Why Should They Hire You?

I want to ask you a question. Have you thought through the following question: “Why should I hire you?” If you haven’t prepared an answer ahead of time you might just bobble the moment in an interview, which might result in the HR person moving on to the next applicant.

Just as you would prepare your resume and your cover letter, you need to prepare yourself ahead of time for the interview questions that you might be asked. This “Why should I hire you” question really allows you to shine, as long as you are prepared to do so.

Anythony Balderrama, a CareerBuilder.com writer, wrote a nice article about this topic. The following section is extracted from that online article titled “Why should I hire you?”

Here are three common scenarios job seekers find themselves in and how they might handle each one:

• The employer thinks…you’re not qualified enough. So…you prove you have other qualifications that will help you in this position.
• The employer thinks…you’re overqualified. So you…prove you’re ready for a change.
• The employer thinks…you don’t have relevant experience. So you…explain how all experience is relevant.

I recommend that you read the complete article.

Deb Lockwood

Where Are the Jobs?

The Denver Business Journal is a great place for you to go to figure out which businesses might be hiring or reducing staff. This publication tells you what businesses are doing in the metro Denver area, what companies are winning contracts, and who the individuals are that are moving on to new jobs. (Heads up: If someone is moving on that means their former position is probably available!)

A subscription to the journal is actually quite reasonable for what you get:

• 56 issues are $98.00 (print and digital) (includes three free issues)
• 60 issues are $59.00 (digital only) (includes eight free issues)

To subscribe, go to http://denver.bizjournals.com/denver/. Also, note that the Denver Business Journal does post jobs in their online journal’s Careers section. See http://denver.bizjournals.com/denver/jobs/. 

Deb Lockwood

Frugal Thank You Ideas

The experts tell you that you need to network with people face-to-face. We can do that; no problem. But then they say that you should be generous to the person with whom you are meeting, perhaps buying him or her a latte or meal. That’s when you think, “Wait a minute. I am networking because I am out of work, which means money is tight! I don’t have the money to go out to eat myself, a lot less to pay for someone else’s meal too.”  Ah, yes, that might be true. However, just because you aren’t totally flush doesn’t mean that you can’t be a generous networker.

Following is a list of some frugal ideas that will say “thank you” quite effectively:

• Meet the person for a beverage (coffee) rather than a meal.
• Send a hand-written thank-you note. (Hand-written anything is rare these days.)
• Drop some home-made cookies by a recruiter’s office.
• Drop off some flowers or plant cuttings from your garden
• Take them some fresh produce (e.g., fruits, vegetables).
• Send a $5 Starbucks gift card. 
• Send a link to an article that the person might be interested in.
• Send a packet of wildflower seeds with a note.
• Notification of free concerts they might want to go to.
• Save your punch cards to various merchants to use as thank you gifts.

Some of these ideas will work depending on the amount of information you know about the person with whom you’ve had the networking connection.

Here are examples of inexpensive promotions at meeting locations that are happening as of this post:

• Caribou Coffee has $1 cups of coffee on Mondays.
• Village Inn is running a promotion on Wednesdays from 10 AM to 10 PM where if you purchase anything (even just a beverage) you get a free slice of certain pies.
• McDonald’s coffee is really good and much more reasonable than a coffee house. What’s more, you can get a coffee punch card there that allows you to get a free cup of coffee after you’ve purchased four. (Alas, free mocha Mondays at McDonald’s are a thing of the past.)
• <You’re Idea Here!>

Got other ideas? Please add them to the comments for this post so that we’ll all benefit from your thoughts and suggestions!

Deb Lockwood

Networking: Lessons Learned

In today’s  meeting we discussed two articles that appear on the Spin Strategy blog. These two articles relayed the 11 keys to successful job search networking (May 21, 2009) and the 9 ways to bruise a networking relationship (May 29, 2009).

The author, Tim Tyrell-Smith, gives the reader his take on networking in the form of a story. Not only are the articles well written and entertaining, but they contain practical tips that we all can use to more effectively network as we attempt to locate our next job.

Deb Lockwood

New Job Search Engines Page

I have gathered a list of job search engines and posted them on a page on this Ready, Set, Work blog. This way the list will always be easily accessable rather than getting buried in an old archived post. Plus it will be easy for me to update! To check it out, just click the new Job Search Engines tab.

Deb Lockwood