Conquering Interviews

The first few days of this week have started off unlike many weeks for a lot of people.  As I have written in the past, I have two part-time jobs.  While I love them both, the people and the work, I also find myself frustrated looking for full-time employment.  With CollegeBuzzz, I am having to hire interns for the Clemson website.  So yesterday, I went up to Clemson to interview a girl.  I talked to her at a local Starbucks for about 40 minutes, getting to know all about her life, passions, and skills.  Tomorrow, I have an interview for a full-time position in Washington DC.  While I have very little knowledge of the DC area, I have done my homework of this business and the position I would take for them, and I want to share my thoughts of how I am approaching tomorrow.

Research the Company:  Find out everything that you can about the company before taking an interview with them.  Most importantly, know their mission and industry.  One you find out the outline of the industry and company, get into the details.  Know the locations of the company.  Find out how many employees work for them.  Find out their clients and review their work.  You can even go as far as looking into employees.  Some websites, such as Glassdoor, will give you information of what current and former employees think of the company, as well as look into the process that some of them went through during their interviews.  For example, for tomorrow's interview, I know the work-enviornment, the age of most employees, the company's size, their office locations, the salary expectations, and the chance (or lack of) promotions.

Review the Position Requirements:  Almost always, a person sends in their application to fill a specific role that the company is looking for.  If they give you a description, check it out.  Reading over it before the interview will give you create comfort and a pretty good idea of some of the questions you may be asked.  Be ready to explain how you possess those skills or how you have used them to achieve success in your past.

Research the Recruiter:  If you get the name of the person that is going to be interviewing you, just do a search for them on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Google.  (Hopefully they will have a good LinkedIn Profile) Getting to know a few things about the person interviewing you, such as where they went to college, can be of great help to you during the interview. In May, I was being interviewed by the president of a small marketing company.  After discussing that I had attended Furman and lived in Greenville, he asked if I knew his connection to Greenville.  Immediately, I responded that I knew he had attended college there, linking him to one of my previous bosses.  To say the least, he was impressed and I was offered the job a few weeks later.


Create a Good Environment:  If you are in an office setting having a 1:1 interview, then you have no control over this.  If you are having a phone interview, make sure that the setting is quite and has no distractions.  I was interviewed during the middle of my intramural softball games one time.  I had just scored a run, heard my phone ringing, and had to have a conversation right there on the spot.  It was an unneeded challenge and something I will never do again.

Be Yourself:  Do not get nervous.  Relax and realize that they are going to judge you for whatever you say.  You can tell them in a stumbling voice that you have started three companies, or you can state confidently and clearly that you just graduated and are unemployed.  The more confident you are with your answers, the better you will be received by someone that is getting paid to judge you.  Just relax and prepare to achieve a better interview.

"Answers": Find Them On LinkedIn

As I have perviously mentioned, LinkedIn is a great way to help jumpstart your future career.  One of the ways that I have learned to used LinkedIn recently is through the "Answers" tab.  "Answers" is a way to ask specific questions to all LinkedIn members.  They are categorized, making it easy to find general of specific topics to help you learn more about the professional world.

How To Check It Out:  To look at the "Answers" page of LinkedIn, just go to the top bar and scroll over "More".  Click on answers and you go to the home page.  This page has a layout with some of the newest and most popular questions in the main section.  On the right hand side, you can browse through general topics and areas of study, such as Health, Marketing, or Business Operations, and then go into subcategories to get more specific questions and answers.

What role can you play? As a recent graduate, I just started using this as an outlet to expand my knowledge and influence within the last few weeks.  Being young and relatively inexperienced in the professional world, a lot of times I just get on a few times a week to read.  I go to the areas that are valuable to me, such as Direct Marketing or Internet Marketing, and just soak in the questions and answers provided by other professionals.  Some are right on, some contradict each other, but thats the beauty of having an individual opinion.  Everyone can provide the answer that they think is best.

You can also participate by answering questions.  Many questions in areas that I have recently studied or have learned about I can provide answers to! It is a great feeling to be able to take something you learn and apply it, whether it is in your work or helping other people.

The other way you can play a role is to ask questions.  A few weeks ago, I got frustrated with my job.  My marketing budget is nonexistent and I just had one of those mornings where you get down on yourself.  So I turned to LinkedIn.  I asked a question that I needed help with.  The next morning when I got on my computer, I had e-mails and LinkedIn responses from 6 people, providing me a great way to learn more about areas of my field that I was unsure about.

Why?  Why should you participate in LinkedIn "Answers"?  Because it helps you become more of a professional.  First, it can help you network with people.  When I posted my question a few weeks ago, my profile views increased drastically.  A few of these people I had personal messaging conversations with, and a few I "Connected" with on LinkedIn.

But most importantly, it helps you grow in areas that you have little or no prior knowledge of.  It helps show that you care about growing as a professional.  Never be satisfied with the knowledge that you have; always strive to learn more from others and through experiments.  One of my favorite quotes is "The day you stop learning is the day you stop growing".

Why College Students Need LinkedIn

I remember last November when I began to search for jobs.  I applied to a few places over Thanksgiving and Christmas break, receiving response e-mails or phone calls to try back in a few months.  When March came, I began to apply for more places, with still little luck.  As April came around, I started to use LinkedIn a lot more.  I had used it some since the middle of my junior year, but just like many things in life, such as working out or shooting a basketball, if you don't use it, you lose it.

The Before:

Before LinkedIn, I was very immature.

LinkedIn helped me mature.  I know that seems weird . . .  a website helped me grow up . . . but it did.  I began applying to jobs, making more contacts, learning more about potential industries, and updating my profile.  While the positions that I currently hold did not come through LinkedIn, I was offered some job positions through the website.  My advice to current college students or recent graduates: use LinkedIn.

1. LinkedIn helps you get your stuff together.  Having a profile on LinkedIn that is incomplete is a terrible representation of yourself.  If you apply to any jobs or have anyone looking at your profile, it is motivation to make your profile complete.  Updating your experience with job titles, companies, dates, and job description are great.  The more experience that you have, the better.

2. LinkedIn teaches you basics about resumes and applications.  I applied to approximately twenty-five jobs on LinkedIn.  With those numbers, you realize that some do not respond, some send you a courtesy thank you, and others are interested in potentially hiring you.  Submitting a cover letter is not an option; it is a necessity. Changing your cover letter and resume from application to application are vital.  Responding to people's e-mails, while this should be common knowledge, are also critical to advancing in the job process.  Show them that you are qualified and that you care.

3. Another great aspect of LinkedIn is company pages.  As a college student looking for job in a specific field, I used LinkedIn to check out companies.  You can see their company description, connections they have with you, the size of their company, and other information that will help you get a basic understanding of what they do.  You can follow a company to stay updated on what they are doing and see job positions that they need to fill.

4. Grow your connections.  LinkedIn is not a Facebook or a Twitter, you do not post what you ate for lunch or pictures of your last sorority function that you don't remember.  Think of it as a Facebook with a coat and tie.  You want people to see you as a professional.  Look into the people around your age, reconnecting with those fraternity brothers that graduated a few years ahead of you or people that you knew in an industry you are interested in.  Then, connect with other professionals, such as your previous bosses, professors, or family contacts.  This will help people know that you are entering, or close to entering, the professional world.  A few family friends on LinkedIn messaged me asking about my interests and qualifications, saying they could keep an eye out for potential jobs for me.

The After:

LinkedIn made me grow up, become professional, dress nicer, and be better with the ladies (slight exaggeration).

Why Does Social Media Matter?

My current marketing position has been a struggle to say the least.  I was hired right out of college to create a marketing campaign for a company that had never attempted any kind of marketing.  When I took the job, I realized that there was another catch: I did not have a budget.  My first response: What can I possibly do without anyone else to teach me and without any money to work with?

Luckily, over a few weeks, I began to get VERY involved on the internet.  I knew a lot about social media and knew that this might be the outlet that I could use to drive results.  So my current response is: What can I do to impress my company and clients while successfully marketing with no budget?

Look no further, the answer is social media.  Social media has a wide number of different platforms, allowing businesses to successfully select what they want to do.  Do you want to make videos? YouTube. Are you trying to create articles of content? Blog. Facebook. Are you trying to get a quick following and spread the word? Facebook. Twitter.  Trying to be a wedding planner? Pinterest (Sorry, I had to add this one).

Social media provides us with a rare opportunity to connect directly with people.  We can get linked up with businesses or individuals.  We can form great relationships while getting to know a lot about a company or person.  So these are my reasons of why a business should use social media:

Free This is probably the most obvious one, especially in my position. Most, not all, of social media is free.  You can get more performance out of them through paying more (LinkedIn members, Facebook Ads, Twitter Promotions), but you do not have to pay anything to start.  All you need to do is sign up and get a good user name.  Generally, something short and sweet will do the trick.  Think about your market and products when creating a name.

People WILL See You  Sometimes you may have to branch out and follow people first or try to connect with them, but they generally will respond.  If you provide good content, whether it is general or specific (USA Olympic information or a Rome Braves game review), people will take notice.  It helps you create great word of mouth marketing!

Trials  Social media allow for you to test out some new and creative ideas before running them in more costly places.  Why have something bomb in the pages of TIME magazine? Just put it on a Facebook page and monitor the reach and engagement of the public.

Caution: Social media and marketing campaigns take time.  Do not automatically get discouraged if it does not take off.  Very few things happen overnight, so keep you head up and relax.  If not, then its back to the drawing board.