The Emerging Professional

Send Part II: 3 Ways to Find Answers to Questions

It has often been said that interviewing is like speed dating with the intention of an arranged marriage: employers and candidates meet and talk for a short pre-defined period before making a long-term decision. When the stakes are high, a good strategy for decision making is to identify what you need to know before the interview. And on the career front, there are always many options of information pre-interview that you can use to your advantage. Here are three strategies that you can use:

1. Know what you need to ask. Conduct a pre-interview with an outside party.

One of the quickest ways to break into a new field or land a new job quickly is to identify the best questions to ask during the interview. Nothing turns a potential employer off more quickly than having an interviewee with no questions (they'll either think you know everything, are disinterested, or not generally engaged.)

A great way to explore opportunities and prepare for interviews is to ask people outside the organization who work in a similar capacity specific questions. Examples:

• What is the biggest misunderstanding that candidates for this type of job have about the position?
• What is your greatest need? Is this need unique to your organization or do others who work in similar areas often face this challenge?
• What's the best way to research your field?

2. Know how to ask

It's easy to get lost in the e-mail queue. If you're asking a question via e-mail, make it easy to answer. Here are two great resources on how to make this happen:

• How to write an e-mail that generates a useful response
  
  The Brazen Careerist, Penelope Trunk, provides five strategies on how to write e-mail that won't get lost in the queue. Among her strategies: Be brief, be specific, and ask the right question of the right person.

• Send
  
  Before you hit "send," you may want to check out this book which I reviewed last month. I've heard of more than one Manhattan firm at which this is REQUIRED reading.

3. Know Who to Ask

If you are interested in a specific opportunity, be very strategic about what you ask--even if you're asking friends who currently work in a similar capacity. Know the answers to your basic questions before you create a list of questions for decision makers.

Here's is a real-world example of how one college student landed her dream internship with a boutique, big-name film production company:

She rented every single movie the production company had made and spent a weekend taking notes. When she was asked to name her favorite scene in a movie and what she would change about it, she said, "Since I'm interviewing with you, I'm going to take a scene from one of your movies. I loved ___, and especially liked the camera angles on _____, but did you think about _____?"

By the time she finished the question, she essentially had landed the interview: she had already demonstrated that she was ready.

She told this story the next fall, while serving as a student panelist for a program  on "Careers in Entertainment." As she recounted her interview preparation, another student panelist had his mouth open. When it got to be his turn he said, "I just learned how I lost that internship."

Trying to figure out what to ask? A great starting point is the Question and Answer section on LinkedIn. Through this feature of LinkedIn, community members both ask and answer questions. You can search previous answers and--if you don't find one that suits--ask your own (this may also result in additional leads for your search).

I'd love to follow-up this post with one on "the best question I ever asked" and "how it helped." Send your success stories my way!

Where the Jobs Are, How to Stay Out of Your Own Way

This fall has been fascinating, challenging, and occasionally exhausting. Living in New York, I've had a front row view of domino-effect of changes on Wall Street which has been supplemented through work with individual job seekers and a consulting gig at a university with a strong campus recruiting program.

On occasion, I've been at a loss for words. Many of the "safe industries" that I have traditionally recommended to students and young professionals--healthcare, government, biomedical, IT--have also taken some very public hits. (When Dow Chemical announced major layoffs, it really made me nervous--especially since chemical engineers had the highest starting salary of any 2008 graduates due to the "need" for their skills.) 

I've spent a lot of time talking to individual job seekers, and I've noticed a similar response to the economy, "I'm going to stop looking now, because I don't see how I can possibly find a job in this market." I've heard this response from current college students, young professionals, and the recently laid-off. I call this response, the "boa constrictor" because it reminds me of Shel Silverstein's poem about being swallowed by a giant snake:

I'm being eaten by a boa constrictor,
And I don't like it--one bit.
Well, what do you know?
It's nibblin' my toe.
Oh, gee,
It's up to my knee.
Oh my,
It's up to my thigh.
Oh, fiddle,
It's up to my middle.
Oh, heck,
It's up to my neck.
Oh, dread,
It's upmmmmmmmmmmffffffffff . . .

It's easy to personalize the economy: i.e. " layoffs and hiring freezes at <<insert company name>> mean I'll never land a new job. I'm going to get clobbered in this market. I have no chance."

DON'T LET YOURSELF THINK LIKE THIS. It is the equivalent of letting yourself get swallowed by a boa constrictor.

In reality, employers are still hiring. Perhaps not in the same volume or with the sexiest salaries ever--but there are still opportunities. And pursuing new opportunities is much better than staying home and putting yourself out of the game altogether.

In that vein here are two great posts providing tips on "where the jobs are" :

Reasons to Give Thanks: There is No Shortage of Jobs for Young People (Penelope Trunk)

Bright Spots in the Bad Economy: Five Places to Look for Jobs Right Now (Lindsey Pollak)

And one article on how not to stand in your own way.

Ten Ways You Stop Yourself from Getting the Right Job (Sital Ruperalia on Career Hub)

I'd love to hear your thoughts on what's working--and what hasn't worked.

To Your Success,
Chandlee

The Value of Being Curious

One of my favorite lines from Alice and Wonderland is "Curiouser and curiouser." I've forgotten when she says it in the story, but I'll never forget when my cousin, Zoe, first heard the phrase. Even at the tender age of five, she just knew it was important--and fun--to be curious. "I'm curiou-ker and curiou-ker" she shouted as she ran around the house.

She's held onto that idea. Last week, I talked to her after her basketball practice and she told me all the things she was learning to stay on top of her game. On Sunday, I talked to her mom and she told me she'd been the star player in her latest matches.

In my own life, I'm  "curiou-ker and curiou-ker" about careers. I love to ask people what they do, what they like about it, and to investigate pockets of supply and demand in terms of job functions and the overall employment market. I call it fun.

I also read blogs about careers, and one of my favorites is Penelope Trunk's The Brazen Careerist blog. She always makes me think, and so do the Gen Y bloggers at her company. I've never met her, but I love her voice. She's got a great style, and she seems to say exactly what's on her mind--especially when it's controversial. I love that, but am more deliberative by nature and nurture. (I was born in Texas and own multiple pairs of boots, but worked in academia for years and became cautious about what was "said" and what is left "unsaid."). In spite of--and perhaps because of--our differences, I love reading Penelope's work. Sometimes I disagree with her, but often I think she's spot-on in her advice.

Today, she writes about learning--and the value and importance of being curious in our current recession.

People who are always curious and always learning are keeping the recession from killing their career trajectory. You don't need to have a job to be learning, you don't need to have a great title to be stretching your skills. And really, really, you don't need to go to graduate school and earn a degree to prove that you are learning.  In fact, maybe you need to take a job you're not thrilled with, but remember that no one can dictate your learning curve. You control that.

I couldn't have said it myself. What are you curious about? And how do you show the world about your curiosities?