Tag: JobSearch

Franklin Paterson Company Inc., Your One-stop Career Boutique.™ for Professional Resume Writing, Cover Letters, Interview Preparation, and Career Strategy Consulting.

The Logic Bully

I heard from a former colleague recently who wanted to refer a friend. She said her friend was frustrated since he had attended twelve first interviews. But his interviews were not going well since quite a few ended early and abruptly. He felt no one allowed him to sell himself and sell his ideas. You don’t say!

On my exploratory call with the potential client, he explained his ongoing interviewing struggles and apparent failure to connect with interviewers and asked how I could help. After I explained our program. He volunteered that he had an excellent interview process and pronounced, “Here is how I would like you to approach my interview preparation training.”

He then told me how he would like his interview preparation sessions arranged and what topics should be covered. I listened to the entire schooling on how to coach job seekers of his level of experience. Then he ended with, “when are you available to help me practice?”

I reasoned that I should try to escape gracefully, as he was a referral. So I ventured that I did not think we would work well together since our approaches to coaching and communication styles differed quite a bit. Plus, since he was already using his process without success, I would hesitate to utilize his process and add more casualties.

Starting again, at some speed, he explained that he was a strong communicator with excellent people skills, areas of expertise, and achievements, etc. All the while sounding like the out-of-tune brass section of a marching band for whom noise is the thing.

We ended the call with the potential client offering me time to consider his proposal to coach him using HIS methods and a second meeting.

Sadly, in his effort to sell himself and his interviewing strategy, the client morphed into a “logic bully.” And in his self-centric drive to sell himself, he became a noisy communicator who deluges others with his processes, best practices, expertise, and riotous failure to stay on topic.

The colleague who referred him called a few days later, “Do you have any advice?” she asked. Then I remembered one of my mother’s pearls and offered: “Tell him to use the door handle. He doesn’t need to kick down every door.”  

Why your Charisma can Sabotage your Interveiw

As a Resume Writer and Career Strategy Consultant, I find that I am often screening for clients who possess some – “game.” Since a short, successful job search favors a candidate who can master and apply the rules of successful interviewing.

For example, a person’s resume may highlight that they generated a 60% increase in sales in a particular year. But, when asked about the overall sales goal plan or the previous year’s numbers, many candidates fail to give a clear, succinct process-focused answer.

Be wary if asked to discuss achievements and you experience a “high self-esteem, egotistical overconfident” moment- you could sabotage the winnable moment.

Charisma is often just self-absorption in disguise. And while its utility is unmatched as a brilliant one-act play in the short term, it is generally catastrophic when used to build relationships and buy-in longer term. 

If charisma, overly high self-esteem, or egotistical overconfidence can shipwreck your interview as a candidate, the same goes for the interviewer trying to size you up at the interview if they are burdened with the same attribute.

Be mindful as you extol your brilliance in an interview. Is the interviewer trying to determine the value you will bring to the project, or are they seeking to ascertain whether you are a solid pair of shoulders upon which they can climb to achieve success?

Sometimes it is charisma’s dazzling brilliance at the interview where the chat with the interviewer goes so well that the interviewer takes few notes of value. Consequently, the interviewer cannot deliver when it comes to selling you as the candidate of choice. All because your charisma and perceived personal magnetism got in the way.

So, be wary, success in an interview requires some self-effacement, and one needs to accept that interviewing is a shared performance. Candidates excel at interviews when they seek to gather information, exchange ideas, are flexible enough to remain quiet during parts of the discussions, and appear to take good notes.

So, while interviewing is theatre, remember that a masterful performance is not the endgame.

Why the key to a successful career may be our relationships with others.

The feeling that we must make up for time lost by job-related turmoil, or lay-offs, has heightened the need to rethink our careers. This career-changing hustle has pushed every working man, woman, manager, and manipulator to accept that a job change should future-proof your career.

The need to constantly keep an eye on the possibility of a career blip has made it difficult, if not impossible, for many careerists to use the most effective career management and career enhancement strategy, which involves developing career enhancement relationships with other people. 

Given the general feeling that everyone is now a competitor, people find it difficult to reach out to colleagues. But the fact is that people will help you, but it’s up to you to reach out to them.

Improving the quality and frequency of our interactions with others who are also building their careers increases our visibility. It can positively influence their perceptions of us as professionals as we share insights and reinforce our reputation as colleagues to be recommended for a job opening with their firm or as someone who can be recommended to others.

Participating in deliberate advice and feedback sharing can help us and others confirm that they are on the right track in their career moves. It can also educate us on the areas where we need to develop or gain further experience. Although many people are back at the office, far too many continue to maintain their WFH isolationist this is my space approach to interacting with their colleagues. As career strategists, we hear from clients that it is currently more difficult to share or hear of potential opportunities.

If change is the impetus to encourage inertia, a short-term contract role that isn’t your first choice may be worth consideration. Future employers will appreciate that sometimes individuals need to be pragmatic yet adaptable to ensure they can pay their bills. You will still need to show enthusiasm and perform well regardless of the interim role you undertake while continuing to look for your ideal role.

Share your career successes with your former colleagues, others in your professional circle, and decision-makers. Above all, try not to beat yourself up about accepting a lesser role temporarily and whether it will affect your career prospects; this thinking is exhausting and defeating. Try to demonstrate a willingness to learn and adapt; ultimately, you will be more employable and more likely to be retained. 

Is it dawning on you that your new boss may dislike you, or is beginning to regret hiring you?

So, lucky you, your dream job has materialized. You have just snagged a promotion, transferred to your dream job at your current firm, or started an exciting new job at another firm.

But it is dawning on you that your new boss may dislike you or now has second thoughts about hiring you?

Does your new boss call on other team members but pretend not to notice or hear your contribution? Or worse, your boss dismisses your responses? Do you worry that everyone is catching on that every interaction with you brings out the worst in your new boss? Are you baffled since your boss appears to interrelate well with everyone else on the team but you?

Fixing this problem requires courage and self-evaluation. Here are a few things to consider before setting up a meeting with your boss:

1.      Are you a transfer from another team or a new hire? Then re-read the job description, especially the soft skills required. Were you previously paired with talented teammates? Your new boss may think that you consider the new team a downgrade.

2.      Are your well-thought-out questions at group meetings viewed as an attempt to overshadow the team? Do you interrupt or correct team members at meetings? Does your boss make no eye contact with you at meetings? That is a reliable sign that they do not trust or feel connected to you.

3.      Does your new boss believe your last few projects were lightweight or used dated technology, so they are unwilling to discuss your ideas or input in a group setting?

4.      Set up a one-one meeting with your manager. Ask future-focused questions to show that you are not complaining but attempting to improve your working relationship. When a legitimate misalliance is mentioned, acknowledge it with a sentence starting with, “From now on, I will do X.”

5.      Address competency questions, and engage your manager regarding the areas you can improve and the type of communication they prefer.

6.      Try not to interrupt. Active listening will signal that you believe the conversation is safe and interested in change. Your boss will naturally begin to feel more comfortable with you.

Be calm and matter-of-fact in your explanation of your concern. Consider borrowing credibility by associating with others who already have your boss’s trust at the meetings, and forgo starting arguments.

As you work on your relationship with your boss and invest in your relationships with your teammates, your boss will likely notice your effort. And above all, remember that great working relationships materialize over time, so be prepared to put in some work and give it time.

Don’t try to change everything when embarking on your job search.

Most folks seek to change everything when embarking on a job search process. Many believe they will be more satisfied in a different work environment, company, industry, or even a different location. We seek a significant definable change as we embark on our job search, all the time hoping our change everything approach will fix what is wrong in our current work situation!

We also tend to dwell on the negative things that affect us and overlook good things. If you are anxious about a change in your career, here are a few things to consider before leaving your current position.

We often fail to go granular in our research of why the current job or the company is no longer a fit. For example, we do not consider the employment conditions currently working for or against us.

1.      Is it our discontent with the team politics or undercurrents of general team dissatisfaction? Or is it workload stress, undelivered promotions, low wages, unaligned vision/goals, or work-life balance? Is the lack of management support, training, or the increasing cost of benefits causing your unhappiness in your current role?  

 2.      It is a good idea to look at all these factors to ascertain the root of your frustration. Use what you learn in looking at these factors as benchmarks as you review and interview for new positions.

 We often forget to do a self-evaluation. Are you a top performer? If not, seek feedback from your supervisor or trusted teammates regarding your competencies. Then brush up your skills with the needed training or classes to beef up the skills that could be key for securing your next position.

 Here are a few other areas to consider.

 1.      Investigate the option of job searching within your current company. Job searching within your company makes good sense—research job opportunities within your company, its branches, or sister companies. There might be an opportunity at another local branch in other cities or states. Could this be the case for your organization?

 2.      Consider going forward in your career by going backward. How about job searching within one of your former companies? Is there support from former colleagues for your new adventure? This is vital, as many seek their next job through secure networking with former colleagues.

 3.      Plan out your internal and external job search; both can run in parallel. Develop and write down your goals, actions, and feedback steps. Track and evaluate your progress in these areas, and make reasonable adjustments to the “got to get out of here” timeline.

 4.      The job search process is often overwhelming, time-consuming, and sometimes devoid of favorable feedback. Breaking your job search into steps will help you identify and evaluate your progress or possible stumbling blocks.

 5.      Do a bi-weekly assessment of your outcomes, and commit to a bi-weekly review of your job search status. Give your job search quality time, and remember to nurture the other parts of your life, family, volunteer work, and hobbies.

Now may also be the time for an attitude adjustment. It is crucial to assess and monitor your attitude. Be methodical and deliberate in your job search and fight the temptation to grab the first reasonable offer because you are anxious to leave and are concerned about missing your completion deadline. And although difficult to admit, you may need to accept that while you are ready to make the job or career change, the emotional investment of your nearest and dearest may be bordering on ambivalent, disinterested interest.

Finally, be prepared to discover that job searching and career exploration can be a lonely business, so be kind, supportive and nuturing towards yourself as you hit unexpected bumps. As Neil Barringham, Mental Health Expert and Manager of A Place to Belong, once said: “The grass is greener where you water it.”