The Google Resume (23 page)
Authors: Gayle Laakmann McDowell
Tags: #Business & Economics, #Careers, #Job Hunting, #General
Newbie Wants Out
Dear Gayle,
I’ve been working at my new job for only five weeks, and I can already tell I want out. The company told me that I’d be working with customers, other departments, etc., and that’s just not true. At best, I work with people who work with customers. Moreover, the culture is just stifling. They say the hours are flexible, but people judge you if you’re not there by 9 am. This is just not the place for me. Is it too soon to leave?
~B. T.
Dear B. T.,
Yes, leaving after five weeks will look bad. I’m not sure you have many other options, though. It doesn’t sound like you want to stick it out for a year (the minimum length of time), and making it three or four months isn’t much better. It’s best to just bite the bullet and leave.
The question is: do you find a job while working or go ahead and quit? All else being equal, the more you can focus on the job search, the better.
There are strategies to minimize the damage to your career and your reputation.
If
you can afford being asked to leave immediately, it’s best to sit down with your manager and explain the situation: the company isn’t the right fit for you, and you’re going to start looking for a new position. You’d like to help the company make the soonest transition possible, so you wanted to tell your manager earlier rather than later. This will be an uncomfortable conversation, but it’s one you’ll have eventually anyway.
As far as what to tell prospective employers, the best answer is the (softened) truth: that the position was very different than you were led to believe, and you decided that it’s best just to move on immediately rather than drag things out.
If there’s less than about a six-month gap, you don’t need to list this short-lived position on your résumé at all. You only need to explain the situation if asked.
~Gayle
Final Thoughts
Luck, Determination, and What You Can Do
I used to be a big believer in the importance of luck and felt that much of life is up to chance. What would I have been if I weren’t born into a family that pushed education—and technology? If I hadn’t been raised with the expectation of having a successful, ambitious career? Or if I hadn’t been born in a country and at a time where these opportunities are available? No doubt these are some of the greatest strokes of luck that I—or any of us—have had.
As we pass through grade school, then high school, then university, and out into the job market, our luck becomes a bit more controllable. Yes, the people we meet shift our goals and open us up to new opportunities, but we are also in charge of these meetings. How do we connect with people and build on these chance encounters? How do we ask for help or give help to others? How do we develop the skills and resources, so that when we have an opportunity, we can vigorously pursue it?
This book was intended to teach you all those things. You have hopefully learned what skills you need and how to prepare academically and professionally for a career. You now know how to get noticed by a tech company and what elements of a résumé will make them pick it up—or put it down. You understand that you shouldn’t just wing it in an interview, that you should even prepare for questions on the topic you know the most about: yourself. You know how to handle the unfortunate rejection, and how to negotiate when you finally get your dream job. And you have learned how to perform more effectively on the job, so that your career can reach the next step. None of these things will make you a luckier person, but they will help take better advantage of your opportunities.
Before you continue your progression through the hiring and career planning process, I would like to leave you with some final advice.
1. Understand what you have.
You have certain advantages in life, whether that’s a degree from MIT or the ability to quickly build relationships with people. These are your strengths. Leverage them to help you reach the next step.
2. Know what you’re missing.
Reading through this book should illustrate what you need to navigate your desired career path, and you should now have a better understanding of what you’re missing. If your technical background is weak, take a class. If you have been locked in your cube every day, join a sports team or a volunteer group to meet people. Even the most cursory attempt to cover up your weaknesses will go a long way.
3. Plan ahead.
While last-minute preparation can be useful, you’ll do best with weeks, months, or years of preparation. Years ahead of your desired career step, you need to start thinking about your general path: What do you want to do? And what skills do you need to have? Months before your interview, you create your résumé and connect with people at your target companies. In weeks prior, you prepare for your interviews with preparation grids, practice questions, and mock interviews. And the day before, you rest easy knowing that all your hours of preparation will be worth it. You are on your way to landing a job at one of the world’s greatest tech companies.
Good luck!
~ Gayle Laakmann
Founder/CEO,
CareerCup.com
.
Appendix A 156 Action Words to Make Your Résumé Jump Sometimes, it’s all in the way you say it. Using strong, action words can give your résumé a bit more “oomph!”
The following list will get you started.
Clerical or Detail Work Approved Catalogued Classified Compiled Dispatched Implemented Monitored Prepared Processed Purchased Recorded Reorganized Retrieved Screened Specified Tabulated Validated
Communication Skills Addressed Arbitrated Arranged Authored Corresponded Drafted Edited
Enlisted Formulated Influenced Interpreted Lectured Moderated Motivated Negotiated Persuaded Presented Promoted Publicized Recruited Translated Wrote
Creative Skills Acted
Concentrated Conceived Created Established Fashioned Founded Generated Illustrated Instituted Integrated Introduced Invented Originated Performed Revitalized Shaped
Financial Skills Administered Allocated Analyzed Appraised Audited Balanced Calculated Computed Forecast Managed Marketed Projected Researched
Helping Skills Assessed Assisted Counseled Demonstrated Diagnosed Educated Expedited Facilitated Familiarized Fixed
Partnered Referred Rehabilitated Represented
Management Skills Assigned Attained Chaired Contracted Consolidated Coordinated Delegated Developed Directed Enhanced Evaluated Executed Forced
Improved Increased Led
Organized Oversaw Planned Prioritized Produced Recommended Scheduled Strengthened Supervised
Research Skills Collected Critiqued Determined Evaluated Examined Extracted Inspected Interviewed Investigated Reviewed Summarized Surveyed Systematized
Teaching Skills Adapted Advised Clarified Coached Communicated Enabled Encouraged Explained Guided
Informed Instructed Stimulated
Technical Skills Architected Assembled Built
Coded
Designed Developed Devised Engineered Fabricated Initiated Maintained Operated Overhauled Programmed Redesigned Reduced Remodeled Repaired Solved
Trained Upgraded Utilized
Appendix B
Answers to Behavioral Interview Questions
There may be no “right” answer to behavioral interview questions, but there certainly are a lot of wrong answers. In this section, we’ll give example responses (or discussions) for five common behavioral questions and highlight what makes these strong responses.
1. Tell me about a time when you gave a presentation to a group of people who disagreed with you.
“In my last team, I became concerned with a decision the team was making on how to extend our small-business accounting software to personal users. My team thought that we should just create a slightly tweaked version, and I disagreed. I thought we should build a brand new piece of software, and I presented this proposal to the team.
Most of the work I did to smooth over this presentation was actually before the presentation. I spoke with each of the key decision holders—namely, my manager, the tech lead, and a VP—prior to the meeting. I talked with them about why they felt we should do one thing versus another, and then gathered additional data based on their responses.
Then, in the presentation, I presented the new data and focused the conversation not on convincing them, but rather on understanding what would need to happen for us to make a different decision. We had a very fruitful decision as a team, rather than anyone feeling like we were fighting. We were able to set guidelines to guide our decisions. When we reconvened the next week, I was able to show that we could hit the targets they needed, and that we should reverse our decision. The decision was taken to senior management, who ended up agreeing with the new proposal. We saved our company about three million dollars.”
This candidate has shown herself to be analytical, data driven, and collaborative. She made a point of showing how she sought feedback from her team, while still effectively asserting her opinions. She shows herself to be a good teammate and leader.
While this story has a “happy ending,” this is not strictly necessary for an effective response. A candidate could, instead, give a humble answer about how she made a mistake in the presentation, and what she learned from it. In fact, the next response is about just this.
2. Tell me about the biggest mistake you made on a past project.
“The biggest mistake I made was when I filled in for our tech lead. She had just left for maternity leave, and I was responsible for developing a new schedule to get us to the next milestone. I was embarrassingly off in my estimate.
Here’s what had happened. I really wanted to do a good job (I knew this was essentially a trial for a full-time tech lead position), so I solicited input from everyone on the team about the schedule. Each person gave me their estimates, and I compiled these into a greater picture of when we’d do what. I showed it to everyone; they all thought it made sense. And management was impressed that Milestone 3 would be finished in just three months, when Milestone 2 took six. In retrospect, that should have been my first clue.
We ended up finishing after five months, but only after cutting several features. We had agreements with some external suppliers, and we just couldn’t let it slip anymore.
I did a few things wrong here that I corrected when I created the Milestone 4 schedule.
First, I didn’t factor in risk and all the dependencies. Even if everyone gives a great estimate, things go wrong and you need wiggle room.
Second, I didn’t realize that just as I’m trying to impress people as a new (even if temporary) tech lead, everyone else is also trying to impress me. They wanted to show me that they were A+ candidates and gave overly optimistic estimates.
Third, I should have done more to discover the potential risks. Rather than asking, ‘Does this look OK?,’ I needed to ask people, ‘What’s the weakness here? What do you think is the most likely thing to go wrong?’
I corrected these things for Milestone 4, added in some comfortable padding, and we ended up coming in just ahead of schedule.”
In this response, the candidate has been open and honest and admitted a genuine mistake. Many candidates give responses here about how they “took on too much at once” or “didn’t ask for help early enough.” While these may indeed be large mistakes, they’re also very stereotypical and don’t reveal that you can admit your faults.
Remember that this response is as much about learning about your mistakes as it is about understanding if you can be honest.
3. Tell me about a time when you had to deal with a teammate who was underperforming.
“In this case, I was actually assigned to mentor the teammate. Vivek had transferred to our team from another division where, to the best of our knowledge, he was doing pretty well. The work was fairly similar, so we expected he would fit in well.
By his fourth week, we realized something was wrong and I was asked to mentor him. Most candidates have submitted at least a bit of code by then, but he hadn’t submitted a thing. Every time I asked him about his progress, he said he was doing fine and was ‘almost done.’ I suspect that he was struggling in multiple areas and didn’t want to expose himself by asking too many questions.
Partially based on his prior (rumored) performance, and partially because I just wanted to give him a second chance, I tried a different approach.
I pulled him off his current task (which should have taken him only a few days anyway) and put him on a new and pretty different project—one that he and I would be working side by side on. This allowed him to start fresh, and not have to feel stupid asking questions. It also allowed me to walk him through the project (outlining steps, etc.) without his feeling like I was micromanaging him.
He was able to get through the project with some help from me, but more importantly, I was able to understand exactly what he was struggling with. It turns out that, while he was smart and generally capable, he had some pretty substantial gaps in his knowledge that we needed to deal with.
For some topics, I ordered some additional books for him and taught him some of these areas myself. For others, which I felt the team could use a refresher course on, I had the whole team go through it.
He improved dramatically, and all without having to hurt his ego too much. Within three months, he was performing at expectations, and after another year, he was actually mentoring new hires himself.”
The candidate has shown an awareness of other people and has demonstrated that she’s a positive person who believes in others. She has proven that she is willing to get her hands dirty; she sat down and worked with Vivek side by side, and then taught him much of what he needed to know.
4. Tell me about a time when you had to make a controversial decision.
“I was responsible for engineering at a start-up when the economy tanked, and it became clear that we were not going to be able to raise more money for a long time. We had enough cash left to pay the six current developers for another two years—if we didn’t hire anyone else. Unfortunately, we had just extended an offer to one more developer (whom we did really need), and had told another developer that he’d be promoted to a management role when that happened. It was 100 percent my decision how to handle this situation.
Rather than pushing out what was sure to be unwelcomed news, I took the honest and open approach. I brought all the current developers into the room and told them what our cash outlook was. We discussed options as a team, but I asked them to not advocate any specific decisions at this point. I would talk to them all independently.
Everyone was able to see what was pretty obvious—that we couldn’t afford additional people—but they felt good about the decision because they helped make it. It wasn’t like their big bad manager was telling them that they wouldn’t get the promotion or additional help that they needed.
Additionally, one developer took the opportunity to come clean with me. He had been considering striking out on his own for a while and thought this would be a good time to leave. He encouraged us to replace him with the new candidate. He would help train the new employee and field questions after he left.
The honesty and openness that I had shown with my employees made them much more welcoming of the changes and encouraged them to be open with me.”
This candidate has revealed an important part of the way he deals with controversial decisions: full disclosure. Alternatively, other candidates might show that they build support around decisions before announcing them, or that they gather data to reconfirm the decision. Whatever your answer is, it will reveal how you solve problems.
5. Tell me about a time when you had to use emotional intelligence to lead.
“As a program manager, I am responsible for not only gathering requirements and planning a project, but also assigning who does what. My company is large and generally believes in its rigid hierarchies and levels of superiority. The oldest (tenure-wise, not age-wise) people get to pick what they want to do, and so on from there. The problem is that the younger employees get stuck with menial tasks, resulting in high turnover. I wanted to do away with this system, and I knew that I’d meet a lot of friction along the way.
The first thing I did was just observe. For the first project, I did it their way. This gave me a chance to see the good and bad things, and get to know the people. As much I objected to their system, I didn’t want to mess around with something I didn’t understand.
The second thing I did was understand what the younger employees wanted to do. Some valued learning, while some valued visibility. Without making any promises to them about the future—I didn’t want to get myself into trouble—I asked them to envision what things they’d want to do when they ‘one day’ have this ability.
Then, third, I went and talked to the senior people expressing, on behalf of the junior people, their desire to have additional learning/visibility opportunities. I asked them to do me a ‘huge favor’ and stressed that it was totally up to them: I asked them to let the younger people try out some bigger tasks but be mentored by the senior people. This allowed everyone to have a ‘stake’ in the important projects. Most people were happy to do this.
After this project was done, people were reasonably receptive to switching to this system full time. I realized that most of this issue is really about the ego, and as long as I respected people’s seniorities (hence the ‘mentorship’), they were pretty happy to work on some less important projects. So far at least, turnover has seemed to drop.”
This candidate has demonstrated with this response an ability to understand people. He accurately saw the problems, understood the real driver (ego), and created a plan. He acted carefully and methodically, always making sure he really sees the full pictures. He’s the kind of manager people want.
