Resume and Interview Tips, Some You May Have Never Heard of, and More..

In my career, I have sent my resume to dozens of places and reviewed resumes from dozens of prospective candidates.? And I have been interviewed many times and I also have interviewed dozens of people. On every occasion, I have learned something new.?

After the first few interviews, I realized that I need to make notes of do’s and don’ts so I won’t forget any for future interviews. I started making notes of what I encountered and observed. After the collection got big enough, I thought that others could possibly benefit from these lessons. I thought one day I will polish these for submitting for a print publication. But that did not happen. And I never shared these with anyone. I am now in my late 70s and if I don't do anything about these, they are going to disappear with me. So I am not waiting to improve or polish these anymore. I am sharing these on an online platform as they are and do not have to worry about someone approving them for publication. I hope at least one person benefits from these.?

Although my career has been in the oil and gas industry, the tips and observations will apply to just about anyone. One may say these are unusual or rare observations, but nonetheless they are real. I have not come across such tips in any of the published articles on preparing resumes and interviewing.

For many of you, these are hopefully some fresh ideas and thoughts on resume writing and what real interviews are about. If you are an interviewer, just remember that there is no perfect candidate for your position you are trying to fill. At the same time, as a candidate, you should know that the interviewers are not perfect people either. But what they hear from you in the interview may make or break your case. You need to be prepared for an imperfect interviewer. The difficult part is that you don’t know what imperfections the interviewers have.

There is a lot of information on the web on what to wear for the interview, how to posture and do’s and don’ts for the resumes and the interviews. You can always learn something from each of these sources. Do spend time studying all those. Remember, “Looking for a job is your full time job. Competing candidates may be doing so.”

In any case, below is the collection of my observations.

Your Resume

Resume Length

Your resume length should be limited to two pages. Recent reference letter from a current or previous employer/client should be attached only if it clearly indicates specific outstanding skills or performance closely related to the open position.

Resume Content

Your resume may get less than five minutes if that much by the screener to see if you make the short list for further screening or for an interview. Many candidates have very good experience but still don’t get interview calls because some aspects of skills are left out from the resume. Review your resume and see if it covers all aspects of work. You may have adequately covered your technical skills, core duties and experience. But have you covered your interpersonal skills? These may include being able to delegate work, managing teams of desired sizes, training juniors, mentoring, being cost and schedule conscious, supporting sales or other key departments, making presentations, preparing formal reports and many more. You see, there may be some jobs that do not require significant interpersonal skills and there are some jobs that need heavy interpersonal skills, sometimes as much as technical skills and in some cases, even more than the technical skills. You obviously know how this breaks down for your job and your job specific resume should correspondingly reflect these skills.

Compare your current resume with job descriptions advertised for similar positions. The latter may have skills listed that you already have but have not included in your resume. For example, “Ability to work with multinational teams” may be a skill you already have but may not be in your resume.?

Resume Format

If you have been with the same company for a while, you are perhaps using your company’s resume format for your own job search. That format may or may not be suitable for individual job search. It is worthwhile to spend a good amount of time studying various resume formats and content presentations and pick up the best points to make your unique resume.

You also should have different versions of your resume that focus on different types of activities you can perform. You must also tailor your resume for the open position without having to exaggerate. If you have been sending resumes regularly, it is advisable to keep a copy under a properly designated folder. This folder would include the company’s job description, the resume you submitted, cover letter and other correspondence associated with that opening. You may be contacted several months down the line by the company. So you need to quickly access what resume you had submitted there and what type of position it was, and what was the job description.

Your resume means what you say about yourself. But what about what others say about you? Is that not as much or even more important to your prospective employer? Then why should you not include this in your resume? And it does not mean your resume is now longer. Look at your past performance appraisals (PAs) and select appropriate phrases and strengths from them to include in your resume. Use quotation marks for these phrases to emphasize what your superiors and clients are saying about you and it is not your own bragging.

Most employers do not have the time and resources to sponsor visas or green cards for new candidates even though the candidate may be a perfect match for the opening. So don’t leave any doubt in the resume that you are authorized to work in the country. Just below your contact info on the first page, say “US citizen” or “Authorized to work in the US since ____.” Even if your name sounds American, the reviewer may not realize that. On the other hand, don’t be surprised if some reviewers don’t know what a green card is, even today in 2020.

If you have lots of experience, your educational back-ground can go on page two. If you are a recent graduate or have less than five years of experience, the hiring manager may be interested in knowing your educational background. Then it goes on page one. Don’t use this as a rule of thumb. Use your judgment.

Resume Content to Avoid

There is no need to include birth dates, age, year of graduation, family information etc. on your resume unless you know that the information gives you an advantage over other candidates. Such information may reveal your age. This is especially not advantageous if you are 50 years of age or older. It is true that the US federal law prohibits employers from discriminating because of age, but this is very difficult to prove. Also, why show something in the resume that is not beneficial to you??

Let us say you have 30 years of experience in an industry or in an area within an industry. You may rightfully feel that you have a definite leverage above other candidates who have less experience.? But, how many jobs are there that require a minimum of thirty or even twenty-five years of experience? I have not seen any. By showing such high experience, you are putting yourself to a disadvantage above someone who has 15 or 20 years of experience. First it shows your age. Secondly, it implies “he may be expecting a high salary” even though you are willing to take the job at 15 years experience level. But they are not going to call you and check this, so you don’t have a chance to make your case. So, if you show experience of thirty years, the potential employer already knows that you are about 55 to 60 years of age. So what are your choices? Simply do not show experience of more than twenty years. Remember, it is unethical and probably illegal to overinflate your experience. But is it wrong to understate your experience? I don’t think it is. Also, the things you did 15 years ago are not done the same way anymore or are not applicable at all. The technology will have changed significantly during that time. Within the last fifteen years you have learned to do things differently using the internet, higher level of computerization, automation, and interfacing with world-wide teams due to globalization and outsourcing etc. So you can eliminate the first few earlier jobs that will bring your total experience down to about twenty years. If you have worked for only one company for twenty-five to thirty years, you cannot lower your experience, because employers frequently check employment dates.?

Will you be shortchanged in pay because of showing less experience? Perhaps a little bit if any. But you know what people like you with 30 years’ experience make and what money you are willing to accept. But if you have been unemployed for a while, your first priority is to get a job anyway.? If you are uncomfortable with understating your experience, then you will have to wait until someone has an opening that specifically requires thirty years of experience…Will that ever happen?

If you have a total of thirty plus years of experience divided in various areas, then only the experience in the advertised job area is the one that matters. What you did in the remaining years does not matter, so you can claim the lower experience. Most people have changed careers and fields, have moved from department to department in the same company and most employers understand this. For example, you spent ten years in R & D, fifteen years in project design, and five years in some other things. You are applying for a project design job. You will focus and expand on the project design experience. Don’t need to mention up front that you have thirty years of industry experience. If you get to the interview stage, be prepared to discuss your other experience, how that helped you in project design and your positive experience and contributions to the project design compared to other duties.

At some time in your career, you may have owned or operated a business. You got out of it because it did not work out for you financially or you got tired of long hours, or because of not getting qualified/reliable help, etc. You feel that having run a business gives you an advantage.? In your resume, you may say “Owned a company” or have been a “President of a company”. Even though such business experience may apply to the open position, you may want to present this differently. The prospective employer may think that you will go back to that business if market conditions improve. One way is to just list the company’s name followed by “responsible for” and then list the relevant activities.

You may be asked “Did you own this business or company?” Instead of saying just yes, you may say “Yes, my own money was tied in this, but the experience I gained in “recruiting, administrative, accounting, marketing, sales etc. (or such areas applicable to the open position) is very close to the one you need for this position.”? Also, do not forget to mention that you no longer have any connection with the business or that the business no longer exists. You do not want the interviewer to think that you will be distracted from your new job because of your ongoing connections to your old business.

Tell Your Specific Accomplishments

Your resume will say what activities you have carried out, what type of projects you have worked on and how big the projects were or any special assignments you took and completed. But does it say anything about your specific unique accomplishments? One way or the other, you must convey your recent accomplishments. These could be: cost savings realized for your company or clients, compliments received from clients, or recognition of streamlining a troubled project or an organization, suggestions made for improvements in company procedures, etc. All of these should be on your resume. And you should bring those up during an interview if the right moment comes during the conversation. And if such a moment does not come up, you have to make it happen. You may also guide the interviewer where it is described on the resume. (You are indirectly saying that you are not making up stories during the interview). On the other hand, don’t assume that information is in the resume so it need not be repeated in the interview. The interviewer may have spent only a few minutes going over your resume. In some cases, he may not have even opened it or he may be a substitute interviewer on a last minute notice because the originally scheduled interviewer is not available. Basically, you have to assume that you are being interviewed without anybody having seen your resume.??

Your Agency’s Resume Format

If you are working through an agency or a recruiter, it is likely that the agency has dumped your word file into the agency’s standard format which then goes to the hiring managers. What I have painfully found is that what the hiring manager gets is not necessarily what your resume says. I am not saying that the agency exaggerates or puts their own words in the resume, but resume conversion is sometimes done by an inexperienced technician or by a third party and some paragraphs or line items get left out. Also the fonts, bold letters and proper paragraphing disappear.? In a recent such encounter, I noticed after the interview that the reference to two technical articles I had published was completely left out from the resume converted for the agency by a third party. Not only that, but the resume sent out by the agency looked like pages from a novel. In hindsight, I should have asked the agency to send me a copy of what they had sent to the hiring managers and then compared the contents against my own version of the resume.? Then, if there were any significant omissions or errors, the agency would have been too embarrassed to correct them and resend the resume, but I would have a chance to correct them during the interview.

Are You Organized?

An interview provides a great opportunity to prove that you are one organized person. Prove that you are organized. Come armed to the interview. Prepare an interview binder with subject tabs for interview letter and interview schedule, resume, prospective employer’s advertised job description, your past performance appraisals, hard copies and/or summary of formal compliments you have received, job description of your current employment, your salary history papers, copies of any presentations or papers you have published, copy of your diplomas and training certificates, samples of works if applicable, etc. The summary of compliments should be a table that includes what was actually said or documented, who said it, his/her position at the time, and date of the compliment. Use quotation marks to emphasize that it represents exactly what was said and you have not made it yourself. There is nothing wrong with highlighting items from your summary if they directly apply to your prospective position. You should be able to pull out any of these documents as necessary during the interview. You don’t want to get in a situation where you were unable to prove something on the spot but could not because you did not have the right document with you or couldn’t find it in time. Also, keep extra copies of your resume in the binder. The interviewer may not have your resume handy during the interview. Having all this documentation in a thumb drive and giving it to the interviewer is not as effective.

Interviews

Popular, Awkward, and Unusual Interview Questions

Why Are You Leaving Your Current Job?

This is one of the most popular questions for all interviewers. Every job/career article that you may have come across rightly tells you not to criticize your current or past employer. A lot of people still do not follow this. Put yourself in the interviewer’s position. You are interviewing an unknown candidate. The candidate is bad mouthing his current boss whom you do not know. Even if the candidate may be on the right side of the issue, you will not be impressed with his criticism. In any case, the subject question is likely to come up in one form or another. You must be prepared to answer this correctly. You really need to ask yourself why you wish to leave your current job. It may be because of long commute, too much business travel, the job is not what you were expecting, your salary has remained stagnant compared to people with a lot less experience or it is lower because of unknown reasons, you have been passed up for promotion repeatedly, you want to and are seeking a new career/field, your boss is not treating you/team properly, etc.? Remember why you are being asked the question. Maybe it is suspected that because you lack interpersonal skills, were you not performing the job as required or whether you were not a team player.? You need to convince the interviewer that such is not the case. So make a list of all the possible reasons someone may want to leave a job. Then check the ones from the list that apply to your situation. Then focus on how you will present these reasons to the interviewer. Rehearse these answers. The commute has gotten worse or wanting to be closer to a sick parent etc. are good and neutral reasons. But you should complement these with something positive about the prospective employer. Remember also that your goal is not to portray a negative image of yourself. Some of the other reasons can be: Overseas assignment (If the job is advertised as such), currently making same money as fresh graduates even though I have three years of experience, work breakdown and structure is more suitable here, my experience suits more to this company than my current company, moving from technical to management. You should be able to elaborate on the one you use.

What are your Weaknesses?

This is yet another popular interview question. If your current employer has identified some weaknesses in you, you can either deny those or do something about it. (You can also ignore it!). But in your next job interview, one of the questions is likely to be “what are your weaknesses?” I assume you will not say “none”. If you are truthful and tell your weakness, you should be in a position to say what you have done to overcome the weakness and the level of improvement you accomplished. Such openness gives a positive impression that you are receptive to criticism but more importantly, you are willing and able to overcome those.

How Will You Adjust to a New Environment?

This is also one of the popular questions. It is possible that one of the interviewers may be familiar with the office culture in the company you are leaving or the one which you have left a while back. He or she may have gone through difficulties adjusting to the new culture. You may be asked how you will adjust to such change. See if the following answer makes sense for your situation. “In my current job, I have been working with many people who have worked for different companies at different locations. Each company in the same business has its own culture. In fact each branch of a corporation providing the same service or products may have its own culture. Being aware of this alone helps me avoid errors and omissions while I am still a new employee. And also because of that, I have inherently developed flexibility which will allow me to quickly adjust to your office culture and structure. One of the first things to learn would be to understand in detail the roles and responsibilities of our department. It would make it easier for me not to step on someone’s toes or make a wrong assumption that someone else is doing a task when our group or me in specific is the responsible party”.

On the other hand, if you have worked for the same company for a long time, you may be asked if you will be able to adjust to a new environment. You could say, “Yes, I have worked for the same company for a long time but I have also worked with many people who had previously worked in different companies and I did observe what kind of learning lessons they went through. It has made me smarter in terms of working with people coming from different companies and given me exposure to needed flexibility to work with new office culture and work structures”.??

An Unexpected Question

Once I was asked the following question by an Interviewer – “Let us say you have been working long hours every day for several months. This is putting strain on your personal life and it has a potential of affecting your work performance in the future. How will you resolve this?” I was caught off guard with this question, but the question did represent real life situations. I don’t remember what my reply was at the time, but thinking afterwards, I felt that the following would have been a reasonable response. “First, I would work long hours for a reasonable duration if the situation calls for it. If that does not change the situation, I would ask myself if I am not delegating enough. If I am delegating enough and still working very long hours for extended time, it would seem like I need to get some help either until we are over this hump or for a permanent duration. But we can’t let the project or the organization suffer because of such a situation. I would tell my family that I will have to continue to work long hours for a while and my wife and I will make the necessary adjustments in our personal life until we are caught up with the work. At the same time, here in the office, we must collectively agree on first defining the problem accurately and then quickly come up with a solution.”

Held Too Many Jobs

If your resume shows that you have had too many jobs, you may be expected to explain why, if not asked directly. There can be good reasons for your situation. For example, the company moved, closed the branch, or got bought out. Even better reason could be that your old boss made you a great offer in his new company. In absence of such clarifications, it may be inferred that you are not a good performer or that you have issues with team work or have other negative personality traits. You need to convey in a positive manner that such is not the case. “Yes, I have moved around a bit. But I have always performed well. I have had good reviews all the time and here are the copies. I did not change jobs because I was forced to do so or because of lack of any interpersonal issues. I have now realized the long term benefit of working in the same company and I am ready to settle down.”

Staff or Contract Position

Most jobs postings will clearly say if it is a staff position or a contract position. But in some cases, the company will consider either type of arrangement. In many industries, it is a common practice to hire experienced people on as a staff or as a contract position. In many situations, contract positions will pay a higher hourly rate to account for the benefits not offered. If the posting doesn’t make it clear, you need to be prepared to answer the question “Will you accept this position on a contract basis?” Such questions are typically asked by the department manager who may be the last person to interview you. But sometimes, other interviewers may also bring this up even though they have been told not to.

If the job market in your field is not good, you may be told that the position pays the same as your current or last salary, but no benefits. With health insurance, paid time off for vacation, sick leave, holidays and 401k company match, the benefit can be as much as 30% of salary. Are you willing to take that cut? Also, contract position can only be for a specific project or assignment with limited duration. The employer may fail to tell you this.

One on One Interviews

You may likely be interviewed by more than one person in the department. This is especially true if you are applying for a job in a big company. There are many reasons for this. 1) The hiring manager likes to get feedback from his trusted managers on all the candidates. 2) It may be the HR requirement to ensure the department does not have a candidate in mind and interviewing other candidates is just a formality to satisfy the HR. 3) If things don’t work out with the hired candidate, the blame can be spread around. “Look, four different competent managers interviewed this person and all recommended him over the other five we interviewed.” 4) Obviously, it looks more professional and ethical. If you are going to be interviewed by several people, you may be given a list with the names of the interviewers a few days before the interview. If you already know someone in the company, you can try to find out more about the expertise, position etc. of these interviewers. But you have to do this without sounding like snooping. Each interviewer may be highly specialized in their own one (or more) areas or sub areas. If you know the interviewer’s specialty (and sometimes this may be listed on the interview schedule), try to concentrate on issues and answers with that specialty. Do not purposely divert your discussion to another specialty even though the job description calls for the other specialty and that other specialty is your favorite one. If the job description calls for multiple specialties, you will likely be interviewed by other interviewers who are the company’s experts in those areas. Or there may be no one in a certain specialty and that is why you are being interviewed.

Give consistent answers to all interviewers. The team will probably sit together after all the interviews and compare notes taken and answers from each candidate. You don’t want one of the interviewers to say “That is not what he told me”.

Panel Interviews

In other cases, you may be interviewed simultaneously by three, four or five people, each playing a different role in the project or in the organization. If you are not used to this, you may feel intimidated. But these are just normal people with different expertise as well as having their own flaws. In such group interviews, it is possible that one interviewer will dominate all the discussion and questioning, one may be very quiet and not ask many questions, one may focus strictly on technical issues while one may have something common with you i.e. a specific individual, a company where both of you may have worked together or separately or a job site or supplier or an industry area which either of you have been away for a long time. It is up to the panel to ensure that each interviewer gets a fair chance to ask you a question but does not happen necessarily.? Also the interview does not go ideally as in question, answer, another question and another answer and so on. It goes like, question, answer interrupted, question interrupted, another question interrupted, answer interrupted and so on. If your answer is interrupted, don’t forget to finish your answer as soon as you can, especially if absence of an answer can have a negative impact. “Joe, you were asking me about why there is a one year gap in my resume. It is because….”.? If you did not answer this, someone from the panel can wrongly interpret that as “He did not explain the one year gap in his resume”

If the panel interview is the only interview you are going to have for that job, you have to make sure that you have made your case, presented your skills, experience and accomplishments. You may want to make a bulleted list of things you want to emphasize during an interview. You may or may not get a final opportunity to say if you have anything else to say. The interview may be in a conference room where other people may be waiting outside for their scheduled meeting. You don’t want to get back in your car and then realize that you forgot to emphasize a couple of important points.

Interviewing with Your Current Employer’s Competition

This can be sometimes tricky. It is obvious that job skills required by your prospective employer are likely to match those required by your current employer because they compete with each other.? And you know everybody hates competition. When answering questions, don’t praise too much or praise at all how things are done in your current job. Instead of saying “That is the only way I am used to doing things at XYZ Corp and it is the most efficient way”, say “They do these things differently there, and I notice how they are done here”. Do not ever claim that your current employer has the best system. You may be asked, “How will you adjust to doing things our way?” Your answer could be “In this industry as well as in any other industry, one has to be flexible enough to adapt to do things in a different way. At the same time, one should not hesitate to propose improvement in processes if he sees his company would benefit from it. I went to XYZ Corp from ABC Co five years ago and adjusted quickly to the ways they do things at XYZ Corp”.

It is also possible that an interviewer may casually or intentionally ask you questions about your current employer’s business, strategies and structures such as “how many people in certain department, what type of projects they have, are they closing certain business units, getting into certain new business areas, acquiring other competition or being bought by someone” etc. You should not reveal any such information that is not public knowledge.? Your getting the offer does not and should not depend on these answers. In fact, how you answer these questions and the contents of your answer may carry significant weight in the interview. Answering quickly saying “we have 122 people in the department” or “Yes, there is a strong rumor that we will be bought out” will indicate that you are sharing such information with outsiders or with competition and you could do the same after you join this company. Instead, you could say “sorry, I do not know” or I am not allowed to share such information” or dodge the questions by saying “I don’t know the number as it keeps changing.” As far as entering in new business areas, “such developments are very closely guarded secrets and it is better for me not to speculate anything on that. If I work for your company, I am sure you will want me to keep such information to myself.”

Secondly, do not brag or mention having personal copies of design manuals, procedures, internally developed software or other “goodies” or copyrighted material and intellectual property from your current or past employers. This will not help you whatsoever. Firstly, you have probably signed agreements with your current employer relating to such intellectual property. You should keep this in mind. Your interviewer is going to think, “He can take away our copyrighted material when he leaves from here”.

When There are Differences in Activities, Roles and Responsibilities

In some cases, some of the activities of your past experience or specialty belong to another department and an interviewer may feel that you fit better in that department. You may be asked inadvertently or intentionally if you would be interested in interviewing for a position in that department. It is better to research first hand if you can and find out which of your activities are performed by which department. Then if the question comes up, you will have thought thru this before and can readily answer the question rather than saying “I am not sure, I will have to think about this”. Just remember that the other department may be considered as “less glamorous”. If getting any job is your objective, this may not matter. If not, you don’t want to feel later “Oh man, I could have joined the XYZ department”.? So investigate and do your homework before the interview and make a decision on what your answer will be i.e. joining department A only or department B will also work for you. Once you have joined, the department will resist in getting you transferred to another department unless the move is a high level management position or promotion.

In your current company, your department was responsible for say 12 activities. In your prospective company, only 9 of those activities are carried out by the interviewing department, plus two other activities that you have not done before but are familiar with. You need to be prepared to answer questions on how your experience shortcoming in those two activities will be handled. But more importantly, you must show that you have noted these differences and are confident that you can quickly come on-board for those. You should cite any previous similar situations where you have taken over new tasks or additional responsibilities after joining a new company.

The Unusual Interviewer

There are good and smart interviewers and there are mediocre interviewers who do not know the basics of the interview or they are not interested in the actual interview. In some cases, they are highly capable in their field except that they can’t delegate well, can’t communicate properly with the team, or have less regard for deadlines or schedules.?

One interviewer started to ask me some basic and fundamental technical questions as if I had just come out of college although my resume showed 20 years of experience. I was really offended and eventually had to bring it up. I did so because I already had a job and was just checking to see if I could really get a substantially better offer. If I did not get any offer here, it was just fine. In any case, I said, “Mr. Smith, these are the things new graduates do in all the companies in this business. My objective is to lead a team on your projects and prove my capabilities” I was tempted to add “If such a position is not open here, I am wasting your time” but I didn't.

What if you come across such questions and you really need that job? Then just answer the questions the best you can and hold your emotions until you can get back in your car, roll the windows up and scream and pound on the steering wheel.?

In another place, the interviewer had already made up his mind to recommend me to his department manager only based on me having worked for the same company for 22 years. He said that longevity with one employer was enough for him to know about me. Then he talked at length about the industry but nothing specific about the open position or didn’t ask me any questions.?

And then I knew this interviewer with whom I worked in the same department. He was a great engineer but had very unusual personality straits, none negative. He was interviewing my friend. While the interview was going on, a maintenance guy knocked on the interviewer’s closed door. “I am here to change the fluorescent light,” he said. “Yes, go ahead,” said the interviewer. The guy climbed and stood up on the table between the candidate and the interviewer, spread his legs a bit to get the balance and started removing the light. The interviewer did not want to wait until the guy had finished changing the light. He resumed his interviewing while looking at the candidate through the maintenance guy’s legs. My friend did receive an offer. But he extrapolated the interview experience as the company culture and declined the offer. I thought about this a bit and would have said something like this. “Perhaps we can take a break while the gentleman is changing the light”.

Are You a Subject Matter Expert or a Manager?

“I am not used to grunt work vs. I don’t want to be a supervisor/manager”.

You have to know exactly what your role is going to be in the new place. Read the job description and decipher. If you are being considered as an expert on a subject, then focus your interview on that. Your interviewer may have a lot less experience than you and may even be threatened by your experience level. Or he may be interviewing you reluctantly, perhaps because his bosses feel that the interviewer is? overloaded and falling behind or plainly because he or his team does not have the experience in the same areas as you do. If you suspect such a thing, you need to come across as interested in doing the grunt work with rolled up sleeves. and you are less interested or not interested in management. On the other hand, the interviewing manager may be moving up and has to find a competent replacement before he can move. Then you have to express your ability and willingness to take on his duties. You just have to do some detective work to find out what your role is going to be and be prepared to answer questions accordingly.

Job Description vs. Job Description:

You applied for a position based on the job description you saw on the web or where the opening was advertised. I have found out that sometimes the job descriptions are not complete or accurate. It may have originated from the company’s HR data which is not up to date or accidently published an outdated version. Secondly, it may be coming from the hiring department’s database. This may represent what the majority of the department employees are doing. Thirdly, it may have been written up for a specific position with specific needs that are somewhat different than the department’s standard job description. For example, this would be in case of an overseas assignment or an assignment in another branch. As mentioned elsewhere in this article, the office cultures may vary among different offices. You may want to think through such possibilities and prepare yourself for the right answers.

More Tips

Things You Need to Do In Your Current Job for Future Interviews

“Unless you are a baby, the only one that can look after your interest is YOU”. Are you getting credit for all the hard work you have done?

When was the last time you had a performance appraisal (PA) made? If you work for a small organization, it is possible that you have not had one and no one in the company has one. In such a case, what can you tell your interviewer if such issues come up? Will you be comfortable in saying “they don’t do PA’s in my company”. Or would you rather say, “They don’t do PA’s there as a normal practice, but I have formal feedback on my performance there”. So, make sure you have performance appraisals carried out for each of the bi-annual or annual periods whether it is the company policy or not. And do not wait until the draft PA is handed to you. Whatever is said in the draft review may have been informally reviewed by a higher manager with the expectation that you will sign off on the dotted lines right away or make minor comments only. But the draft review may leave out important accomplishments and new skills that you have acquired. Making big changes to the draft to fix these omissions may not go well.?

This problem can be avoided easily. Weeks before your PA is due, meet with your supervisor and remind him of your specific accomplishments, skills acquired and training completed or conducted. Follow this up with an email. Ask him that those be reflected in your PA. Items such as suggested improvements and ideas, cost savings from your work to the company or to the client, streamlining a project or a task that was in trouble, training juniors, company sponsored charity or social work, published papers etc. should be included. If a client verbally says something positive about you, don’t hesitate to ask him to drop a line about it to your immediate supervisor and the department manager. In big companies, the client may not even know who your department manager is, so give him the name, phone number and the email address. As a minimum, ask him to convey the compliments verbally. If you fail to get credit for such things, your PA will reflect only those boilerplate activities that you performed and the department has several other employees who have done the same activities. So you become just a “run of the mill employee”. This is especially true in big departments.?

In most cases, annual raises are given to the entire company or at least a department on the same day. But before that happens, the department as well as HR requires that the performance appraisals be completed in time before that. Then it looks like that the raises are based on actual performance. So the PA paperwork starts flowing early and on schedule, about six to eight weeks before the due date. But then there is always a last minute rush to get them to HR. Some managers are too busy to do these, some are on long vacations, some are on long/remote business trips and some just hate doing these PA so they drag their feet in doing these, ignoring the reality that they will have to do those for their groups on the last day. In such cases, the PA document is given to you as late as on the day it is due to HR. You are expected to sign it on the spot. You have no chance to comment/update your PA to reflect your true skills and accomplishments. So the department manager does not like you holding the PA. The bottom line is, you have to be proactive and timely to ensure that you get all the credit you deserve. Nobody else is going to remember these or look for your interests. Also, if you have such accomplishments in the prior year and those were not included in that year’s PA, you can certainly ask for them to be included in the current PA.??

Try to Stay on Payroll

You have probably heard that some employers are hesitant in interviewing anyone who is currently unemployed. Whether this is legal or not is a separate topic of discussion. If you are already unemployed, there is not much you can do. But if you are on the brink of getting the pink slip, maybe you can do something. Some companies will put employees on a Leave of Absence, LOA, in lieu of lay off and pay some benefits such as health insurance. Some will put you on a LOA but will not pay for the company’s share of health insurance. And some will outright lay you off.? If you suspect that you are going to get laid off, try to remain on the payroll with health insurance if possible otherwise without any health insurance. This way, you can claim as being currently employed even though you are not earning anything.

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You Worked for Multiple Managers During the Year

If you are reassigned to a different project or to a manager in the middle of your PA period, it is a good idea to get an end of assignment PA from the completed assignment/project. I say this because I got burned one time. I worked for a manager for the first? ten months who had consistently given me great reviews several times in the past. The manager for the last two months, for whom I was working for the first time, gave me an average review plus below average on one or two categories. This manager did not seek any input from my previous manager. So I was going to get stuck with an unfair review. I raised this issue with the department manager who seemed to agree with me but did not do anything because correcting the review would have delayed submitting my review to HR. The only option I had was to submit a rebuttal to the review, which I did.?

But I felt like I had to do something about this flaw in the system. I suggested that each manager submit an end of job review when a person is destaffed from a project or an assignment. I further insisted that the manager needing to desatff a person had to submit an end of job PA before he could desatff the employee. This suggestion was implemented company wide. If your company doesn’t have such a procedure, you may miss out on good words from one or more managers you worked for. He just may not be available to give his input later or may not remember all your contributions. (“I thought that Joe did it and not you”). Also, you need to be proactive in getting input from different managers. Yes, it is the department’s job to do so, but if it does not happen, who is losing?

Also note that some managers are too liberal in giving the reviews. Everyone gets a four or five out of maximum five even though everyone knows that there is one or more who should get below average on all categories. And some managers are too stingy. They will rarely give anyone four in any category.. If questioned, they will say, “ That is expected performance” or will say “Did he walk on water?”. When you start working for a new manager, you need to know about these reputations. You may end up working for both of these types in the same PA period.

Working in a New Company

If you are new to the company, talk to your supervisor regularly and seek his feedback/advice on your work. If you offer your willingness to listen, he will be open to tell you where you can make improvements. Then you have a chance to make the improvements before the next PA is being prepared. It is better to have noted as quickly jumping on making improvements as opposed identified as having the weakness on the PA. In the latter case, you have to wait until the next PA period to show the improvement.