You’re a Lucky Person

Let’s face it, in today’s economy employers can afford to be as picky as they want. Many of those who work their way through college by working in retail, restaurants, etc., the seemingly low skilled jobs still find themselves selling calendars at a mall kiosk or waiting tables at one of hundreds of casual dining restaurants. Why? Because they didn’t get the interview or if they did, they blew it. So, don’t forget how lucky you are to even be getting an interview (unless your Uncle Cosmo promised your Dad he’d take care of you and ensure you could go as far as you want in his company selling meat over the phone).

The Résumé

Before we talk about the interview, let’s take a quick look at what got you here. Some of you may have gone to a job fair and impressed someone enough that they are able to remember you when they come across your resume and they call you for an interview. Even if you have recently attended several job fairs, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend holding your breath while you wait for the call inviting you to an interview.

Ruling out the family connection (sorry, Uncle Cosmo), and the hope that the person you talked to at the job fair will remember your name when coming across your résumé leaves only one way in which the hiring manager even knows you exist and that is because your résumé stuck out of the hundreds, maybe even thousands of résumés he or she receives in a week, sometimes in just a day. So if you wrote the résumé yourself, congratulation, you’ve done a fantastic job. If you had someone else write your résumé, maybe a professional who does this for a living then pat yourself on the back again for having enough sense to know that résumé writing is not your forte and you invested the money to have it prepared by a professional. It is an investment, too; anything you spend money on to help you land a job in an industry where you want to work, where you want to make a career, is an investment. The bank account (yours and/or your parents) may take a few hits now, but if done correctly, the interview will go well and those investments will more than pay for themselves.

Just a little side note here: every now and then in the article, I may make reference to younger, just graduated college, job-seekers. I want to apologize because as we all know, they are only a part of the job-seeking community, and comparatively speaking, it’s most likely a small part. In fact many companies are finally beginning to see the importance of life experience. While it’s true many positions require specific, highly technical training nothing, can replace the experience that comes with life. If a company finds someone with a combination of the necessary classroom training as well as a huge amount of diverse life experiences, that hiring manager will probably feel as if he’s struck gold. So if you are a little older than fresh out of college, always put a positive spin on it. The way you feel about it is most likely the way you will leave the hiring manager feeling as well.

Alright, you’ve got your training, you’ve got your life experience, and you’ve got résumé that makes you it sound as if you walk on water; don’t worry about going over the top, the hiring managers usually expect it as long as you don’t promise something you can’t deliver like, say, actually walking on water. What’s next?