Although the market is full of all kinds of interview skill guidance books, I find that most of these books focus on how candidates perform well in interviews and get hired (passive coping style), and only a few guide candidates to evaluate and choose future employers from the perspective of a third party, that is, teach the skills of "a good bird chooses a tree to live in". It is no exaggeration to say that whether you can choose a suitable enterprise is the key factor that determines your success in the workplace. Therefore, it is necessary for professionals who are eager for success to master the skills and basic principles of choosing future employers.
Avoid the "storm" of layoffs
2005 is yvonne's 36th birthday year. Old people say there are many "animal years". Indeed, yvonne changed jobs twice in 2005, and the results were not very good.
Yvonne used to be the BD manager of a large American listed company. In order to improve the business development momentum in China, the company bought the original supplier, and she was sent to the joint venture as the vice president of operations. She had to resign because she disagreed with her boss from Taiwan Province Province. Yvonne later applied for a foreign medical device trading company. In view of the advantages of the company's sales network in the Asia-Pacific region, a fortune 100 company decided to acquire it. This merger negotiation has been going on for several years, and it was also a big news in the industry at first, but because yvonne has been working in the auto parts industry, he naturally knows nothing. However, colleagues in the new company have long since lost the feeling of "seesaw" negotiations, and no one has taken the initiative to bring up the merger in front of her.
This is the rule of the game in the business world. No matter whether the performance of the acquired enterprise is good or bad, the company just can't stop running, otherwise the value of the acquired enterprise will be worthless. Therefore, even if the M&A contract is to be signed tomorrow, the acquired enterprise must operate according to the annual plan. If the development business continues to develop, there will still be interviews for job vacancies. ...
It is really "people are not as good as the sky." Yvonne has been away from the company for two months, and the merger contract has really been signed. Although CFO in Asia Pacific communicated with Yvonne by email and telephone, and vowed to arrange her position in the group, she was determined to find another opportunity after seeing that the purchasing company sent a huge team of senior financial officials, and the company's voice was getting smaller and smaller, and its position became more and more "humble"! When she heard that yvonne was beginning to find his way, her assistant said in surprise, "We thought you were undercover sent by the other side! Most of my colleagues are busy jumping out, and others are waiting to be compensated by layoffs ... How can I come in at this time? "
In future interviews, headhunters and interviewers will always inquire about the reasons for her job-hopping in a short period of time, and then express doubts about her loyalty, team management and ability to cooperate with others, which makes yvonne miserable. After dozens of interviews and waiting, she had to accept the employment notice of a medium-sized foreign company.
Principle 1: inquire about the development of the industry.
It's nobody's fault. Yvonne didn't find out beforehand!
Job seekers often ask me, what is the main reason for the failure of the interview? Personally, I think inadequate preparation for the interview is the main reason. Generally speaking, interview preparation can start from four aspects: industry, enterprise, position, boss or team. Understanding and analyzing the industry you are going to enter is the first step of interview preparation, and the degree of understanding the industry depends on the level of the position you are applying for; If the position you apply for is a department manager or above, you should have a comprehensive understanding of the main characteristics, development trends and prospects, current competitive situation and main competitors of the enterprise you apply for.
When considering the long-term development prospects of this industry, candidates may wish to ask themselves: according to the changes and development trends of this industry, will I still develop in this industry in five years? What are the general business strategies of this industry? What will be the operational efficiency and growth? Does the applicant company have a competitive advantage? Will major measures such as reorganization, merger and reorganization be taken? ……
I believe that this information can not only help candidates to answer the interviewer's questions freely in the interview, but also urge you to seriously consider whether this company is really suitable for you, so as to avoid making inappropriate career decisions.
Don't be a short-lived manager.
Agnes worked as assistant general manager and administrative personnel manager in a foreign company in Tianjin. Because her husband was sold to Shanghai by a headhunter, she had to quit her job in Tianjin. Agnes thinks she is working hard. As soon as she settled down in her new home in Shanghai, she urged her husband and friends to help her find a job.
One day, Agnes saw on the Internet that a headhunting company was recruiting an assistant to the general manager for the entrusted enterprise. She submitted a resume with a try attitude. Unexpectedly, the headhunter fell in love with Agnes at first sight and soon arranged for her to go to the enterprise for an interview. The initial trial was surprisingly smooth, and Agnes was arranged to meet the boss of this enterprise on the same day; The boss is elegant and kind. Agnes thought, "Such a kind boss must be easy to get along with!" " She is very happy to get along with such a good boss. However, the interview negotiation afterwards was somewhat unexpected. She was told: "your position is still assistant to the general manager, but your boss is the boss of a subsidiary." Do you have any objections? If not, I will arrange an interview with the boss of this company? Then, let's talk about the specific content of Offer. What do you think? "
Agnes was surprised. Past experience told her that there must be changes, but she did not think deeply and accepted the arrangement of the human resources manager. While the HR manager was dealing with other things, Agnes called the headhunter, who promised to help her learn more information and said to her, "This company has been looking for an assistant to the general manager for more than a year, and their boss is very picky. I have provided dozens of candidates, and finally you can pass the exam. In April, the company will hold a global new product launch conference in Shanghai, and it is in urgent need of a conference organizer. You can take the opportunity to open a high price, they give money very loosely! "
Offer listening to the headhunter's words, Agnes put forward a salary requirement that was significantly higher than that of his last job when talking with the HR manager, which embarrassed the HR manager: "I'm sorry, if you are the assistant of the big boss, we can completely meet your salary requirement, but now you are the assistant of the boss of a subsidiary, and the budget for this position is difficult to meet your requirements." Think again! "Say that finish, the personnel manager excused himself and left, presumably to consult with the boss.
Finally, Agnes got the Offer she wanted, but she failed the probation period of this company!
Afterwards, I learned from the human resources manager that the company agreed to Agnes' salary request because they urgently needed an English-speaking and organized person to take charge of the preparations for the global launch of new products. Their boss is very demanding, and several former general assistants were transferred to other departments because they could not meet his requirements. During the interview, he was not satisfied with Agnes either, but seeing that the press conference was just around the corner, he asked HR manager to recruit Agnes into the company first, regardless of the cost. Agnes was simply assigned to his staff on the grounds that "the general manager of the independent accounting subsidiary also needs an assistant". The boss of the subsidiary thinks that Agnes' salary is higher than the second-in-command of the subsidiary, and one person can be equivalent to the salary of three or four sales engineers. So, shortly after the press conference, he has been looking for her with a black face. ...
Principle 2: Clarify the nature of future work.
In foreign companies, some short, medium and long-term projects are launched every year, and most of the short-term projects are completed by outsiders or outsourcing service providers; However, for some procedures that cannot grasp the project cycle, enterprises will still recruit project team members according to the normal process.
Usually, most qualified job seekers are not interested in temporary and short-term jobs, so some enterprises will deliberately filter out specific details during recruitment interviews. But as long as you analyze it carefully, you can still tell it easily. For example, Agnes in the case got the "opportunity to meet the boss" on the first day of the interview; Generally speaking, "meeting the boss" is the last "process" of the interview, and the importance of the position of "Assistant to the General Manager" determines that its interview procedure will not be so simple. The headhunter also revealed to Agnes the recruitment difficulty and job transfer rate of general assistants, but she was eager to find a job and ignored this information.
Another way to judge is that most foreign companies have strict "head and salary budgets". If the salary of a job is much higher than the market, this is definitely not a good thing, which means potential risks.
Avoid the position of "pit"
In the circle of HR professionals, there is a saying of "pit" position, but I believe that more than 90% of the candidates have no understanding of the types of "pit" positions, let alone how to identify and prevent them!
Jason used to be the general manager of Zhangjiagang factory, a German-funded enterprise. Because of the long separation between husband and wife, he always wanted to go back to work in Shanghai. I entrusted a familiar headhunter for nearly half a year and finally got a reply. An American company is looking for Abu leaders who know how to operate. When Jason wanted to know more about this position, the headhunter said helplessly: This company rarely provides JD (job description). They are looking for a candidate who can be the general manager of a large joint venture, but the joint venture project is still under negotiation. Before the project starts, they can be the operation director of a business unit.
Jason has basically worked in large-scale manufacturing enterprises, including state-owned enterprises, foreign companies and joint ventures, during his career of nearly 20 years. In his own words, "I am most suitable to be the general manager of a German enterprise with large-scale, large-scale production and standardized management." However, the new job opportunities come from an American listed company, and it is a medium-sized company with developed trade. Jason was not interested in this, but because of the face of the headhunter, he took the time to interview the human resources director of the recruitment company. In the interview, he learned that the company's business strategy is to pursue external growth rate, that is, to expand the scale of enterprises through mergers and acquisitions. The wholly-owned enterprises in Shanghai have merged with two state-owned enterprises. Because of the lack of integration technology and capable senior managers, the first two merged enterprises failed because of losses in successive years. At that time, the company was implementing the plan to acquire a large domestic listed company. In order to avoid repeating the same mistakes, the Human Resources Department suggests reserving human resources in advance. ...
After that, Jason was arranged to meet the general manager of China, and the two sides had a good talk. Jason has a good impression on this enterprise and hopes that headhunters will promote cooperation as soon as possible.
Shortly after entering this American company, Jason found that his position was still hanging in the air, because the M&A project was discussed for more than three years, and the BD manager who handled it came and left three times, still hanging half dead; In addition, if it weren't for the government's matchmaking, the other party wouldn't want to talk about cooperation with Jason's company at all. They believe that "trading companies simply can't understand the needs of mass production. We are not short of funds, but we need to introduce products and management technology! Can you give it? " ..... With Jason's understanding of the new enterprise, he feels more and more that "this M&A project can't be successful, and the strength and demand of both parties are too different. We simply don't have the core technology and human resources needed by the other party to participate in the operation of the joint venture company! " In the end, the project was "yellow" and Jason became the most expensive "idle person" in this company.
Jason has only worked in this American company for seven months, but he has three titles successively: China Operations Director, Rotating Vice President and BU General Manager. These positions are specially designed for him, and they are not interdependent with the organizational structure, business development and overall staff level of this company's China headquarters.
In this way, Jason was planted in the position of "widow".
Principle 3: Look for the information behind the position.
In the industry, we often refer to some non-existent or meaningless jobs as "pit" jobs, and "widow" and "widow's husband" jobs are one of them.
The "widow" position refers to the fact that the enterprise did not fully combine the work events and work objectives when designing the position, or the position did not match the ideas of organizational design, and there was no dependency between the position and other related positions. The position of "widow's husband" refers to the situation that the enterprise demands too much on the ability of the incumbent, without taking into account the matching degree between the current work situation and the ability of the personnel, resulting in the saying that "there is no room for a big bodhisattva in a small temple".
In order to avoid falling into the "pit" position, candidates need to ask more questions when accepting the recommendation of headhunters, and dynamically collect information of the employer during the negotiation, such as: What is the responsibility of this position? How long have you been recruiting? How do enterprises evaluate incumbents? What are the requirements of the immediate supervisor or affiliated department for the ideal candidate? What is the development stage of the enterprise and the quality level of all staff? What is the boss's management style? Can I adapt? Does this enterprise have a personnel budget? What is the price of this position in the market and what are the possible development opportunities in the future? ..... In short, candidates must be careful when making decisions, and don't accept job opportunities with uncertain factors easily.
Reject the "creative" challenge
A headhunter friend once said, "It takes creativity to search for prey now. If you simply look for someone according to the requirements of the enterprise, digging three feet may not necessarily be rewarding. " However, we should know that not all "creativity" can bring efficiency to the human resource management of enterprises, and some unrealistic "ideas" are more likely to bring harm to enterprises and employees.
Frank worked in the last Swedish machinery manufacturing company for eight years, from an ordinary product engineer to a maintenance center manager, and was finally promoted to a quality department manager and an ISO 900 1:2000 quality system management representative. Judging from the track of his career development, he can do a lot of work in quality management and related fields when he is nearly sixty years old. But what I didn't expect was that he was persuaded by headhunters to work for a Dutch company as R&; ship； Manager D. From a quality manager to a creative R&D manager, the span of career change is really big enough.
Although this is a European company, it is a Dutch "turtle" born in China who is in power. It can be said that the boss's management style is bold and "unexpected". After the fourth R&; After experiencing the painful lesson of manager D's death to varying degrees, Mr. Turtle and HR manager discussed: R&; Manager d can't control his engineer, and we are worried about whether he may become our competitor. Why not find someone who has no R&D background but is qualified for this position? ……
According to this basic "creativity", HR manager asked headhunters to find many candidates with no technical background, but most of the candidates had no confidence in controlling the team composed of four R&D teams and more than 40 engineers from different business departments. I don't know how Frank was persuaded by the headhunter, and finally he accepted the challenge.
At the beginning of entering the new owner, the management team-level engineers placed high hopes on Frank, and Frank also issued a "dead order" to the R&D team he led: in the new fiscal year, the sales revenue of new products we successfully developed must account for 6% of the total annual revenue. This goal excites the whole company. Everyone thinks that Frank can lead the R&D team out of the "dilemma". However, colleagues soon found that although most engineers had a good impression on Frank, it was difficult for him to coordinate the division of labor and cooperation among the four engineering teams, because each BU was unwilling to share resources with other teams based on its own operating costs and objectives, so the four teams secretly formed a competitive relationship. Another point is fatal. Although Frank has a technical background, he has been engaged in quality management for many years and has developed the habit of being serious, frank, cautious, demanding structured and procedural operation. It is difficult for him to understand the driving force of intangible factors (brand appeal, appearance image, buyer's feeling, etc.). ) in product development! Whenever young engineers share "creative discoveries" with Frank, he is always at a loss, which makes enthusiastic engineers depressed for a while.
At the end of the fiscal year, Frank and his R&D team failed to pass the performance evaluation. Boss Gui decided to keep looking for a new R&; Manager d, but this time you must find someone in the R&D management circle!
Rule 4: Find opportunities to talk to your ex.
Each post has its own unique work objectives, contents, job responsibilities and qualifications, and even posts with the same title vary from industry to company. Few companies' business processes or work systems can "cram" employees into a certain position at will, or "pull" people out of a certain position at will. Therefore, letting a person in charge of quality undertake R&D management is just like teaching turkeys to climb trees, and the effect is definitely minimal!
In addition, headhunters are not your personal career development consultants, and they will not consider your future. If you care about your career, you should comprehensively evaluate every job opportunity, especially those positions whose job requirements don't match your experience, skills and interests.
Secondly, in the face of the position with high turnover rate, the applicant needs to know the working environment, the performance target of the position and the reason why his predecessor resigned in detail. Generally speaking, a job with a high turnover rate means that there are serious defects in the organization or work design, and the average term of office of the predecessor means the "survival period" of future generations. There was once a very experienced candidate. Because the information provided by the interviewer was limited, she asked many questions during the interview: "Did this boss have an assistant before?" Why did she leave her job? How long has the predecessor been helping? What does the boss think of her? How long has the boss been in office? How many general assistants did he change during this period? Can I talk to the general assistant who changed jobs? ……"
Many candidates think that "choosing a tree to live in" is just like learning, and they really know the company they are applying for after joining the company, but I think if you master the skills of collecting all kinds of information during the interview and deepen your understanding, you will be confident in making career decisions and managing the workplace!