Mark Anthony Dyson - The Voice of Job Seekers

Mastering the Art of Interview: How to Take Control and Impress the Interviewer

When candidates prepare for a single job interview, they must have intel about how the job and industry work and what makes the hiring manager and team tick.

Control of the interview is to create a conversation to make the interviewer feel you’re easy to work with daily and exchange ideas. You’re not controlling because you’re asking the questions. You guide the conversations with the answers and responses you give, making the interviewer want to know more.

1) How does your experience resonate with what the team does regularly? Through rapport, you look for times to trade stories with the interviewer(s) about departments, conferences, and training.

2) You can control the tempo of the conversation by getting the interviewer to engage in your stories. Storytelling is the best way to accentuate your strengths and how you implemented solutions. Engagement gets them involved in sharing some of their stories and challenges.

3) Show you can gather, analyze, and manage data to customize to the company’s needs based on what’s discussed in the interview. They want to preview your work behaviors and crisis reactions. Most interviewers consider their work challenges unique and want to know how the candidate faces adversity.

What about candidates who are nervous or shy during the interview? How can they take control without coming across as too aggressive?

A good candidate connects with the interviewer through storytelling, but if you want to positively persuade them to like you, control the pace of sharing your experiences.

Great stories convey peaks and valleys, intrigue and suspense, the protagonist (that’s you), and an antagonist (the problem). Ultimately, you share the solution, but it doesn’t mean you must tell it all in one shot.

You can pause and ask the interviewer if they faced similar experiences or challenges.

You can interject how you feared or failed in judging the outcome.

You can also draw some parallels between the company problems and the ones you’re about to share and how you solved the issues you faced.

I have interviewed and hired many call center reps in my management career. The best interviews were ones where the candidate was a great listener. Throughout our conversation, they were able to repeat the needs of our call center through specific examples of how they handled similar experiences.

Even short stories can have all of the elements told in a way that generates interest and conveys value. When people see themselves in a scenario, they’re intrigued.

You can always stop a story to see if people identify with the storyteller, the audience, or both. If the experiences are shared, the interviewer may share their knowledge. The exchange and conversation where everyone involved is learning and conveying interest is the best gauge of how your interview went despite the hiring outcome results.

About Mark Anthony Dyson

I am the "The Voice of Job Seekers!" I offer compassionate career and job search advice as I hack and re-imagine the job search process. You need to be "the prescription to an employer's job description." You must be solution-oriented and work in positions in companies where you are the remedy. Your job search must be a lifestyle, and your career must be in front of you constantly. You can no longer shed your aspirations at the change seasons. There are strengths you have that need constant use and development. Be sure you sign up to download my E-Book, "421 Modern Job Search Tips 2021!" You can find my career advice and work in media outlets such as Forbes, Inc., Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, Glassdoor, and many other outlets.

by Mark Anthony Dyson

Baby Boomers Must Display These Attributes To Get Employed Now

I want to expand on an article on Yahoo Finance written last September, “I’m a Career Expert: 6 Things Baby Boomers Need To Understand About the Job Market Today.”

I like everything about the article, but other connections are just as essential to appealing to today’s employers.

The article lists:

The Benefits of Job Hopping

The Power of Personal Branding

Understand the Applicant Tracking Systems

The Decline of 9-5 Schedules

Flattening Hierarchies

The Rising of Diversity and Inclusion

While these are important, they are a ways off from being the norm in understanding today’s job market. Boomers don’t have the longitudinal landing strip for jobs than other generations.

They should be ready to adapt to these emerging trends, but I think of several things more immediate:

1) Boomers need to pay more attention to marketing themselves to connect with the needs of the employer or recruiter. They must anticipate some of the employer’s current problems, both immediate and future.

Forecasting is a sweet spot for Boomers because of their experience in the workplace, but they must demonstrate the use of contemporary tools to solve them.

2) Boomers must present themselves as mastering relevant skills. It’s essential to hone your skills as a craft constantly and show progression. Career advancement does not have an expiration date. Today’s professionals are works in progress.

3) Boomers’ confidence is a superpower because of their lived experiences and resilience. They must show how they’ve navigated many adverse fiscal and market crises. They have stories and anecdotes to fit into the new world of work.

4) Boomers must find synergy with their younger counterparts. Many Gen Z workers are more open to learning from them, especially if there is a value exchange of shared learning experiences.

Boomers can help younger workers bow to tone a message, while younger workers can help Boomers with simple tech tasks such as converting a document to PDF.

5) Boomers must lean into the power of tact and respect, which is vital to connecting with younger hiring managers and recruiters. They need to read the room to find common ground rather than differences.

The response to sitting at the feet of others to learn and adapt comes as quickly as the need for a mentor.

Boomers looking to work desire meaning through their work or purposeful work. They adapted to varying leadership styles, fluid job markets, and complex transitions for decades. LinkedIn is a great place to update your profile and engage in conversations by sharing anecdotes and solutions to employers’ problems.

The biggest challenge for Boomers to conquer is getting in front of employers and connecting their attributes to business solutions they currently need.

About Mark Anthony Dyson

by Mark Anthony Dyson

What Happens When Recruiters Mistreat You—Consequences?

I recently discussed on Lensa the importance of empathy and compassion in the recruiting industry. The article emphasizes how empathy lays the foundation of trust from employees and has more value than interviewing and onboarding. I also highlight how recruiters can discourage a connection with candidates by lacking communication, being insensitive, having rigid processes, and responding untimely to candidate concerns. I provide some useful tools and strategies that recruiters can incorporate into their strategies to enhance their effectiveness and create a better candidate experience.

So, what are some potential consequences for recruiters when they lack empathy and compassion.

Well, they’re not getting fired or displaced directly. But they should know mistreatment, intended or not, will get around. If we’ve learned anything in the last few years, people are emboldened to tell the world. It’s not a recommended thing to do, but it’s considered especially where there are patterns. spread. If we’ve learned anything in the last few years, people are emboldened to tell the world. It’s not recommended, but it’s considered.

The best recruiters understand the job seeker experience and show it while they’re working with you.

Another potential consequence of lacking embassy compassion for a job candidate is not considering what they previously interviewed, and the hiring process doesn’t work out. Many of them have often been to several companies that asked for a lot of information, and they got no feedback, and you might be one of the first few coming in contact with. Does the recruiter reflect the company’s values regarding employees? That’s not a question you can answer, but it’s what the candidate will glean from. Your example matters with each touch point with the candidate.

You the candidate, and the recruiter, need to win each other over. Both face consequences, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

I don’t blame you for discontinuing your pursuit of a company based on a recruiter’s bad behavior or nonchalant attitude. They may say they’re being straightforward. While everyone appreciates servings of truth, how many sides of rudeness are too much?

Or, not one single call to be rejected?

Or not a callback.

Or, constantly fed indirect answers to direct questions.

There are two sides because recruiters are going to take up for the company. They will have a list, and they’re playing with house money (insert “IT DOESN’T MATTER” gif by The Rock).

Let me know your thoughts on the article.