Greater Milwaukee Jobs

2 GREATERmilwaukeeJOBS • February 5, 2015 Top tips to answer job interview questions Job hunters often seek the Holy Grail of interviewing tips, the no-fail list of ways to ace the interview. Such a list doesn't exist. There's no one-size-fits-all resume, and there's no single best-answer guide for answering common or tricky interview questions. But there's a help list that comes close in "Get the Job You Want, Even When No One's Hiring." The book by Ford R. Myers, a career coach, sug- gests answers to interview questions, and I'm happy to share them, paraphrasing and cutting to fit this space. Why do you want to work here? Answer by including information about the com- pany to show you've researched it. Don't just talk about your own skills. Tell how you can fill their needs. What kind of person would you hire for this job? Summarize your "fit," your qualifications for the job, without sounding too self- promotional. What's your dream job here? Describe general responsibilities you'd like to have, not by stating a specific job title. What are your weaknesses? Don't give them a negative. Say you can't think of any- thing that would hurt your ability to do the job you're seeking. A publication of Conley Media Distributed by: Conley Distribution 262-513-2646 ©2004 by Conley Media, LLC Waukesha County Independent and Locally Owned GREATERmilwaukeeJOBS is published weekly by Conley Media – Waukesha County, 801 N. Barstow St., Waukesha, WI 53186. Contents of this publication may not be reproduced in any form without the written consent of the publisher. GREATERmilwaukeeJOBS assumes no liability for any error in copy or content. It is the advertiser's responsibility to be aware of the laws pertaining to employment advertising. Subscriptions are available for $34 (non-refundable) for a 6-month subscription. Call 262-306-5035 for information. Call Center Director: Cindy Shaske 262-306-5016 cshaske@conleynet.com Account Executive: Jeanne Bonlender 262-306-5035 jbonlender@conleynet.com Story Coordinator: Dwayne Butler 262-513-2626 dbutler@conleynet.com Production: Patricia Scheel 262-513-2690 GREATERmilwaukeeJOBS Volume 17 • Number 21 February 5, 2015 To place an ad: Call us at 262-306-5035 or fax us at 262-542-6082 deadline: Noon on Wednesdays see TOP TIPS . . . page 6 Liz Reyer is a credentialed coach with more than 20 years of business experience. Her company, Reyer Coaching & Consulting, offers services for organizations of all sizes. Submit questions or comments about this column at www.deliverchange.com/coachscorner or email her at lizdeliverchange.com. How to get team on board with new strategy By Liz Reyer Star Tribune (Minneapolis) & A Q Q. My company has adopted a new companywide customer engagement strategy. We've had some training, but my team doesn't really get it yet. What can I do to help get everyone on board? A. Make it concrete and rele- vant so that your team members can get a deep understanding. THE INNER GAME Many companies are talking about customer experience, and there are new teams, departments and organizations springing up every day to help businesses focus on their customer. The devil is in the details, and helping departments that don't deal directly with cus- tomers understand their effect is one of the challenges. How well do you get it yourself? If you have a clear vision for your team's customer experience rele- vance, you'll be better positioned to help them. If not . well, you need to focus there first. Consider whether there are other barriers to engagement. If your company has a track record of starting initiatives and not fol- lowing through, for example, your team may be a bit cynical. Or if people have too much on their plates, this may seem more like a burden than an important step. Finally, look for any gaps in the information that has been provided, particularly thinking about your team's learning preferences to make a strategy for how to help them. THE OUTER GAME Start bringing your strategy to life close to home - with yourself. Try standing in front of a mirror, explaining your team's customer story out loud. If you can't articu- late your group's connection with the customer, work backward, envi- sioning your company without your team and the effect it would have on the customer. This is easy if you're in sales or customer service; it takes more work to map out the connections between you and the customer when you don't have direct interaction. Now spend some time with your team to make it personal. My bias is that training doesn't always include enough time for people to inte- grate what they've learned, and on a culture change initiative like this, it's essential. If it's a large group, do a kickoff conversation with the whole group and then break into smaller teams to think it through. Once everyone gets it, work as a team to develop action plans. Figur- ing out what you can do differently, how you can maintain awareness of the centrality of your customer, and how you can remain attuned to your company's direction will build momentum. For example, perhaps each team member can shadow a customer service rep for a few hours.This isn't "one and done," so build an ongoing structure for dis- cussion and customer-focused activity. Look for help with this. If you're comfortable as a facilitator, great; however, having a neutral third party running your meeting can free you up to participate with your team members. Also, having expertise regarding the initiative itself could be helpful, though you'll need to be sure that your team members feel safe in expressing reservations so that they can be addressed. THE LAST WORD When you support your cus- tomer-facing colleagues, take pride that you're supporting your cus- tomers. your time in that position. Be as specific as possible, listing any sales goals you exceeded and awards you might have won. Your achievements are what set you apart from other candidates with similar work histories, so use your resume to highlight those achievements instead of listing your responsibilities. • Keep things brief. Brevity should be your friend when accentuating your accomplish- ments on your resume. Your resume should highlight those accomplishments and that should be enough to secure an interview. When you get that interview, that's when you can go into greater detail. But try to keep your resume to one or two pages. • Remove older positions. Older positions, such as a long- ago college internship, have no place on a seasoned profession- al's resume. On a similar note, if you have long since changed careers, you may not need to include much about your previ- ous positions in another field, especially if your work experi- ence in your new field is exten- sive. Hiring managers likely won't be interested in a past work history if it's irrelevant to your current field. • Consider a new format. Few job postings request applicants to send in their resumes via snail mail, so unlike the days of old, you probably won't be printing your resume as a Microsoft(R) Word document and mailing it to prospective employers. As a result, you might want to consid- er a new format when submitting your resume via a company's Web site. Word documents might be acceptable, but such documents can easily become encoded in the uploading process or won't be readable if the hiring manager has a differ- ent version of Word than you do. Consider uploading your resume as a PDF or as plain text, as such formats are less likely to become scrambled during when they are uploaded or downloaded. • Upload your resume to a professional networking site. Many professionals are initially hesitant to upload their resumes to a business networking site such as LinkedIn (R) out of fear that their current employers will feel they are looking for a new job. But so many professionals are now members of such sites that it's no longer associated with a job search as much as it is an easy way to keep in touch with professional contacts. In addition, many recruiters rely on sites like LinkedIn to find quali- fied professionals, which only makes it easier to find your next job. resume ... from page 1 By Diane Stafford The Kansas City Star

• Cover