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Browse published articles attributed to Peggy McKee, with full-archive search.
Have you ever found yourself in this situation? You turned down a job offer because you were sure you were getting a better one…and then you didn’t. What now? Can you get that offer back? Maybe. Here’s your best shot at turning this situation around for you:
How does this position fit in with the career path you envision for yourself? I think a lot of people shoot themselves in the foot with this career path question. To be fair, it is a hard question to answer, like “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?” or “What are your long-term goals?” Unless you’re a person who has their life planned out, it’s hard to predict what you’ll want to be doing down the road. Especially if you’re just starting out and still learning what jobs you love and what jobs you could do without. But.
As a Medical Sales Recruiter, I recommend to all my candidates that they create a 30-60-90-day sales plan to present to hiring managers or hiring teams during job interviews for every position in sales, sales management, or marketing for medical sales, healthcare sales, laboratory sales, biotech sales, medical device sales, clinical diagnostics sales, imaging sales, or pharmaceutical sales. Simply put, a 30-60-90-day sales plan is a document that spells out how you will spend your time in the first 30 days, the first 60 days, and the first 90 days on your new job.
You know the drill for job interviews: research, prepare, and be ready for the toughest interview questions. Some questions inevitably trip candidates up. “What’s your greatest weakness?“ is a famous one. The typical advice you’ll find is to prepare for the interview by practicing your answers, and role-play it with a friend (if you’re really serious). Preparation is key to landing any job; and role-playing your interview answers is going to do nothing but help you.
As any job-seeker can attest, finding a good job in today’s business climate can be quite challenging. The good news is that it is not an impossible task. There are some tools that people can use in order to increase their chances of landing a great career opportunity. One of these tools is LinkedIn, a professional networking site that connects individuals to a wealth of career resources. It can refer you to people or companies that are looking to hire someone new. In order to maximize the power of LinkedIn, your profile must be well-constructed.
“What’s your greatest weakness?” is one of those typical but tough job interview questions. We all hate this question, but it comes up all the time, and your answer is critical. You know you’re going to get asked, so be prepared. It’s trickier than it seems on the surface, and there’s an art to answering it well. Do you give your real weakness and how you’ve overcome it? Or do you pinpoint a quality that contributes to your success? How do you answer it truthfully (because they can see through a snow job) but still present yourself as the best candidate for the job?
Are you in a sales role? Or trying to get a better sales job? If so, what's your sales style? Do you even know what I mean by that? And if you do, can you communicate that to a recruiter or a hiring manager who's considering you for a new position? In my role as a medical sales recruiter, I interview sales people every day, and I will commonly ask them what their sales style is, or what sales approach they have in order to be successful. It's always amazing to me how many candidates, even some who have been selling for up to five years, can't communicate that.
I’ve been a recruiter and career coach for over 10 years now, and I have always recommended that my candidates use a 30/60/90-day plan in their job interviews, because I used it when I was an employee in the job search. I saw phenomenal results from using it, and my candidates do, too.
What's the most hated question in sales job interviews? Probably it's "Sell me this pen." And yet, it's the quintessential question. It's a role-playing exercise that's hugely popular with interviewers. Hiring managers can learn so much about you by how you answer it.
Have you ever been on a team where someone was not pulling their own weight? How did you handle it? Asking about any difficulties with team projects in the past is a great behavioral interview question, and interviewers love to ask it. At some point, everybody’s been on a team where someone didn’t pull their own weight. Remember group projects in school? And at some point in this job you’re applying for, you’ll almost certainly be asked to participate in another one. So it’s a fair question for them to ask.
One of the best aspects of LinkedIn is that it allows people to connect with other professionals in specific areas of interest. LinkedIn Groups is a place for communities to form based on a common experience, goal, or any other characteristic. The idea is to provide a venue where collaboration and support can be encouraged. There are plenty of LinkedIn groups to choose from…so many that it can be overwhelming to see which groups you should join. To make the task less daunting, a good practice is to see if the group you are interested in is in line with your goals.
Companies sometimes use personality tests as another way to evaluate a potential employee. They know that certain personality types do well in certain positions within the organization, and they want to make sure they’re making a good choice. Typical personality assessments include DISC, Caliper, Myers-Briggs, or Gallup, but candidates sometimes stumble across tests that include convoluted, confusing, or even just plain weird questions. If that happens to you, what’s the best way for you to deal with it? How can you “pass” a personality test so that you get hired?
Obviously, the answer to this simple question is a resounding “Yes!” After all, careers represent achievement and financial security. Giving up an hour of your time is an insignificant sacrifice considering the benefits that it can provide. The next question: How should you utilize that hour in order to maximize your results? For this question, the best move you can make is to create a LinkedIn profile to increase your access to business opportunities. LinkedIn allows others to view your professional information online.
If you had to choose one, would you consider yourself a big-picture person or a detail-oriented person?
Many candidates wonder if it’s a good idea to bring their 30/60/90-day plan to their first job interview with the company. They have questions about timing, etiquette, or even saving a “wow” moment for the second interview. A 30/60/90-day sales plan (or action plan, if you’re not in sales), is difficult to put together. It takes a lot of research, and a lot of work to create. Some candidates think that’s a lot of work for just a preliminary interview.
It's common for me to get questions from folks in higher-level sales positions or semi-supervisory positions (maybe National Accounts Managers, etc.), who want to know how to move up. Maybe they are interviewing for Regional Accounts Manager jobs or similar positions and need advice, and they want to know how to differentiate themselves so that they will be the ones who get tapped for promotions. There's a lot of advice out there about these kinds of things, and certainly your sales performance has to be solid to even put you in the running.
Creating a 30/60/90-day plan is one of the most effective things you can do to impress a hiring manager and win a job offer in medical sales, healthcare sales, laboratory sales, clinical diagnostics sales, imaging sales, pathology sales, hospital equipment sales, medical device sales, biotech sales, or pharmaceutical sales. It shows knowledge of the position, initiative, energy, enthusiasm, the ability to focus, written communication skills—all of which you definitely want to demonstrate to your interviewer and potential new boss. But when do you bring it up?
A 30-60-90-day plan is an outline (segmented into 30-day, 60-day-, and 90-day portions) of what you will do when you start a new job, filled with objectives you plan to achieve in that time frame. Presenting it during the interview sets you apart from other candidates (in a big way). Essentially, you spell out for your future employer, in as little or as much detail as necessary, how you will spend your time getting up to speed and contributing to the company.
It might surprise you to know that asking questions of your own during your job interview is just as important as answering them. Candidates spend a lot of time on interview preparation, and they should. Doing your research on the company, bringing your 30/60/90-day plan, and preparing compelling answers to interview questions (as well as having some stories to back them up) are guaranteed ways to have a good interview. But one thing that will make you stand out from other candidates is asking questions. Asking questions tells you what you need to know.
Brag books are a fantastic way for you to showcase the best you have to offer as an employee. It’s a historical look at what you’ve done over your career, and it’s made up of your performance statistics, project results, product brochures you’ve created, awards, rewards letters, and even complimentary notes you might have gotten from supervisors or even high-level clients. Anything positive that demonstrates in a concrete way what a valuable part of the team you have been goes in the book.
What does your interviewer really think about what you wear to the interview? Not dressing appropriately for your interview is high on the list of top 10 interview mistakes.
Many people have heard that they should send a thank-you email to an interviewer, but a surprisingly large number of job seekers don’t bother. And they’re wasting the perfect opportunity to show that they respect the interviewer’s time, that they’re enthusiastic about and highly interested in the job, and that their skills are a perfect match. You stand out with your good manners AND you get one more shot at selling yourself for the job. What could be better?
If you’re unemployed and over 40, it can feel like a “double whammy” of trouble for you in the job search, but it doesn’t have to be a negative. First of all, unemployment is a temporary status that you are going to change. Don’t be ashamed of that. Many people (especially right now) face some period of unemployment in their careers, and it’s not a big deal. It only takes one phone call, one interview, or one job offer to make the difference.
As a recruiter, I’ve always recommended to my candidates that they bring a 30/60/90-day sales plan to the job interview and it never fails to impress hiring managers. Although most candidates who use this plan are in sales, job seekers who are not in sales roles often ask if they should use it, too. The answer is “Absolutely yes.” In fact, I wouldn’t go into any job interview without a 90-day plan for how I was going to attack that job. And you might say, “Why is it a good idea for someone who isn’t in sales?” It’s because of what the plan demonstrates.
How would you go about establishing your credibility quickly with the team? The best way to go about establishing credibility with anybody in any situation is to ask really great questions and try to understand the situation before trying to do any kind of magic trick. (Incidentally, this is another benefit of asking questions in the interview…you show what you know by what you ask. If you ask great questions, it helps establish your own credibility as a strong candidate with the interviewer.)
Do you have a good work ethic? Do you have good communication skills? Are you a team player/a strong leader/an enthusiastic, innovative, driven job candidate? Well, so is everyone else. In job interviews, candidates tend to speak in generalities. It’s one of the most common flaws. Everyone says that they are persuasive, or that they have great communication skills, or that they are strong in some way—you get the idea. And those are all great things, but even the candidates who aren’t really telling the truth say those things, too.
Did you just flub your job interview? Were you awkward? Did you forget some critical piece of information that will make them want to hire you? Or did you make some other kind of job interview mistake? Whatever it was–it just didn’t go well, and you know it. But you still want the job. What do you do? You send a thank you note.
Describe how you would handle a situation if you were required to finish multiple tasks by the end of the day, and there was no conceivable way that you could finish them. Job interviews are like very intense speed dating. They’ve got to get to know you well in a very short time. For many companies, talking about your resume and what you’ve done is just not enough. They need to know how you’ll behave on the job, how you’ll react to situations. To get to the meat of those issues, they use behavioral interviewing.
Many job candidates prepare well for the interview, connect well with the hiring manager, and then stumble at the end of the interview session because they’re not comfortable asking for the next step. It feels awkward, or too bold, or even weak (as in, “if they want to hire me, they’ll have to ask me—I’m not begging for the job”). That’s not the way to look at it. Hiring managers will tell you that candidates who don’t ask something about what the next steps are usually feel that the candidate is really not all that interested, after all. You have to ask for the job.
In our currently sketchy economy, many job seekers have given up on the idea of asking for more money during their salary negotiations. But it is possible to negotiate a great salary for yourself, even during a recession. What I have seen in my interviewing (as a recruiter) and in my coaching with my clients (as a personal career coach) is that they are able to consistently negotiate great salary and overall compensation packages when they excel in the interview process. Over-Prepare
A 90-Day Business Plan for your job interview is an outstanding tool to show the interviewer why you're the one they should hire--whether you're very experienced or just starting out in your field. If you really want the job and you're facing some stiff competition, a 90-day business plan is what you need to get the offer. Your next step is to find out what a 90-Day Business Plan is, what it does for you, and how to create one for your next job interview.
It’s a little rough-and-tumble right now in the job search, and it’s not uncommon for a candidate to receive a job offer that’s not quite the one they wanted. Often, the candidate then feels like there’s a decision to be made, but it’s not the decision they think. Candidates weighing a job offer aren’t weighing it against the offer from the company they really want to work for—because it’s not there. Even if you think it’s a done deal because of your verbal discussions with the hiring manager, it’s never over till the written offer is extended.
The term "medical sales" covers a lot of area: medical device sales, laboratory sales, clinical diagnostics sales, biotechnology sales, imaging sales, pathology sales, pharmaceutical sales, and tons of other niche areas of health care sales. Even though there are strong differences in style (capital vs. consumable sales, for instance), there are several basic, bedrock things you need to know if you're going to land a job in one of these areas.
Hiring managers love behavioral interview questions, because these kinds of questions dig deeper into what kind of employee you really are. Answers to behavioral interview questions must be in the form of stories, or examples of things you've done in your career. They are projections from you about how you would handle everyday or stressful situations in this new job, based on how you've handled similar situations before.
Candidates often ask me, “Post-interview, how long should I wait AFTER I send the thank you note to contact the hiring manager again? What should I say? Should I call or email again?“ The post-interview follow up period can feel like the trickiest of situations for candidates. Push too hard, and you’ll annoy them. Don’t push, and you risk not looking like a go-getter. If you’re working with a recruiter, the recruiter will do the calling to see what’s up. But if you’re going after this job on your own, then it’s all up to you.
If the only thing your job interview thank you note says is "Thanks for the interview. I'm looking forward to working with you!", you have already stood out from the crowd, but you have still wasted a prime opportunity to boost your chance to get the job by nudging that hiring manager farther along toward making you the offer. How do you do that? By writing a thank you note that looks like this: Dear Mr. Manager,
To get the job you want you need to do more than sit in the interview answering questions fired at you by the hiring manager. In order to be more effective in selling yourself for the job, don’t be afraid to ask questions yourself. Why? Because the job search is a sales process in which you are the product and that hiring manager is the buyer. And you’ll never make a sale without understanding the wants and needs of your customer. And you can’t understand unless you ask.
My most popular ebook, How to Answer Interview Questions, is now available as an Amazon Audible Audiobook! (It's also available as an audiobook on <a href="https://play.google.com
Do you prefer working in a team or alone?
Describe a time when your workload was heavy and how you handled it. Asking you to describe difficult situations (and your reactions to them) is a favorite tactic of interviewers. It’s called behavioral interviewing. Behavioral interview questions get way past your basic skills and qualifications and get to the heart of “how will you act once you’re hired?” Past behavior predicts future behavior better than anything else.
If you’re asked about your references in the job interview, do you have a few names ready? Do you know what those people would say about you if they were called?
Job interviews are notoriously stressful, and in each one there are going to be a couple of difficult questions for you to handle. The key to being successful in your job interview is being prepared for the most difficult interview questions so that you can answer them smoothly and with confidence. "Tell me about yourself." Some candidates see this as an open invitation to talk about everything that's happened to them since birth. That's just not right.
Describe a time when your work was criticized and how you handled it. Have you ever been asked this question? I know…to you, it feels like oral surgery without the Novocain…but interviewers love behavioral interview questions because they tell them so much about you—in the story you choose to tell, how you tell it, with what kind of attitude, and the results you’re capable of producing under pressure. They just can’t get as good a picture of what life would be like with you on the job from only asking about your skills and qualifications.
CVs are the long, detailed cousin of the resume. It delivers much more information than a resume and takes many more pages to do it. But whatever differences they might have, CVs and resumes both have the same function: to get you interviews. If you have a curriculum vitae and aren't getting the job interviews you would like, you can borrow good resume writing principles to make your CV more effective.
If you’re in the job search for a medical device sales job, you know how tough it is. Even if you have the right background in science and technology plus sales experience, there’s some intense competition for these fantastic positions. What can you do to prepare for your medical device interview so that you’re the one who walks away with the job offer? * Harness the power of LinkedIn LinkedIn is a powerful resource for the job hunter.
Salary negotiations can be the most stressful part of the entire interview process in medical sales or laboratory sales, just as it is in any hiring process. It's not about whether you can do the job, and if things have progressed to here, you probably feel that you have a good chance of getting this job, and you don't want to blow it.
Are you overqualified for this job? If you get asked this question in your job interview, you may jump straight to frustrated-especially if you're an older worker and assume they're telling you you're just too old. But companies really don't want to make a mistake. They don't want to go to the time and expense of hiring someone who will just move on to something that pays more as soon as they find it. And most people want to climb the ladder and make more money, so why wouldn't you?
I don't think it's even possible to be "over-prepared" for your job interview. The better prepared you are, the more confident you will be--and that shows. Especially in this job market, you've got to show up with your "A" game right off the bat to avoid getting eliminated from consideration. That means putting everything you've got into getting ready for your interview. When you think about your interview strategy, think about your goals. What do you want to accomplish in the interview? * You want your potential boss to see how successful you are going to be in the job.r
Recently, someone who saw my presentation on the importance of LinkedIn for the job search asked me this: “If it’s not a good idea to include a photo on your resume, why is it a good idea to include it on LinkedIn? Doesn’t the photo on LinkedIn invite the same potential discrimination issues as including it on the resume does?”
Phone interviews used to be a practice only appropriate for out-of-state candidates, but now everyone does them. A lot. So chances are, you've either had some experience with them, or you will soon. You can get through them successfully every time if you know why companies rely on them and learn a few tricks-of-the-trade. Why do hiring companies do phone interviews so often now?