Getting a good job, part 4

Beyond the applicable skills for a job, there are a number of soft skills that will benefit you to develop if you want to move up and be recognized.

•  Appropriate dress. When in doubt, dress up instead of down. Wear a suit when it’s proper, a nice casual outfit on casual days or in fitting situations.  Something about a suit commands respect, even over a sport coat and tie. Even if you’re a junior, people tend to treat you like an executive.  And what’s more, over time they begin to see you that way. Wear it enough that you feel comfortable in it, so you appear to be relaxed and in your natural habitat when meeting with other suits. It really makes a difference in the way you’re regarded.
• Get a haircut that matches the suit. Nothing will kill the respect you gain with the suit than a haircut that’s completely out of sorts with it. People don’t see a professional anymore, they see a rock-star-wannabe trying to look like a suit.
• When you meet, shake hands and introduce yourself.  Besides showing basic politeness, it breaks the ice to relationships you need to form.   You make the move first – when you offer your hand, you send the signal that you are in control of the relationship. Give a firm handshake even if you are offered a “cold fish”.  When ladies shake hands with men, they generally try to give a “man’s shake” to assert themselves.  You can show politeness by accepting it, but squeezing gently.  I always make it a practice to squeeze a lady’s hand with just two fingers.  Lead with your own name – “Hi, I’m John Smith”.  If they don’t immediately offer, follow with “… and you are?”  Always express that you are pleased to meet them.
• Don’t just introduce yourself and drop the ball.  If there are several people, move along to the next.  After you’ve introduced yourself to the group, give a slight pause to allow people to speak and if no one does, start a general conversation that all can reply to.  “Where are you guys from?”, “How do you like X”, etc.
• Remember people’s names.  It’s so embarrassing to ignore a name at the front of the conversation and suddenly realize you need to know it before the end.  Make a mental picture of the name or some mnemonic that helps you remember it.  I.e., if it’s “John Brown”, picture his face colored brown.  If it’s more difficult like “Nancy Abromowitz”, you might think “A-broom-a-witch” and picture her as a witch on a broom.
• If it’s appropriate to do so, exchange business cards at the END of the conversation.
• When you need to speak with someone at length, ask to make an appointment.  If they have time, they’ll go ahead and give it to you, but offering shows them you respect their time.
• Speak clearly.  Avoid slang or “ums” or familiarities. Don’t curse, even if they do.

A lot of these will seem flexible and it’s OK to ignore some of them when you’re among friends or in a more casual atmosphere.  But it never hurts to use them and it can hurt to ignore them.  Bottom line – if you’re not absolutely sure it’s OK to ignore the convention, don’t.

 

Getting a good job, part 3

If you decide to work for someone else, you will very quickly notice that although your new job is pretty good, there are better ones in the company.  Jobs making more money, carrying more prestige, offering fringe benefits and doing more interesting work.  Maybe it’s your boss’s position, or his boss’s. And sooner or later, you decide you’d like to have some of that for yourself. So you begin the ongoing effort of moving up the ladder to better positions.

Who gets the best jobs?  Well, sometimes it’s a matter of privilege -  being the boss’s son or a stakeholder’s relative or something beyond your control.  Sometimes it’s a matter of seniority, which you don’t have yet.  But quite a few of them are occupied by people who didn’t have a leg up.  How did they get there?  Because outside of favoritism, the best jobs go to the best employees.

It usually takes some time in the job market to figure this out, amazingly.  You get so caught up in doing your own work that you don’t look around at the bigger picture.  And in many cases, your only examples are people who aren’t getting ahead themselves.  So I’m going to give you an up-front primer that you can use from Day 1 to establish yourself as a good employee that’s a natural choice for the good jobs.

•  First and foremost, a good employee gets their work done. It’s complete, shows quality and you make whatever effort is necessary to bring it in on time, within budget, filling in all the necessary paperwork and going through the right channels.  This seems natural, but once you get in the flow you will be tempted to take shortcuts that you think are unimportant.  These will come back to trip you up, and even if you had the best intentions, you are now “the guy who didn’t follow the rules”.  So get your own job done first, and do it right.
• A good employee takes initiative.  That doesn’t mean you step on toes and try to do someone else’s work as well.  It simply means you pay attention and do what needs to be done even if you haven’t been explicitly told to do it.  Taking time to be friendly to a customer while serving them is initiative. Finding something that helps other employee work faster/better/more effectively and suggesting it to a superior is initiative. Cleaning up the area around your workstation when you’re only supposed to clean your workstation is initiative.  If there’s a period of time when they have nothing to do, they find something constructive to do that benefits the company.
• A good employee takes responsibility.  They don’t pass the buck and say they couldn’t finish X because Y didn’t deliver.  They make it clear that if you give them  a task, you can trust them to deliver it.  And when you have difficulties getting results from Y, you ask advice from your boss – both for the support and to let them know that Y’s getting in your way without being a tattletale.
• A good employee honors his commitments.  That means you return calls, show up to meetings on time, come prepared, etc. Don’t ever be “the guy that didn’t get back to me”.
• A good employee does not whine.  They register complaints when they are truly hindrances, but they do their work cheerfully, don’t complain about the conditions and generally give off the vibe that they’re happy to be doing what they’re doing.  Whining puts you on everyone’s bad list.
• A good employee has people skills.  That doesn’t mean you have to be the office socialite, but it does mean you can get along with people, keep personal conflicts out of your work relationships, can talk casually and socially to other employees (and bosses!) and generally are the kind of person people like to spend time with.  No one will move you up to work beside them if they can’t get along with you.
• A good employee always remembers that the customer is #1.  Even if the customer is problematic, they always treat them with the utmost respect and go out of their way to please them.  You’d rather serve a customer and be late on your own tasks than to be on time and leave the customer unserved or pass them off to someone else. You especially have to watch this, because it’s easy to just pass them off to another employee who may not be available.  If you can’t serve them, stick with them until you can assure that they will speak to the person they need to next.
• A good employee is consistent.  They do good work every time.  They don’t shine like a star on one project and fall like a stone on others.  You  may get a pat on the back for standing out, but you’ll get promoted for standing out every time.
• A good employee gets noticed. This is an act of balance. You don’t want to be seen as someone who blows their own horn all the time, but if you do all this great stuff anonymously, you don’t get credit for it and bosses just assume you’re just a face in the crowd. You can do this on a low profile, in various ways – copying your bosses on communications they need to know about – that happen to mention your involvement, asking someone questions about the right way to do something – something outstanding you’re doing, etc.

With these qualities, you’ll rise fast.  Understand you’re not going to get promoted on your second day – it doesn’t work that fast.  But by following those guidelines over a period of time – a natural  period would be your regular evaluations – you can establish yourself as promotion-worthy.

So, with a demonstrated track record of being a good employee, you need a little strategy to make the move.

• Find out what it takes to get to the next step.  Are their education requirements, or specific skills you can gain?  Does the company have a formal promotion policy?  Ask your supervisor in your performance reviews what they are looking for in that position, or if it’s in a different department, make an appointment with that supervisor and ask them what they’re looking for.
• Start looking for ways to meet those requirements.  If it’s outside your regular responsibilities, maybe you could involve yourself peripherally.  If you’re a presentation whiz, you could find a way to ask an executive if they’d like your help putting together a presentation using some new techniques you’ve learned for their big board meeting.   And remember to always get credit, and always do it subtly.
• Most steps up are to management, so you can work on building general management skills.  Go to seminars.  Read books and materials.  Read trade publications to get a bigger overall picture of your industry and workplace. And let your superiors know you’re doing this by bringing up relevant things you’ve learned when the opportunity presents itself.
• Organizational skills are always good to develop.  People generally have trouble with organization and showing yourself to be a standout is always a big positive.
• Don’t make enemies by stepping on people, not giving them credit or stealing their opportunities.  Even if you don’t care about your co-workers, word gets around that you’re cut-throat; and no one will want to see you up on their level cutting their throats.
• Build social relationships with the right people.  So much of business is politics and social connections.  No matter how much you despise them, go ahead and develop them. People promote people they like – there’s no way of getting around it.  And vice-versa, don’t form strong relationships with the people who are not good employees.

 

Getting a good job, part 2

So you’re motivated to find a good job. Given that you now understand what makes a job good, you have to ask yourself what particular job fits your interests so you can start preparing for it.

Most kids head off for college with the vaguest ideas of what they want to study, change majors a few times and end up working in a job they didn’t prepare for. 99% of those people do so because they never took the time to think about what they wanted to do. They got thoughtful around their senior year and decided being a doctor sounded cool. Or their dad was a salesman and he seemed to do pretty well. Or they loved a teacher and thought they’d like to be a cool teacher like that. That’s the least effective thing you can do.

I’d like to challenge you to make a smart decision about your education by thinking ahead.

• Is their a particular field that fits your interests? Is there anything you have a passion for? Do you love movies, or TV, or music, or sports? Do you like the idea of being a community pillar like a small town doctor or lawyer? Does a political position intrigue you? Do you like to teach?  Do you want to be seen as an intellectual?  Do you like the idea of working in entertainment?  Do you like the idea of helping people?  You’re just looking for a general category or two at this point.
• Once you’ve got a general category, start thinking about tasks you enjoy. Do you enjoy leading people, or trying to convince them to commit to something? Do you enjoy working by yourself? Did you like math in school, or science, or history? Did you enjoy working with a team? Make a list of the things you enjoyed doing during your high school years and summer jobs to refer back to.
• Now think about your capabilities. What do people tell you you have a talent for? Ask people where they think your talents lie – your parents, teachers, etc. Do you communicate well, study well? Are you a whiz with figures, or great with physical work? Are you a people person or a loner?  Do you enjoy travel? Again, make a list.
• Now start looking at your lists side by side and see if anything jumps out at you. If you were good at math, a loner and enjoyed sports, you might enjoy doing stats. If you were outgoing, a great leader and loved TV, you might think about sales within that field. If you don’t find anything immediately, don’t worry – but if you can you’ll be even better prepared.
• Spend some time researching the industry you like.  Look at trade publications or classified ads. What kind of jobs are out there in that field? Which are plentiful? Do they pay what you want them to? Do they have sufficient prestige? What kind of education and skills are demanded of this profession? Will you have to move away to get this kind of job and is that OK with you?
• Hopefully by this time you’ve got some ideas about what jobs you might like to fill. Now’s the time to experiment a little. Try out your potential profession. If you think you’d like to make movies, make a movie. Use a home videocam, recruit your friends and try to make the most professional looking movie you can. You’ll likely discover that it’s harder than it looks to make a great movie. You’ll also learn what about it you enjoyed and what you didn’t enjoy.
• After completing a test project, regroup and think about it. Maybe you discovered you didn’t like directing as much as doing special effects on a computer. Or maybe you enjoyed recruiting friends and selling them on the idea better than the actual movie making. Or maybe you realize you shot a horrible movie, but kept the best records of anyone you know. Try a couple of these little projects to test the waters.
• After your projects, re-evaluate what you think you might want to do. If you found you were great at recruiting teenage actors, you probably have a talent for sales. Try getting a more serious job in that field. If you can’t get hired, volunteer. Sell ads for the yearbook. Get a job in a department store selling clothes. Test it out a little more in a situation that’s closer to the real world. If you don’t like it, go back to your experience with your projects and start again on something else.
• When you’ve got an idea of your desired field and a general idea of the kind of job you might like, do some more research and understand the practical job path. If you want to be an NFL sportscaster, no one’s going to hand you that job straight out of school. But you might see how you could start covering local games, move on to college and then to the pros. If you want to be a big Hollywood director, you probably will need to find a day job that will build your skills (like with a local TV station or independent film company) while you work toward the creation that will put you on the map. Talk to guidance counselors, do research and understand what you’re going to have to do to get there. What kind of education do you need? What skills can you be learning from books and other independent study materials? What sort of jobs could you take as a student that would use similar skills?
• Once you have your path laid out, start working toward it. If you want to be a sportscaster, you can probably start learning by volunteering to do menial work in the booth at local football games. Or maybe you could convince your school to let you do a student broadcast on the internet as a project. If you want to sell, learn about your desired industry and sales techniques – there are plenty of resources for free right in your local library. Get started learning.
• If you decide in this process that you made a mistake about enjoying doing this, start over again. Go back as far in the process as you are confident and begin it again.

Be flexible when you’re looking.  For every interesting job you know about, there are other well paying jobs that are just as interesting behind the scenes.  Even if you determine you can’t be a football star, rock star, movie star or what have you, you can still be involved in these fields, often just as closely as the people in the limelight.

• Maybe you love movies, but see that there are only a few top name directors in the world at any time. Behind every movie director there are producers, specialty directors, cameramen, technicians, special effects guys, stunt men,  writers, managers, financial experts, engineers, etc.  Establishing yourself in one of these could lead to being a director yourself.  If you really enjoy directing, you might combine it with other interests and specialize in documentaries, or corporate films, or something similar.  You might like teaching others to direct. Or you might find a better fit for yourself that you didn’t even recognize..
• Behind every pro athelete are managers, coaches, trainers, financial experts, therapists, accountants, analysts, etc.
• Some jobs lend themselves to any industry.  Sales, accounting, computer work, management, leadership, etc. are always in demand and have the added benefit of being able to move those skills from field to field if your interests change.

You might notice that this process is going to take some time, and it does. Most people get a late start and have to re-educate themselves by going back to school and only finding their dream jobs later in life. So start early! It’s never too early. If you can have a good idea of where you’re going before you make college plans, you can put yourself strongly ahead of the pack. It’s the difference between being another face in the crowd and a standout prospect for the recruiter that visits your school.

You’re going to be working for most of the day, most of your life – so you might as well find something that’s a joy instead of a burden. And there’s no better time than the present to get started.

 

Getting a good job

All your life adults do their best to impress upon you the importance of getting a “good job”.  And I’m sure you don’t disagree – everyone wants to be successful, secure and motivated to get up and go to work in the mornings.  But you may be confused at any point in time as to exactly what a “good job” is for you.

I’d like to give you a little advice on what I see as a “good job”.

• A “good job” is what you consider to be a good job. Adults may encourage you to be a doctor or lawyer or something of that nature – they do that because they assume you hold this positions in the same esteem that they do.  But even a prominent, well-paying job is not a good job for you if it doesn’t fit your particular needs.
• A “good job” is one doing something that you enjoy.  Certain jobs are always held in high esteem – doctors, lawyers, etc.  But if the idea of treating patients or working with the law is excruciatingly for you, it’s not a good fit.  In the end, this is going to be the #1 critical factor for job satisfaction.  Salary, benefits and hours will not seem nearly as essential if you really enjoy what you’re doing – because it doesn’t really feel like working.  If you can tell yourself “I’d do this job for free”, that’s a pretty good hint.  Happy is better than wealthy.
• A “good job” pays you enough to fund the lifestyle you intend to live. If you want the big house on the hill, luxury cars, vacation homes, etc., you’re going to need a job with the earning potential to get that. You are not going to fund a $250K/yr lifestyle with a $30K/yr. job.
• A “good job” has a payment model that matches your personality. Some people value the security of a salary over the earnings potential.  Some are motivated to work by commission or case, generating money for each sale/client they follow through on.   Some prefer self-employment where they are paid based on the overall performance of the business.  Salaries make it easy to budget and the money is generally there when you expect it, but you don’t really have a chance to move beyond those rewards.  Commissions/case work will have more fluctuating income, highs and lows you’ll need to plan for, but carry the opportunity of “making the big sale” and bringing home an unexpected windfall.  Self employment is the same, but usually more extreme.  You need to find the kind of payment model that motivates you to succeed.
• A “good job” gives you the opportunity to learn and grow.  No matter how fascinated you are with a job starting out, it’s going to get old eventually. If you don’t have a chance to take on new challenges and new responsibilities, you face a strong risk of burnout.  For example, doctors with a private practice will be challenged for the first few years, but burnout is easy to achieve when you see the same people, the same illnesses day after day.
• A “good job” has advancement potential. Because your need for challenges, income and growth are going to come, you need a job that will let you step up as well.  If you receive the challenge without the reward, you’ll feel devalued.  If you get the rewards without the challenges (unlikely), you won’t be motivated.
• A “good job” has an atmosphere that suits your tastes.  You may feed off competition and want a competitive environment.  You may be social and need a group of friendly, supportive co-workers. Or you may be an introvert that would prefer working in an office with a closed door most of the day. If you really hate meeting new people, you probably shouldn’t go into sales.  If you hate being alone for long periods of time, you probably shouldn’t be an astronaut.  If you hate authority figures, you should probably work for yourself and not for the military.

Remember nothing is permanent.  If you don’t have a “good job”, you can start trying to find one.  If you have one, there’s nothing to stop you from choosing another, even in another field.  But since it is a big step, you should at least do your best to make sure you’re stepping somewhere that will improve your situation.

What’s a “good job” to you?

 

College: Entrepeneurial Testbed

This is a piece of advice I wish I had taken myself when I was in college.

College is your last handheld step before hitting the working world. It’s also one of the greatest times in the world to figure out whether you’re the kind of person who wants to own their own business. In your last years of college, you’ve holding all the cards. You’ve likely got an abundance of extra time, minimal responsibilities, and a strong network of friends that you know very well. You’ve got firsthand experience of the services or products that would be in demand in your little world. You’ve got some academic knowledge that your professors want to see you apply to a more pragmatic solution. And you’ve got an undimmed optimism that can enable you to go as far as you want.

So consider starting a business while you’re in college. Look around and see what people need at the moment, what they value. Maybe you can provide a service copying material for others for a fee. If you’re a top student, maybe you can create study guides to sell. Maybe as an experienced student you can create “welcome to college” guides for incoming freshmen. Maybe you can run courier services for grad students, or pickup takeout food from places that don’t deliver. Get your friends involved in it to make things a bit more fun. It doesn’t have to be your future career; you just want to get your feet wet, learn a little more about yourself and make some extra money.

Most importantly, learn from the experience. Can you deal with the uncertainty? Do you plan well? Lead others well? Manage other workers well? Do you see unlimited potential, or do you figure it’s a failure before you ever get started? Learning these answers are going to go a long way toward understanding where you want to go after school.

And you never know – a lot of successful businesses started during college. You might execute the idea that changes the world.

 

The Interview

At some point in time, it’s very likely you’re going to want to get a job. Even if you go the entrepreneur’s route, it’s very possible you’ll be looking to get hired in order to get experience, start up cash or something else. The key moment in that job search is the interview.

An interview is where the deal is made. The employer’s already going to have made certain decisions based on your resume and reported qualifications, but the interview is where he or she will seek to answer some final questions. It’s your job to see to it that those answers are provided, whether they’re mentioned explicitly or not.

What does the company want to know?

• Do you have what it takes to do the job? Do you have the skills, background experience and basic professionalism to get the assigned tasks done?
• Will you fit into the organization? Is your look, attitude, work style and sociability a good match for the company?
• Do you understand the company and what it does? Do you know the basics of the business? Do you understand its philosophy and agree enough to help it move forward?
• How do you stack up? Are your skills, background and experience comparable to or better than the rest of the applicants?
• Do you have the right mindset? Are you a clock watcher, or a goal achiever? Are you about bringing home a paycheck, or trying to help this company accomplish what it wants to do?
• Do you want the job? Yeah, it seems like a given, but do you really want to come do work for the company, or are you just trying to earn some quick cash, meet parents’ expectations, or fulfill some personal need. Granted, they expect you to be self-serving to some degree, but in the end they’re looking for someone to help them, not someone to help.

Those are the points you want to get across to the guy on the other side of the desk. At the same time, the job interview is your opportunity to figure out if this job is actually what you expected. You want to find out a number of things, too:

• What exactly are the ins and outs of the job? Can I do what’s expected of me and do I want to do it?
• What’s the work environment like? Are the employees friendly? Does everyone complain? Is it a cutthroat atmosphere? Will they look down on me for leaving at closing time? Are the amenities desirable?
• Is management reasonable? Will I get rewarded for good work? Will my boss understand the work/life balance or just try to bleed me dry?
• Where does this job go? Are the skills transferable? Do I have a clear path of advancement? How stable is the company?

Now, some specifics on interviewing:

Above all, remember this – you are selling yourself. You want to streamline the process of presenting yourself as the right choice. Anything that could distract an interviewer from seeing this, you want to conceal. You want to answer their queries well and get your sales pitch for yourself in without messing up the impression.

When you get a call for an interview, stand up to take the call if possible. You will sound more confident and professional when standing. It’s a good rule of thumb to always stand during these kinds of calls – especially phone interviews of any sort.

Find out the people you’ll be interviewing with so you can research them later. Be sure and get the phone number of your main interviewer. If the name is difficult to pronounce, write some pronunciation notes beside it. If you’re asked for your preference for a time, set it near the end of the day. Second choice would be around, but not during lunch.

First of all, do your research. Get a good overview of what the company does, its goals/vision, its critical clients and its financial performance over the last few years. Get names and titles for upper management and the department you’re interviewing with if possible. Make yourself a cheat sheet of this information to read just before the interview. Do some more research and see if you can find common interview questions for the type of position you’re applying for and have a rehearsed answer ready.

Dress appropriately and conservatively, but don’t be afraid to give yourself a visual hook to help people remember you. For a guy, a charcoal suit with a tasteful, but interesting tie is good. Girls have a little more leeway, but remember to be tasteful. When in doubt, overdress.

Bring a conservative folio with extra copies of your resume, a notepad, pens and breath mints to take before, not during the interview. If you have letters of reference, bring a couple of copies of them also. If you’re traveling to a strange place, get directions and carry them as well, along with the phone number of the interviewer in case of an unavoidable delay. Show up a few minutes early so you can “cool down” and prep yourself in the car before entering. Now’s the time for a breath mint.

When you show up, you’ll likely be waiting in the lobby for a while for your interviewer to arrive. Spend your time gathering an impression. Is the receptionist friendly? Do people coming and going seem cheerful and happy about being here? Is the area clean and the magazines up to date? If there’s a company report, see what you can glean in the last minutes.

When you meet your interviewer, give them a smile and a dry, firm handshake. And keep the smile going. Smiles scream interpersonal skills and team players. As you follow them to the interview location, comment on how nice things are.

Sit, stand and walk straight. Remind yourself often. Sit up straight. It screams professionalism. f they offer you a drink, take it. Not only do you send the boss a signal that says “Here’s a guy/girl I can drink coffee with”, it gives you something to do with your hands. Also, if you need a second to think about a response, you can take a sip.

Never interrupt and don’t motor-mouth – but don’t yes/no through the interview. A good impression is a fine balance of respect for the interviewer, showing your enthusiasm and elaborating on your strong points. Nod when appropriate to show that you’re understanding them.

Likely, the employer will ask if you know anything about the company/job. Tell him you’ve researched the position, but are sure there is more to learn about it. Let them give you their spill. Take notes. If you have any questions, save them.

There are some common questions that will come up at most interviews – you should be prepared to answer them well:

• Tell me a little about yourself.
• What interests you most about this position?
• Where do you see yourself in 5, 10, 20 years?
• What is your ultimate career goal?
• Tell me about a project that had a tough problem that you solved.
• What are your greatest strengths?
• What did you like about your last job?
• What separates you from other candidates?
• How does your previous experience/preparation relate to this work?

You should also expect a good deal of questioning about how you meet the posted qualifications.

There are also a number of “trap” questions you may be subjected to – you need to be ready for those:

• “What is your greatest weakness” or “what area do you need most improvement in” is a common fish for anything they might need to worry about. You don’t want to give them your character flaws. What you want to do is give them something that’s a slightly less than ideal characteristic, not a real weakness. Some examples: “I prefer to see a project through from start to finish rather than working on a single component and never seeing the finished product. I sometimes find it a bit frustrating to work without that overall context” or “Sometimes I have a hard time saying no to people, and I end up taking on more than my share of work.”
• “Why are you leaving your old company” or “Why are you interested in this job” – this is to make sure you’re not a bad seed who lost their last job or can’t settle down. You want them to know that you’re looking for an opportunity to work with the best, or that your old job couldn’t take you any further.
• “Describe your toughest assignment so far” – they want insight into your weaknesses and how you counter them. Best bet is to describe the situation where the difficulty was out of your control to manage and how you neutralized it. For example, dealing with a budget cut in a project, or a vendor related problem, or a problem employee. Your solution should have seen to it that the barrier did not prevent you from delivering within constraints and how you ensured the problem would not arise again.
• “Describe a conversation you had with your boss where some feedback you heard was hard to take” – trying to determine how well you listen and react to feedback. A good answer is one that gives you a chance to emphasize a current strength. For example, a boss told you you communicate poorly and you put a procedure in place to ensure you update people and took a public speaking course.
• “What will you do if you don’t get this job” – they want to see how serious you are about this career path. A good answer is that you’ll look for another job in the same field as the one you’re currently applying to.
• “Have you ever had to terminate someone” – both to see if you can handle the responsibility and to see if you work to develop and train people who are struggling.
• “Why should I hire you” – it’s the opportunity to see how bad you want it. This is your chance to give an inspired answer, a tagline to the whole interview. You need to reflect ambition, your best features, that you’ve researched the company and the position and that you have an understanding of the realities of the position.

Near the end, the interviewer is going to ask if you have questions for him. You must have questions. If you can ask him to elaborate on some company information he gave you earlier, that will show you were listening.

This is also your chance to see if the company is a good fit for you. Time for you to become the interviewer. Try to cover these, if they haven’t come up already:

• “What is a typical workday like” – to ensure you understand exactly what’s involved in the job and how defined it is. If there’s not a lot of definition, you can expect some flexibility, but you’re going to have to work harder to prove yourself.
• “What’s the best part of working at this company” – beware if they struggle for an answer. If the answer is too canned, ask them to elaborate.
• “Are there opportunities to learn more about other facets of the company” – mainly to understand how well they will train you.
• “Does the company culture reward people who put in extra hours” – both to give the impression that you’re willing and to see if they plan to just work you bone dry.
• “Can you describe a time that you rewarded an employee for a job well done” – get an idea of just how much they take their employees for granted
• If the interviewer is a department head, “Can you give an example of a time you were able to boost department morale” – watch out if they give vague answers. It may indicate that they don’t really take employee morale seriously.
• “Can you give an example of a time you feel you demonstrated your company’s commitment to ethics” – this will really throw them for a loop and you can get some interesting impressions on just how capable this person is and how dirty the company works
• “What is my path to advancement in the company, and how would I achieve that” – to get an idea of how dead-end this job might be.
• “What is my route for getting ideas to senior management” – to see if upper management actually has a method for recruiting opinions. Be careful if this answer is dodgy – may indicate a clueless management culture.

As you close, find out what the selection process is and a timeline for expecting a response. Finally, always end the interview by letting them know you are very interested in the position and asking what are your next steps to take. Just re-emphasizes your determination.

As you exit, make small talk if possible to be sociable, but notice the office. If you were able to time things right, you’ll see how many people are working late/thru lunch and whether or not the interviewer’s answers to your questions seem to fit what you see in front of you. This is your chance to see if they were just dealing out the BS or accurately representing the situation.

Always follow up with a thank you letter the day of the interview, restating your contact information and your desire for the job. Follow up with a phone call appropriately to the selection timeline they gave you earlier. Pushy is bad, persistance is good.

Hopefully, that will put you in a better position to ace an interview. Having been on both sides of the desk, I can tell you it can actually be a very fun process. How many other chances do you get to spout on for a couple of hours about how great you are!

 

Team Players, Continued

In the last letter, I talked a little bit about blowing your own horn while being a team player. I want to flesh out the mechanics of that act, because it’s a difficult thing to do.

How do you let people know about your talents and contributions while still appearing to be a team player? Well, it’s always a delicate process that has to be experimented with, every time. But here are some generic suggestions:

• Do your job first. There is nothing that will immediately turn people off more than shirking any responsibilities you already have to try to grab someone else’s. Exceed expectations. Show that you can do more with less, or for a lesser cost, or take the toughest assignments, or the ones that no one wants. Show you can do the things assigned you before anything else. And once you do a great job on your own tasks, it’s reasonable to ask for more or to go deeper.
• Make it a proposition. The worst way to position yourself in your peers’ or superiors’ eyes is to call attention to your own brilliance. “Hey look at me, aren’t I doing a great job” will just gain you groans. What you have to do is make your next step a proposition. Instead of saying “I did all my work, what else you got for me?”, pay attention to what’s needed and offer your involvement; “I figure we are going to need approval on these funds – can I put together a proposal?” “I don’t think anyone has planned for a speaker – can I work on getting us one?”. Make your peers and superiors aware of a need, and offer to fill it.
• Show enthusiasm. Everyone likes someone who has a smile on their face. If you do the work cheerfully and show some enthusiasm for the product, guess who is likely to be elected or selected to take a leadership role?
• Be humble. Don’t let your responsibilities or recognition go to your head, and more people will be willing to let the accolades stay fresh.

Just a few minor suggestions to flesh that last one out.

 

Team Players

Everyone loves a team player. Everyone wants the person that unselfishly gives of himself to see the group get ahead. There’s no easier way to build rapport and guarantee yourself inclusion than to be the kind of person they know will do whatever’s necessary to see that the team wins.

Being a team player is important. Very few things in this life get accomplished on your own. But there’s one pitfall to that advantage – it’s easy to get lost in the team.

There’s a really delicate balance to being a team player. You have to support the team, but you can’t blend in so perfectly that your own accomplishments don’t get recognized and subsequently rewarded. You can’t be a ball hog, but if you give away every shot you’ll never have any to call your own. You can’t be the company showboat, but you can’t anonymously make everyone else look good all the time.

It’s hard to give you solid advise about this, because every situation is a little different. But you will have your best shot at a good balance if you pay attention to the reactions of people around you. Do you sense resentment when you step up, or do people seem to accept your status? When you take the lead, do the people with influence understand your contributions?

You won’t always get things right, so you have to step up and do your thing, then test the waters. If you’re getting a negative response, ease off. Patch up the wounds by including others in the praise. Or give someone else a chance to shine. Or play it with a bit more subtlety. The more you practice it, the better you’ll get.

You never want to prop yourself up at the expense of the team. Not only does it get you resentment, it gets you and the team a loss. And it’s just not a very honorable way to do things.

But at the same time, you don’t want to fade into obscurity, either. You’ll never get ahead if people don’t know why you should be getting ahead.

 

The Best Job

At some point in time you’re going to start assessing career options and trying to figure out what to do with the rest of your life.

The educational system of my day did a horrible job helping you through this time. For 11 years they encouraged you down a generalist path, oblivious to the future and finally in your graduating year, they drop the bomb. “By the way, you better figure out what you want to do every day for the rest of your life, over and over , day in and day out, because if you don’t take the right courses in college you’ll never have a shot at it. And college applications will be due in a couple of months, so you really need to know by Friday”.

I hope I prepare you a little better than that. I hope you grow up seeking what you like to do and that you understand the deadlines are never fully fixed. And I hope you understand that you can always change your mind.

But at some point when considering a future career, you’re going to ask yourself a question we all do – should I go to work in a field I really enjoy, or one that pays a lot of money?

I would suggest you pursue what you enjoy, for several very good reasons:

• Money is easy to acquire; happiness is not
• Happiness is something you will seek on a daily basis; money is not
• The wealthier you become, the less money means to you; happiness does not suffer from that disillusionment
• If you really enjoy what you are doing, you will get very good at it. People tend to pay experts in any field very well

No doubt you are going to be encouraged by many to pursue a prestige field. Certain professions are held up in every generation as somehow more elitist, more noble. But unless you have a real desire for that field, you’re not going to find the fulfillment you seek.

Let’s just take an extremely unlikely “suppose” – suppose you really, really enjoy digging ditches, but you think you need to become a doctor.

• As an unenthusiastic doctor, you will probably not enjoy the 8 years of prepatory school ahead of you and cringe under the load of the long hours of your residency. So after 10 years of grinding through something you hate, you take up with a hospital or a private practice. Maybe you have a nice salary coming in. You also dread the beep of your phone or pager, grit your teeth through a daily regemin of patients and begrudgingly stay up to date on your craft. True, you have some money to throw around, but you’re trying to keep up the lifestyle of the other doctors in your field and you never get to spend a lot of time enjoying that money without the fear that you’re going to be summoned in to take care of something you really don’t want to. You spend your days waiting for Friday, bemoaning Monday and counting the days until vacation.
• Instead, what if you went ahead and decided to dig ditches with a road crew? Your enthusiasm is going to make you learn how to do your job better, and people notice that. Eventually you are seen as a standout among the other diggers and they begin to prep you to supervise others, maybe to get more involved in the planning. You find your enthusiasm for a well-dug ditch translates to the beginnings of a civil engineering path. Or maybe you decide to put together your own business and hire your own crew. Or perhaps you are drawn toward planning. Or ditch-digging equipment design. Or training, or motivational positions. The money is there because you’re a standout in your field. You enjoy what you do, so you naturally put in the overtime and the away-from-job investments that are required to get ahead. You are seen as a go-getter and someone who’s going places. And every single workday is something you genuinely enjoy. Maybe you don’t have two houses, or boats, or whatever the status symbols may be in your day. But they don’t mean nearly as much to you as what you’re doing, every single day. You’re not “working for the weekend” or “just long enough to pay off my debts”. You’re living your dream.

Like I said, you probably won’t be faced with such extreme alternatives. But the principles are sound. People that do things well get recognized. Other people who need things done well will pay more for the person who is outstanding. And you tend to do your best at things you’re interested in. Wealth follows enthusiasm naturally.

It’s hard to see this at an early age, because you only see the guarantees, not the possibilities. You see the piece of paper that says a ditch digger makes minimum wage, and a doctor makes many times that wage. But the piece of paper ignores where interest and enthusiasm can take you. If you really enjoy ditch digging and hate doctoring, you need to look at it from a different perspective – where you will likely end up. At the top of the ditch digging hierarchy, or the bottom of the doctor’s hierarchy. Would you have more wealth as the head of a huge construction company or engineering firm, or as a run-of-the-mill family practitioner who’s admittedly “not the best in town”?

And in the end, money is not what it’s cracked up to be. It’s nice to not have to worry about your debt, and it’s nice to have some of the luxuries money can bring. But it’s a poor tradeoff if you hate what you do 8 hours a day, 50 weeks a year. The luxuries are not as luxurious when you only get to enjoy them on every other weekend. A title on the front of your name may pump up your value to some people, but not as much as an everpresent smile and a joy for life, day after day.

The best job is the job that follows your passions.