7 Responses for "How to get a job"

1. Ed Hollett August 8th, 2007 at 11:28 am

   Great post!

   I’ve been on both sides of the process and can attest to the wisdom of your words.

   Questions from the candidate aren’t always important, especially if the conversation has been free flowing during the interview. I’ve often asked my questions during the course of the exchange and had no reason to ask more questions just because the interview template said to ask more questions.

   As a general observation, Government of Canada interviews tend to be more thorough and offer the opportunity for someone with a PR, marketing or general comms bent the real opportunity to shine. Information is readily available - like the comms policy - and the interviews are usually designed to see if you’ve done the homework and then gone beyond.

   Let’s face it, you are supposed to be a communicator and a persuader. If you can’t sell do the job in an interview, you might want to consider another career. The competition might be stiff but hey, that’s life.

   Sadly, the same is not true generally in the community. Earlier in my career (in the days before the Internet) I called the organization to arrange a background interview on the organization, its plans and issues. The CEO of this provincial government organization declined to meet with me because my initiative would have given me what he termed an “unfair” advantage. No one else was available either, for the same reason.

   I’ve been through too many interviews where not a single person on the panel had a clue about the job requirements. The questions were general and vague and that is a dead give away you’d be dealing with an organization where no one knows what they are looking for.

   In the most recent example, the panel selected someone with no relevant experience despite having specified they were looking for a minimum of five years PR experience. Not long before that, the panel in another organization and another competition turned down people with accreditation and more than 20 years experience for a senior PR job in favour of - I kid you not - people with less than the minimum specified experience and in about 25% of the cases, no relevant experience at all.

   Students and young PR practitioners take note. Canuckflack gives good advice.

2. Chamika August 8th, 2007 at 5:54 pm

   I think that 90% of the battle when applying for a Government of Canada position is actually managing to land an interview within a reasonable amount of time and try to pass the three hour written exams that often require a ridiculous amount of recall with no resources and that often exemplify one’s ability to memorize the Canadian Style Guide and GC Comms Policy.

   I moved to Ottawa 3 years ago with ’significant’ communications experience. I am also fully bilingual, which gave me an enormous advantage over most other candidates - I am exempt from further language testing in French. I figured out how to decipher the job postings enough to be screened in for various communications positions, but I never got any formal interviews for almost a year. When I finally did manage to break through at a very junior level position, I took advantage of the training offered. I have since been able to make some progress towards where I would like to be, although I’m not quite there yet.

   Most of the time, if I write a great cover letter that might not contain all the key words in the job posting and that showcases how I’ve researched the department or agency, I don’t get an interview or receive the standard “You are lacking significant experience in ….”

   At the 4 interviews I’ve gone to, offering different ideas or explaining the projects I’ve been involved in has often drawn blank stares. I try to also bring in a portfolio with me to demonstrate my work, which is usually declined since others don’t do the same, therefore accepting my extra work might be perceived as creating bias (which it is meant to do, I want to stand out from the others!).

   The times when I have prepared relevant questions, the interviewers have been panicked or annoyed (I was the last interview of the day that time) and I was redirected to the often confusing dept. website (which I usually read extensively, along with calling the dept. library for further research depending on what I’m looking for). Now that I have my bearings about me, I have been networking in Ottawa.

   The advice you offer and the comment on different people receiving the position despite the requirements in the posting are somewhat comforting - it’s good to know that not every government interview is the same and that some departments might appreciate something a bit off the beaten track.

   It would be great to read your thoughts on what makes for a winning covering letter and c.v. when applying for a government communications job and how to go from application to interview.

3. The Ol’ Job Hunt: Redux « BlogCampaigning August 8th, 2007 at 6:58 pm

   [...] Canuckflack has some more great advice, which can be found here. [...]

4. Mark Buckshon August 11th, 2007 at 10:55 pm

   Hmmm, interviews. I decided to abolish the conventional interview in the selectioin process for my publishing business, and really think we are more successful in attracting the right people to the organization.
   Of course, we have a screening/evaluatioin process. We send out a questionnaire to all candidates for the posted positions. The questions are designed to be career related — some would be conventioinal ‘interview’ questions, others test various skills and perspectives. We only review resumes after the candidates complete the questionnaire (that eliminates a whole lot of wasted time and effort).
   Next stage, a brief phone interview. This is to explain the process, which might involve an online aptitude test, and/or a paid work or freelance assignment. If the candidate is in Ottawa (we are based here but do business elsewhere in the province), the prospective employee might come into the office for the test assignment and we’ll see the person then for the ‘interview’. Alternatively, we’ll have further phone calls, and arrange a face-to-face meeting before offering an employment contract.
   Interviews are ‘put your best face forward’ exercises. They may have uses, but I’d rather see people doing real work, and evaluate them based on their work performance, not their ability to put on a show.

5. Colin August 11th, 2007 at 11:22 pm

   Well, you don’t make it to the interview without passing a written exam first, in most cases.

   In the case of the civil service, where you have specific rights as an employee, it is harder to simply bring on someone for a “test run.”

   We kind of have to put them through the ringer, testing knowledge, experience and personal suitability.

6. Holly August 14th, 2007 at 8:00 pm

   Ask questions?

   How about “how do you feel about *not* giving me a Blackberry”, or “I like to work 8 hours and then go home, is that a problem?”.

   Those are my top two

   But I do have to admit that it is difficult to break out of the “hit all the right keywords” mindset during the interview, when that is exactly the mindset that you have to be in in order to get screened into the competition and pass the written exam.

7. Landing your first Public Relations job « BlogCampaigning December 21st, 2007 at 6:31 am

   [...] How to get a job [...]