Impressive Follow-up

What do you think is the purpose of follow-up? How do you follow-up?
Most people know to follow-up after each interview. Many, however, follow-up ineffectively. Too many people sit at home waiting for the phone to ring or the email to come. Others irritate the interviewer by asking “Have you made a decision yet?”. They fail to realize the power of impressive follow-up.
Continuing to convince the interviewer remains the purpose of follow-up. AS I mentioned in previous blogs, you must convince them you can:

1. Do the job they want done
2. Fit into their team or organization
3. Provide a good return on their investment

Immediately After the Interview
Evaluate the interview before anything can distract you (car radio, phone calls, texting). Write down the following information:

• Correct spelling of the names and email of everyone involved in the interview
• Topics covered by the interview or meeting
• The answers to four questions
• What went well in the interview?
• What did you say that you wish you had not said?
• What did you not say that you wish you had said?
• What requirement did they have that you did not meet?

Four Steps to Impressive Follow-up
My suggestion for impressive follow-up involves four steps:

1. Send a thank you card or email to each person in the interview the same day as the interview. In fact, I suggest you take 4-5 thank you cards to the interview. Complete them before you leave and leave them with the receptionist. Your thank you card should restate what went well in the interview.
2. Make a phone call 3-4 business days after the interview. The phone call should last less than 3 minutes. It should fix what you said that you wish you had not said. End the phone call with a simple “I really want to work with you. Is now a good time to set up a second interview?” Do not press it more than that. Just ask and let it go—unless they accept your offer for the interview.
3. Make a second call 3-4 days after the first phone call. Once again, do not take more than 3 minutes. This time, you say what you wish you had said. In other words, give the great answer that came to you after the interview ended. End your conversation with the same “I really want to work for you. Is now a good time to set up a second interview?”
4. Make a third call another 3-4 days after the second call. This call should highlight how you compensate for the requirement you did not meet. For example, if you lacked experience with a certain software program, spend 4-6 hours with someone teaching you how to run the software. In the phone call explain the training you received, and detail how it prepared you to do the job. You obviously did not learn everything you needed to know, but your initiative will demonstrate your willingness and ability to solve problems.

Remember, your follow-up continues to impress the interviewer that you will do the job, fit into their team, and provide a great return on investment. You avoid irritating the interviewer by asking if they have made a decision. Nor do you sit by the phone waiting for them to call you. You follow these four steps to impressive follow-up.
Read the blog on Wednesday when I share how to prepare a 10-minute reusable resume
Please share what follow-up techniques work for you

Meet with 10 People a Week

Comments (both positive & negative) help others. Please share yours.

You need to meet face-to-face with 10 people a week to land the job you love. You select 10 of the 50 people you called (10 a day times 5 days a week) and schedule a meeting. Use Skype or another video conferencing app if your search takes you to another state or country.

Alyssa’s Story

Alyssa wanted a job with a clothing store. She loved clothes. She loved selling. She loved helping women combine an outfit with accessories to create the perfect look. She identified all the women’s clothiers in her community and began her campaign to prove she could help them achieve their sales goals.

She made 10 phone calls a day talking to friends and acquaintances about where they bought clothes. She discovered the names of their favorite sales clerks. She even scheduled shopping trips with her friends so they could introduce her to the staff. She counted each sales trip as 2-4 meetings depending on how many clerks or managers she met. She also visited stores on her own to talk to the staff.

She used her professional introduction that established her as a woman who loved helping other women create the perfect look and made stores money. She asked the staff questions about what they liked about working at the store. She discussed the typical client, how the store captured client information for future sales, and what sales quotas management set. She would casually ask what they liked about the store’s manager, their management style, goals for the store, etc. She shared appropriate home runs as the discussion presented opportunity. All of her questions and statements established a rapport with the staff. They established her as a true professional in their eyes. She kept her visits very short, once again proving she was a professional. She visited some staff several times to gather more information. She always finished with “Thank you so much. This has been very helpful. Who else would you suggest I talk to?”

She met with the manager only when she knew enough to impress the manager. Her referred to both the names of the staff and some of the information she gathered in her introduction. She focused not on getting a job, but what the manager wanted to achieve with the store. She verified that the information she received was accurate and presented her home runs establishing she could do what the manager wanted and make sales for the store. The managers usually asked her questions to clarify or explain what she said. She ended the conversation by saying “Thank you for spending time with me. I really want to work for you. May I remain in touch?”

She made mistakes the first few stores she visited. Sometimes she pushed too hard. Other times she failed to impress them. The more people she met, however, they better she did.

Unfortunately, she made some mistakes with the manager of one of the stores she really wanted to work for She did not give up. She visited that store each week for five weeks. She revisited the staff and spent 2 minutes with the manager trying to overcome her previous mistakes and demonstrate her gentle persistence. Those visits counted as 1 of her 10 meetings a week.

Her hard work paid off. That store manager offered her a job during her fifth follow-up visit.

Purpose of the meetings

1. You meet with 4-6 people a week to do your due diligence in preparation…
2. …to meet with 2-3 decision makers a week to prove you can help them achieve their goals or resolve their challenges
3. Follow-up on previous meetings to continue to make the hiring authority feel wonderful (we’ll discuss this next week)

Some Final Tips to Enhance your 10 Meetings a Week

• Set appointments to meet with people in office or industrial setting.
• Set meetings when convenient with the person you meet. Avoid peak work times.
• Limit your meeting to 10-15 minutes unless eating, golfing, or similar venue
• Prepare 10-12 questions to ask people during meetings. Do not ask all of them at any one meeting
• Treat everyone you talk to—especially the secretary—with respect and kindness
• Meet with others before you meet with the hiring authority or decision maker until you know what their goals, challenges, and projects
• Use your professional introduction to impress them. Do not begin the conversation with anything close to “I’m looking for a job. Are you hiring right now?”
• Change your approach if they refer to you human resources. You came across as a job seeker, not a professional
• Notice how people dress, so that you can dress one step higher when you meet with the manager
• Meet people at professional or business association meetings, the Chamber of Commerce, service organizations, and other meetings. Identify friends who cant take you as their guest. Offer to pay for your costs and maybe theirs.

In Conclusion

Sitting in front of a computer 8 hours a day sending emails and resumes depresses you.

Meeting 10 people a week to network, follow-up, and impress the manager accelerates your job search. Your enthusiasm grows. Your ability grows (because you will make mistakes with the first 7-10). Your confidence grows. You get the information you need. You get jobs faster. You get higher salary offers.

So, meet 10 people, face-to-face, a week

Join us next week when we discuss creating a professional introduction to impress people

Comments (both positive & negative) helps others. Please leave yours.

Add Experience to Education

A billboard on the side of the freeway conveys a brilliant message "Get a Resume With Your Degree".

 

STUDENTS WITH NO EXPERIENCE

Unfortunately, borrowing your way through school replaced working your way through school. More students graduate with debt today. They borrow student loans. They borrow on credit cards offered by finance companies who throw T-shirts, pizza, and other coupons to establish habits of debt. Many have to drop out of college because of debt related bankruptcy.

 

Consequently, most college students graduate from school with absolutely no, or minimal, work experience. I speak to lots of college groups to encourage them to add experience to their education. A frequent comment is "I graduate in a few weeks (or months). Most of the places ask for 1-2 years experience. I've never worked in my life. How am I supposed to gain experience?". At first, I thought the student ignored the small jobs they had done as youth. Upon further inquiry, however, I discovered that they had not mowed lawns, babysat, or worked during their teen years. Instead, their parents had so focused them on sports, dance, music, and other activities. Work interfered with their play.

 

As a result, they were entering the workplace in their twenties with no work ethic. They suffered a lack of experience. They do not understand the need for punctuality, dependability, and productivity. The only thing they can offer an employer is a diploma. They expect the workplace to conform to their habits. A recent story in US News and World Report lists seven advantages to working your way through college.

 

RICK'S STORY

Let me share the story of Rick. A young man I met in the late 80's. Rick, age 15 1/2 approached me after a presentation. No one in his family for 3 generations had gone to college. He wanted to be a mechanical engineer, but saw no way to achieve his goal. We discussed options. He knew an engineer from his church congregation. He offered to volunteer as a custodian at the engineering firm at which the man worked.

 

After six months of emptying trash and cleaning toilets, the firm hired him part-time. He still cleaned, but the engineers had begun to teach him how to draft using Autocad. He no longer cleaned by his 17th birthday, but drafted 20 hours a week. He also earned twice the average teen wage for the time. I remember him proudly informing me that he was leaving for his chosen university the next week, and had just bought a PC with his own money. Further, the engineering firm offered him work anytime he could come to the office--at three times the usual college student wage.

 

His engineering portfolio, when he graduated from college, did not contain student projects. It contained 11 engineering studies he had completed for the transportation system of a major copper refinery. It contained the design, drafting, and photos of 23 mechanical parts he had engineered for the same project. He added seven years engineering experience to his diploma.

 

Graduate schools lobbied for him to apply to their programs. They courted him as some schools court athletes. He accepted the offer from Purdue. They offered him a position as a teaching assistant. In addition, they gave him a grant to pay for tuition. Finally, they arranged a part-time job with a local engineering firm that paid him $58,000 a year.

 

Today, Rick is a Vice President with a major manufacturer of farm and other heavy equipment. He loves his job. He provides very well for his family. He has worked for the same company since graduating with his master's degree.

 

OTHER EXAMPLES

Many others mirror Rick's story. I know two people who worked their way through school doing film and cartooning. They both now work for Sony and Disney pictures. I know hundreds of students who earned certificates in medical, dental, and nursing assisting in high school. They worked their way through college and professional schools working in their chosen occupational field. I could share thousands of stories of accountants who worked as bookkeepers.

 

My advice to you as the student--or as the parent--work your way through college. Prepare for your future. Verify that your chosen occupation really matches your expectations. Become the person the companies and graduate schools recruit.

 

Add a resume to your diploma.

Happy with Your Career?

At age nine, I decided I wanted to practice law. My father helped me get a job with a law firm while in high school. I failed miserably. I was not good and I did not like what lawyers did. Fortune smiled on me. Instead, I found the perfect career that brings me joy even after 30 years.

HOW TO FIND YOUR PERFECT CAREER

First, recognize that today's careers differ drastically from decades ago. You will change your career 5-6 times. You may change jobs every 3-5 years or less. So, you are not making a 30 year commitment to do only one thing.

Second, begin by exploring what you love to do. Dick Knowdell created two great exercises to help you. They are called the Motivated Skills Test and the Career Values Test. Print the results if you take them.

Another, easy and free, way to see if what you like to do matches certain careers is through the Career Interest Game at the University of Missouri. You can also take several other career tests through your local college career center, though you will usually have to pay.

I believe the best method (though the most strenuous) is found in Richard Nelson Bolles bestseller What Color is Your Parachute? (make sure you get the current edition). You can also discover other tests through Dick's web site JobHuntersBible.com.

Third, compare what you discovered about yourself with careers. You can use the O*Net Career Exploration Tools or the Department of Labor's excellent resource Occupational Outlook Handbook. In addition, talk to at least three people working in occupations that interest you. Explore what they like and do not like about their job. Discover what they really do, as compared to what you think they do.

You can discover the perfect job, if you work hard to find it. Once you find it, then begin preparing to achieve it. We'll discuss that next week.

Launching "Larry on Careers"

Tonight launches my blog focusing exclusively on improving careers. We will share concepts about how to choose a career, prepare and gain skills to succeed in your chosen career, find a job faster, keep the job longer, receive bigger raises and better promotions.

My 33+ years helping more than half a million people enhance their satisfaction with their careers gives me some knowledge, experience, and insights that I will share. However, this blog will also rely on your comments. I encourage you to share your stories, frustrations, failures, and successes. The more people who share, the richer the content of the blog will be.

We will not restrict our discussions to one kind of career, nor to one salary level. We will explore blue, white, pink, and no collar careers. We will discover the joys and frustrations of many occupations--and how to increase the former while decreasing the latter. Our discussions will include ideas for low, middle, and upper income brackets. We will learn how to move from one income bracket to another. We will share ideas, for those millions who found themselves moving into poverty during this recession, about how to get back to where you were.

We will add a new post each week, usually in the middle of the week. Some posts will be long. Others will be short. Some posts will begin a discussion that may last 3-4 posts. Other posts will stand alone and cover the subject in one week.

In addition to "Larry on Careers", I will also start a post entitled "Larry on Business". That post will usually appear at the end of the week. It will explore how to grow a small-business. I invite business owners to follow that post beginning on Friday June 10.

I look forward to sharing ideas together on how to improve your career, or the career of someone you love.