I subscribe to The Ladders newsletter. The Ladders is a job search board for people interested in jobs that pay over $100,000. Marc Cenedella, a Harvard MBA founded The Ladders several years ago.
This week marks the 400th week Marc has written a career advice newsletter. In honor of this accomplishment, Marc decided to offer his best career advice for landing a job.
This tip is some great common sense career advice. Check it out. More important, use it in your next job interview…
Marc Cenedella’s best career tip for his 400th week of writing career advice newsletters is this…
“You know that part of the interview where they ask ‘well, do you have any questions for me?’…
“Say yes and ask: ‘How do I help you get a gold star on your review next year?’
“This bit of advice has helped more people in more interviews than any other bit of advice I’ve shared over the years. Why?
“The interview process lends itself to our becoming self-absorbed and talking only about ourselves.
“Or conversely, we become ‘job analysis engineers and ask all sorts of questions about the job and reporting structure and how it fits in with the company’s five year plan and so on.
“I love getting questions from candidates in interviews, but I do have to admit I feel that they’re not quite getting the point of an interview if they pull out six pages of typed, single-spaced questions.
“We get so obsessed with the details of the job that we forget about the work.
“Working together and being a good addition to the team mean being concerned with how you are making the team successful. And that means being concerned with how much you are helping to make your boss successful.
“Asking this question shows that you have empathy. It shows that you have an interest in your boss’ career and future success. It shows that you are not just a self-absorbed “what’s in it for me” kind of person. And it shows that you know you are there to “give” as much as you are there to “get”.
I love this tip, and I love Marc’s logic in explaining it. Tweet 127 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Pay it forward. Build relationships by giving with no expectation of return. Give of yourself to build strong relationships.” What better time to begin paying it forward in a potential new job than in the interview?
As Marc points out, asking this question demonstrates that you’re a team player, someone who realizes that career success is a team, not individual, sport. You have to be someone who is willing to give as much as get.
Tweet 130 in Success Tweets says, “Be generous. By giving with no expectation of return, you’ll be surprised by how much comes back to you in the long run.” This is in keeping with Marc’s common sense career advice.
Bosses are people too. They want to create their own life and career success. By asking Marc’s simple question, “How do I help you get a gold star on your review next year?” You are demonstrating that you are someone who understands that you succeed when your boss succeeds.
I’ve managed people, and let me tell you, I always wanted a team that cared about my career success, just as much as they cared about their own career success.
The common sense career success coach point here is simple. Successful people realize that life and career success is a team sport. They succeed when the people around them – especially their boss — succeed. Marc Cenedella, CEO of The Ladders a job search site, shows how you can brand yourself as someone who is a team player by asking a simple question in a job interview: “How do I help you get a gold star on your review next year?” This is really good common sense career advice. Ask this question in your next interview and you’re likely to land the job you want and move forward in creating the life and career success you want and deserve.
That’s Marc Cenedella’s common sense career advice on landing a job. I love it. What do you think? Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment. As always, thanks for reading mydaily common sense career advice. I value you, and I appreciate you.
Bud
PS: If you haven’t already done so, you can download a free copy of my latest book Success Tweets Explained. It’s a whopping 395 pages of common sense career advice explaining each of the tweets in Success Tweets in detail. Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.
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