Don’t be negative. Not ever. Especially not during a job interview.
In fact, making unpleasant comments is a turnoff when you’re conducting a job search.
“Don’t sound like a complainer,” urges Vincent Chiera, executive vice president of JWCharles Financial Services Inc., a national investment banking firm based in Boca Raton, Fla.
Even though Chiera’s important advice is couched in negative terms, his message is positively on target.
“Being negative is a turnoff,” says Chiera, who supervises the firm’s recruitment efforts and interviews some 250 job applicants each year.
Here are two of his don’t’s:
1. Don’t bad-mouth your present or former employer, even if you have legitimate complaints. Find something positive to say or avoid the topic completely.
2. Don’t use negative words. Turn them into positives that will reflect well on you. For instance, instead of saying how “bored” you were in your previous job, assert that you’re “looking for a new challenge.”
– More interviewing tips. A job seeker was surprised during a job interview when a recruiter asked, “Are you interviewing anywhere else?”
How do you answer such a question and what actually is meant by it?
Even I was surprised to hear this one, because I consider it a completely unprofessional line of questioning. It’s really not anyone’s business and is designed to put you at a disadvantage. If the answer is no, does that indicate you have no idea of where else to look for a job? If the answer is yes, does it mean you’re not sincere about wanting to work for this particular company?
The best way to handle the question is to smile and quietly say: “Yes, of course I am. I’m on a serious job hunt. But your company is first on my list.”
The recruiter also wanted to know if any company had made a job offer. Even if one had, I would also deflect the question by replying, “Not yet.”
And keep on looking.
– The aging population. An estimated 22.4 million U.S. households are providing informal–and often unpaid–care to a friend or relative age 50 or over, according to the National Alliance for Caregiving and the American Association of Retired Persons.
Most elder caregivers are female, reports the Women’s Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor, which adds that women make up 72 percent of those who are unpaid. Balancing work with taking care of the elderly can be daunting if you don’t know what support, advice or assistance is available.
To help ease the strain of such responsibility for both women and men, the bureau has published a guide titled “Work and Elder Care: Facts for Caregivers and Their Employers.” To obtain a free copy, call 800-827-5335.
– A puzzlement. The U.S. unemployment rate is at an all-time low and hiring for high-tech jobs seems to be going on at a frenzied pace. Yet the “Garden of Cyberspace” for technical jobs isn’t as welcoming to those over 50, and many readers complain the discrimination starts as young as age 40.
“You would think this wouldn’t be possible when companies supposedly are beating the bushes for employees and are asking for reduced immigration limits to meet the shortages,” a puzzled observer says.
The quandary comes down to this: Is there really a shortage of qualified techies or is something else going on here? I believe that the shortages are not general but in very specialized fields, and therefore are a serious problem for companies in those particular areas.
But what also is going on is age discrimination: The world of cyberspace reeks not only of male cologne but also of very young, male cologne
– Book beat. Here’s an excerpt of interest from a new book that pertains to the world of work: “We’re fortunate to live in a society that is acknowledging our responsibilities as well as our need to raise our children to be the best people they can be. Finally, we can . . . leave early to get to a Little League game, ask to work from home if a daughter is sick or take a son’s call during a meeting to help with his homework.”
From: “Working Mothers 101: How to Organize Your Life, Your Children and Your Career to Stop Feeling Guilty and Start Enjoying It All,” by Katherine Wyse Goldman (HarperPerennial, $13).
– Coach’s tip. Organization is the key to success on the job and at home for all workers–especially employed Moms and Dads.
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Carol Kleiman’s columns appear in the Tribune on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Send e-mail to ckleiman @tribune.com. She appears at 8:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. Sundays on CLTV’s “Jobs Plus.”
