be unhappy there.
The Right Questions
What questions should you ask someone who works at one of your targeted companies when you have the chance to speak with them? The best suggestion: Simply ask for advice! Be honest, and let that person know you’re interested in working for the company. Ask them what they would recommend as first steps. You may be surprised by how much someone is willing to help you just because you’ve asked that one simple question.
Here are a few other questions to ask if you get the chance to talk to someone who is already part of an organization you’re interested in:
•What key characteristics does the company look for in an employee?
•What do you think are the top five skills the company values most?
•What do you like the most about working there? What do you like the least?
•What’s the length of the typical work day?
•Is it a training-focused company? If so, does it send employees to outside training programs, or does it hold regular in-house trainings?
•What are three words that best describe the culture of the company?
•How does the company treat its employees in general?
•Does the company hold a lot of events for its employees? If so, what kind?
•On a scale from 1-10, how open to new ideas is the company? Can you share some examples of why you would give it that score?
•Would you say that the company is more team-oriented or individual-centric? Can you share with me a few examples of why you think that?
The answers will give you great clues as to what to emphasize in your resume and interview. If you find out the company values integrity and collaboration skills, you can prepare examples to share in an interview about situations from the past where you’ve shown integrity and collaborated well.
Of course (and this does happen), in the process of collecting answers to your questions, you may find out you no longer want to apply to a particular company. This is a good thing! Scratch that company off of your list, and focus your well-honed energies toward a job in a different company that’s a better fit for your talents and priorities.
Once you know about your target companies, you can use the same ideas to find out about the division or department where you want to work. Most of the time, there’s a wealth of information out there about the particular area you’re interested in.
T
Find Out About the Interviewer
Sometimes, you may be told who your interviewer will be, and sometimes not. If you’re only given a title, simply ask for the person’s name. Otherwise, you can do an Internet search for the company name and the interviewer’s title to see if a name shows up. No matter how you manage to get the name of your interviewer — which is a bit of a golden key — type the name into a search engine like Google.com. Also, look for him or her on LinkedIn.com, Facebook.com, Myspace.com, and other social networking sites. Knowledge is power! So, the more you know, the better prepared you will be for the interview. You may not want to mention any of the information you have discovered in your search, especially if it’s something personal like the name of the interviewer’s children, but the information you find may tell you a fair amount about the interviewer’s personality.
The more information you can find out about your interviewer — within reason, of course — the more confidence and understanding you will bring to your interviews.
Your Job-Seeker Personal Brand Positioning Statement
You’re now ready to begin completing your Job-Seeker Personal Brand Positioning Statement.
To help you with your own statement, let’s look at some examples. I have included the Job-Seeker Personal Brand Positioning Statements of two people who have different backgrounds and job search objectives. As we work through the chapters, we’ll follow along and see how these two people have completed each section of their own Job-Seeker Personal Brand Positioning Statements. These examples will hopefully give you lots of ideas and will help you understand how your own Positioning Statement all fits together into a cohesive whole. We’ll even show you how our two job seekers went about their own Audience research and what methods they used to find out about their main target company. Let’s start with Jamie.
Case Study – Jamie Nelson
For three years, Jamie worked on the multimedia team at Axion, a hightech company that began struggling about a year after he was hired. When the company was bought out by another firm, Jamie was laid off. Axion was Jamie’s first job out of college, and he had hoped to build a career there. So, at 25 years of age, Jamie was frustrated to find himself on the job market again. But once he began to investigate companies and target his search more carefully, he started to feel more excited about the possibilities. He decided to try and use this job change as an opportunity to get an entry-level position in management. He had dabbled in management at Axion but never held a manager title; nonetheless, Jamie felt he was up for the challenge.
A search of the Internet for “DVD design expansion” and “DVD design services” led Jamie to an article and a press release about a company that was expanding its DVD department into the 3D area. He felt it would be a good fit for him because of the company’s plans for expansion and because Jamie had solid education and experience in this area.
While PreLife hadn’t yet placed an ad for any jobs related to the new 3D department, one of Jamie’s connections on LinkedIn.com gave him an introduction to someone who works in a related department. That person was able to offer Jamie some helpful information about the company’s culture. Jamie found press releases about recent hires and looked those employees up on LinkedIn.com and Facebook.com, too. As a result, he found out the following information about the company:
Jamie’s new contact at the company was able to give him some inside information about the company’s culture and about some of the challenges PreLife was facing.
Based on the information Jamie found, he sent an unsolicited cover letter and resume to PreLife and was excited to get a call a week later from HR, asking him to come in and interview for the new position of Assistant Manager of the 3D DVD department. While on the phone, he asked who he’d be interviewing with and found out that he’d be meeting with his potential boss — the Manager of the new 3D DVD department, Tom Brunnell. Jamie typed Tom’s name into Google.com and also looked Tom up on LinkedIn.com.
