Category: DontPostOnHomepage

This is the fourth article in my series for Toastmasters Leadership Development, Level 4, Write a Compelling Blog.

I’ve been on the job market for a while now. I’ve applied for more than a few jobs. Some of the jobs I apply for are a perfect match for me, other jobs I feel I can do, but might not look really good on paper. I don’t apply for jobs that are completely outside of my area of expertise. I receive an automated acknowledgment from nearly every job I apply for. Then I wait. Wait for an interview invitation or an outright rejection.

Some of the jobs I apply for, I never hear back. That doesn’t bother me. Some of the jobs say “we are not moving forward with you because there are other more qualified candidates”. That stings a little, especially if I think it’s the “perfect job”. I make a note and forget about it. Some rejections are quite patronizing: “We were very impressed with your background but are not moving forward with your application because we’ve received an overwhelming response and there are more qualified candidates. My favorite so far: ‘We received an overwhelming response to our job posting and you [me] have been selected for an interview”. When I read the first few words I was thinking another reject and almost skipped over it. Now, I’m looking forward to the interview. The bottom line is I don’t really expect to hear back when I apply, and rejects and non-replies don’t bother me much.

What bothers me is when I don’t hear back after a phone or especially an in-person interview. Most of those I follow up on. It really bothers me when I don’t receive a reply from my status request. I show up for an interview, felt I really made a connection with the hiring manager. The hiring manager promises a follow up, but doesn’t. So I follow up and don’t hear back. Nothing.

Whenever I’m invited for an interview, I research the company via glassdoor.com. See my blog posting Glassdoor review. I look at the postings about the interview process. It’s very, very common for companies not to let the job candidate know they aren’t going to get the job. It’s very, very common for companies not to respond to candidates asking for a job status. Job candidates on Glassdoor post their frustrations about how rude and unprofessional the non-responses are. I agree. Emails can be impersonal and it’s not hard to send a rejection email. I’ve received from phone a call from a company that decided not to hire me. That call was difficult for me. I can only imagine how unpleasant it is for the person who makes rejection calls all day long. Thing is, I don’t expect a call. A simple response to my status request, positive or negative. Maybe I should start calling people and put them on the spot and make them wish they sent me an email rejection. …

This is the second article in my series for Toastmasters Leadership Development, Level 4, Write a Compelling Blog. My topic for today is Glassdoor for Jobseekers.

Glassdoor.com is a website for job seekers. Glassdoor is a way to get “insiders” information about working for a company. Glassdoor is also a job board. It’s a job board that works like most of the other job boards. Put in a keyword and location and search. Glassdoor will spew out a list of job openings that match your criteria. You can refine your search by entering a timeline such as jobs posted anytime, today, the last 3 days, etc. That’s handy if you search the boards every day.

Employee Reviews

I do use the Glassdoor job board but that’s not what makes it unique. Glassdoor can provide “inside” information about companies. Employees post company reviews and information about benefits and pay. Interviewees post information about the interview process. If you want to see what it’s like to work for a company enter the company name and look at the reviews. Big companies often have thousands of reviews. Smaller companies not so many

When looking at a company, don’t let a single review affect your opinion about the company. You need to look at many reviews and check for a common theme. Don’t pay much attention to reviews that report terrible management, low pay, great coworkers. You’ll see those reviews for almost any company. I’ve worked for some companies that report low pay but thought I was fairly compensated.

If you see multiple reports about other things, pay attention. One of the companies I was looking at had multiple reports about bounced paychecks. At another company, I saw many complaints about layoffs. Those are the kinds of things you should pay attention to. At many companies, different kinds of workers may give different kinds of reviews. A report from a sales person may be different from a blue-collar worker, which may be different from a white-collar worker. I’m not saying to ignore reports from different kinds of workers, but do pay more attention to reports from workers similar to you. As I said, look for trends and multiple complaints about the same thing. There is an exception. If you see a report or complaint about an issue that would affect your job, they pay attention.

During your interview, be careful about bringing up negative things you saw on Glassdoor. At one company I interviewed at, one of the interviewers admitted the problem, another got quite indignant. It will usually be a good thing to bring up the positive things you found on Glassdoor.

Reviews by Interviewees

Glassdoor also has a section about the interview process. Again look for trends, not single comments. Most interviews and most interviewers are different so you will see a large variety of different posts. Look for the types of questions that might be asked, especially if they are related to the job you are applying for. Look for how long the interview process takes. If you are looking for a way to get “in” look for how people were invited for an interview. Most importantly, look for trends about how people were treated. Posters can rate the interview as “positive”, “neutral”, or “negative”, check to see which of the three are the most common.

Benefits and pay

Glassdoor also has a section with benefits as reported by employees. I generally do not see much detail about the benefits information, especially health insurance. And the employee postings about health insurance tends to be all over the place, from very positive to very negative. You can generally get a pretty good idea about the paid time off.

Finally, Glassdoor also posts salary information for different kinds of jobs. I generally don’t see much detail here, and usually don’t see salary information for the kind of job I’m applying for. I look anyway, sometimes I’m surprised about how much or how little I can expect to earn.

Many companies also have reviews on Indeed.com, another job board. If you see a job posting on Indeed, and the company has a review, then by all-means click on the review link. Follow my advice about Glassdoor reviews. Maybe even compare the Glassdoor reviews with the Indeed reviews. No matter what, it’s always a good idea to get all the information you can about the companies you are applying for. …

I joined Toastmasters quite a few years ago when my employer started a Toastmasters chapter. I joined the club because I enjoyed public speaking. At the time, I had no idea that Toastmasters is a worldwide organization for communication and leadership development. Leadership development is a really big part of Toastmasters. Not only do Toastmasters give speeches, each member also learns how to take on club officer roles, lead and organize club meetings, and serve in officer roles beyond the club level.

Toastmasters is organized into regions, districts, divisions, areas, and clubs. I’ve served in officer roles at the district, division, area, and club level. I led a Toastmasters district consisting of parts of three states. Our district had over 3,000 members belonging to over 160 clubs. I built a team consisting of nearly 50 volunteer leaders. Leading the district, I learned leadership and was responsible for administration, finance, budgeting, marketing, and member achievement. College students learn these things out of books. In Toastmasters, we receive instruction, and it’s not book learning. We are leading real people, managing real money (in my case over $60,000), and achieving real business goals. By-the-way, our district was recognized as a Distinguished District because we fulfilled all of our business goals.

By completing speeches, serving in officer roles, and completing leadership projects, members achieve different levels of recognition (called education level). The highest education level in Toastmasters is Distinguished Toastmasters (DTM). Due to the officer requirement, most Toastmasters take several years to earn a DTM. It took about five years for me to achieve my first DTM. That’s pretty typical. Note, I said it took five years for me to achieve my first DTM. I now have three DTMs and am working on my fourth.

Toastmasters is different from taking a college class. In college, students take a class, get a grade and move on to the next class. Think about a college-level public speaking class. After finishing a public speaking class, most students don’t get the opportunity to repeat and reinforce the skills they learned. The difference is that skills learned in Toastmasters are on-going. I’ve been in Toastmasters for quite a few years. I continue to speak regularly and serve in leadership roles. I not only keep my skills current, but I’m continually improving. Toastmasters don’t receive grades, but we are evaluated. Every speech receives a written and oral evaluation. We get feedback suggestions and for improvement. Evaluations also tell us what we did well. A good evaluation will be motivating (“you did a great job on ….”), and offer suggestions for improvement (“I notice you could do a little better on …, next time try…”)

If you are shy, Toastmasters is a wonderful way to meet people, overcome shyness, and improve social skills. Toastmasters is not intended to be a singles organization, I wouldn’t recommend joining Toastmasters to find your next love interest. PLEASE don’t. Toastmasters is an educational organization, not a singles club. Having said that, I do know several married couples who met in Toastmasters.

Toastmasters recently revised the education program. The revision is a major update over the “traditional” program, and incorporates modern technology. The new program still consists of speaking, serving in leadership roles, and completing leadership projects. This blog is indented to complete a blogging project from Level 4 in the Leadership Development track: “Write a Compelling Blog”. I’ve been blogging for years, but only occasionally. I recently resolved to blog once a week, and have been doing so. This project expects me to blog eight times over four weeks, so for the next month, I will blog twice a week. Then at the end of the month, I will give a speech about how my blogging project went.…

I’ve been a customer of Discount Tire for many years. The primary reason is because of their “Free” Replacement Certificate. The cost of the certificate depends on the tire, but the idea is if your tire goes flat because of a road hazzard, they will replace it for “free”. Well, not entirely free. If they replace the tire they’ll expect you to buy a new certificate. The difference between Discount Tire and other tire stores is that Discount Tire does not pro-rate the replacement. With most other stores they’ll pro-rate the cost of the replacement tire based on the wear of the old tire. In other words, with other stores you’ll get a discount on the replacement tire. With Discount Tire, you’ll get a new tire regardless of the wear. Well almost. Discount will replace the tire if it still has legal tred. One time my bald tire went flat. The steel chords were showing. They wouldn’t honor the free replacement. That’s fair because it was completely obvious my tire did not have legal tred. Another time my flat tire had barely legal tred, maybe even a little less. They honored the certificate.

I had a flat recently. Not sure why the tire went flat. It took a while for me to find a safe place to pull off the road. By the time I pulled off, the tire was smoking. When I took it to Discount, they replaced the tire. No questions asked. Actually, they did ask a question. When I bought the tires, Discount put on better tires than what I paid for. I paid for cheap tires, they put on nice tires and charged me the cheaper price. The receipt showed the cheaper tires. When I took in my tire to be replaced,the rep asked why the tire on the receipt was not the same as what I was replacing. When I explained, he accepted my answer and replaced the tire.

Over time, the replacement certificates cost quite a bit more than replacing flats. I buy the certificates anyway. I buy them for “piece of mind”. And because I am confident Discount tire will take care of me.…