Ways To Kill Time During Interview Breaks

iStockphoto.com | shironosov

You're invited to interview for your dream job. On the agenda ithere's a 30-minute time slot labelled "Break."  This means that they couldn't find somebody to fill that period of time, and they need to park you in a conference room or the lobby for a while.

You should plan for downtime, and how to use it. Keep in mind that even if you're not in an interview, the company will still be watching how you respond. Here are some suggestions to  occupy your time:

• Prior to the interview, print the job description, the agenda, relevant articles about the company, and the LinkedIn profiles of your interviewers. Bring them. Read them. Should someone pass by, they'll see you're taking your day seriously.
   
• Bring (an appropriate) magazine to read. People will consider what you're reading - if you're interviewing for a job as a fashion buyer, flipping through Vogue won't hurt your case.
   
• Review your employment application for accuracy. Any mistakes can cause problems during a background check.
   
• Take inventory of the business cards you received during your interviews. When you're getting ready to send thank you notes, you'll need names and addresses and you can ask the Corporate Recruiter at the end of the day for the information of anyone you may have missed.
   
• Ask for a nature break. Gotta go? This is the time. Return promptly in case the next interviewer is ready.

A few other things to consider:

• Resist the urge to check your phone. It's tempting – you really want to know what's going on at work while you're out, but don't do it. Your phone should be off from the moment you arrive at the interview. What if you forget to turn it off and it rings during an interview? Even worse, what if you jump on a call during your break, the next interviewer arrives, and you can't get off the phone?
   
• Don't get too casual. Keep a professional posture. Don't assume nobody is watching - the interviewers will be.
   
• Never assume there will be something to occupy you where you wait. Be prepared with something to read. Staring into space because you've got nothing to look at makes you look like you're on a bad acid trip.

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Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, and career coaching services, including a free resume review. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website,

The Curious Case Of The Career As A Pit Crew Member

iStockphoto.com | kirstypargeter

Careers can be funny things. They often go in directions we never anticipate.

In college I was convinced I wanted to become a journalist. I took the appropriate classes, and after graduation applied to journalist jobs. I was excited when I found a job as the crime and government reporter at a small newspaper in a small city in Michigan.

It didn't take long (five months) for me to leave the profession. I liked the writing, I just didn't like the job itself and what it entailed. So I went back to school for an MBA and after graduation embarked on a career in recruitment. Today, I'm a resume writer and career coach.

For those of you counting at home, that's three different professions. And if you had asked me at the very beginning of my career if I wanted to be a staffing manager or a resume writer, I was so naïve and unaware of the world around me that I had no idea either such career path even existed.

The other day I stumbled across a fascinating article on Jalopnik, "How People Become Part of a NASCAR Pit Crew."

Performance cars need a lot of maintenance during a race. After so many laps around the track, the car will roll into the pit (maintenance) area. The pit crew swarms around the car. They jack up the car, change the tires, fill the gas tank, and make repairs. Then the car speeds off and continues the race.

I always thought race teams used mechanics as pit crew members. Some do. But consider this – the whole process takes no longer than 15 or 16 seconds (that's considered long). That's not much time for critical work that requires a great deal of speed and agility. And mechanics aren't always the right fit.

Enter athletes. Elite athletes spend an inordinate amount of time and effort developing their speed and agility. NASCAR got smart, realized that being in a pit crew was an athletic job, and that they could recruit and train athletes to be professional pit members.

Per the article:

"Amongst those 33 crew members [surveyed], more than half did college athletics and another 21 percent did amateur, semi-pro, Olympic or professional sports. Together, nearly three-fourths of the group came from some kind of serious sporting background outside of racing. Only 6 percent had racing backgrounds, and only 6 percent were listed with no athletic background at all."

Even more telling was that only six percent of crew members had a mechanical background, and that only 15 percent stated their "career goal was to be in racing."

Another 46 percent were recruited, scouted, introduced, or lived in the area of the work. In other words, they most likely either had no idea the job of a pit crew member existed or had no idea how they would break into it.

Bottom line: It's a big world out there, with countless vocational possibilities. You may not have found the right career. But don't lose hope - your career may find you!

iStockphoto.com | maccj

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Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, and career coaching services, including a free resume review. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website,

How A Corporate Recruiter's Performance Is Measured – And Why These KPIs Matter If You're Looking For A Job

iStockphoto.com | olm26250

Come performance appraisal time, you get evaluated on your productivity. How many widgets did you process? Did you meet your goals?

Corporate recruiters are no different. They have goals, too. And if you know the standards they are held to, you may be able to better position yourself as a successful candidate. Here are some sample metrics toward which recruiters must work:

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Metric: Cycle time, as measured by the number of days it takes to fill a job.

What it means, and Why it matters:  While a company will usually wait to identify the best fit for a job, the faster a job is filled, the better. The longer a position stays open, the more pain it causes for a hiring manager and his or her team who are covering the work. As a candidate, if you can help bring the process to a prompt closure by not only demonstrating that you have the right skills but can also provide prompt closure (prompt start date, ready references, etc.), you may be able to tilt the process in your favor.

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Metric: Cost per hire, as measured by the actual dollars spent to fill a job.

What it means, and Why it matters: Recruiters may have several resources to fill jobs at their disposal, including job boards, job advertising, dollars to relocate a candidate, and the use of staffing firms. All of these cost money. A cost-effective hire is defined as one who brings the most value for the least cost. So, if you’re a candidate who lives near the office, and your recruiter didn’t need to advertise to get your resume, and you meet the criteria of the position, you may be able to position yourself as a cost-effective hire for the company.

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Metric: Quality of hire, or how good a fit the person is for the job in terms of performance.

What it means, and Why it matters: This metric is a bit more difficult to gauge, because the results often lag behind the hire. It could be measured by ratings on the next performance cycle, or through a post-hire manager survey, or through the percentage of terminated employees hired during a period of time. Either way, these results show up long after the hire has been made. As a candidate, you can put a recruiter at ease by demonstrating a strong history of past performance – strong references and performance appraisals are a great place to start.

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Metric: Offer accept rate, or what percentage of job offers are accepted by candidates.

What it means, and Why it matters: A job offer declined by a job candidate is a wasted offer in many ways – the copious amounts of time spent interviewing, the potential mismatch in terms of salary and other expectations between the company and the candidate, and the opportunity cost of having spent time on a single candidate rather than on having hedged bets with other candidates. The more you and the company can agree on terms up front, the less time either of you will waste on a doomed interview process.

By no means are recruiters evaluated on just these metrics. There are countless other ways companies may opt to measure their recruiting function. But the more you know, the more you can streamline your own interview process.

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Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, and career coaching services, including a free resume review. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.