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Sotomayor Had It Easy

A severe company-wide crisis is underway and, as a mid-level manager, you have to decide: Push forward with a risky new plan that could save jobs and bring in more revenue — if it works — or scrap your costly team now and stay the course. But wait. Now you’re a lower-level worker facing the same situation from a different perspective. How do your elegancies shift? Would you remain loyal to the company? Or stand by your fellow co-workers as part of a team?

Such role-playing games are the type of exercises Hallie Crawford, a certified career coach in Atlanta, Ga., says some of her clients are being run through in job interviews. “It’s kind of a no-win situation,” Crawford says of the above scenario, which a recent client faced. Side with upper management and you’re a yes man; side with co-workers and you‘re disloyal.

Think this week’s vetting process for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor was tough? Try sitting through just about any mid-level job interview these days. Prompted by the recession, the surge in unemployment in recent months — which is pushing 10 percent nationwide and may be above 20 percent in some states — has created a buyers’ market for talent, where employers, recruiters and HR managers are turning the screws on job candidates like never before.

Job seekers are now facing everything from longer pre-screening phone calls, to multi-stage interviews, and increasingly personal questions from would-be employers, recruiters and career coaches say. Employers are redoubling efforts to verify resume data, contact personal and professional references, and even perform background checks on promising applicants.

“A few years ago, we were in a candidate market where you could pick and choose from a range of employers. Now the tables have turned and the competition is fierce,” says Adrienne Graham, an executive recruiter who writes The Corporate Recruiting Diva, an industry blog.

Graham says she’s had clients sit through as many as five interviews just to be placed into a final group of top contenders.

In one of many recession-era twists, some of these tougher measures are being put in place to weed out overqualified candidates.

“I had an open position for a senior accountant and had a bunch of CFOs applying for it. They wanted me to downplay their qualifications,” Graham says, adding that employers are wary of filling mid-level positions with top executives who are likely to leave for better posts when the economy rebounds.

Employment experts say the best way to adapt to these conditions is to meet them head on by doing extra homework on an employer. Here are a few other tips:

• Make sure you’ve done your research before going into an interview. “You should know an employer as well as they know you,” says Graham.
• Whatever the line of questioning try to incorporate past accomplishments in your answers, focusing on concrete results instead of vague ideas or a general outlook.
• Always follow up on an interview. Offer to provide additional information or just check in on the decision-making process.

Tags: applications, career, employers, employment, hiring, interviewing, job-hunting, jobs, recession, recruiting, resume, The Unemployed Life