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)

My Wonderful Life Between Jobs: How To Keep Going

I am the queen.

Of course one day the crashing reality must be faced. One must give a straight answer to the question: what have you been doing for two years since you last drew a paycheck? At first that intrusive, incredibly boorish question used to throw me down. That question is so lacking in class.  I remember when I first heard it I used to lie there and let the anger-embarrassment-sorrow pound me into the dirt and hope the whole experience would just be over quick. After that I could hobble away; pretend it was a dream until the next time. This was my life until something remarkable happened in my thinking. Something happened in my soul that changed me forever.What was I doing between jobs? I was living, of course. I was being me. What I do does not define me (see our talk last week. Scroll one posting back). With or without employment I am still me and that is important because I am an incredibly talented, worthwhile human being. Our humanity determines that  we all have intrinsic worth.

A person’s real worth is not her net worth whether she is a queen or a courtesan. It was only when I came to believe this  that I began to see myself as also a worthy employee or, why not, a worthy entrepreneur. This is the mindset that has to be in place within a job seeker before she can conduct an authentic search for work:whether I am employed or not I am a worthwhile person. I don’t even have bus fare right now, but I am still someone who is valuable and highly valued.This has to exude from within. Not a puff of light powder fresh from a motivational seminar, this is what will keep the job seeker continuing to be on top of the earth when all indicators point only to the futility, the uselessness and to the conclusion that a better position is to be among the dead.

I am the courtesan

Some call this the brave heart. Some call this  the lioness’ heart. Whatever anyone names it, this is the survivor’s heart.

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• Zen, Human Action and Universal Harmony (libertarianway.me)

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)
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• Help Kathryn come up with a job title (danpink.com)
• Disassociation, the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (theupsanddownsofmyworld.wordpress.com)

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.

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The Ugly Duckling Days Of Change

The Ugly Duckling

Change. Everybody talks a good game about change. Chrysalises of hopeful futures hang on every Christmas tree. They partly open in gyms and in clinics and in journals. Then about March, they fall slain by the struggle like early buds that freeze in an untimely spring snow. The “failures at change” have a pint of ice cream to console themselves and return to “what was” having given up becoming the butterfly.

Why don’t more people succeed at elemental change?  The truth is that change is not easy. Change is difficult. I believe it is the “ugly duckling effect” that many find so challenging.

Say, what? The “ugly duckling effect”?

Are you familiar with the tale of the ugly duckling? Allow me to revisit that story with you. I am telling my version of the tale I learned from Hans Christian Anderson.

A duck was going about her duty one season setting on eggs. She did what ducks do; what she had always done with all the clutches of eggs she laid season after season. However, this brood she was setting was unusual because one of the eggs seemed to be a little different. The mother duck ignored that difference and kept setting; kept going about her duty.

 

Right on time, as they did every season, the eggs hatched. One by one the little wet heads poked through their shells and in minutes they were all blow-dried in the spring air into bolls of yellow fluff with yellow beaks and feet–except for one–a boll of grey fluff with  a skinny black beak and wide, black feet. The mother duck was puzzled. She dismissed the “different” duckling as just a freak of nature and led them all down to the water for their first swim. They all swam beautifully, though she wondered why the little grey duckling dipped her head into the water so long. And her voice! She did not give a melodic “quack” like her brothers and sisters. It was more like a “honk” with a little broken squeak on the end. Ugly voice.

 

As time went by, this “different” duckling grew taller than her nest mates; even her walk was different: more upright off the grass. Such big feet she had. One day, her nest mates’ yellow fluff began to fall off their bodies and juvenile feathers appeared, showing the mark of their species.  Their sister did not have that distinctive stout neck and low, compact form. She was grey and gangly with a long neck, longer wings and a black mask across her face. “If you aren’t the ugliest thing we have ever seen!”, they hissed at her. “You’re hideous!.” Then they poked her; bit her and drove her out of the ducks’ area. The gangly, grey duck shuffled away to the next pond alone.

 

As the ugly duckling paddled silently across the water, she was startled by a family of neighbor birds. She hid in the reeds and watched them parade by. Behind some of the magnificent, white feathered adults were the fledging teens, preening themselves of their grey feathers. Behind some of the adults were small, fluffy grey hatchlings. “Ducklings?”, the ugly ducking thought. She looked at her reflection in the pond and saw that she looked like them. Immediately she swam up to the  ones who seemed to be her own age and hailed them. They drifted around her and giggled in their harsh voices, “You’re not a duck! You’re one of us–a swan. You must be our lost sister”.

 

They invited her to float down the stream with them. Eventually, she met her original nesting pair who were thrilled to see the daughter they thought was lost a season ago.

Trumpeter Swan-charleyharperprints.com

When fall came, the ugly duckling’s juvenile feathers were all shed and in their place were the feathers of an adult swan. She was all white except for a slender, black beak and a black band across her face, the mark of her family.

 

I told this tale to say this: sometimes job seekers change something about themselves to “repackage” or “reimage” themselves. It is part of a “reinvention” movement to craft a  younger, stronger, more active, smarter, more up-to-date image. People who are not in a job search mode tend to laugh behind their hands and roll their eyes heavenward at all this metamorphosis, I have read. No tea and sympathy from folk who think about the unemployed once per week–when the “unemployment figures” come out in the news media.

We job seekers change hairstyles and glasses. We color our hair. We buy new clothes (an inside change has really happened when we start to revamp our wardrobe). We “get work done”. Many of the changes have stages. This takes time.

We head straight into change. We begin to “shape shift”. The stadium of friends and family seems to be smiling and cheering for change in the beginning. It feels powerful when we first trot out our dreams and intentions, but that first rush of success does not last. Actually going through the process of change is a long, lonely stretch of road. Change is not a sprint, but a marathon we find out. Change exacts its fees in patience and pain. These are the “ugly ducking” days.

 

 The hard work of change is largely solitary and unrewarded. The unprepared become discouraged and fall away in the early stages. They who persist longer become tempted to relax the standards when the change regimen begins to actually challenge established patterns and habits. Believe me. I know  whereof I speak having made many, many attempts to loose ”baby weight” since 1985. The “baby” is married now, but the weight is still there and has gained company.

 

The real work of change is a period of discomfort in increasing intensity. There is so much pull to fall back into the older, more familiar and comfortable. This is why “change” is so popular initially, but so hard to really get done. This is why people tend to put off necessary change until forced to by outside events. At that point change mounts a coup and snatches the command position instead of being managed and controlled with dispassion, strength and mindfulness.

Interview And Style: Queen Boadicea Need Not Apply

Boadicea Queen of the Iceni ; program cover City of St. Albans pagent 1907

We have been discussing personal image for a couple of weeks. We continue with a dive into the subject of projecting the best image through physical presentation including personal style.  As has been said before, it takes more than brilliance to succeed  in these “revolving door” job times. We speak without a word with physical presentation–”packaging”. How an applicant presents physically can project an image that will draw a negative response or a positive response from a potential employer.

But, why in 2011 is the “first impression” thing so important? …because it is a vital part of professional image. Projecting confidence, competence and integrity puts an applicant on a firm footing to engender all-important trust based on truthfulness.

One more time with feeling: the present society pays lip service to the proverb, “never judge a book by its cover”. Prospective employers make judgements within seconds of meeting an applicant on the battlefield of the interview. The interview can be viewed as a battle as well as a game, you know. Image matters; appearance counts; this is a highly visual society; make the most of the outer, physical package to mollify any negative features/challenges.

How much does “packaging” count? Let us put it this way: If Queen Boadicea applied for a job today she would scare the dickens out of her interviewer. She was a fierce, natural leader distinguished for her mane of red hair. So was this lady spoken of in a blog by professional image expert Diana Pemberton-Sikes. This obviously highly competent, intelligent woman had some of the same queenly physical characteristics Boadicea did and had the very same effect on people attending her presentations.

Elizabeth I "the virgin queen"

Powerful women throughout history were not dismissive of the effect of physical presentation and some of them even traded on it.  My sisters, we are all queens in our own realms. Appropriate to the position, we are obligated to act accordingly and dress the part.

Here is the doggy bag to take home from this feast:

• Master the parts of your professional image in your direct control and make them your vassals
• Listen to Merlin (your image consultant/best friend who cares about your success) and your other “queen’s chamber advisors”–your “kitchen cabinet”  while you prepare to present in an interview.

For your a bit of diversion, I found this  movie clip depicting Boadicea’s most decisive battle against the Roman army.  I will not tell you who  won. History buffs will, of course, research to find out.  Music backing the silent flick is a hauntingly beautiful composition by Enya called “Boadicea”.

Here we will end of both Celtic heritage month and our talk about “packaging” and image for women.