Repeat after me (no, seriously, do it): the thank you note is not dead. Recently, it seems many believe it is. In my own hiring practices at Career Girl Network, and from countless friends who hire regularly, I’ve heard stories this year about interviewees who fail to send a thank you of any kind after a meeting. In a world of quick decision making and one where elementary school students no longer learn cursive writing, it might seem a thank you note is superfluous. It’s not.

So today, we’re giving you the do’s and don’t's of interview thank you notes.

Thank You Notes: DO’S

• SEND ONE! It doesn’t matter if it’s via email or a handwritten note. It really is the thought (and herein the action) that counts.
• Send one to each person you interview with. It’s not enough just to thank the hiring manager. Thank everyone who interviewed you.
• Reiterate your strengths. The thank you note isn’t just to say thank you, it’s also to say “here’s why I’m awesome, remember?” Take the opportunity to remind the interviewer that you’re a great fit for the team.

Thank You Notes: DON’T'S

• Write it ahead of time. You should tailor your thank you note to what was said and discussed during your interview. Don’t write a generic note prior to the interview.
• Snail mail it if the decision will be made this week. Hopefully, you’ve asked the question about the next steps in the process. If the decision will be made in the next 3-5 days, don’t send your thank you via USPS. It might not get there in time. While handwritten notes are more professional, email is entirely acceptable with tight timelines.
• Assume you have the job. Some people skip the thank you because they believe they “have it in the bag.” Bad idea! You never know how long you’re being judged. Keep your best foot forward right up until the end (and hopefully well into the job!)

The post The Do’s and Don’t's of Job Interview Thank You Notes appeared first on Career Girl Network.

This infographic, compiled by Interview Success Formula, a program that helps job seekers to deliver powerful interview answers, illustrates how job seekers can navigate through the job search today and how to do well in the process. Some takeaways to note include:

• 80 percent of available jobs are never advertised
• 20 percent of job applicants get interviews
• The average length of an interview is approximately 40 minutes
• The most important characteristics in a job applicant are multitasking, initiative, and creative thinking
• Check out the full infographic below and let us know your thoughts in the comments!

What do you think? What are some other ways to succeed in the job search?

About the Author:

Heather R. Huhman is the founder and president of Come Recommended, a content marketing and digital PR consultancy for job search and human resources technologies. You can connect with Heather and Come Recommended on Twitter and Facebook.

 

The post Succeeding in the Job Search Today [INFOGRAPHIC] appeared first on Career Girl Network.

Our friends over at Come Recommended recently published an article called “Be a Stand Out Job Candidate: Start Reading.” In it, they encouraged job seekers to peruse the Washington Post, follow industry related blogs, and read publications related to the jobs you might be applying for. We agree wholeheartedly with this notion, but want to expand the “why” a little more.

The thing is, job seekers, you don’t just need to answer questions about your work ethic, your experience, and your dedication to the job anymore. More and more, in today’s job market, you also have to be skilled at answering what we call “Miss America Questions.” These questions could be related to current events, pop culture, interesting industry tidbits that occurred recently, and more. And just like the contestants on Miss America, if you flunk this part of the test, you look like an idiot, no doubt about it.

Two anecdotes you might consider in your studies:

• I once had a friend who was interviewing for a position at a national sports team. The position was related to corporate events for the team’s stadium. I asked my friend, “Do you know much about the team?” Her response was, “Well, if I get the job, I suppose I’ll learn it.” And while her job didn’t even deal with the team, its marketing, or its players, the first question she was asked in the interview was this: “Who is your favorite player on this team?” Sadly, she couldn’t name one, and even more sadly, she didn’t get the job.
• Recently, an acquaintance interviewed for a position with a private company, but one that deals heavily in government contracting. Late in the interview, though she was knocking it out of the park until that point, the interviewer began talking about the sequester and how it might affect their business. He asked for her thoughts, and in truth, she didn’t know about a sequester or what was happening in the government and couldn’t fake it. Again, she didn’t get the job.

How can you avoid these Miss America blunders? Take these steps:

• Read one newspaper every single day, whether in print or online.
• Before any interview, Google News search the name of the company, the industry it works in, and the names of the people you’re meeting with. You never know what big piece of news could have come up in the days before your interview.
• Have a friend quiz you on company knowledge. By the time you interview, you should know a lot about the company you’re dealing with from their website, social media, and other sources. Invite a friend to peruse their website as well and ask you a few questions – where is the company’s headquarters, for example, or what kinds of charitable initiatives do they focus on? The questions your friend might ask could mirror those you’ll see in an interview.
• Watch television! I know, I know, it’s a brain drain. But if you’re not a big TV watcher, take a few minutes at least weekly to watch something like Entertainment Tonight or Anderson Cooper on CNN. While you’ll get real, hard hitting news from the newspaper, these kinds of more pop culture and “what’s happening today” shows can show your knowledge of the ins and outs of American culture as well.

Preparing for an interview isn’t just about resumes and suits, just like Miss America isn’t just about lipstick and bikinis. You have to be prepared to answer the hard questions – even if they’re not directly related to the job.

The post What Job Seekers Forget: Being Able to Answer “Miss America” Questions appeared first on Career Girl Network.

Interviewing is hard for a lot of people. It’s nerve-wracking, it’s unpredictable, and it catches you at a time you’re often most vulnerable – when you need a job! Simplifying interviewing is damn near impossible, as there are thousands of combinations of questions and scenarios you could be presented with at any interview. Ultimately, though, interview questions often boil down to small themes of questions. Lou Adler, the author of Hire With Your Head recently wrote a blog post for LinkedIn called “The Complete 2-Question Interview” and his advice is simple yet incredibly thought-provoking.

Adler recommends focusing your interview preparations (and it’s important to note, he also suggests interviewers base their questions) on two key questions/themes:

1. MSA. Most Significant Accomplishment. You must be able to speak clearly and with confidence about the successes you’ve had in your professional life, especially your most significant success. Can you break that success down into steps and ensure you know how to describe the work you did, the choices you made, the ways you pivoted in the process, and the outcomes?
2. PSQ. Problem Solving Question. When you’re asked a problem solving question, the interviewer wants to know you can think on your feet about the job you’ll be doing. They also want to see how you might be able to connect your experiences in past jobs to the job you’re about to tackle. Can you talk about how you’ve solved one problem in your current job and parlay that experience into the ways you’d solve the problem at hand?

When you’re practicing for an interview, take the time to place the answers to your questions in the frames of accomplishments and problem solving. When you focus on these two areas, you’ll appear both confident and savvy, and everyone will want to hire you!

The post The Only 2 Questions You Need to Master in an Interview appeared first on Career Girl Network.

This infographic, compiled by Interview Success Formula, a program that helps job seekers to deliver powerful interview answers, illustrates how job seekers can read the most common types of interviewers and how to succeed in the process. Some takeaways to note include:

• The average duration of an interview is 40 minutes
• 60% of managers conduct video interviews
• 34% of U.S. workers say they have a younger boss
• 17% didn’t believe the employer was knowledgeable

Check out the full infographic below and let us know your thoughts in the comments!

What do you think? What are some other ways job seekers can succeed in job interviews?

The post Job Interviewing 101 Infographic: How to Succeed in Different Situations appeared first on Career Girl Network.

Recently, our friends over at Interviewing.com tackled an incredibly important question. How do you answer the interview question “Where do you see yourself in five years?” Robin Rayburn beautifully points out, this isn’t just an interview question, my friends. It’s a life question. Do you really know where you want to be in five years? Or ten? Should you?

Robin says:

The best way to start figuring out how to answer the question is to first ask it of yourself, before you ever step foot in an interview. What do you want out of life, what’s achievable in 5 years, 10 years? What is important to you–is it tangible things like money and titles or is it an esoteric thought of inner peace or happiness?

It’s a great exercise even if you never get asked this in the interview because you’ll know more about what you’re looking for in your next position to get you closer to where you see yourself. Whether you land the job is one thing, but you should always be assessing if each job opportunity is the right fit for you, too.

And, if you don’t ponder the question before an interview, you’re likely to fall flat, during it, trying to grasp for ideas or seeming as though you’re lost.

But, as with many interview questions, the tricky part is, is that there is no ‘right’ answer.

The best answers are those that come from within, that are honest, but not too rigid or lengthy.

So how do you begin to craft that plan?

• First, think about constants. What people or things are in your life today that you expect will remain in five years? If your house, for instance, is one of these things, you’ve clearly identified your location in five years and that’s an important first step.
• Next, thing about goals. Do you want to make more money? Change industries? Go back to school? These are important steps to consider in a five year plan and make sense to include in your answer to the interview question addressing it.
• Finally, bring those two pieces of the puzzle back to the job at hand. Does that position or company fit with your constants and your goals? If so, say that. If not, you might want to rethink the interview.

The post The Impossible Interview Question: Where Do You See Yourself in 5 Years? appeared first on Career Girl Network.

Recently, our friend Anna Runyan over at Classy Career Girl interviewed Katie Donovan from Earn More Girl about the ins and outs of salary negotiation. This gem of advice was one of Katie’s incredible suggestions on how to negotiate your salary with skill:

The Value of the Job is NOT Tied to Your Previous Salary

The second most important advice is not to provide your salary history to potential new employers.  Simply keep that field blank when filling out an application.  The job has a market value and that market value has nothing to do with what you earned before.    If you are like most women you are underpaid in your current job thus adding 10% – 15% to your current underpaid salary to figure out the right pay level at your next job will continue your path of being underpaid.   Yet, it is the easiest way that most companies figure out what to offer future employees.  Remember you beat out a bunch of other candidates to get the job.  You have been deemed the best person for the job. Don’t you deserve to be paid like the best if you are offered the job?

You might be asking, though, how do you answer the question “What do you make now?” if your current salary shouldn’t matter. It’s a normal question to be asked. Should you dodge it? Lie? Refuse to answer? Here are our tips on how to answer the dreaded current salary question and stay in the game:

• Don’t answer that question, instead answer this question – what are your skills worth in this market for this position? The interviewer says, “What’s your current salary?” You say, “I’m currently paid at fair market value. For the position here at X company, I believe that value is $XX,XXX and my salary expectations would be in that range.”
• If you’re pushed to the edge (trust me, I’ve been there, where they just won’t stop pushing), be honest. You shouldn’t lie, because that information could come from your current boss in a reference check. Just be sure to reiterate immediately after telling them your salary what your current salary requirements are. That’s the piece of information that matters.

Read the rest of Classy Career Girl’s article on salary negotiation here and take Katie’s advice. It’s stellar!

The post Salary Negotation Tips to Get the Best Pay You Can appeared first on Career Girl Network.

Get rehearsing, gals!

The post The Most Asked Job Interview Questions appeared first on Career Girl Network.

The women in the above photo, if they were wearing these outfits to an office, would quite obviously be working in a casually dressed work environment. Imagine, for a moment, where these women might work. Google, perhaps? Or Groupon? Maybe a tech startup in Silicon Valley or a small magazine or fashion PR house in New York? It’s easy to imagine these outfits fitting into those kinds of places.

You might ask why I’m talking about these outfits. It’s to illustrate a point I heard this weekend in a story that truly made me laugh. I was happy to spend the day with a phenomenal group of women and girls mentoring at Step Up Women’s Network, talking to high school seniors about resume and cover letter writing. In that room were two recruiters who work for a large tech company. This company is known for its “relaxed” environment. Staff members dress casually, much like the women in the photo above. One of these tech recruiters told us that, more than once, emails applying for positions with this company were addressed “Yo!” or another incredibly casual greeting. Their response? Toss those puppies in the garbage!

In the kind of job application environment we live in,  you must tailor your submissions to the kind of company you’re applying for. But there’s an important point to make here:

Just because a company has a casual or relaxed environment doesn’t mean you can be unprofessional in your approach to that company.

It is possible to be relaxed and professional, to be casual and professional. And when you’re applying for a job, interviewing, and going through the process, you have to be professional – 100%. A few “must’s” in the process:

• Always address HR staff professionally both in email and on the phone, no matter the company’s culture.
• Wear a suit to the first interview at least! If, after the first interview, you truly feel you can dress down a bit, you could consider it, but don’t assume it up front. Instead, wear a brightly colored scarf or shoes to spice up your look.
• Follow up appropriately, not via text or Twitter, no matter how big on social media that company or the individual interviewing you might be.

The post Relaxed Does Not Equal Unprofessional appeared first on Career Girl Network.

In today’s economy, finding a new job takes more time than ever before. Depending on which government websites you visit and which studies you read, you’ll find that an average job search takes at least 6 months, and most of the time 12-18 months. The phenomenon that’s perplexing me, though, is this: the longer you’re looking, the harder it seems to be to get a job? Why? I contend it’s because you’re making a very simple single mistake in your search: you’ve stopped getting your hopes up.

This may sound a little stupid. I know what you’re thinking. “Shut up, Marcy! You have no idea what it’s like to be unemployed. Of course I stop getting my hopes up! They’ve been shot down so many times.” Trust me, Career Girls, I get it! I’ve been through the ups and downs of looking for a job both inside and outside of employment. I understand what it can feel like to interview, get excited, believe you’re going to get the job, and then find out you were passed over for someone else.

But if you really want to get out of your unemployment rut, you’re going to need to dig in and find the excitement again. Whether it’s your first interview in years or your 10th in the last month, the person sitting across from you has to feel that you really want the position. And if you’re too jaded to be excited, you’re too cautious to really get your skin in the game, and you’re holding back, they’re always going to pick someone else. Sure, it risks tears and frustration, but it also risks passion and enthusiasm that can get you the job!

So go out there in your next interview, no matter how jaded you are, and tell yourself, “I WANT THIS!” Only that attitude can get it!

The post One Thing Killing Your Interviews: You Have to Want It! appeared first on Career Girl Network.