New Rules of Engagement in the Hiring Dance
Posted on 09. Sep, 2010 by ggunn in Blog
Happy New Year’s! Wired4Hire did not hold a morning session today and I wanted to take a moment to write about a very interesting topic that came up last week. If you have used non traditional methods to gain an interview, is it okay to be subjected to an unorthodox interview process?
One of our members recently went on an interview with a company of her dreams. She landed the interview by using the very popular networking techniques everyone is talking about these days. A friend of the CEO’s wife had his wife submit her resume to the CEO.
Perfect. Isn’t this what networking is all about? Isn’t it true that the best jobs are no longer even being advertised? And hasn’t networking led to companies hiring talent they didn’t know they needed and therefore had no job description or opening? Yes, Yes, Yes, and Yes!
However, job seekers should expect a different playing field if they use non traditional techniques to gain access into an organization and a job interview.
Chaos could ensue. This was the case for our member. Luckily she had printed out her interview schedule because when she got there, the receptionist didn’t know she was coming. Once that was dealt with, the actual interviewers hadn’t left their schedules open and scrambled to accommodate her. But they did.
However, she didn’t have a good idea of the job… And neither did they. Nightmare right? Well yes. It was. However, our prepared Wired4Hire member had brought her marketing portfolio and was able to sell her services. Unfortunately it quickly became clear that the only CURRENT need the company had was for someone with far fewer skills than what she brought to the table.
She left the process feeling angry and defeated. Until she got to our meeting. As she finished her story and we all got angry with her… one member offered an interesting idea. This may not be a failure of the company. They had not been engaged in a formal way and therefore didn’t have a formal process to follow.
Okay. I think that’s a stretch – if they agreed to interview her they owed it to her to be prepared… But he had a great point. Soon everyone was seeing his point and applauding the opportunity for the woman who had interviewed to go in and wow that organization. She had done so very well. The question now is what are her next steps?
I propose that she follow up with them and ask for a formal opportunity to come back in and present to them a chance to consider the services and skills she has to fill the need in a better capacity than they had originally considered. She can either offer this as a contracting proposal or as a proposal for a new position.
We will keep you posted and let you know how this goes. The main point still remains. If you are going to use non traditional means to get your foot in the door of an organization, there may times your foot gets trodden. You cannot approach a process thinking outside the box and then climb into that same box you just broke out of once you succeed.
Until next time – happy job hunting!
