The Water Cooler

4:30 AM

I apologize if my posts here bring down the atmosphere of the chatroom ...

@AIQ You have nothing to apologize for.

@AIQ I would recommend "Brag, how to toot your own horn without blowing it" and any book on sales, and how to close.

Thank you!! I will look them up ...

Never, ever EVER allow yourself to come across as needy on an interview. Also, Don't just pick from their "values", get some details. There's a real difference between saying "I like the fact that as a widget manufacturer, you value the community" and saying "I thing it's fantastic that last year you donated 40,000 to the old widget maker's home in east somewhere"

@AIQ Also, Allow yourself a bit of love. If you go into an interview not liking the real you, they won't either. Any good interviewer can spot insincerity a mile away

It's hard when you're looking for work, and you start second guessing yourself. Another reason I recommend a book on sales is that you have to be EXTREMELY thick skinned in sales and be able to handle rejection. Someone who is successful in sales fails 98% of the time. If someone in sales makes a sale 1 time out of fifty attempts, he will make enough money to live quite well. It is a numbers game, and a skilled salesperson understands that every "no" gets you closer to that "YES".

Now, you are only in part-time sales. You need to sell yourself successfully only once.

4:52 AM

@Old_Lamplighter That is great advice ...

Sales isn't my field though ... my past experiences have been in research work ... I worked on some nice projects related to policies ... I worked for 20 months in a research unit for a newspaper in my country after my bachelors, came to Canada for my MA, and then had a one year co-op work experience with the provincial government ... finished my MA and now I can't land any job ...

@AIQ I'm a skilled interviewer, and I was job hunting during the worst time in the last 20 years, right before the attack on 9-11-01. During that year, I put out over 1000 resumes. If you want to talk about not being able to find a job, that was the time

The thing is, you need to change your outlook and attitude. You will find another job, because you've done it in the past.

And here's the thing, we are ALL in sales, every last one of us, every single day. You are selling yourself, you are selling your ideas.

2

The skills you pick up in learning sales translate all through life. It's not that you need to become a professional salesperson, just that you grab the skills that they have

Another book you might like is "rhinoceros success", which is a great book that sales teams use to motivate their staff.

@Old_Lamplighter True, but how do you show someone you have the skills required for sales when you never had a related position, but you actually have the skills from doing a lot of other things, such as running university clubs?

Q: How was this question rude or abusive?

Now, like every good salesperson, you need to believe in the product, and the product is you

@AIQ Overcoming objections is key to sales

@AIQ If I were in the position you describe, I'd say something like "Well, that's exactly why you should hire me. Not only do I have the skills that you need, I bring a different perspective, not having picked up my skillset from sales, per se, but rather through my experience in running clubs, and (insert other things here)"

"If you just hired someone with a strict sales background, you wouldn't get the fresh perspective I bring"

Pointy Haired Boss

7:19 AM

0

This question was deleted because it was "rude or abusive": https://workplace.stackexchange.com/posts/164134/revisions How? This was a very educational case of a professional meeting a roadblock in his personal development and making up excuses to ignore what was in front of his eyes. It was actu...

discussion

Kaz

8:10 AM

@Old_Lamplighter Another Professional Engineer that I think you'll enjoy reading about: workplace.stackexchange.com/q/164194/31777

Q: Is it ok to use informal contractions (wanna, gotta, kinda) in an interview?

9:16 AM

1

Next week I have a interview in English with a company from USA and I would like know if should use slang terms when I speak like: "wanna" , "gotta", "gonna", "lotta" , "kinda" , etc? Should I use these expressions or I should use "want to", "got to", "going to", "a lot of" etc ? I always think t...

interviewing communication hiring-process

Ugh, this already hit HNQ. I'm tempted to remove it since the question's premise seems off and I just retitled it which affects some of the answers...

> oh i understood you , thank you you answer me good – simon

Oof. Ok, so that's not exactly an OP who's comfortable with fluid and informal English...

Thoughts on this? The question in the title and even the old one which specified using slang instead is answerable and the answers are good but they're kind of useless for the OP. The OP is clearly still learning the language so the advice to them should be about shooting for clear and formal language in order to be easily understood...

Tempted to start a meta on this one.

Eh, screw it. Comment left and let's see what happens. :)

motosubatsu

10:51 AM

@Lilienthal and another one:

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Q: Discouraged from using the work basketball gym by boss

About year ago when I moved to new job first thing that caught my eye was a basketball yard at workplace. I was aware that stuff like this is common in the US, but in Europe this is a relatively recent novelty. I was very happy with this discovery because I always had wish to stay in shape, but w...

professionalism communication work-environment health

I've flagged

11:48 AM

@motosubatsu Persistent one isn't he? :) Thanks for flagging. @Neo took care of it. The advantage of having a meta post is that it'll be more visible to the community so we can catch these earlier and not waste too many people's time.

@Lilienthal this one is trying to tweak things so that he doesn't trip any key words now. It looks like penetration testing

@Old_Lamplighter Yeah, there was one other from yesterday we didn't even spot because the question was not age related... Well, since those questions are well received and the troll posts are still identified that's not really a problem I suppose.

@Lilienthal I think gnat is right, someone is doing research, either for an article, homework, or for a coordinated attack on the site

12:03 PM

@Old_Lamplighter Maybe. Or they have an axe to grind and too much time on their hands. I doubt it's a coordinated attack since it's so incredibly easy to spot (and for other reasons I can't go into).

At least it's a breath of fresh air over having to read and remove endless poop jokes. :)

4

@Lilienthal Yeah, but a single actor can go for a group. That's how some of the best groups work. But, that just may be my paranoia.

Terran Swett

2:30 PM

workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/164210/… – I'm a little surprised by the answers to this one. To me, words like "wanna," "gotta," "kinda," and "gonna" are just normal spoken English, totally appropriate for use in pretty much any situation that isn't a very formal one.

"Very formal" like giving testimony in a courtroom or something like that.

@TerranSwett ALWAYS err on the side of more formal speech in a business environment, it is far better to be erudite and come across as pedantic than it is to be quotidian and come across as vulgar

@TerranSwett slang is also a minefield for a non-native speaker and the risk of looking a damfool poseur is too great.

Kaz

3:40 PM

@TerranSwett They're things I would definitely say / sound like, but not things I would write.

Araucaria - Not here any more.

4:48 PM

@Kaz Misapplied slang and mixed metaphors are what lolcows are made of

@Kaz great answer to the "director asked my team to evaluate my manager" quetion

Kaz

6:02 PM

@Old_Lamplighter I had a lot of fun thinking about it ^^

10:51 PM

@DarkCygnus Hi there. I'm a bit puzzled. I've often let users know that I'll delete my suggestions for improvements if edits are made. I explained why earlier. I suppose some people might consider that an inducement/incentive (which it's not intended to be). But a "threat". Erm, I'm a bit perplexed!??

@Kaz That's ok, 'cuz you don't write your answers in an interview!

@TerranSwett Yes, you're absolutely right.