Ask the Career Coach

Question:

In a recent job interview, the interviewer told me I was overqualified. I do have more qualifications than they asked for, but if it doesn’t bother me, why should they care? What should I have said?

Answer:

You were lucky. At least you got an interview.

Many employers will see a résumé with more qualifications than the job requires, and conclude that you are either too old or too expensive for them. This is the only stop on the way to the wastebasket. A job seeker in this position may impress a human resources person as being desperate for any job at all, or out of touch with current financial realities, or a has-been (or perhaps a never-was.)

It’s expensive, time-consuming and labor-intensive to hire and train a new person. The main concern the employer would have was that he would go through this huge, horrible process of hiring you, and as soon as you found something better, you’d leave. There may also have been a concern that you would be bored, or would not fit in well with the current employees.

So what could you have said to change the employer’s mind? One thing would have been to answer the overqualified charge with, “Really? Why?” Possibly the interviewer misunderstood something you said, or overlooked something in your information. Then you can correct whatever the misperception is. If you actually are overqualified, this would have been a good chance to explain why you are looking at a job that is beneath your potential. “I’m changing fields and bringing many transferable skills to the job.” “I’m refocusing my career.” “I went to school for ____ and I want to get back to those roots.”

Another strategy would be to flatter the interviewer’s company (honestly, of course.) “This is the best company in the area for ….” “I’ve researched your firm, and I especially like ….” “Here are some of the values that I hold in common with your business ….”

The bottom line: show the interviewer that you are the best person for the job because you are bringing (your experience, education, personality, background, skills, whatever) to the job, and you expect to be there, committed to this company, as long as you both agree it’s a good fit. Any employer would find that a difficult combination to resist.

Question:

I have been an accountant for many years, but I am being laid off next month. I’ve made good money in a comfortable environment, but I’ve hated my job for years. I’d really like to change careers, but I have a family to support. My spouse is afraid of what will happen if I follow my heart; I’m concerned about what will happen if I don’t. What should I do?

Answer:

If only there were an easy answer to this one.

No doubt your spouse has good reasons to fear what will happen if you change fields. You might need training, during which you may not be earning any money. Or you might take a part-time job during training, and not only earn less, but have less time at home  as well. Will you be able to get a job in your new field once the training is completed? Might you go through all this and still go back to accounting if you can’t find a job in the new field? It’s a tough economy; will you be able to keep your house and standard of living?

On the other hand, you have plenty of things to fear if you continue in accounting. Having the wrong job is sometimes a version of hell on earth. Being trapped in the wrong job, as you may well become, is worse. You may tend not to give it your best effort, so the likelihood of being promoted is reduced, and the likelihood of losing even this job is increased. How do you deal with stress? Is there any inclination to becoming addicted to alcohol or drugs? Depression is a real possibility too. You may come to resent your spouse for pressuring you (or at least encouraging you) to stay in a field you hate.

To add to your misery, you may have to abandon your dreams (possibly another version of hell.) You may always wonder if you could have made it as a (fill in the blank.) How will you deal with that?

Is there a way to have the best of both worlds? Can you do your dream job as a volunteer? Can you take your dream job, but perhaps get a temp job accounting during tax season if money is short? There are many possibilities.

Talk with your Career Specialist and do your research. Activate your network (the people you know.) Find out what the possibilities and realities are in your new field. Talk with your spouse; assess both your respective tolerances for risk and needs for safety. Lay all your cards on the table, and encourage your spouse to do likewise. Then make the best decision you can with the available information, and don’t look back.

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Question:

I know it’s important to research companies that I might want to work for. How do I go about doing that, beyond reading their website?

Answer:

That’s a great question, because often knowing about the company makes the difference between being hired and not being hired. It’s also smart to find out about companies before you go to a lot of trouble to apply. If they hire you and you’re miserable there, you probably won’t be there very long. And if you realize later that you could have avoided the whole process if you’d just done a little research, you’ll want to kick yourself.

So where can you find information? The company website is a good place to start. This is the face that the company wants to show to the world. If you mention anything you learn there, the interviewer will be flattered that you took the trouble to learn about the company. Not many people go to even that much trouble.

The website is a good place to start, but a bad place to stop. There are lots of other resources, mostly online, where you can gather other bits of information:
• Annual reports, including the letter from the president of the company
• Standard and Poor’s financial reports
• Dunn & Bradstreet Business Information Reports
• Blogs
• News wires

Check this website http://newgradlife.blogspot.com/2009/12/job-interview-interview-questions.html for a video on other sources of valuable information.

If you aren’t already on LinkedIn, now is the time to sign up. It’s been reported that 80% of employers use LinkedIn as their primary recruiting tool. It’s also a great place to research companies. You can use LinkedIn to see if you know anyone (or know anyone who knows anyone) who works at your target company; who’s been hired or promoted lately; and to find out about open jobs there. You can also learn a little about the company’s history. You may even be able to find out some information about the person you’re going to interview with.

Happy hunting!

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Question: 

Is it important to have a career summary on my résumé?

Answer:

Résumé writers argue about this all the time. Here’s one vote for “yes.”

A career summary can also be called a professional profile, highlights of qualifications, or any of several other titles. It gathers up all your best stuff (that is, what the employer will think is your best stuff) in a neat little package near the top of your résumé. It makes it easy for the employer to find the information he wants, as quickly as possible. It will not surprise you to know that employers appreciate your making their lives easier.

People who read résumés tend to read a lot of résumés, especially in an economy like this one. They often have very arbitrary methods of deciding which ones to read thoroughly, and which ones to glance at on the way to the wastebasket.

One human resources professional says he went through a very tall pile of résumés and decided to read only every third one. Yes, he missed a number of good people, but the ones he had left were very good candidates too, so he chose among those.

Anything you do to make it easier to find the most important information helps the employer, and makes it more likely that he will call you for an interview. Having a career summary just below your contact information and objective accomplishes that goal. You may still need to tweak it for each new job you apply for, depending on what the employer of the moment is looking for. This can be a nuisance, but not nearly as much of a nuisance as continuing to be unemployed.

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Question:

I found a job lead that sounds like me, but it says the successful candidate must be proficient in Microsoft Word 2007. What do they mean by “proficient”?

Answer:

“Proficient” is such a fluid term.

Obviously to be proficient, you have to have considerable knowledge of Word. But what parts? Some things that are essential to one employer are totally useless with another.

Good news! Frederick County Workforce Services has a new tool that will tell you where you stand. It’s called Prove It!.

Prove It! has assessments (tests) for an amazing array of skills. It has been proven to effectively measure and verify skills and experience. It’s not limited to computer or software skills; it includes tests for specific career fields, like call centers and health care. There are even behavioral tests that measure your expertise in such qualities as adaptability, follow-through, teamwork, dependability, problem solving, creativity and emotional control. Other tests predict how well you would probably do in various careers.

There are many variations and levels of these tests. To see a list, go to http://www.proveit2.com/frederickworks/. For MS Word and other programs, there are two levels:  “Normal User” and “Power User.”  The Normal User level assesses your ability to format documents, create tables, perform mail merges, etc. The Power User test includes advanced formatting, charts, themes, styles and more.

You can use Prove It! to demonstrate your proficiency in a wide variety of clerical, industrial, financial and/or technical job skills. Taking these online assessments will not only add credibility to your candidacy; it will also show you any areas where you may want to upgrade your skills.

When you take the test, you get a report. It tells you how long you took to complete the test, how many questions you got right out the total number, and your rank among all the people who have taken the test so far. If you need some clarification, the test administrator can answer your questions. You can report these numbers to the employer.

To take any of the Prove It! assessments, talk to your Career Specialist at FCWS.
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Question:

I’d really like to work at home, but I understand there are a lot of scams out there regarding businesses you can operate out of your house. What should I watch out for?

Answer:

You’re right, you have to be careful when looking for work you can do at home.

One time-honored scam says you can make big bucks by stuffing envelopes. But it often involves not only stuffing the envelopes, but also generating the leads so you have people to whom you can send those envelopes. Another says you can make money by assembling crafts at home. But when you return the projects, they are not perfect enough (no matter how exactly you followed the directions); the seams are a hundredth of an inch off, the feathers aren’t attached perfectly. Then you’ve put out your time and energy, and you don’t get paid.

Yet another red flag is companies that ask you to send money before they give you any product.

According to Dan Miller, author of 48 Days to Work You Love, the Federal Trade Commission has identified these scams as the most popular:
1.  Business opportunities scams
2.  Make money by sending bulk e-mail
3.  Chain letters
4.  Work-at-home schemes
5.  Health and diet scams
6.  Easy money
7.  Get something free
8. Investment opportunities
9. Cable de-scrambler kits
10. Guaranteed loans or credit, or easy terms scams
11. Credit repair scams
12. Vacation prize promotions

“The punch line… which you’ve heard from us many times before… If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” says Miller. “Further, don’t buy anything via bulk e-mail (spam). Your chances of being scammed are astronomical.” He also recommends checking Scam Watch (www.scamwatch.com) before getting involved with a company.

There are legitimate ways to make money at home, however. Your best bet is to work with your network and see what has worked for local people you know.

Question:

I learned in your “Résumés and Applications” class that I need to emphasize my accomplishments on my résumé, not just my daily duties. But I’m just a secretary. I don’t have any accomplishments! If I can’t list my daily duties, it’s going to be a really short résumé. What do I do now?

Answer:

Everyone has accomplishments. Even secretaries. Even you.

First, for the benefit of those who haven’t taken the class yet, here is the reason that accomplishments are so important.

The employer knows what a secretary (or engineer or machine operator or lion tamer) does all day. What he wants to know now is this: why are you the best secretary (or engineer or machine operator or lion tamer) he could possibly hire right now? That is what your accomplishments tell him: what makes you the best; what sets you apart from the other 27 candidates he could hire instead.

Now, let’s look at your own accomplishments. One source for that information is your own memory: what do/did your co-workers and supervisors compliment you for? What are you famous for? What makes people say, “Go ask (your name) about that; she’ll know.” What are you most proud of?

Look at your past evaluations, if you have them. For what did your supervisor commend you? In what area did you get your highest marks? If there are comments, you can use the supervisor’s own words in your résumé.

Another source is ProveIt, a program available here at the Business and Employment Center. Check out this website: http://www.oshkoshwdc.com/data/Prove_It.pdf. It asks many questions to get you started thinking. The questions include:
• Have you done creative or innovative things on the job?
• Did you ever come up with a new idea, way of doing things, order in which a product has been processed, or way to minimize waste?
• Did you ever start any new tasks or projects?
• How did you make your boss look good?

No doubt you did many things that fall into those categories (especially the last one.) These questions will jog your memory and shake some of those accomplishments loose.

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Question:

It’s a new year, and I’m really ready to find that new job. What one thing can I do to increase my chances?

Answer:

Assuming you’ve already taken advantage of all the services available at FCWS (and if you haven’t, this is a good time to check them out), one other thing you might consider is social networking.

Social networking isn’t just for teens any more. While MySpace and Facebook are good for getting in touch with friends, family and others with similar interests, LinkedIn is much better for job search and other professional purposes.

With LinkedIn (www.LinkedIn.com), you can get in touch with people you already know: colleagues from past jobs, old friends from college, and so on. But you can also (electronically) meet their friends, and their friends, and maybe even their friends. If you want to know about a particular company, there is a great deal of information on any sizable company there, and even some that are not so sizable. The information is both grand in scale (where the company is located, what they do) and very detailed as well (new hires, promotions, job titles, what they’re worth on the stock market today, etc.) You can even search profiles of some of the top employees.

Don’t dismiss Twitter for job hunting either. You can get up-to-the minute information about companies you follow, and insider information from people who work there. You’ll also want to check out Tweet My Jobs (www.tweetmyjobs.com.) You’ll need a Twitter account to use it. Tweetmyjobs.com has job openings from over 6000 fields and companies. You can have leads sent instantly to your cell phone or other mobile device. If some of they don’t suit you, you can send them on to other job seekers who might like them. And of course you can post your résumé and update it whenever you like.

We all know networking is the best way to find a new job, but face-to-face networking is difficult for a lot of people. But no matter how shy you are, social networking on the Internet is within your reach.

Using these sites is fairly simple; if you have basic computer skills, you’ll be fine. Spiff up your résumé first, so it’s ready to post. Leave no link unclicked; there are many great features beyond the home page. Add this to what you’re already doing, and that new job should be yours soon!

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Question:

I applied for a job that I found on Craigslist, and got a reply that invited me for an interview. However, before they schedule the interview, they want my Social Security number and credit report. I understand that I must give up my Social Security number to apply for a federal job, but this is not a federal job. And why do they want my credit report?

Answer:

Good question!

In all likelihood, this is a scam.

Employers do need your Social Security number once you are hired, to account for taxes and various other things. Some will also check your credit before making the final offer to hire you. And you are correct about federal jobs; if you don’t give your Social Security number, your résumé will not be processed.

However, you aren’t nearly that far along in the process yet. At the very least, you want to know why the employer needs that information. Feel free to email them (or respond in whatever way they contacted you) and ask, if you’re interested enough in the job. Read the response critically, though.

This is how the scam goes: you apply for a job. Then you get an email saying that you seem to be very well qualified, possibly even better qualified than most of the other applicants. The response may have been sent at an odd time of day, probably the middle of the night. They’d like you to come for an interview, but before they can schedule it, you need to provide various pieces of private information, such as a copy of your passport. There will be a link to what is supposed to be “one of the most trusted websites on the Internet.” You may need to give a credit card number to get more information. If you ask for more details about the job, their response will be very vague; their offices are in North America and Europe, perhaps, and the duties are largely unspecified. The benefits and  rate of pay may be surprisingly good. There may be many typos and grammatical errors in the email. It may say there is a problem with your information, and you need to click on a link to a website to correct it.

The least you can do in your own defense is what you should do for any job interview: research the company. Find out all you can about them: their mission, their product or service, how they do business, who their customers are, what’s going on in their industry. If feasible, go to their nearest office and find out whatever you can. If their information is vague or, worse yet, nonexistent, flee! You may be on the verge of losing your identity and your good credit rating.