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Careerchat III


S John

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3 hours ago, S John said:

Thanks all, I tend to agree with most of what you’ve said.  The background check is contingent on accepting a conditional offer, so I basically would have agreed to take the job before that would be initiated.

I only just read this.  That's not a deal-breaker at all.  In that situation your current employer would only hear about this after you have already decided to leave.  So you would need to tell them yourself before you give permission for them to be contacted, and then you just have a longer notice period than is usual.  Which is not a bad thing IMO.

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On 2/28/2019 at 3:33 PM, Iskaral Pust said:

I only just read this.  That's not a deal-breaker at all.  In that situation your current employer would only hear about this after you have already decided to leave.  So you would need to tell them yourself before you give permission for them to be contacted, and then you just have a longer notice period than is usual.  Which is not a bad thing IMO.

I did my interview yesterday, and I thought it went pretty well.  I think it’ll take a while to hear back on either an offer or a rejection, so I have some time to marinate on it.  However, I don’t think that I’m going to be offered the location that I wanted, which is honestly the main thing that spurred my interest in this position to begin with.   I would not have applied if my preferred location hadn’t been on the posting as one of the options.  After talking to them yesterday, one of the other locations is where the team with my background usually goes to start out... and it’s somewhere I was honestly hoping to avoid.  It changes my feelings about it, for sure, but ultimately I could work my way into a transfer almost anywhere in the world.  I think the upside of this opportunity is very high and it might be worth sucking it up for the first couple of years.  Still don’t know what I’ll do if I get an offer.  Maybe they’ll make it easy on me and reject me.  :laugh:

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46 minutes ago, Triskele said:

Just a small update and mercifully no questions for the hive mind.  I did get a follow-up from one of the people I interviewed with, and they said that they were going to have their CFO interview me which felt like a positive sign.  Did not hear anything back yet for that follow-up and trying to just chill and not seem desperate. 

That’s definitely a good sign.  Highly doubt they’d waste a CFO’s time on a candidate who wasn’t a serious contender.

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1 hour ago, Triskele said:

Just a small update and mercifully no questions for the hive mind.  I did get a follow-up from one of the people I interviewed with, and they said that they were going to have their CFO interview me which felt like a positive sign.  Did not hear anything back yet for that follow-up and trying to just chill and not seem desperate. 

Definitely a good sign.  That happens when they want to build senior support for a new hire to help them be more successful in their new role.  Good luck. 

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A recruiter reached out to me today by phone saying they had seen my CV and thought I'd be a good fit for a position within their company. Painfully obvious that they were just trying to reach their target and hadn't even looked at my CV, since it was for a PA job for a manager of a car sales business. My CV is pretty much entirely tailored to a career in law and even includes a (very brief) about me where I state I am seeking a legal career. 

Sorry to rant, I'm just irritated by the waste of time :P

speaking of waste of time, in the recruitment process of another job and part of it is pymetric testing...which was, essentially, 30 minutes of playing games. Hit space bar as many times as you can, blow up the balloon, hit collect to earn coins before it bursts. Got to wonder who comes up with these and how effective they really are at forming judgements of candidates

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5 minutes ago, Triskele said:

Having not been through this process that often I don't really have a gauge of whether it's still early as Hell and these folks are just busy or if this suggests that maybe they've decided to go in another direction.  

A week isn't that long so they can certainly still be thinking about it, but I don't think there's a way to know unless you have a friend on the inside.

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11 hours ago, Altherion said:

A week isn't that long so they can certainly still be thinking about it, but I don't think there's a way to know unless you have a friend on the inside.

Agreed.  Even when you find a good candidate, time can lapse before you get the offer approved and sent.  We made an offer yesterday to a candidate who successfully interviewed three weeks ago (he accepted).  In the meantime we had several other hurdles to clear, plus we had our regular day jobs too.

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3 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Agreed.  Even when you find a good candidate, time can lapse before you get the offer approved and sent.  We made an offer yesterday to a candidate who successfully interviewed three weeks ago (he accepted).  In the meantime we had several other hurdles to clear, plus we had our regular day jobs too.

Would it have bothered you at all/changed anything if the candidate had contacted you during that time asking something along the lines of “further to my interview last week, blah blah have you made a decision?” (Obviously more elegantly worded...) and as a bit of a follow up question to that, how long is reasonable in your opinion for a candidate to reach out and enquire about their application?

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2 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Would it have bothered you at all/changed anything if the candidate had contacted you during that time asking something along the lines of “further to my interview last week, blah blah have you made a decision?” (Obviously more elegantly worded...) and as a bit of a follow up question to that, how long is reasonable in your opinion for a candidate to reach out and enquire about their application?

Not a problem.  After any interview, I make sure we tell the candidate what will be the next steps: who will be in contact with them, what timeframe to expect, whether we will be making a decision next or have other candidates to meet or may need them to come back for a second round.  You cannot just leave them hanging after the interview.  

Sometimes decisions and approval process can be slow, but their primary contact (usually an internal recruiter for us), should be giving them a courtesy update.  And the candidate knows it’s ok to reach out to that primary contact without crossing a boundary.  (But don’t start emailing everyone who interviewed them).

So in this case the candidate was initially let know that we were interested but we also needed to complete a conversation with another candidate.  Then he was told that we would like to move ahead and will be preparing an offer.  Then he finally got an offer.  Other candidates were politely “turned off” right after their interviews.  We actually also made a verbal offer to a former colleague* (that was the other candidate) to return and take this role.  His current firm countered hard to keep him, so we went ahead and made our offer to the external contact. 

*I’ve stayed in touch with him and thought this might be a good situation to tempt him back.  

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3 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Would it have bothered you at all/changed anything if the candidate had contacted you during that time asking something along the lines of “further to my interview last week, blah blah have you made a decision?” (Obviously more elegantly worded...) and as a bit of a follow up question to that, how long is reasonable in your opinion for a candidate to reach out and enquire about their application?

This includes an interesting implied question of "what might annoy an interviewer so much that they lose interest even after you did a great interview?".  And there are things that are generally viewed as red flags.  Some I agree with, some I don't, but these are ones that commonly get mentioned:

- lack of general courtesy: did not send thank-you notes, did not address the receptionist/admin assistant with courtesy, did not thank people for taking time to meet with them, harassed people constantly for updates (kept selling after the close)....I try to not be too much of a stickler here, but anyone who seems like a high-handed jerk won't get hired.

- too demanding: makes too many requests for special treatment or seeks to negotiate for too many special considerations, or demands that you make them an offer right now because they have another offer and they need to decide, or just needs tons of personal time and attention for attention/validation/reassurance.  Big firms are bureaucratic and generally don't want to customize benefits, so you better be an extremely high value candidate to be worth the headache to the hiring manager.  Plus you look like a high-maintenance employee.  No more than two special requests as you negotiate, and then don't ask for anything more until at least six months of successful tenure with the firm.

dishonesty: lying or misrepresenting, e.g. on a CV/resume or in the interview, is a big red flag.  A slightly weak resume is much better than being viewed as dishonest.  Very few people will ever get hired if caught in an outright lie.

- troublemaker: if HR thinks you are too quick to make complaints about normal/reasonable interactions, then they'll ask us not to hire you.  I'm very supportive of people who have refused to continue working under bullies or in toxic environments.  But if every job you've had was full of jerks, then maybe you're the problem.  HR really doesn't want to bring a lawsuit-waiting-to-happen into the firm.

uncertain or limited visa eligibility: this is a deal-breaker for most US firms.  Too much risk that they'll be forced to let go the employee within a year and start the process over.  from personal experience I try to be accommodating here within reason (moreso than HR would), but then I've had cause for regret twice in the past year.

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4 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

- lack of general courtesy: did not send thank-you notes, did not address the receptionist/admin assistant with courtesy, did not thank people for taking time to meet with them, harassed people constantly for updates (kept selling after the close)....I try to not be too much of a stickler here, but anyone who seems like a high-handed jerk won't get hired.

Most of these are common sense, but... thank-you notes? I've always thanked people in person, but I've never sent a note. I know that they were used historically, but what industries are they still expected in?

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1 minute ago, Altherion said:

Most of these are common sense, but... thank-you notes? I've always thanked people in person, but I've never sent a note. I know that they were used historically, but what industries are they still expected in?

Yeah, that's one where I personally would not be a stickler, but I would notice if one candidate did not send a short follow-up email to say thank you for the opportunity to interview.  It's not a huge red flag but shows a low awareness of protocol*.  Once when I interviewed for a very large, very well known asset management firm, my advocate/coach there (who initiated the recruitment) suggested that I send hand-written thank-you notes.  I though that was a bit archaic, but I followed his suggestion anyway.

*It's like the old canard about dress code for consultants and bankers: there is no explicit guidelines on how to dress because if you cannot recognize what would be appropriate for a given situation, then you're in the wrong job.

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Thank you, that is good to know. Except for the interviews themselves, I mostly communicated with the companies I interviewed at through recruiters (i.e. I usually didn't have direct access to the interviewer) so maybe they did this for me.

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15 hours ago, Altherion said:

Thank you, that is good to know. Except for the interviews themselves, I mostly communicated with the companies I interviewed at through recruiters (i.e. I usually didn't have direct access to the interviewer) so maybe they did this for me.

I would offer to exchange business cards with each interviewer at the start of The interview.  If they declined/demurred then it meant they didn’t want me to contact them directly, even just for a short thank-you note.  Similarly you can ask the recruiter if it’s ok to send a thank-you note (and, if so, to provide the email addresses) — this way the courtesy is acknowledged even if it is declined.  

But I would not limit my post-interview touchpoint to only the recruiter unless so directed (explicitly or implicitly).  The hiring manager is the person with whom you need to make a connection, be memorable and establish a courteous rapport.  Just keep it brief and don’t start harassing them.

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4 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

I would offer to exchange business cards with each interviewer at the start of The interview.  If they declined/demurred then it meant they didn’t want me to contact them directly, even just for a short thank-you note.  Similarly you can ask the recruiter if it’s ok to send a thank-you note (and, if so, to provide the email addresses) — this way the courtesy is acknowledged even if it is declined.  

But I would not limit my post-interview touchpoint to only the recruiter unless so directed (explicitly or implicitly).  The hiring manager is the person with whom you need to make a connection, be memorable and establish a courteous rapport.  Just keep it brief and don’t start harassing them.

First, thank you for answering and then going into further detail. Greatly appreciated.

Is your advice specifically for higher level positions though? Just when you are talking of giving out business cards etc. that isn’t something you can typically do at graduate level. Amd, as Altherion said, a lot of contact will often be through a recruiter. Quite often there isn’t contact with the interviewer prior to the day. What would you say here? Ask that your contact pass along a message? Or find some contact details via the website/LinkedIn etc? My concern with the latter of course being that unsolicited messages may be a bit iffy

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2 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

First, thank you for answering and then going into further detail. Greatly appreciated.

Is your advice specifically for higher level positions though? Just when you are talking of giving out business cards etc. that isn’t something you can typically do at graduate level. Amd, as Altherion said, a lot of contact will often be through a recruiter. Quite often there isn’t contact with the interviewer prior to the day. What would you say here? Ask that your contact pass along a message? Or find some contact details via the website/LinkedIn etc? My concern with the latter of course being that unsolicited messages may be a bit iffy

Not specific to higher level.  Even at graduate level you can print some business cards very cheaply.  Offering yours to each interviewer gives them the option to reciprocate or demur.  If they reciprocate then it’s OK to send a short thank-you note by email.  If they demur then they would prefer you not.  Just don’t make it a big deal either way.  You want to behave in a collegial way, not like a desperate supplicant.

Don’t stalk them on Linked-In. 

If business cards seems affected or too formal to you, then you can just ask the recruiter if it’s ok to send a thank-you note.  But they are more likely to stop you even if the interviewers would not have minded.  The recruiter is your main contact but not the main decision maker.  The hiring manager is who you want to make a memorable connection with.

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20 minutes ago, Triskele said:

I won't even question for a second that this sort of thing happens  

My question is this:   how great is my obligation to have the bare minimum Linked-In account?  

I think not, for most people, but it can be a very effective job hunting tool.

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1 hour ago, Triskele said:

I won't even question for a second that this sort of thing happens  

My question is this:   how great is my obligation to have the bare minimum Linked-In account?  

Agreed with Ini, not an obligation at all.  It’s a nice tool to keep track of all the people with whom you cross paths over the years, and can be a good way to look at the background of people you encounter, but it also opens you to spam approaches from marketing types.

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Has anyone ever give their company and management very poor remarks in their year in review survey? I normally just give the socially desired responses, but this time I really let them have it and it sounds like several of my coworkers did the same. The office has been horribly mismanaged. 

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I wanted to separate this part, but also with regards to the above, I am ecstatic to say that I have hit my high end savings goal to go back to school and get either a PhD, JD or JD/MBA. $50k isn't a ton of money, but it's pretty good when you're 30 and I can stretch that out to cover the cost of living for three years, and that doesn't include the additional money I'll make over the next 17 months, plus I have another $5k set aside to spend six weeks in Europe. Combined this with also having paid off all of my undergrad and car debt and I think I'm in a great place to finally go back to school.

Now I just have to be married to my GRE and LSAT training books. Here's to the joys of studying boring materials...

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