Waiting to hear about a potential job often brings to mind your very first date – waiting by the phone for hours hoping to get a call, and, more often than not, the phone stubbornly refusing to ring. Although waiting by the phone no longer means holing yourself up in your bedroom for days (thanks mobile phones!), it can be just as frustrating waiting for a job call-back that never comes.
Although we can’t tell you how to make the hiring manager start dialing any faster, there are some simple things you can do to increase your chances of a timely call back.
Firstly, keep in mind that it’s often most effective to take the bull by the horns and call the hiring manager yourself. Instead of calling out of the blue, which can make you seem impatient, end your thank you note with a follow up date – for example, “I look forward to hearing from you, and will follow up next Wednesday.” This tells the hiring manager that you’re interested enough in the job to keep in contact, and the subsequent communication will keep you fresh in his or her mind.
Second, strive to establish a connection with the hiring manager that will distinguish you from all the other candidates he or she has to deal with. While you don’t want to distract from your professional attributes while in an interview, noticing and pointing out something you might have in common with the hiring manager can have a big payoff in terms of how he or she relates to you. For example, if you notice a lot of family photos, mention that you have kids as well – the knowledge of a shared life experience will make the hiring manager eager to know more about you and hopefully hasten the speed of the call back.
Like first dates, job interviews take patience and a little luck. But unlike first dates, waiting for a call doesn’t have to mean waiting in an anxious frenzy. With a few strategic moves, waiting for a call will go by as quickly as your first good date – an experience worth waiting for.
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After sitting through God-knows-how-many interviews in your life, you’re finally going to be on the other side of the table. Getting promoted to an interviewer or hiring manager means that the company trusts you to make choices regarding new personnel who could shape the future of the business. It’s a big responsibility, and it can be nerve-wracking to take over the hiring process. Here are a few mistakes that hiring personnel commonly make as well as how to avoid them.
Although it’s asked in every interview you’ve ever been to, the question “what’s your biggest weakness?” never fails to bring out the stutterer in every one of us. While saying “nothing” isn’t an option, neither is confessing each and every flaw from your inability to keep organized files to your cuticle-biting habit. Here are a few little tricks to turn this common interview question to your advantage.
In this third installment of breaking bad habits that are holding you back from getting the job you want, we look at a number of things you need to change right away.
In an earlier post, we shared 7 bad habits that job seekers today should get rid of as soon as possible. Here are 7 more valuable tips if you want to clean up your act and land that next great job. If you are serious about getting work, you need to pay attention to these big Don’ts.
The job market is like water, always changing. What looks solid at one moment, in the next looks completely different. This presents obvious challenges to those who are looking for a new job. To some extent, we are all old dogs, creatures of habit, but we need to buck some of those habits if we are to survive and thrive in the current world of job hunting. Here are 7 things you should stop doing right now to maximize your chances of being hired.
In an earlier segment, we discussed ways in which you can develop an effective online presence without working social media. Here are some additional suggestions for you as you seek to build a presence that will help you find a job or advance in your career.
So much about job hunting has to do with visibility. But you may, because of inclination or personality, shy away from social media and blogging. Not to worry. There are other things you can do to boost your presence on line.
Living as we do in the internet age, there is no excuse for not being thoroughly prepared for a job interview. That preparation requires research. It is your pre-interview task to learn everything you can about the organization that will be interviewing you.
We know what you’re thinking. Here is yet another piece telling you what to do to your much-traveled resumé. Well, yes, but it’s important to remember that no matter how tedious the project seems, it behooves you, if you still haven’t found a job, to remake this essential document periodically. It’s wise to give it a freshening up.