gcapone, Author at Palladian Career Resources

Military Officer Interview Assessment

Yesterday, I posted a recording of an interview with a transitioning military officers. The question asked was:

What are you better at now than a year ago?

If you have listed to the recorded interviews during each of the last four weeks here, you probably noticed the answer to this question was different from the other three.

Military officers don’t get the opportunity to practice interview skills. When they transition, they need to get up to speed quickly, and many find this challenging. The officer I interviewed did very well given that he was just starting his transition. The first three questions showed a confident, articulate officer. There were opportunities to give better answers, but on the whole not bad.

This questions was different. It seemed to catch the job seeker off guard and his enthusiasm and confidence appeared lower. Every job seeker will run into a question they aren’t prepared for at some point. The important this is to not get rattled and tell you story.

This answer was short, just over a minute. It explained the experience that the officer gained. What was missing was how this would help an employer.

The key to a question like this is using the answer to demonstrate potential. Here’s an example of how this individual could have answered:

In the last year, I had the opportunity to complete a program in the strategic arts. This program showed in great detail how strategic planning is done throughout Washington and how plans get implemented. This gave me a tremendous understanding of the process that I did not have previously. In my current role, this has made me much more effective because I understand how to get thing accomplished on a wide scope. In future roles, this experience will help me assess and respond to different organizations my faster and easier so that I can maximize the effectiveness and success of projects I am leading.

This example focuses half of the answer on future accomplishments, not past events. You want to create a clear picture in a hiring manager’s mind of what you will accomplish for them. This example does this. Now the example answer could still be improved. It’s not very specific in regard to what was learned. It’s even less specific regarding the opportunity. Ideally, this answer would be tailored to the needs of a specific company during an interview.

Military Officer Interview: Professional Development Question

I have one final interview answer from a transitioning military officer. Each week for the last four weeks, I’ve shared one question from this interview. Next week, I’ll have a recording from a different interview.

The answer in the recording below is to this questions:

What are you better at now than a year ago?

Most interviews will have a question regarding your ongoing professional development. Asking how you have improved is one style of these questions.

Listen to the Answer (Time 1:18)

Tomorrow, I’ll post my assessment and recommendations for this answer. I welcome any comments you may have regarding this answer.

Note: I only record and post interviews when I have the permission of the job seeker prior to conducting the the interview.

CEO Resume Evaluation

I received a resume recently of an individual that founded and managed a business for the last seven years. The resume illustrated several problems.

First, the job seeker listed their title as "Chairman, CEO, President and COO." Listing four concurrent titles that say the same thing is redundant. That they are all top level title raises ego questions. Didn’t CEO or President sound impressive enough by themselves?

This is actually fairly common with self employed and small businesses. Some individuals give themselves inflated titles. One of my favorite examples of this was an individual that had started a consulting firm. The firm had two principles – the individual and his wife. His wife didn’t have active involvement but was the majority owner and had the title President (to qualify as a woman owned business). The consultant was essentially the only active participant in the business. He gave himself the title "Senior Executive Vice President." If you have the authority to give yourself a title in your company, don’t make up something ridiculous.

Second, the job seeker listed the ticker symbol of their company on their resume. This can be valuable if looking up the ticker provides useful information. When I looked up the ticker, it showed a stock that never traded at more than a penny per share in the last several years and had been delisted. No other information was available.

Third, the job seeker gave no reason why the business they owned and managed for seven years failed. Highlighting the failure with the ticker symbol makes it very important to explain why the business didn’t succeed.

Fourth, the resume contained no accomplishments. If you start and manage a business over a period of seven years, I would hope that you would have at least one minor success over that time. Sharing no successes, even if the venture ultimately failed is a bad idea.

Fifth, the resume doesn’t give any indication what career path this individual is seeking. The job seeker had held two positions prior to the business they owned. These positions were in completely different career fields. I can’t share the exact titles – they’re weird enough it may comprise the confidentiality of the candidate. Suffice it to say, I have never met a candidate that had worked in two of the three industries listed. Plus, the industries have absolutely nothing in common. I can’t determine from the resume (there was no cover letter) what this person would want to do – not even a remote guess.

Now, this individual may be extremely capable and talented. Unfortunately, there are so many questions about this person and no reason to move forward. The result: with this resume, they are going to be rejected from almost every opportunity.

By the way, as one of the owners of Palladian, I’m thinking I need to jazz up my title. I’ve narrowed my choices to "Executive Senior Executive Vice President" or "Senior Executive Senior Vice President" Which do you think sounds more impressive? Maybe I should just use both!

Cover Letter Worst Mistakes

Although there were a lot of mistakes in the cover letters we benchmarked, six stood out as the worst. Below is an excerpt from our Cover Letter Best Practices Report.

Worst Mistakes

Being Unprofessional: Using an informal salutation won’t help and most likely will make a poor impression. If you aren’t going to address the letter in a serious manner, why should a hiring manager take your resume seriously.

Being Sexiest: It was surprising to find cover letters addressed “Dear Sir” and “Gentlemen.” Even if the job seeker intended no offense to female hiring managers, by addressing this way, they are showing that they are not aware of how this might be perceived – not the impression you want to make. Even with male hiring managers, this will make a bad impression. Most hiring managers will conclude that the job seeker has the potential to be an EEOC or Sexual Harassment liability. The downside for the company is too great to risk, and the job seeker’s resume will probably be discarded.

Wrong Customization: A number of the submissions were addressed to the firm, not an individual. In these cases, one spelled the name of the firm wrong and one had left the name of another company in the salutation, forgetting to replace the name from the last time they sent the same cover letter. Needless to say, neither of these mistakes made a good impression.

Spelling: The majority of cover letters had no spelling mistakes. The ones that did have mistakes, tended to have multiple mistakes. The two spelling mistakes that were the most entertaining were:

– A job seeker, in the first sentence of their cover letter, wrote that they were “seeking a challanging, new position which will utilize my skills and allow me to make a substantive impact.” They should focus on the challenging task of learning to spell challenging.

– A job seeker wrote a lengthy cover letter that focused almost entirely on an MBA they recently received. The letter was 2 paragraphs, 178 words, dedicated to their education and how it would be a benefit to an employer. This would not be a problem if they could spell the University of “Pheonix.”

My Name Is: A number of cover letters start out with the first sentence stating the name of the job seeker. The first sentence of a cover letter is the most likely to be read. Wasting this prime real estate on your name makes it much more likely the reader will skip the cover letter and move on to the resume.

Too Much Hype: Some of the cover letters examined were submitted to confidential employers, where the name of the company was not disclosed. Despite this, some of these included gushing statements of how the job seeker was extremely impressed with the company due to their excellent quality, track record and reputation. You can get away with blanket statements like this if you know who the company is. Doing this when it is clear you know nothing about the company will make one of two impressions. First, you are exaggerating everything you write and it can’t be trusted. Second, you’re making up whatever you think the hiring manager wants to hear, so nothing you write can be trusted.

Cover Letter Best Practices

Palladian International conducted a benchmarking survey of cover letters used by active job seekers. This survey examined a variety of characteristics of cover letters in order to identify the best practices that job seekers should employ. The survey also uncovered a number of common mistakes that job seekers make.

Best Practices

Write a Customized Cover Letter: Very few of the submissions included a customized cover letter. The vast majority either omitted the cover letter or had an overly general letter. Personalizing a cover letter’s salutation and customizing the body of the letter to the position will help create a compelling presentation. Customization also demonstrates effort and initiative.
Give a Reason to Hire: The vast majority of cover letters made blanket statements similar to “I am confident that I am the best candidate for the position” or “I am confident I will be extremely successful in your organization.” These statements do little to help impress the hiring manager. One of the primary purposes of a cover letter is to generate interest and sell the job seeker. Do this with tangible accomplishments. A very limited percentage of cover letters focused on significant, specific accomplishments. Including just one accomplishment can help validate the remainder of the cover letter and get the hiring manager excited. The best cover letters had 3 or more accomplishments that directly related to the position the job seeker was pursuing.
Give Information Not on the Resume: Only 8% of cover letters gave a reason why the job seeker was looking for a career change. This is a question that virtually every hiring manager will want answered. More importantly, if your cover letter and resume make a strong case for your track record of success, the question may come up: “If they are so good, why are they looking for a job?” There can be a lot of good reasons to look for a job. If you don’t include your reason in the cover letter, you open the door for doubting the credibility of your success.
Keep it Short: The best cover letters had between 150 and 250 words. Letters that were 400+ words, on average, contained less content and were less valuable than the shorter letters.
Make it Easy to Scan: The best cover letters utilized bullets with titles making it easy to scan the letter quickly. This improved the readability of the letter. Cover letters should draw the reader’s attention to the most important information. Once the reader focuses on the key points, they are more likely to read the entire cover letter and then read the resume thoroughly.

Military Officer Interview Assessment

Yesterday, I posted the recording of a transitioning military officer I interviewed. The question asked was:

Tell me about a time when your planning led to positive results.

This is a typical behavior based question and gives a job seeker the opportunity to discuss an accomplishment demonstrating their planning and organization.

The answer the transitioning military officer gave reviewed a good accomplishment from his background. The delivery did not make as good an impression as possible.

The primary problem with the answer was that it used too much jargon. The background of the situation was presented clearly. From there, it will was disorganized and the jargon made the answer tough to follow.

All job seekers need to be careful when using technical terms. A word you use every day at one employer may be unheard of at another. This is especially important for transitioning military officers to remember. The language used in the military can be vastly different from the civilian world.

To alleviate this problem, make sure you explain technical terms, or leave out the term and just give a descriptive explanation. In the recording, the individual talks about the "OPG-SOP" and explains that this is the Operational Planning Group Standard Operating Procedure. Using the acronym and then the formal name is unnecessary. It can distract the listener while they try to digest and remember the term. A better approach would be to just state that he "developed the standard operating procedures for our group." This is much shorter and simpler, and yet still conveys sufficient information.

Another problem with this answer was that it didn’t provide a tangible example of the results. There should be little doubt that strategic planning would be improved with more communications, better organization and improved cooperation. What isn’t clear is how significant this change was. All it would take is one example of a project that was improved in a clear, measurable way because the planning process was improved.

The answer also missed an opportunity. Although it demonstrated good strategic thinking and process improvement skills, there was nothing about how this experience would help another employer. The job seeker is not going to face an identical challenge later in their career. Despite this, the experience should help the individual to be successful in other roles. Great interviewers take experiences like this and directly show how the experience will benefit an employer.

In this interview, concluding the answer with a much stronger statement would have been better. Something like this:

Improving our planning process showed me how important it is to coordinate the activity of a decentralized team. The improvement we saw from the cross-talk between departments was significant. With this experience, I know that in the future, I will be able to improve an organization by maximizing the coordination of work between departments.

The more specific you can make the benefits you achieved in the past and will be capable of achieving in the future, the better.

Transitioning Military Officer Interview Recording

I have another interview answer from a transitioning military officer to share. The question I asked was:

Tell me about a time when your planning led to positive results.

Listen to the answer (Time 3:28)

Just as I did the last two weeks, I’m posting the recording today, and will post my assessment of the answer tomorrow. Please feel free to post your thoughts as a comment.

Note: I only record and post interviews when I have the permission of the job seeker prior to conducting the the interview.

Resume Length

Usually, when I talk about resume length, I focus on the number of pages. Keeping a resume under two pages is a good rule of thumb, but this is only part of the story. The other thing to consider is the number of words in a resume.

Reading Rate

The average adult reads approximately 250 words per minute. This estimate is based on easy to comprehend material. More difficult, technical material requires a slower rate, with some estimates as low as 50 words per minute for extremely technical material when the reader wants 100% comprehension.

How your resume is written will affect how a person reads it. If it is very technical in nature, with very long complex sentences, the reader will have to read slower. If your resume is very long, you put the reader in a bind. Slow down to comprehend everything, or save time by reading fast and only skim the material.

Let’s say your resume is written so that it can be read fairly easily – say at 200 words per minute. This means that a 400 word resume (a fairly typical length) will require two minutes of concentration to read thoroughly.

The problem with many resumes is that they are not easy, light reading. Additionally, most hiring managers can only afford 15, 30 or maybe 60 seconds per resume. In that time, they may only comprehend a few sentences before determining if they are going to discard the resume or continue reading.

Long Resumes

I’ve seen very long resumes. We looked at one recently that was five pages and 1,600 words. It was full of technical terms and acronyms. It was work to comprehend and understand each detail. If I wanted to truly understand this job seeker’s resume, it might take ten or fifteen minutes (possibly longer, I can’t be sure since I quit reading early on).

Recommendations

Keep your resume short and concise.
Write in easy to read sentences and paragraphs.
Target a length of 400-900 words.
Use bullets, indents, bold, italics and other formatting cues to direct the reader to the most important information.

Qualifications on a Resume

I received this resume from an Engineer recently. At the top of the resume, the job seeker starts with section titled "Qualifications" with two bullets:

Qualifications

More than three (3+) years of engineering experience; proposal and project execution of air pollution control systems. Additional experience in production pilot plant, and research and development.

Former self-employed authorized retailer of Dish Network satellite television service, connecting hundreds of customers in the area of <metro area>.

These are the only two bullets under the qualifications section. The candidate’s objective states that they are seeking a chemical engineering position.

The first bullet is ok. It shows 3 years of experience in the industry, with a few specifics that may help – air pollution control experience and pilot plant experience. These aren’t great, but they’re better than nothing.

The second bullet is a waste of space and distracting. When I first read it, I was surprised. It doesn’t have any relevance to chemical engineering. Worse, it made me wonder why this individual didn’t have a single accomplishment after three years in the engineering field to highlight. Do you think an engineering manager wants to hire someone that had no accomplishments after three years? Probably not.

The self-employed experience does have a place on this resume. It shows independence, good business experience and initiative. The problem is that these attributes aren’t the key to an engineering position. The self employed experience should be covered in the work experience section (where it was detailed more fully) but not in the qualifications sections.

Top 6 Situations to Use a Functional Resume

A functional resume is a great format to use for some job seekers. Unfortunately, many people use it in the wrong situation, and others fail to use it when they should. If you are in one of these six situations, you should consider a functional resume:

Recent Graduates: If you are just graduating from school, you don’t have work experience to put in a chronological format. This makes a functional format a great choice.
Individuals Changing Careers: Moving into a new field presents several challenges. One of the most significant is showing that your prior experience is transferable to the new career. A functional resume can help demonstrate this.
Senior Executives: Many senior executives have extensive careers that can be difficult to summarize in two pages. Organizing information in a functional format can help in prioritizing the most important information without letting the resume get too long.
Project Specialists: Some careers, such as construction and consulting, are focused on completing projects. It can be difficult to write about each project in sufficient detail to highlight important accomplishments without having the resume get too long. A functional resume can make this much easier to do.
Stay at Home Mom’s Returning to the Workforce: Returning to the workforce after taking significant time off can be very challenging. A chronological resume focuses the readers attention on your career progression. With a large gap in your employment you want to focus on your skills and abilities, and a functional resume can help do this.
Transitioning Military Officers: Moving from a military to a civilian career is a very big change. Civilian employers rarely understand all the details of a military career. This makes highlighting your skills and abilities very important.

The important thing to remember when you select the format for your resume is to highlight why you will be successful. For some, this is their career progression and a chronological resume will work well. For others, their skills and accomplishments are a bigger selling point and a functional resume works better.