You’re about to go into a big interview with a prestigious firm and you feel like you’ve fully prepared for this moment. But…do you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are as prepared as you could be?
What does “fully prepared” truly mean to you?
Consider this: For some types of hiring situations, a candidate will spend up to $8,000 and six weeks on preparation alone.
Does that mean you have to invest the same amount of money and time? Maybe, maybe not, but make no mistake: The Job Race has many participants and only one winner. And in our assessment, most candidates aren’t doing enough to even participate in the race at all.
There is good news, however: You can position yourself far better for success if you have a stronger sense of where you are in the spectrum of preparation, what your competition looks like, what your potential employer requires from you well beyond the job description and what you need to do to close that gap as much as possible.
Let’s take a deeper look inside these and other must-have
elements of preparation.
A Better Definition Of “Fully Prepared”
Many candidates, quite frankly, don’t know what “fully prepared” even means until we provide them a true definition of what that road ahead entails. You may not be prepared because you don’t know what you need to be successful through every point of the journey to getting the job.
If you follow our guidance, we believe you’ll be far better prepared for the interview and the company will be evaluating you from the very best vantage point.
Let’s engage in an exercise for a moment. Picture your dream firm to work for. Got it? Now think about what you’re doing there. You’re happy. You’re challenged. You’re collaborating with exceptional colleagues. You can envision making a real impact on the organization not only in your current role but across departments when given the opportunity. It’s what you’ve always imagined for yourself in terms of reaching your true potential. In fact, you wouldn’t be surprised if you exceeded your own expectations of success.
Now – if you wanted to have the best chance of seeing this scenario come to fruition, how much would you be willing to spend in money, time and effort to be prepared the best way you could?
You can now see why the answer among the most committed is, “Whatever it takes.”
Think about it like this in a totally different field where the ultimate preparation is required: An experienced actress doesn’t just show up for an audition and say, “Well, what is it about? What am I going to be tested for? Give me half a page of the script. I know nothing about what’s going on and nothing about the background but that’s OK. I’ll just find the character after reading into it for the first time.
Obviously, it’s not like that in the acting world. In the world of recruitment and hiring, it’s very much the same. At Roy Talman & Associates, our candidates are fully prepared because they are aware of what it takes to win at every key point of The Job Race.
Talman Advantage #4: Better Positioning For Your Best Opportunity
The reality is that, in so many situations, that “perfect job opportunity” may not be formally listed by a company. In that instance, where some may simply fire your resume off to an HR person’s email and hope for the best, Roy Talman & Associates takes a more creative and purposeful approach.
If an opening isn’t currently available that’s an ideal match for you, we’ll discuss the kind of role with you that you would be interested in and potentially prepare and present a very specific case to that particular firm to create a unique role for you. That’s called a recruiter that goes further for you – and why you need to talk to Talman first.
Are You Investing In Yourself Enough?
The more desirable the job is, the more the person will be willing to invest in preparing for the process. However, in a great many cases, they aren’t investing in themselves enough to win The Job Race. They’re frequently doing just enough to participate. It’s a bit like a team that loses a big game but some players did well in some areas so the team claims a “moral victory.” Maybe that’s so, but it’s still not a real victory. The harsh reality is that you don’t get into the Win column for moral victories or learning some things after the opportunity for victory has passed.
A simple example of this is somebody who doesn’t have a current resume and is suddenly asked to apply. Well, there are lots of job posting websites that will cater to somebody with no resume. If somebody stumbles on a website that requires a resume and they don’t have one, if they really want to be considered, they’ll update resume, right? The question is, considering their out-of-date resume, how likely is it that they’ll put in the essential investment of time and resources to develop a sleek, powerful resume that demands attention by the interviewer right away? That’s a longshot.
The challenge is that, in many situations, people will not invest enough of the proper time to showcase their best capabilities to the prospective employer, because it takes a lot of effort.
A polar opposite to this approach is a boot camp for interviewing in California, where they charge $8,000 and it takes six weeks to prepare you for an interview for a software engineer position at a typical Silicon Valley company like Google, Facebook, etc. They say if you want to apply to this kind of a job and don’t work for a direct competitor, after you spend $8,000 and spend six weeks with them, they’ll work with you to prepare you for these interviews.
Note that this is another key element that we consistently factor into our own process with candidates: Not only enhancing your skill set in full preparation for a certain type of role but also fully preparing for the interview based on the specific type of employer.
Now, whether or not you agree with actually spending that kind of time and money to prepare for a job in Silicon Valley, it does give you an idea of what it’s going to take to gain such a role as opposed to, “Oh, I got a call yesterday and it seems like an interesting job. I’ve got 30 seconds between doing a few things, so I’ll apply.”
No matter what methods the prospective employer utilizes to best gauge your intellectual capacity or ability to fit within their particular culture, one thing never changes: The amount of preparation in advance of the interview can mean everything to your success.You probably know you shouldn’t “wing it” or go in lightly prepared, but what you may not realize is how extensive the preparation must be so that you can rise to and secure your place atop a list of candidates. In a world where companies want to gain a sense of your decision-making prowess in certain key situations, we’re very skeptical that depending on a resume alone will ever be enough.
Methods and technologies will change. The need for intense preparation to give yourself the best shot at breaking through will not. Invest in the process and in turn, you’ll be investing in yourself.
Our process at Roy Talman & Associates assumes or works with people who are particularly serious about working toward the best job they can apply for and will do whatever it takes to prepare. This often involves taking tests, bringing their skills up to a more current level and so on. And since we have many strong relationships with the top firms in Chicago and New York, we have an excellent sense of their approach to hiring in advance too. Give yourself the very best opportunity to land the role you were made for. Talk To Talman First.