What CEOs Expect From An Interview Candidate

Having written about what CEOs look for in the resumes of job applicants last week, I enjoyed it so much I thought I’d bring you along for the first interview.

First interviews are tricky because like a resume, there’s no way of knowing exactly what the prospective employer is expecting to hear you say and whether the answers you give are indeed the “right” answers. All you can do, beyond ignoring that pile of butterflies in your stomach, is take a deep breath, put on your best tailored suit, and come in confident about what you do know about the place you’re applying to work with.

But there are ways to kick your first impression up a higher notch than showing up in a sharp suit. Expectations that I like to look for aim to keep the interviewing process less nerve-wracking and more… well… just less nerve-wracking than it needs to be.

Polished but Not Perfect

Perfection, in any sense of the word, is a lot to ask of anyone in the first stages of the interviewing process. Go for polished instead. Do your homework on what the company is all about instead and focus on aspects that you either feel you have a skill set that could benefit it the best or that you have additional questions on. Prospective candidates should know about the business – not necessarily every detail, but enough to ask professional, educated questions.

30 Minutes or Less

How long should an interview go on for? And is it a bad sign if it ends too early or too late? Questions like these are enough to drive any interviewee up the wall! Through personal experience, I like to have my interviews with applicants go on for 30 minutes. It’s enough time to get a sense of what the candidate is like and answer any questions they may have without rushing through the process.

If there’s potential for a good fit and all goes well at the first go-around, I’ll invite them back for a second interview to meet with additional members of the team.

You May Be Googled

Don’t be surprised or upset if this occurs either. In addition to the standard background check, I myself will scope out anything I can find about an interviewee via their social media networks. I would definitely suggest that candidates going in for an interview do some light housekeeping on theirFacebook or Twitter profiles as soon as they can before the first interview if only to hide whatever they would not like someone else to see that could potentially work against their hiring favor. And while I never ask for passwords to Facebook accounts, I can’t speak on behalf of all companies either – better to be safe than sorry.

Know Your Resume

In addition to having done your homework on the company you’re interviewing for, keep in mind that your employment history may come with a set of questions too. Why did you leave your last position? If still employed, why are you looking to leave now? And if there’s an large unemployment gap, be prepared to answer questions related to that one too.

The answers you give can also be quite telling too. Try to refrain from talking poorly about past management or being flippant in response. Answers during job interviews are more loaded than you think – they can easily give away clues to the potential for success or failure of hiring said candidate.

Take the Friendly Conversation Opening

Sometimes you can only talk business for so long. If there’s an opening to chat for a bit on yourself, open up to that opportunity. Casual conversation that includes asking what you like to do in your free time, how you engage with fellow employees, or even a favorite destination spot to travel to can reveal a lot about the potential fit of the applicant within your company. It also helps to everyone to relax all around.

Thank You

Last but certainly not least, always remember to follow-up via email or with a handwritten note.  Whether it’s electronic or physical, a thank you note should be sent.  Not sure if you know the right email address or general business address to send it to? Ask for a business card on your way out to have handy. And if you have a card too, feel free to offer it in exchange.

7 Most Powerful Sales Tools

The world is inundated with sales tools: worksheets, playbooks, sales scripts, software, brochures, and so forth.

But all of those sales tools put together are insignificant if you don't have the intellectual and emotional tools that truly create success.

Here are seven sales "tools" you need to develop:

1. Patience

If you're patient, you let customers decide at their own speed.  You realize that nobody ever got a plant to grow faster by pulling at the leaves of a seedling. If you lack patience, you'll be frustrated whenever things take longer than you'd like. Customers will sense your frustration and hesitate to buy.

2. Commitment

If you're truly committed to both your customer's success and your own success, you'll do whatever it takes (within legal and ethical bounds) to get the job done. You'll banish all thoughts of ever giving up. If you lack commitment, you'll consistently fail to follow through–and will often drop the ball at the worst possible moment.

3. Enthusiasm

Enthusiasm is contagious: If you're enthusiastic about yourself, your firm and your product, your customers will "pick up" your enthusiasm and believe in your ability to improve their lives.  If you lack enthusiasm, however, you'll always find yourself surrounded by naysayers and endless "objections."

4. Curiosity

Curiosity is essential to growth–and if you're growing as an individual and a professional, you'll spend time each day learning something new to better serve your customers. You'll read books, listen to audio training, take courses, and network with peers. If you're not growing, your ideas will become stale; your career will languish and your ability to compete will slowly drain away.

5. Courage

If you've got courage, you take the necessary risks to expand yourself and your business into new areas–even when you're facing enormous odds. You'll see setbacks as learning opportunities rather than failures.  But if you lack courage, you'll freeze up when things get weird, turning small failures into big ones.

6. Integrity

If you've got integrity, there's no disconnect between your stated purpose and your real motivations. Because there's no hidden agenda, customers sense the honesty and feel comfortable working with you. If you lack integrity, however, customers will have a nagging feeling that something is "not quite right"–and tend to balk rather than buy.

7. Flexibility

Life is all about change; nothing stays the same. If you've got flexibility, you can observe what's working and what's not and change your approach to match changing circumstances. If you lack flexibility, you'll pursue brittle strategies and tactics long after they've ceased to work.

The above is loosely based upon a conversation with Jeff Keller, author of the bestsellerAttitude is Everything

A Hero or a Traitor?

http://tribune.com.pk/story/383730/a-hero-or-a-traitor/

The writer is an assistant professor of law at the University of Peshawar and at present a doctoral student at Indiana University in the US.

Dr Shakil Afridi has been sentenced to 33 years in prison on treason charges for his role in helping the CIA obtain DNA samples of Osama bin Laden’s children and thus confirming his location. According to press reports, an official jirga constituted by the political agent of Khyber Agency tried him under the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) and passed the sentence.

The fact of the matter is that Dr Afridi’s sentence on the charge of treason has already attracted international condemnation and is further going to complicate things for Pakistan because the rest of the world will use it to question its sincerity in fighting terrorism and extremism. Two senior American lawmakers, Senators John McCain and Carl Levin, have, in a joint statement, said that the sentence is the “furthest thing” from treason because Dr Afridi helped get rid of a man who had “the blood of thousands of Pakistanis on his hands”.

Whatever one makes of the issue, the fact is that Dr Afridi’s punishment sends a clear message to the world at large: that his help in locating Osama was seen by the Pakistan state as an act of treason. It also sends a strong message to others like Afridi: close your eyes and your mouths if you know the location of other terrorists or else you will also be tried for crimes against the state.

The news of the sentencing has generated considerable debate on social media forums and this is reflective of the divisions that exist in Pakistani society. Many saw what Dr Afridi has done as something heroic and courageous, saying that he had actually acted with patriotism because he helped rid Pakistan of a terrorist and in the process weakened al Qaeda and its affiliates. In the past decade or so, these terrorist outfits have killed thousands of Pakistanis — including women and children — and have had no qualms targeting markets, mosques, funeral congregations, jirgas and other public places.

But there are others who consider Dr Afridi a traitor for his role in helping the Americans eliminate Osama. In this camp fall our various religio-political parties, militant organisations, the military establishment and its sympathisers and of course the ghairat brigade.

Regardless of whether Dr Afridi is a hero or a traitor, some important technical and legal questions arise regarding the charge of treason levelled against him and the holding of his trial through an official jirga under the FCR. He has been accused of  “waging war against the state” and of  “concealing a plan to wage war against the state”. The truth of the matter is that the doctor’s actions do not appear to fall under the definition of treason by any stretch of imagination. Other than that, the alleged crime of treason was committed in Abbottabad and not in Khyber Agency. So, how can the assistant political agent (who sentenced him) try the doctor for a crime allegedly committed in a settled area?

Furthermore, the Constitution guarantees the rights of the accused, even those who commit treason, and also guarantees them the right to a free and fair trial with access to a lawyer. To make things even worse, the trial by an official jirga under the FCR means that Clause 7 of Article 247 comes into effect and this bars the jurisdiction of the Peshawar High Court and the Supreme Court of Pakistan from hearing appeals on his case.

Many like me are simply unable to digest the fact that those involved in the targeted lynching of Ahmadis, Christians and Shias and indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians get away with their crimes because of  “lack of evidence”. And those like Dr Afridi, who assist in getting rid of the world’s most dreaded terrorist are swiftly tried and punished — 33 years in prison!

Published in The Express Tribune, May 25^th, 2012.Her

Speaker refuses to send case against PM

Islamabad: Speaker National Assembly, Fehmida Mirza has announced not to forward the reference to Election Commission to de-notify the convicted Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani.

A statement issued by the Speaker Thursday raised objections over the letter sent to her by the Supreme Court which pertains to the verdict against the premier.

The speaker said that according to Article 63 of the constitution, the question of the prime minister’s qualification “does not arise”.

Dr Mirza consulted law experts for the decision, which she dictated to the secretary national assembly.

Last month, a seven-member bench of the Supreme Court convicted Gilani of contempt for refusing to write a letter to Swiss authorities in order to reopen graft cases against President Asif Ali Zardari.

CIA helped makers of OBL film: report

CIA helped makers of OBL film: report

WASHINGTON: In the months after the US covert mission that killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pentagon officials met with Hollywood filmmakers and gave them special access in an effort to influence the creation of a film about the operation, newly released documents show.

A latest report published in Los Angeles Times said: "Director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal, who won Oscars for their 2009 Iraq war movie, "The Hurt Locker," were granted access to a Navy SEAL who was involved in planning the May 2011 raid, according to a transcript of a meeting that took place in July."

Emails and meeting transcripts obtained from the Pentagon and CIA through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch suggest that officials went out of their way to assist the filmmakers, while trying to keep their cooperation from becoming public.

Director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal, who won Oscars for their 2009 Iraq war movie, "The Hurt Locker," were granted access to a Navy SEAL who was involved in planning the May 2011 raid, according to a transcript of a meeting that took place in July.

"The only thing we ask is that you not reveal his name in any way as a consultant because ... he shouldn't be talking out of school," Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael Vickers told the filmmakers. Vickers later added: "This at least gives him one step removed and he knows what he can and can't say, but this way at least he can be as open as he can with you and it ought to meet your needs."

The name of the "planner, SEAL Team 6 operator and commander," was redacted from the documents that were provided to Judicial Watch.