Your Job Search - Avoid the Dreaded Mandatory Point Deduction

If you've ever watched Olympic sports like gymnastics or diving or figure skating, you've heard some announcer or another talk about point deductions. Errors like a step on landing (gymnastics), splash upon entry (diving) or under-rotating a jump (skating) result in deductions from the overall score. Serious mistakes can result in mandatory deductions of a high value...like a figure skater who misses a jump and falls.

Too many deductions and your chance of ending up with a medal slips away.

Job searchers, you're being scored, too - not by the cranky judge from Russia or France, but by just about everyone you encounter at the hiring company. Making matters trickier, the scoring system isn't completely uniform from one hiring manager to the next - you can expect differences of opinion regarding degree of difficulty, point values, and mandatory deductions, but you may as well be up there on the balance beam or the still rings when it's all said and done because there definitely is a scoring system.

Want to avoid mandatory point reductions? A few tips:

o Send an error-free resume. That means no typos. No spelling errors. No grammatical mistakes. No sloppy punctuation. Oh - and you might want to make sure you spell your name correctly. I kid you not...I heard this one just the other day. It wouldn't have been so bad if the last name were spelled like mine...there's a good chance nobody would have noticed a missing letter. But this person had a last name more like Jones. And she forgot the "s." (Who needs fiction when you have true stories like this one?)

o Be punctual for your interview. That means you should be in the lobby ten minutes before the appointed time. Not 15 minutes late, and not 40 minutes early.

o Be friendly. To everyone. If you think the receptionist or the people you meet in the hallway are unimportant, you are wrong. You can get mandatory point deductions from some surprising sources. 

o Ask questions. When the hiring manager closes the interview by saying, "Do you have any questions?" - have some. Many candidates lose their shot at the job right there. Don't underestimate how important this is.

o Make eye contact, and have a good handshake.

o Put your mobile phone away for the duration. The only thing on your mind ought to be this company and the job opportunity you're interviewing for.

o Take every interview seriously. Want to rack up enough mandatory point deductions to guarantee you're out of the medal round? Assume the telephone interview is procedural.

You've put a lot of effort into your search. Avoid sloppy errors - and their corresponding mandatory point deductions - that can wreak havoc with your final score.

searchjob