Tag: jobseeking

Windows

FabrizioLeave a comment

Recruitment is customer service.

For many employees, their first contact with your organisation is via your recruitment function. For most people, the only interaction with your organisation is with your recruitment function.

Both recruitment and customer service deal with a high volume of traffic that makes it difficult to identify what matters. And in both cases, this challenge often translates in poor service and missed opportunities.

The fact is, recruitment and customer service are windows through which people look inside the organisation. They might become employees or not, they might become customers or not. But for sure they will leave with a clear impression of what you stand for – an impression that will spread to the people with whom they will share the experience.

Recruitment and customer service are powerful tools for word-of-mouth.

It is worth investing in them with intention and strategy.

To deliver

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Take a complex project. Break it down into smaller parts. Put those parts on a calendar, while being reasonable about the time and effort each one will take. Start doing and go back to the calendar often to keep things on track.

Complexity will look a lot less scary.

It is the fantasizing, the preoccupation, the chaos, the distractions that get in the way of delivering.

Get back ownership of your capability to deliver.

Minimal reaction

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Others will never be as excited as we are about what we do. Nor will they be as committed, as ready, as present, as purposeful, as proactive, as determined.

The first thing we ought to do when we care about something is to let go of how others will relate to it.

And that’s where “do what you like” is an advice that actually makes sense. Find something that you like, something you would do no matter what. How others will react to it is then going to be a byproduct of doing that can only add to the pleasure. Even when the reaction is minimal.

Inexperienced

FabrizioLeave a comment

Would you rather.

Learn how to cook from someone who is cooking every day or from someone who has read a book about cooking?

Hearing how to establish healthy habits from someone who has done that consistently over a long period of time or from someone who knows all the theory behind establishing healthy habits?

Take marketing lessons from someone who has successfully established marketing functions at growing companies for years or from someone who has been working at an agency for the past ten months?

Read from a start-up who has just raised €500M or from a start-up who is celebrating their 1,000 followers on Twitter?

There are two lessons here.

First, be mindful about who is advising you.

And second, the safer choice between adding some more knowledge and starting to do the work is the latter.

An interview is two-way

FabrizioLeave a comment

Your next boss is going to be disproportionately more important than your next role, your next company, your next sector. So, when the time comes for you to ask questions, be ready to interview them. A few ideas.

Tell me about the last time you changed your mind.

What would you do if a colleague and I disagree on how to move a project forward?

What were you doing at my age / at my level of seniority?

Tell me about the last organizational change you managed and what did you do?

What of my background do you find most interesting?

What is the number 1 problem you are trying to fix these days?

How would you react if I’d told you that I want to invest part of my working time for personal development?

I understand, it is challenging to get yourself to ask those questions. That’s because we have been told that during an interview, we ought to do anything to land the job. And that includes being nice and pleasant. And that does not include asking questions that might make the hiring manager uncomfortable.

But if they are uncomfortable with that, isn’t that a sign already? Does it not tell us they will be hiding when the time comes for them to support us? Or to tell us we are not doing a good job? Or to find a better role for ourselves, so that we could thrive in the company?

Interviews are always two-way. You can get better at extracting the information you need out of them.