Consumer Reviews are Vital for a Facility’s Reputation

Last month on our blog we discussed many different companies that provide consumer reviews of senior care facilities and how these reviews seemed to be the wave of the future for people searching for more information on a particular facility.  A new article by Shelley Laurell confirms this suspicion; giving fact-based statistics about how important online consumer reviews are becoming in the marketplace and how these reviews are showing no signs of going away anytime soon.  Read below to find more information about these reviews and how important they truly are to defining a facility’s strengths, weaknesses, and overall reputation among those who have come into contact with the facility.

 

Why online reviews are here to stay

 

The Internet has given consumers a voice. Sharing with one another online, they visit and revisit online sources when making decisions. The places where their searches intersect with information they want are known as the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT). Online reviews are one such place.

In seeking reviews, families are looking for confirmation that your brand is what you say it is. They want feedback from other families who have experienced your brand. Even after they’ve made a choice, they revisit online reviews to confirm they made the rightchoice.

For many senior care providers, online reviews cause apprehension. It’s important to remember though, that conversations about your brand are already happening. Without you. Probably in places you can’t reach. Online reviews are one place where you can join the conversation.

Blake Hodges, director of digital media for GlynnDevins Advertising, encourages his clients to be involved. “Providers are reluctant to get into social media because of disgruntled employees,” he says. “But disgruntled people will find a way to tell more people, and submitting a grievance online is easy. Providers need to be aware of what people are saying about them, and at the time it is being said.”

Just How Important Are Online Reviews?

A company known for monitoring online review activity is Forrester Research. In a 2010 survey, it found that:

• People trust consumer ratings and reviews (62%) more than the ratings/reviews of industry experts (57%).
• Other than recommendations from a friend or family member, consumer reviews are the most trusted source of information.

A Caring.com member survey reinforces Forrester’s findings:

• A combined 94 percent of respondents feel that online reviews are worthwhile: 45 percent consider them trustworthy information, and 49 percent consider them helpful to their search for a senior care provider.
• Companies with reviews received 550 percent more inquiries online than those without reviews.

Providers find reviews beneficial to both SEO and conversions.

Sunrise Senior Living monitors online reviews. “We see value in online reviews as they help to share real stories from family members and residents with prospective family members and residents,” explains Abby See, senior manager of online marketing.

Danielle Cantin, director of marketing at American House, says, “Reviews have added a level of authenticity to our brand. It is hard to quantify whether or not inquiries have increased due to our review activity, but it’s fair to say our SEO is strengthened by the relevant and timely postings — making us more likely to turn up in a search — therefore more likely to get an inquiry.”

Family Feedback Helps With Continuous Improvement

Consumers’ growing reliance on reviews offers senior care providers a means of continuous improvement. Online reviews may help you identify a problem you weren’t aware you had. If families who visit on Sunday afternoons are consistently posting concerns about the lack of resident activity or an unfriendly front desk person, both are problems you can fix.

You may also learn through reviews that a family chose another provider because of something youdon’t offer. If you don’t have a dedicated memory care courtyard and that’s what families want for their loved ones, their reviews may help you justify that capital improvement.

The Positive Side of Negative Reviews

“Negative reviews are a great tool,” explains Cantin. “There’s a certain anonymity that comes with writing a review online. Writers feel safe and are able to share their thoughts freely, without fear of rejection or confrontation. Reviews empower people who felt disempowered at a particular moment.”

MaryBeth Dagg, public relations and communications manager at Emeritus Senior Living, adds, “Reviews are one way we can determine where we have unhappy families and try and resolve any issues. We have several methods that residents and families can use to express concerns, but many aren’t comfortable talking directly to staff. By responding to online reviews, we’ve been able to reach out to families and let them know we’re listening.”

Negative reviews lend authenticity. People are suspicious when every review is perfect. In fact, 68 percent of consumers trust reviews more when they see a mix of good and bad. The key is to quickly address the negatives:

•      Thank the posters for their comments. Encourage them to contact you offline so you can resolve the issues.
•      If it’s an issue you’ve tried unsuccessfully to resolve, ask your families who feel differently to post positive reviews.

How to Join the Conversation

Here are ideas to help you get started:

1. Assemble a team to read and respond to reviews. Prompt response online is critical.
2. Establish a process for tracking complaint resolutions. Part of the success of online reviews comes from posting the fact that an issue has been resolved.
3. Fill out profiles for your communities on the most-reviewed sites, such as Caring.com, Angie’s List, and Google+.
4. Bookmark profiles so you can easily monitor what’s being said. Some review sites will alert you when you have a new review.
5. Set up Google Alerts for your brand name and your community names.
6. Encourage families to post reviews, and make it easy for them by sharing a list of the sites where your profiles are in place.
7. Reputation management services can help. GlynnDevins offers one that aggregates what’s said on the sites you want monitored, then sends you a daily alert e-mail.

 

The bottom line is that reviews are here to stay. Actively monitoring and responding to them are must-do strategies for protecting your brand. MaryBeth Dagg of Emeritus explains it well by saying, “We know that if we quickly address problems identified in reviews, our resident and family satisfaction will remain high and people will continue to see Emeritus as a quality senior living option.”

The Biggest Problem in Hiring: Knowing What You’re Recruiting For!

Knowing What You’re Recruiting For

-Atash Najafian, Govig Senior Care

Sourcing and placing the right individuals in jobs is becoming an increasingly important priority in any industry, especially as more and more businesses expand and talent acquisition departments are formed. The talent in your organization can really make or break your return on investments and profitability; therefore, executives really want to ensure that their top hires are the right people doing the right job. In order to correctly fill a position, however, that position must first be defined and hiring managers must outline what they want an employee to accomplish in that role.

What’s the Problem?

A common problem currently plaguing most recruiters and human resource professionals is a lack of understanding of the jobs they are required to fill. Many staffing professionals face the challenge of trying to place candidates in a position when they generally don’t even know what they’re looking for. This not only prohibits them from sourcing the right talent, but also from finding quality passive candidates as well. Let’s create an example to put this dilemma into perspective.

Sally is an HR director working for a long-term care company who is about to acquire several properties. She is in charge of placing a “Director of Education” who will eventually hire and train all of the staff in the new facilities. So Sally scans through countless resumes for candidates with this job title and puts up several job postings to attract applicants. What Sally hasn’t considered is that this role probably requires someone with skills that aren’t on a resume—such as an entrepreneurial attitude and experience with start-up operations. A big reason that Sally hasn’t accounted for these additional skills is that senior management hasn’t translated all of this information to her.  And this isn’t the only job Sally needs to place, so now she has wasted a lot of time and effort on this particular job searching for candidates that are not a good fit for the position. How could Sally and her company have avoided all the excessive costs in time and man power? By simply defining the position before the search began and making sure that Sally was educated on the position and qualifications.

Define the position.

Getting a clear definition of all different aspects of a position from hiring managers at the beginning of a search can have a huge impact on costs for recruiters in the long run. On the recruiters end, really understanding the position and what is crucial to look for in a candidate is just as important to the success of finding the best candidate for the job. This may seem like a time management issue, but having a clear definition to work with from the start will aid in avoiding obstacles later on down the road and will really save time in the end for all parties involved.

Why do we care?

At Govig Senior Care, we’ve really focused on addressing this issue and place a big emphasis on specifying job descriptions with our clients. We can offer expertise you won’t find elsewhere and like to work alongside Human Resource departments to place those hard-to-fill positions—especially in the senior care industry. We have a clear understanding of each role that exists in the market and also make sure we get to know candidates on an individual basis to so that we’re able to place the right people in the right positions. If you’re looking for the perfect person to take your senior housing organization to the next level, or have a difficult position to fill in the long-term care industry, please reach out to us so we can start a search for you today—with the end goal clearly defined from the start, of course.

Take the Animal Quiz!

Recently at Govig, we decided to have a little work place fun, like always, and we came across this assessment to evaluate what animal you are. In our quest to discover our “inner-animal” we met some interesting results, and discovered we had quite the plethora of diversity among our group. From Wildebeest’ to Crocodiles, Govig is a place for every animal.

Here’s a quick table of results of Govig Senior Care’s Animal Kingdom:

To take the Quiz yourself, click the link below and see what animal you are, and see some of the basic characteristics of each animal.

http://www.whatanimalami.com/

Wildebeest:

• You have resilience, or the ability to bounce back from adversity.
• You are adept at changing conditions and responding to setbacks and pressures from multiple directions. You see problems as challenging rather than discouraging and as opportunities to develop your knowledge and skills.
• You are an individual with a competitive edge and are always willing to invest the time and effort required to accomplish tasks.

Lion:

• The ability to create multiple options for solving problems.
• You chart the course that others follow by defining the tactics, steps, and resources that are required to achieve the goal while keeping the bigger picture in perspective. You remain proactive and ensure that the plan is adjusted to meet the objectives.

Crocodile:

• The ability to “think outside the box” when facing difficult problems and developing solutions.
• A dedication to advancing both yourself and your organization through a clear mission, while fostering a culture that supports and encourages imaginative and creative solutions.
• The determination to succeed, which also lends itself to another important trait for enterprising individuals: self-confidence.
• The tendency to spend a lot of time working alone—something that’s paramount to business success. This emphasizes entrepreneurs’ understanding of sacrifice, and how short-term hard work will pay off with long-term rewards.

Giraffe:

• They seek to make others feel like they’re the most important person with whom they can spend time, and always put the needs of others first.
• They live according to personal standards that are higher than any given code of conduct, and incorporate dignity, honor, and respect in extending grace to others—even when things have not gone their way.

Cheetah:

• You search for the most efficient way to achieve a goal without wasting energy by adapting to varying situations, responding to them and recognizing the factors that affect efficiency.
• You try to avoid excess consumption of resources by recognizing the personal limits that waste them.
• You schedule your day, prioritize every task, and keep those priorities by refining to-do lists frequently and adopting a policy of strict time management. You chunk or break your larger projects down into small, easier-to-manage steps.
• You are an effective time manager with the ability to evaluate and deal with those things that affect achieving the goal, such as self-generated interruptions.
• You maintain an orderly start up/shut down routine at the beginning and end of each day to help you remain focused and utilize peak times more efficiently.

Mongoose:

• The ability to overcome the fear associated with the risk by evaluating potential pitfalls.
• Viewing the change that immobilizes others as simply another hurdle to overcome. Risk- takers don’t see how things are, but how they could be. They are willing to do whatever is necessary to achieve the desired goal.
• A readiness to break free from social and emotional boundaries, opinions, beliefs, and restrictions imposed by business and society. Unaffected by the opinions of others, they freely and openly express their ideas.
• Adeptness at finding ways to hedge against risk to take advantage of the upside of a given situation.

Elephant:

• They’re skilled at both listening to and actually hearing other people, and take time to comprehend the details in their message.
• They are interested in advancing the discussion beyond just a series of shared monologues and into a true dialogue. They realize that taking a positive approach can make others feel more confident, and in turn, more likely to cooperate.

Taking the “Search” Out of Search

Here at Govig Senior Care, one of our core beliefs for business is to take the “search” out of recruiting. By that, we mean through the teams that we have, the resources at our disposal, and the relationships that we have developed over the course of our 24+ year history, we can remove the hardships of most recruiting firms and our clients by having those professionals who are going to be the right fit, already in our pocket. Before our clients come to us, there is an expectation that we not just have the right person in mind, but that we have become acquainted and come to know them on a personal level as well.

Our team structure is our strongest advantage in this regard, and in our Southern Region, Business Developer Spencer Coon, and Client Account Manager Kyle Kenney have seen the evolution of their business and team over the years, first-hand. Listen to them as they talk about the subject in our latest video…

Do you possess qualities of an ideal employee?

At Govig Senior Care, our job is to seek out top candidates, the best of the best. Although experience can get you that first conversation, employers weigh heavily on certain personality traits when making a new hire. Ken Sundheim, contributor for Forbes, shares the 15 traits that companies believe form the ideal employee.

15 Traits Of The Ideal Employee

When hiring for any size business, it’s not what the candidates know today. Information can always be taught. The most intelligent companies hire on future success and heavily weigh personality when determining the most apt employees.

Regardless of industry, pay, age or sex, all ideal employees share some common traits. These include, but are not limited to individuals who can be described as or possess the following:

1. Action-oriented – Hire employees who take action and take chances. While chances may lead to failure, they will more often lead to success and mold confidence while generating new ideas. Stagnant employees won’t make your company money; action-oriented employees will.

2. Intelligent – Intelligence is not the only thing, but it’s a strong foundation for success. While there are many variables you can be flexible on when hiring, intelligence is a must or you’re going to be spending an abundance of time proofing work, micromanaging and dealing with heightened stress levels.

3. Ambitious – Employees can only help your company if they want to help themselves have a better career. Ambition is what makes a company innovative, it’s what spawns creative ideas and what generates candor and openness amongst employees.

4. Autonomous – You are hiring an employee who can get the job done without extensive hand-holding. As the owner of the company, you have your own tasks to take care of and, when you delegate activities to the individual whom you’re hiring, you don’t want 20 questions, rather you want execution.

5. Display Leadership – Do you see this individual being a significant part of your company and leading future employees of the firm? Leadership begins with self-confidence, is molded by positive reinforcement and repetitive success.

6. Cultural Fit – Are you going to enjoy working with this individual on a daily basis? Are your employees going to enjoy working with this individual? When recruiting, personality can mean the difference between an employee who doesn’t stay long and fails to produce vs. an all-star who is going to significantly increase your competitive advantage.

7. Upbeat – Employees who come into work fresh and energetic everyday are going to outproduce workers who think negatively and easily burn-out when they encounter defeat. Upbeat and optimistic employees create a working environment that is unique, spawns new ideas and, just as important is enjoyable for the other people involved.

8. Confident – Confidence produces results and encourages employees to take on challenges that others shy away from. The best companies are highly confident in their abilities to provide a superior product or service and this belief spawns a culture of improvement and client confidence.

9. Successful – One of the most effective ways to predict future success in a candidate is their past success at other firms. Have they remained at companies for a prolonged period? Have they met company goals? What achievements have these individuals accomplished? If one looks closely, a lot can be deciphered from a resume.

10. Honest – An employee can have all the talent in the world, but without integrity and authenticity, nothing great will be accomplished. If nothing else, you want honest, forthright employees at your organization, otherwise your company will turn off clients and, ultimately won’t survive.

11. Detail Oriented – Attention to detail is crucial or mistakes will be made within your company. Detail-oriented employees take pride in their work. They dot the “i’s”, cross the “t’s” and get the job done.

12. Modest – The most sought after employees shout their value not through their words, but rather through their work. They are humble, don’t need to pump themselves up in front of others and quietly outproduce those who do.

13. Hard working – Nothing great is accomplished easily. Nothing great is accomplished via hiring 9 – 5 employees. Rather, the foundation of an effective organization lies in its ability to recruit results oriented, hard working employees who execute.

14. Marketable – By marketable, I mean presentable to clients. Business is not a fashion contest nor do looks dictate success, however most successful applicants are well put together and, when dealing with clients are going to represent your organization as professional and organized.

15. Passionate – Employees who are passionate about their job never work a day in their life. While money should be a motivator in all individuals whom you hire, make sure that they enjoy the journey when pursuing that end-goal.

In the End

You can train on an employee on your product or service, but you can’t train someone to have integrity, resiliency, self-confidence and work ethic. The smaller the business, the more crucial any hire is. Be flexible on background requirements, but continue to be stringent on personality traits.

Original Article can be found at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kensundheim/2013/04/02/15-traits-of-the-ideal-employee/

 

 

Is Emotional Intelligence Affecting Your Interview Skills?

5 Soft Skills to Showcase in an Interview

By: MIRIAM SALPETER

If you are extremely qualified, have terrific application materials, a targeted resume and you’re interviewing for jobs, but always coming up with a silver medal, it’s possible that you’re bumping up against an elusive category: likability. Also known in the industry as “cultural fit,” likability is a reason many candidates don’t make the final cut—the interviewers either didn’t like them or didn’t believe they would mesh well with current employees.

One of the reasons that most employers don’t provide specific feedback to a second-place candidate is because it’s difficult to explain why someone doesn’t fit in. An employer can get in legal hot water for explaining that someone didn’t get hired because the team just didn’t like the candidate and couldn’t imagine spending a lot of time together.

Emotional intelligence, otherwise known as soft skills, is the category of skills most likely involved when evaluating likabilityor fit. Wikipedia defines them as “Personal attributes that enhance an individual’s interactions, job performance and career prospects. Unlike hard skills, which are about a person’s skill set and ability to perform a certain type of task or activity, soft skills relate to a person’s ability to interact effectively with co-workers and customers and are broadly applicable both in and outside the workplace.”

Soft skills include: attitude, communication skills, time management, critical thinking and a slew of other categories that do not relate to intelligence.

There’s no question that soft skills play a role in most, if not all, hiring decisions. So how can you demonstrate these skills during an interview? Eddie Earnest from HigherNext (www.highernext.com), a company that offers the Certified Business Laureate (CBL) certification tests and credentialing system, suggests the following tips to help highlight these five soft skills during an interview.

 

1. Work ethic. Make sure to weave your thoughts about how important the company’s mission and vision are to you and explain why you’re willing to go the extra mile to help the organization succeed. One tenet of evaluating candidates is that past performance is a predictor of future results. Make sure you prove that you have a strong work ethic by giving examples from the past about how you went above and beyond the call of duty to get a job done. “Describe how you always complete projects efficiently and on-time, why you’re punctual and persistent and how you balance your drive to succeed with the company’s goals,” Earnest says.

2. Positive attitude. Give examples of how you improved employee morale in a past position, or how your positive attitude helped motivate your colleagues or those you managed. Earnest suggests: “Some people are naturally bubbly and always upbeat. Others have a more tame and low-energy demeanor. Especially if you tend to be more low-key, smile when you shake the interviewer’s hand and make an extra effort to add some intonation and expression to your responses.”

Make sure you aren’t boring or dry, or you could lose your chance to be hired.

3. Communication skills. Your interview is a great opportunity to demonstrate how well you communicate, so be sure you prepare and practice responses to showcase your best skills. Earnest says, “Be concrete with these examples, and bring proof to the interview. Provide examples of materials you created or written campaigns you developed in past positions.”

4. Time management. This is a crucial skill many employers seek in their hires. Earnest notes, “It’s especially important for candidates who want to work in a startup to know how to manage their time, tasks and responsibilities effectively.” Be prepared to explain how you prioritize the most important items first, delegate the items that others can do and figure out a way to get things done in the confines of your resources on the job.

5. Self confidence. Earnest reminds job seekers, “You can demonstrate self confidence at the interview by the way you present yourself, including how you dress for the interview, the way you approach to shake hands and how you speak about your experiences during the interview.”

 

If you’re not particularly confident, practice acting like you are. Make direct eye contact when speaking with strangers. Listen to your own voice—is it shrill or timid? Rehearse speaking in a more confident-sounding voice. Don’t forget about your body language, which is one of the first ways employers will gauge your confidence levels. If you tend to hunch over, make sure you think about sitting up during your interview.

Don’t forget to think about soft skills when you prepare for interviews to be sure you demonstrate everything you have to offer the employer.

LinkedIn is a Recruiter’s Ally, Not Enemy!

It’s becoming a strong belief that LinkedIn will eventually replace executive recruiting by allowing employers access to online resumes and profiles, essentially eliminating the need for outside recruitment. There are solid arguments both supporting and negating this prediction, but this article by Adrian Kinnersley from Ere.net provides good insight on why recruiters should be embracing LinkedIn as an ally instead of an enemy.

“Why LinkedIn Will Never Kill the Professional Recruitment Industry”
by Adrian Kinnersley

“How LinkedIn is eating the recruitment industry suggested that LinkedIn, an essential tool in a recruiter’s arsenal, is actually going to devour the recruitment sector like an aggressive parasite. This is a very popular viewpoint — and an understandable one given the state of the jobs market, the focus on reducing recruitment spending, and the undeniably impressive growth of LinkedIn’s revenues and share price.

There is undeniably a shift in behavior with regard to LinkedIn, and it has impacted the recruitment industry — but in a different way than the article suggests. LinkedIn needs recruitment to survive. Despite views to the contrary, recruitment companies still contribute the lion’s share of its revenue. LinkedIn is undoubtedly negatively impacting parts of the recruitment market. But it’s not the third-party agencies. It’s the job boards.

You only have to look at a company like Monster whose share price has tanked as impressively as LinkedIn’s has risen. Other job advertising sites such as The Ladders have had to change their pricing models to allow free access in order to keep user numbers up and remain competitive.

Recruitment advertising spending decisions are now being driven by the need for platforms which allow effective interaction and the ability to target an audience of choice. LinkedIn is a much better vehicle for this than large generic job boards and is therefore competing very effectively with them — not recruitment consultancies who use LinkedIn as a tool.

Where LinkedIn has had an impact on recruitment consultancies is that it has decreased the value and uniqueness of proprietary databases. Consequently new entrants to the market and in-house resourcing teams now have access to the same candidate information as long-established recruitment firms. This has had the positive effect of preventing the proliferation of more generalist and average recruiters and enhancing the reputation of the credible specialist and niche recruiter.

Unless the psychology of a human being changes significantly in the near future, the vast majority of professionals are still going to want to interact with another person during the recruitment process, as it is still one of the most important decisions an individual has to make. A career move isn’t an impromptu purchase like an item of clothing or a downloadable tune/movie — and it isn’t a discretionary buy like a vacation or a car. A career is the basis on which someone can make all other purchases and support their family.

While a candidate’s behavior might shift so that they begin to look for opportunities on LinkedIn, and there has been a cultural shift making it acceptable to have a CV in public view, neither the recruitment process nor the ability of clients or candidates to make decisions has improved dramatically due to social networking.

The idea that recruiters can be replaced with some sort of “black box” solution grossly underestimates the impact a recruiter has in the placement of a senior professional candidate or future talent for a business. Individuals whose skill-sets are in high demand and short supply globally will have multiple options, and that professional end of the market will consequently always need third party independent market advice.

However, at the “volume end” of the market, things are different. An advertisement can be placed in a variety of media and a plentiful supply of suitable candidates respond. If you are a recruiter in a market that matches this description, your days indeed are numbered.”

Read the original article at: http://www.ere.net/2013/01/03/why-linkedin-will-never-kill-the-professional-recruitment-industry/

Changing People’s Lives with Hadley Gayles

 

At Govig Senior Care, more than anything else, we want to help change people’s lives for the better. Our recruiters are devoted to bringing our clients the top talent and the greatest return on investment, while our candidates are taken to new heights in their careers. We truly care about helping the people we work with, and it is situations like the ones in this video that remind us of how rewarding our job really is.

7 of the Most Common Questions in an Interview and How to Answer Them

By Jacquelyn Smith,

“Tell me about yourself.” While this isn’t exactly a question, answering this the wrong way could really hurt your chances of getting a job, Teach says. “I was once told by an HR executive that this can actually be a trick question. Hiring managers can’t ask you certain questions legally but if you go off on a tangent when answering, you may tell them some things about you that are better left unsaid.” The worst way to approach this request is to tell them your life story, which is something they’re definitely not interested in. The best way to approach this is to only discuss what your interests are relating to the job and why your background makes you a great candidate.

“What are your strengths and weaknesses?” It’s easy to talk about your strengths; you’re detail oriented, hard working, a team player, etc.–but it’s also easy to get tripped up when discussing your weaknesses, Teach says. Never talk about a real weakness unless it’s something you’ve defeated. “Many hiring managers are hip to the overused responses, such as, ‘Well, my biggest weakness is that I work too hard so I need try to take it easy once in a while.’ The best answer is to discuss a weakness that you’ve turned around, such as, you used to come in late to work a lot but after your supervisor explained why it was necessary for you to come in on time, you were never late again.”

“Where do you want to be five years from now?” “What employers are really asking is, ‘Is this job even close to your presumed career path? Are you just applying to this job because you need something? Are your long-term career plans similar to what we see for this role? How realistic are your expectations for your career? Have you even thought about your career long-term? Are you going to quit after a year or two?’” says Sara Sutton Fell, CEO and founder of FlexJobs.

Show them that you’ve done some self-assessment and career planning. Let them know that you hope to develop professionally and take on additional responsibilities at that particular company. “Don’t say something ridiculous like, ‘I don’t know,’ or “I want your job,” she says.

Teach says no one can possibly know where they’ll be in their career five years from now but hiring managers want to get a sense of your commitment to the job, the company, and the industry. “In fact, I would even mention that it’s hard for you to know what job title you may hold five years from now but ideally, you’d like to have moved up the ladder at this company based on your performance. You’re hopeful to be in some management position and your goal is to help the company any way you can.” If you give the impression that this job is just a stepping stone for you, it’s unlikely the hiring manager will be interested in you.

“Please give me an example of a time when you had a problem with a supervisor/co-worker and how you approached the problem.” “I think that the hardest thing about work isn’t the work, it’s the people at work,” Teach says. Most employees have a problem with a supervisor or co-worker at some point in their career. How they handle that problem says a lot about their people skills. If you can explain to the interviewer that you were able to overcome a people problem at work, this will definitely help your chances of getting the job, he says.

“What are your salary requirements?”  “What employers are really asking is, ‘Do you have realistic expectations when it comes to salary? Are we on the same page or are you going to want way more than we can give? Are you flexible on this point or is your expectation set in stone?’” Sutton Fell says.

Try to avoid answering this question in the first interview because you may shortchange yourself by doing so, Teach says. Tell the hiring manager that if you are seriously being considered, you could give them a salary range–but if possible, let them make the first offer. Study websites like Salary.com and Glassdoor.com to get an idea of what the position should pay. “Don’t necessarily accept their first offer,” he adds. “There may be room to negotiate.”

When it is time to give a number, be sure to take your experience and education levels into consideration, Sutton Fell says. “Also, your geographic region, since salary varies by location.” Speak in ranges when giving figures, and mention that you are flexible in this area and that you’re open to benefits, as well. “Be brief and to the point, and be comfortable with the silence that may come after.”

“Why are you leaving your current job?” Hiring managers want to know your motivation for wanting to leave your current job. Are you an opportunist just looking for more money or are you looking for a job that you hope will turn into a career? If you’re leaving because you don’t like your boss, don’t talk negatively about your boss–just say you have different work philosophies, Teach says. If the work was boring to you, just mention that you’re looking for a more challenging position. “Discuss the positives that came out of your most recent job and focus on why you think this new position is ideal for you and why you’ll be a great fit for their company.”

If you’ve already left your previous job (or you were fired), Sutton Fell suggests the following:

• If you got fired: Do not trash your last boss or company. Tell them that you were unfortunately let go, that you understand their reasoning and you’ve recognized areas that you need to improve in, and then tell them how you will be a better employee because of it.
• If you got laid off: Again, do not trash your last boss or company. Tell them that you were let go, and that you understand the circumstances behind their decision; that you are committed to your future and not dwelling on the past; and that you are ready to apply everything that you learned in your last role to a new company.
• If you quit: Do not go into details about your unhappiness or dissatisfaction. Instead, tell them that while you valued the experience and education that you received, you felt that the time had come to seek out a new opportunity, to expand your skills and knowledge, and to find a company with which you could grow.

“Why should I hire you?” A hiring manager may not ask you this question directly but every question you answer in the interview should contribute to helping them understand why you’re the best person for the job. “Stay focused on why your background makes you an ideal candidate and tell them how you are going to contribute to that department and that company,” Teach says. “Let the interviewer know that one of your goals is to make their job easier by taking on as much responsibility as possible and that you will be excited about this job starting on day one.”

Salpeter suggests you print and highlight the job description, looking for the top three or four most important details. “Do they include terms such as, ‘cross-functional team,’ ‘team work,’ and ‘team player’ several times?” If so, your answer to, “Why should we hire you?” (asked directly or as an underlying question) should mention and focus on your abilities as they relate to teams.

 

To view original article go here.

Connect with Govig on Facebook, Twitter, or Linkedin!

Four Questions You Should Ask Yourself

 

Jim Rohn, considered by many to be one of the greatest motivational speakers in history, presents four questions that you need to ask yourself everyday:

1. Why?
2. Why not?
3. Why not me?
4. Why not now!

Contemplating these questions will guide you towards accomplishing any goal you set. Start today and see success in your endeavors for the future.