In this week’s episode, we are focusing on the interview process; how to prepare for interviews, how to handle the tough questions about job gaps, former employers, and the dreaded money talk. And to add in an extra layer of complication in this whole new world since the pandemic, you also may be interviewing remotely for the first time and need to prepare for the uniqueness of that as well. I have been in HR for over twenty years and have done what seems like millions of interviews and they can be hard! You may feel like there are some “gotcha” questions, which are not intentional but just may be hard to answer if you aren't prepared - but don’t worry, you will have everything you need to handle all those questions! I also share with you my Interview Preparation Guide to help you shine your brightest at the interview!
In this episode, you will specifically learn…
Link mentioned…
I’m Karen Weeks, the CEO & Chief Shine Officer (aka transformation coach) at KDW Coaching, the host of the Shine at Work podcast, award winning culture leader (currently leading the People team at Ordergroove), a speaker and published author. My purpose is to help career-oriented humans get unstuck so they can shine bright in business and in life. And I know how that feels, I navigated a career from theatre & the arts to HR (with lots of twists and turns there) to expanding my career into coaching as well. I live in NYC with my husband and furry babies!
Connect with Me!
Welcome to the Shine at Work Podcast! On this show, your co-hosts Karen and Dan will shine a light on your job search so you can land a role that lets you flex your strengths and progress your career in an environment you actually look forward to working in each day. From creating a stand-out resume, to confidently negotiating your salary, to finding your footing as a new manager, you can expect to hear actionable advice to help you shine your brightest in your role.
Karen D. Weeks is the CEO and Chief Career Coach of Shine at Work Coaching. She has over twenty years of HR experience, including as CPO at Ordergroove.
Dan Carr is a Shine at Work Career Coach with over a decade of recruiting experience helping high-growth startups expand with top talent.
Connect with Us!
In this week’s episode, we are focusing on the interview process; how to prepare for interviews, how to handle the tough questions about job gaps, former employers, and the dreaded money talk. And to add in an extra layer of complication in this whole new world since the pandemic, you also may be interviewing remotely for the first time and need to prepare for the uniqueness of that as well. I have been in HR for over twenty years and have done what seems like millions of interviews and they can be hard! You may feel like there are some “gotcha” questions, which are not intentional but just may be hard to answer if you aren't prepared - but don’t worry, you will have everything you need to handle all those questions! I also share with you my Interview Preparation Guide to help you shine your brightest at the interview!
In this episode, you will specifically learn…
Link mentioned…
I’m Karen Weeks, the CEO & Chief Shine Officer (aka transformation coach) at KDW Coaching, the host of the Shine at Work podcast, award winning culture leader (currently leading the People team at Ordergroove), a speaker and published author. My purpose is to help career-oriented humans get unstuck so they can shine bright in business and in life. And I know how that feels, I navigated a career from theatre & the arts to HR (with lots of twists and turns there) to expanding my career into coaching as well. I live in NYC with my husband and furry babies!
Connect with Me!
Welcome to the Shine at Work Podcast! On this show, your co-hosts Karen and Dan will shine a light on your job search so you can land a role that lets you flex your strengths and progress your career in an environment you actually look forward to working in each day. From creating a stand-out resume, to confidently negotiating your salary, to finding your footing as a new manager, you can expect to hear actionable advice to help you shine your brightest in your role.
Karen D. Weeks is the CEO and Chief Career Coach of Shine at Work Coaching. She has over twenty years of HR experience, including as CPO at Ordergroove.
Dan Carr is a Shine at Work Career Coach with over a decade of recruiting experience helping high-growth startups expand with top talent.
Connect with Us!
Hello my friends welcome to the shine network podcast. I'm your host Karen weeks. As a transformation career coach and culture and people leader. My goal is to help career oriented humans get unstuck, so that they can shine brighter in business and in life. I believe that you deserve a career that lights you up. Because spoiler alert, it also impacts how bright you shine in your life. This season. Each week, we will focus on a key skill that you need to shine at work, and inspirational stories on ways to navigate your career. Because I know what it feels like when your light is dim. I made a career change from theater to HR, and now expanded to coaching. And at times in my life, I had to take a look deep inside to see what was most important, what made me shine bright, and make adjustments along the way. It's possible. I did it, my guest did it, and I help others do it every day. I hope you walk away from each episode not just inspired, but with some actionable advice. And I hope that you find it so valuable that you subscribe to the podcast, leave a review and tell your friends because we all deserve to shine bright in our lives, specifically at work. Okay, let's jump in into this week's episode. Hi, everyone, welcome to this week's episode of the shine at work Podcast. I'm so excited to have you here. It truly means so much to me. When people come back time over time to listen to these episodes. I really hope that you find them helpful. actionable, inspiring. And hey, if this happens to be the first one that you're listening to, thank you, welcome. I hope that you walk away, feeling much more confident in how to handle your job, search your career, any ways that you are trying to really broaden your journey within your career, so that you can really shine your brightest. So today, we are specifically focusing on interviews. So this is something that I work a lot with, with my clients. I have been in HR for over 20 years and have done millions of interviews, it probably feels like. So sometimes they're hard. And you're not sure how to handle things. Sometimes you feel like there's some questions out there that are a little gotcha, which is not the intent, but it might feel that way. And sometimes, especially if you're making a career change, you just aren't sure how to answer some of the questions. So today, we're really going to focus on how to prepare for job interviews, specifically how to answer either those uncomfortable job questions or questions that you just don't know how to answer. So that is our focus for today. So before we dive in and actually tackle some of those questions, I want to give just some headlines around some basic interview prep, because a lot of people may not have experienced interviewing, or you haven't interviewed in a really long time, or you're interviewing remotely for the first time and you're used to going into an office. And now this is a very different setting if you're going to be interviewing remotely. So just a couple of things to consider as you prep for your interviews that are good for no matter what. So first of all, take the time to really research the company, the person you're going to be talking to, and the position. It is so frustrating as the interviewer. When I'm in a situation where it is clear the person doesn't know who I am doesn't know anything about my background, doesn't know what our company does. You don't have to be an expert. And if it's unclear, that's okay, too. You can ask those questions, but at least have some concept of what you're interviewing for. When you go into those conversations. You want to be ready to match your strengths to the job that you're applying for this. So this actually ties back to that research. Know the job that you are talking about, know the details of what was posted in that job description so that you can best answer these questions. If it's a project manager role, be ready with those stories of great times that you stayed really organized, meet deadlines, worked with different people. So that implies that you are a good project manager. So really be ready to talk about your strengths with the particular job in mind. You also want to make sure you have questions that you want to ask. So you're interviewing them just like they're interviewing you. So think about what's going to be important to you. What questions do you literally want didn't have answers to like you just don't know the answer yet. About the company, the job, whatever the case may be, think about questions to ask the interviewer. So what's something interesting in their background, or what's a perspective from them specifically that you want to know? Maybe they're up here on the team. So you want to have some better insight into what it's actually like to do this job. You may want to ask about career development or different perks that the accompany offers that are really important to you and you want to make sure you're better understanding those non negotiables that you've thought about when you're thinking about this next step in your career. So think about really insightful questions too. ask them, do not have it be just surface level, what are the hours? What am I supposed to wear? It's fine. If towards the end, those are some of the lingering questions. But think about what you want to know out of this conversation with this person that you're talking to? And what can you really gain out of those questions and answers, then, as we think about for the rest of this conversation, really think about how you're going to answer some difficult questions. Be honest with yourself, do you have a gap in your resume, or a skill that doesn't totally align with what the job is, or it's a new industry for you, you know, they're going to ask you about it. So be ready for it. And more on that soon. So I'm just gonna say that for now, the last two suggestions I have as you prep for an interview is one actually practice out loud. This may be uncomfortable for you, this may feel cheesy or awkward. You don't have to do it in front of a mirror if you don't want to. But really take the time to say your answers out loud, say them to a partner or roommate, record yourself saying them so you can get some feedback. Or you can hear what it actually sounds like when you're answering some of your questions, so that you feel comfortable with how you're saying it. Or you can do make some adjustments based on what you're hearing or the feedback that you might get from a friend. By the way, this is where the remote piece comes in as well. Practice getting on a zoom, if you're not comfortable with it, what is your background actually look like? Do you need to shut the door? Do you need to shut the window? Do you want to have bigger headphones because they're easier for you to focus like one reason why I really wear these headphones all the time is it blocks so much other things out that it really helps me focus. Even if it makes me look like Princess Leia. Sometimes, I like to think it makes me look like a professional podcaster. But I also recognize it looks like Princess Leia, which is fine, too. And then finally, as you think about prepping for your interviews, think about any other things that you need to do to prep your space, in your mind space, before you have your interview. Do you need to block your calendar for 15 minutes beforehand, so you can take some breaths and get some water use the bathroom? Even before you have your interview? If you are going to be in person, have you blocked off enough time to actually get there? Do you know how to get there? Do you know how long it's going to take what subways you need to do what roads you need to drive, is there parking? Do you need a badge like you have to go through security. So you need to make time for that to really actually map out the time around the interviewer. So that you're able to once you're in that room, or once you're on that call, truly focus on what's happening in front of you. So those are some tips that are good, in my humble opinion for any interview you may have. Now let's talk about what happens when you get some of those tough questions that we all know you're gonna get. So I have a couple of different categories. So let's kind of go through all of them. One is around job gaps. So is that are there gaps of time on your resume where you weren't working? One thing I want to share is that especially over the last couple of years, so starting in, you know, early 2020 gaps are very common, either you are impacted by the pandemic and you were laid off, you may have had to take some time because you or someone in your close circle got sick, you may have decided that, you know, I need to do some self reflection during all of this pandemic and social injustice and tough elections and now wars in other countries and everything that is going on. Maybe there were just times where you had to take some time off, or you needed the space to look for a job. And so you went ahead and resigned ahead of time from your previous company. So all of those things are totally okay. All of those things are legitimate. They're always legitimate, but especially the last couple years, they are even more so legitimate. Just be ready to answer the question. And you do not need to give your full life story, you may say I just needed to take a break to deal with some personal issues or to focus on some personal things going on or to, you know, take some time to refresh as I thought about my job or I was laid off. Unfortunately, my company was impacted during the pandemic and I was one of the people that was laid off. Just be ready to give you an answer. And again, you don't have to go into all these details or like the sob story or anything that you don't feel comfortable sharing. So that's another reason why it goes back to that practice, right? Know how you want to answer it. See the words out loud? Do those feel natural to you? Are you able to work through it without stumbling? So just be ready? How are you going to talk about any job gaps on your resume. And by the way, if you are a parent that has taken time off at times, or honestly, if you are a child caring for an elderly parent, and it was a bigger gap to care for someone, that's okay too. And you may even want to talk about what you were doing during that time to stay engaged in your career. You in your industry, maybe the answer is nothing because you didn't have any time because you're taking care of another human. But if you were doing things, what can you say during that time? Or if you were involved with like the PTA, or you know, leading a Girl Scout troop or something, talk about, you know, the things that you were doing during that time? If, if it's true, if it's appropriate, if you feel comfortable talking about it. All right, my friends, we are getting towards the mid part of the year. How are you doing against your career goals? Are you feeling a little stuck? Were you hoping to make more progress than you have? Have you talked to your manager about hoping to get a promotion or make an internal move or take on new projects, and you haven't seen that quite come to fruition yet. Or maybe you're approaching the middle of the year and you're going, Oh, my God, I still have no idea what I want to do, or I don't know what I want my goals to be over the next couple of years, or for the rest of this year, even? Well, let me tell you how I can help you. We talk a lot about career changers on this podcast. And that's true. A lot of folks that I work with are trying to make some sort of career change. But I also work a lot with people who are just trying to identify their career goals, and figure out where they want to go in their career. And it's very possible that there are lots of opportunities at your current role. Or maybe you just found that new opportunity, and you're trying to set yourself up for success in your new company. Either way, I can help you identify what your goals need to be, how to talk to your manager about them, and then really identify a path forward to really help you achieve all those things that you're looking to achieve in your career. So if you're trying to figure out how to be successful this year, or in the future years, and you need a little help, let's connect, I can help you figure out a path forward and really make sure that you are shining at work for the rest of this year and in future years. Okay, so the next tough question that sometimes come up is questions about either past jobs, past managers or past employers. You usually people think this is a tough question, if that was a tough relationship. So you didn't get along with your manager, you felt like your last company was really toxic, you got let go or fired because your performance was not up to the standards of the last company. That's usually when this feels tougher. If you had a good relationship with your last manager. It's easy. They were great. This is why we got along. I learned so much from them. Obviously, that does not make it as tough of a question. So let's focus on when it is a tough question, because some of those negative aspects of previous jobs may be coming through. So let's focus first on a job that you were let go of because of performance. Or maybe you chose to leave because it wasn't the right match for you. Here, you really can focus on a couple of different things. One, you can be honest, you can say it wasn't the job for me, I tried it out, I thought it was going to work. This is why I was excited about it. But to be honest, it just was not the right fit for me. And so I decided to step away from it or we mutually agreed it was time to move on. I can talk about that with my compensation role I had a bunch of years ago, while I was able to find another job within that company. When I talk about that time, I'm very honest, I say I tried something new, I stepped into this role. It was not the right fit for a lot of different reasons. It wasn't the right fit for my skill set, I didn't enjoy it, it was hard for me to pick up, my manager and I were not the right fit. So I'm so thankful that I was able to find something else within the organization. But if that hadn't worked, I would have said said those things and said, so it made sense to move on. And that's all you need to say, if it is a tough manager situation, you can reference the fact that you have learned what kinds of managers work well for you, and what managers are not the right fit for you. And the things that you're looking for in your next manager are A, B and C. And by the way, a b and c is not not a jerk, not someone who micromanage is like turn it more into a positive. I know it is so hard when you have gone through something difficult with a person or a company to let that seep through. You want to make sure that you are putting your best foot forward in these interviews. So when you're talking about a manager, for example, you don't want to put down that manager they have may have been the worst manager in the whole entire world. That story does not behoove you in order to get your next job. What helps you is to talk about how you handled it when you realized it wasn't a good fit. So I was working for a manager we just had very different styles we weren't able to get on the same page. What I've learned from that situation is I need a manager who is x or I'm hoping to find a manager that is why I are a company that helps managers and employees work better together. That those are the things that you want to talk about as you think about what's coming up next, versus sort of bashing that previous manager. There are companies that people feel very strongly about that do not make the best decisions. Again, especially over the last couple of years, I've had lots of candidates tell me when I'm interviewing them, I, my company's forcing me go to go back to the office, I don't want to do that. Or I didn't think my company handled some of the George Floyd conversations or some of the Black Lives Matter conversations. I don't think they have a real commitment to diversity. I think they are not supporting us enough as we go through XY and Z. So again, when you're focusing on what the gap is, with the previous situation, not saying things are a toxic environment, and the reason why you don't want to say that I know what company you're talking about, I can see your resume. So if you work for company X, and you're starting to badmouth them, I'll know that you're talking about Company X, I worry if it doesn't work out with us, what if you started bad mouthing us. So instead, again, for all of these things, focus on what the gaps were, what you're looking to be different, what you've learned, those are the things that are important. And if you can't talk about it, because something really tough happened, or you kind of don't want to talk about it, because something really tough happened, what you can say is, I really respect my manager or my company, whatever, I don't want to get into too many details at our respect for that relationship. What I can say is, I've learned what's really important to me, or I learned what I really excel in, or I would learn more about what I need as an employee or the support I'm looking for from a company. So it's okay to not go into those details. What I encourage you to do is, again, practice those phrases. So know how you're going to handle that conversation when it comes up, know how you are going to hold your emotions at bay. Because again, I get it, it's raw, we've all been there. But instead of going negative in the conversation, or bashing someone or bashing a previous situation, focusing more on you know, this is what I've learned from it. This is why I don't think it worked out, this is what I'm looking for differently. That is the kind of phrasing that a recruiter will say, I get it, we've all been there. We've all been in jobs that didn't work out for whatever reason, I'm excited to still talk to you about why this might be a better situation for you. Okay, another conversation that people feel very uncomfortable with is around compensation. Now, some industries in different cultures may have different thoughts around this, really big companies that may be public, for example, or may have very strong infrastructure as part of their sort of company policy may or may not be as open with their compensation for a variety of very valid reasons. So there's two different ways you can handle the compensation conversation. One, no matter what, make sure you've done your research, know what you are worth, know what you literally need to be making for your own personal finances, and do some research in the market, whether that's on indeed or Glassdoor or salary.com, to get a sense of different ranges for this role, if you're not already familiar with it. But I usually challenge people to ask the company first. They may or may not tell you, like I said, they may legitimately not be able to tell you, or they may not have a culture where that's what they do. But I can at least ask them about their philosophy around things and see what I can learn. So, Karen, tell me about your compensation goals. And by the way, it will most of the time be about compensation goals, because in many states, I can't ask you what you make today. That was enacted over the last couple of years as pay equity was really coming more and more to the forefront. So there are states where I literally cannot ask you what you make. But what I can ask is what your compensation goals are. Or if you're a salesperson, I can ask if you hit your commission targets or your quota targets to better understand your success as a salesperson. So, Karen, tell me about your compensation goals. Well, I'm still learning the market for this role, especially as I take this change in my career, or especially as I think about this next step in my career, I'm still doing my own research on what the value of that role is in the market. Before I share some thoughts on my side, I would love to better understand how your organization thinks about compensation. Is there a bonus with this role? Is there equity, do you have a range are willing to share so that I can better understand how you think about compensation? That that Put It On Me as the recruiter or the interviewer to share more about how my company thinks about compensation. So I can tell you more information about how we think about compensation is our bonuses, their commissions, how we value equity of equities, a piece of it. I can also tell you more about different perks as well. I can talk about health benefits, if everything is paid for or other perks that we offer, do we have a 401 K match, like anything that's going to sort of tie into what all of the things are the total rewards package, if you join this organization, I then may still turn to you and say, how does that fit within your range? Or what are you looking for, but hopefully, that starts to give you some other ideas about, well, maybe there is a bonus. And so maybe you're willing to be a little more flexible on the base, because the total rewards is something that's available to you. So those are the different things to consider as you are thinking about compensation. Know what you're worth, no matter what or know what your number is, at least in your head no matter what, then be willing to ask tough questions around. What does your company think about compensation? What is your philosophy could you be would you be willing to share your range. And then at the end of the day, just be ready to have a number in mind, because at some point prior to the offer, hopefully earlier on, so you know that you're not totally misaligned, you are going to want to better understand what you are willing to accept. And if it's earlier in the process, give them a little bit higher, like 10% higher than what your basement is because you want to have room to negotiate, but know what your number is. So that you are going in strong into that negotiation phase of the process, or you feel like you're setting you're setting yourself up with a strong enough foot in the beginning. So finally, another question that I get from clients a lot about the interview process is how to handle the whole failure question or weakness or struggle or anything that's sort of the negative version of your strengths. And I think here, really, the interviewer is trying to better understand what you learned in those moments. How did you handle it? We've all failed, we've all struggled, we all have a weakness. But what did you do to power through? Or how did you make sure you didn't have that issue again, in the future? So think about a time where you legitimately struggled, you failed you whatever phrase you want to use? What happened? What did you do in the moment? And then what did you learn from it? How did you handle the feedback when you realized it wasn't going well? What did you do? All of the things. So those are things to consider is focus less on the failure, don't gloss over it. That's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying come up with my biggest failures that I care too much, no, don't ever let those words come out of your mouth, please. But what you can say is, you know, one of the times I've had the biggest learning in my career was when I worked on a project. And I did so much work on it before getting feedback. And I realized that I ended up wasting a lot of time and energy before studying starting to get some feedback, because I would have made some adjustments along the way. And I wish I had done that earlier on. So next time I had a project like that, I really made sure that I built in feedback moments and asked some of my key stakeholders, this is the direction I'm going, what do you think, so that I didn't waste all that time of trying to create this perfect thing, without knowing if it was even going to add value. So that's the way I definitely shared a time that I struggled or I made a mistake, or I had a failure. But this is how I learned from it. And this is what I did differently. So finally, before I wrap, I just also want to share how you should in general frame your answers. So there are lots of different methods out there. One is the STAR method. But there are other sort of frameworks. But for me, it's very, very simple. What is the situation that you were in? What was your task? Or what was your part of that situation? What happened? What was the outcome? And then what did you learn? So we were working on this project as a team, we were all trying to get to this particular goal. My responsibility on the team was this. We ended up missing the deadline by a couple of days or we ended up exceeding the expectations. And so this is what we did differently next time or because we were able to exceed it. This is what I learned from that so I can do it again. So what was going on? What was your role in it? What was the outcome? And then what did you learn or what did you do differently next time. That's kind of the framework that you want to use in order to focus on your answers. It will help you stay focused. It will help you stay concise, but it'll also give you the information that recruiter is looking for. And then just one bonus topic. I know there is a lot of conversation around behavioral interviews. Tell me about a time A wet, that is really an opportunity for the recruiter to learn more about things you've actually done versus philosophical answers. It's very easy for me to give a great answer on how do you handle conflict? Well, let me give you the textbook answer of everything I know about the right way to handle conflict. Great. Tell me about a time you didn't get along with a team member? How did you handle it? Oh, now I actually have to give you a good example of both a time I was in conflict and how I handled it and what I learned from it. That is much more meaningful for me as a recruiter because I better understand or an interview or a hiring manager, whoever I am, because now I actually understand how you handle these things versus philosophically How do you answer it? Because most likely, philosophically, you'll give a good answer. So don't be thrown by behavioral questions, they will most likely come up. But that's why they're asking them. So you want to give some detail, you want to have some stories available. And as part of this podcast, I'll actually share an interview guide that I share with my clients, that has a lot of the information we already talked about. But it also gives examples of some behavioral interviews that are very common that you may get. So as always, I want these episodes to both be helpful and inspiring, but also very action oriented. So what interviews do you have coming up? Where do you feel the most confident in your interviews? And where do you need a little help? What are the tough questions that you are most nervous about? And what are some ways that you can work through them to get to a better place so that you do have the confidence to get through it? interview prep is one of the key pieces that I work with my clients on once we figure out where they actually want to go and figured out all their branding, then we do a lot of prep around interviews. It's a part of the unstuck process that will truly unleash your ability to be strong in your job search. So if you are anxious about how to tell your story, or answer some of these tough questions, reach out to me. And I can help because the path to your amazing next career is right in front of you and you can do it but you have to be ready. Then once you've crushed those interviews, you will be ready to shine at work and in life. Thank you so much for listening to the shine at work podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe and leave a review. Leaving a review takes just a few minutes and truly helps other people find the podcast. If you want to learn more about how I work with people to help transform their careers, and shine brightly in their lives. Let's connect. I work with amazing humans one on one to help them make a career change, go for that promotion, set career goals and build a plan for success for a new job. I also lead group programs for new managers that are navigating this huge change in their careers and entrepreneurs who are building their teams for the first time. If any of that sounds like it could be helpful for you. You can email me directly at Karen at Karen de weeks.com or message me through Instagram LinkedIn or my website. I just want to give a final shout out as always to astronaut go home for our music and novice studios for making the podcast come to life. Until next time, remember that you can and deserve to shine at work