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Posts from the ‘recruiting and jobs’ Category

Mar 12

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To Get a Good Job, You Have to Enjoy Interviewing


When you hate interviewing, you don’t perform up to your full potential. The KAS NYC recruiters know that part of getting a great job involves effective interviewing and rather than shy away from the activity, you must embrace it and enjoy the journey.

 

While interviewing is full of personal rejection, you must put negative feelings aside and hope for the best. Consider positive thinking as the first step to your new job.

 

When you enjoy a meeting, you come across as more relaxed, personable and, most importantly more self-assured; your answers sound more sincere and you become more approachable.
Though, the number one way to enjoy interviewing more is to become better at it. Here are just a few ways to do so:

 

  • Envision Success and the Benefits it Will Bring - To Get a Good Job, You Have to Enjoy Interviewing What will a new job bring you? What are the benefits of obtaining it? Take the time to envision you reaching those goals and the future success at the firm you’re interviewing with.

 

  • Make the interviewer feel important. To Get a Good Job, You Have to Enjoy InterviewingMany times, when we begin interviews, the mood is tense and tone is full of skepticism. Though, you can easily change that. The best way to do warm the other party is to encourage the interviewer to talk about themselves.  Find out how the person started, what they like about the company, what their background is and be sincerely interested in their answers. Remember, people take an interest in you when you do the same.

 

  • - Listen Intently. The best way to turn an interviewer off is to not listen. People, including hiring managers hate being interrupted. Instead of thinking about what you’re going to say next, focus on what the individual is saying and use that information to formulate a response rather than thinking about anything else while the person is speaking.

 

  • - Use the interviewer’s name. The deepest craving we have as human beings is the need to feel appreciated. The most successful people remember others’ names and address them as so. If you have trouble with this, make sure you get the interviewer(s)’ business card and refer to it when needed.

 

In the End

When we enjoy interviewing, we land more jobs, we get paid more and have a better career. It’s not academic work, but changing your mindset takes some practice, however the work pays off.

Jan 23

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How to Interview for a Sales Management Job


1. Gain the right mentality. When interviewing for an executive level business development job, our sales management recruiters suggest that you should expect to win and embrace the rewards that go with the victory.

 

Job interviewing is no different than any other thing in business: you should go into challenges always planning to come out on top. Leave everything on the field and don’t let yourself hold back.

 

Regardless of level of job seeker, many times the thing that prevents us from successful job search results is our own thought process and lack of self-confidence brought on by a few job interviewing rejections.

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Additionally, when you envision success prior to an interview, your mentality during that meeting is going to be more positive than if you focus on failed aspects. Take a moment to meditate and, instead of dreading a poor outcome, the headhunters at our Chicago sales and marketing headhunting team suggest you focus only the upside that you’re going to see once you execute.

 

Thinking about failure is more counter-productive than you can imagine. Many times, interviewees will envision not getting the job to mitigate any disappointments that they will have once they are declined a job offer. The best career advice blogs know this as well.

 

When Henry Kissinger was asked about what he learned from the presidents he had worked with-starting w/ JFK, he replied, “Presidents don’t do great things by dwelling on their limitations, but by focusing on the possibilities.”

 

2. When you find yourself in the running for an executive level sales job, the interviewer is going to look for a few things, among these are:

 

a. Direction.  Whether you have a clear idea of what you want to do both personally and professionally as well as their going to gauge your strength to persist in the face of setbacks. When leading a business development team, resiliency is a trait that is not a luxury, rather it is a necessity that the sales manager possess.

 

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b. Passion – they’re going to look for whether you have a passion for what you do. Does your job excite you? Do you enjoy mentoring younger sales representatives. Can you pass this positive mood on to the team.  Do you have the desire and ambition for a better career.

 

c. Integrity – When companies look to recruit leadership roles, trust becomes a big factor, thus putting more emphasis on the individual’s integrity. When defined, one can argue that there are 3 main components to integrity: self-knowledge, candor and maturity.

 

- Self-knowledge: You know what you want to do and why you want to do it.

 

- Candor: Integrity means candor. You don’t trim your principals or even ideas to please. You are straight-forward with your speech and it comes from knowledge rather than an outside force.

 

- Maturity: Integrity means maturity which means dedicated, capable of working with.

 

d. Leadership acumen. When interviewing for a sales management job, the hiring company is going to put much emphasis on this. Leadership begins with confidence in oneself and without confidence in yourself, you’re not going to fare well in higher level sales interviews. Though, know that leadership is not something that is cultivated overnight. Rather, it takes a lot of work and mental discipline to train yourself to be able to take on the responsibility of a group of sales members.

 

Pre-Interviewing Exercises:

 

Sydney Pollack said the best way to codify one’s thinking is through writing and speaking. Owning an executive recruiting firm, I always suggest to my higher level sales job applicants that they do a few writing exercises prior to going into the meeting. Writing out thoughts makes for more cohesive speech. Specifically, there are four I recommend:

 

1. List 5 Successes You’ve Had As a Sales Manager? This will get you in the positive frame of mind and allow you to see the successes you’ve had as too often we focus only on the mishaps regardless of how many positive achievements we’ve accomplished.

 

2. List Your #1 Failure, How It Made Have it Hurt, but What Did You Learn and Did It Make You Stronger in the End? The best leaders can admit to their failures and learn from them. You can’t sweep failure under the rug. Rather you must come to terms with it and, once you begin to analyze what you perceive to be a failure may not be all that serious in the long-run.

 

3. Take 2 Minutes and Think about how much work you’ve done in your career to be able to do this job.

 

4. List 5 Skills That You Have that warrant you being paid to this job.

 

Coming to Terms with Imperfection

 

Understand that if you were perfect, you wouldn’t be human. Prior to going into a sales management interview know that you will never have a perfect performance. Though, dwelling on small imperfections as well as what we don’t have dilutes all the positive things that we do possess.

 

Jan 18

"NYU Ken Sundheim"

Handling Rejection During Job Interviews

Handling rejection during job interviews is a crucial facet to any job search. Learn how to handle these rejections via recruiters advice from KAS Placement.

Read more

Jan 14

"Alison Ringo"

Answering the Interview Question: “Why Do You Want to Leave Your Job”


When answering the question, “Why do you want to leave your job” our executive recruitment team of tens see a disconnect between what the job seeker says and what the interviewer wants to hear. Therefore, I’ve have compiled a few answers which ought to help you better answer the frequently asked interview question:

Answer 1:

Our balance sheet is hurting, cash flow is hurting, the expenses are too high and that stresses people out and when people are stressed, they don’t perform well. This is not changing b/c the company keeps spending on aspects that are not generating revenue.

 

- There is always money to be had if you look in the right places and you do have to get to some of the wrong places to get there, but once you hit a “wrong place” you have to look at it as one step closer to a solution rather than a stagnation. There is no substitute for profit.

 

The best companies encourage team work and candor. Many times, the culture is just individualized, thus no good ideas are thrown around and there’s no feedback on how everyone’s doing.

 

There’s no substitute for hard work; it solves problems and achieves goals. Right now, I need profit driven company to work at which realizes this. Doing so would result in a job that greatly invigorate me.

 

The best companies look at setbacks as temporary and challenges to be overcome; this is no longer the case at the organization. When resilience is not present neither is success.

 

Our selling style has been too aggressive lately and this is based on our cash flow shortage which is hurting management of the sales cycle and thinking about what the clients want rather than what we need as a company which is feeding our balance sheet asap.

 

Sales is about customer service and meeting needs and that’s what closes deals. Right now, my current company is unable to do so.

 

We no longer segment our customers into 3 lists which are most effective such as rating them:

 

“A” – customers who take up the most time, but pay the most bills for the organization. They’re strategically and financially critical to the business, however we are no longer paying as much attention to them.

 
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“B” – customers who pay their bill on time, we don’t hear from much, but we don’t demand too much. Part of our cash-flow shortage is derived from these individuals not being up-sold.

 

“C” – the clients doesn’t have the most money, but needs the most attention and doesn’t pay on time. Unfortunately, the firm has too much time on these clients and, thus not giving the employees the tools to make the right decisions which lead to success.

 

Answer 2:

 

Some good things that used to be at the company were…

 

We used to think that we were the best and somewhere along the line that thought process changed. If we don’t think we’re great, how are clients supposed to? There was vision at the company; there was hope and this showed in the way people spoke and the way they interacted with clients.

 

There’s no authenticity and passion at the company. The managers and bosses are not very resilient and they are not ambitious enough to create an environment with great leadership.

 

There are expectation gaps in our product / service. Management wants us to promise x to get a quick cash infusion, then they can only deliver y which is not conducive to long-term relationships with clients and cross-selling, up-selling opportunities.

 

There is little optimism at the company and the team tends to fold every time any hurdle arises, thus not creating an atmosphere of resiliency and persistence which is paramount to success in any business. A bad event happens and management thinks the problem will last forever when defeat should be looked at as a temporary failure.

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Dec 17

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Why Do You Want to Leave Your Company?


When asked, “Why do you want to leave your company, many job seekers have trouble answering. To give you some help, the KAS Placement Los Angeles recruiters have some answers:

1. Our balance sheet is hurting, cash flow is hurting, the expenses are too high and that stresses people out and when people are stressed, they don’t perform well. This is not changing b/c the company keeps spending on aspects that are not generating revenue.

- There is always money to be had if you look in the right places and you do have to get to some of the wrong places to get there, but once you hit a “wrong place” you have to look at it as one step closer to a solution rather than a stagnation. There is no substitute for profit.

2. The best companies encourage team work and candor. Many times, the culture is just individualized, thus no good ideas are thrown around and there’s no feedback on how everyone’s doing.

3. There’s no substitute for hard work; it solves problems and achieves goals. Right now, I need profit driven company to work at which realizes this.

- The best companies look at setbacks as temporary and challenges to be overcome.

4. Our selling style has been too aggressive lately and this is based on our cash flow shortage which is hurting management of the sales cycle and thinking about what the clients rather than what we need as a company which is feeding our balance sheet asap.

- Sales is about customer service and meeting needs and that’s what closes deals.

- Segment your customers into 3 lists:

“A” – customers who take up the most time, but pay the most bills for you. They’re strategically and financially critical to your business.

“B” – customers who pay their bill on time, you don’t hear from much, but they don’t demand too much.

“C” – doesn’t have the most money, but needs the most attention and doesn’t pay on time.

While you want to remember to only use these when they are accurate, using them will only make you interview better.

Dec 9

"ken sundheim, recruiters"

5 Things That Will Happen To Any Entrepreneur


5 Things That Will Happen to Any Entrepreneur

1. Sales fluctuations – In business, regardless if you’re an attorney or an entrepreneur running a sales recruiting firm (executive recruiters Los Angeles), the best salesman / saleswomen win in business.

You’ll begin to notice that every now and again, your client base’s needs shift as do their concerns and the best entrepreneurs can sniff that out and alter their sales and marketing accordingly.

Those who get too comfortable with what worked yesterday find themselves full of frustration and devoid of business capital.

2. A changing environment – It’s going to happen. Every business and every industry changes – it always seems to when everything is almost too comfortable.

As young entrepreneurs, when confronted with this situation, the change must be embraced rather than fought. When the recruiting industry started to change due to social media, I was given the option to adapt or to take a big hit.

Adaptation is part of being a successful entrepreneur – note: adaptation is easier if you see the changes around the cornet, but nevertheless you must go with the flow.

"ken sundheim, executive recruiters"

3. Self-doubt – Business has ups and downs. During the downs, we think we are a lot worse than we are and during the ups and always perform above average due to the confidence increase.

As an entrepreneur, you must learn when you are feeling this self-doubt and gauge how realistic your feelings are; self-doubt leads to nervousness which kills performance. Know your triggers and what is making you feel that way.

For instance, I always know I’m in a down mood when I begin eating unhealthy for a week or so and, knowing this trigger, I pick myself up and go to the gym. Resiliency and going through the motions will overcome self-doubt…that is, if it’s combined with hard work.

4. Mistakes, mistakes and more mistakes – When you’re young and running a business, the first year or so is going to be chalk full of mistakes…here’s the secret: we all know step one which is to learn from our mistakes (the obvious), but step two which is just as important is to not get down on ourselves for making them.

Beating yourself up for mistakes that are due to a lack of experience when starting a business is similar to beating yourself up for inevitable events that are out of your control. Write them off and move on.

5. You will find times of true enjoyment – Running a business is very difficult. The work is highly demanding, the amount of creativity needed is infinite, but so is the payoff which comes in the form of enjoyment and fulfillment in what one does and what we accomplish.

I’ve always found that if you work through the bad times and keep on going, luck eventually sways your way. You can be wrong more than you are right, but if you work through the mistakes and can jump the hurdles rather than fold, you’ll love what you do.

Ken Sundheim started KAS Placement Recruitment in 2005, a recruiting firm specializing in sales and marketing recruitment.

Nov 27

5 Reasons You’re Not Getting the Job You Want 2


Not Getting the Job You Want

Article Continued – 1st part of 5 Reasons You’re Not Getting the Job You Want

 

 

3. Overemphasis on Networking – Because I’ve worked very hard at opening my staffing agency, I’ve been invited to meet a lot of individuals who, on the surface would be tremendous contacts for some people.

 

 

That is, unless you forget the #1 rule of human nature which is people are only interested in what you can do for them. Unless it’s a family member, don’t count on networking your way to a successful career; you’re wasting your time.

 

 

This is a significant reason as to why you’re not getting the job you want.  Just remember, while you’re out socializing, somewhere someone is putting in the required work to find that difficult job and their skill set will outrank your networking abilities as nobody is going to pay you to socialize.

 

 

"not getting the job you want"

 

 

4. Failure to Gain the Necessary Skills – Just because you don’t have every little skill or experience that the employer is asking for doesn’t mean that you can’t learn these skills prior to applying and, thus be able to put them on your resume without lying.

 

All it takes is some good ‘ol fashion staying. After years of running my staffing firm, as a New York City recruiter I’ve only seen a few cases where a job seeker has a 100% of the requirements listed on the job description and, when they did those job seekers were overqualified for the position.

 

Part of the reason you’re not getting the job you want is that instead of doing the legwork to gain the necessary skills, you pass over the job opening, thus creating an unnecessary roadblock in your quest for a better career.

 

5. Failure to Remain Resilient – Anything worthwhile in life is going to require some sort of fight. If you look at just about any movie, the storyline revolves a protagonist that must overcome some sort of obstacle.

 

Being able to remain resilient and keep a positive attitude during your search for a career is not only important, it is imperative to your success. Our New York recruiters frequently comes across job seekers who were recently laid-off and who subsequently gave up working to regain their career.

 

Although tough times will happen to all of us with regards to both our personal and professional lives, the most successful individuals who end up getting what they want also tend to be the most resilient. Know that rejection is part of the game and never expect everything to go as planned.

 

Voice Your Opinions on Jobs

 

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