You can, and you must, negotiate reasonable date and time for the interview

An I.T graduate phoned me recently. She had just received the phone call at 15h30 from a certain company. She is being invited to attend an interview for internship the next day at 7h30, in Sandton. She is staying in Vanderbijlpark.

She has agreed to the interview and is frantically summoning me to help her prepare for tomorrow's bang bang. We meet. She is in a panic mode. She has been down with flu the past few days and her voice is gone. The doctor has ordered her to rest. And it gets worse. She will be using public transport and, as far as I know, the earliest taxi out of Vereeniging to Joburg CBD (where Noord long queues await her before reaching Sandton) is around 06h am.

I suggest to her that she calls the person who phoned her to explain that tomorrow is too short a notice; that she is using public transport therefore she might not make it in Sandton on time; that her voice is gone and surely the interviewers will not enjoy those moments where they will be tilting their heads to bring their ears closer to the whispering candidate.

After a brief hesitation, she makes a phone call. The employer can hardly hear her. I take over the conversation to explain the situation; to request alternatives and indicate her dedication to the interview. ‘Okay,’ says the employer, ‘We will see #name of applicant# on Monday at 8h30 then.’ The employer representative appreciates the honesty and advises applicant to call on Monday should she sense that she could be running late so that they could wait for her.

There are several lessons we should draw from this experience, which is something I often share with the students and professionals. Some of them are:

1.     Although the youth employment opportunities are scarce and the country is being driven to the brink because of it, we should never appear desperate to the point of over-committing when we know that we lack the resources and have little time at our disposal to be ready for job interview.

2. Employers may give an impression that they are doing us a favour by inviting us for job interviews, and be unreasonable about timing but, we are also selling our skills and potential therefore open communication and demonstration of negotiation skills are necessary; they enhance the very interview which, in my view, has already started.

3. When we are not ready for the interview, we are not ready and we should be willing to politely explore alternatives with the employer.

4. An interview which is arranged within 12 hours, even 24 hours, is extremely unreasonable to the employee, unless in exceptional circumstances which I cannot think of right now. We deserve adequate time to prepare and employers know this.

5. [Please add your comments…]

www.moroloconsultants.co.za

Here is how Tinyiko aced her job interview

Tinyiko has this masterstroke when it comes to job interviews. Her preparation sets the bar. It throws whatever competition there is out of her way.

Several years ago I was handling the recruitment assignment for a Johannesburg-based company. A job advert was in the national Sunday paper. Imagine finding over 47 applications rolling into your email by Monday morning. Suddenly, having a cup of coffee and asking colleagues about their weekend seemed like a waste of precious time. I just dived into doing work.

One of the emails came from Tinyiko. She was working in Limpopo. Her email highlighted her recent achievements and the impact her work had had on her current employer. Her motivation letter articulated why she thought she was the right person for the job. Her CV highlighted the initiatives she has come up with, including the things she is planning to implement. I set her CV aside and asked my colleague to arrange a telephone interview. We short-listed her for the final interview.

There was a problem. If Tinyiko was to take up the post, she’d have to relocate. We resolved that we will cross that bridge when we get to it. On the day when we invited her to attend the final interview in Johannesburg, she raised another technicality. ‘Fusi, I have informed my manager about this opportunity,’ she said. ‘He is refusing to let me go; he is increasing my salary,’ she concluded. I was stunned. My boss had taught me that once you land a great candidate, lure her with a great tongue. So I went to work inside Tinyiko’s doubtful mind. We paid for her flight and for her overnight hotel stay.

Arriving at the interview, Tinyiko was more than prepared. A suit-clad towering lady with an effortless smile greeted me in the reception. ‘Fusi,’ she said as I was leading her into the interview room. ‘I have prepared a Corporate Communication strategy for them.’ Before I could say Wow, Tinyiko suppressed me, ‘I even have enough copies for them; I’m going to rock them!’ I was beaming.

Tinyiko "rocked" the interview panel and left for the airport, leaving them to regain their senses. I was returning from walking her out when the manager stood from his chair and said, ‘Tinyiko is the one! I wanted to hear something so relevant and practical,’ he said. Tinyiko accepted the job, but not before we had revised her salary offer about two times. Her boss was plying her with the counter-offers. She relocated to Johannesburg. She rocked the new company’s communications division so well that she was offered a promotion within two years in the job.

www.moroloconsultants.co.za

Slay your fear and taste a paradise

'Each moment stolen from fear is a paradise,' says the author of the book which I have read recently - A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali (Gil Courtemanche).  

Although the book is about epic genocide which plagued Rwanda in 1994, and the inter-play of unyielding love, social inequality and naked patriarchal brutality, the words remind me of the discussions I regularly have with the graduates. You should see the surprised look in their faces when I challenge them to confront their fear and be radical about their employment and economic challenges.

Some of us are not working yet because FEAR prevents us from taking bold actions. We hide behind the “usual steps” of responding to job adverts through CVs. It is a fail-safe route, we believe. I argue with the students that this method is not effective. Some of us are not working yet because in our minds being "employed" by a large organisation is our dream. This dream is ineffective.

If we value the education that we have received, and we are embracing that knowledge, and we are open to learning through trial and from others, therefore free-lancing, consulting and entrepreneurship are not just alternatives but possibly a way to a fulfilling life.

Yet there is fear of rejection and embarrassment. This fear is paralyzing us when we think of selling our abilities to others. Our fear is linked to being unsure if we know what we ought to know, and sell, as graduates. There are several possible causes for this: Cram work instead of studying; Lack of confidence in what we have learned; Having been ill-informed when choosing a career, or having done so at the whim of peer pressure; Obsessing about job title and regular pay instead of doing the work which is necessary, the work which stretches our abilities and zones of comfort, even outside employment. Yes, social challenges exert pressure on us to be in a paying job.

Our tertiary education, with its own challenges of relevance and quality, is not absolutely bad to a point of total blame. We also make it what it is. Self-education, to supplement formal education, is important; it builds our confidence to hold our own during conversations and dealings. People and businesses do not just buy our qualifications; they also buy who we are. We should invest in ourselves.

When we build our knowledge through finding out more about what needs to be done; and we take on the risk of rejection or criticism by offering to help and improve things using our knowledge and skills, we have already overcome our FEAR. And we might get to a point where we realise that FEAR is essentially false expectations appearing real. We become liberated at finding out that indeed ‘every moment stolen from fear is a paradise.’ Try it. Taste a paradise.

 

www.moroloconsultants.co.za

Whose job is it?

It is YOUR job.

It is our job to get that job we want. Sometimes the job which we want is the one we have right now. The question might be: do we appreciate the job we are doing now?

I have created this blog to share these typical questions with you. It doesn’t matter what we want to call it, our current job is our job – it is our business. The job which we’re looking for is our job; it is our daily business.

I will be dedicating this blog to sharing with you my experience of providing consulting on recruitment and employment services, I will also be sharing my observation on the following:

§  What the job offer means to the employers and what it means to applicant or candidate

§  How to search for a job

§  What to do when you apply for the job that you want

§  How to prepare for the job that you want starting from where you are currently

§  What others have done to prepare for the jobs they wanted

§  And what to do once you have the job you always wanted

After all, it is your job.

I will be sharing with you the real-life examples of people who are applying for jobs. Some of the stories are unusual; interesting. Some might be phenomenal in that we can all learn from the experience found in it.

There will be usual questions… “What goes on within the company or organisation that is recruiting?” This matter is overlooked.

I do not claim to be an expert on this subject. I do not promise you answers to all the questions. I will be sharing with you the interactions I’d have had with the recruiting officials.

I hope that through this we will be able to reflect what you may have done wrong, or right, and how to try the new ways now.

And for those of us who are graduates, or are students who still have to come across the challenge of finding that first job, this blog is also about you. I am here to encourage you. I am here to inspire you. And I am also here to be inspired by you.

Let us go for the Job.

Fusi Motaung

www.moroloconsultants.co.za