The Voice of Job Seekers

Mark Anthony Dyson ★ Career Writer ★ Speaker ★ Thinker ★ Award-winning Blog & Podcast! ★ I hack and reimagine the modern job search!

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by Mark Anthony Dyson

Grads, Memorial Day, and the Job Search

Boy Wonder is graduating today! ow.ly/i/EkzD

— Mark Anthony Dyson (@MarkADyson) May 24, 2012

As a proud poppa of a high school graduate, I tweeted the above before the ceremonies on Thursday. I am even more  proud of him because of his abilities to live out conviction. He will be reading an essay for Memorial Day at a cemetery in Chicago. In his essay, he will express his disappoint of our family traditionally spending Memorial Day barbecuing.

Usually we barbeque with disregard for people who fought for freedom. This will be the first time our family will observe Memorial Day for the right reasons. Shamefully, it took a scholarship opportunity to get it right.

In one sense, it is embarrassing despite the norm for people to take the day off, and yet, liberating because we are observing today the right way.

Graduating seniors, approach scholarship hunting like job searching. Do it with zeal, fervor, and for the right reasons.

Do it like the men and women who serve our country and those who fell to protect American freedom. Be your own man or woman now that you don’t need permission to have conviction about your future.

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.

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Filed Under: Job Search Tagged With: job searching, Scholarships

by Mark Anthony Dyson

5 Signs The Thrill Is Gone From Your Job Search

5 Signs The Thrill Is Gone From Your Job Search

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How do you know that the thrill has gone from your romantic relationship? Easy ways to tell is that it FEELS like your stalking. You are the only one calling, texting but no reciprocation, and impatient so you repeat the cycle. Your job search lacks excitement, without leads it became a chore or an obligation, perhaps that you took for granted. The feeling is similar to a dating or marriage relationship.

The thrill is gone
The thrill is gone away
The thrill is gone baby
The thrill is gone away
You know you done me wrong baby
And you’ll be sorry someday

~B.B. King, The Thrill Is Gone

May I suggest that some of those same signs exist in your job search.  Yeah, I said it. You have hope in a process that doesn’t exist anymore.

Let’s see, there is the whole she-says-that-she can’t-go-out-on-the-weekend-thing.  Or maybe in certain terms he or she said they were not interested in a way you didn’t expect.

So has the thrill gone out of your job search yet? Don’t know? Well, here are signs that your job search is fading.

1. You no longer admit a job search exists

Oh, we’re no longer dating you say. You just haven’t told him. Well, it’s like all the social media profiles that have gone untouched. It takes time and effort. Together. It doesn’t exist because you are not initiating contact with employers. Stop relying on the machine to do the work.

2. You can’t wait to do your own thing

A night with the girls for the third time this week speak volumes. And if you think that your networking-less efforts will be career fulfilling, then ask her again why she hasn’t  spent time with you. Because YOU are boring! That covers both job and relationships dilemmas now, doesn’t it.

3. “We were never lovers…just friends”

She likes your company, and you make her laugh. But that’s it, she likes you only as a friend. There should be some affection from your job search. A kiss on the lips is like getting an interview, rather than the kiss on the cheek in the form of a five minute phone behavioral assessment. Otherwise, you were just a friend.

4. He or she takes you for granted

No more gifts, cards, or little notes for you. Ok, you received one little note once. It’s not the small meaningful but affectionate expression he or she used to offer. Little things like thank you, you’re welcome, and please mean so much when meeting people is a small window of opportunity. If your job search spirit is gimme, gimme, lemme, gimme most of the time, you are taking people for granted without consciousness. Give. Give without strings attached. Be wise, but you are showing the willingness to help.

5. Both of you were on the rebound

He wants his old girlfriend back, and she can’t get over her old boyfriend.  The familiar little ditty in the way you old job made you feel because it was special, and your achievements inspired others to treat you like a superstar. The reality is that they have moved on and its hard to accept. Why would you want someone who doesn’t want you?

Perhaps your job search is not interesting, so no one from an employer’s perspective is interested. When that happens the thrill is really gone. How do you know the thrill has gone out of your job search? What are ways you can get it back?

Lend your thoughts below in the comment section.

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.

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Filed Under: Job Search

by Mark Anthony Dyson

Best Interview Question Ever

Best Interview Question Ever

 

Editor’s note: Jason Sanders is Vice President of Executive Search at Ivy Exec, a web-based recruiting company that combines next generation technology with human power to deliver customized hiring solutions targeting high caliber professionals to help place them in executive jobs. This article is reprinted with Ivy Exec’s permission.

As Ivy Exec’s Vice President of Executive Search I spend a lot of time interviewing high quality candidates, as you might imagine. Candidates talk with me about their executive job search, career progression, skills, experiences and personal lives. Usually, I am most interested in understanding what motivates a person. That discussion generally provides the most relevant information to screening and attracting excellent candidates for executive jobs. When you interview a candidate, you will need to balance both objectives in order to make a good hiring decision.

Normally, I spend about two hours total interviewing a candidate. Ideally, these conversations are broken down into an initial phone screen and a face-to-face interview. We cover many topics, including personal ones and a general career history. But what if you don’t have two hours to spend evaluating a candidate? Maybe you only have twenty minutes, or perhaps only five. How do you get the most information in the least amount of time? In short, what is the best interview question you can possibly ask?

You must to accomplish a number of things to make smart hiring decisions. You need to find out about the candidates’ primary skills, their general experience, their ability to synthesize information, their ability to present well and think on their feet, their people skills, their basic intelligence, and their fit into your organization. In truth, you will never fully evaluate a person until you work together. You can cover a lot of ground in a short period of time, though, using this question:

What is your most significant professional accomplishment?

This question has the advantage of leading to a very short answer, or a very long one. It may put your candidates at ease, or make them sweat. You may learn about your candidates’ values, their self-esteem and their cultural fit. You will certainly learn about their ability to communicate. If you listen well, you may be able to sort out sincerity from pretense. You may be able to tell how they view themselves in relation to a team. You may also be able to learn about the person’s drive to succeed.

You can use this interview question for any level candidate, and use it according to your own style. If you prefer, you may remain silent after asking the question, or you may use it as a basis for many follow up questions.

If you choose this question as a starting point, you create a theme for an entire interview. If there is time, you should dig more deeply by asking questions that qualify your candidates’ response. In the case of a consulting project, some of these questions might be:

What were the dimensions of the project? How was it sold? How long did it last? What was the makeup of the delivery team?

What was your role in the assignment?

What was the overall business impact of the assignment? This is a critical question to assess your candidates’ understanding of the connection between their work and the goals of their clients.

Why were you chosen for this assignment?

What challenges did you face and how did you overcome them?

Which elements of the project did you enjoy, and which didn’t you enjoy?

How did you grow as a person during the course of the assignment?

What did you learn from your client, and what did you teach your client?

When you begin with a strong open-ended question, you lead with a very powerful analytical tool. You can gather a lot of information in a short period of time. You also create an anchor, around which to base a longer interview.

This question makes it easy to structure your interview by introducing a theme for the meeting. Preparing interview questions is always a good idea, but even without an organized approach, you now have something to refer back to. If your candidate begins to wander away from the topic, you will be able to steer the conversation, and learn about the candidate’s ability to stay focused at the same time.

The questions you ask are less important than how you listen to the answers. You may find, for example, that a person needs a lot of prompting. This may mean that they have not accomplished much, or it may mean that they are introverted, or maybe they have not interviewed in years and are a bit rusty. Your evaluation must be flexible according to the circumstances, and other bits of information you gather.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, you may find that your interviewee cannot stop talking about their work. Most hiring managers respond poorly to people who talk excessively, and with good reason. While over talking may make a person sound prideful, the opposite is usually the case. It also shows an inability to rapidly synthesize information, and in the worst cases, may be rude to the interviewer.

This question provides you with a firm grounding to begin, and to guide an interview. You should challenge a person, but also make them comfortable enough to reveal themselves. Your questions, and your style give candidates an impression of what it will be like to work for you. Take advantage of every opportunity to leave a good impression.

Using this question puts you in position to gather information and to ask smart follow up questions. It serves as a kind of interviewing cheat sheet, which helps you get around some of the preparatory work, like reading a resume. Don’t misunderstand me; reading a candidate’s resume is extremely important. If you are caught off guard, however, you can refer back to this question without tipping your hand.

In order to make a good hire, you need to check many different aspects of a candidate’s background, skills, personality, cultural fit and drive. You will need to use different approaches to get all the information that you want. Somewhere in the process, though, you ought to ask this question. You may get more than you expected.

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.

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Filed Under: Career, Interview, Job Search Tagged With: Career, Interview, Job Search

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