Tricky job interview questions you’d better have an answer for….

by K B , updated on November 10, 2020

According to Ross Clennett, trainer to the recruitment industry, a good interviewer should not ask you job interview questions about your strengths and weaknesses.  Instead they should ask more pointed job interview questions where you, on the other side of the table, need to provide evidence.

Here’s his list of ineffective job interview questions and suggested alternatives. He calls his job interview questions effective. We call them tricky. Consider yourself warned 🙂

Ineffective job interview question: What are your major strengths?

Tricky job interview question: In your last performance review, what aspects of your work did your reviewer mention as being particularly good or strong?

Or: What accomplishment or aspects of your current/most recent work are you most proud of? Why are you proud of it and describe to me how you accomplished it?

Ineffective job interview question: What are your major weaknesses?

Tricky job interview question: In your last performance review, what aspects of your work did your reviewer mention as needing to improve the most to take your work performance to the next level, and tell me what you have done with respect to that feedback?

Tricky job interview question: How did you feel about that feedback?

Tricky job interview question: How did you respond when you received that feedback?

Ineffective job interview question: What will you do if your child gets sick during work time? (Also avoid: Do you have young children?)

Tricky job interview question: Because of the intense customer-focused and high response nature of this job (or substitute any other valid job-related criteria), it is extremely difficult for the client to be flexible with starting and finishing times between the core hours of 9am and 5pm. Does that present any difficulties for you with respect to any other commitments you have?

Ineffective job interview question: Where do you see yourself in three years’ time?

Tricky job interview question: What skills do you want to gain or improve in the next 12 months and what steps have you taken recently to achieve this?

If you haven’t properly prepared for your interview, reflected on your strengths and weaknesses, plus how you can support anything that you claim, these questions can trip you up.

Read Ross’s full article here.

Need to get ahead of the pack for your next interview?

Get our free e-book The 7 Deadly Sins to Avoid at Job Interview!

Deborah Barit wrote this book. She is one of Australia’s leading interview coaches.

To get your free e-book and some of our best interview tips direct to your inbox, simply click on this link.

Here’s what happy readers said about the e-book and interview tips:

“Deborah Barit is a very smart lady…She is good at figuring out what an employer is looking for. It’s like she has ESP, with her help in preparing, I found no surprises in a recent interview and I was prepared for every question….” Cathy, Leichhardt, NSW

“Because I read so many of your posts, I feel as if you were my personal employment coach. I start my new position in two weeks. I had so many obstacles to overcome and each day you posted a solution to my dilemma and how to improve my search. Thank you so much for your input and PLEASE continue to do what you do!”

Click here to get access to the e-book.

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How to network to get a graduate job

by K B , updated on November 10, 2020

One of the questions I get asked a lot is “how do I get a graduate job?” I’d always suggest that people push themselves and go along to a graduate careers day. Most of the large graduate employers have stands. They put their recruiters and the shiny new graduates of their graduate programs in front of their stands and set the talk button.

I mistakenly thought you could use these fairs for research purposes to get the low down on the company and what to expect from the graduate program.

But there’s more to it than that.

These things can also be major networking events, it seems. For this knowledge I thank two people – Naishadh and Susan.

Let’s start with Susan.  As a mature age graduate she knew that she would struggle on paper to compete with younger graduates who would seem to be a much better “cultural fit.” She knew she needed to get her face in front of people to have a chance to tell her story.

Susan’s aim was to get on the graduate recruiters’ “list”.  She cracked a few jokes, chatted people up, and asked a lot of interested questions. Then she told them her story. She dressed like she was already working at the company. The recruiters lapped it up, and wrote her name down.

The reason they wrote her name down is because they receive hundreds of online applications from people who sound the same on paper. They were looking for other ways to help them make a decision. The “list” told them whom they should look out for amongst the flood, that is who’d made the right personal impression on the day.

For some great tips on how to get on the list visit my friend Naishadh at www.resumesolutions.com.au. He’s written a great little e-book on how to make the most out of careers expos. You can read it here.

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LinkedIn tips – why I “think” I regret becoming an open networker

by K B , updated on November 10, 2020

One of the decisions I made early on in online networking was to become an “open networker” on LinkedIn. For those of you who don’t use LinkedIn, becoming an open networker is where you join a group and are added to a list of people who are open to connecting up with people. Other networkers can use this list to make contact with you. Three years on after becoming an open networker I have thousands of connections. Now I kind of regret it.

I say “kind of” because there are advantages to being an open networker. One is that it expands your list of contacts by the bucket load. That means you are able to research thousands, if not millions of people in your broader network. This is great if you want to use LinkedIn to understand people, where they work and how they may help you.

The down side of being an open networker is that I am fair game. Now I receive hundreds of emails from people I don’t know. Many of them have nothing to do with my business. People have assumed that since I am an open networker that I want to hear about their bridge building business in California or a great deal on grapes in Penang.  I’m in Sydney and if you’re reading this, you know what I do. It sounds bizarre, because it is bizarre. I am simply being spammed. While I received a few interesting emails among all of these, I’m sure many more good contacts have been lost in the masses.

For me, one of the few things to come out this deluge of emails, is a bit more insight on email impact and ethics. I try to understand how people communicate and how to improve my own communication. When I’ve read these emails I’ve realised how easy it is to all sound the same. If I open an email, it’s because it’s been a really clever or targeted email, and short and snappy, or the person sending it has “lucked on” a topic that has interested me.

With thousands of connections in my in box, I also find it hard to manage the masses. It’s a challenge to find people that I really care about and want to form deeper relationships with.  (If anyone reading this has that secret, please let me know. I’d really appreciate it.)

Another thing that I didn’t think about when I opened myself up to contacts is how other people may view this when they look at my profile. Many head-hunters I have spoken to say that they look at the richness of your connections and who’s in your network. With so many contacts I am sure I look either really impressive, or really indiscriminate.

My main take out of doing all of this is that I had hesitation about becoming an open networker. But I ignored my gut instinct.  At the time I didn’t have a good reason not to do it. I now know from working within online networking, Twitter and social media, that the community influences the way people use the forum. So with LinkedIn, many people have seen people hooking up and emailing each other, seeming indiscriminately and it becomes the “done thing”. It snowballs.

What I do know is that I’m not generally a person that works a room and hands out my business card to 25 people, even at a professional networking event. I prefer to chat to two or three people and get to know them. Open networking seems to be a bit like that spray can kind of approach. I’m not saying that’s wrong. I just don’t think that’s my natural style.

My main take out of all of this, is my networking style worked for me one way offline, so I  should have approached it that way online. Perhaps that’s a good rule of thumb for anyone, really.

Have a read of point five in this post by the LinkedIn guy. It’s very telling.

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Don’t picture your job interviewer naked

by K B , updated on November 10, 2020

Top tips on coping with job interview nerves

If you suffer from nerves in an interview, chances are you’ll have heard the advice: “just picture the interviewer naked.”

I’m not sure where this gem comes from, but it’s not very sound advice. If you do go down that path, at best you’ll be slightly distracted. At worst you’ll, ummm let’s just leave it there.

You’ll get that advice when people want you to relax.

It’s meant to humanize the interviewer and reduce them to someone you may relate to. But there are better ways to calm your nerves in interview than mentally undressing your interviewer.

Here are a few to get you started.

Understand what the job is really about.

Nerves can come from being in the dark.

So do your research.

I have written about this in quite a few other posts, but I feel I need to repeat myself this after this past two weeks.

I have helped two clients with government applications and selection criteria.

The language on the position description so was woolly, I had to ring the contact.

For the first job, the advertisement turned out to be different from what the manager had specified.

For the second job, the role was an IT programming role, however the way the employer had written the advertisement, made it sound like a project management role.

Big difference in the skills the employer requires.

If there is an opportunity to check what the role is really about, do so. Even if the position description accurately reflects the role, it’s hard to tell from a bullet list of responsibilities, which responsibilities are a priority.

A good question to ask the contact is “what will I spend the majority of the role doing?”

Something on the bottom of the list could be more important than what’s on the top of the list and a lot of what you read on a position description can be just fluff and padding.

Once you understand the job, think of examples of where you’ve held similar responsibilities.

Many interviewers now use behavioural interviews.

The questions you’ll be asked may sound general and you may be tempted to roll out any old example.

But the interviewers will be judging you on the relevance of the examples you present.

Leadership, for example, at senior levels, can be more about leading through others. That’s different from managing a team directly.

Pick examples that you’re proud of!

Read this post on body language in interview.

Your best examples will make me, as an interviewer, feel like I am in the room with you.

They’ll be vivid.

Your excitement in delivering them will be reflected in your tone, your mannerisms, and on your face.

Practice.

Don’t learn your lines.

You’ll never remember them, but do talk out your examples.

I say this because often when I coach people in interview skills, we do a mock interview.

The first time someone talks through a scenario, or an example, that reflection is really obvious in their tone.

Do practice, and if you can’t practice with a professional, practice in front of a mirror.

Record yourself.

This is excruciating, but it works.

James a very good friend of mine recorded me when he interviewed me for his blog.

He kindly pointed out that I said “you know” 27 times.

OK it might have been 47 but I’ve blocked out the number I was so embarrassed.

The thing about this is that I had zero idea I was saying this.

When you need to be believed, you tend to use words to seek someone’s approval. In my case “you know” was a shortened version of “do you know what I mean?”

Get a good night’s sleep.

Pull the interviewer into your bubble.

What this really means is that you should try and focus 100% on the interviewer and what they’re asking, without being slightly creepy about it.

Make the interview about the other person, not you.

So, for example, instead of concentrating on getting your sentences out on perfect order, focus instead on whether the interviewer understands you.

Try to understand the intent of the question that the interviewer asks.

Check their body language to see if they’re receptive to you.

The bubble idea is a much better trick than picturing your interviewer naked.

You really don’t want to share that bubble with someone you might find unattractive!

Need to get ahead of the pack for your next interview?

Get our free e-book The 7 Deadly Sins to Avoid at Job Interview!

Deborah Barit wrote this book. She is one of Australia’s leading interview coaches.

To get your free e-book and some of our best interview tips direct to your inbox, simply click on this link.

Here’s what happy readers said about the e-book and interview tips:

“Deborah Barit is a very smart lady…She is good at figuring out what an employer is looking for. It’s like she has ESP, with her help in preparing, I found no surprises in a recent interview and I was prepared for every question….” Cathy, Leichhardt, NSW

“Because I read so many of your posts, I feel as if you were my personal employment coach. I start my new position in two weeks. I had so many obstacles to overcome and each day you posted a solution to my dilemma and how to improve my search. Thank you so much for your input and PLEASE continue to do what you do!”

Click here to get access to the e-book.

{ 17 comments }

4 ways people have found a job with no experience.

by K B , updated on November 10, 2020

arrowYes you can get a job with no experience….

I write a lot on how to find a job. I talk a lot on how to find a job. I’ve helped a lot of people find jobs.

Over the past five years I’ve answered thousands of emails to CareerOne’s “Ask Kate” from people desperate to find a job, when they have no experience.

Yet when a friend of mine, James Evangelidis, interviewed me for his blog and asked me: “what’s the the number one thing people should do to to find a job if they have no experience?” I had to stop for a minute. Then I didn’t say “get your resume in order.”

I didn’t say get your resume in order as the number one priority because if you don’t have much experience a snappy resume will only take you so far.

You’ll be competing with hundreds of equally snappy resumes.

You’ll all make claims that sound the same on paper.

So how can you find a job with no experience?

There is no one right answer to how to get a job with no experience.

That’s because there are actually a number of ways to find a job without experience. So I thought a few small case studies might help.

Here are four ways people have found a job without experience.

Case study 1. How an Indian engineering graduate found a job with no experience.

One client of mine was an engineering graduate.

He had solid marks and some university work experience with one of Australia’s biggest miners. However he was  older than other graduates. He’d completed his masters and had a few years work experience in India. I suspected he wasn’t having much luck as his background didn’t quite fit the bill of “typical graduate.”

He went door knocking. He picked a light industrial area, where there were small to medium sized businesses and where he knew that if he dropped in his resume to the receptionist, he was one level away from the owner. So he knew his resume would make it into the right hands. He found his first job as a draftsperson this way.

Case study 2. How a public servant found a job in HR with no experience.

Another client of mine had a long career in the public sector, then she went overseas.

She wanted to work in HR but had trouble convincing anyone that her public sector skills were transferable. Plus she felt that she was being labeled as someone from the “public sector.”

She was sun baking at the beach one day and started to chat to the people next to her about what she had done. It turns out that they needed an HR Manager. The next week they interviewed her.

Case study 3. How someone who had a long break from the work force found a job with no experience.

A third client came to me a year ago.

She had had a long break from the workforce and spent a large part of that helping her child who had a disability. Her English was poor.

She was lacking in confidence, plus she wanted to work in accounting. This is a really tough ask without any experience.

This client volunteered in a tax agent’s office, joined a few social groups and read heaps of English books. One year later she came back to see me. We then put the volunteer work on her resume as a “real job” and the tax agent gave her a glowing reference.

She applied for two professional public sector roles and was offered both.

Case study 4. If you have no experience tell people you are looking for a job.

James and I interviewed 25 Australian employers for our book” “What do employers really want?”

We asked them about the strangest way they’d recruited someone.

The Director of one of Australia’s biggest manufacturing successes said that she had hired one person from a bus stop and one person from a service station. Both of them had no experience and both are now in management roles within her company.

There’s no simple moral to this story, but there are a few common themes.

All of the people I describe were active in ways that didn’t directly relate to their job search.

They were happy to talk to people and tell them what they wanted. They look trustworthy. They didn’t look like they’d sell their grandmother in her sleep 😉

My first client, by door knocking, was demonstrating things he could only ever claim to have on his resume – initiative and good communication skills.

My second client was an engaging listener.

My third client was prepared to do a number of things with one end goal, making herself more employable.

So if you do have no experience and you do need a job, one of the best things you can do is get out and get active.
Try to think of the ways your experience in the past can benefit your in the future.

If you have an iPhone download our new app, myPitch. There are real-life videos in there that show how you can pitch your experience to a potential employer in a very natural way.

Download myPitch here. The videos and examples that will be most relevant to you will be the graduate examples. Although they are coming from someone who is new to the work force, essentially they are good examples to anyone who wants to change direction.

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What to expect from a second grilling, sorry I meant job interview.

by K B , updated on November 10, 2020

I had an interesting email today. My emailer wanted to know what she could expect  from a second interview. She had a first interview with her potential direct manager. The interview was reasonably casual and covered questions around why she wanted the role, the skills she could bring, her salary expectations and what the role involved. She was then invited in to a second interview with a large panel. She was worried about going over old ground with the first interviewer who was going to be on the panel.

So what could she expect from a second interview? My answer was this:

The first interview sounds like, as we say in the trade, a “screening” interview. The interviewer sizes you up for a broad match. Do your basic skills fit? Does what you want, match the company’s offerings in both the short and long term? How much money do they need to pay? Do they like you enough to push it any further?

The second interview if it’s with a panel has to be structured. More than two people in an interview, without some sort of a script, spells chaos.

To prepare for the second interview, I would go back to the basics. You’ll have insights from the first interview. But think about what you now know about the challenges of the role. Then come up with some really meaty examples to show you have the skills. Talk through your answers so you sound confident.

For a second interview like this you probably will have some of the same screening questions. So just be prepared to answer them again. Be consistent. The first interviewer will have briefed the others, but you don’t know what he or she has said.

Don’t think you can’t go over what you have said. But if they ask the same questions about what you want, add a bit more. You will have gained some insight from the first interviewer about the role. So you can preface any answer with that knowledge. For example: “I understand from my first discussion with so and so, that you offer abc in this role – I have had a further think about that and this appeals because xyz”

That way you’ve shown that you have listened to what’s been discussed.

Interview panel members always seem to ask at the end of the interview “do you have anything further to add?” (As if they haven’t grilled you enough!) Most interviewees forget to tell people that they actually want the role. Give your elevator pitch here, by all means. But don’t forget to tell the panel you’d like the role. And sound like you mean it!

Need to get ahead of the pack for your next interview?

Get our free e-book The 7 Deadly Sins to Avoid at Job Interview!

Deborah Barit wrote this book. She is one of Australia’s leading interview coaches.

To get your free e-book and some of our best interview tips direct to your inbox, simply click on this link.

Here’s what happy readers said about the e-book and interview tips:

“Deborah Barit is a very smart lady…She is good at figuring out what an employer is looking for. It’s like she has ESP, with her help in preparing, I found no surprises in a recent interview and I was prepared for every question….” Cathy, Leichhardt, NSW

“Because I read so many of your posts, I feel as if you were my personal employment coach. I start my new position in two weeks. I had so many obstacles to overcome and each day you posted a solution to my dilemma and how to improve my search. Thank you so much for your input and PLEASE continue to do what you do!”

Click here to get access to the e-book.

{ 6 comments }

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