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Interviewing Skills

2/25/21 – Interviewing With Confidence

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Written by: Sherri Jacob

Interviewing with Confidence

Managing your Career and job search has changed a great deal during the pandemic. To help manage your career as an investment Carmen Payne,
an Executive, Personal and Professional Development Coach, offers multiple tools and solid coaching/advice to help you navigate the virtual employment setting.

Keynote

Carmen highlights the need to plan your 2021 career as there are great jobs available on the market. The new year is the perfect time to reflect on the last 12 months and to start fresh with new goals and career objectives. Here are three action steps to help you:

  1. Reflect on the prior 12 months: take stock of accomplishments and failures.
  2. Plan slow to move fast: Carefully build a career strategy and plan to reach your goal. Carmen quoted Naomi Caietti, author Transform your Project Leadership: “Your career is an investment and you need to treat it that way.”
  3. Act Now: Focus on how to achieve a growth mindset and move past obstacles by turning them into opportunities.

Carmen shared with the audience several effective tools that will help to ensure a successful job search – check these out to help you on your journey.

Pre-Interview Checklist

  • Ask what safety protocols/procedures are in place
  • If in person, wear a mask and bring your own hand sanitizer
  • If in person – do not shake their hand!
  • If you are not comfortable going to an in-person interview, ask if it can be done over the phone or via video conference

The audience and Carmen suggested that you could utilize the not shaking hands as an ice breaker activity as the interview begins. Some suggestions included offer to elbow bump or do a virtual wave.

Prepare for “That” Interview Question

Many employers utilize behavioral interview questions – these usually begin with phrases like:

  • what is your greatest strength/weakness
  • tell me about a time when…
  • describe a time when…
  • give an example of…
  • tell me about your last employer…

Introduce yourself

  1. Breath and relax your shoulders
  2. Greeting – “Good morning and repeat the interviewers name”
  3. My name is ….., very nice to meet you
  4. Don’t shake hands

When responding to the strength/weakness question, consider starting with your weakness and ending with a strength. This will allow you to end on a positive note. You should also be strategic when responding to these questions; don’t highlight a weakness that is a related to key job requirements and highlight strengths that are. Carmen recommends the use of a S.W.O.T. tool to prepare responses to behavioral questions. S.W.O.T stands for Strengths Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Here is a sample with thought starter questions to help with this exercise.

SWOT Analysis

Customize your response to the job/career you are applying for. The job description, your resume, company information are good resources to help you create customized responses.

Carmen recommends the STAR tool to formulate responses to behavioral questions. Create multiple STAR responses that correspond to your resume and practice. If your interview is virtual, you can have your STAR responses printed for easy reference.

STARs explained

Body Language – Communication

Only 7% of our communication is through the spoken word, and in a virtual environment focus on our Body Language becomes even more important.

Non Verbal Communication composition

Carmen recommends
• Standing for the interview – this allows you to breath easily
• Assume a posture of confidence – this will be reflected in your conversation
• Pay attention to your face – it isn’t always what you say, but how you say it
• Watch your hands – while it is OK to talk with your hands be sure they don’t become a distraction. Keep your hands neutral to assure the interview he/she has your full attention.
• Maintain appropriate eye contact
• Mirror the body language of the interviewer –or conversely see if the interviewer mirrors yours.

Video Interview Checklist

  • Download the video conference tool being used (Skype, Zoom etc.)
  • Keep your login credentials handy
  • Make sure your device can support the platform being used
  • Just like you need to practice for the interview, test your technology. Practice with a friend. Learn your way around the software.
  • Make sure you have an excellent WiFi/Internet connection – consider using an ethernet cable for the interview
  • Ensure you are in a quite area with no distractions
  • Have your STARs and notes at hand
  • Lighting – natural lighting is the best. Light source should be in front not behind you.
  • Position your camera high – think selfie
  • When you get the interview details and link – test prior to the interview

The key to a successful job search is to prepare and practice. These tools will help you to plan for success. Carmen ended her talk with this thought:

Be kind always

Hiring Companies

Hacienda Healthcare
Kent Norris, HR Manager

Hacienda HealthCare is the leading provider of specialized medical care and social services for Arizona’s infants, children and young adults who are medically fragile or chronically ill, including those with developmental disabilities. Hacienda HealthCare traces its roots to 1967 when Ilene Butler founded it in Phoenix as “Hacienda de los Angeles.” It operated as a single facility serving only three children. Under the corporate umbrella, Hacienda has greatly expanded and now offers over 40 programs and services through four separate not for profit entities: Hacienda Inc., Hacienda Skilled Nursing Facility, Los Niños Hospital and Hacienda Children’s Hospital. Hacienda Healthcare currently provides services to over 2550 people every year throughout the state.

Currently hiring — Rn’s, LPN’s, CAN’s, Caregivers, Behavioral Specialists, Group Home Managers, LPN Medical Group Home Managers, Speech Language Pathologists and many more.
Apply Here: http://haciendainc.org/jobs/ or reach out to Ken

Cable One/Sparklight
Vanessa Corona, Sr. Talent Acquisition Specialist

Cable One, Inc. (NYSE: CABO) is a leading broadband communications provider.
• Serving more than 950,000 residential and business customers in 21 states.
• The Cable One family of brands includes Sparklight®, Fidelity, Clearwave, and ValuNet Fiber.
• We provide consumers with a wide array of connectivity and entertainment services.

Current openings include: Public Relations Manager, Digital Marketing Specialist, SharePoint Developer, Senior Web Developer (Full Stack), NOC Analyst, Accountant II, Sr. Revenue Accountant, Revenue Accounting Manager, Accounts Payable Representative and Internship Opportunities
View all openings and apply here: cableone.careers.

Freedom Financial Network
Heather Marcom, Senior Director, Talent Acquisition

Two decades ago, Freedom Financial Network was born out of an idea to give struggling consumers an affordable and responsible way to get out debt. What was true then, and remains true today, is that there are many ways for a consumer to get into debt, but very few ways for them to get out of it. Freedom’s promise to consumers has remained steadfast throughout time – to provide financial products and services that put the consumer first and help everyday Americans improve their financial situation.
Heather highlighted these positions: Sales Representatives- Program Enrollment, Sales Representatives- Lending Products, Spanish Speaking Sales- Lending Products, Customer Service Representatives, Mortgage Underwriters Software Engineers- Java, Node, PHP, Sr. Python Developer, Accounting Specialist, Lifecycle Marketing Specialist, Talent Acquisition Manager, InfoSec, Test Engineering.

View all openings and apply here: FFNJOBS.com.

8/19/20 – Interviewing with Confidence

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Written by Gary Matsuda

Interviewing With Confidence Carmen Payne

You’re hoping for a career change, but the world’s wheels keep falling off during a worldwide pandemic and recession. To help get you back in the driver’s seat (with the wheels) is Carmen Payne,
an Executive, Personal and Professional Development Coach.
Now you got an interview scheduled, congrats! You should have enough time to prepare everything from the technology set up, your introduction and possible answers to common interview questions, so don’t wing it! Carmen breaks down some of the major factors to make sure that you nail the interview.

KEYNOTE

Relax, the interviewer is not likely trying to trip you up. They generally want you to succeed and demonstrate your best, authentic self (If they are relying on trick questions to screen candidates, you might not want to work there anyway). However, if you are not going into the meeting prepared, well that’s you doing it to yourself! But Carmen’s interview prep techniques can take the pain out of preparation and help improve your confidence and credibility.

A few of the most dreaded interview questions that seem to stress us out to no end are:

  • What is your greatest weakness or greatest strength?
  • Describe a time when…
  • Give or share an example of/when…
  • How did you handle _ situation?
  • Tell me about your last /current job or _ employer.

Your responses to these challenging questions should exude confidence right from the start. Come across with a well-rehearsed short story and you’ll make it easy for you tell and for the interviewer to remember your answer. No one sentence answers allowed. Elaborate. Show them you know your experience and abilities will apply to the job. To help you do this, Carmen has her clients use the commonly used, easy-to-follow ‘STAR’ technique.

Tell Your Story as a ‘STAR’

S – Situation, background. This is the environment, location, time that sets up the context for your answer. Don’t dwell too much here, spend just enough time to set up the scene for the interviewer. You’ll want to lead them to the next step on your involvement in the problem.

T – Task or Target, specifics of what’s required, when, where, and what you were responsible for.

A – Action, what you did, skills used, behaviors, characteristics. Don’t draw attention away from you by mentioning what the team, boss or coworker did. The focus is on you.

R – Result, outcome, what happened. End your example on the positive including achievements, lessons learned, goals, milestones met or relationships created or saved (Ta da! Nailed it!).

Don’t worry, there could be overlap in each of these categories and parts of your answer might not fit exactly in this specific order. Just use this as a template and adapt to your unique story. The goal is to engage the listener and make your accomplishments clear and easy to remember.

This STAR technique is flexible enough to help you answer almost all behavioral questions, like this:

“Describe a time when you had to work with a tough customer and what was the result?”

Example answer:

“I understand the customer has their own goals to meet, their own job to do. Last year when I was leading a project our clients requested new requirements and our team was caught by surprise. It was very frustrating to work hard only to have much of it tossed aside by new requirements. I contacted the customer to find out more and discovered the changes resulted from factors beyond anyone’s control. After explaining the reasons to the team, they became more accommodating and empathetic to the customer and were able to deliver something that was still useful to the customer. The client was appreciative for our flexibility in getting something delivered on time and saving part of their business.”

Always practice before hand and refine your story to provide clarity. Also, during the meeting, the interviewer can always ask if something needs clarification. Tell a story in this format and you may get the listener to think, “I like what I’m hearing, tell me more!”.

You can’t hide behind the screen

Just because you’re on a video call and your image is smaller than life, don’t think your flaws might be hidden behind the computer screen. Since the interviewer doesn’t have a three dimensional in-person perspective, they’ll be even more focused on what’s happening on their 8” x 5” flat image of you. Although they’ll listen to every word you say, most communication is non-verbal and your body language can be 55% of communication. Any non-verbal clues as to who you are, what you’re thinking and feeling might be picked up so you still have the ability to communicate a story that either sounds energetic or appears apathetic or passive. So, look alive!

Carmen says it takes just the first few seconds of your first impression to weigh on the final judgement of you and that will happen long before you get to talk about your experience. Sooo…

Prepare Your Introduction:

  1. Breath, relax your shoulders and if possible warm up your vocal cords by speaking a few test phrases out loud before the meeting.
  2. Greeting e.g. “Good morning, (repeat their name correctly)”
  3. My name is _, very nice to meet you.
  4. When things are back to normal and it’s in-person meeting, shake their hand.
    Other non-verbal tips for video
    Don’t be a talking head! Set yourself far enough away from the camera so that your upper body and posture is visible. This also allows use of your hands to convey non-verbal communication. It’s been proven that when your hands are visible, trust is much more likely to be communicated.
    This can be a hard habit to break but the eyes have it. Imagine talking with someone who is constantly looking at their feet. That’s the possible impression your giving if during a video conference you constantly look at your computer screen. Look at the camera. Although it may take practice since it will feel unnatural to you, you’ll appear more natural to the interviewer when you do this.

Before the interview be sure to check your connectivity and login details, that your camera works, mute notifications and close all unnecessary apps to free up memory.

Video interviewing has been here for a long time and will be around as an option for the foreseeable future so putting effort into this will not only serve you well for job interviews but on the job as well when you are making an impact with clients!

HIRING COMPANIES

WealthWave
Jason Wiseman, Sr. Marketing Director
If you aren’t sure about returning as a corporate employee with a steady paycheck, here’s an opportunity to exploit your strengths through your own business or side gig. At the same time if you are hesitant about going all in towards being an entrepreneur, this organization is flexible enough so they can help you transition into something part time. Their mission is to eliminate financial illiteracy to keep people from making easily avoidable financial mistakes.

And speaking of confidence, Wealthwave is a big believer of building your self-development so you’ll learn much about yourself along the way, including examining what you really want out of life. Sounds like a confidence booster that’s hard to beat – being able to build a business plan around what you really want.

More information here and here.

U-HAUL
Jaime Zell-Behymer, Senior Recruiter
U-Haul has also been known as a ‘Do it yourself’ business: moving it yourself, that is. Although with these career opportunities, you’re not doing it alone. Across the country or across town, work with a supportive team to help those who are getting their moving done, college students moving into dorms, moving into a new home, or relocating for a new job.

There are plenty of career opportunities with 7 different companies in one, in every field, full and part time, WFH and in office. Work with a supportive team with a full range of benefits and offerings for your health and safety. Open positions include Customer Service Reps, Sales Reps, General Manager, U-Box Drivers, Senior System Administrators, Quality Assurance Agent, and Software Developer. For more information and to apply, visit UHAULJOBS.com.

RESOURCES

BestCompaniesAZ
Altogether in one place you can find VERIFIED, trusted companies who have thousands of jobs (120,000 at last count!) open now. Check them out here if any listed hiring companies match your values. For employees who are going through difficult situations, this is a great resource:
https://bestcompaniesaz.com/covid-19-resources/

Free DISC Assessment
We all like free, so at no cost to you find your behavior traits (which may help point to your values) and what kind of job will likely fit you through our online DISC assessment at:
https://careerconnectors.org/DISC/

For details about upcoming Career Connectors events, click here to visit the events section on the website for details about hiring companies and keynote topics!

4/23/2019 – Interview with Confidence

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Written by Nicole Langston

Keynote

Carmen Payne is the Owner of SOAR! Transformational Life Coaching LLC SOAR! website. She is a professional and personal development coach with 25 years experience in the areas of: leadership, coaching, mentoring, training and project management. Carmen obtained her coaching certifications at the Southwest Institute of Healing Arts and with the Quantum Success Coaching Academy. Today Carmen’s services include; personalized and corporate coaching, workshops, consulting and speaking.

Carmen started her presentation by asking several questions:

  • Who has been through Organizations going through Mergers and Acquisitions?
  • Are you in the driver seat of your career? Or not?
  • Who has heard and read the book? “Who Moved my Cheese” (The 4 protagonists, which one are you?)

Quote from Naomi Caietti at www.naomicaietti.com “Your career is an investment and you need to treat it that way.”

Plan your 2019:

  • Reflect on your prior 12 months
  • Plan slow to move fast: How am I going to get to my end goal?
  • Act now: What steps do you need to take to get to that?

Abundance of opportunities! LinkedIn will show you how many jobs are available in specific fields. Currently there are 8.4 million! Carmen then searched on hot topics, such as project manager, technical, security.

Growing industries

1) Advanced manufacturing

2) Aerospace

3) Business and Professional services

4) Emerging technologies

5) Healthcare and biomedical

6) Film and digital media (https://laborstats.az.gov/)


That Interview Question: What is your greatest weakness or greatest strength?

What you DON’T want to do is list weaknesses that are needed for the job description. Be strategic. Pick items that are trainable / coachable and not major. Do not have a laundry list of weaknesses either.

Always start the answer for this with the negative (weaknesses) then the positive (strength). People remember the last things more.

Maybe you only list 1 negative. Then also include what you are doing to try and solve that area you want to work on further. For example: getting a certification, listening to podcast, social net-working.

Who knows what a SWOT analysis is? S = strength W = weakness O = opportunities T = threats.
Take a few minutes to do this now. This is not a judgement this is simply for your own awareness.

If you struggle with this, then talk to someone you know who loves you and is going to tell you honestly. If you have received a performance review recently use that to complete your SWOT analysis. This is a good exercise to learn and focus on yourself. Hopefully you now have 2-3 items in each box. It’s helpful to share your findings with a friend as you prepare for interviews; you don’t want the interview to be the first time you share this information.

Behavioral questions: They want to see how you handle certain situations. They are looking to see if your body language matches your words. They are evaluating how you will fit in their culture. They are getting to know you more deeply.

Example: Give me an example of a time when you had a setback or disappointment concerning a project or activity you were responsible for.
An example of a tool is answer this is STAR’s. We are all STAR’s:

S = situation, background set the scene

T = task or target specifics of whats required, when, where, who

A = action, what you did, skills used, behaviors, characteristics

R = result, out-come of what happened.

Really you should be telling a STORY of this STAR situation. Do not minimize your accomplishments. Write them down, you never know when they will come in handy.

That Interview Question: Tell me about your last / current job.

Body Language Communication:
This is important: If you have had a negative experience at a prior job it will come across. If you have any of this, practice this on a friend, in the mirror, video yourself on the phone or laptop.

Who is aware of the 7 signs of body language?
1) Maintain an assertive posture
2) Consider using power poses
3) Watch your hands
4) Pay attention to your face / facial expressions
5) Maintain appropriate eye contact
6) Mirror the body language of others
7) Stop fidgeting
If you are very nervous in an interview there are things you can do to help calm you down. There is a technique call tapping. If you tap down gently under your eye with the 2 single fingers, this grounds you.

To establish a confident mindset before an interview, you want to be like superwoman or superman – stand strong in a power pose. You can do this for 2 minutes every time you are about to go into an interview. Carmen also likes to think of a theme song (hers is “What a Feeling”) or mantra.

HIRING COMPANIES

American Cancer Society
Netta Shaw, Community Development Manager

She is happy to help all of us as much as she is able. Netta knows that all of us are here looking for employment. She has been there herself. At the moment, she only has 1 role in the Valley available. It is a Monday – Friday job title MSABC Outreach Specialist – Phoenix. This position is a good way to get a foot in the door. Contact Kathy Allen, Recruiter if interested.

Freedom Financial Network
Heather Marcom, Head of Talent Acquisition

They love to partner with Career Connectors as they are a good outlet and resource. The company started in 2002 and have moved to Tempe Marketplace in the past year. They have a lot of growth and have a 2nd building under construction. They currently have about 2,000 employees in Tempe. Some their open positions include Data Analysts, Recruiter, DevOps Engineer, Director Accounting. Go here for a complete job listing.

UPCOMING EVENTS

“If you believe it will work out, you’ll see opportunities. If you believe it won’t, you will see obstacles.” – Wayne Dyer

THANK YOU for coming!

06/07/18 – Interviewing with Confidence

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Interview with ConfidenceWritten by Lauren Kutsko

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Carmen Payne, the owner of SOAR, a Transformational Life Coaching company, left us feeling confident to step into our next interview room. We all deal with negative self talk as we navigate entering new endeavors, Carmen shared helpful ideas to get mentally prepared.

We all struggle with some interview questions. Carmen started our time together with some tips on answering a few different types.

What is your weakness or greatest strength question?

  • Answer with things that don’t have anything to do with the job at hand.
  • Prove to them that this is the area that you are trying to improve by sharing what books or seminars you have taken to grow.
  • Utilize S.W.O.T Analysis which stands for Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats. This is a tool that will help you prepare ahead of time to share stories clearly and concisely that display your abilities to manage, change, execute, resolve problems and challenges in the past.

Can you tell me a time when you had a conflict with a co-worker?

S- Situation, background set the scene
T- Task or Target, specifics of what’s required, when, where, who
A – Action, what you did, skills used, behaviours, characteristics
R – Result – Outcome, what happened.

Tell me about your last/current job or X employer question

  • Keep in mind your body language, facial expression and tone of voice when answering these questions. We want to make sure to stay positive and neutral as we talk about our previous employers.
  • Even when you aren’t communicating you are communicating.

This was our homework!
Amy Cuddy
Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are

  1. Body language is very important
  2. Maintain an assertive stance
  3. Watch your hands
  4. Pay attention to you face
  5. Maintain appropriate eye contact
  6. Mirror the body language of others
  7. Stop Fidgeting

Carmen ended our time with an encouraging poem. It was a pleasure to hear from Carmen and walk away with tangible resources to ponder!

Let your Light Shine By Marianne Williamson
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

HIRING COMPANIES

American Express

Patrick Miller – Recruitment Operations Global Talent Acquisition

American Express has positions in technology, sales, marketing, HR and operations amongst other roles. However their recruiting efforts focused primarily on customer facing support like:
Collections specialist
Account protection specialist
Customer care professional
Travel counselors

For more information, visit their job page here.

ADP

Pamela Farling

As one of the world’s largest and most experienced HR providers, ADP offers you recruit-to-retire services and solutions that help you build the team that will take you into the future. ADP is on a mission to make the world’s busiest professionals more productive and happier in their jobs. And that starts with their own people. Find out how you can join them in Arizona where they are growing their Sales, Client Service and Implementation teams!

You can apply at jobs.adp.com/arizona.

RESOURCES

Grand Canyon University
Vince Grell – Vice President of Operations, Non-Degree Technology Programs

Grand Canyon University is offering a program for 16 Weeks Monday-Friday 9am-5pm starting July 30th to earn a Java Programming Certificate. With a small class size, you are guaranteed to get the support you need to succeed! This immersive program includes more than 600 hours of collaborative, project-based instruction and up to 16 credits transferable to a GCU undergraduate program. For more information about the program and to take a short coding assessment click here.

Our Next Event is June 12th in Gilbert. Please note that location change for this week. We will be hearing from Pamela Heward about Career Transition in 2018 – Top Ten Tips.