Category: Career Advice

Today I video chatted with Johnny Roccia, my career coach, about value proposition follow-ups and public speaking.

Here’s some notes I took during the call.

Value prop follow-ups

• If you emailed a value prop but don’t hear back from a business then email a follow-up.
• Add something of value in the follow-up email.
• Ask unrelated professional questions such as common interests you have with the person you emailed, or share an interesting article. Stalk their LinkedIn and Facebook.
• Limit yourself to just three follow-up emails. Anything more would make you seem annoying. Plus it shows proof that you really tried to reach out and maybe they’ll consider responding.

Public speaking

• If you mess up the audience doesn’t know, like if you meant to say one thing but say something else.
• Don’t overdo practice because it’ll become scripted and flow unnaturally.
• Roll your shoulders back to straighten your posture.
• If it’s a Ted Talk style then just write down bullet points on a card and let it flow like storytelling.

Recently, I had an interview with ClosedWon, an AI sales software company but they decided to move on with another candidate.

Rejection is never a pleasant experience but instead of feeling disappointed in myself I’ve taken some steps to find out why I didn’t get hired.

Continue reading Got Rejected? Send a Follow-up Email

“What are your weaknesses?” is a very common interview question and according to my professional career coach, Johnny Roccia, it’s actually a terrible question recruiters ask.

Johnny was a hiring manager for ten years and he’s conducted thousands of interviews. Here’s what he had to say about this particular question. 

“I hate that question. It’s a horrible, stupid question that nobody should ask. Only old school people that don’t know what they’re doing ask that question…because the answers are complete bullshit.” Continue reading How to Answer “What are Your Weaknesses?”

Praxis has taught me a plethora of useful career advice. Every week all the Praxis students attend a live session and occasionally they bring in a guest speaker who specializes in a particular topic, in this case, interviewing skills.

Last week’s guest was Johnny Roccia and he is the go-to guy for learning interview skills. Johnny has done thousands of interviews when he worked in HR so he was a perfect fit to teach Praxians.

Here are a few tips he gave:

1. After the interview I follow-up with an email thanking the person for taking time out of their day. This is best done before you leave the interview location because it shows initiative. According to Johnny, 99% of people don’t bother with a follow-up email but it’s one of the easiest ways to get noticed and increase your chances of getting hired.
2. If you receive a rejection email stating you didn’t get the job, ask what you can improve.
3. During the interview if you’re asked something like, “Name a time…” Or “Tell me about yourself” be able to recall a specific example from past work experience and tell it like a short story.

Good luck if you’re job seeking and remember these tips. If all else fails just smile and be honest, your interviewer is also human and they want to get to know you. Think of interviews like speed dating.

Here’s another question that stumps many job-seekers. What are you best at? Most people underestimate themselves and think they’re not the good at anything, others have trouble figuring out what to say to an interviewer.

Trust yourself, you are the best at something and it doesn’t have to be work related. Let’s say you’re the best at reading books. Talk about how you’ve read forty books in a year and took notes.

You can even say you’re best at singing or doing makeup.

You don’t have to be the best in the world but rather best within your group of friends. If an interviewer asks “Are you the best in the nation at X?” Don’t say “yes” because that’s a straight up lie and you’ll come off as arrogant. There’s always someone better and more experienced than you, but out of all your friends and family you are best at X.

How do you figure out what you’re best at? As with any common interview question, you must prepare an answer ahead of time.

The two “I’s”

• Identify a skill
• Illustrate a story

Tell the interviewer what you can do and what you’ve already done.

For example, I’m the best at having infinite patience because I work at a swim school teaching young children.

So I’ve identified a skill, patience.

Now let’s illustrate my story.

One of our students, I’ll call him Sam, was very reluctant to get in the pool by himself. Sam had been with us for three weeks and he wasn’t making any progress.

At this point, I’ve already tried everything. I bribed him with stickers, toys, swim rings, none of which worked. But then I had an idea. Why not play a game? So I made a ring toss game with the toys we had and showed Sam how much fun I had. After a few games, Sam started smiling again and decided to hop into the pool.

Practice your story

Every skill needs to be sharpened and I’d suggest doing the following exercise:

• Record yourself telling your story.
• Transcribe it faithfully word-for-word. This includes “umms”
• Edit it as if it were a paper.
• Rerecord the polished version.
• Repeat if necessary.

“So tell me about yourself.” This is a common question that stumps job-seekers. It’s a simple question but deceptively complicated because it’s vague and most people don’t take the time to define themselves.

Continue reading How to Answer “Tell Me About Yourself” in an Interview

Employers want to get to know you and how you’re able to handle pressure and problem-solving. The whole purpose of an interview is to meet and greet future employees. Interviewers are not out there to trip you and ask tricky questions.

If during an interview you’re asked, “Give an example of how you’ve_______ in your current work.” I’ve been asked how I’ve taken the initiative, handled an emergency situation, or how I solved a problem. Continue reading Telling Your “Hero’s Story” Increases Hireability

A few days ago I wrote about how value propositions get you jobs. This is one of many examples on how to create one.

Continue reading How to Increase Your Hireability