Every so often Brains on Fire gets a ring from a bright young mind who wants career advice, and where possible I field those calls because my age puts me a bit closer to the desperate job-searching stage of life than other people on our ship.
Most people have the same agenda when they call – I’ll be the first to tell you that the majority seem to view the introduction and career advice as an insignificant formality on their mission to ask for a job. If you ask the right questions, though, you can tell the genuine knowledge seekers from the paycheck hunters.
About a month and a half ago, I was forwarded a call from a career-advice seeker and Brains on Fire fan. I braced myself for the standard questions and began to prepare as encouraging a rejection as I could. This time, though, there happened to be a genuine knowledge seeker on the other end of the line.
Long story short, I was so impressed by a 30 minute phone-call that I asked for a resume. That resume turned into an email exchange, another phone call, and an offer for full time work on a national brand. And now I have the privilege of working with Kate McCarthy.
Now, I’m no hiring expert, but the position I needed to fill would report directly to me, and I know the qualities I desire in the people I’m going to work with day in and day out (and that the project needs), and Kate has them in spades. I just hope she won’t take my job.
So today I thought I’d share what separated Kate from the 98% of other people who have cold-called for career guidance (er, to ask for a job).
First, I’ll share a few of the most common comments that are immediate red flags:
• “I really love what you guys do” or “I think your company is so cool” I like feeling warm and fuzzy about our company, but almost every single time someone says this, I ask them about a popular case study on our site, and it’s apparent to both of us that they haven’t looked much past the home page. If you don’t know what we do, you can’t love it.
• “I’m a really hard worker and I’ll do whatever it takes” I respect hard work, but it’s the cost of entry. If you’re not willing to work hard, your relationship with the company will be extremely short-lived. It’s actually more impressive (to me, at least) when people inquire about work/life balance because it reveals a value structure, not an extreme claim that most other job seekers make.
There are more, but you get the point. So what sets someone like Kate apart? Here are the things that stick out most to me:
• Educated curiosity / hunger to learn – These people have studied what they want to talk about, and they have a clear goal of what they want to learn when they dial your number. When you reference a case study to explain something, they’ve read it, and they want to ask you about it to gain an inside-perspective.
• Really good questions – Instead of asking, “Is it so cool to go to work at Brains on Fire everyday?” Kate asked questions like, “is there a difference in how you secure for-profit and non-profit clients from a new business perspective?” I’ve found that knowledge seekers tend to have far more questions for you than you do for them.
• Big picture thinking – Really good questions are one of the best revealers of big picture thinking – bringing industry and culture-wide perspective into what they want to learn, as opposed to asking more narrow questions. When someone inquires about how we are positioning our clients in relation to their competitors, how we define and communicate success with our clients, or how we structure teams internally, they’ll have a good handle on how the work they do will fit into the big picture of what we do for our clients, and what our clients are doing for their companies.
• Good writing – I’ve noticed that many of the people I respect most – across the spectrum of talent (yes, including designers) – have the ability to clearly and succinctly articulate their thoughts. You don’t have to be John Steinbeck, but teams do good work through communication, and a huge amount of that communication is written.
I asked Kate to weigh in, and here’s what she had to say:
Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it also took him on incredible adventures and made him one wise feline. As a kid, my father didn’t teach me not to talk to strangers. He told me to talk to anyone who would listen, and see if they had something interesting to say. I’ve taken that to heart, and over the years I’ve probably asked hundreds of thousands of people hundreds of thousands of questions.
After a while, you learn to tell who’s saying something, and who’s just talking. It didn’t take long for me to realize I was on the phone with someone- and a company- that shares my inquisitive view of the world. Those are the best conversations! I asked great questions because I knew there was so much to learn, and who can resist that?
by Eric Dodds
http://www.brainsonfire.com/
Most people have the same agenda when they call – I’ll be the first to tell you that the majority seem to view the introduction and career advice as an insignificant formality on their mission to ask for a job. If you ask the right questions, though, you can tell the genuine knowledge seekers from the paycheck hunters.
About a month and a half ago, I was forwarded a call from a career-advice seeker and Brains on Fire fan. I braced myself for the standard questions and began to prepare as encouraging a rejection as I could. This time, though, there happened to be a genuine knowledge seeker on the other end of the line.
Long story short, I was so impressed by a 30 minute phone-call that I asked for a resume. That resume turned into an email exchange, another phone call, and an offer for full time work on a national brand. And now I have the privilege of working with Kate McCarthy.
Now, I’m no hiring expert, but the position I needed to fill would report directly to me, and I know the qualities I desire in the people I’m going to work with day in and day out (and that the project needs), and Kate has them in spades. I just hope she won’t take my job.
So today I thought I’d share what separated Kate from the 98% of other people who have cold-called for career guidance (er, to ask for a job).
First, I’ll share a few of the most common comments that are immediate red flags:
• “I really love what you guys do” or “I think your company is so cool” I like feeling warm and fuzzy about our company, but almost every single time someone says this, I ask them about a popular case study on our site, and it’s apparent to both of us that they haven’t looked much past the home page. If you don’t know what we do, you can’t love it.
• “I’m a really hard worker and I’ll do whatever it takes” I respect hard work, but it’s the cost of entry. If you’re not willing to work hard, your relationship with the company will be extremely short-lived. It’s actually more impressive (to me, at least) when people inquire about work/life balance because it reveals a value structure, not an extreme claim that most other job seekers make.
There are more, but you get the point. So what sets someone like Kate apart? Here are the things that stick out most to me:
• Educated curiosity / hunger to learn – These people have studied what they want to talk about, and they have a clear goal of what they want to learn when they dial your number. When you reference a case study to explain something, they’ve read it, and they want to ask you about it to gain an inside-perspective.
• Really good questions – Instead of asking, “Is it so cool to go to work at Brains on Fire everyday?” Kate asked questions like, “is there a difference in how you secure for-profit and non-profit clients from a new business perspective?” I’ve found that knowledge seekers tend to have far more questions for you than you do for them.
• Big picture thinking – Really good questions are one of the best revealers of big picture thinking – bringing industry and culture-wide perspective into what they want to learn, as opposed to asking more narrow questions. When someone inquires about how we are positioning our clients in relation to their competitors, how we define and communicate success with our clients, or how we structure teams internally, they’ll have a good handle on how the work they do will fit into the big picture of what we do for our clients, and what our clients are doing for their companies.
• Good writing – I’ve noticed that many of the people I respect most – across the spectrum of talent (yes, including designers) – have the ability to clearly and succinctly articulate their thoughts. You don’t have to be John Steinbeck, but teams do good work through communication, and a huge amount of that communication is written.
I asked Kate to weigh in, and here’s what she had to say:
Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it also took him on incredible adventures and made him one wise feline. As a kid, my father didn’t teach me not to talk to strangers. He told me to talk to anyone who would listen, and see if they had something interesting to say. I’ve taken that to heart, and over the years I’ve probably asked hundreds of thousands of people hundreds of thousands of questions.
After a while, you learn to tell who’s saying something, and who’s just talking. It didn’t take long for me to realize I was on the phone with someone- and a company- that shares my inquisitive view of the world. Those are the best conversations! I asked great questions because I knew there was so much to learn, and who can resist that?
by Eric Dodds
http://www.brainsonfire.com/
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