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.

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)

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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The Day That “What You Do” Is Just That

"shape shifter" art by: "Thunderhands"

One of the things a job seeker who has been out  of work for a half-year or more learns to do is to “disassociate”. By “disassociate” I mean uncouple a former job title from the definition of the self. Please allow me to elaborate.

Many people will introduce themselves like this: “Hi, my name is Sean; I’m a mechanic down at ABC Garage”. Notice that a job title is used as a modifier in the statement of personal identity (like a little commercial for the company especially if the brand name of the company is well-known) as if  the company name is a part of personal identity. For a long time after the loss of a job, a former employee might say, “Hi, I’m Sean who used to work for ABC Garage” before launching into a tirade about being out of work and cursing the government official currently being blamed for it. After not having lived in an employer-employee relationship for over six months, that introduction may begin to sound like this: “Hi, I’m Sean Dannon, Angelica’s husband. I noticed you were alone at the punch bowl so I decided to come over and say hello”.

What is the difference you might ask? Disassociation. The more remote the last  workday becomes in memory, the weaker the emotional ties to that employment become. Making new possible work relationships feels less like betraying  the old workplace. The company name is dropped as a modifier of  personal identity. Notice how people whose job search has been longer begin to identify themselves by their own names plus the relationships that have meaning instead of the former job title tag.

The process of disassociation in the beginning feels something akin to a child’s separation anxiety on the first day of school. It can be so acute, it feels like choking;  imminent death; annihilation; non-existence. Once on the other side of this first stage of the  shape-shift, behold, “all things are become new”. The sun shines and there is something to get out of bed for.  The mere fact that day has come and being out of bed is what happens after a period of sleep feels “right” and “normal”. There is a day to plan. There is a looking forward to Life presenting her challenges, joys and surprises. The search for new work takes on a different meaning. Looking for work ever so slowly become less “the new job”  but just one of the tasks necessary to accomplish a certain goal. It becomes something on a “to do list”. This is sane, businesslike dispassionate disassociation.

About the same time or soon after the frenzied stretched-to-the-limit attention, “looking for a job is my new job” phase is over, “finding a job” falls into a new position in the order of things.  No longer queen, it becomes merely one part of the mix in life. Certain seekers begin to cast glances around and find out that “having a job” or being an “employee” is not the only way to do “making a living”.

Half a year out from the initial event of job loss, “what I do for a living” and “my person-hood” are two very non-associated things. This is actually a new reality. “I am me, not what I do”.

Related articles

• The problem with job titles (wall-notes.com)
• Work History questions (tonavicblog.wordpress.com)
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They’re Going To Find Out Sometime

Employment Exhibition (Photo credit: Modern_Language_Center)

My pastor hails from the West Indies. When he applied for employment back in the early 60′s his shining credentials and measured, well spoken British accented voice charmed them. “Come on in and see us. You’re perfect for the job!”, they would tell him over the phone. Then, he would arrive for the interview and the employers’ disgust slammed the door long before they could physically stammer out, “we’re sorry. The position is closed”.

My husband sold insurance in the late 70′s in Rhode Island. Potential clients, impressed with his professionalism and knowledge eagerly invited him to their homes, but when he arrived on their doorsteps they spoke to him through the crack above the chain on the door…if they opened it at all after getting a look through the living room window.

This is African American Heritage Month (officially called, “Black History Month” in many places) and I am here to confirm that in the early 21st century racism still persists in the USA. Racism, sexism, ageism, handicap-ism and weight-ism taints the job search for many, causing stellar resumes to suddenly be tossed into “pile C”. We discussed this earlier in the conversation about branding and image if you remember. There are still some physical features in prospective employees (otherwise called “job seekers”) to which some employers will react negatively. This is still a cultural reality which cannot be denied or ignored. Just a casual listen to some of the conversation in the current elimination rounds in the presidential election debates unearth clues to the existence of a lot of social unfinished business in the subfloors of this society. I weep when I pray for this country sometimes. Much pain. Much pain.

Some career coaches advise their clients against posting their pictures on their professional profiles because of the known negative response to some physical features. I remember my stories and still post my picture on Linked In anyway. I say to myself, “why not? They’re going to find out sometime so it may as well be now”. I stand with poet Robert Burns: “A man’s a man for a’ that‘” I figure there are two kinds of potential employers out there: those who think I would be a good hire and those who do not. If  the unalterable aspects of my packaging puts an employer off, I have to question if  that is a company I would want to work for.

Nobody should be surprised at what they see when I show up.

Related articles

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• The Resume is Dead – Again (onlinecollege.org)
• February is Black History Month – Black Women in America: Culture and History (dublinlibrary.wordpress.com)
• Maid in Jersey: Black History Month looks at domestic workers (nj.com)

A Recruiter’s Nightmare Applicant

Recruiters' nightmare applicant

Job gypsies are a recruiter’s nightmare

I was feeling fine until I went to a seminar featuring a recruiter recently. There the point once again hit like a hammer that job gypsies are a recruiter’s nightmare. I did not even venture to shake the speaker’s hand afterward.

When time is not on your side

Let us sit down face to face with our pot of tea between us and talk about this reality.  Some of us would do well not to fight hard, but to fight smart. This is especially true when barriers such as spotty job histories stare us down in derision at our audacity to dream of victory over them.

We are seeing a groundswell of effort these days–revolts and new laws to push back at companies’ nonsense thinking about the long-term unemployed. People seek to change the rules of the game to make them fair to all the players, not just the dealers. Still, the changes will not reach everyone, especially the hardcore unemployed. Gainful employment for all is not important to corporations and the governments they diddle. Will not the poor always be with us?, they say. To them a certain percentage of unemployment is even acceptable.

Ah, dear. I'll never place this applicant!

Work smart, not hard

Companies pay recruiters to find them the best talent they can get and the qualifiers for “best talent” include tenure of service. There is a pervasive belief that a person who has changed jobs three times in five years is unstable and therefore undesirable for whatever the reason. No recruiter will tie this albatross around their neck.

Some of us, therefore, would do well to go with either self-guidance or a coach and forget about working with recruiters until  work history proves the applicant  a safe bet or the challenge is surmounted another way. In any case, a savvy  job seeker must have a convincing personal answer for the hard questions in this area a recruiter will certainly ask. We are going to talk about alternatives in the weeks to come.

In the springtime of life, in the 20′s, outliving a not-so-great job history has viable odds. However, for an applicant in the harvest time of life, at 35-plus, the odds become friendlier with the house. A mid-career job gypsy’s best bet, then, is to work smart. That means to have great marketing and be very well connected.

School Does Not Care What You Did Last Summer

Keep your resume focused

We have been talking about what to put into the “work history” section, or “relevant experience” part of the resume located just under the “summary”.

When I was seeking work as a teacher, a teacher substitute or an instructional aide, I made sure all my teaching experience and education was in the “related experience” section of my resume.

I can say with confidence that since a teaching contract is seasonal, many teachers  supplement their incomes when school is out of session. Some teachers do summer camp counseling or teach summer school. I built a “shadow career” in retailing to fill the economic void in my household budget created by unpaid winter break, spring break, summer break and between-contracts.

Seasonal sales associate jobs lasted 30-90 days and ran in same years as teaching appointments.  I handled that on my resume by putting them in a separate section titled, “other experience” located below my teaching experience. I never mentioned it in the main body of work experience because quite frankly, m’dear, school systems did not give a fig about what I did last summer–except if it had a direct relationship to teaching.

Guess what? Likewise, retail stores could give a broken crayon about what I did in the classroom. Whenever I applied for retail positions, I put my teaching experience in the “other experience” section. That neat little corner of my resume served to help the potential employer fill in the holes in my Swiss cheese resume.

Poof! You have a new career!

According to the current trends, a good resume is on average two pages long. It should be  so solidly packed with directly relevant experience that there is no room for anything else. I am now career shape-shifting back into my authentic form–a writer. When applying for writer/editor positions these days, like magic both teaching and retail sales appear only on job applications where appropriate and not on my resume or my Linked In profile at all.

Why? Because a resume, once again, is a marketing piece, not St. Patrick’s Confession.   Everything must support the brand image.

What Are You REALLY Selling? Your Selling Value Proposition

The internet business world

“What am I really selling?…”

I dropped out of the workforce for one solid year to make a go with my spouse-partner as an internet retail marketer. The bonfire of our failure was brilliant, but I want to pull some of the valuable lessons I learned out of the embers for you. We are going to continue to discuss the SWOT analysis, but before we do, let us  build a reference point.

At the very beginning of a career marketing campaign, one question needs to be asked and solidly answered: “what am I really selling?’ The clearer the picture of what the real item on the market is, the clearer and more powerful a job seeker’s “unique selling value statement” or “selling value proposition”will be. Again, the career guidance field dips into the retail sales well for its language.

Here is the doggy bag I took away from a not-so-delicious feast at the e-commerce dinner: Fashion catalogs do not sell clothing, but a solution to a  customer’s need. For example, there was one formal length gown with faux goldfish strewn on its skirt I carried on the e-commerce site just before availability of bids for the  Presidential inaugural ball became public. I did not just tell customers it was a full-skirted, sea-green gown.  Through its description I led them into a fantasy of appearing at the President’s inaugural ball wearing it. I was selling to a well-heeled, fashionable power-sized woman who wanted to be seen and remembered at that party. Queen Boadicea was going to be the belle of the ball.

Who am I really selling to?

Central to marketing a package of talents and skills is knowing what need the product will fulfill in what specific niche. There are  customers for certain products of the same kind up and down in the price range. A customer who wants outdoor furniture could shop at Home Depot or at Front Gate, but the two shoppers may come from different demographics.  Dishes: shop for them at Target or shop for them at Tiffany & Co. Similar product/different niches, each marketed appropriately. Now, this drives the next set of questions:

• Who am I selling to?
• What is my niche?–am I Dollar House or am I Bloomingdale’s?
• What do my customers/potential employers need?
• What/which  product do I deliver to satisfy that need?
• Why should a customer/employer choose my product over somebody else’s? (Unique Selling Value)

This is it: people buy “value”, not just goods. So, when someone answers, “I’m an administrative assistant” (product name) at a networking meeting, what is she really selling? She is really selling order, stability, ability to handle different circumstances, professionalism, dependability, integrity, discretion, good crisis management, judgement, high level problem solving, project management ability, clear thinking, wise advice and the occasional cup of tea. These are needs that must be fulfilled by a manager’s assistant though the usual job description yaks on and on about “must blah blah MS Office products”.

pure mountain air

What a job seeker is really selling should be in that “Value Proposition Statement” in some form somewhere near the top of a resume. Selling value proposition statements seem to also have an honest, pure, naturally high density of key words in them. Almost sounds like a health drink for careers.