The importance of skills will vary from job to job and from company to company. Some companies are so adamant about skill requirements they'll insist that you take some sort of test. Other companies, if they are impressed with you, may waive a skill requirement, on the understanding that you'll undergo special training. Here again, the smaller and more loosely structured the company, the more flexible the policy.
It makes no sense to misrepresent the level of your skills: you'll be found out soon enough. But if you think you're reasonably close to the skill requirements set down in a particular job situation; be honest in your resume, but draw attention to what you think makes your situation unique. "It's true," you might say, "that I've never designed book jackets. But I've designed record album covers and the same basic principles apply."
Your Personal Assets: Don't Underestimate Them
"Qualifications are important," said one of the respondents in Burke survey, "but it's the whole person I'm interested in. How does that person come across? How enthusiastic is this person. How positive is this person-that's so important."
The comment typifies those we received in our survey, and it helps explain one of the more interesting findings in the survey -one that suggests that most personnel executives and most top management executives will overlook job experience (within reason, of course) if you impress them enough with your personal assets, your potential.
Again, your personal assets may not be enough in many situations to overcome your shortcomings in job experience and skills. But, at the same time, personal qualities can keep you in the running. They can give you the edge over candidates who may outdistance you in qualifications but not in personal assets.
Consider the case of a statistician I once knew whom we'll call Jane. Well, she used to be statistician. Jane was one of twelve statisticians working for a Wall Street brokerage firm, but she was not a very good statistician and the company decided she had to go.
There was only one problem. Jane was one heck of an employee-dependable, prompt, and pleasant to be around, a very hard worker. So what did the company do? At the meeting when the officers were making up their mind to fire Jane, they decided instead to train her to become a registered "rep"-a job that paid more money and had a better future. One of the officers explained to me: "You get an employee like her once in a blue moon. We had to find a place for her."
Jane is only one of many examples I could cite to show how important personality factors can be when you're looking for a job. Years ago our company was asked by a large advertising agency to find an executive to head their financial division. They insisted they wanted somebody with an extensive background in advertising. But one day a man whose last job had been with the U.S. government came into our office. He impressed me so much with his intelligence, his confidence, and his worldliness that I called the agency president and told him I had a person I thought he should see, never mind the fact that he'd never worked in advertising. The man got the job.
So, if you haven't already done so, take an inventory of your personal assets with a special eye toward what employers are looking for. Be alert to your strengths, but don't overlook your weaknesses-the things about you that might discourage a potential employer from hiring you.
To help you take this inventory, I've drawn up a list of the characteristics and traits that our surveys have found count the most in most job situations. In each case, my chief concern is how these traits affect the hiring decision. It's up to you to evaluate yourself in every area and, on the basis of this evaluation, to take the steps suggested.
You're Appearance
It is a reasonable assumption, based on the findings of our surveys, that within the first two minutes of any personal meeting with somebody who has the power to hire you or screen you out, the decision has pretty much been made. That's how strongly first impressions affect the hiring decision, and this is why the way you look is so important to your job search strategy.
Let me point out quickly here, before you get the wrong idea that you don't have to look like a movie star in order to make a "favorable" first impression. Our surveys show that less than 5 percent of personnel directors consider physical attractiveness "very important" in a hiring decision. Some studies show, in fact, that exceptionally attractive people, particularly attractive women, may be at something of a disadvantage in certain job situations. "It's a prejudice, I admit," is how one personnel director puts it. "But I'm hesitant to hire a woman who is too pretty because I figure somebody is going to come along and marry her very quickly. Besides, if a woman is really good-looking, she's going to disrupt the office environment. The men in the office won't pay enough attention to their work."
But let's not overstate the case. All things considered, it's better to be exceptionally attractive than exceptionally unattractive. Why should it matter in most job situations? Well, it shouldn't, but we're all guilty of making judgments and drawing conclusions about a person simply on the basis of the way he or she looks or is dressed. I know of situations in which a candidate has been turned down because the interviewer took exception to his beard. I know of personnel executives who won't hire redheads. And our survey indicates that as many as 75 percent of personnel executives will bypass a substantially overweight candidate in favor of a thinner, similarly qualified candidate.
It gives me no pleasure to make this point. Prejudice is prejudice whether it is based on race or religion or weight or height or anything that has no true bearing on a person's ability to do a particular job. Worse, while there are legal sanctions designed to control job discrimination on the basis of religion, age, sex, and race, there isn't much legal protection for somebody who is losing out because he or she is too homely, or doesn't dress in a manner that impresses the interviewer.
The problem here, of course, isn't so much that you are a certain way, but that certain aspects of your appearance will lead people to make conclusions about you, whether these conclusions are justified or not (and they're usually not). I once went on the To Tell the Truth television show as the real. I was defending the rights of fat people, who are often unjustly discriminated against. Talking to the producers ahead of time, I was surprised to learn that in the sixteen years the show had been on the air, panel members had failed to choose the person who was telling the truth nearly two thirds of the time. Think of it: there are only three people to choose from, and most of the people on the panel are "experts," who've been making choices for years. This shows you how much people can be influenced by personality and appearance. To be fat, in the eyes of many people, is to be lazy and unhealthy; to be short, in the eyes of others, is to be hostile and pushy. Simply being a woman, to the typical male chauvinist, means to be "fragile" and "emotional."
These stereotypes are maddening, but you can deal with them only up to a point. A heavy-set accountant I once placed in a good job knew that some interviewers were going to judge him as being lethargic and unhealthy, so he went out of his way in the interview to emphasize what a hard worker he was and how good an attendance record he'd had at his last job. He also wore a pinstripe suit to give him a more streamlined look.
Now there is a slight danger here that in being overly sensitive to what your interviewer's reaction might be, you overdo your counterattacking strategy. In other words, if you try to convince an interviewer how healthy you are, you can end up making the interviewer suspect there must be something wrong with you. Otherwise, why would you appear so defensive?
All of which brings up a basic dilemma when it comes to appearance. On the one hand, you want your appearance to be your attempt to look a certain way that you end up beating yourself at your own game.
There are two general approaches to the problem. One is simply not to worry about your appearance, other than to meet basic, generally accepted standards for cleanliness, neatness, and good grooming. In other words, you don't change your normal appearance-the way you dress; comb your hair, etc.-just because you're applying for a job.
The advantage of this strategy is that it's easy to carry out: you don't have to work at it. The disadvantage, though, is that what is "normal" for you may trigger, for no logical reason, a negative response from the interviewer. Let's take an extreme. Let's say you're a man who likes to dress Western style, in jeans and boots. Maybe in some companies, nobody cares how you dress; the person who interviews you might even be wearing jeans and boots. But one survey I know of shows that executives would have a negative response if either a man or a woman walked into an interview wearing jeans, even in this day of high-priced designer jeans.
You can't control the quirks of the people who have to pass judgment on you. What's normal and comfortable for you may not be normal and comfortable for them. You see nothing wrong with wearing jeans and boots, but they see you as an oddball, somebody who might not fit in. You win the battle of self-determination: you do your own thing. Somebody else gets the job.
The second strategy-and the one I recommend-is to follow the old adage: When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Play it safe. Avoid extremes. In every facet of appearance, there are certain norms, and you're always better off staying within these norms-at least until you're hired. It may have been okay in your last job to wear your hair (if you're a man) at almost shoulder length, but now that you're in the job market, bite the bullet and get it cut shorter. By the same token (and again if you're a man) if you've always favored a fifties-style crew cut and you're in the job market now, let your hair grow. The same rule applies to women: stick to what is unlikely to draw attention.
Follow the same guidelines in every facet of your appearance, especially when it comes to your clothes. What is trendy and stylish according to Vogue or Gentlemen's Quarterly isn't necessarily appropriate for a job interview. If you're going to err, do soon the side of conservatism. Dress for a job interview as if you were going to a bank to ask for a loan.
Be Comfortable with How You Look
Few of us always look as good as we would like to look, but most of us don't do enough with those aspects of our appearance over which we have a good deal of control. And these features -you're basic grooming, your posture, your clothing, your weight, and the general image you project-are the things that will count most in shaping the attitudes of your interviewers one way or another. If there is a general guideline here, it is this: Don't force it. Avoid extremes (too much makeup, a bizarre hairstyle, way-out clothing, etc.). Avoid the common trap of working so hard to conceal some feature of your appearance that you succeed only in drawing more attention to it. Some specifics:
Your hair: It's the first thing most people notice about you, so keep it clean and have it cut or styled regularly during your job search. Never put anything on your hair that makes it look very shiny or greasy. If you have a dandruff problem, get it under control, and in the meanwhile, don't wear dark clothing.
Are you dyeing it? Covering up or downplaying the gray in your hair will obviously make you look younger, which could help you in some situations. But if you're going to do it-and I, for one, would never advise strongly that you do it-have it done professionally and use restraint. If the wrinkles on your face say you're fifty and the color of your hair says twenty-five, you'll look artificial.
I feel the same way about men wearing hairpieces. Unless you're willing to invest enough money to get a hairpiece that doesn't look like a hair piece, don't waste your money. If an interviewer suspects you're wearing one, it could hurt your chances. You also run the risk that an interviewer will be so distracted by his or her curiosity (they're wondering whether or not the hair is yours) that it interferes with your presentation. For what it's worth, I spend a good deal of time with the top executives of many of the country's largest corporations, and in no case could having gray or white hair, or being bald or nearly bald, be called an obstacle to success.
Your skin: Your complexion is important, but mainly in terms of what it says about the general state of your health. Regardless of the color of your skin, if you spend a reasonable amount of time outdoors every day, it will have a fairly healthy glow.
I know of a few male executives who wear a touch of makeup, but it's a risky business unless you know how to use it and are absolutely certain that no one can detect it.
Cosmetic Surgery: A woman bank executive I heard of recently swears that the best thing she ever did for her career was to have her nose made smaller two years ago. A New York advertising executive insists that he owes his present job to the plastic surgeon who takes care of the heavy bags under his eyes. Am I advocating plastic surgery as a strategy for getting hired? Hardly, but I'm not ruling it out, either. The benefits most people get from plastic surgery are more indirect than direct. People who "correct" what they have long considered a defect feel better about themselves and, as a consequence, handle themselves with more assurance in interviews and similar situations.
View plastic surgery as an option but not a priority. Within reason, most of the facial features that people feel self-conscious about are more worrisome to them than to those they come into contact with. I myself take notice of little things like skin blotches or warts or unusually heavy bags only if the person I'm talking to gives me the feeling that he or she is self-conscious about it; and, even then, it doesn't sway my opinion one way or the other. But if something about your appearance bothers you so much that it diverts your attention away from what you should be concentrating on when you're dealing with people, and if that problem can be corrected without too much expense or risk to your health, then by all means explore the possibility. The more comfortable about your appearance you are, the more overall confidence you will generate. And confidence, in the end, is more important than appearance.
Your height and weight: First, the bad news. Everything else being equal, your chances of getting hired for most good jobs is better if you are tall and slim than if you are short and fat. A number of studies bear this out, including our own. One study, conducted at the University of Pittsburgh, indicates that the taller you are, the higher the starting salary you're likely to get.
Let's not get overly paranoid about these studies. First of all height is generally not a problem area for women. And men have to be noticeably shorter than average before height becomes a major handicap. Even then, if you have enough going for you, you can overcome it. Secondly, your height isn't nearly as important as the presence you are able to generate when you meet people. Even if you are a good deal shorter than average, you can look authoritative. Spend a little more money on your clothes. If necessary, get them custom tailored. Wear expensive-looking white shirts (the contrast between the white shirt and the dark suit is important). Look people in the eye when you talk to them. Exude energy and confidence, and your height becomes secondary.
Weight, however, is a different story. Our company conducted a study in 1974 that showed there were more than four times as many fat executives in the $10,000 to $20,000 range than in the $25,000 to $45,000 range. Other studies show that a noticeably fat man or woman may have only half the chance of getting even a job interview that a normal-weight person would have.
This bias can be explained, if not defended. Forgetting the pure appearance aspect, a lot of employers equate being fat with being lazy or unhealthy. Obesity is also seen, by many people, as a sign that the person lacks self-discipline or has some psychological problem that could interfere with his or her ability to do the job.
If you yourself are noticeably overweight (and being 5 to 10 pounds too heavy is not, in my judgment, being noticeably over-weight), you have one of two options. The first and most obvious is to go on a diet, which is healthy advice regardless of your job status. Secondly, recognize the fact that your obesity may be working against you. Don't mention your weight problem: you may create the impression that you're obsessed by it. Work to counteract the prejudicial notion that because you are overweight, you are a lazy, undisciplined, or unhealthy person. Stress your attendance record at your last job (assuming it's worth stressing). Guard against appearing too lethargic.
What You Wear
The subject is important. Few of us like to admit it, but we are influenced by the way people are dressed, even though it's a superficial method by which to judge a person. Ultimately, of course, you have to dress in a way that compliments your build, your coloring and, in some respects, your personality. But here are some general tips to keep in mind as you're aiming toward this objective:
- Spend as much as you can afford on quality clothing. You are better off with two or three expensive-looking outfits than with five or six cheap-looking outfits. There are enough outlet-type clothing stores around today that offer solid, up-to-date name-brand clothing, but you have to know your way around them. If you don't know much about clothing, ask a friend who is a clotheshorse to help you get what you need.
- Be careful of any clothing item that "types" you. An example for men would be a blazer with a school emblem. Another would be a Western-style outfit.
- When in doubt, be conservative. Avoid severely tailored styles, overly bold colors, overly busy patterns. No ascots, please.
- Go easy on the jewelry. Women should keep it simple. Men: avoid any jewelry that is not functional, and don't wear any item that might be considered feminine.
- Don't stint on your shoes. To spend big dollars on a suit and buy the least expensive shoes you can find is like ordering a Rolls Royce with vinyl upholstery. I've heard of doormen in exclusive New York City restaurants who insist they can gauge the size of the tips they're going to get by the shoes a person is wearing.
- Be extra careful of the tailoring. No clothes will look really good on you; regardless of how expensive they are, if they don't fit you perfectly.
Being in good health will not, in and of itself, get you hired. But any impression you give that you're not in the best of health is a red flag that signals heavily against you. I feel so strongly about this point, I have counseled many candidates to postpone interviews when they felt the slightest bit under the weather. Apart from not looking your best when not feeling well, it's difficult to give a job interview performance under these conditions.
Personality Traits
Depending on the job, of course, certain character traits take on more importance than others. Let's look at these traits in order to see why employers consider them important and the basis on which you're being judged in each instance.
Dependability: "I want somebody I can count on" is a refrain I have heard thousands of times throughout my career. It seems a simple enough requirement, and yet the fear that you might not be dependable could easily get you eliminated from consideration. Dependability, of course, means your ability to show up for work every day on time, to do the job you're supposed to do with a minimum of supervision, to allow your supervisor or boss the luxury of knowing that when you say you're going to do something, you'll get it done.
The importance that employers attach to dependability ex-plains why it is so essential for you to be punctual for appointments. You don't have all that many ways before you start work to demonstrate dependability, so anything you do that suggests otherwise can do nothing but hurt your chances. Try to make sure your references mention how dependable you are. And it doesn't hurt at all, in interviews, to call attention to your dependability as one of your major assets. Frequently in a job interview someone is going to ask you to talk briefly about your assets. I was always impressed by people who came right out and said: "Well, one thing I'd have to say is that if you give me a job to do, you can be sure it's going to get done."
And if you're still not convinced that dependability is an important asset, listen to a story the vice president of public relations for a soft drink company likes to tell. It seems that earlier in his career, he was up for a job he wanted badly and had an interview set for a Saturday morning in the hotel suite of the executives who were evaluating candidates. As luck would have it, that Saturday morning produced one of the worst rain storms in memory-a near hurricane. Even so, the man showed up for the interview and even apologized for being ten minutes late.
"Why would you try to come up here in this terrible weather?" one of the interviewers asked him.
"Because," the man replied, "I said I would be here."
He got the job.
Stability: How well do you deal with pressure? Does it bring out the best in you or do you get jumpy and nervous? Certain jobs have more built-in pressure than others, but your general stability is on the mind of everyone who has to pass judgment on you. It's possible, in fact, that at some time during the interview process, an interviewer will do things or say things deliberately designed to test your emotional stability.
One barometer of stability is your employment record to date. If you haven't stayed at any one job for any substantial length of time, your stability will become suspect and you'll have to address yourself to this suspicion during an interview. Other-wise, it's your basic manner and the way you respond in an interview that's going to indicate your degree of innate stability to the interviewer. Allowances will be made for the fact that you're a little nervous or anxious in the interview, but signs of nervousness or tension that go beyond the norm will raise troublesome questions. "I'm afraid to take a chance with that man (woman) you sent me yesterday," I've heard a client say too many times. "There's something about that person that worries me."
Who's to say what that "something" could be? Maybe it was some nervous habit the candidate had? Maybe it was a way of laughing? Maybe the person talked too loudly, or too softly? I've had clients complain that a candidate appeared to calm in an interview.
Another way you reflect your emotional stability-or lack thereof-is in your dealings with receptionists and secretaries. Justified as you might be, never bully or lose your temper with anybody you deal with when you're job searching. More executives than you might imagine will ask their secretaries to give a general impression of you once you've been through the inter-view. The secretary doesn't have the power to get you hired, but your chances for getting the job aren't going to be helped if you're described as being "difficult" or "abusive."
The likelihood is that stability won't be a problem in your particular case. All the same, here are some of the factors that interviewers tend to equate with a candidate who may have a stability problem:
- Any behavior in the extreme: Being either unusually animated or unusually stiff. Talking much too much or not talking at all. Smiling too much or not smiling at all.
- The inability to stay focused on one point or one question. You hop around from point to point without clearly expressing yourself, without making any sense.
- Disorganization that goes well beyond the norm. General scatterbrainedness-not being able to locate papers in your briefcase or to find a pen in your purse. (I heard of an instance in which a woman dumped the entire contents of her purse on the desk of the man interviewing her in order to find a card she was looking for.)
- Unresponsiveness: You've heard the phrase "like talking to a stone wall." Don't be one.
There are problems with this reasoning. First, the lies you tell, even if believed, may not get you the job. Secondly, if it becomes apparent-and it often does when you misrepresent yourself-that you can't perform in the job in the way you led your employer to believe, you'll most likely be fired on the spot.
Incidentally, you never mention the fact that you're honest. It's assumed. Mention your honesty, and you create the suspicion that you might not be. (Will Richard Nixon ever live down the fact that he once said, "I am not a crook"?)
Drive. As long as you don't give off the impression that you'd shoot your grandmother to further your career, you can't go wrong in most job interview situations by showing drive and ambition. And it's easier than you might think to give the impression that you lack these characteristics. Our survey shows clearly that interviewers like to see assertiveness and aggressiveness in job candidates.
But you have to do more than simply verbalize your desire to achieve. For one thing, your resume is going to make clear just how much of a go-getter you really are If your work experience to date shows no unusually rapid advancement, don't expect any pronouncements you make on the subject to have much impact.
You demonstrate determination and drive by action: by going into a job interview, for instance, armed with facts and figures about the company considering you, filled with ideas on how you might be able to help that company. The fact that you've gone to the trouble of assembling this information says something about you: you are more ambitious than the average person, with more drive to succeed. You won't have to verbalize it
Another way you indicate drive is by asking questions during an interview that relate indirectly to the company's promotion policies. You ask, in passing, how old the executive vice president is, which gives the impression that you're thinking ahead but doesn't suggest that you're not interested in the job at hand. You mention, when the subject comes up, not how ambitious you are, but how seriously you take your career and your job. If you're asked to describe a weakness, you might "confess" that sometimes you set goals for yourself that are too high.
Keep in mind that your desire to "get ahead" is an asset to you as a job candidate. Don't underplay it.
Person ability: If your track record is strong enough, and if what you have to offer is something a company needs badly enough, your ability to get along with people may have little if any bearing at all on the hiring decision. But don't push your luck! Nobody is going to hire you because you can't get along with people, and most companies will pass you over if your personality seems objectionable. I've yet to see a personnel evaluation form that didn't have a section devoted to person ability
There is no great art to being personable. Even if you're shy -and most people are-it's easy. It's a matter of simple courtesy and tact. It's being responsive when people approach you. It's being helpful when the need arises. It's showing basic consideration. It's having-and not being afraid to use-some-thing we all have: a smile. And don't think that because your particular job specialty doesn't involve much interaction with people, your personality doesn't matter. It does. As objective as the person responsible for hiring you is, he or she is still going to rely, in part, on his or her personal reaction to you. It is no coincidence that most of the truly successful people I know are not only good at what they do but very decent, pleasant people as well.
Loyalty: Nobody in a hiring position will condemn you for wanting to get ahead, but give someone the slightest hint that you don't put much value on loyalty, and your chances of getting hired become slim indeed. Forget the double standard here which says that it's "healthy ambition" when your boss goes with another company but "disloyalty" when you do the same thing. Resign yourself to the rules of the game. The rules state simply that thou salt praise the virtues of loyalty.
Your record, of course, will give some indication of how loyal you actually are. It's tough to preach loyalty in the face of a record that shows you've worked for six different companies over the past five years. But even if your resume paints you as in no way disloyal, there are ways in which you might inadvertently arouse suspicion. The easiest is to say unflattering things about a former employer or former boss (no matter how justified you may be in your comments). I heard recently of an executive who based his pitch to a company on the fact that he'd worked for the company's chief competitor and knew their "weaknesses." He didn't get the job. Why? Because, as the executive who turned him down explained to me, "Who's to say this guy won't leave us in a year or two and make the same offer to one of our competitors?"
Responsibility: Can you assume responsibility? Don't be in too much of a hurry to answer this because the ability to take on responsibility is rare. There are plenty of competent and dependable people around, but not too many people who take a personal responsibility for the job they do. Get this quality across to the people who interview you and you'll have a leg up on most of your competitors.
One of the ways you show this sense of responsibility is by being willing to accept blame. I remember in the late 1960s interviewing a man who'd been fired from a company that had a widespread reputation for being difficult to work for. What impressed me was that this man made no excuses, even though he had plenty of justification for blaming the company. "I blew it," he said flatly. "There were some things I could have done that I didn't think to do. I can't blame them."
By the same token, you indicate a lack of responsibility by offering excuses for whatever aspects of your work background might need defending. You tell an interviewer that your last company was "very disorganized," or "never really utilized me to best advantage." You criticize a former employer of yours for showing "favoritism." You suggest that had the company given you more responsibility, it wouldn't have gotten itself into financial trouble.
I'm not suggesting here that you deliberately call attention to your failures and weaknesses. But the way you respond when asked to explain some feature of your work experience that doesn't show you off in the best of lights says more about you than you may think. The more you can show that you bring to your job a true sense of personal responsibility, that you see the success of the company you work for as part of your responsibility, that you're willing to accept the mistakes of your subordinates as your responsibility, the more attractive a candidate you will appear to the people who must evaluate you.
