Re-cap (April 18, 2019) – Successful Interview Strategies

We’ve come to the end of our first-ever Career Development Series. In our last webcast, I spoke to Jenny Rae La Roux of Management Consulted about successful interview strategies. Below are links to the video and audio only recordings:

To access the discounted resources on Management Consulted, please go to http://tinyurl.com/Gieswebinar and fill out their interest form.

For additional reading on successful interview strategies, check out the following articles:

During the webcast, Ramana asked if recruiters use tools to rank resumes based on keywords. The answer is, “Partly.” Different employers use different Application Tracking Systems (ATS’s) to manage the many applications they receive for each position. Keywords are merely ONE factor ATS’s look at when scoring a candidate. Some ATS’s look at keywords in the context of a sentence. While it is necessary to customize your resume and cover letters to each position that you apply to, relying primarily on online applications is not a productive strategy. In fact, it can be frustrating and demoralizing. As you advance in your careers and seek higher level roles, it is increasingly important for you to establish actual professional connections with individuals who can, down the road, serve as career advocates for you. If you haven’t, I invite you watch our webcast on effective resumes.

And that brings us to the end of our first season.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out. Thank you.

Jerome Ng
jeromeng@illinois.edu
Gies College of Business Career Services
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

 

Follow-up on LinkedIn and Connecting with Others

Finally! I figured out how to edit this video. Here is a demo of (1) how you should update your Career Interests section within LinkedIn and (2) what recruiters see when using LinkedIn’s Talent Solutions software. Sarah demos how to align what you enter into your Career Interests with how recruiters are coached to use Talent Solutions.

5 strategies to optimize your LinkedIn profile for maximum exposure to recruiters:

  • Include your target location(s) and job title(s) in your Career Interest section. Within your public profile, include the main location that you are looking to move to. If you currently reside in Chicago, but want to move to Austin, TX, list Austin, TX as your location in your public profile.
  • Have a profile summary that speaks to the types of roles you are aiming for. Include keywords relevant to those roles within your profile summary.
  • Include selected keywords within your profile headline that are relevant to your target positions. Your headline is the primary description that recruiters see when they pull a list of candidates. A headline, like “Seeking Full-Time Opportunities”, tells the recruiter nothing about your skills and experience.
  • Ensure that your profile photo is close cropped to frame your head and shoulders only, eyes looking towards the camera.
  • Follow your target companies within LinkedIn and connect with people within your target industry or function.

Here is an infographic summarizing 10 steps you can take to improve your LinkedIn profile.

I received a few inquiries after our webcast on LinkedIn with Hannah Morgan about reaching out to alumni. Towards the end of this post, I’ve provided links to various Illinois alumni LinkedIn groups. If you are a member of these groups, you can message fellow members without using InMails. HOWEVER, before your reach out to an alum or any contact for that matter, consider your purpose. Why are you contacting these individuals?

Below are 3 videos that go over Steve Dalton’s 2-Hour Job Search strategy for finding jobs. Parts 2 and 3 go over ways to make and reach out connections. I recommend watching all 3 videos.

Part 1: Prioritizing Target Employers

Part 2: Making Connections by Picking Starter Contacts

Part 3: Reaching Out and Tracking

Once you establish contact with a professional, you will then need to conduct an informational interview. Here is a sample approach to informational interviews:

Remember that your first informational meeting is not your time to ask for a referral. If the connection progresses after your meeting and your contact becomes an advocate, you can ask for a referral. Until then, they are a resource to help you prepare for future roles.

Illinois alumni LinkedIn groups:

If you have questions, please feel free to reach out.

Jerome Ng
Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach
Gies College of Business
jeromeng@illinois.edu

 

Recap (February 28, March 14 and 28, 2019) Storytelling, Networking, and LinkedIn

March was a crazy month with being co-chairing a conference in Asia and then going on vacation. I’m very sorry for the delay getting the recordings out to you. Here are the last three webcasts:

On Stories… All stories comprise 3 parts:

  1. The Hook – set the time, place and circumstances; establish the conflict, contrast or contradiction
  2. Challenge and Change – the longest part of the story; describe the main journey and what happened at the end, what changed/was different at the end
  3. A Clear Theme – think of this part as your answer to “So what?”; what’s the purpose of your story, what are you trying to illustrate to your audience

A related element to a clear theme is how you choose to end your story: open-ended or closed. Use an open ending if you wish to engage your audience in a discussion or to solicit their insights. Use a closed ending if you want to drive home a point and avoid any ambiguity regarding the message of your story.

There are 5 basic plots in business communication:

  1. Origin Story – founder’s story, or how a person, business, idea, product, service, platform, movement or opportunity came to be
  2. Rags to Riches (variation: David vs. Goliath) – challenging beginning with circumstances stacked against individual, but surprises everyone with a dramatic turnaround
  3. Rebirth – this is about second chances, redemption
  4. Overcoming the Monster – any overt or covert entity or situation that can threaten survival of some sort or thwart someone from reaching an important goal
  5. The Quest – stories about reaching an inspiring goal; aiming for a seemingly unattainable prize; doesn’t have to begin from a point of challenge; in fact, many are enjoying a good life, but are not content with the status quo and strive for something bigger

In a recent blog post, Esther Choy talks about how to utilize 3 of these plots in presentations.

In the chat room, one of you asked whether it was a good approach to tell multiple nested stories when communication one’s value; in other words, telling a story inside of another story. Esther’s advice is “No.”

Because audiences tend to have fairly short attention spans, it’s best to avoid nested stories. Instead, I encourage people to follow the National Speakers Association’s advice: tell a story, then present the main point. Then another story. Then the main point. Story. Point. Story. Point. The different stories should all illustrate the same main point.

For more on how to Let The Story Do The Work, visit Leadership Story Lab.

In our conversation on networking or, as I prefer to say, “building relationships,” Ngee Key Chan challenged us to evaluate our mindset when we approach networking: do we see it as a transaction to get something from the other person or as an opportunity to give first? Ngee Key advises approaching networking from a mindset of giving first in order to create a strong and authentic relationship with the other person.

To learn more about networking strategies, visit http://illinois.beyondb-school.com/tb_Networking.aspx (this subscription is provided through Gies Online Programs).

Finally, when it comes to using LinkedIn to advance your career, Hannah Morgan suggests 4 different tactics:

  1. Create an engaging profile, especially your headline and summary. In your headline, do not rely on the default job title from your current job. Say more than “MBA Candidate” in your headline. Instead, state what you can do, what skills you bring or what industry/functions you are targeting. In your summary, elaborate on your skills and accomplishment. Target your summary to the function and industries are are aiming to get into.
  2. Turn on your Career Interests to be visible to recruiter. Let recruiters know that you are actively seeking. Use the given text box to share a note with recruiters.
  3. Include a personalized note when inviting others to connect with you. Make this a habit, even when you know the individual.
  4. Make one post (not merely “Like” someone else’s post) each day to increase your visibility in LinkedIn. Increasing the frequency of your posts increases your ranking in LinkedIn. However, do not get carried away with multiple posts in a day as that will annoy your followers. Keep your posts relevant to your brand or target industry/function.

In the chat room, someone asked about whether international students should write a note to recruiters about their status, informing recruiters that they are open for offers. Hannah offers the following advice:

…adding something about H1-B Visa or even STEM in their “Note to Recruiter” within the Open To New Opportunities section (under Career Interests) sounds like the best place for this.

I know a student who didn’t even mention needing sponsorship until the end of the interviewing process, when the hiring manager asked her. It wasn’t a deal breaker at all. The company typically doesn’t sponsor, but they made an exception for her. So, I lean towards not stating anything on LinkedIn and bring it up during the interview when asked. Once they love the student’s skills, they are more likely to want to jump through hoops for sponsorship….(fingers crossed).

Visit http://illinois.beyondb-school.com/home.aspx?referer=1 for video tutorials on maximizing LinkedIn for your career. You may also want to enroll in the MBA LinkedIn Intensive found on the left hand menu bar under Focus Programs. (If you have difficulty accessing the videos from the URL provided above, please go to https://onlinemba.illinois.edu/current/resources/ then click on Beyond B-School Career Mgmt Videos.)

Additional resources:

I am trying to edit a recording we did with MBA 2013 alum Sarah Zigman who now works with LinkedIn. In the video, she demos how recruiters use LinkedIn’s Talent Solutions platform when sourcing for candidates. The demo provides good insights into how you should update your Career Interest section within LinkedIn so that it is aligned with how recruiters search for candidates. I will upload that video to this site once it is ready to be shared.

Please join me on Thursday, April 18 for our final career development webcast when I speak with Jenny Rae of Management Consulted about Interviewing for Fit.

Thank you.

Jerome Ng,
jeromeng@illinois.edu