How to Follow Up On a Job Interview

Here are some tips on how to properly communicate with a future employer to increase your chances of getting hired.

After submitting your application:

Once you send in your application, the next step is to wait to hear back from the employer. You do not want to pester the hiring manager with phone calls or emails because you never know how many hundreds of applications they have to sift through before beginning the interview process.

Post interview:

After your interview, be sure to send a “thank you” note to express gratitude for the interview and your continued interest in the position.

After a week:

Review your notes from the interview and send a thoughtful email or short phone call reflecting on points from the interview. State something memorable from the interview or try to show your value to the company.

How to Build Your Network

1. Join professional or trade organizations. No better method exists for finding people who share the same professional interests and goals than joining one or more industry organizations. Get the most out of your membership by attending any meetings and conferences offered.

2. Volunteer. Providing your time and effort to a needy cause is perhaps one of the strongest venues for networking because you are working side-by-side with people who share your passion.

3. Attend networking events. Find events from community calendars online, our Career Services Office or in your local newspaper.

4. Join or ramp up your activities on social and professional networking sites. Position yourself as a knowledge leader by participating in online conversations.

5. Conduct informational interviews. As the name implies, it's an interview you initiate with someone in your profession/industry whose brain you can pick about how s/he got their start, moved up the ladder, and so forth.

6. Contact former co-workers, vendors, customers/clients. Many times as we move from job-to-job, employer-to-employer, we lose touch with former co-workers, customers, and the like. These people all had a relationship with you before and could again – you simply need to reconnect with them.

How to Prepare for a Job Interview

 

1. Get to know the employer.
It only takes 15-20 minutes to learn enough about the employer to be able to speak more intelligently about them than much of your competition.

-Use the employer’s website –at a minimum read “about us” section.

-Get familiar with their clients, work and general approach.

Make sure you can answer these questions: What does this organization do? What are they all about? What makes them different from their competition?

2. Learn the job description like it was your own.
The best way to use the job description to prepare is to go through it line by line. Think about how your experience and skills fit with each line. Write this down for each one, making sure to include examples from your past as supporting evidence that you’d excel at this job.

Now, picture yourself doing the job. What are the likely challenges? What ideas would you bring to the table? If you think through these questions now, you can weave those thoughts into the conversation at the interview.

3. Practice, and then practice some more.
Write down at least 10 interview questions that you’re likely to be asked and write out your answers to them. Cover these basics: Why are you thinking about leaving your current job? What interests you about this opening? What are your strengths and weaknesses? What experience do you have doing ___? (Fill in each of the major responsibilities of the job.)

Now, practice your answers out loud. Practice saying them out loud over and over and over, until your answers fly off your tongue automatically.

4. Come up with questions of your own.
Come up with several questions of your own, because at the end of the interview you’ll be asked what questions you have. Good questions at this stage are clarifying questions about the role itself and open-ended questions about the office culture. You’ll also want to ask about their next steps and their timeline for getting back to you.

Adapted from Alison Green via http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/outside-voices-careers/2011/02/07/how-to-prepare-for-a-job-interview

How To Be A Team Player

Too often people get comfortable at work by falling into a routine. Get to work, complete your share of tasks for the day and head home. Learn how to enhance your work environment by becoming a team player.

Help out – It’s easy to get in the habit of completing your list of duties for the day and considering your work done. Don’t hesitate to take on extra tasks for the week if you know you can handle it. Your extra effort won’t be forgotten the next time you need assistance.

Share – Contribute to your team by sharing your expertise. Show your new coworker the ropes. Compliment others on their work. Give credit where credit is due. Others will feel more comfortable sharing what they know in return.

Engage – Immerse yourself in your workplace. Get out of your comfort zone and start speaking up in meetings. Come prepared and don’t be afraid to pitch in a little extra effort.

Contribute to your office, without participation there is no team!

5 Reasons You Need to Be on LinkedIn Even When You Have a Job

1. You need to have a large network so you can use it later
Imagine you just got laid off. And you have 10 people in your LinkedIn network. You suddenly realize that you should have invested more in getting to know people. It's better to add connections while you're working with them and the same goes for asking for recommendations. So don’t wait until you need it. Build a strong network on LinkedIn now. Be active. Provide value. Stay in touch.

2. Opportunities come to you; recruiters look for passive candidates
When a company hires a contract recruiter to fill a job requisition, that company isn’t looking for someone unemployed.  There are enough unemployed people to fill every single job vacancy in the country. What the organization needs is someone who is not actively looking, called a passive candidate. Someone who is already employed by a competitor might be the perfect candidate.
If you aren’t on LinkedIn, you are reducing your chances of being discovered and having the opportunity to make more money.

3. Industry groups can offer you value and connection
If you find the right groups in which to participate, the value to your network — and the knowledge you'll gain — is huge. Not only will you be exposed to news, and new ideas, but you’ll have a chance to demonstrate your expertise through commenting and discussion.

4. Keep your resume up to date just in case
A resume is a static thing. You write it once when you are actively looking for work. You get your job. Then you forget about it. LinkedIn profiles tend to stay up to date with greater accuracy than any other online profile. Recruiters know this. They know that your profile will be more accurate than your five-year-old resume.


5. Read the news feed for your industry
LinkedIn delivers you customized news delivered daily. Based on your industry, the types of articles you share, and who is in your network, your daily news feed is likely going to inform you of things you should know about your job.

A version of this post was originally posted on Ladders.com by Joshua Waldman.

Why It’s Never “Just A Job”

It’s important to never approach any position as “just a job.” Even the smallest job could be stepping stone to something else.

Besides increasing your skill set, jobs are a fantastic way to build a network. Though your current job might not be in your desired career field, that doesn’t mean you can’t begin assembling contacts.

The people that you meet at work could help connect you to your dream position. Having a large network of people that believe in your abilities will make it a lot easier to take the first steps toward your future career.

Every supervisor that you impress could lead to a strong letter of recommendation. Having a reference list full of past employers that praise your skills will be valuable when you start your career search.



More at Monster Thinking.

Take Ownership of Your Career Path

Are you where you want to be? Here are 3 tips for taking control of your career path.


1. Have a destination in mind.

Know what type of work you want to be doing in a few years and where you’d like to be in five more years. Your goals will guide you along your decision making process as you take ownership of your career path.


2. Network with others along the way.
Now that you have a general idea of which direction you would like to go, it is time to meet some fellow travelers that are headed down that same path. It’s not just how much you know, it’s who you know. Go to conferences, industry events, or lectures. Shake hands and come back again. And again. You’ll slowly develop a group of professional contacts that you can start to grow closer with.


3. Provide value to your network.

Proper networking has a key word in it: work. Being a strong member of your own network requires work. It requires reaching out and follow up! The best networkers are those that meet people, learn about them, and let the other person talk. Then the networker helps that person in the network connect to another or simply provides some guidance on an issue. Just like you shouldn’t wait until you are laid off to update your resume, you shouldn’t build your network the moment you need it.

Job Interviews: The Wow Factor

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3 impressive qualities of job candidates and how to prove your have them:

1. Results – Have concrete examples of how you’ve delivered on a project. The more detail, the better.

2. Preparation – Have questions ready for the interviewer that demonstrate you’ve researched the company.

3. Passion – Don’t just give the answer you think they want to hear. Show that you have a true interest in their business.

How Many Resumes Do You Need?

To catch a recruiters eye and hold their attention, job-seekers need to tailor a resume to each position. Here are a few tips to get you started:

Create a Master Resume. To help you draft multiple resumes, start with one resume that will act as your master. This document should include all of the jobs you’ve had and everything you accomplished at those jobs. Once you’ve listed everything you can think of, you can look at your resume from different perspectives.

Tracking. Create an Excel spreadsheet to track all of your resumes. Spreadsheets allow you to record jobs you’ve applied for, record which resumes you sent, and track responses and interviews you have scheduled.

Tailored Objective Statement. Your resume objective should change with each job. You want to be specific and tell a potential employer exactly what you’re looking for and why they should hire you by explaining your long-term work goals.

Switch Up Your Skills. The skills section in your resume should cover everything in the job advertisement. If the company is looking for a self-starter and a team player, make sure those are both skills listed on your resume. Don’t misrepresent yourself or lie, but cover the elements that the company is looking for.


Read more here.

Jumpstart Your Career Change

Tips for jumpstarting a career change:

How to Start Off on the Right Foot at a New Job

Follow these tips to impress your new co-workers and boss.

Career Fairs: Tips for Success!

By Andrew Belanger - Career Services Coordinator (Lansing Campus)




I recently had the opportunity to attend several career fairs for business and community development. At the Greater Lansing Journey to Job Career Fair on April 26th, I participated as an employer representative, collecting resumes and speaking with potential candidates. Below are several things that stood out among job seekers that I spoke with: