5 Things I Look for in a Great Job Interview

Here is what separates a good candidate from a great one.

By Matthew Swyers |  @TrademarkCo   | Jan 16, 2012

In my career I have reviewed thousands of resumes and conducted hundreds of employment interviews for both The Trademark Company and other businesses for which I have worked. In doing so, I got to see the good, the bad, and the downright ugly in terms of resumes, interviewing skills, and the like. For other CEOs looking to hire, here's what I think makes a great candidate stand out from the good ones.

1.  Attention to detail

How many times have you heard this one, right? Pay attention to detail. Let me say it again: PAY ATTENTION TO DETAIL!

There’s a great story at the end of the movie Coming to America with Eddie Murphy. It goes something like this:

A man goes into a restaurant. He's having a bowl of soup and he says to the waiter, “Waiter come taste the soup.” The waiter says, “Is something wrong with the soup?” He says “Taste the soup.” The waiter says again, “Is there something wrong with the soup? Is the soup too hot?” The man says again, “Will you taste the soup?“ “What's wrong, is the soup too cold?" Replies the waiter.  “Will you just taste the soup?!”  “All right, I'll taste the soup,” says the waiter, “where's the spoon??” “Aha. Aha! ...”

At this point you may be asking yourself, “So what does this have to do with identifying a great candidate?” 

Not less than two months ago I received a wonderful e-mail from an applicant seeking to work for The Trademark Company. The e-mail was personally crafted. The note struck a wonderful tone emphasizing capability and a willingness to learn more about what we do here. Most importantly, the candidate emphasized attention to detail. I was sold. I was ready to open up the resume and see what they had to offer. And then, “Aha. Aha! ...”

The applicant had failed to attach a resume. In the blink of an eye, all of the time spent preparing for this submission--researching me, the company, and the job’s requirements--vanished into thin air. Poof! 

Some CEOs may have overlooked this and just asked for the resume. But you can’t say you have an eye for detail and then fail to deliver on the point. Everything job candidates do, from cover letter to resume and beyond, must prove that point. Otherwise they are just wasting your time. I passed on that candidate. 

2.  Proofread

My contracts professor in law school told this one to the class one day. Although he was an otherwise socially challenged individual, this story has always stayed with me.

It seems that at some juncture he was involved in delivering a speech on some topic that involved a “public option.”  He had written and prepared the speech but had left the PowerPoint slide presentation to one of his assistants.

Well, as he began delivering his speech–a seemingly dry speech–he could not understand why a wave of chuckles and murmurs would, from time to time, arise from the audience. It was not until he neared the end of his presentation that he glanced up at the screen projecting the bullet points of his speech behind him. And right there, right in that moment, he understood with perfect clarity why his speech had evoked the unexpected reaction from the crowd.

If you omit the letter “L” from the word “public,” it won’t be flagged by spell check. It will, however, be picked up by anyone else reading the slides as you deliver your speech on the “pubic option.”

This could very well be you at your next sales presentation: pissed and embarrassed because you overlooked your employee's failure to proofread his resume during the hiring process. So, check the candidate's resume and cover letter for misspellings that spell check might have missed. In so doing you will make sure that you hire someone that's thorough and doesn't rely on spell check to do their job.

3.  Preparedness

One of the first things I always do after an interviewee leaves is to ask every single person who came into contact with them what they thought. Why you might ask? You never know what little windows into your prospective employee this may provide.

Once I asked one of our receptionists what she thought of a particular interviewee. I was very surprised to hear what she had to say. She said she thought the interviewee was pleasant but did have some trouble when she first arrived: It seems that the prospective employee had no idea who she was interviewing with, so the receptionist had to call around the office for 10 minutes until she could figure out who to notify that their appointment had arrived.

I thought this displayed a lack of preparedness on the interviewee’s part, especially as she was interviewing for a job that had primary scheduling responsibilities for me and would require her to know and keep track of all of our most important customers.

In another case, after a 45-minute interview the interviewee stood and said, “Mark, thanks for the second interview.” Big problem: My name is actually Matt. Nevertheless, I shrugged it off--perhaps I had misheard the applicant, or maybe he had simply had a momentary lapse. However, when I walked him to the door he proudly reiterated my name, “Mark, again thanks. I look forward to hearing from you.” Every fiber in my being yearned to reply, “Well, if I meet this Mark fellow, I’ll be sure to have him call you.” I did not. I also did not call him back.

A candidate should know everything about you that they can find out and engage you on a level that you will enjoy and that moves you one step closer to offering them the job.

4.  Phone and e-mail correspondence

Another thing that also gets overlooked is professionalism in e-mail and phone communications. I pay attention to the candidate's e-mail address and how they answer their personal phone.

Sure we all have private lives, but we all have to be professional in dealing with employers--and, most importantly, prospective employers. So if a candidate's e-mail address is "bigsexy@gmail.com" or “hunkaburninlove@yahoo.com,” think twice about hiring him. Gmail, Yahoo and other companies have a great price point for new e-mail addresses: free. There's no excuse for not having a professional-looking e-mail address.

For me, an interview starts when I call you to set up the interview. Recently I called an applicant, and they must have been at a the reunion tour of Van Halen--because when the candidate answered, all I could hear was “Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love” blasting through my phone. I mean, it was so loud I could actually see people in my office starting to bob their heads to the tunes.

After a few attempts shouting into the phone--“Is [Name Omitted] there?”--finally the music departed and I was able to hear once again. The heads stopped bobbing in my office and the person on the other end said, “Speaking.” Ahhhh. Well, I know they love music...and that they lack judgement.

5.  Honesty is overrated

Yes, you want your potential employee to answer questions truthfully, but answering too truthfully may also show a lack of judgment. For instance, I often ask the hypothetical question, "If you were hired and six months after you were hired another opportunity presented itself, would you go on an interview for that opportunity?" You would be surprised at how many people say they would. Wrong answer!

Let’s take one of my more infamous examples. Once I was asking a prospective employee to explain an 18-month gap in his employment history. To this day I remember his response verbatim. It went like this: "Man, the whole work thing ... ya' know ... like, wow."  I was left mouth agape and speechless. Needless to say: He did not get the job.

Volunteering - A Great Way To Learn Real Executive Leadership

Karl Moore, Contributor

One of the most powerful ways for younger managers to understand and experience the type of leadership needed for the C-Suite is to do volunteer work early in their careers. This is because the type of leadership at the top is akin to being a leader of volunteers, it is not about carrots and sticks but about persuasion and getting people to grasp and follow your vision.

This is written with Richard Pound.

It’s an irony of modern corporate life, but one of the greatest challenges in motivating employees to sustain strong business performance is to make them feel like there’s a larger purpose to their lives than just meeting financial goals and this need is only getting strong with the younger generation, the Postmoderns. Although business success and the raises, bonuses, and perks that come with it are intrinsic motivators, money and corporate extras aren’t everything for most people.

Having corporate programs that encourage employees to work as volunteers for organizations in their community are one way to offer an extra corporate benefit that makes employees feel pride and satisfaction, and makes them happier and more productive workers. Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com, promotes what he calls “the 1 per- cent solution”: 1 percent of the company’s equity, 1 percent of its profits, and 1 percent of its employees’ paid work hours are devoted to philanthropy.  Software maker SAS, which has for years  been among the Top 20 in Fortune’s annual list of the 100 best companies to work for, offers a volunteer initiative that lets employees use flexible schedules to take paid time off for projects in the community, or even work in teams with their managers on a volunteer effort during business hours.

To our minds, though, volunteer work isn’t just an outlet for employees in search of more meaning in their work lives; it provides an excellent way to prepare for a senior executive position. By volunteering for projects in nonprofit organizations, experienced executives can hone their supervisory and leadership skills, and aspiring executives can gain the experience and networking opportunities that could lead to plum positions in the company.

Permission Leadership

The management environment in volunteer organizations is often extremely challenging. Without the compensation and organizational authority to keep their teams productive and working toward shared goals, volunteer managers must be adept leaders and persuaders as they tackle all the same management issues they face in their corporations: setting objectives, developing strategies, raising and allocating funds, motivating and guiding people, and complying with regulatory structures. Because corporate managers volunteering in nonprofits don’t have titles to define their positions, they have to practice what some call “per mission leadership.” That is, they have to earn the trust and respect of the people they are supervising. Also, they need to do all this with what are usually much more limited resources than what they are accustomed to in their ‘real jobs’, which often requires significant creative skills.

Executive awareness of social issues, and of the needs and characteristics of different socioeconomic groups, is also sharpened through volunteer experiences. This is important for corporate managers who must increasingly reconcile the various, and often conflicting, demands of a multitude of stakeholders and special interests, many of which they may not completely understand. Volunteering in nonprofits isn’t just a charitable act; it’s a way for executives to hone their management and leadership skills.

For younger managers, nonprofits offer rare chances to learn intangible leadership skills, such as persuasion and mediation. With recreational, religious, political, or social organizations, a manager also has the opportunity to meet and establish friendships with people from a variety of backgrounds and vocations. For younger managers, a stint in a nonprofit organization provides rare chances to socialize with senior executives and work closely with them to learn intangible leadership skills — such as persuad ing others to follow your vision, mediating between conflicting parties, addressing workers’ concerns and insights, and knowing when to spur a team to action and when to let the team relax. Senior, financially secure executives who donate their time and energy with enthusiasm are role models for younger executives.

Incentives and Support

If helping others and the community is undertaken purely for the opportunity to network, the full and lasting meaning of volunteerism is missed. Some people who approach it with this attitude will surely lose interest. Still, many of those who start out as volunteers merely to add a credit to their CV begin, in time, to grasp the bigger picture. Even with all of the advantages of volunteerism — it’s good for society, companies, and employees — many employees still resist getting involved. Their main objection is that they don’t have the time to volunteer and do their “day jobs.” Or they say volunteering is not appreciated at their companies, and it certainly is not viewed as a way to climb the corporate ladder.

In fact, some employees feel that by volunteering, they are potentially derailing their chances for a promotion because of the time they’ll spend out of the office. Because of these attitudes, there is a growing recognition in both the public and the private sectors that corporations need to be more proactive in promoting employee volunteerism. To do this, companies must freely provide time off for participation in volunteer programs; publicly acknowledge, either with promotions or awards, employees who volunteer the most and do it successfully; and set up mentoring programs in which senior executives work with employees in one-on-one sessions to help them navigate obstacles that arise during volunteerism. Karl’s old firm IBM, has set up a program for high potentials where they go and live for several weeks in another part of the world and do volunteer work in dramatically different societies than their home country, a great idea!

Only when these approaches, and others, are used to demonstrate the corporation’s full approval of and engagement in volunteerism will these companies inspire reluctant employees and give them productive volunteer experiences that are good for them, for the company, and for the community.

This blog was written with Richard  Pound.  Richard Pound(rpound@stikeman.com) is the  Chancellor Emeritus of McGill University and a partner in the law firm Stikeman Elliott. He has volunteered with the Olympic Games for more than 40 years. An earlier version of this was published in 2004 in Strategy & Business, since then the things we talked about have only become more urgent and more relevant to organizations and to their people, particularly their younger employees, the Postmoderns.

Follow Rethinking Leadership on Twitter at @profkjmoore

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This article is available online at:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/karlmoore/2011/12/21/volunteering-a-great-way-to-learn-real-executive-leadership/

10 Buzz Words To Take Off Your Linkedin Profile Now!

Are you "creative," "organizational and "effective"? If so, your résumé might be in need of a makeover

By KATY STEINMETZ | @katysteinmetz | December 13, 2011

Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/12/13/ten-buzzwords-to-take-off-your-linkedin-profile-now/#ixzz1ggvnekzt

LinkedIn, the social-networking site for people with business cards, has released its list of the year’s most overused professional buzzwords, culled from the profiles of its 135 million members. As one might expect, they’re terms that sound awfully nice but say almost nothing specific about a person. They’re the type of terms that are roughly the equivalent of listing “showing up to work” in your skills section. (Note: this might be rough to read if you are one of the people using these words, but we all need tough love sometimes.)

For example, dynamic is at No. 10. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its primary meaning is “of or pertaining to force producing motion: often opposed to static.” So by using this word, you have literally told your potential employer that you are adept at not being stationary. You are the type of person who does things and moves from place to place.

At No. 9 is communication skills, and at No. 8 we have problem solving. Both of these guarantee nothing more than the person not being paralyzed by the prospect of a conversation or an empty stapler. Innovative is No. 7 and motivated is No. 6 — two more generic adjectives suggesting attributes that an employer would probably like to take for granted.

(LIST: Top 10 Buzzwords of 2011)

Track record is at No. 5. Note that it is not specified whether this track record is good or bad, though this person definitely has a track record of some kind. More important, a curriculum vitae is a track record in and of itself. Listing “track record” on a résumé is the equivalent of putting “reasons you should date me” on your OkCupid profile. Or tacking “things I need to buy” onto your shopping list.

At No. 4, we have extensive experience. (Please see above paragraph.)

At No. 3 is effective, a promise that when you are being dynamic, you’re really making the most of it. And in second place, we have organizational — which may be important if you are, say, applying to be an accountant. But in most cases, it is not the most striking skill to be championing — it’s like saying one is punctual or has neat handwriting.

And the No. one most overused professional buzzword is creative. This attribute, like many of the others, is one that is better shown than told. As LinkedIn’s connection director put it in a release, “Use language that illustrates your unique professional accomplishments and experiences. Give concrete examples of results you’ve achieved whenever possible and reference attributes that are specific to you.” And please, never use the word synergy without your tongue firmly pressed into your cheek.

Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/12/13/ten-buzzwords-to-take-off-your-linkedin-profile-now/#ixzz1ggvuNA9s

The Role of Government in Volunteering

Excerpted from "The values and basic principles of volunteering: complacency or caution?" by Jimmy Kearney in Volunteering and the Test of Time, edited by Justin Davis Smith and Michael Locke, Institute for Volunteering Research (London: UK), 2008.

What role or roles do governments play in supporting volunteering? What roles should they play? Should they have a role at all? Volunteering obviously does not take place in a vacuum. Its values and the nature of its relationship with the state are affected by the country's historical, political and cultural roots. In some countries, the state has in the past inhibited volunteering: for example, those regimes where there was an imposition on associations, or where social or citizens' initiatives were at worst suppressed or at best not supported, or where the development of civil society was opposed.

Some formerly totalitarian states experiencing major social change, such as Russia and the Czech Republic, are having to regenerate volunteering as an activity based on free will and choice rather than, as previously, obligatory unpaid work or collective social activities. In other countries such as Spain, where the freedom of association did not previously exist, there is now a legal framework for, or legal recognition of, voluntary work. Some countries have legislated to enable volunteering. An example is the enactment in January 2001 of Voluntary Service Law in Taiwan. This established a legal status for volunteers and gave them a set of rights and duties: for example, the right to proper training and the related duty to participate in training programmes. Another example is the federal Volunteer Protection Act 1997 in the USA, which provides that volunteers will not be personally liable for their acts or omissions if they are acting within the scope of their responsibility for the organisation and the harm is not caused by wilful or criminal misconduct, gross negligence, reckless misconduct, or a conscious, flagrant indifference to the rights or safety of the individual harmed. In other countries, where civil society itself is well established and recognised, governments adopt an enabling role, supporting and encouraging volunteering outside a legal framework, while leaving the choice to participate or not to the individual. In yet others, governments have played an enforcing role by mandating voluntary and community service - in some cases, such as Canada, at the same time playing an enabling role by building capacity within the voluntary sector.

In the literature, we can find many calls for action by government. At the international level, the Universal Declaration on Volunteering adopted by IAVE (2001a) calls on government:

'to ensure the rights of all people to volunteer, to remove any legal barriers to participation, to engage volunteers in its work, and to provide resources for NGOs to promote and support the effective mobilization and management of volunteers.'

It also calls on all sectors 'to join together to create strong, visible, and effective local and national "Volunteer centres" as the primary leadership organisations for volunteering'.

lAVE's Draft Global Agenda for Action (2001b), produced at the same conference, lists 75 different actions by government under the five primary objectives articulated for the International Year of Volunteers 2001: recognition, promotion, facilitation, networking and participation. Sharon Capeling-Alakija, executive coordinator of the United Nations Volunteers speaking at an Inter-Parliamentary Union conference in Cuba in April 2001, outlined five key challenges that face governments as they seek to foster and strengthen volunteer action and build social capital:

• to frame volunteerism as something to be taken into account in national development strategies to reach out to vulnerable populations
• to build an infrastructure for voluntary action
• to support research, and
• to encourage volunteerism without compromising the spirit of volunteerism, which might include incentives for volunteerism, including tax concessions

She cautioned that governments must avoid the temptation to control volunteering, and concluded that:

'In many cases, the most important thing that governments can do is to get out of the way, that is, to eliminate legislative, policy and organisational barriers, so that more people can come forward and actively participate in their communities.'

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Permission is granted for organizations to reprint this excerpt. Reprints must provide full acknowledgment of the source, as cited here:

Excerpted from "The values and basic principles of volunteering: complacency or caution?" by Jimmy Kearney in Volunteering and the Test of Time, edited by Justin Davis Smith and Michael Locke, Institute for Volunteering Research (London: UK), 2008.  Available in the Energize Online Bookstore at http://www.energizeinc.com/store/5-229-E-1

Fashion Tips for Men: From Vincent's POV

by: Vincent Castellanos | http://vincentspov.blogspot.com

Fashion Tip of the Day: Charcoal pin stripe suit with wide lapel, white shirt and black tie in a throw back homage to Cary Grant, Scotch and all! Men were meant to wear suits and can look amazing in a fitted suit when styled properly. Notice how with just three colors you can still create a stylish and elegant look that makes you stand out without being over the top.

Fashion Tip of the Day: In the slacks department, a color that is making a lot of noise this season is the caramel/camel/mustard one. We are seeing most designer creating slacks in these tones this year. A color - not really suited for all types - could easily work very well when paired with the right contrasting color on top. Grays will always be a safe bet as will navy or blue tones and chocolate brown. Unless you have a real strong sense of style, avoid greens or reds when choosing the camel slacks.