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Most career journeys bump into at least one rock in the road, take a wrong detour or get stuck in the slow lane for a while. A friend of mine is an older woman who was forced into a cul-de-sac called serious back injury for a number of years. She is having a horrid time getting back onto the highway. All she can see right now are people whizzing past her.
She’s desperate. And it shows.
There are some things you just can’t show and tell in an application or an interview. Desperation is one. It makes people worry about what’s wrong with you when they should be getting excited by what’s right about you.
There are elephants in every interview room. It is, in fact, your job during the half (or so, if you’re lucky) of your interview to keep the focus on you, not them. Here are some tips for the hottest, pink-est elephants right now.
1. So, you’re a woman. You have to have noticed that the times, they really are a-changing at last. You should too. Behave like you’re equal or you won’t be treated as one. On that application form and in the interview that follows, you’re a media sales executive, an account director, a social media strategist or a planner. Parents, whether you’re a man or a woman, the question of special privileges belongs to the interviewer. Wait for it to be introduced. And if it’s not, wait until you hear the words, “We’d like to take you on.”
2. You’re older. The advantages of this are not always the noisiest messages in an interviewer’s head. If you’re uncomfortable about it, your interviewer will be too. I’m older and I’ve been asked, “How do you think you’ll fit in here?” It’s a tough question. The truth - that my closest friends are in their twenties and thirties - would have sounded ridiculous to someone who didn’t know much about me. I should have said, “I get on with anyone.” I didn’t. I didn’t get the job.
3. You really (!!!!) want the job. One of the most perverse quirks about human beings is that they don’t want what is thrown at their feet. What’s on easy offer tends to be devalued. Most people want what’s a bit hard to get, what someone else wants or, at least, what has given them the thrill of discovery. You can be enthusiastic about the work the company is doing. You can be agreeable about the duties required and conditions outlined. But you can’t be so grateful for the interview, so awed by the opportunity, so pessimistic about your career, so prepared to do anything.
4. You’re feeling inadequate. So, you have a few hiccups in your resume. So, you have long gaps in your career time line. So, “everyone” knows why you left your last job and it’s not that pretty. Don’t open a box of self-effacing excuses in an interview. If you don’t think you’re good enough, you can be quite sure that your interviewer won’t either. He or she may have a good heart, but they’re not going to invest $50k, $80K or $150k a year in you out of pity. (Nor, by the way, are they going to invest in anyone carrying a briefcase full of anger and hurt.) It’s your job in an interview to sell what you can do for the company, not what the company can do for you.
My friend doesn’t like her reel. She thinks it’s dated. It is a bit. I suggested that she make some new content. Even just one piece of content that shows an employer what she can do – right here, right now. I thought it might also show her what she can do – right here, right now. She said she was too broke. So I showed her the novels I wrote while I was rebuilding my career.
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