Greg Kuchmek, who is represented by Aquent's DC office, has been working on the web since 1994. That's when he was hired to help produce a webzine, Stim, started by Prodigy. [Editor's Note: For an interesting flashback to 1996, read Ty Burr's review of Stim, which he gives a B+, and Slate, which he gives a C+]. When that gig ended in 1997 he discovered that, "3 years web experience was amazing. I was 'senior' automatically."
Flash forward to the present and Greg now has 14 years web experience. If you want to hire someone like Greg (assuming you can find someone like him), what do you have to offer him? He has a broad range of in-demand skills: in addition to ground-up experience with the full suite of web technologies, Greg is also an able photographer, animator, illustrator, and writer. When he goes on a job interview, the pressure is on the interviewer.
What is Greg looking for and how can you convince him to work for you? Listen to his words:
1. Trust
I'm looking for an employer that respects that I have my skills and trusts me to use them. They hire me because I can do something and they can't. It's great when they let me do it.
It's not always like that. I've done jobs where the client was really looking over my shoulder and micro-managing. I understand that everyone's got their personal style, but when that's happening, I don't feel free to be creative and really do what I'm capable of.
2. Flexibility
I don't wear a tie to interviews anymore. I don't need to dress up at this point. I've also got a full studio at home, so I'm even kind of shocked that I have to leave the house! I guess I've been spoiled by working in places like Boston or New York where it's more flexible.
More than flexibility about where work happens, though, I appreciate it when there is flexibility around how things get done. There have been countless little jobs where they needed a photograph and I've told them, "Look, I can spend the day combing through stock or I can go take one." It's great when people are more open to the "I can do this right now" approach, than they are attached to the "this is the way we have to do it" approach.
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Some quick stuff for today, May 2.
Customer Service
I had a little problem with my iTunes account so I sent a message to their support center. The first response I got concluded with:
"Good luck on downloading the song Matthew! Again, please let me know if I can do anything else for you in the near future. I am so happy I was able to help you today with your item. Have a fantastic day and take care! Cheers! Brittany"
I replied: "Thanks! Much appreciated. Now having a fantastic day, Matt"
To which she (Brittany) responded: "Thank you for your kind words and you are so welcome! Nothing makes me happier than to hear that I have pleased our iTunes family members."
I practically blushed when I read that.
Blowing the Job Search
Having some PR responsibilities here, I often respond to ProfNet queries, particularly when they apply to careers and job hunting. Because my responses are thoughtful, but do not always see the light of day on the other side of the querying reporter's in-box, I thought I would quickly share the helpful hints I provided a writer putting together a piece on how people damage their job search:
1) Not doing enough or any research on the target company or the hiring manager. What do they do? What are their goals? Who are their competitors? etc. You better know!
2) Not leveraging your network to get an introduction, a recommendation, or anything else to differentiate you from the pool of applicants. Related problem: Not having or cultivating a network in the first place.
3) Swearing or almost swearing (ex. "friggin'") in the interview.
4) Forgetting you are being interviewed. In other words, acting more casually if the interviewer takes you to lunch, etc. Remember: Until you get that offer letter, you are being watched!
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Ever since I spoke to Erik Hauser last year I've been looking for an opportunity to speak with him again. He's optimistic, he's infectiously enthusiastic, and he has a lot to say on a lot of different topics almost any hour of the day or night (as anyone who follows the Experiential Marketing Forum knows).
Long story short, I asked him if I could interview him for this here podcast, and he amicably agreed. Rather than asking him to define "experiential marketing" for the umpteenth time, I thought instead it would be more illuminating to talk about emotionally connecting with brands, using experiential marketing techniques when searching for a job, and, of course, Gene Simmons. So that's what we did.
I invite you to listen in on our conversation. You can do so by clicking on the Flash device below. You are also welcome to download an mp3 of this interview by "right-clicking" ("control-clicking," Mac-wise) on this link. Finally, this and other Talent Blog Podcasts are always available on iTunes. Heck, you can even subscribe to our podcast there!
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A few highlights of the interview can be found at the following time coordinates:
00:59 - Gene Simmons: The Genius
05:19 - You need a 3rd Party to serve as "Keeper of the Brand"
10:04 - You want to raise demand? Decrease the supply! (From Hydrox to Polaroid)
12:01 - The "outside perspective"
14:45 - The EMF: How moderating discussions increases their value
16:08 - Keys to nurturing a vital online community
20:05 - "Experiential" is a methodology, not a tactic
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The other day I came across a query on ProfNet from a journalist who was writing an article on how one should manage one's time after losing one's job. Specifically, she wanted to know if people should take time off, immediately start looking for a new job, or possibly get a temp job just to pay the bills.
I sent her my thoughts on the subject which boiled down to, "It all depends." That is, it all depends on whether or not losing your job is a "worst-case scenario," an overcomeable inconvenience, or a blessed relief. In the latter case, unemployment might give you some time to relax, reflect, and enjoy a life of leisure. In the intermediate case, you may need to get your resume in order and call around to see what's cooking, but you aren't really in a state of panic. In the first case, you've got a problem.
But what exactly is the nature of that problem? As fate would have it, I've been thinking a lot about worst-case scenarios lately thanks to Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Fooled By Randomness. As far as I can make out, what distinguishes the worst-case scenario from your run-of-the-mill unpleasant situation is the fact that is, ideally, improbably rare, but for all that, overwhelmingly devastating. Its devastating character makes it a rather severe problem, but its rarity makes it all too easy to overlook, ignore, or otherwise pretend it won't happen to you. Which in a way is my point. What will tend to make unemployment a worst-case scenario is the false belief that it will never happen to you.
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If you are not a recruiter or an HR professional, and chances are that, if you found your way here via Aquent's website, you are not, then you're probably not familiar with ERE.net, which is an online resource center for recruiters and HR professionals (you will be required to register, at no cost to you, if you are curious enough to check it out).
Since most people reading this blog are job seekers of one form or another, and the act of job seeking usually involves interviewing, I've spent time in this space talking about ways of preparing for interviews. Among other things, I've recommended that candidates "get inside the minds of interviewers," in part by familiarizing themselves with the theories behind interviewing methods and by emphasizing that many organizations are less than organized when it comes to conducting interviews. This is one reason that I alert you to the existence of ERE.net.
The other reason is that a Dr. John Sullivan of San Francisco State University recently published a two-part article on ERE.net entitled, "Interviews: Is it Time to Blow Them Up?" (again, registration is required). In this article, Dr. Sullivan concisely presents all the reasons that interviewing, in the way it is normally practiced literally millions of times a day, is both a waste of time for the organizations relying on it as a way to assess new employees, and an unpleasant and frustrating experience for those who must endure being interviewed.
There are two choice quotes from this article that I will share with you. They come from its beginning and its ending respectively. To kick things off Dr. Sullivan writes: "I've always been curious as to why everyone continues to use interviews as a primary means of assessing candidates. Managers don't like to do them, candidates literally hate them, and as a predictive indicator of performance, they stink!"
To wrap things up he concludes, "Incidentally, if you want to know of a better way to hire, consider how you would hire a chef (or musician or writer). You certainly wouldn't spend a lot of time talking about knife skills; instead, you would put the candidate in the kitchen and then taste their food."
Now, how do you think a hiring manager would react if, when she invited you in for an interview, you replied, "Actually, why don't you just let me start working so you can see what I can do?"
In my last post, I suggested that recruiters and candidates both would be reluctant to conduct interviews using instant messaging technology. I must admit that I wrote that without doing the proper amount of research. To remedy the situation, I address the following questions to you, dear Blog Reader:
a) Have you ever been interviewed over IM? Would you go along with that?
b) What was the strangest interviewing situation you ever encountered?
In the spirit of giving-to-get, I'll share two awkward, if not strange, interviewing scenarios from my past life as an academic.
First, I interviewed for a job at a university in Alabama via the phone from my girlfriend's garret apartment where the ceilings were uncomfortably low for me. (I'm 6 feet, 7 inches tall. - fyi) To make matters worse, I had to conduct the entire interview in German (not my native language) and ended up getting in an argument about language pedagogy. I did not get the job.
Secondly, you may or may not know that most initial interviews in the humanities are conducted in hotel rooms during the Modern Languages Association's annual convention. Sitting in one such room with five faculty members from a university in North Carolina, I foolishly mentioned that I had once met Timothy Leary. One of the faculty members asked, "Did you take LSD with him?" I responded that I had not and, since he seemed to be unaware of the fact, patiently explained that such an act would have been against the law, as I understood it.
I did not get that job, either.
As a colleague and I were sitting down to discuss what, if anything, Aquent could do in Second Life at this late date, he glumly informed me that TMP Worldwide just opened a recruiting office in Second Life. He was kind of bummed because, well, we're kind of in the recruiting business and it sort of felt like they had beaten us to the (virtual) punch.
I dug into this a little bit and things weren't quite as bad as they seemed. TMP Worldwide is a recruitment advertising company, strictly speaking, and, if I've understood their press release correctly, they've established a service for recruiters in Second Life. Specifically, they've built "TMP Island," a place where "recruiters will be able to network with prospective candidates, host events, conduct employee presentations, and even build virtual replicas of their real-world offices for unprecedented interaction with job seekers."
As the Reuters bureau in Second Life reported, this unprecedented interaction will consist of "An avatar -- or online character -- of a real corporate recruiter [interviewing] avatars of job seekers, using instant- messaging technology."
Look, I'm in no position to second guess the business decisions of gigantic (erstwhile "Monster-ous") multinationals like TMP, especially given my own erstwhile giddy boosterism a few months back. But when I read in their press release that Second Life is "currently inhabited by roughly 3.4 million residents," it made me think that the folks at TMP either haven't looked at the Second Life homepage, which would have told them that, at least as I write this, only 23,000 "residents" "currently" "inhabit" this virtual world, (to be fair, 1.1 million have logged in over the last two months, though it's unclear exactly what that means), or aren't aware of the quite reasonable skepticism (to cite but one example) expressed about the real-world potential of this virtual one.
I know, I know. Nay-saying and cynical sniping is easy. But the fact of the matter is that Second Life, while very intriguing conceptually, can be frustrating to interact with in reality, is plagued by technical problems (just check out Second Life Insider where you could have read on Monday, "The day was plagued with the same massive problems from yesterday. That's nearly 60,000 unhappy new signups, assuming they all even got a chance to log in."), and, frankly, not anywhere near as popular as World of Warcraft.
Seriously, are recruiters and candidates really going to want to face precipitous learning curves and lurking technical uncertainties just to conduct an "unprecedented" interview with candidates via IM?
Heather Hamilton posted this lengthy piece on how to come across as confident in an interview without seeming "jerky."
If you don't have the time to read it - though you really should - I'll pass along it's three most compelling insights at no charge to you!
1. Acknowledge the contribution of your colleagues, co-workers, and collaborators early and often. (I wrote about this in terms of the "I-Exam" some weeks ago.)
2. Acknowledge the challenges you've faced, and how you've overcome them, frankly and factually.
3. Don't take the interviewer's questions or demeanor at face value.
This last one deserves some comment as it is composed of two separate points Heather makes. Firstly, she recommends considering the "why" behind the questions being posed before formulating your answer. Why would someone ask you to describe your greatest weakness? Are they plumbing the depths of your honesty and self-awareness? Or are they just looking for a good reason not to hire you? (Heather insists that latter is not the case.)
Secondly, she points out that sometimes interviewers use "tactics" to draw out candidates. She provides the example of an interviewer who frequently interrupts the candidate in order to see how they handle "challenging interpersonal situations." Another example might be an interviewer who is looking for you to "drop your guard" by adopting a fairly casual, friendly attitude. Of course, sometimes the interviewer is just being herself.
Interviewing for jobs can be SO complicated and scary! OMG!
"How do you like me now?"
John Moore of TRIBAL KNOWLEDGE fame led a breakout session called, Growing a Brand. Growing a Team,
at the 2006 In-HOWse Designer Conference mentioned in a previous post. During this session, the participants discussed how to spot what I'll call, people you really don't want to work with
(they had a much more colorful and evocative name for them), during interviews.
The session came up with something dubbed, "The 'I' Exam," the underlying principle of which is that people who are not "likeable" will tend to take undue credit for work they did on projects or as part of teams by claiming, "I did this" or "I did that." "Likeables," or "people you really want to work with," will stress the "we" of what they've done even when describing their experiences as team or project leaders.
While the reliability of this "exam" is debatable, it does highlight something very important about job interviews. Interviewers are not only curious about your credentials and the skills you will bring to the job. They also want to figure out if it will drive them crazy to be around you for an extended period of time! In other words, whether they admit it or not, interviewers are deciding whether or not they "like" you.
The obvious recommendation that you should use "we" when talking about work you have accomplished with others is irrelevant here. Indeed, there is very little you can do to make yourself more "likeable" (apparently, human beings make that sort of decision within the first seconds of meeting someone). This human tendency to evaluate others based primarily on first impressions leads many companies, and even government agencies, to institute explicitly structured methods of interviewing, which work to decrease the emphasis on "likeablity" and increase focus on competencies essential to success in a particular role. [More on preparing for structured and behavior-based interviewing in a future post. If you want to read what the United States General Accounting Office says on this subject, go here - Matt]
There is at least one lesson to be drawn from this. In the interest of taking a more active approach to interviewing, it's critical that you use the interview as an opportunity to consider whether or not you like the people you'll be working with, the role itself, and the overall work environment. Considering whether the position you are interviewing for fits into your career goals and meets your personal ambitions constitutes a different sort of "I" Exam along the lines of, "Do I see myself professionally satisfied in this place with these colleagues working on these projects for the foreseeable future?" Though that might come-off as "egocentric" and borderline "unlikeable," it is the mindframe that separates the active Job Seeker from the relatively passive Job Applicant.
What if you went into a job interview and asked all the questions?
The web is rife with tips on how to interview successfully. You can find them here, and here, and here. (For the contrarians among you, there are even tips on interviewing unsuccessfully.)
The tipsters all emphasize being prepared, which is unassailably sound advice, as any Boy Scout could tell you, but they don't point out something that might make you rethink your entire approach to interviewing: Interviewers are often unprepared!
While some companies have thoroughly developed and well-defined processes for interviewing people (and will even provide you with a detailed overview of said processes beforehand), many companies don't. In fact, as these tips for interviewers from Monster imply, the interviewing process puts them under a lot of stress.
So what does this mean to you, marketing professional approaching an upcoming interview? It should encourage you to take an active role in the interviewing process and work hard to make it a conversation rather than an interrogation. Don't be afraid to take the lead and start off by asking questions, especially, thoughtful, well-crafted questions that demonstrate your knowledge and experience while simultaneously conveying your interest in the position. (As a kind of test, ask yourself, Could I get a job offer based solely on the questions I asked?
)
Asking questions, especially from the outset, will take some pressure off the interviewer and, ideally, provide you with insights that will allow you to present your own qualifications in the context of the role. This is key, for while the interviewer will inevitably ask you what you have done for others, she is most interested in discovering what you will do for her, her team, and her organization. There is no better way to do that then by framing any discussion of your talents and triumphs with references to the challenges she is currently facing.
Ultimately, by engaging in a conversation about the role, rather than submitting to an interview for it, you will accomplish two things. First, you will more readily be seen as a colleague or a peer than a candidate. In a sense, you will already have entered the interviewer's world. Secondly, and most importantly, if in this conversation you can project a sincere eagerness to learn and contribute to the success of the enterprise, you will send the message that every interviewer wants to hear: I really want this job right now!
