Job Interviews With Dummies

That was the experience of one reader, who posted the comment below. 

If you’ve ever dealt with half-wits in your job search, read on for ideas to help unlock your creativity and solve the problems you will inevitably face.

Because, as they probably say somewhere, don’t get mad — get hired …

Dear Kevin,

I appreciate your advice about responding to rejection.

I am wondering what I should do in this situation:

I live in Michigan and this has been such a difficult time for our state. I have been unemployed for over 8 months now.

The economy here has been terrible here for several years, and it’s tougher to find a job than ever before.

I had an interview last Friday with a PR firm for an Account Exec position. The main partner got stuck in traffic and couldn’t make it. I ended up meeting, very briefly, with the other partner for about 5 or 10 minutes, while we waited for the other person to show up.

I hardly had a chance to talk about my qualifications or anything I could add to the company, after which, I waited in a conference room for almost 40 minutes, alone.

Finally, they said that the other partner was not able to attend. I wrote a thank you email to the man I did meet with within two hours of my interview, thanking him and letting him know that I was very interested in the opportunity and that I looked forward to continuing our discussion when we could all reconvene. He emailed me back and thanked me for my time, then said they’d be in touch (nothing concrete).

I called Monday and left a message with the person who set up the original interview, letting her know I would like to reschedule.

It is now a day later, and I still haven’t heard anything from them.

What would you do at this point if you were in my position? I don’t want to be a pest.

Thanks in advance for your help.

– Anne

Dear Anne,

These people are either total jerks or totally inept at communications. My hunch is you won’t want to have them as bosses.

That said, if your research, network contacts and gut tell you that this is a place you’d still like to work, you’ve already done more than most candidates would do to follow up, so try something creative to get back on their radar.

Here’s an idea: You said the other partner never showed up, which means you met with only half the team.

Why not print out whatever PowerPoint presentation, case study or information you wanted to share with both partners, but weren’t able to.

Then, rip it in half, from top to bottom, so they can’t read any complete sentences but do get a sense for the size and scope of your material.

Mail or courier one half of the material to the partner who never showed up, with a note that says, “Sorry we weren’t able to connect on Friday. I met with only half your team, so I couldn’t explain all the many reasons why hiring me would be such a terrific idea. Here’s one half of what I wanted to show you — please call me today at 313-222-7777 to arrange a meeting when I can deliver the rest of the story.”

To take it a step further, you can tape one half of a dollar bill, along with a P.S., at the bottom of your letter. Write this: “To avoid traffic headaches like you ran into last Friday, we could meet at a central location. How about the Starbucks at 123 Main Street? Here’s a down payment on the gas you may use driving over — please call 313-222-7777 to arrange to meet me for the other half.”

If they don’t reply to that, they won’t reply to anything. You can then file that company under “Half-Assed” and move on.

Now.

How can Anne’s situation help you?

Here’s the big idea: Inside every problem is at least one key to its solution. Your job is to find it.

For Anne, the key was one half — that’s all of the hiring team she was able to meet with. I used this ”half” theme to develop her follow-up materials. You can do this, too.

Here are two examples of how to find the keys to solving problems in your job search.

Example #1: Let’s say your problem is emailing your resume to employers. Did they get your email? Was it vaporized by a spam filter? You don’t know.

So, why not print your email and mail it to the employer, with a note that ends, “P.S. — I’m sending you this ‘paper email’ to make absolutely, positively sure of getting through your spam filter.” (You may laugh, but I’ve used this method to reach busy authors and company presidents — it works.)

Example #2: The job application asks for writing samples, but you don’t have any.

How about this: Call executives in the company you’re applying to (or their competitors!), say that you’re writing a freelance article, and interview them about a hot topic in their industry. Then, the writing sample you submit will be all about the company you’re applying to! (Don’t laugh here, either — one of my clients is doing that this week.)

So, if you have job-search problems, join the club. You can lie down and let them run you over. Or you can look inside your problems for keys, until you unlock the solutions – and get hired.

Note: For faster results, and to get direct access to me for help in solving your job-search problems, check out my Simple Job Search Home Study Course.

------------------------------

Spread the Word:

 digg this  del.icio.us  Technorati  Blogmemes
 Ask Jeeves  Furl  Reddit  Rojo
 Simpy  Spurl  Socialize It  Earthlink
 Google  Netscape  Windows Live  Yahoo

------------------------------

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 at 12:22 pm and is filed under job interviews, job search tips. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.