Interviewing | HELLMANN CAREER CONSULTING

Unemployed? 3 Ways to Fill that Gap in Your Resume

by Rob Hellmann • Getting Interviews, Interviewing, Resume, LinkedIn, self-promo •

If you’ve been out of work for a while, you may face a well-documented bias against the unemployed in your job search. But fear not; there are ways to easily fill the gap, preempting any potential uneasiness about your unemployment while reassuring employers that you’re current in your field. Here are three of those ways, followed by what to say when asked about an employment gap in an interview. More

When Bad Interviewers Happen to Good Candidates

by Rob Hellmann • Interviewing •

When you’re in an interview with a bad or inexperienced interviewer, they’re not giving you the opportunity to truly make the case for your candidacy. They’re not asking you the right (or any) questions, and in fact they may be turning you off by their behavior.

Very often, however, you can find a way to change the subject back to their number one question, “How can you help me?” and thus do both of you favor; they will get their answer and you’ll stand out from the competition as the candidate who answered this key question. Let’s look at how to improve your outcome in four of the most common bad-interviewer scenarios. More

Want to Ace Your Interview? Tell a Great Story

by Rob Hellmann • Interviewing •

The single most effective thing you can do in an interview is to make your experience come alive through stories or examples. Yes, you need to get other things right in an interview as well: ask the right questions, prep for handling issues with your candidacy, follow-up effectively and so forth. But telling a good story is the most powerful way to stand out from the competition, since our brains are wired to remember the imagery, the drama, and the emotion that’s conveyed in a good story. More

Turn Job Search Rejection into Opportunity

by Rob Hellmann • Getting Interviews, Interviewing, Job-Search Strategy •

All too often, jobseekers snatch defeat from the jaws of victory; they see rejection too quickly and end up essentially rejecting themselves. If you can adopt the mindset of a successful salesperson, however, you’ll see opportunity where others might see rejection.

That’s because in a job search, your “job” is now sales (you’re the product), regardless of what you do professionally. More

Don’t Reject Yourself in a Job Search

by Rob Hellmann • Career Change, Getting Interviews, Interviewing, Job-Search Strategy •

If you want to speed up your job search, adopt the mindset of a successful salesperson. Sales professionals know a few things about rejection that can help jobseekers. They know you shouldn’t assume rejection if you haven’t heard back from a prospect. They know that it’s often possible to overcome an apparent rejection or hesitations about the services you are offering. And they know how to skillfully keep in touch when there’s no interest now.

Many of my new job search clients, however, are too quick to see rejection and give up. They More

7 Ways to Jump-start a Stalled Job Search

by Rob Hellmann • Getting Interviews, Interviewing, Job-Search Strategy, Resume, LinkedIn, self-promo •

When clients with stalled searches first contact me, they often see the cause as something beyond their control. They tell me “I’m too old (or young),” “I’m overqualified (or underqualified),” “there are no jobs,” “I’ve sent in countless applications with no response,” or “I don’t have enough (or the right) experience.”

While in some cases they may be right, most of the time I find that they face a different problem with a much easier solution. Below I’ve included the top seven ways you can jump-start your search, based on my experience of the real reasons for many stalled searches. More

The #1 Way to Avoid a Hiring Mistake

by Rob Hellmann • Interviewing, Recruiting •

So you hired the wrong person. You thought you were getting a smart, creative personable new hire; instead you’ve got an unmotivated slacker employee. Perhaps you feel misled by their great interview, or confused about how you could have been so wrong when your “gut” told you it was so right!

Eliminating hiring mistakes involves many things, including being clear on your goals for the position, sourcing candidates effectively, taking a team approach to interviewing candidates, and checking references. Yet one approach stands out: avoid the wrong hire by asking the right question in the interview. More

Ace Your Interview: Tell a Great Story

by Rob Hellmann • Interviewing, Presentations, Recruiting •

If I had to pick just one thing you can do to improve your chances of getting an offer, I would say tell a great story in the interview; share a relevant example from your experience. Go beyond just saying that you are good at what you do. Go beyond telling them “I did this which resulted in that.” Help them to picture your value by painting that picture with words; share the full, interesting story in detail.

Hiring managers who know how to interview will ask you for these examples and have lots of followup questions. Those who are More

Don’t Be an Interview “Know-It-All”

by Rob Hellmann • Interviewing, Recruiting •

The best thing you can do in an interview is to keep the focus on how you can help the interviewer with their challenges. Yet even if you are keeping this focus, bringing a “know-it-all” attitude, with accompanying assumptions, can leave a bad impression. In particular, be careful of presuming that you know what the fix should be for a hiring manager’s problem without understanding the whole picture. More

Surprise! Start Your Presentation Off with a Bang

by Rob Hellmann • Interviewing, Presentations •

Bring the element of surprise into your presentation to make it memorable and powerful. Humans evolved to remember the unusual and the shocking; use this knowledge to your benefit!

For example, I coached one client to begin his presentation (to an executive audience at a Fortune 500 company) with a slide that had one single large number on it. Then he said: