What Color Is Your Parachute? (24 page)

Think about this: you can have all the skills in the world, have researched this organization to death, have practiced
interviewing
until you are a master at giving “right answers,” be absolutely the perfect person for this job, and yet lose the hiring-interview because…
your breath smells terrible.
Or some other small personal reason. It’s akin to your being ready to fight dragons, and then being killed by a mosquito.

It’s the reason why interviews are most often lost, when they are lost,
during the first two minutes.

Let us look at
what
interview-mosquitoes (
as it were
) can fly in, during the first thirty seconds to two minutes of your interview so that
the person-who-has-the-power-to-hire-you
starts muttering to themselves,
“I sure hope we have some other candidates besides this one”
:

1. Your appearance and personal habits:
interview after interview has revealed that if you are a male,
you are much more likely to get the job if:

• you have obviously freshly bathed, have your face freshly shaved or your hair and beard freshly trimmed, have clean fingernails, and are using a deodorant;
  and
  

• you have on freshly laundered clothes, pants with a sharp crease, and shoes freshly polished;
  and
  

• you do not have bad breath, do not dispense gallons of garlic, onion, stale tobacco, or the odor of strong drink, into the enclosed office air, but have brushed and flossed your teeth;
  and
  

• you are not wafting tons of aftershave cologne fifteen feet ahead of you, as you enter the room.
  

If you are a female, interview after interview has revealed that
you are much more likely to get the job if:

• you have obviously freshly bathed; have not got tons of makeup on your face; have had your hair newly cut or styled; have clean or nicely manicured fingernails, that don’t stick out ten inches from your fingers; and are using a deodorant;
  and
  

• you have on freshly cleaned clothes, a suit or sophisticated-looking dress, shoes not sandals, and are not wearing clothes so daring that they call
  a lot
  of attention to themselves;
  and
  

• you do not have bad breath; do not dispense gallons of garlic, onion, stale tobacco, or the odor of strong drink, into the enclosed office air, but have brushed and flossed your teeth;
  and
  

• you are not wafting tons of perfume fifteen feet ahead of you, as you enter the room.
  

2. Nervous mannerisms:
it is a turnoff for employers if:

• you continually avoid eye contact with the employer (that’s a
  big, big
  no-no),
  or
  

• you give a limp handshake,
  or
  

• you slouch in your chair, or endlessly fidget with your hands, or crack your knuckles,
  or
  constantly play with your hair during the interview.
  

3. Lack of self-confidence:
it is a turnoff for employers if:

• you are speaking so softly you cannot be heard, or so loudly you can be heard two rooms away,
  or
  

• you are giving answers in an extremely hesitant fashion,
  or
  

• you are giving one-word answers to all the employer’s questions,
  or
  

• you are constantly interrupting the employer,
  or
  

• you are downplaying your achievements or abilities, or are continuously being self-critical in comments you make about yourself during the interview.
  

4. The consideration you show to other people:
it is a turnoff for employers if:

• you show a lack of courtesy to the receptionist, secretary, and (at lunch) to the waiter or waitress,
  or
  

• you display extreme criticalness toward your previous employers and places of work,
  or
  

• you drink strong stuff during the interview process. Ordering a drink if and when the employer takes you to lunch is always an extremely bad idea, as it raises the question in the employer’s mind,
  Do they normally stop with one, or do they normally keep on going?
  Don’t…ever…do…it! Even if they do,
  or
  

• you forget to thank the interviewer as you’re leaving, or forget to send a thank-you note afterward. Says one human resources expert: “A prompt, brief, faxed business letter thanking me for my time along with a (brief!) synopsis of his/her unique qualities communicates to me that this person is an assertive, motivated, customer-service-oriented salesperson who utilizes technology and knows the rules of the ‘game.’ These are qualities I am looking for.…At the moment I receive approximately one such letter…for every fifteen candidates interviewed.”
  

• Incidentally,
  many
  an employer watches to see if you smoke, either in the office or at lunch.
  In a race between two equally qualified people, the nonsmoker will win out over the smoker 94 percent of the time, according to a study done by a professor of business at Seattle University.
  

5. Your values:
it is a complete turnoff for most employers, if they see in you:

• any sign of arrogance or excessive aggressiveness; any sign of tardiness or failure to keep appointments and commitments on time, including the hiring-interview;
  or
  

• any sign of laziness or lack of motivation;
  or
  

• any sign of constant complaining or blaming things on others;
  or
  

• any signs of dishonesty or lying—especially on your resume or during the interview;
  or
  

• any signs of irresponsibility or tendency to goof off;
  or
  

• any sign of not following instructions or obeying rules;
  or
  

• any sign of a lack of enthusiasm for this organization and what it is trying to do;
  or
  

• any sign of instability, inappropriate response, and the like;
  or
  

• the other ways in which you evidence your
  values
  , such as: what things impress you or don’t impress you in the office;
  or
  what you are willing to sacrifice in order to get this job
  and
  what you are
  not
  willing to sacrifice in order to get this job;
  or
  your enthusiasm for work;
  or
  the carefulness with which you did or didn’t research this company before you came in; and blah, blah, blah.
  

Well, dear reader, there you have it: the
mosquitoes
that can kill you, when you’re on the watch only for dragons, during the hiring-interview.

One favor I ask of you: do not write me, telling me how picayune or asinine some of this is. Believe me, I already
know
that. I’m not reporting the world as it
should
be, and certainly not as I would like it to be. I’m only reporting what study after study has revealed about the hiring world as it
is
.

You may take all this to heart, or just ignore it. However, if you decide to ignore these points, and then—despite interview after interview—you never get hired, you might want to rethink your position on all of this. It may be
mosquitoes
, not dragons, that are killing you.

And, good news: you can
fix
all these mosquitoes. Yes, you control
every one
of these factors.

Read them all over again. There isn’t a one of them that you don’t have the power to determine, or the power to change. You can decide to bathe before going to the interview, you can decide to shine your shoes, you can decide not to smoke, etc., etc. All the little things that could torpedo your interview are within your control, and
you can fix
them, if they are keeping you from getting hired.

Before you let the interview end, there are five questions you should
always
ask:

#1.
“Can you offer me this job?”
I know this seems stupid, but it is astonishing (at least to me) how many job-hunters have secured a job simply by being bold enough to ask for it, at the end of the interview, in language they feel comfortable with.
I don’t know
why
this is. I only know
that
it is. Anyway, if after hearing all about this job at this place, you decide you’d really like to have it, you must
ask for it.
The worst thing the employer can say is “No,” or “We need some time to think about all the interviews we’re conducting.”

#2.
“When may I expect to hear from you?”
If the employer says,
“We need some time to think about this,”
or
“We will be calling you for a second interview,”
you don’t want to leave this as an undated good intention on the employer’s part. You want to nail it down.

#3.
“Might I ask what would be
the latest
I can expect to hear from you?”
The employer has probably given you their
best
guess, in answer to your previous question. Now you want to know:
what is the worst-case
scenario? Incidentally, one interviewer, when I was job-hunting once, and I asked him for the
worst-case
scenario, replied,
“Never!”
I thought he had a great sense of humor. Turned out he was dead serious. I never heard from him, despite repeated attempts at contact.

#4.
“May I contact you after that date, if for any reason you haven’t gotten back to me by that time?”
Some employers resent this question. You’ll know that is the case if they snap at you. But most employers appreciate your offering them what is in essence a safety-net. They know they can
get busy, become overwhelmed with other things, forget their promise to you. It’s reassuring, in such a case, for you to offer to rescue them.

(Optional: #5.
“Can you think of anyone else who
might
be interested in hiring me?”
This question is invoked
only
if they replied
“No,”
to your first question, above.)

Jot down any answers they give you to the questions above, then stand up, thank them sincerely for their time, give a firm handshake, and leave.