As you can see, one of the best strategies is to separate yourself from the pack. The part that makes the difference between getting the job and being an also-ran is giving the interviewer what he or she doesn’t expect. Be pleasingly unpredictable. Be entertainingly original. In short, shock ’em.
One young person I was mentoring slam-dunked his interview for a marketing slot with a major company by showing up toting his own PowerPoint presentation. Did that help the interviewers visualize him working for them? You bet.
Some years ago I attended the graduation ceremony of my daughter, Jojo, at the University of Michigan. Seated up in the rafters, I watched thousands of seniors parade across the stage. Suddenly the crowd started roaring, as if Michigan had just defeated Ohio State in football. Instead, a female graduate had walked across the stage with a placard on top of her mortarboard. In huge letters were the words, “I need a job.” I don’t know if she landed a job with her ingenuity; however, people were falling all over themselves to give her their business cards.
As my friend Pat Fallon, chairman of Fallon Worldwide, one of the great advertising companies, says, “Imagination is one of the last remaining legal means you have to gain an unfair advantage over the competition.”
Mackay’s Moral:
Really smart people know creativity often
beats knowledge.
Chapter 37
Psychological Evaluations:
Shrink to Grow
In the last dozen years, major league sports have added a new spectacle to the events calendar: Draft Day. This element has become huge, and fans gather by the thousands in local sports arenas to watch TV coverage of middle-aged men in suits fumbling with Ping-Pong balls, making solemn-sounding announcements, and scribbling on blackboards. Who’s getting whom? Who’s trading? Who’s standing pat? Who’s expendable? Who’s untouchable? What kind of talent is in demand, in decline? Who got snookered, who snatched a prize from under everyone’s nose? Who’s winning, who’s losing? No one
really
knows because you can’t tell the final score when no one gets the ball until the following season, but it’s a great game for any fan who enjoys lots of controversy and strongly held expressions of opinion.
Most of the Draft Day hype and hope focuses on athletic skills, but sophisticated player personnel executives, who are responsible for these multimillion-dollar decisions, know they have to factor in other elements. They realize that the performance of their choices will depend as much on the personal qualities as on the raw physical talent of the choices.
Personal qualities are a lot tougher to get a handle on than the numbers for the forty-yard dash or the vertical jump. Is this player committed? What is his value system? Is she coachable? Will he be a team player? Will she be able to overcome her shortcomings? Will he choke? Does she quit? Has he established sound training habits?
Sports franchises are built on the answers to these kinds of questions.
So are businesses.
For forty years, I have relied on industrial psychologists to help me sort out the complexities of a hire. According to the American Management Association, the number of U.S. companies using psychological testing is growing rapidly.
Fortunately, for us business types, it’s a lot easier to get your subject to test when he’s a forty-five-year-old salesperson than a nineteen-year-old athlete—even though with the athlete you may be risking $10 million or more on the results. Just imagine the fan reaction if you were able to get one of these kids to test for you and you came up with something like, “We decided not to draft Mr. All-American because, even though he can shoot the eyes out of the basket from thirty feet, he has an unresolved conflict with authority figures.”
Whatever the results, I never let the industrial psychologists make the decision for me. Their information is just another tool in the hiring process; it’s just another arrow in my quiver.
But it’s also a tool you can use to your own advantage as a prospective employee, in two ways.
If you’re out there beating the pavement for a job, I recommend you get yourself to an industrial psychologist and get tested—on your own.
I’m not going to kid you, it’s not cheap. It will cost you at least several hundred bucks, but the oral and written exams will uncover strengths you never dreamed you had (and a few weaknesses to work on also). If you’re being let go, try to talk your employer into paying the tab as part of your outplacement package.
Remember, you’re at a crossroads in your life. The next job you take could determine your future for a long time to come. Isn’t it worth your while to know whether you’re heading in the right direction? If there is ever a time to change careers, to rethink your goals, isn’t this it? Fate has forced you into this situation, so take advantage to find out about yourself and what you’re good at. Don’t do it on the cheap. Go to a firm with an excellent reputation so you know you’re getting a sound evaluation from someone who’s a lot less biased about you than you are.
Another use for this information: You now have in your hands the kind of report that 99.9 percent of other job seekers—your competitors— don’t have. It contains information every interviewer is trying to learn about a prospect before making the hiring decision. Armed with this psychological profile, you now have your own personal Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. It’s a way of providing potential employers with the valuable information they want.
Does it show that you are a less than perfect human being? Of course. Not to worry. We all are. What it also shows is that you have areas of strength, as well as creativity and imagination in your job-seeking skills. And that may be just enough to resolve the decision in your favor.
Mackay’s Moral:
Know thyself to get thyself hired.
Chapter 38
Shrinks: A Skull Session
Brad Swanson and Bill Kirkpatrick are industrial psychologists. Both are PhDs, have decades of experience, and are principals of SKS Consulting Psychologists in Minneapolis. MackayMitchell Envelope Company has enlisted them time and again to help make management staffing decisions.
• Want to know how this year’s crop of citrus sizes up? Ask the fruit dealer who’s groping those Jamaican Uglis every day.
• Who’s going to be the next Seabiscuit at Pimlico? I’d make book on the best handicapper in Baltimore.
• Which young mezzo will be belting out
Carmen
at the Met next season? Check out the music critic at the
New York Times.
Have a yen to know what’s going on in the heads of recruiters, human resources directors, and candidates in this time of woe?
Talk to the folks who are out there squeezing those noggins every day and helping to decide which are ripe and which are rotten.
Here’s what I learned from Bill and Brad on a recent visit.
Some people are compelled to downscale the job they take. Some actually seek to do so. Does this work?
BRAD: We have seen people accept jobs with lesser stature and jobs with lesser pay. Sometimes, the latter option has been the result of group action, when employees pool together and decide they have to cut their salaries. Often, though, this direction comes from above. More and more, such adjustments are becoming acceptable to people because it’s a practical solution. Those affected are returning to a survival mode. Not surprisingly, many are just grateful to have a job.
BILL: I just talked to a man who used to run a large cooperative and decided to apply for a much lower level position in a manufacturing plant. He discovered he had a health issue that was related to his workplace for the cooperative. After medical treatment, he could have returned to his former job, but a replacement had already been hired. He decided to apply elsewhere for a lower level position so he wouldn’t have to relocate his family. This particular potential employer didn’t choose him, contending he was overqualified.
Even though a person may genuinely be prepared to accept a downgrade, companies are often suspicious of candidates whose credentials overqualify them for a position. They’re afraid he or she won’t be motivated even though, as in this example, the person may be perfectly willing to accept a job with lesser scope for any of a variety of reasons. This sort of applicant needs to present a clear and convincing case if the employer is going to trust the person’s intentions, especially when the pool of available high quality candidates is so large these days.
What about temporary executive positions?
BRAD: We term those “survivor jobs,” and in some cases they make a lot of sense. These positions can serve as a “filler” until a desired job is secured, and they can also be satisfying and fulfilling in themselves.
Because every hiring choice is a more important and impactful decision given tight budgets, are people relying on your input more heavily than in the past?
BILL: Companies are being more cautious and careful about whom they hire. Economic conditions are certainly making firms appreciate how critical it is to make sound hiring decisions. There is also a body of qualified unemployed available people who have lost work through no fault of their own. Employers want to take advantage of these circumstances to get the foremost talent they can.
BRAD: Sometimes reorganization programs have unintended consequences. Recently, a large national retailer offered an across-the-board buyout program in which employees could take a severance package. A lot of good people accepted it, knowing they were capable and confident they could find jobs. Some of these people used the money as a grant to fund a personal sabbatical. Some used it as seed capital to launch their own entrepreneurial ventures. Ironically, this retailer then had to go out and fill some of the jobs created by the vacancies resulting from their workforce reduction program.
BILL: Striking out on one’s own and taking such a severance package is something done by really talented people who are confident they can land on their feet.
Confidence is always a pivotal trait for a job seeker. Is it even more so in the present job climate?
BRAD: Confident people can certainly take advantage of today’s environment. Confidence—and not arrogance—has always been a positive attribute, and it is more valuable, maybe even necessary, in a down economy.
BILL: Another trait of rising importance over recent years is flexibility, especially a willingness to adapt to change. There are clear personality characteristics that speak to that capacity.
How does flexibility factor into the palette of top-priority traits that are sought after today?
BILL: The world marketplace is changing rapidly. Flexibility is clearly reflected in those aptitudes needed for successful global involvement in many ways.
Has flexibility also grown in importance because organization structures evolve and transform themselves so quickly and so often these days?
BRAD: You have to be ready to shift easily.
BILL: This is part of a long-term trend that has been underway since the mid-70s. The trend toward flexibility is tied into the increasing significance of collaboration within companies and the shift away from hierarchical structures.
An aptitude for teamwork and peer-group leadership is a real plus?
BILL: Surely these two skills are critical in a down economy, but I’m not sure that the down economy is the sole or specific reason for their importance. In other words, these aptitudes are a real plus in any economy, up or down.
Step back from the present economic context for a moment and talk about the model for the classic stereotype of the successful business person. Has that ideal also evolved in recent decades?
BRAD: Certain industries like security firms and advertising had profiles that were strongly male-dominated forty years ago. This has surely changed.
BILL: The prominence of the dominating individualist has receded. The one-man show à la early Michael Jordan is disappearing. Companies prize team effort and group involvement to a greater degree. The world is too complex for a one-star show to hack it. Too many pieces of the puzzle have to fit together. A facilitator who can integrate all the pieces becomes more important.
BRAD: Firms want thinkers who can bring all these components together. You need to think and link more broadly and beyond the scope of your particular technical function.
BILL: Another force behind this has been the shift in economic output from manufacturing to information and services.
Has the greater presence of women in senior positions also stimulated the growing preference for collaborative thinking?
BILL: Women as a group have an advantage over men as a group. Collectively, their style and orientation are less ego driven. They tend to welcome and include people. They listen better and are more oriented to draw contributions out from others.
BRAD: This still varies by industry, and it is most pronounced in those industries toward which women have gravitated such as advertising, where the account executive role needs to be more a liaison, a collaborator, a facilitator.
BILL: One thing is certain: The Rambo prototype is surely not as effective as it once was.
What have you learned about mentors and grooming successors in this new environment?
BILL: Women generally tend to be more nurturing, and that marks the prevailing training and development style today. Women ask for assistance more naturally.
BRAD: Men try to be too self-reliant. Women also tend to seek out mentors.