Interview Secrets Every New Graduate Needs to Know, with Don Raskin
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College graduation season is just around the corner and departing seniors will find themselves in a strong job market.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the class of 2016 may experience the best job market ever for Millennials. A survey cited by the Journal says that this year employers plan to increase hiring of new college graduates by 15%. That’s good news for this year’s new graduates.
But no matter how low the unemployment rate, you still have to interview successfully to get the job
This week, we’re talking about what recent college graduates need to know to nail their job interviews. Our guest, Don Raskin, shares interview secrets and other tips grads can use in a job search.
This Week’s Guest
Don Raskin owns and operates MME, an advertising and marketing agency in New York City. During his 25 years at the agency, Don has interviewed hundreds of new college graduates for positions within his company and he has also mentored countless students on best practices for a job search. During all of these meetings and conversations, Don kept exceptionally detailed notes. He observed the good, the bad, the ridiculous and the irreverent. Now he has transformed those countless conversations into a new book, The Dirty Little Secrets of Getting Your Dream Job.
Resources from this Episode
- Check out Don’s book “The Dirty Little Secrets of Getting Your Dream Job”
- JobScan.co
- MichelleHynes.com
- The Dirty Little Secrets of Getting Your Dream Job
- MME.net
- Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond)
Transcript
Mac Prichard:
This is Find Your Dream Job, the podcast that helps you get hired, have the career you want, and make a difference in life. I’m Mac Prichard your host and publisher of Mac’s List. I’m joined by my co-host, Ben Forstag, managing director of Mac’s List, and this week’s special co-host, coach and consultant Michelle Hynes of michellehynes.com. Michelle, Ben, welcome to the show.
Ben Forstag:
Hey, Mac.
Michelle Hynes:
Thanks, Mac.
Mac Prichard:
Yeah. Our show’s brought to you by our book, Land Your Dream Job in Portland and Beyond. To learn more about the updated edition that we published on February 1st visit macslist.org/book.
Ben Forstag:
Hey, Mac, Ben here. We wrote this book because the Portland job market is really competitive and you need to have your A game to land a good job. Here’s the million dollar question for you, why do you think the Portland market is such a tough place to get a job?
Mac Prichard:
I think it’s challenging because Portland is such a desirable place to live and the quality of life here is so good it attracts people from around the country. While the economy is growing, Portland is certainly more prosperous than it has been in recent years, job growth hasn’t kept pace with population growth. It is a tight job market and whether you’re in Portland or in some other cities that have tight job markets, you need to do the same things no matter where you live. You need to have clear goals. You need to get out there and do informational interviews and you need to grow your professional network. Our book shows you how to do that in Portland or in any other city with a tight job market. You can’t rely on job boards alone when looking for work because as many as 80% of all jobs are filled by word of mouth. Our book shows you how to find those jobs here in Portland and in any tight job market so you can succeed and get the job you want, no matter how tight the competition may be.
College graduation season is just around the corner and departing seniors will find themselves in a very strong job market. According to the Wall Street Journal, the class of 2016 may experience the best job market ever for millennials. A survey cited by the Journal says that this year employers plan to increase hiring of new college graduates by 15%. That’s good news for this year’s new graduates, but no matter how low the unemployment rate, you still have to interview successfully to get the job.
This week on Find Your Dream Job, we’re talking about what recent college graduates need to know to nail their job interviews. Ben Forstag has found a website you can use to make sure your applications contains the right keywords so that you get the interview. Our guest co-host, Michelle Hynes, answers a question from a college senior who was feeling overwhelmed by her job search. I talk to Don Raskin, who has written a book aimed at new and recent graduates that shares interview secrets and other tips you can use in a job search no matter where you are in your career.
Joining us this week as our guest co-host is Michelle Hynes, a career coach and consultant in Portland, Oregon. Michelle, Ben, what’s the one thing you wish you knew back when you started looking for your first full-time job after college?
Michelle Hynes:
I wish that I had known that it would take a lot longer than I thought it would.
Mac Prichard:
How long did it take, Michelle?
Michelle Hynes:
It took me six months. It took me six months of interviewing, doing temp jobs, and expanding my search beyond what I originally thought that I was going to do. It took time and I had to be more flexible than I expected.
Mac Prichard:
But, you got the job you wanted?
Michelle Hynes:
I got the job I wanted. Launched a new career. How about you,
Ben?
Ben Forstag:
I think I underestimated the value of being clear about what you wanted to do with your job and in your career. I know when I graduated from college I had no sense of what I wanted to be doing for work and I’m sure it showed when I applied to places because I was the jack of all trades, the master of none. I graduated in the middle of a recession so it was particularly tough that I was competing against a lot of other job seekers. I’d like to think that if I had been much more clear and focused in what I was looking for and targeted in my search instead of having a seven month job search, it might’ve been a two or three month job search.
Mac Prichard:
You were satisfied with the job you got at the end of that search as well?
Ben Forstag:
I did. Although, I’ll be honest, I ended up going back and working for an organization I had got a summer job with for many years. I became a full-time camp counselor for two and a half years which I did not apply for the job, they offered it to me because they knew me. It was a fantastic experience. I would hardly call it a career step, it was more of a treading water experience for me.
Mac Prichard:
I got my first job after college through a newspaper ad. It was with a US senate campaign, which was a great experience, but it was unexpected. It was not something I had planned to do. I just was looking for ways to stay in the state where I had gone to college and that turned out to be a great way to do it. It actually kindled my interest in electoral politics which became a major part of my career for many years.
Let’s turn to Ben. Every week he is out there exploring the internet, looking for resources and tools that you can use. They could be blogs, podcasts, books. Ben, what have you discovered for us this week?
Ben Forstag:
In the past we have talked a lot about the importance of having the right key words in your resume and cover letter. Before you apply for a job, you should spend some time reading and re-reading the job description. Find the keywords and phrases from the description. Make sure those exact same words and phrases are included in your application, verbatim, word-for-word. This will vastly increase your chances of getting through any automated applicant tracking systems which rank candidates based on the keywords in their application.
Mac Prichard:
This is an important thing to know whether you are working with automated tracking systems at large companies or especially if you are applying for public sector jobs which might be scored by hand or by machine. Whether it is a clerk or a computer, they are looking for those keywords and if you don’t use them your score won’t be as high as it could be and you may not get an interview. I know this from personal experience because after moving to Oregon, I looked for jobs with government agencies and I wasn’t getting interviews. Even though I had a Masters in Public Administration …
Ben Forstag:
From Harvard.
Mac Prichard:
From Harvard. Somebody clued me in about keywords and once I started doing that, the interviews came. There was a big revelation for me.
Ben Forstag:
I would venture anytime you’re throwing out an application where you have to cut and paste your resume into a box, that means you’re going through some kind of keyword automation system so you need to be really particularly sensitive to keywords in those cases. My resource this week is a free online tool to help you with keywords. It is called Job Scan. It is available at www.jobscan.co. I like to point out that several listeners, maybe three or four of you out there, have reached out and told me about this resource so thank you to you all.
This site is super easy to use. When you go to the URL you will see two text boxes. In one box you paste the copy from your resume and in the other you paste the copy of the job description. When you press submit the site reviews both items and produces a report about how much the two documents match. It tracks specific terms in the job description and whether they show up on your resume, the frequency of terms in the job description relative to your resume with the assumption here the more often a job description mentions a specific term the more important it is to the employer. It also tracks how your experience and education matches up with the job requirements, and the hard and soft skills identified in the job description versus those in your resume. Based on this criteria, the system generates a percentage match score, which in it of itself doesn’t mean a whole lot but it does give you a benchmark with how your resume aligns with the job post as written.
I tried this myself over the weekend. I compared my existing resume to a recent Mac’s List job post for a marketing manager. Without any customization, I got a 66% match.
Michelle Hynes:
In terms of grades, that is a solid D, Ben.
Ben Forstag:
Yes, that is a very solid D.
Mac Prichard:
Almost a D minus.
Ben Forstag:
I am guessing, with that score I would not have passed any keyword tracking software if I was a real applicant. But Job Scan showed me areas where I can customize and tweak my resume to make it much more aligned with the job description. I literally spent ten minutes adding and changing some specific words on my resume and when I re-submitted it, my score jumped to 91%.
Mac Prichard:
Now, that is an A minus.
Ben Forstag:
That’s much better, yes.
Mac Prichard:
And just in ten minutes.
Ben Forstag:
In just ten minutes. This is not making things up out of whole cloth, it is not creating experiences that you didn’t have before, it is literally just putting the right words in your resume and cover letter. A few warnings about this tool, one, it’s a free tool and so in general I just don’t trust things that are free online all of the time. I think it is important to know what you are doing and that you go into it with open eyes. Second, as with any web application, be careful how you share your information. It is really unclear how Job Scan uses the info that you share with them, whether they are saving it, or storing it someplace, giving it to other companies, to be safe, I did not actually include my contact information or name when I copied and pasted my resume up there, just my work experience.
And some of the suggestions they provide to improve your score are not really practical. For example, I put the job description for a marketing manager in there and one of their suggestions was, “You don’t have marketing manager anywhere in your resume. You should say one of your previous jobs is marketing manager.” That is not the case for me, so that was not a practical suggestion. I would never suggest making up things on your resume. That is never going to be a winning solution. All-in-all, as a general reference tool. I think Job Scan is really valuable so I suggest that you check it out. It’s at www.jobscan.co.
Mac Prichard:
Great tip, Ben. And thank you for that excellent advice. Do you have an idea for Ben or a suggestion? You can write him and we may share your idea on a future show. His address is
info@macslist.org.
Now it’s time to hear from you, our listeners. Our guest co-host this week, Michelle Hynes, joins us to answer one of your questions. Michelle, what are you hearing from our listeners this week?
Michelle Hynes:
Thanks Mac. This weeks question comes from Alyssa. Alyssa is about to graduate college in a couple of months and she says, “So far I have done almost nothing to prepare for what comes next. I am feeling overwhelmed and I don’t even know where to start a job search. What is the one thing I should focus on first?”
First of all Alyssa, congratulations on this upcoming milestone. As Mac started saying at the beginning of the episode, it is graduation season. I am going to give a piece of advice that you will hear a lot on this podcast, get some folks to help you. Definitely recruit three or four people who will be your job search champions or board of advisors over the next three to six months. I would say a couple folks who are established in their own careers, who know you, who can be honest and supportive, teachers, friends of your parents or siblings, folks who have been your supervisor in a volunteer experience or an internship. Those folks can help you figure out what is next and help you chart a path.
Mac Prichard:
Michelle, suggestions about how people could find those advisors? If you are a senior and you’re probably worried about getting that term paper done or sweating out the finals, who would be on the short list? What kinds of folks?
Michelle Hynes:
I would think about people you come in contact with everyday. A professor is probably a good first choice. You probably have faculty members or staff members you have a good relationship with. You might even, when you are in the thick of finals, be volunteering or working a part-time job either on or off campus. People that you come in contact with in those roles I think could be helpful. If you are part of a faith community, whether you see folks in that community every week or less frequently, I think that is a good place to encounter folks who can help you also.
Mac Prichard:
It’s not about making new contacts, it’s about looking within your existing community, network, and thinking about people in a slightly different way.
Michelle Hynes:
Right. That is definitely where I would start. Who do I already know who can help me.
Mac Prichard:
Great. Excellent advice. Thank you Michelle. If you have a question for us, you can email us at communitymanager@macslist.org.
These segments are sponsored by the 2016 edition of Land Your Dream Job in Portland and Beyond. We’ve made our book even better. We’ve added new content and now we are offering it in the formats you said you wanted. For the first time ever, you can read Land Your Dream Job in Portland and Beyond in a paperback edition or you can download it on your kindle, your Nook, or your iPad. Our goal is the same, whatever the format, to give you the tools and tips you need to get meaningful work that makes a difference. To learn more visit macslist.org/book and sign up for our special book newsletter. You will get updates not available elsewhere, exclusive book content, and special discounts.
Let’s turn to our special guest, expert this week, it’s Don Raskin. Don Raskin owns and operates MME, an advertising and marketing agency in New York City. During his 25 years at the agency, Don has interviewed hundreds of new college graduates for positions within his company and he has also mentored countless students on best practices for a job search. During all of these meetings and conversations, Don kept exceptionally detailed notes. He observed the good, the bad, the ridiculous and the irreverent. Now he has transformed those countless conversations into a new book. It is called the Dirty Little Secrets of Getting Your Dream Job. In it, he shares his insights into the job search process and he tells you everything you need to know to land your first job or new one, and find career success.
Don, thanks for joining us on the show.
Don Raskin:
Thank you for having me. It’s great to be here.
Mac Prichard:
Let’s start out, Don. How important is it for new graduates to do their homework and why does that matter?
Don Raskin:
It is one of the most critical things that new college graduates can do, is to do their homework on the industries, the companies, the people that they are going to be interviewing with. There are so many ways you can go about this process. You need to know everything you could possibly know about the company before you walk into an interview. You need to know about the job you’re interviewing for and you need to know about the people you are interviewing with. If I were to start with a company I would say it couldn’t be easier.
All you need to do is go on the company’s website that you’re looking to interview with and pull out key facts about the company, the management team, their products and services, the company’s philosophy. You’re going to use those facts in your interview and you’re going to drop them in the appropriate places while you are having your discussion with the person you are interviewing with. It makes you look smart, it makes you look like you did your homework, and it’s really important. When I have somebody who interviews with me and goes through that process, there is an automatic check plus next to them during my interview.
Mac Prichard:
I am glad you broke that down because when you say, Don, you need to know everything you possibly can know. As you go through the steps, it is clear that you are not asking people to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the company.
Don Raskin:
That is correct.
Mac Prichard:
You need to go to the website and learn the basics.
Don Raskin:
You need to learn the basics and just pull out some key facts.
Mac Prichard:
Have you found, Don, that a lot of people don’t do that?
Don Raskin:
You know, over the years, more and more people are doing it because it is more accessible. The schools are now doing a better job of training students, they have classwork for students and career search. More and more people are doing it so I find that they come in prepared. The other steps that they need to take in doing their homework, is they need to know the job they’re interviewing for. The reason I say that, it seems obvious, but the reason I say that is often times I will say to the person do you understand the job that you are interviewing for, tell me what you think it is. And that can trip somebody out.
What they need to do is, I have two tips for this. One, go back to wherever you found the job. Go to the description of the job, re-review what that job description is and write yourself down some notes. Then, go on LinkedIn and look at jobs that are similar to the job you’re interviewing for and see what those requirements are. If you put it all together, you will have a pretty good feel for what the job is all about.
Mac Prichard:
Do you find, again, that people don’t do what seems like a very basic step?
Don Raskin:
That basic step, I would tell you, that fewer people do that and some people do get caught off guard when I ask them to tell me what the job is that they’re interviewing for.
Mac Prichard:
That is surprising. What else, in your experience, can candidates do to position themselves in an interview?
Don Raskin:
I think positioning is really important. I am in marketing. We spend our lives positioning products and services and candidates want to position themselves. The reason they want to do that is, they want to differentiate their candidacy from the person who came in before them and the person who came in after them. What I mean by that is, as a candidate, what do you stand for? Are you a problem solver? Are you a creative thinker? What is it that you are? Be truthful and serve that up at the right time because we see lots and lots of candidates, and often times it becomes a blur after the fact. It really is helpful to be remembered when you are telling somebody “this is what I’m all about.”
For example, I had a candidate who was interviewing for an entry level job, and she told me in the interview that she was obsessed with writing everything down so she could stay on top of all of the details of her job and make sure that she followed up on every detail. Again, for me, this was a check plus because this was a requirement of the job. It was a job that had hundreds of tiny little details attached to it, and I needed somebody who had that in them. Even better, she then took out a composition notebook and she opened it up and she said “here, let me show you some of the projects I’ve worked on in school.” Detailed notes across the board with different colored pens and highlighters so that she knew what day things were due, which project had priority, et cetera.
I think if you position yourself well, you’re going to be remembered, but if you prove it like this candidate did, you won’t be forgotten.
Mac Prichard:
What would you say, Don, to listeners, who I can imagine some of them out there thinking “well, I’m not sure, I think my special talent is these three things, or these two things.” How can people narrow that list down so that when they do walk in, and they want to position themselves, they know what to emphasize?
Don Raskin:
I think going back to the beginning. Go back to what the job is all about, what you want to do is you want to marry up what you’re going to tell the interviewer with what the job description is all about. I’ve had people tell me that they’re very creative and they’re interviewing for a finance job. I don’t need a finance manager to be very creative, I need them to be monetarily oriented. So, you want to match up your skills with the skills of the job, and again, while I’m saying you need to position yourself, you don’t have to boil it down to one specific thing. If somebody said to me “I’m a problem solver and this is how this demonstrates itself” and highlighted a few key areas about problem solving, that would be good for me.
Mac Prichard:
One of the values as you talk, the approach you’re recommending, that I see Don, is many new graduates tell me they’re open to all kinds of possibilities. I find that people who say that often struggle because they apply everywhere, and they’re not clear about the special talent or experience, or expertise that they offer.
Don Raskin:
I run an advertising and a marketing agency, and I would tell you 50% of the entry level resumes I get are for people who are looking for jobs in public relations. Their job objective will say job in public relations. I don’t own or operate a public relations agency, so you’re 100% right. I think people will throw things out there and hope something sticks. You would be much better off if you focused 100% of your time sending your resume’s to a PR agency, you’re going to get a better chance of getting called in that way.
Mac Prichard:
Do your homework, know the company, know the job, and know what that employer’s looking for in that job. Then, think about how you want to position yourself. What else are you recommending that new graduates do as they enter the job market this summer?
Don Raskin:
I really like to stress to people that they need to know the people that they’re interviewing with. LinkedIn is a wonderful resource, and, here’s a little tip that I like to say. If I’m interviewing somebody on a Thursday and I see through LinkedIn that somebody viewed my profile and it’s the person that I’m interviewing on Thursday, that’s a wink and a nod to me that’s basically telling me; Hey, I’m doing my homework about you, I’m going to come in and talk to you about your background. Where you went to school, the jobs you’ve had, things like that as well. I really like to see candidates do that.
Mac Prichard:
I do, too. I’m always impressed when people reach out to me for an informational interview or when we do job interviews here, if they connect with me on LinkedIn in advance of the meeting or perhaps after an interview. Particularly if they do it in advance, it shows that they’re doing their homework and it also gives me a nudge, if I haven’t already done so, to check out their LinkedIn profile.
Don Raskin:
Absolutely. The other thing I would say is, I really want people who are going to go above and beyond. I tell the people who work for me all the time “If you’re doing what’s expected of you, you aren’t doing enough” and the reason I say that is because anybody and everybody can do what’s expected of them, but people who want to be great at what they do, they go above and beyond that. I think if you demonstrate your willingness to go above and beyond, you’re showing in the interview that that’s the kind of employee you’re going to be, that’s what I want to see from a job candidate.
As an example, I interviewed a young woman who went to Georgetown University several years ago and she had called me and was looking for a job and I liked her resume, and I set up a time at 9 o’clock in the morning to have her come in and interview with me. Just during the chit-chat part of the conversation when she walked in, I said to her “where did you stay in New York the night before the interview?” She said to me “Oh, I didn’t stay in New York the night before, I took a bus at 4 o’clock in the morning from Washington DC to make sure that I was here on time to meet with you.” I remember that going off in my head saying anybody who is willing to do that is somebody I want working on my team, and I hired her.
Mac Prichard:
That’s a serious candidate.
Don Raskin:
That’s a serious candidate.
Mac Prichard:
Absolutely. When you think about graduates you’ve interviewed and we’ve talked about some of the things people do well, what are common mistakes that you see that you encourage people to avoid.
Don Raskin:
Make sure you’re 15 minutes early to whatever interview you have. I’ve had people come in 5 minutes late, I’ve had people come in 20 minutes late. That’s a huge demerit from me, because that tells me something about you. You absolutely cannot be late, no matter what the reason is, you cannot be late. I talk about that in the book as well. Make sure that your resume is flawless, absolutely flawless. I had a young woman come in the other day and hand me her resume and I was a little confused when I was looking at her last job, she had on her job that she had been there through August of 2016 and I said “I’m confused about this” and she put her hands on her face and said “Oh my God, I’m so sorry, that’s a mistake.” It was 2015. An interviewer shouldn’t be uncovering things like that on a resume, you resume has to be absolutely flawless.
Finally, I think you need to be really timely in your follow-up. You have to write a thank you letter, it has to be at the persons desk within 24-48 hours, and you have to be following up with that person. You don’t have to write a letter or drop a card in the mail, I think that we’re past that, but an email follow-up is absolutely critical. Sometimes people think that the faster they get the email follow-up, the better off they’ll be. I get a lot of email follow-ups that say: “Thank you for your time today, I really enjoyed our conversation, I look forward to hearing from you.” You really need to put more thought into it than that, you need to reiterate why you’re the perfect job candidate, you need to tell them what you’re going to bring to the table if you were to be hired. You need to tell them that you’re going to follow up if you don’t hear back. So, really take the time over 24 hours, think about what you want to say and make sure you send an email. Not just to the last person you interviewed with, but to every person that you interviewed with.
Mac Prichard:
Well, we have to wrap it up Don, but, other interview tips that you want to share with our listeners?
Don Raskin:
I have so many of them in my book.
Mac Prichard:
I know, and I have the book in front of me, and its quite thorough. I’m impressed and I will certainly include a link to the book in the show notes and we encourage our listeners to check it out. What else would you like to add?
Don Raskin:
I’m going to give you one last tip that I think is very important because I think a lot of entry level people undersell themselves, and that’s salary negotiation. As part of the homework process, go find out what the job you’re interviewing pays in other companies, just like the one you’re interviewing for. Try and establish a range of that pay. It might be $40,000-$44,000. When somebody says to you in the interview: “Thank you, this was fantastic, can you tell me what your salary requirement it?” You need to say “based on my research, I know that the salary range for this job is between 40 and 44 thousand dollars, based on my two internships, I believe I should be at the upper end of that range.” This is one of the areas that entry level students get so uncomfortable with. They’ll often try to turn the question around and say “well, what does the job pay?” I don’t answer that question because I want to see how they’ll handle themselves when the question is asked of them.
That’s the best, as far as salary negotiation, you need to make a statement, and make the statement based on fact. Not because you just got an apartment and you need to pay your bills, you need to talk about the fact that the job and the industry pays this, and that’s what I’m looking for, that’s my requirement.
Mac Prichard:
That’s excellent advice. As an employer, I’m impressed when people come to that conversation with a specific ask and they’ve done the research and they’re able to point to industry studies, or some reputable source to make their case.
Well, Don, why don’t you tell us what’s coming up next for you.
Don Raskin:
What’s next for me? Well, the book is coming out on April 5th, so, book promotion, interviews, speaking engagements. Going to college campuses, etc. That’s going to be part of a very busy April for me.
Mac Prichard:
Coincidentally, this episode is airing first on April 6th, so the book is now available, and we encourage our listeners to go online. It’s available at Barnes and Noble and you can also find it at bookstores and other locations.
To find out more about Don, visit his LinkedIn profile, or write him at Gmail. We’ll include Don’s Gmail address, and a link to his LinkedIn page in the show notes. You can also visit the website for his marketing company, the address is www.mme.net.
Don, thanks for joining us today.
Don Raskin:
Thank you for having me.
Mac Prichard:
We’re back in the Mac’s List studio with Ben and Michelle. Ben, Michelle, what were some of the most important points you heard Don make?
Ben Forstag:
I’m going to point out two of them. One is, he mentioned the problem I had when I got out of college. I was kind of open to anything because I couldn’t focus my career search on anything in particular, and again, I think that’s a losing strategy when you’re looking for a job because employers don’t want someone who’s like “I’m willing to do anything.” They want someone who’s passionate about doing the job at hand.
The other thing I think is important is the follow-up email or note that you send to the employer, and I think he made a good point there. It can’t just be a ceremonial thanks for meeting me, it was so great meeting you as well. What impresses me most is when people recap the conversation briefly, or bring up a point that we talked about. Just say “I really thought your insights on ‘X’ were interesting, and I’d like to talk about that again in the future.” That shows me that they were really listening when we had a conversation, and that they had taken notes and taken away some insights in the conversation that are going to guide them on their search moving forward.
Mac Prichard:
Yeah, I think that any communication that sounds generic or boiler plate can sometimes hurt you more than it helps. I think being clear about what you want and what you offer does distinguish you from the rest of the crowd, because you can’t be all things to all people. You make your life a lot easier, and your job search, in the long run, a lot shorter if you’re clear about what you want and what you offer.
Ben Forstag:
As I tell people, the added value here is that when you finally do get a job, it’s going to be something you actually like doing.
Mac Prichard:
Right.
Ben Forstag:
Instead of a job that you hate after three months and want to
leave.
Mac Prichard:
Right. Yeah, that’s huge.
Michelle, what were you picking up on.
Michelle Hynes:
I picked up two other things. One is look for opportunities to show your track record. I loved the antidote about the woman who pulled out her composition book and showed the way that she tracked her assignments, and the kind of work that she’d done in school. I think that often new college graduates think they don’t have something like a portfolio, or a track record at work. But you do have a track record of a particular kind, and you can draw on that.
The other this is the opportunities that you have during the interview process to demonstrate who you are and how you work. Whether it’s being a few minutes early for the interview, or writing a fantastic thank you letter, or taking a bus to New York at four o’clock in the morning. I think those two things.
Mac Prichard:
I think anything you can do to stand out and show your personality and approach is always helpful.
Well, thank you both, and thank you again Don, for joining us. Thank you our listeners.
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One of the reviews we received recently is from Miss Mary PDX who writes: “I always take a couple of insightful tips from the podcast” Mary goes on to say about our episode on how to return to work at any age, “in this one my takeaway was managing expectations for re-entering the job market, taking a lesser role or a lesser paying job will likely be temporary, as once an organization recognizes your skills and contributions there will most likely lead to opportunities for advancement. Great reminder,” says Mary, “I’ve been there in the past.”
Thank you Miss Mary PDX, and thanks to the scores of other listeners who’ve left a review. You can leave your own comments and ratings, just go to www.macslist.org/itunes. We’ll be back next Wednesday with more tools and tips you can use to find your dream job. Thanks for listening.