How to Prepare for a Job Interview After a Layoff
Were you recently laid off from a job?
The clock is now ticking and the longer you’re laid off the harder it’s going to be to find a new job. You may not want to rush the process but employers don’t like to see long gaps of unemployment. So file for unemployment and start looking for a job.
With a little drive and determination, you could land a job interview in as little as one week. But, wait! What if it has been years since your last job interview? Well, here’s some tips to help you cope with the anxiety and nail that interview.
Practice Your Explanation
The first thing you need to do is start practicing your explanation of why you are unemployed. If it’s a fresh layoff, then there’s no need to worry, life happens. Here’s some things you need to remember.
- Don’t let your emotions drive your explanation. Don’t be afraid to say you were laid off, but don’t be bitter or negative about the company that let you go. Nothing shows your positive attitude more than handling a layoff with dignity and respect.
- Keep your answer short and to the point. If you want to kill your chances at a new job, tell a story. Hiring managers don’t care about your story, they only care about your attitude, skills, and if you can help the company achieve their goals.
- Practice giving your explanation to other people. You want them to be very critical. This is not a therapy session, these are practice runs so you can fine tune what it is you want to say.
Fix Your Resume
As a recruiter I look at a lot of resumes. 80% of the time they are terrible. Here’s some tips to make your resume better.
Metrics, Metrics, Metrics
Hiring managers want to know what you bring to the table. The best way to do that is by quantifying or qualifying your work history. Think of it like this: What have I done that has made money, saved money, or improved a business process.
For a sales person it’s quotas and sales volume, for a lawyer it’s billable hours and clients, for an engineer it’s projects, for a manager it’s about people and what they have done to improve the company.
You need to put anything in your resume that you can qualify or quantify to show what makes you special as a person. From the employer’s perspective, they want to know what you can do to make them money, save them money, or improve their processes.
Wall of Text
Stop trying to jam so much text into such a small area. The enter key is your friend. Break things up with bullet points and use a normal size font that doesn’t require glasses to read.
Shorter is Often Better
Nobody wants to read a 5 page resume. If you are early in your career, try to get it onto 1 page. Rarely should anyone have a resume longer than 3 pages long.
The most important things are skills and metrics followed by job duties. Hiring managers and recruiters often times skim resumes looking for keywords and metrics to try and quickly weed out resumes.
Hire a Professional Resume Writer
If you really want to get ahead, find a good resume writer and spend a couple of hundred dollars to get it done professionally. It can make a world of difference.
Don’t Use Crazy Looking Templates
Stay away from crazy looking templates that do more to distract than help your chances. Most hiring managers and recruiters want to see a resume where they can quickly sum up a person.
If you want to stand out, focus on writing a short intro on what you bring to the table. Use something more like this to catch people’s attention: “10 Year Award Winning B2B Sales Professional with a History of Surpassing Quotas” or “Certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt with Experience in Multi-million Dollar Process Improvement Projects”
You want to give the reader a lot of information in a limited space right at the beginning. The goal is to grab their attention and give them 1 or 2 sentences on who you are and what makes you special.
Keywords
If you post your resume on a job board you need to understand how people find your resume. Think of it like doing a search in Google. If you wanted to learn how to fix a water pump on a 65 Mustang, you would use those words to find it.
Now if nobody used the word Mustang in their articles, how hard would it be to find the answer? Pretty hard.
If you have a specific skill-set, you need to have that in your resume. Every skill that you can think of that you are competent in should be listed. That’s how people are going to find you.
If I was looking for a manufacturing engineer with value stream mapping experience and it’s not in your resume, guess what, I won’t find you.
Tailor Your Resume
If you plan on submitting your resume to specific jobs, you need to tailor it to the job descriptions. One company might want someone strong in X skills and another in Y skills.
If you have both skills that’s great, but you should focus on the skills that are pertinent to the job. You can create multiple versions of your resume depending on which skills you need to highlight.
Talk to Industry Specific Recruiters
If you’re in sales, find a recruiter who specializes in sales positions. Manufacturing – manufacturing recruiter, HR – HR recruiter, etc. You get the idea.
There are 2 types of recruiters typically, candidate recruiters and client recruiters.
- Candidate recruiters typically work with candidates and target companies to help them find a job. If your skills are in high-demand than this is a good option for you. Candidate recruiters are few and far between since it’s not an easy way to build a business.
- Client recruiters make up the vast majority of recruiters. These are the recruiters that you will usually run into and tend to work with a group of clients that they are trying to fill positions for. If you contact one of these, find out if they have anything open that’s a match, if not, give them your resume and move on to the next one.
Research the Company
Before going in for an interview, make sure you know as much as you can about the company. Not only does it help you to ask intelligent questions about the company and position but it shows that you’re a serious candidate.
This is also an opportune time for you to figure out how your skill-set is a good match for the company. What skills do you bring to the table that the company needs?
Familiarize Yourself with Common Interview Questions
If you were laid off from a job you had for 10 years, you may not remember what an interview was like. You’re in luck. Now you can pretty much find anything on the internet so use it to watch videos on interviews and to find industry specific questions.
Some typical questions you might get asked include: What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? What are your goals in six months and then five years? Why do you want to work for the company? Why do you feel you will be a valuable asset?
It’s always easier to prepare for a job interview after a layoff when you know what to expect.
Practice Answering Questions
Have a spouse or a friend ask you interview questions. I know it’s awkward and uncomfortable but it’s a great way to get over your fears and refine your answers. At the very least, practice in front a mirror.
Dress for Success
Even if you’re applying for a job as a cashier or janitor, dress like you are on top of the word. Never show up in shorts or jeans. You may not need a suit, but you should look professional. Pants should be black or tan. Both men and women should opt for solid color dress shirts.
Arrive Early
First thing you should do is map your route and see how long it will take to get there. You should try to get their at least 15 minutes early. The last thing you need is something to go wrong and you arrive late.
If you get there too early, you can wait in your car and review your notes.
Write Out Notes
Writing out what makes you special also helps you to refine what you want to say during the interview. If I were to ask you what are 3 things you would want the hiring manager to know about you, would you have a good answer?
Think about that and write it out. Now, I want you to write out what you did in your prior line of work that shows the person that.
For example, if you wanted the hiring manager to know you’re great with managing people. How would he know that? You could talk about how members of your team went on to win awards or achieved something of benefit to the company.
Match your best skills with your actions.
Enthusiasm, Enthusiasm, Enthusiasm
One of the single most important factors in hiring is enthusiasm. Think of an interview like a first date. When you go out on a first date, you really want to impress the other person. If you’re dull and boring do you think you’re going to get another date?
Unlikely.
People want to know they can work with you and the best way to show them that is by being enthusiastic about the position. Even if you don’t like the company or the job, you need to always be on your A-game.
It’s good practice and you never want to burn a bridge. So start forcing yourself to smile and show some excitement when you go in for that interview.
Enthusiasm can make up for a lot of deficiencies in skills.