any answers. I was expected to figure it out on my own as most good career counselors usually recommend. What do you really want to do? What is your real basic passion?

But, “figuring it out on my own” takes time. So much time without a landing target frustrates networking partners because to them it  looks like a lack of focus or seriousness.  It seems so much easier to just stumble into yet another short-term “throw away” job. End the pain fast. Never face the real question. Hide from the real answer. The next step is life or death: stay a formless blob or snatch up the courage to participate in creating the new reality; making the new body.

That is the place where I ran out of tears. I decided to become myself.

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