Can an interview coach help you find the right position?

Something I’ve always found interesting as an HR person is that everyone gets nervous for an interview, most of us do pretty poorly with them, and yet, at the same time, a lot of us think interview coaching is a big waste of time and we think we know what to do in one. If it’s a waste of time to have an interview coach, if we know how to interview - why in the world are we doing such a terrible job in them?

An interview coach helps people prefer for the Grand Inquisition - aka the job interview for the job we want. The name kind of gives it away! But it’s not just prepping us for how to answer the same boring questions we always have to answer. You’d be really surprised what services a coach can offer if you think that’s all they actually do.

Here are some reasons an interview coach can help you:

1. Do you get really nervous? An interview coach will help you practice until you’re confident.

2. Do you have a problem spot? Have you been fired before? Did you take a lot of time off? Changing careers? A coach can help you with messaging - and this definitely needs messaging!

3. Do you get a lot of interviews, but not many offers? That’s actually not that uncommon, but an interview coach can let you know if your average is off and can help you bump it up either way. You’ll find out if you’re overselling in your resume and letting them down at the interview, or if you’re underselling at the interview and not closing the deal.

4. It’s been a long time! Lucky you, haven’t had to do this torture in awhile! But now you’re back in the game and the interviewing process has changed. A coach will get you up to date.

5. This interview is for your dream job. Don’t let this one get away! A coach will help you land this for sure.

Interview coaching can take place in person, online, or on the phone. Typically a coach will do at least one mock interview and give a list of questions for the client to prepare for. They’ll provide feedback and then hopefully help you practice more. They’ll help you with body language, questions to ask of the company, and even work with you on how to dress appropriately.

The services of an interview coach can make the difference between a lot of wasted time in multiple interviews, or landing the job of your dreams in the first round. If you’re considering re-entering the job market, you’ll want to consider this so you have the upper hand!

TR Weekly Roundtable

Happy Friday, Talented family! This week we presented recruiters with 3 daily practices to elevate internal recruiting practices. How do our own recruiters incorporate the daily practices? Check out what our CEO Danielle van Asch-Prevot had to say:

"I love making sure I stay in touch with my network. One of my 2017/18 initiatives is to keep my network alive and breathing. I take about 4 calls a day that are purely catching up. It is fun to connect with people I’ve had the pleasure of interacting with before, and I love keeping track of recent successes, marriages, and other life milestones."

Thanks, Danielle! Do you have any daily practices you can't miss? Tell us in the comments! 

Have a great weekend, friends! Be sure to check us out next week - on Tuesday we'll be talking about the three mistakes people make when goal setting, and on Friday we'll be right back here with the weekly roundtable talking about our own goal setting methods and errors!

3 Daily Practices to Elevate Your Internal Recruiting Practices

At the very basic level, a successful recruiter creates the opportunity for talent to connect with their clients. So how does a recruiter make sure they’re doing everything they can to accomplish their job? If you are an internal recruiter or a hiring manager looking to add pipeline to a critical role, here are three things we do every day, without exception!

1. It’s all about your people. Phone calls and networking are essential! Set a goal to speak personally with at least 30 people every day. These can include prescreens, first interviews and touching base with your network. Make these conversations often and personal - how are their kids, their pets, and - of course - their jobs? Quick touches make the deeper conversations much less forced, more sincere, and FUN! Who wants to talk to someone boring about another boring job!?! At Talented Recruiting we love sending personalized notes when we can! Do some networking every day, and follow up when someone reaches out to you - this can be hard when you’re already so busy! Set time aside every day, even if it’s 30 minutes. You might miss a day here and there - you know if you miss one day, you need 45 minutes for the next two. If you are having a great call, don’t forget to ask for referrals!

2. Track your success. Know who you’re matching, how long it takes, and where the matches are coming from. Watch how long you spend on the phone and emails and social media. Track it all and find the patterns. Don’t abandon one form because others are better - contact is essential and it’s what this work comes down to. But focus your time on the most productive areas, and for those areas that aren’t as successful, hone your time and get the message to an art form! It will increase the success while minimizing the time you put into it.

3. Always improve yourself. There’s so much to learn - read the latest books, keep up with the latest technologies, and listen to the great business minds. You’ll never know everything and you shouldn’t let all you do know keep you from learning more. And this advice isn’t just about work! If you’re all work and no play, you won’t be at your best while working. Nurture your personal goals, get all the vacation time you can, enjoy your friends and family, and step outside of the office! Even when you have to work a little too much, find ways to make it fun. Love the theater and scored tickets to Hamilton? Invite a client. (We did, check out photos here!) Got the big table reserved at a hot new restaurant? Invite clients. There will be periods when you feel like you don’t have much work-life balance, and as long as it’s brief, that’s okay. Make the work fun!

So what are some methods and practices you use as a recruiter to meet your own definitions of success? What works and what has failed? Let us know in the comments; we’d love to hear what works and doesn’t for others!

TR Weekly Roundtable

This week we talked about how to identify our core values and find the right organizational fit for our values. Christine had this to say about it:

The blog post mentions grabbing a piece of paper and spending 10 minutes identifying your values. It’s a small doing, but I think there’s a lot to be said. For me, a few of my own values consist of giving my 110% every single day at work, clocking in on time, and owning up to my mistakes. I know this is what drives me, and makes me feel good as a person. When I write it down, it helps me focus on what’s important and helps re-affirm what matters to me. I don’t always give it my 110% at work, nor do I find it easy to admit to my boss when I’ve made a mistake. However, because I know these are my core values, I work that much harder to make sure I hit those core values the next time around.

As recruiters we have to practice what we preach, and we work hard to stay true to our own values so we can help our candidates find the right fit for theirs, and our clients define their values and bring in matching applicants. 

Thanks for checking in with us! Next week we'll discuss three daily practices to elevate internal recruiting practices - recruiters won't want to miss that!

Define your values and find your purpose

You can tell a lot about an organization by their values. The best matches are made when values align. If you are career searching, and are looking for meaningful work, there is no better place to start than by identifying your core values. Would you rather deliver exceptional work or is it more important to reach the project deadline? While a simple statement, it can radically change your employment experience from one that feels good to an everyday battle. Life is better when your personal values mesh with your company’s. If you value self-actualization, you might not fit into a traditionalist company. If you value fun, a team who focuses on rigor and long hours won’t be your dream position. Fear not if you don’t find a 100% match but rather a fierce complement; the strongest teams are built on diversity. Each unique mindset brings different experience. Abl Schools intentionally seeks a wide range of diverse backgrounds to make sure multiple viewpoints are represented in the product.  

To identify your values, grab a piece of paper and 10 minutes of time. What makes you happiest? What “drives” your work? How do you hit your “flow”? What work and personal accomplishments are you the most proud of? How are you most satisfied? For each of these questions, identify in both your career and personal life what you are doing and who you are with when you experience them. What other factors are present? If your proudest moment wasn’t the time you received some amazing award for a project you poured sweat equity into, and instead it was the recognition your team received for a small project everyone worked together on, guess what - you’ve just identified a key value. Perhaps teamwork matters to you over competitiveness or being the best.

Try to identify 5-10 core values in no particular order, combining any that go together easily (independence and fun could be adventurousness!). Now prioritize them. Focus on your first two. In choosing between challenge and support for example, would you go your own to do something no one else has ever accomplished, or would you seek stability in smaller challenges that keep you close to your network? Compare each one until you have them in a priority order.Do the highest values make you proud? Would you stand by them even if you were in the minority? You’ve found them if the answers to both questions are “yes.” Adjust as necessary.

Your first four or five values are the ones you’re going to want to prioritize in looking for a good organizational fit. Different companies will look slightly different with the same values, and similar companies may choose different values. You can also read a lot into a company based on how they present their values. Dropbox has five values, mostly centered on teamwork and work quality, but the fifth is a picture of a cupcake. Everyone loves cupcakes - but what does it mean? It represents a fun office. This is so unique - we all love cupcakes and who doesn’t want fun - but just the graphic instead of words is indicate of how outside the box Dropbox thinks. That’s a very informal and super-creative atmosphere. You should know immediately from the way they speak whether you’d fit in there or not. At Thumbtack, a platform that builds local economies by connecting locals with tasks to complete with professionals seeking clients, one value is “Go!” and two others are “[k]now our customer” “[m]ake each other better.”

Now that you’ve identified your core values, you’ll have a clearer sense of your direction and at which companies you truly belong and can provide value to - and don’t forget, you want a good match because the right company builds you as much as you build their product.

TR Weekly Roundtable

This week I sat down with TR’s recruiters and asked them their own thoughts on how they create a culture of urgency within our organization. Here's what they had to say!

Christine: The first is keeping each other accountable. Sometimes before I can execute on a task, I will need something from Danielle or vice versa. We utilize resources such as Asana to assign tasks to each other, and check-in calls to debrief on action items we need to complete. We’re a small team, so the things we do individually will 100% affect the other person, and it’s important we constantly check-in to make sure each person is carrying their weight and delivering results. Secondly, as a remote company, consistent motivation can be hard to come by. Sometimes, we will put off action items we know we need to complete. During these moments, Danielle & I will often call each other to verbalize what we need to do, and then do it together. Even if it’s miniscule, like staying on the phone with one another, that itself creates a culture of urgency in the workplace because you have someone keeping you accountable in real-time. It works surprisingly well :)

Danielle: Sitting on my desk is a mug that reads “Everyday I’m hustling”, and it pretty much describes my day. From the moment I wake up my schedule is packed. I tell my team that our job is like the game Whack a Mole. When we get a new client or opportunity to work on, the clock starts ticking to find our dream candidate. We know by the time we are on the search, our client’s product growth is stymied and their time is being wasted in the wrong areas. They need qualified, available and interested candidates ASAP.

Straight from our recruiters - our culture of urgency is fostered with constant communication. We know our clients need us now so we make every effort to deliver immediately. 

Have a great weekend, everyone! We’ll see you again on Monday, and you can check us out again on Tuesday, when we discuss how Lou Adler and his book Hire With His Head have shaped us as a recruiting agency!