By Jack Molisani, President, ProSpring Technical Staffing
Most candidates do not have interviewing strategies—they just answer the questions an interviewer asks and then leave hoping they did well enough to get a second interview.
This article explains four critical steps you can take to proactively control a job interview and lead it where you want it to go. Read more »
I recently asked hiring manager what “soft skills” do they look for when interviewing candidates. Here are answers from individual managers:
“I think the list of required soft-skills depends on the size/type of the company’s environment. Over the last 15 years, I’ve worked in many types of environments, including in an information services bureau and in more traditional industries such as manufacturing, and discovered along the way that approaches that worked in one environment sometimes backfired in another.”
“Here is a rule of thumb that I swear by: You can tell more about a candidate from the questions they ask than the answers they give.
Do they ask about your business model? Where they fit in? Why the position is open? Are there any ‘challenging’ projects or people they should be aware of?
Do they ask about what problems you are facing that they can solve? What keeps you up at night that they can take off your plate, etc…?”
“Business acumen. Understanding the basics of how and why an organization ticks and what motivates managers in general so that when specifics come around no one is surprised. Oh, yeah. Business acumen.”
“I would rate Listening Skills and Research Skills as my two favorites when interviewing for new folks.”
“A technical communicator needs to have some drive and be willing to go get the info they need. Being proactive does not come to all folks naturally so I look for some passion for the job and the ability to use social engineering skills when neededExample: A couple of years ago we had two writers—-the pushy little flower that is me, and a guy who sat in his cube and waited for people to come to him.
I’m still here and he’s not.”
“I like to see passion: does the applicant get excited about something. It doesn’t have to be work-related; it can be music, travel, food, whatever.
Another skill I value is balance. Can the applicant treat critical tasks as urgent yet remain calm.
Lastly, does the applicant pick up on body language and move on or shut up when I indicate that I’ve heard enough of an answer…?”
“In my experience, the essential soft skill are the ability to perceive how others are perceiving them, and to adapt as necessary to differing personality types among the subject matter experts with whom they have to deal. It is a surprisingly rare attribute.
Without that ability, the technical writer will have difficulty forming and maintaining the collegial interactions necessary to get the job done.”
“I hired a great writer once because of curiosity. I talked to him on the phone and asked if he knew Frame. He didn’t. I called him back about four days later to ask another question and he had downloaded the Frame trial and was working hard to learn it. And had some good questions.\
I liked that initiative and curiosity. I liked the ‘Go Get It’ attitude. I could see that would be priceless in our environment. I could teach him my writing standards and the products. But that attitude I couldn’t teach.
I could see moving him to more advanced projects over time and as team lead eventually.”
“Analytical skill, definitely!”
Lately, I see people wanting to become content strategists, but the questions they ask aren’t in the strategic range. They can’t seem to bump up their thinking to the next level, of content analysis.
And that goes for just about any career-track position, whether it’s tech comm or consulting.”
“Business acumen has been mentioned—but I’d like to highlight it a bit.
It isn’t necessarily a must have for a brand new shiny grad, but, if you wish to fill a slot with a grizzled veteran, knowing how your function might fit into the company’s success is very valuable.
“Years ago, we got the team together (pushing 40 writers/editors) for a yearly face-to-face. The group was highly distributed (as a result of a merger and acquisition binge), and most hadn’t met any of their colleagues from other facilities.
One of our goals was to get folks talking to one another, so the question was asked, ‘What makes a good document?’
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The answers were all over the map, as you’d expect, with copies of Strunk and White being brandished, Chicago Manual of Style used as a weapon, curses in COBOL being lobbed across the room, and the expected pleas for just ‘one more round of reviews and editing to get it perfect.’
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One of the more senior writers sat quietly with a Mona Lisa smile on her face. When asked her opinion, she said:
“At ProSpring, the first attribute I list in the Recruiter job description is, ‘Curiosity and the desire to help.’ I think that summarizes what we’re all looking for in an employee, eh?”
The most common mistake I see in resumes is having a mix of hyphens and en dashes in the resume date ranges.
There are three types of dashes in the world:
Hyphens: used to join compound words. Example: mother-in-law
En Dashes: a dash that is the width of a letter “n.” Used to show ranges. Example: 2005–2009
Em Dashes: a dash that is the width of a letter “m.” Used to show additional information. Example: My mother made a pie on Monday—boy, was it good!
The AutoCorrect feature in MS Word tries to be helpful and when you type “space hyphen space” it thinks “oh, this is a date range” and will turn the hyphen to an en dash for you (unless you disable this feature). But if you type, “space hyphen up-arrow” it does not.
Thus one can get a mix of hyphens and en dashes in your date ranges.
According to The Chicago Manual of Style a date range should be punctuated using an en dash and no space before and after: 2005–Present
Check your resume—this is an easy error to fix!
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My next blog post: Overcoming Resume Myopia
I received the following from Chellie Campbell’s Financial Stress Reduction® newsletter, and am reposting it here with permission.
Many people run into trouble when it comes to negotiating money. This applies to salaries, pay raises, prices of products, and fees for services.
Often fearful of asking for too much, they make the opposite mistake and ask for too little.
It’s like they study the situation very carefully, figure out the least amount they can possible ask for and still be able to eke out a living, and then ask for their rock bottom line amount. Then, when their prospective boss or client tries to negotiate a better price, they are angry and resentful.
How, they think, can this person ask for a better price—don’t they know this is an incredible deal and the cheapest price around?
Well, no, they don’t know! They are playing the negotiating game. It is a win-win scenario if it’s played correctly.
This is how to play it:
1. Seller figures out bottom line price.
2. Seller asks for amount above bottom line price.
3. Buyer asks for reduction in Seller’s price.
4. Compromise is reached in the middle.
5. Every dollar Seller got above his bottom line, he wins.
6. Every dollar Buyer gets Seller to reduce his asking price, he wins.
7. End game: Win-Win.
You can see that if the Seller goes in asking for his bottom line, he leaves the Buyer nothing to do but say “Yes” or “No.” Then somebody loses and is unhappy. To make it possible for everyone to win, the Seller must ask for more money than his bottom line.
Note: If you asks for an amount above your bottom line and the Buyer says yes immediately, you didn’t ask for enough money!
For more information, see ChellieCampbell.com
I recently asked hiring manager what “soft skills” do they look for when interviewing candidates. The top answers:
58% – Excellent communication skills
22% – Ability to work alone, work in teams
18% – Ability to adjust to changing priorities, deadlines
18% – Ability to multitask/juggle multiple projects
14% – Good organization skills
12% – Attention to detail
10% – Strong interpersonal skills
6% – Self motivated
I recently published the following question to a Manager’s email list to which I belong:
I copied the responses into a file and then sorted and tabulated the results.
Here are the top key words sorted alphabetically:
Jack Molisani was a project officer in the Space Division of the USAF before starting ProSpring Technical Staffing, an employment agency specializing in engineers, project managers and technical writers. Learn more
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