interviewing
A recruiter called and wants to know my salary. Should I give it to him?
I have found that a person’s next salary is always determined by two factors: salary history and how well you interview. If one of the two is a miss, a red flag will be raised in the mind of your next employer (or recruiter you’re dealing with) and this will negatively impact your ability to earn a top salary. I have spoken with about 30 candidates per day for the past 8 years of my career as a recruiter and I’d say that 99% of them disclose their salary during our first conversation. They tell me what they are currently earning and what they expect of their next salary. If their expectations align with my clients anticipated salary range, we proceed. If not, we either realign expectations or decide not to move forward thereby saving everybody a lot of time and headache.
Every once in a while however I’ll run into that one candidate who doesn’t want to disclose their salary history. This automatically raises a red flag in my mind making me think that either this candidate was underpaid, overpaid or will try to pull a fast one when it comes time to negotiate the offer at the completion of the interview process. This candidate typically states that salary is unimportant and that they only care about the opportunity, but what I have found is that upon completion of their interview process, they are the ones who are most adamant about getting the salary that is fair and that they deserve (no matter what their salary history is). If you’ve ever heard horror stories of companies low-balling candidates or candidates developing unrealistic expectations once it comes to offer time, it is because of situations like this where expectations were not clearly discussed at the onset of the process.
I know that in classic negotiation training, he who speaks first loses – but I would also argue that he who walks into a negotiation blind and with misaligned expectations loses too. Meaning you’re not doing yourself or anybody else for that matter a favor by keeping your salary history private. My recommendation is to inject certainty and openness into your interview process by disclosing your history and expectations up front, otherwise you’re leaving the entire shebang up to chance which in my opinion greatly ups the likelihood that you and the employer will be left disappointed in the end.
In my opinion, the best way to get top dollar in your next job search is to play by the rules. Disclose your salary history, review/raise schedule and any anticipated reviews’raises in the near future. If you know what you want in your next salary, say so and put the ball in the employers hands to deliver. If you don’t know what you want, say that finding the right opportunity is the top priority and you trust that the right employer will come to the table with an acceptable salary. That’s it, now you’ve disclosed your salary history and your expectations; and the employer by agreeing to continue interviewing you has understood that in order to get you, they’ll need to hit your specified salary requirements. Now all you have to do is interview like you’re worth every penny and wait for the offer to come through. Of course, there are techniques that you’ll want to implement throughout the interview process in order to ensure you’ll be offered a top dollar salary, but we’ll save those for another post.
Good luck!!
Your Employees Presence on Social Media Can Benefit You
What do the CIA and Microsoft have in common? They both take advantage of their employee’s presence on social 
media sites as a way to leverage their recruitment process. With the help of social media and your employee’s networks, you as an employer can do the same. Here are some ways to build your own personal recruitment army through the use of social media and your employees.
- Have employees contribute to company specific Blogs that gives potential hires a look at what it is like to work at your company, or how the hiring process works
An example of this is Microsoft’s Jobs Blog. Recruiters from Microsoft created this Blog for potential employees to get a behind-the-scenes look at Microsoft’s hiring process and careers. It is also a place to check out the best tips and tricks for job hunting, resume writing, interviewing and working at Microsoft.
- Create a company Facebook page or group and have employees point potential candidates to those sites
Oracle has a company Facebook page for their company recruiting needs. On this page they list company information, videos, hiring needs, events and talks about the Oracle campus.
- Create a company Twitter account with your employee feeds feeding into it, or encourage your employees with Twitter accounts to post updates about company information and news updates
Zappos.com is a perfect example of a company that uses Twitter in its recruitment process. They have a dedicated page on Twitter where 198 of the Twittering Zappos employees’ most recent messages are fed. Employees tweet about what they are doing at work and about interesting resources dealing with Zappos.com.
- Encourage employees to use employer rating sites like Glassdoor.com, Vault.com or Jobvent.com
Here is a post from AskBINC.com listing 10 of the commonly used employer ranking sites. These sites provide an inside look into various companies by allowing those companies current and ex-employees to anonymously post ratings and reviews about life inside the doors of their workplaces.
- Create alumni groups on social networking sites
Yahoo has set up the Yahoo Alumni group on Facebook with over 2,946 members who currently work for or have worked for Yahoo. It’s a place for alumni to reconnect, network and share stories. It is also a great place to let the members of the group know when your company is hiring.
- Get employees to advertise the job on their LinkedIn profile by creating a status update when a new position open up or setup a Custom Company Profile on LinkedIn
This new feature on LinkedIn allows brands to set up their own profile page, which provides an overview of the business, as well as insight from current employees and recruitment agencies. It also allows companies to add a tab for careers.
- Create a Youtube channel and allow employees to post videos about their experiences working there. Add videos about your interview and on boarding process
Google does a great job at this with their Google Youtube Channel, where they post videos like this one An Inside Look At Google – Working at Google.
- Make a recruitment video or upload photos to a company career site and ask employees to share it with their networks
Intel does this in their recruitment efforts. On their career site they have a new interactive portion where visitors can see a short virtual representation of what the Intuit offices are like along with pop-up videos and photos
On Adobe’s career site, they feature a professionally produced video showing a day in the life of several Adobe employees. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, one of the videos shows a designer in San Francisco beginning his day surfing in the ocean at 6 a.m. and then follows him through his work day.
- Ask employees to include an RSS feed of your open jobs on their personal blogs and networking sites or add the Facebook Come Work With Me Application to their profile
The Facebook Come Work With Me application is for employee referrals and job searching. This application is for organizations that use the PageUp People as a recruitment management solution. This application allows users to display jobs on their profile page for all their friends to view and apply to.
- Offer a bonus to employees who refer potential candidates
- Use your Blog as a job board and when a new job gets posted ask employees to push the link out to their Twitter network
Top 10 Interviewing Etiquette Rules
Working as the in between guy, the recruiters at BINC are constantly receiving feedback from clients and candidates regarding their experience with interviewing. With this feedback we have been able to offer up useful tips and tricks on having a successful interview process, but not every candidate we have dealt with took our words of wisdom to heart. If you want to go into an interview and leave a positive impression there are certain things to avoid. Below we have listed 10 interviewing bloopers, read them and learn what NOT to do on an interview
- Keep all articles of clothing on while interviewing – We had a candidate go into an interview, take off his shoes and proceeded to sit cross legged in the chair while the interview went on.
- Make eye contact with the interviewer – We had a candidate stare out the window the entire time he was talking and never once made eye contact with the interviewer.
- Keep all badmouthing to yourself – Don’t discuss past lawsuits, fights with your manager/coworker, sexual exploits, etc.
- Dress to the companies’ dress code – Do not go in for an interview wearing spandex and a dog collar or as if you are attending a funeral.
- Turn your cell phone off or on silent – Do not answer your cell phone during the interview, you are there to impress the interviewer not the person on the other end of the phone.
- Let them know how hard of a worker you are – We had a candidate who explained that he wanted this to be his last job and he didn’t want to work very hard going forward.
- Keep bathroom behavior exactly there, in the bathroom – Think of your interview as a first date. You want to make an amazing first impression, so anything that will send the interviewer running for cover, avoid it.
- Save the drama fo yo mama – So you have sent your resume to 100 different places and received no call backs. The interviewer doesn’t want to hear it. You are there to impress them not get a free physiatrist appointment out of it.
- Heed the need to use inappropriate language – Imagine holding a conversation with your grandmother, would you use slang words, references to age, race, religion, politics, or sexual preferences?
- Keep your entourage at home – As much as you might want to prove you are a team player, go into interviews alone. The only thing bringing your posse with you will not prove is you are not willing to separate social life from work life.
Evaluating a Job? Top 10 Things To Think About
You have just finished up your phone interview with a new potential employer. The interview went amazing and the hiring manager was more than impressed with what you had to offer the company, so he invites you in to meet with him and a few other members of their team. You accept the interview with some hesitation and wonder to yourself, “Do I really want to work there?”
Click to continue reading “Evaluating a Job? Top 10 Things To Think About”
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