Author Archives: Susan Wright-Boucher

Master Your Next Job Interview With These Tips

Congratulate yourself if you’ve been invited to a job interview. It means your resume is doing what it’s supposed to do and represents a series of wins that put you in the top 10% of the pack. But don’t get too comfortable. You are now entering the real competition. Take a walk through these interview preparation tips and then get cracking. You’ve got a job to win.

Get The Interview Details Down Solid

Make sure you carefully record details such as the exact location of the interview and the name and title of the person you’ll meet. Figure out your driving or public transit route in advance and add in extra time for unexpected delays. If you’re driving to a downtown location, give yourself additional time to park and arrive at the interview location. If necessary, time it by doing a dry run–just make sure you do it at the same time of day as your interview.

Write down three of your greatest accomplishments. Describe the skills you used to create the results and what you learned from each event.

Research The Company’s Website

Spend some time on the company’s website. How much can you learn about their industry and market goals? Look for an awards, events, or press release page. The ‘about’ page will reveal their mission or overall goals and it just might include notes on the leadership team. Google the company name to find industry news about them.

Mining LinkedIn for Gold

LinkedIn is a favoured tool for recruiters but most job seekers don’t use it fully to their advantage. For instance, it’s easy to look up the person you’ll be meeting with to see their job title and learn something about what they do. You can also find out lots more about the company and even locate people within your network who work there now or did so in the past.

In case you’ve never seen all the search capabilities within LinkedIn, we’ve included a screen shot of the main page to get you started. Continue reading →

Should You Accept A Counter Offer?

Susan Wright-Boucher

Counter offers are flattering. Who doesn’t want to be told they’re so important that the company created a package of goodies to make that letter of resignation go away? If this happens to you, you might want to rub the pixie dust out of your eyes just long enough to consider all sides before making a decision.

69% of employees who accept a counter offer leave their employer within six months.

What Is A Counter Offer?

Here’s the dictionary geek-speak: A type of offer made in response to another offer, which was seen as unacceptable. The type of offer we’re talking about here is a common employer response when faced with an employee resignation. Let’s see how this might play out.

Imagine This:

You’ve accepted a job offer with another company and have just handed a letter of resignation to your boss. To your surprise, he says you’re a key member of the team and asks what it would take to convince you to stay. What an ego boost. You know you’re about to receive a counter offer but what you don’t know is the conversation just stopped being all about you and is now all about the company.

Let’s put your thoughts aside for the moment and slip into the manager’s head. From the moment your boss realized you were resigning, he’s been thinking about the impact of your departure: the cost of recruiting and training a replacement, redistributing workload during the transition, the vacation schedule that took weeks to get just right, and how your leaving will affect his turnover stats and annual bonus. Continue reading →

How To Transform Your Resume Into An Interview-Getting Machine

Susan Wright-Boucher

If you haven’t heard the inside story on hiring yet, you’re in for a couple of surprises. Ready for your first shock? Your resume is not about you – it’s about your prospective employer. Sounds crazy, right? Stick with me. I’ll explain what I mean and show you how to turn your resume into the interview-getting machine it should be.

Inside Information On The Hiring Process

Understanding what’s going on behind the scenes will explain why your resume may need a makeover. The job postings you see are the result of many hours, perhaps weeks, of deliberations by the employer. Do we really need to hire another person? Do we have enough work lined up so the department will hit its objectives even with the added cost of a new hire? Who will train the new person? Are there vacations or peak production times we need to avoid that will impact when the job ad is published?

The average time spent screening a resume is 5 to 7 seconds.

76% of resumes will be ignored when the email address is unprofessional.

The answers to their questions help them decide when to hire and they also lead directly into creating a list of skills the new hire needs to possess. It’s important for you to know that comparing this list of competencies with resumes as they come in will eliminate 80% to 90% of applicants. Here’s what that means for you: the degree to which your resume reflects the skills they’re looking for will determine whether your application goes in the maybe pile or the no-thank-you pile. Continue reading →