Why are managers asking this question? It is a standard question that is often asked, but the question is why are you asking it? Anything could happen between now and five years’ time. What is the benefit of asking this question in the first place?

Potential employees often answer with
“I’ll be in your job”
“I’ll be running the place”
“I’ll be running my own business”

None of which is very useful for assessing if they are the best person for your open position. Often, the general point of the question is to find out how ambitious this potential new employee is. Some people have reasonable ambitions, some have none at all and would be quite happy to be working in the same role for the next five years or more, others would like to push you out of your job ASAP!

The answer should help you decide if you have someone that is likely to be moving at around the same pace that will fit with the company. Some companies need someone that is happy to sit in this job for the next two, three four or more years. Others are quite happy to hire the upwardly mobile and ambitious.

I find this first question is not so important, the follow up question is critical. Your next question should be:

“What skills and experience do you think you need to acquire in order to be able to take on that role?”

I like a bit of ambition, what I don’t like is blind ambition. If the person in front of you is clueless as to what they need to do to get there, don’t hire them. If this person has really thought about where they want to be in five years’ time, then they’ll have an articulate answer about the experience they would like to acquire to fill in the skill gaps to help them get from A to B.

Someone with a plan and some forethought is far more useful to a business than someone that wants a job and has no idea of the heavy lifting required to get promoted.

I have been quoted on the Seek blog talking about unconscious bias previously. Sales Managers often hire people like themselves. Which makes sense – it is great to work with someone who is likeminded and similar to you. You are pretty confident you have a good culture fit and it is so easy to work with someone like you.

At the same time, hiring someone like you might contribute to a lack of diverse opinions, options and strategies. There is a benefit to hiring a broad range of personalities. Most sales people are social, gregarious and outgoing. But not every customer is going to be delighted to see a high energy, A type, high achiever. A sales team needs quiet achievers too. I have seen far too many instances where a quietly spoken candidate misses out on a role because the gregarious sales manager can’t see past their quieter personality.

But how do we recognise a good hire when the person sitting in front of us has a different personality to what we habitually hire into the business? A high energy, high achiever is easy to spot, someone who is a high achiever, but more quietly spoken, may not be as easy to pick up on for some of the socially strong among us.

Regardless of personality, look for the sales achievement, look for the value add to their territory. Has their portfolio of business increased? Has it increased faster than the current rate of market growth? How have they achieved this and how much is a direct result of their efforts, as opposed to the execution of someone else’s bright idea. How strong is their planning and analysis skills to develop a plan of action on their territory?

Look first for the achievements, their results and how they achieved this. Then consider the mix of personalities in the current team and what will provide a good fit, along with a bit of diversity to help match to a variety of different types of customers.

I have seen the benefit many times over, when a sales manager undertakes a review of client lists and switches out a dozen customers in each territory to a new sales consultant to better match the personality of the customer. Often the new sales representative thrives on the challenge of cracking that new account and everyone wins – the company, the sales manager, the rep and the customer.

Happy interviewing!

The Indeed website is suggesting that up 25% of people in the USA have finding a new job as a priority for 2017 and another 27% were open to the possibility of a new job this year. I suspect those figures are comparable in Australia. As they sing at Christmas “It’s the most wonderful time of the year!”

Candidates are on the move in January. This is the busiest time of the year for changing jobs. People who don’t get their bonus or pay increase they were expecting in December are looking to move, along with those who were made redundant before Christmas, plus all the people that have had two weeks off and come back to work and think “I can’t bear another year of this!” are all in the market.

Employers are finding their staff are leaving and creating the opportunity for someone else to take their spot that will love their vacant position. Combined with all the employees that left their jobs in November and December and the employer left it till the new year to replace them. It’s busy with job openings too.

How do you prepare for the highly competitive new year job market?

• Your resume should be in tip-top shape. Check our resume tips to help you put your best foot forward.
• Update your resume with your latest achievements – this helps to get your resume to the top of the pile (and there is plenty of competition this time of year, so this is important!)
• Update your LinkedIn profile. There is a new feature on LinkedIn launched last year, so recruiters can see you are in the market and interested to talk about new jobs. LinkedIn have assured candidates that your current employer can’t see this to preserve your confidentiality.
• Be clear about your reason for leaving, a wishy-washy reason for leaving is a big turn off for a lot of employers. They assume if you are so quick to leave your last employer without some solid conviction, then you could be just as quick to leave them.
• Be clear about the direction of your career and the types of roles that will get you there.
• Have a robust discussion with an experienced recruiter. They can offer great advice about career options, salary expectations and potential employers that could be a good fit for you, given they understand your objectives, long term goal and skill set.
• Contact previous managers and workmates that love their current job – you might be a great fit for their employer too… as they say “birds of a feather, flock together”.

What if you are not in the market for a new job?

• Update your resume with your latest achievements and responsibilities – this should be an annual task each year to keep your resume up to date, regardless of your career move intentions.
• Update your LinkedIn profile – Recruiters are constantly keeping an eye on LinkedIn and searching there for candidates. You don’t want to miss out on a head hunt call that is the job opportunity of a lifetime because you haven’t bothered to keep LinkedIn up to date.
• January is a good time to think about how you can move your career forward in the next twelve months with your current employer. Ask to sit down with your direct line manager to discuss it. Agree on some milestones and responsibilities to achieve each quarter to help fast track your career.
• Have you got a mentor? Then get one. This person can be a wise person from a business you’ve worked in previously, or alternatively look for someone in the organisation. Ask to catch up each month or bi-monthly to help provide alternative options on how to handle tricky situations, provide guidance on internal politics and policy, team influence and advice on advancing your projects. Still not sure, ask me – I often help candidates find mentors from outside their organisation.

Happy job hunting in 2019!

Achievements!

Quantifiable achievements are one of the most important, if not the most important part of your resume. Why? Because they show that you can not only do the basics of you job, but that you can do your job really well! Far too many candidates fail to put this in their resume; you do so at your peril!

Some of the key things to note about including achievements are:

• Always include your achievements for the last number of relevant roles in your resume.
• Have a separate heading after your responsibilities in each role (which are bullet pointed) and bullet point your achievements. This makes it easy to read.
• Quantify your achievements first. E.g. increased sales from $100,000 per month to $150,000 per month over a two year period. This make the reader sit up and take notice!
• You may then want to add the one or two key reasons for the increase, g. via opening three new key accounts.

Putting quantifiable achievements in your resume shows that you have quantifiable achievements. This is important information to a potential employer. These achievements may be saving the company money, making the company money or improving lead times, debtor days, exceed budget, improving market share, completing a project head of time. Line managers see the dollar signs in each of these examples and it makes you a more urgent person to interview than others.

The aim of your resume is to introduce yourself to a potential employer. You want your resume on top of the pile i.e. the first person the recruiter or HR person wants to get on the phone and speak to. Quantifiable achievements are a great way to get you to the top of the pile.

Without quantifiable achievements, the reader of your resume doesn’t know how good you really are. Think about it, if you are hiring a new sales person, do you want the one that has increased sales by 20% over the previous year, or the one that is not sure about their sales results?

The candidate that clearly articulates in their resume (and at interview) how they add value to the business is often the one that is hired. Quantifiable achievements are the quickest and easiest way to help establish that.

Happy job hunting!

Why is this such a hard question?

I have many candidates who struggle and tell me “I don’t want to blow my own trumpet” or “I haven’t really thought about that much?”

Really? You are sitting in front of me and part of your job when sitting in front of me is to tell me what are you good at, what you bring to the table for your potential new employer, what makes you different, special, unique or better than your peers in our industry. If you can’t tell me, then who will?

Come prepared. You should be able to comfortably and humbly rattle off eight to ten clear things you do really well…. And be able to support that with an example. If you say you are organised – then how does that manifest – how do you stay organised? If you say you are “strategic” (as many people often do) then provide a solid example of something you have done that had short and long term gains for your employer. Many a candidate has been tripped up when saying “I am good at X” but then can’t provide an example when asked at interview to back that up.

My suggestion. White down what you think you do well AND what your colleagues tell you, you do particularly well. Then write down those examples that support it. Then come to the interview. You’ll be prepared.

You will always be asked “what do you do well, OR how do you add value, OR what are your strengths? So, let’s nail this one at interview next time. No excuses!

Happy job hunting!

So many candidates tell me “I am strategic” or “I am very strategic” or any variant of this.

What makes someone strategic? My humble view is, when you are in an interview situation you can clearly articulate how you’ve solved a problem for the company in the short term and provided some advantage to the business in the long term. Some candidates confuse tactical short term plans for long term solutions.

Fixing a sales hole this quarter in order to make budget is tactical, Running a promotion, tidying up merchandising area in store, planning your monthly sales territory visits. These are all tactical. These are the basics of doing your job. NOT strategic.

What makes someone strategic is how they gain long term leverage from what they are doing, e.g. the launch of a new product that may have a patent attached to it so you lock in your advantage well into the future. Signing key customers that are high margin and high dollar value into a longer term contract that takes away competitors ability to compete with you for a set period of time. These are strategic, they solve the problem in the short term AND the long term.

A note for when you are at interview, please have a couple of strategic examples of what you have done with previous employers, regardless of whether you call it strategic or not. It is a simple way to make you stand out compared to your peers.

Happy job hunting!

The Indeed website is suggesting that up 25% of people in the USA have This question is becoming increasingly more common because wearing a tie is becoming a thing of the past in many workplaces.

If the vast majority of the gentleman in the employer organisation wear a tie to work, then wear a tie to the interview. If the organisation you are interviewing with is generally a conservative type of culture, again wear a tie to the interview.

By contrast, those in the architecture and design space rarely wear a tie, there is a more relaxed approach to work attire. That said, dress smartly, be on trend and be comfortable. At interview, be dressed one notch up for the standard dress code for that workplace. (I prefer a smart suit that fits perfectly and polished shoes, your tie is optional).

A tie can add a splash of colour. This is particularly useful when interviewing with an employer that is in the decorative interiors sector of our industry (e.g. floor coverings, solid surfaces, textiles, paint etc.). I often suggest that if you are selling colour for a living – then look like it at interview – a tie is an excellent way to add a splash of colour given that is what you’ll be selling in your job – colour! You’ll look the part if you have a modern tie, with a colour that is “on trend”.

I’ve had a candidate tell me they didn’t wear a tie to interview because nobody in the business wears a tie. The interviewer gave them feedback suggesting “If you really wanted the job; you should have worn a tie”. This is rare. From my point of view, if you had a fantastic interview, an employer is generally going to overlook their personal preference for a tie.

Still not sure?

If you are not sure about the culture and dress code for the employer, then ask the recruiter. They should have been to visit the client at least once to take a brief. If they have repeat business from their client, they should have been to their office several times. They can tell you their general observations to help you decide on what to wear.

Still not sure? Then wear a tie. Make sure it is on trend and one of this seasons colours. Do not pull out one of your old ties from the any of the previous decades! Your aim at interview is to look smart. First impressions are important, if you look smart, chances are your potential employer is going to sit down to interview you expecting you’ll be as smart as you look. At that point the interview is yours to lose.

Happy job hunting!