5 Steps To Interview Success

You have done everything right so far. Great resume, strong phone interview, made it past the internal recruiter and now you are scheduled for your first in-person interview with the hiring manager. It is at this point that the well prepared candidate can differentiate themselves from the rest of the pack. That's what you want to do, right? Blow away the competition for this job! You are going to sit down in front of your soon to be new boss and wow them with your wit, personality and expertise. You are going to get this job! Confident? Ready? Not completely? Well, follow these five steps and you will be:

1) Research the industry and company: Everything you need to learn about your next employer is on the world wide web. Amazing! Look into the industry the company serves, how they are positioned, what market share they hold. Become familiar with the company's  services and products so you can refer to them in the flow of the interview. Be ready to present their product or service if asked. Smart candidates walk in to the interview knowing how to sell or market what they will be selling or marketing for the company they want to join. Type up several pithy and insightful questions that are relevant to the industry, company or role to ask during the interview. 

2) Image is everything: Present yourself in the most professional manner possible. When you aren't sure what to wear to the interview, think conservative dress. Leave the jeans, sandals, short skirt and lounge wear for the weekends. (Believe me... at TVG Executive Search...just when we thought we had seen it all...). Be well groomed and rested. Don't go out on a bender the night before. When you greet the hiring manager for the first time, step forward confidently, look them square in the eye and shake their hand firmly without fracturing their index finger. Positive first impressions create lasting impressions. Make the introduction count!

3) Don't get too personal: Establishing a solid rapport is essential. Elaborating on you recent vacation or bragging about your kids (or parrot) isn't a way to accomplish this. Certainly, you would have researched the hiring manager's background on LinkedIn and identified a few commonalities. If so, reference them discretely and indirectly in the conversation. Don't try to lay on the secret hand shake if you just happen fraternity brothers. You goal isn't to become BFFs in the interview. Your job is to get the job. Eight five percent or more of the conversation should be devoted to the opportunity. Fifteen percent or less should be about your personal life. If they ask you about your interests and hobbies, provide an answer without great detail. You will have plenty of time to get acquainted AFTER they hire you.

4) Ask for the job: These days, there is no such thing as an "informational interview".  If you are there interviewing, the assumption is that you want this job! If not, what the heck are you there for and why are you wasting their time! Therefore, as the interview is coming to a close, take the lead and say "based on everything we have discussed, I feel I am extremely qualified for this role and know I will be an outstanding contributor to the company's success. I very interested in joining your team. What are the next steps in the process?" They can answer any number of ways. The point is to ACT as though you are the "IT" and assume they will want you. Confidence is attractive. Ambivalence is not.

5) Follow up: Within 24 hours but not within the first hour, send the hiring manager an email thanking them for the opportunity to meet and recapping 3-5 reasons why you are the right person for the job. Call them within 48 hours to inquire about the next steps. If you don't hear back within a day after your call, call them again. I see nothing wrong with demonstrating a keen desire and consistent follow up until you get the answer that, a) you are moving forward in the process or, b) for some reason they went in a different direction. Either way, invite the hiring manager to connect on LinkedIn. You never know how that introduction could be of benefit in the future.

Act on these 5 points and you will stand out from the other candidates who didn't have the good fortune of reading my blog!

Mike Vanneman

Founder - TVG Executive Search

Learning From Jeremy Lin

You have to be living on Mars if you haven't heard about Jeremy Lin, a rising NBA star playing for the New York Knicks. Waived by two previous NBA teams, this Harvard educated point guard was playing for an NBA D-League team in some podunk city when he was called up to the Knicks due to a raft of injuries to their staring players.

I don't know about you but Jeremy's success has struck a cord in me as well as in a zillion other people on the planet. It has become a personal story, a story we can be inspired by and a phenomenon we can learn from.

So, what can you learn from Jeremy Lin? You don't have to improve your outside shot, lower your turnover ratio or even go to the gym. What you need to do is think about how you will respond to new challenges, impact your organization and adapt to change. Let's see how Jeremy responded to the opportunity to play under the ultimate sports microscope in New York City.

Seize the moment: Jeremy wasted no time in making an impact for his new team. As soon as Jeremy hit the hardwood at Madison Square Garden, he began to post numbers few players have ever put up. He joined an exclusive club of 15 players since 1985 that have posted at least 20 points, seven assists and a steal for six games in a row. This club includes Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, LeBron James, Chris Paul ... and now it's newest member Jeremy Lin.

Think about when you started a new sales job or took the reigns of a sales organization. How quickly did you make an impact? In today's environment you had better hit the bricks running. This means quickly building a pipeline, landing a large deal or making necessary organizational shifts. Move fast, take advantage of the opportunity, make an impact. You don't have a long run way so you had better blast off!

Improve others around you: After the Knicks beat the Los Angeles Lakers and Lin scored 38 points, the Knicks locker room was giddy with excitement. Jeremy's consistent performance has changed the team chemistry and how the other players react on and off the court. The Knicks are revitalized, focused and loose.

There are daily opportunities to impact your team's chemistry and the performance of your peers. Are you lifting up your group through leading by example? Are you demonstrating focused consistency in your sales strategy and activities? A former CEO of mine Al Sisto often said that "sales is an event driven process". It's the ability to string together a series of meaningful events that bring value to the potential customer which ultimately results in a sale. It is executing the fundamentals. There is no short cut. Jeremy's success is largely due to his ability to pass first, shoot second, find the open player and not be selfish with the ball. Your success is directly linked to the activities you consistently execute in the sales process and helping others in your organization do the same. When everyone executes the same plan at a high level, quotas are exceeded and customers win.

Embrace change: Lin entered the NBA on July 21, 2010 by signing with the Golden State Warriors. The Bay Area was thrilled almost as much as Jeremy was. Raised in Palo Alto, CA Jeremy attended Palo Alto High School where he led them to and won the State Basketball Title his senior year. With no scholarship offers, Jeremy attended Harvard University and elevated the Crimson to national basketball prominence. He won in high school, he won in college and entered the NBA expecting to win. Then, change happened. The Warriors waived him. The Houston Rockets picked him up and quickly cut him. The Knicks signed him on the cheap and promptly sent him to their D-League team. With each new transition Jeremy practiced hard, kept focused on his goal and overcame discouragement. Then another change occurred. He got the call up to the Big Show and took full advantage of it.

Change is a constant in all of our lives. Organizational shifts occur all around us, like it or not. Your ability to embrace the change, even when it temporarily may not be to your advantage, could lead to professional growth and new opportunities. Fighting change and resisting the inevitable will only lead to frustration and may not work to your benefit. Of course, there are some decisions that should be challenged or issues that require push back. I will leave it to you to decide when you should fight for a different outcome. Maybe the change is too much to take and you decide to leave the team. That happens. However, most of the time we are faced with changes in role, strategy or personnel and need adjust. If so, see the change as an opportunity and find a way to make it work for you and your company.

If you haven't already jumped on the Jeremy Lin bandwagon, hop on board! You will not only watch some great basketball and be a part of something special but might just learn some valuable life lessons watching the kid from Harvard.

The Case For Leadership

Ok, it has been a while since my last post! I promise I won't stay away for so long.

What has compelled me to resume blogging is the topic of leadership. Below is the link to a post that I just read and thought it was worth sharing.

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/10/we_need_more_mature_leaders.html

Richard Davis pens a compelling piece about the characteristics of mature leadership. I am no leadership expert and Lord knows I made my share of mistakes leading teams and organizations. However, what I have learned through experience is that the most effective leaders are principled leaders. This comes from experience and hopefully experience breeds maturity.

Take a moment to read Davis' blog. Well worth the time.

HIRING TIPS FOR TODAY'S MARKET

Last week's post revealed the shift in the current hiring market. Today I want to address what to do about it. Per my comments, hiring in the technology sector has become much more competitive. Top Engineers, Sales, Marketing and even now Finance professionals are in much higher demand and in shorter supply. Some are receiving multiple offers and others are holding out for the offer they want. "No need to jump ship yet if I am ok where I am at. I will wait for the optimal opportunity". Your competitors are stepping up their hiring and have been so for 3 months. On the extreme, that loud sucking sound is Google, Facebook, Zynga and Twitter pulling in as much talent as they can assimilate. 

The good news is that you CAN compete for top talent in today's market IF you are prepared and make course corrections TODAY! Below is a quick primer on the changes you need to make NOW regarding your hiring tactics:

1) Philosophy: What is your deliberate and adopted philosophy on how you manage your recruiting efforts? If you don't have one that is documented...then I offer this as the first recommendation.  Much as been talked about Google's "Lake Woebegone" approach to recruiting. Grossly translated: The next person in the door should be smarter that the mean. Works for them but your approach needs to be tailored to your organization. It should incorporate how you treat candidates, how many people really need to be in the vetting process, the speed with which you make decisions, references, qualifications, etc. This philosophy should be bought into by hiring managers. If not, they will default to their own and most likely it won't support the company's approach. Get everyone on the same page.

2) Attitude: Sadly, there are companies and leaders that give off the impression that "we are so hot you are fortunate to be speaking with us". They feel their technology, their VCs, their IQ, their every existence is so special that the candidate's self-esteem must be skyrocketing to be in their very presence.  Two words....TURN OFF! Top candidates, the ones you want to hire aren't necessarily looking for job. They possess skills and experiences your company needs. You are RECRUITING them so treat them as such. This decision is made by two parties...the company and the candidate. Treat the candidate as you would like to be treated. Convey an attitude that supports how great your opportunity is but that the company is only as great as the people we attract and hire. In today's market, you can ill afford to project an arrogant attitude. Be confident, positive, excited but not arrogant. Make sure your hiring managers and executives are positively promoting the company through their interactions with candidates.

3) "Be Quick, But Don't Hurry". One of my heroes and mentors John Wooden, the late former basketball coach from UCLA coined that expression. It means move fast but don't compromise quality or thoroughness. The reason companies can lose great candidates is they get stuck in their own mire. Cranking out an offer letter once the decision is made on the select candidate should take a day, maybe two...at most. All too often we hear of horror stories that it took 3 weeks (or longer) to get the offer out the door. Not good. If the CEO has to review every offer before it goes out....problem. The CFO or HR manager should be held accountable for this step. Set up a process that aligns with the business objectives. If the headcount has been approved, is budgeted for, the candidate has been selected and has verbally accepted...get the offer out the door! Why? Because that candidate might receive (and accept) another offer from a company that has it's act together and really can't quite understand what the delay was about! Make sure that managers know what is expected of them. Adopt and hold fast to this practice that once all of the vetting is completed and the candidate has been chosen, you WILL get the offer out the door within 24 or 48 hours. Anything longer will put your company at a disadvantage.

4) Use Search Firms: Yes, a shameless plug but hear me out. A friend and very successful CEO once to me "if it isn't a strategic capability or a core competency..outsource the function". Search firms can get results faster. It's their business. You have enough to manage. That headcount you want to devote to an internal recruiter could be sales person generating revenue. We see ourselves as an extension of your company. Using firms for key hires makes good business sense. Not convinced? Contact me at www.tvgsearch.com and let's talk about it.

With a sound philosophy, an attractive attitude, an efficient process and using the right resource (search firms) you can dramatically improve your time to hire metrics. Incorporate these simple steps and you will attract the top talent you need to exploit your competitive advantage.

Mike Vanneman

Memo To Hiring Executives: The Market Has Shifted

While the national unemployment outlook teeters at 9.2% and California's unemployment rate "improved" by dropping from 12.4 to 12.0% in between January and March, there are indicators in the technology sector that the talent pool is contracting and it is becoming a "buyers" (candidates) market. We are even seeing companies do unnatural things to keep key employees. No, I am not talking about Google's $5,000,000 retention bonus package to keep an engineer from going to Facebook. Not an urban legend...it really did happen. I am not talking about Google giving every employee a 10% raise last November in addition to the free food. 

What we are seeing at TVG Executive Search is that progressive companies are locking down key talent by offering more incentives (options and or cash). They are promoting key employees because these are the valuable people that most likely survived the meltdown in late 2008 and now the companies are hiring back people in every department. These new employees need to be managed and many of these management positions are being filled from within. These are defensive moves to prevent experienced producers from leaving. Is it working? Yes, in many cases. In many other situations the candidates are going on the offensive.

The "passive" candidate of yesterday is now the aggressive candidate in today's market. If they don't see more upside with their current employer, they are willing to take more risk and move elsewhere.  Two years ago it was hunker down. This year it's saddle up!

What is an employer to do? The first step--face reality. Accept it. The market has shifted and you are behind the curve. Now, catch up. Don't listen to that Board Member who continues to blather on that "Unemployment is so high! Everyone is out of work! You can get people on the cheap!" Politely smile, tolerate the same bad joke he tells at every board meeting and get back to the business of building a world class company.

The second step--develop specific talent retention and acquisition plans.  What should be in these plans? This will be the subject of my next entry. I don't want to give you too much at one time. Accepting the market reality will be challenging enough. So, let's do a quick meditative exercise. Close your eyes. Repeat after me..."I accept the market as it is today, not what thought it was or told that it is...but what it really is now". Now, don't you feel better!?  

Your new motto is "Get over it and get on with it!"

Until next time.....

Mike

www.tvgsearch.com

The Power Of Who...is YOU

I recently spoke at a seminar for Executives In Transition. It was a fantastic event put on by an outstanding Executive Coach (and competitive triathlete) Bobbi LaPorte. Part of my personal and professional philosophy is to assist executives (and others) with streamlining their path to their next great career move or job. Lord knows I made a few career turns down this road and if in sharing some of my experiences with people can be of benefit to them...awesome. This was a group of highly focused, energized executives who are taking all of the right steps toward the goal of finding their next great position.

Whenever I have an opportunity to speak one on one or to a group about carrier transitions I always recommend Bob Beaudine's "The Power Of Who". Bob is a fellow executive search professional who has written a compelling book about how networking must be as important to us as breathing air! For more information, go to www.powerofwho.com. It is available at Amazon and other retailers. Also, check out his promotion video http://tinyurl.com/2fz4w93. If that doesn't get you jacked up...you had better feel for a pulse!

More on how I benefited from speaking to this group in an upcoming post. Here I was the "subject matter expert" yet I left that event having learned a valuable lesson and even more inspired to help people who are committed to their success.

Mike
www.tvgsearch.com

No More "Good Meetings"!

One of my professional pet peeves as a Sales Executives was hearing one of my sales people tell me they had a real "good" meeting with a prospect. When I inquire "why"? as my blood begins to boil, I would be answered with much hand waving, vague examples of what was accomplished and little in the way of next steps. This reminds me of something a former boss of mine would bemoan. Mike Boich, the founder and former CEO of Radius had a favorite saying, "When all was said and done, more was said than done".

I recall unloading on a Senior Director of Business Development after I was again told how "good" his meeting was with a strategic partner with little to show for it other than a lengthy intellectual discourse and supposed alignment with the partner's strategy. After I peeled myself off the ceiling, I sat this individual down and outlined the essential characteristics of a highly productive sales call.

The stage for a highly productive sales call is set well in advance of the actual meeting. Every encounter with a prospective customer must be well thought out. You want to prove the value of your time (and theirs) at each engagement. Some sales people are notoriously known for "winging it" on a sales call and guess what, it comes through loud and clear to the prospect. Know exactly what you want to accomplish BEFORE the meeting and then develop a plan as to how this will be accomplished. Do you want to present the concept of a pilot program? Gain an introduction to a newly identified decision maker? Whatever it is, be very clear in your mind what you want to derive from the meeting.

In turn, know exactly what you want to communicate to the prospect(s) as to how your product or service will solve their problem. Every interaction with the decision maker or influencer is an opportunity to demonstrate and prove your value. Take advantage of it!

Another key attribute of a highly productive sales call are the definitive action items and next steps that are agreed to by both parties BEFORE you leave the room. If the next step is to initiate a pilot program, then the key participants must be identified and contact information obtained. Second, the start date of the pilot must be determined. Third, specific assignments and responsibilities must be outlined. Who is going to do what and by when. Four, the potential customer agrees to this and off you go.

Through out the discussions, always seek out opportunities to affirm what your company can do for the customer. This can be done by presenting a quantified R.O.I. analysis or a proforma estimate of costs reduced or even better yet a forecast for incremental revenue. Promises are not what prospects want. They want proof.

So, let's recap:

1) Conduct a pre-call planning session: Know exactly what you want to accomplish in the meeting and what outcome(s) you need.
2) Determine the all important NEXT STEPS. This includes dates, times, targets, actions, owners, participants, duration and costs. Get buy-in from the prospect.
3) Prove your worth on every sales call: Every interaction with the prospect must advance the relationship toward the ultimate objective--win them as a customer!

Do yourself and your boss a favor. Expunge the term "good sales call" from your company lexicon and from your consciousness. Focus instead on proving your company's value, adding value to your prospect's business and advancing the deal along at each engagement point. When you do this, you will be not only highly productive but you will close more sales.

Happy hunting!

Mike Vanneman
www.tvgsearch.com