Do it Now – Make it Happen – No Excuses

patrice

Have you ever ordered from one of the 1,600 Jimmy John’s restaurants? There are important lessons job seekers can learn from this flourishing business. What makes Jimmy John’s different from the rest is their honesty, the quality of their products, the speed of delivery and reasonable pricing. The culture in the restaurants is the same culture that drives the corporate office “Do it Now”, “Make it Happen”, “Be a Go-Getter”, and “No Excuses.” Can you imagine an employee of Jimmy John’s restaurant deciding to buy turkey from the local grocery store after an order was placed? Of course not! Yet many job seekers are caught unprepared by the following:

Requests for references and contact information
Lack of an updated resume
Discrepancies between your LinkedIn profile and your resume
Request for an immediate telephone interview
Inability to answer common interview questions
Inability to overcome basic objections
No questions prepared to uncover priorities of each interviewer
Job offers that are not exactly what you anticipated

You will be asked for an updated resume; hiring authorities will compare your resume to your LinkedIn profile and request reference information. These documents must be prepared in anticipation of these requests. It is also important to practice effectively answering interview questions and overcoming basic objections now – not the day of your interview. You will be asked:

Tell me about yourself
What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses?
What were your greatest accomplishments and how did they impact past employers?
Why did you leave each of your last jobs?
How have you handled problems or conflicts in the past?
What is your salary requirement?

Hiring Authorities will also question any red flags like gaps of employment, currently not working, obvious steps back in your career and multiple job changes. You must prepare yourself in ADVANCE to handle all of these areas so you can differentiate yourself from other job seekers as effectively as Jimmy John’s has differentiated themselves from other restaurants.