It only took over 12 years, but is now on presale, officially out December 31st 2024.

Procrastinators Run Marathons in the Kindle Store

It has been quite the journey, three full rewrites on my side (and a lot of rewrite by my editors, fixing my non-native English).

Onward to the next books!

Again, thankful for Medium Writing Hour, one of the big tools to get the work done. Very recommended; and feel free to ping me to refer you to other tools and people that helped me!

Congratulations! You got a call or email from a recruiter, which thinks your resume is a potential match for a position they have! Let’s schedule a call.

The big question both of you are (or should be) trying to answer: Should we move forward to the next steps in the interview process?

So, let’s have a list to get the most out of your conversation with the recruiter, and use both of your time effectively. Don’t be afraid of getting as much information as you can through email before scheduling a call, neither from just jumping into the call and getting it quickly. This should be a stage that you filter out a lot of opportunities that are not right for you and convince the recruiter not to filter you out of the ones you think are right!

Also, don’t be afraid for not taking a call further; be ready to say, “thank you, not looking now”, or “thank you, not a match”.

First, is the position paying a salary consistent with your expectations? Sometimes this is hard to figure out right away, particularly if you don’t want to reveal a number to allow for future negotiations. However, if a position requires much less experience than what you have or has a title that makes evident that is too junior to pay what you expect, you should be able to discard it fast, or make clear to the recruiter you need confirmation they can work in your desired salary range and level of responsability, to move forward.

Something that may not be a big issue for you, but started to be for me, is the location. Is the position in a place that you are willing to commute to, or relocate to? Personally, I discard about half of recruiter calls or emails, just because they are looking to fill a position in a place I would not work at. You may be in a stage of your professional life that this is not an issue, but even on the same metropolitan area a long commute may be a deal breaker; a move, temporal or not, should be a factor to compare opportunities.

Ideally, the role should be a match to your interests and experience. However, some percentage of recruiter contact shows that the recruiter either didn’t read my resume at all before sending me the position or doesn’t have the right technical knowledge to distinguish if I am a candidate. For example, I have seen recruiters getting candidates that have Java in their resume for positions that require JavaScript, just because the language names are similar while a large percentage of candidates would not be a match in that situation. You want to be respectful and kind with the recruiter, but also to say “no” to save time for both of you, even clarify for them so they can call you in the future if they get that need, which is different to the one they are looking for.

The most difficult match I usually find is the timing. You get a recruiter calling you for an interesting role right after you started a new job and are happy with it, but then such roles don’t appear when you are unemployed and looking! Or they have an URGENT position that needs to start next week on a different country, while you would need to provide a month notice plus some time for relocation…

It is also the right time to ask about the process. How does the company interview? How many steps you should expect? Who you would be interviewing with? If it is not a local opportunity, how the interview trip needs to be arranged, or is it all online? How long does the process usually takes? Do they have to interview or present an specific number of candidates, and are there many or any others in process?

Some areas to look for:

• Clarify the job minimum requirements versus the optional ones
• If possible, get some ballpark numbers on the salary range. Otherwise, at least get a range on experience required. Discard jobs where the recruiter cannot tell you the experience required by the job, from entry level, open to recent school graduates with no (or very limited) experience; junior level, open to people with at most 2–3 years of experience in a similar job; mid-senior (around 3–5 years of experience); senior (approximately 5–10 years of experience) or very senior (over 10 years of experience in a similar area).
• Clarify how soon you are expected to start (and how quickly they would be able to get you to start), but also how much they can wait; and viceversa, how soon could you start if you get their offer today, and the worst case on when you would consider joining. If you are in the middle of a job search, you should setup a limit target date.
• Check that you are a match on the salary range, desired location (and travel expectations), timeframe, role, and the mandatory position requirements — not necessarily on the 100%, but at least to the day-to-day work.
• Not always possible, but it is the opportunity to filter out the frequent situation where you are from the beginning not the best or preferred candidate for the position, and they need fillers to get enough candidates interviewed. It is hard to assess, but the body language of the recruiter, the tone, congruence between the urgency and the process, are good clues to filter out when you have better alternatives. That being said, when you are getting few recruiters interested, or few matches, you should not filter out; at worst, you get interview practice and a chance to network.
• Ask the recruiter for the format and time investment expectations of the next steps.

If you feel better prepared for the next time a recruiter contacts you, and stronger for moving forward with the right opportunities and help both the recruiter (and you) not losing more time with the wrong ones, I did accomplish my objective today.

Thanks for reading!

Originally published in LinkedIn, August 2, 2022

Getting and signing an offer is not the end. Even after you have signed, changes may still happen.

There are different rules, depending on the country. The first part of the article (closing) may not apply to some countries, but at least I have personally experienced some related situations both in Mexico and the USA. Neither country has a mandatory minimum time in a job and hardly any obligation for the employers before the official start of the job.

Onboarding, on the other hand, is applicable any time you transition to a job, even within the same company. And the right onboarding increases the chances for success and a happy job.

This will probably be the more controversial part of the article series, but until you sign a contract with your employer, generally after joining the company, don’t assume you got the job. This year and the last we have observed some people that get the offer cancelled before joining, and some people laid off shortly after joining. This is not commonplace, but every so often we get into a job market cycle where this can happen.

Thus, my first recommendation: don’t stop interviewing, complete the processes you deem worthy; even if you have notified a different company that you are taking another offer, keep the doors open… what if your new job is not what you expected? Some big companies have a policy that you may still be hired over the next few months, even after rejecting an offer; that way, they save time interviewing and have a pool of candidates that may come back.

As a hiring manager, once upon a time, I made an offer to a friend of another employee, who referred them. They decided not to accept it, and join a much bigger and better-known company, which offered almost double the salary; I understood and moved on. Fast forward three months, the candidate emails me, asking if we still have something available (probably, after asking their friend). I told them yes, and they joined the week after, becoming a valued employee. Why they came back? The big, shiny company, got them working long hours, and still never paid them! All kinds of excuses, but in the end the employee decided to cut their losses and get a very needed job, where they thrived. Unfortunately, they never sued, as it is time-consuming (and probably, the way such shady companies get away with it)

Others will speed up the pipeline if you apply to a new position. Sometimes you will simply re-contact the hiring manager. I got a job by doing so, and while the hiring manager didn’t have an opening that matched my requirements, they sent me to their friend who had a job for which I was perfect, and that I liked, and ended up being my best option on that interview process.

Another time, after I joined the company, the administrative team asks to sign the contract, “just a formality”. I read the contract, and it explicitly stated that if I left the company, I couldn’t work for another similar company, for 5 years! This clause was not a good start, and while I was in the honeymoon phase, happy with what I was working on, I was already old enough to know we never know what work we will have next year. I politely asked to remove the clause (well, I may have mentioned that this clause was just illegal), and after a quick meeting, they conceded and fixed it. Would I have walked out if that clause was not removed? Probably not… But probably neither signed. And you bet if they hadn’t paid me, I would have gotten a lawyer’s help! The point is, sometimes there is a dealbreaker soon into a job, and it is better to walk away (well, run!) fast than stay in the wrong place for too long. You don’t want to start from zero again.

Last but not least in the closing phase, keep in touch with the recruiter and your new manager. If there is any problem, you want to know as early as possible; while sometimes, simply there will be something outside their control coming.

Switching to more positive vibes, 99% of the time (made up statistic, but the vast majority for sure), you start the job, the manager is happy to have somebody new to share the work, the company treats you well, and you feel good about the new job. I want to share with you a simple model to plan and execute the best start of the job if the company doesn’t have one good model already.

Step 1: Define what is your job!

Not just what the job description said for hiring purposes; but now that you can see the details, and the day-to-day, understand why the company is willing to give you money for your work! And it is never in the job description; that is the “what tasks”, not the “why” which gets to the “really what”.

For example, I contend that most entry-level, junior jobs, are the same: “Learn and be available”. Meaning, you are not expected to know what to do and how to do it; somebody else will assign tasks to you. But you are expected to be punctual, available during business hours, and absorb the knowledge about the company and needs from the more experienced employees and manager. Of course, there are some exceptions, and some basic knowledge that you are expected to bring before taking the job. But you are not paid for specific results; you are paid for obeying tasks that somebody else decides will help or support the results, or at least unblock somebody else from producing the results.

On the other side, if you are brought in as an experienced manager or subject matter expert, you are paid for your knowledge and skills on the subject. You should figure out what needs to be done; you would only be directed to what’s the goal, and expected to figure out the tasks. If your boss needs to tell you the details of the tasks, other than the standard tasks that are particular to the company, you will not be perceived favorably. The “what” may be very different from company to company; some manager is brought to cut costs; some others, to improve productivity; and some others, to solve customer problems. The same examples apply to how a subject matter expert would impact their job.

The classic fable of the engineer billing $1 for hitting with a hammer, and $9999 for knowing where to hit to fix the machine, reflects it well. Early in your career, your job depends on your availability and attitude to learn; later, it pays for your knowledge and effectiveness. Starts with individual contributions, continues with team contributions, and later you deliver through influence, formal or informal.

Step 2: Find and track metrics for your job.

How do you know if you are doing a good job? Other than your manager congratulating you, promotions, and raises, you need to track progress and improvement in your job and help your manager recognize it.

Some jobs have this pre-defined. Salespeople, for example, have a “simple” metric, the quota: How much money they are bringing to the company in a period! And they do or die for that metric; it is very clear that a salesperson who has sold $0 after 3, or 6 months in the company, is going out of a job soon; and that a salesperson who beat quota by 30% or more over the last 4 quarters, while other team members are not meeting it or just breaking it, will have leverage to grow.

But many jobs have no such indicator. Start with what you can measure that helps connect your execution, with the results your manager (and the company) want. Focus and learn how to drive that metric in the desired direction. But iterate; metrics are not static, and your initial targets may be just learning targets instead of long-term drivers.

Step 3: Move from learning to execution.

You have only some number of hours to work; even if you are happy working 24/7, you still would have only 168 hours per week, and still we humans have those needs like eating, showering, and sleeping.

Even worse, if you work 60 or more hours a week, and you are only achieving the expected results of the 40-hour job baseline, you will not be perceived as a strong contributor; hard work can pay off, but focused work will be more effective.

Set a target of effective work hours, except for some extreme environments, 40 hours/week is where you want to fit all the work you need to deliver to keep your job. Hard at the beginning, when you invest a lot of time learning and want to start producing results too. But once you learn the job, and execute regularly, you should become faster; if you practice reflection on how you did, and create a habit of continuous improvement, you should be able to accelerate or improve your work quality, until it becomes easy-ish. Don’t accept long hours for the sake of long hours, without using time to be more efficient. Don’t consider yourself “onboarded” until you can produce effective results and match the metric you targeted, without heroic effort and longer hours than your target.

There are additional steps, to move from execution to tactics and strategy. But I will not cover them in this series, as they map better to coming to Step #1 in the interview funnel: Prepare your resume for the next job, with the job you would get with a promotion as your first target.

Last but not least: I hope you are happy in your new job! But I recommend you to interview at least once per year, if anything, to practice your skills before you need them urgently, and to see what the market is like for your knowledge (or if it is time to get new knowledge to stay employable). If you are not happy, then don’t wait to start the pipeline.

Conclusion

At this point, I hope you have everything you need for a positive transition to a new job. If this article helps you find ways to land better and keep your new job for as long as it works for you, I did accomplish my objective today.

Thanks for reading!

Originally published in LinkedIn, April 4, 2024

Congratulations! Your interviews went well, you have got great feedback, and the recruiter or hiring manager sent you an invitation to have a call. While sometimes it can be a bad news call, telling you that you were a great candidate, but they decided to go for another one, more often than not, at this stage they want you to join the company.

If you are in emergency mode, you have been looking forever, or simply it is the first time, you may be anxious and more than ready to just say “Yes!” to any offer they present.

There many good reasons to just say “Yes”. For example, you did your homework and really liked the company, and would pay to join them! Or, it is clearly the right place where you will get the learning you need, so you don’t care much about the offer.

But even in those cases, you want to evaluate the offer and find what fits you and what doesn’t; sometimes, you can convince the company to change the offer towards a win-win; sometimes, you may not be able to change the offer, and it is better to pass; and sometimes, you may change or not the offer, but at least you make peace that you tried, and settle for some stuff while keeping a line in the sand for some other situations.

Two critical elements of a negotiation mindset, that I recommend for you to be prepared ahead of an offer conversation:

• What are your dealbreakers?

What is your “line in the sand”? For example, let’s say you expressed your desired compensation to be $100K, because in your current job you make $95K. But your actual expenses are $60K. Then, you can negotiate anything from $60K up, when the situation is right. But also, you can decide that any company offering you under $95K is not respecting your demonstrated market value. And only you can decide what is the dealbreaker. If you are in a toxic place, you may accept a lower compensation; but you will set a line in the sand, to not go to toxic places! On the other hand, if you are in a good job, except for compensation, you will set up how much money will pay for you to risk the good things about your job. For somebody, it will need to be a 50% increase; for somebody else, it will be a 10% increase and moving to a company you admire; and for a different person, it would be equal salary but better benefits.

• What is your power?

You can ALWAYS say “Yes” or “No”, but you need to take control of your decision and the consequences. If it is your only offer after a year searching, you need a job right now, the job market is low, the company knows the market is low, and the company tells you the offer is not negotiable, you will feel powerless; still, you should know why they selected you to offer, instead of any other candidate. If the reason is that you are the only candidate that passed interviews, for example, then you can and should negotiate, and use that knowledge to remind the company that you are not easily substitutable. The flip side, if you know there are many good candidates that passed the interview, and they are offering you the position because you are the cheapest, you can hold the price advantage while asking for some other concessions, like vacations you have already planned, or more support on training.

Now, what does negotiate means? It means, both sides adjust back and forth, to reach the optimal combined outcome. You should not ask something without giving something in return. But the same applies to the company. If the company asks you to take less money, ask them what are they giving you for that money you are losing. If the company wants you to work long hours or weekends, ask them how you will have extra recharge. Keep your objective in mind: You want a better job. If they don’t convince you they are better, it is OK to pass. You should have included your current employer in the options for better jobs, look at your notes to know what you want to improve, and what you are willing to concede on.

A purist point of view is that you should ALWAYS negotiate. But it is OK to decide it is not right for you, in this opportunity; what it is not OK is for you to not grow in your career, for laziness to consider negotiating when it is appropriate. And that includes negotiating with your current employer; you may ask for a raise, and sometimes, if they are not willing, going for external offers is proof that you are serious, as you may leave even for less money.

If the company says “take or leave it”, decide if they are bluffing or simply the person that conducts the offer doesn’t have the power to change it. Identify who has the power to change it, and decide if you have the tools to convince the decision maker to go towards your direction. But also, be willing to leave it; nothing gives you more power than the power to say “NO” when it is not right for you.

Now, how do you negotiate?

First, identify if an offer is final, or tentative; don’t negotiate final offers, let the other part push harder if in doubt. For big companies, if they give you a verbal offer, it is not final; until it is in written form, there is some room to negotiate. That being said, if you ask for something that is out of reality, they may simply never get you to an official offer, so don’t over-negotiate. Some companies play the haggling game; some other companies will give you an honest, best offer, from the beginning. My first time getting an offer from Microsoft, I didn’t know much about the process; I didn’t even know if it was final or not; and I was having a really bad day. And then, the offer was 25% under what I had filled in the “Expected salary” question, back when that was standard. I was interested, and inclined to say yes before; but I almost said “no” right away, as the difference was quite high. I controlled my emotions (disappointment, some anger from the day that wasn’t helped by the lowball offer), and simply asked the recruiter “Did you read my expected salary before the offer?”; she admitted she didn’t, and then I told her “I don’t want to take an impulsive decision; please take a look to what I asked for and we can talk another day”. You may guess what happened the next day… a new offer, in the middle between the first offer and what I asked for.

Second, have clarity what do you want. What are the “must have” and “must not have”, expanding on the dealbreakers but also understanding more of your assumptions; what are “nice to have” (or not to have), that would incline you more but you are willing to compromise or concede on; and what are just “extras”. Some “must” that I have used to select an offer (or walk away): Duration of paternity leave, right when we were pregnant; stability of the company, when I was in a company where suddenly my hours had been cut

Third, take your time. Prepare the negotiation, don’t just react at the middle of the meeting; if you are unsure, don’t answer right away, and say that you will think more about it, and ask for a follow-up meeting after you collect more information and reflect on the information presented. Even if you feel strongly “No” or strongly “Yes”, resist the urge to say it, keep a poker face, listen more, allow the other side to tell you more about the offer. Recently, as I was coaching one mentee, they “complained” that they were upleveled before joining their current employer! They were targeting Level X, but were willing to join with Level X-1; instead, they got an offer for Level X+1, which they accepted (with some good and bad consequences, but that’s for another article). How did that happen? They simply kept the poker face, even when they wanted to say “yes”, and said “They needed some time to think about it”. Probably the person providing the offer thought they were going to say “no”, and worked with the hiring manager and the internal process to upgrade the offer… No big negotiation or ask needed.

Fourth, be prepared for “timeshare” selling tactics. People that says, “you need decide now, the offer is going away in 60 seconds”. Generally, not true; and probably you don’t want to work with a company where that is true. But also, apply the same logic as you would use if you get an impulsive shopping episode, and then feel regret about it: Return it before delivery! It is not great to walk back on a decision, and change your response after you verbally accepted, but it is much better than after signing a document; and much better than quitting after joining the company. Once, a company I was very interested in, insisted on me interviewing with their customer, even when I had expressed that wasn’t the role I was applying for; I conceded, and did good in the interview, so I got an offer. Unfortunately, the location and money were not right for me, and I expressed immediately that was why I didn’t want to interview with their customer without aligning first. The person making the offer was clearly convinced it was a great offer for me, and played timeshare selling, saying it was the final offer and questioning if I would really say no to such a great offer. I said no thank you, again. I still got the written offer, with a (small) improvement, and the words “FINAL OFFER” later that day. I still didn’t sign the offer. But the story didn’t end there; took about 4 months more, I saw again the role I had applied for, I pinged the recruiter (again) and mentioned I still was interested, and now I got through the right interviews and got a much better offer, joining the company and spending a happy time there.

Fifth, make it a “Sales call”. You are selling “yourself” as an employee. They are “selling” you the position and the offer. Both sides need to be willing to “buy” the other side. If you are very interested in accepting, you still want to “sell” your value, increase the perception the company has of your price, or your title, or the job you will be assigned. And you should call out any shortcomings in the offer; if they are not conceding or giving you something interesting at this point, right before committing and the honeymoon, what are the chances you will get it after joining? I mentioned the “sales call” in the final interview phase too; get your notes of why you are the best candidate for the position, review what you noticed they liked from you, and emphasize it during the negotiation. Make them feel good about their decision to give you an offer, and make easy for them to concede at least a little bit, to close on you becoming an employee.

Last piece of advice on negotiation planning. When you have the luxury of time, or interview while still employed, you want to get to have multiple offers at about the same time. Know the standard timeline that your target company takes from the start of an interview process, to an offer; and start/execute the process at the right times to make them land close together. Not trivial, but when you can do it, you will have immense negotiation power. For most companies, a month or two is a great timeline; imagine from the beginning, you mention to them “I plan to evaluate my options during April and May, decide close to the end of May and start in June”, either the companies will run their process with that timeline, or they will push you to decide earlier, and you will have a reason for them to offer something to get your commitment earlier. That’s what I did 5 years ago, when I quit late April, effective May 3rd; I had already started a process months before with Microsoft, as I knew it may be slow; I contacted the hiring manager mid-April as I started planning my 2-week notice, and that allowed to reactivate the process. I did a couple of interviews still in April, and got Microsoft’s offer close to the end of May. From a number of companies I interviewed during May, one was very interesting since I learned about them, and all the process was enjoyable; it was the best initial offer in terms of money, and a role I really liked. They almost got to win, as they also had an offer ready mid-May; but they were willing to wait for my decision, as I had communicated the timeline from the beginning. If Microsoft hadn’t negotiated the offer, or had taken longer, I would have joined that company (and would have been happy with the decision). To top my luck, a third company found me and told me they were interested in me joining a specific team; as I noticed it was a good fit, and it was already mid-May, I told them I had already an offer and was waiting for the second one, so they would need to move fast to be in the running. They interviewed me two days later, and produced an offer in a week; it was quite competitive, a company I liked too, and clearly showing they wanted me to join. On many situations, that would have been a winner. The point is not to brag that I got multiple offers in a very good market for employees at that time; the point is that it happened because I had a plan, time to execute it, and companies accepted my terms for the timeline, as I communicated them. One of many items you can negotiate, and almost always something you can negotiate while you have a job.

Conclusion

This is of course not a full negotiation book or course. And I am not an expert, but I have hold well. Cannot finish without mentioning how my good friend, who used to work at P&G, had a negotiation book on hand while we had a coffee. I asked her to lend it to me, took me a few years to return it but less than a week to read it; it was “The Negotiating Game: How to Get What You Want”, by Chester L. Karrass. Definitely recommended.

If this article helps you learn to find opportunities for both you and the company to win a better deal, I did accomplish my objective today.

Thanks for reading!

Resources

While I am biased towards software engineering job searches, I find many of the elements in these articles are valid across industries:

https://www.thesalarynegotiator.com/resource-center/how-to-negotiate-a-software-engineer-job-offer

Exactly what to say when recruiters ask you to name the first number… and other negotiation word-for-words (interviewing.io)

Originally published in LinkedIn, April 2, 2024

“Onsite” is now a bit obsolete, so I prefer to name this phase now “Final” interviews; I originally used “Onsite”, as in my big previous interview process where I designed the funnel, that was the expectation; and it is still a common practice for many jobs. But now the world have evolved and many times the final interview phase is not in person, not onsite, but virtual. So I will use the Final Interviews name going forward, as it is more inclusive of the experience in 2024. Even back in 2019, some of my final interviews were virtual.

You should feel excited and accomplished to reach this phase! You have executed a lot of good things to get here. And probably you have already filtered out some companies where it is clear this will not move in a good direction for you.

That being said: is not yet the time to celebrate. Very rarely, companies hire the first candidate they find; a few times, they have a single qualified candidate, and they like them, and then it works. But more often, there are multiple qualified candidates competing for the position. Your mission in this phase is to demonstrate to the company that you are the best qualified candidate!

On the other side, hopefully it is not a single company you are reaching at this stage; as being the second best many times gets you to the same place as if your resume had been discarded immediately, to not land a job. It happens that a company will hire a number of candidates with a single interview process; particularly when it is a fast-growing company, they will find a good place for good candidates. But in a bad economy, you are trying for #1; while you need to be prepared to be #2 and out, even if you do great on the interviews.

Let’s focus in what is in your control: Don’t blow the opportunity! A good #2 may get a call in the future; a bad performing candidate will not get a job even if there were no better candidates.

What can we do to improve your chances to nail the interview?

Be mindful, focused and intentional during all the interview. The interview starts the moment you enter the company location or the online meeting, even if nobody is apparently around, even if you are meeting a non-interviewing employee first.

Sometimes the interview starts even earlier… what if you meet an interviewer in the elevator before getting to the company premises? What would you expect if you (or them) are rude , or noticeably kind, would that influence the interviewer perspective?

The interview continues during any moment between interviews, where you are communicating or close to company representatives. If you make a negative comment there, it can be raised to disqualify you as a good team member; the rare flipside, if you save the company during “the break”, they will be probably very interested in hiring you!

The interview ends when you fully disconnect or exit the premises, with no further contact with anybody in the company. Sometimes even later, when you have a debrief with a mentor or colleague.

All this period, your mind should keep looking at the goal: You want interviewers to decide they would like to work with you. And everybody around. Yes, you will need some mental breaks from the process, that is somewhat grueling, that is intense and that you may be nervous; but what you can’t forget is that it is not about solving a specific problem or question, but about the larger goal.

For many years, I have been a teacher. Thus, my natural communication style is to have long answers, explaining as much detail as possible. You may notice it in my articles.

But at some point, I got feedback that during interviews, I talked too much before answering the question. Now, I try to remind myself that the point of the question is to answer the question; not to tell them the full story of my life up to that situation where I faced the question, and then tell them the full story of how I thought a solution and every phase of the implementation. I still have a hard time being succinct, but I practice answering the question first, with as little detail as possible, then wait for signals or follow up questions to get into some detail. That being said, except some “deep review” questions where it is very clear that I need to prepare to talk extensively about something, I practice having an answer that doesn’t last over a minute; if the interviewer wants to know more, they will tell me; I do my best to stop giving them too much detail.

Own it. Once upon a time, I had a horrendous interview experience. It was a panel interview, emulating a meeting with about 4 folks, one of them was “leading” the meeting, while they were explicitly stated as the junior member of the meeting; and I was supposed to be a senior engineer providing proper advice. Then I was asked an interview question, I started answering and they let me go for about 30 seconds, then they started to rudely interrupt. Every time I kept going and tried to get back to the topic, they were worse. Even tried to get help from other members of the meeting or call out the wrong behavior. Nothing worked. Frustrating.

Later, I reflected on the interview. Unfortunately, that company had a toxic environment; I could simply have celebrated to learn that, and having dodged the bullet, right?

However, the point of that interview was to evaluate how I handled pressure, and how I could manage to conciliate and solve conflict. That was necessary to be successful as a senior engineer, even in a non-toxic environment. And I didn’t show it.

I should have kept my cool, control my frustration, call out the bad behavior then stay silent allowing the “attacker” and others to stop the behavior, make sure to discuss the common goal to imply disrupting the meeting would risk not achieving the goal of the meeting. I allowed emotion to distract my mind from the goal; not getting the worst of me (I learned to control my temper as a teen!), but stopping me from showing the seniority they were looking for. While I would not recommend those interview tactics, I recognized that I didn’t get the job because I didn’t show the conflict management skills needed.

After accepting my side, I need to move forward with learning. What will I improve next time? What I can do to be successful the next time I am in a somewhat similar situation (hopefully not as bad)?

Preparation. When I was younger and naiver, I simply headed to an interview confident that they would ask about the job skills, and that I was using the skills every day during the job; only people that is switching the job type or industries would need to prepare with such a mindset.

But no, there are many things that will be different in both the interview and the potential new job, to your current job.

Some good things to prepare: Learn the most you can about the company and the role. When possible, learn more about your interviewers. Find out what are the expectations on the interview, what are the skills they look for; write down questions you would ask somebody to find if they are a good candidate (or look them up in the Internet, or ask AI to suggest questions); then, write an answer, then evaluate and refine your answers. And study the Q&A like you do for an important exam.

Last, but not least, sometimes preparation only comes from having failed, owned it, and learned from it. I got a new skip manager after a reorganization, that I was not aligned with; accordingly, my next performance review didn’t go well. I started looking for a growth opportunity, first in the same company. I found a very interesting position, in a promising product; I applied, and got a member of the team to talk with me (and screen my resume). We both liked what we saw, and I got into the final interview round. It was the hardest technical interview I have ever had; the first interviewer was super technical, and I did well while I lost some time on a technical detail, got some help and delivered. The second interviewer asked me an amazingly hard question, says right away that almost nobody answers it, and let me be in the whiteboard thinking while he will keep working in his computer while I think about it. After 10 minutes of uncomfortable silence, I see a pattern, and start talking about my intuition and how to convert into a solution… the interviewer gets up and we start working together on the problem, and I get a good solution. This of course boosts my confidence. The third interviewer was a breeze after that; and I get the additional interview, the fourth one, which is usually the hiring manager or the ultimate decision maker for the hire. It is the first time I am in a VP office… well, the first time I am in a VP meeting with less than the full team, just by myself and him. I have read stories about this VP in magazines; one of them mentioned him as one of the possible successors of the CEO… Obviously, I am both nervous and over the moon, ready to show that I am the best hire.

He starts: “Bruno, I hear good things from the previous interviewers. I only have a concern, can you explain to me your last performance review?”

I knew I was probably going to get the question. I didn’t know or expected a VP to ask me that question, much less for it to be the first question… I knew that was an issue to prepare for, but I allowed myself to ignore preparing for it. I started blabbing about that bad manager that gave me an unfair review… You guessed it… I didn’t get that job.

But there is a happy ending. Years later, I was in a similar situation. I found this job opportunity in the team lead by a legend. I get to talk with the hiring manager and get to the final round. The first three interviews went well; and then the hiring manager invite me to another call, which I interpret as the “Sales call”, where I intend to convince the HM that I am the right person for the job. The HM asks me the same question!

You guessed right, this time I was prepared. I gave my answer: I didn’t do my best job, partly because it is no longer the project that drives my interest; and that’s why I am looking for a better challenge, that gets the best out of me. The answer I learned over the years, I should have given to the VP long ago.

The call that I expected to use to sell my case to the hiring manager, end up with the hiring manager selling me the team! And I got the job, and to work with amazing people and having a great impact, achieving a lot of what I wanted from changing jobs.

The difference? The second time, I was prepared.

Practice, practice, practice. Do you know what to expect from the interview? If not, ask around! Ask people that have already got a similar role to the one you are looking for, ideally in the same company or their competition. If possible, get one (or multiple) mock interviews!

Many universities conduct career events that include volunteers that will help “interview” candidates, simulating the practices they follow on their companies to evaluate candidates; and then, they will provide feedback on how you did, which is a great way to learn what you do right, and what you cand do better.

As part of an invitation to interview as a software developer, I got access to interviewing.io; this is a service where you can get some free fake interviews or pay for professional interviews to simulate an interview. I did terrible on some of the mock interviews, and great on some others. This helped me get a good list of things I can work on and practice more, complementing the list of things I am good at and need to capitalize the most.

Nervousness.

You have reached this stage… That means, the company thinks you can make it through! They didn’t invite candidates that didn’t have a matching resume; they filtered out candidates that didn’t convince HR or a technical screener, that they are capable. You did go through all those steps; you are most likely deserving of the position. Demonstrate who you are and what you can bring to the company.

Sometimes emotions get the best of us; I was extremely shy when younger. The first time I found a job that matched my interests and skills, on a newspaper advertisement, I decided to go and interview. At those antique times most job ads required a minimum or maximum age, and I wasn’t 18 yet as most basic jobs required… So I was very happy to see one ad with no age requirements, talking about computer programming skills, without experience required as it was entry level… great for me!

Of course, once I reached the company offices block, I didn’t decide to walk in. I decided to just keep walking, and walked around the block. The second time I got in front of the door… I decided to walk past it, again. When I was close to finishing the third lap, I had two conflicting thoughts… One, maybe they will call the police on this suspicious teenager stalking the place… And two, I have nothing to lose.

Having nothing to lose, giving less importance to things, helped me overcome the nervousness. I walked in, there were other two candidates, they looked at me but decided not to say anything. HR was probably also surprised seeing me, but they decided not to say anything; the three of us got a written exam to solve, which I found both interesting and easy. I was happy with my performance on the exam and started talking amicably with the other two candidates… Found that I break my cocoon when I feel safe and secure of what I know.

I didn’t get a call or the job… I was still under the legal age to work! But the point is: I used that experience to work on my shyness, among others. Took many years, and other ideas like imagining this is not real life but a videogame, where I need to follow the rules and make points to win. Easier to do when it is a job you don’t really care if you don’t get, but that help you practice for the one that you really care. Not that I recommend you wasting your time (or the companies), but you probably have a priority list of companies you are willing to join. Start interviewing with the lowest priority, so if you don’t get the job, you are not as disappointed; on the contrary, you reflect and learn what was the mistake you made, or where you could have improved, so next time you are better prepared. Over time, you are more confident because you have done it many times, and you have been intentional to do better each time.

Bad news: nerves never get away, never disappear completely. But practice transforms the adrenaline increase into drive, instead of fear.

Last, but not least: sometimes, your fear has a deeper cause. I am not a therapist, and I don’t play one on TV… But I have been in therapy and learned that is the right tool to get help, when the source of your trouble is hidden very deep inside.

Conclusion

There are many other ways to improve your performance in the final interview and reach the next stage. I cannot write an exhaustive list, but I encourage you to learn from your experience, identify what has been the weak spot and own where you missed it, or where you could have done better to wow the interviewer and not just have a “good” or OK interview; then identify how you can do better next time and move forward.

If this article helps you learn what you can improve to be more successful on your next final interview; and then to do it again, and again, I did accomplish my objective today.

Thanks for reading!

Originally published in LinkedIn, March 1, 2024

This is looking good! Both the recruiter and you decided this is a match, and worth moving forward. Sometimes the match is great, or you have used a prior optimization (particularly referrals or specialized recruiters), and you can skip this step altogether.

On most cases, though, this will be a necessary step, where you first talk with somebody that knows the details about the job. Recruiters are great partners many times, but few times are subject matter experts with a deep understanding of what your job will entail, and how to evaluate if you are qualified or not; other than reading the key words in your resume and research to confirm you are not a fake, they usually will need help assessing your match to the job.

A lot of the interview resources on the Internet focus on this stage and the next, even more than Resume preparation, which I talked about previously. Depending on your profession, there are many resources to find interview questions, practice mock interviews, preparing your technical knowledge to impress the interviewers; I will not get too deep into that area.

What I will focus, again, is on how this phase applies to the funnel. What are the elements to get through the next phase?

In this phase, the objective is you convincing the screener that you can probably perform the job and it is worth a full interview, in 30 minutes to an hour. Is your last opportunity to make progress forward, with still a relatively little time investment. It is also a good time for you to find out if this is a company and role you would like to work at, and a real improvement over your current work situation. If the company wants to move forward, it is also the last input you get to decide if it will be worth the much higher time investment you will make if you go for full interview. By the way, it is also a much higher investment for the company to get you into a full interview, they are paying for the time of the interviewers, which is probably not negligible money.

There was one time that I was happily employed, but a big company recruiter called me, apparently with a good job match, looking to fill a senior position. I was about to go on vacation, and I told the recruiter; very quickly, I got the technical screen; it appeared to go well, for the 30 minutes that were planned. But then, the interviewer closed with a question, saying it was for homework, and that I had a week to deliver it. I quickly explained I was going on vacation, and that I was not interested; the interviewer wasn’t happy, and the process ended there. But no regrets, the process was simply not consistent with the company being really interested, so no reason to waste more time (much less, vacation time).

The details will change a lot depending on your profession; on the ideal case, the screen call will be similar to a small task on the real job, so you cannot fake it. Some companies ask for a big task, that can take a week or more to be accomplished; this is in my opinion a bad practice, and my general recommendation is to decline moving forward. Sometimes, it will be a preset number of theoretical questions, which may test more your memory than your effectiveness, but usually is easy if you know and apply the theory often enough.

Again, you should have asked the recruiter for the format and time investment expectations of the technical screen. And if they don’t match, that is a red flag to track, while not always a deal breaker.

There is some good news. If you have a referral within the company, many times you can skip this step, by getting your referral to vouch for your technical competence to the recruiter. That depends on your referral having worked with you in the past in a role that is similar enough to the role you are applying to; but it is a great time saver when you are looking to grow your career in a similar role and staying in the same industry, focusing on where your past coworkers are working now.

Last but not least: Be ready to walk away from the wrong opportunities. This is your last chance to leave the process gracefully without losing relevant amounts of time. Also, this is the second stage that you need real time investment to prepare, but that is not wasted since that is part of preparing to be successful in your future role.

If this article helps you focus your effort and reduce your time investment on the process, I did accomplish my objective today

Thanks for reading!

Originally published in LinkedIn, August 15, 2022

As a candidate, a lot of time will be spent in the preliminary phase, before even applying, which is time consuming. If you haven’t done it yet, get back to phase 1, resume preparation, or phase 2, lead generation!

Even if you are not looking for a job, I recommend you review your resume (and LinkedIn profile), and improve it, at least every year; then submit it to a few interesting open positions. If you are not getting emails and calls with some frequency, from companies looking for your skills, you are either in a limited market, or your resume is not showing the skills you have. If you have a job and are happy with it, it is the best time to improve your resume and start seeing an increase from unsolicited recruiters interested in your work. You don’t want to wait until you are out of a job, to start building your candidate profile from scratch.

Now, let’s get into some options. What are effective options for this phase?

Our goal is to take the top 10% or less from the previous stage. Time to cut and optimize your leads, selecting the best ones. This phase should ideally be the one with the lowest rate of opportunities passing through from the previous phase.

Select positions that are good matches to your resume. If you would be a great candidate for position X, but your resume is not, don’t submit that resume to that position! Select positions that are a good match for the resume; you can submit your resume for positions that are not a good match, but you should measure them separately, as you should expect a lower yield from those.

The strategy that has yielded the best percentage on this stage in my experience, is to have an employee of the company refer your resume, submitting it through their internal systems. This may get you VIP treatment from the recruiting team, as you already have somebody in the company vouching for your skills. Use your friends and acquaintances network; if you don’t have a network on the desired area, start building one, joining online or physical groups of people interested in the same area, profession, tools or technologies. So, select positions that you have an insider that can help you move through!

When possible, reduce repetitive work. Update LinkedIn, your school job board, and other popular job portals on your industry, with the ideal resume you will promote, and use it for submission; create a candidate account for companies that you will apply for multiple positions, instead of repeating the same typing for each and every position. When the companies you want to apply for use a terrible online system that makes you repeat the same process, select the position that is the top match only, and save time, or select those leads for throw away; apply instead on places where you can reuse the most. If you insist on apply on multiple positions for such system, create a “system resume” copying and pasting the answers for that specific system, instead of repeating the transformations from your original resume.

Consider recruiting agencies and headhunters in your priorities, as they may be able to submit your resume to multiple companies, with a single submission from your side. Particularly, that helps if you have identified multiple leads from the same company. That being said, this comes with a possible disadvantage, as they may ask for some exclusivity on applying to certain companies, or at least not going through other recruiting agencies.

Another great resource that helped me: there are a few specialized agencies that outsource all the way to the technical screen, somewhat similar to recruiting agencies but reducing the repetition on the later interview steps. I will write a separate article with the details on my experience with Triplebyte (positive, unfortunately they have closed) and Hired (not so much), which I have used in my job search.

Last but not least, you can mass submit your resume; while I personally have no experience and don’t recommend this approach, this increases your chances to reach unexpected places. If you are hitting your bottleneck here, there are two approaches: Targeted, where you would get a mail merge directed to people you know (friends or acquaintances), with some clarity on what you are looking for, so it is a bit personalized, which increases the chances for getting their help; and non-filtered, where you either send a mass email with no personalization, or a mail merge with minimal personalization except names / roles of your target, asking them to distribute your email on whatever position they believe may be a match.

If you can see how this will reduce your leads universe to a 10x smaller set of places to send your resume, ideally taking you less than a week to cast your net, then I did accomplish my objective today.

Thanks for reading!

Resources:

hiring process — Is mass distribution of your resume effective in getting you interviews? — The Workplace Stack Exchange

Use mail merge to send bulk email messages — Office Support (microsoft.com)

Mail merge using an Excel spreadsheet — Office Support (microsoft.com)

Originally published in LinkedIn, July 29, 2022