So, how can you maximize what you convey with your voice? Follow these simple steps.
1. Do Some Power Poses
A few minutes before the interview, prep by doing some “power poses.” Research shows that standing with your legs shoulder-length apart with your hands on your hips and your chest out for just two minutes raises your testosterone levels, lowers cortisol, and makes you sound more confident. You might feel silly, but at the very least, it’ll help calm some nerves. Definitely a good thing!
2. Stand Like a Speaker
Like anyone who’s speaking or telling a story, you want to sound dynamic and engaged. And slouching in a chair is just not going to help with this. Instead, try positioning yourself like a speaker: A good setup is having some relevant materials on a desk or table in front of you as you stand. (And by relevant, I mean bulleted talking points, not prepared documents — remember, you want to sound natural and energetic!)
3. Don’t Forget to Smile
And feel free to laugh! Yes, this is an interview for a job, but ideally it’s also a conversation between two mutually interested parties. Don’t make the mistake of sounding overly serious or timid. Your skills and qualifications got you the interview, but it’s your personality and commitment that wins over hiring managers. The fact is, no matter how standardized companies try to make their interview processes, being friendly and getting the interviewer excited about working with you will have a huge effect on whether you get invited to the on-site interview. So, smile! Even if they can’t see it, your voice will sound more cheerful.
As a final note, treat this as you would an on-site interview, and do the proper logistical preparation. Make sure you have a quiet place to conduct the interview, and check to see if you have good phone signal (better yet, use a landline). Confirm the date and time with your interviewers a day before, along with a line letting them know you’re looking forward to it. Because, you are! Especially now that you’re ready to blow them away with your energy and drive.
Let the company be what the company wants to be.
. Don't worry about the details until the details matter. Keep moving. Send the email. What will be will be. A word here or there doesn't matter that much. Worrying about the details before you even know if there will be details to deal with is a waste of time. It's all written in the stars.
. The big decisions and grinding are what matters. Big decision: our Chairman Ken Lerer strongly felt BuzzFeed needed to go into hard news. That big decision, hiring Ben Smith and going into news and reporting, was transformative for the company. Grinding: Ken also said that climbing a giant mountain is too hard. Instead climb one peak at a time, and once you summit one little peak, climb the next one. In this spirit, my first month at BuzzFeed, I just focused with Jonah and the team on getting to $50K in revenue. That was small but it was a start, thinking about a big revenue target a year out would have been like trying to climb the whole mountain at once.
Every day do something that makes you uncomfortable. Pick up the phone. Have a hard conversation. But be kind and direct as I once heard Bill Campbell say.
There is a difference between dread and hard. Do the hard things. The things you dread are probably impossible tasks that will slow the business down. Dread is your internal indicator telling you to stay away from something, like a particularly slow to buy client market.
Love the people, partners, and companies that need the love. Always remember who loved you first. Once everyone loves something it's too late for you to prove your commitment and stand out.
Hire the person who is too big for the company and give them nothing to do. They will either nap or invent something. And make these hires people who want the brass ring.
Find and then force kismet - go to lots of things but be committed to finding a potential hire, sales prospect, etc. And be efficient, have one drink and leave. And offer up ideas, a hack, a recommendation to look at something.
Stick to your word especially when you regret it. But when the ground has changed be clear about that. And always make things better - not just right.
Wait till you have the decision. When in doubt don't act for a day or two. Sleep on it.
Be bummed. Give yourself a set amount of time. And it can even be a long time. And then dust yourself off.
Do lots of random shit. Read, fly drones, go to a hot sauce festival. Go to the off broadway show. Cook something. Inspiration is even more scarce than time. Children actually aid in this. Science and art projects.
To thy own self be true. Even if people think you are too hyper, too emotional, too quiet, or whatever. Work on self improvement, but you gotta be who you are
The study compared personality traits gleaned from Facebook profiles to job candidates' self-reported personality tests, to see which method was a better predictor of job performance.
"Not only can you find very current information on someone's social media profile, but you can also access a record of that person's past behaviour," said Katelyn Cavanaugh, one of the study's authors and a doctoral student at Old Dominion.
I had a conversation with a friend the other day about his job search that went something like this:
Friend: I wrote to him last week and still haven’t heard back. It’s so frustrating.
Me: Why not follow up and check in?
Friend: I don’t want to be annoying.
I understand the fear. No one wants to be annoying or bothersome to a professional contact, especially when you want a job, meeting, sales dollars, or something else very important from that person.
But here’s the rub. The average person can get a few hundred emails a day. That makes it pretty tough to respond to all of them, and things naturally fall to the bottom of the list. If you don’t get a response, it doesn’t mean that someone’s ignoring you—it just may mean that he or she is too busy.
So, to the question: Should you follow up? Absolutely. In fact, it’s your job. And how often should you do so? My philosophy is: As many times as it takes. The important thing is to do it the right way. Or, as I call it, to be “pleasantly persistent.”
Here are a few tips on how to (nicely) follow up with that hiring manager, sales lead, or VIP—and get the answer you’re looking for.
Rule 1: Be Overly Polite and Humble
That seems obvious enough, but a lot of people take it personally when they don’t hear back from someone right away. Resist the urge to get upset or mad, and never take your feelings out in an email, saying something like, “You haven’t responded yet,” or “You ignored my first email.” Just maintain an extremely polite tone throughout the entire email thread. Showing that you’re friendly and that you understand how busy your contact is is a good way to keep him or her interested (and not mad).
Rule 2: Persistent Doesn’t Mean Every Day
Sending a follow-up email every day doesn’t show you have gumption or passion, it shows you don’t respect a person’s time. The general rule of thumb is to give at least a week before following up. Any sooner, and it might come off as pushy; let too much time pass, and you risk the other person not having any clue who you are. I typically start off with an email every week, and then switch to every couple of weeks.
Rule 3: Directly Ask if You Should Stop Reaching Out
If you’ve followed up a few times and still haven’t heard back, it’s worth directly asking if you should stop following up. After all, you don’t want to waste your time, either. I’ll sometimes say, “I know how busy you are and completely understand if you just haven’t had the time to reach back out. But I don’t want to bombard you with emails if you’re not interested. Just let me know if you’d prefer I stop following up.” Most people respect honesty and don’t want to waste someone’s time, and they’ll at least let you know one way or another.
Rule 4: Stand Out in a Good Way
I once had someone trying to sell me something that I was remotely interested in but that was nowhere near the top of my priority list. Every week, he’d send me a new email quickly re-explaining what he sold—as well as a suggestion for good pizza to try around the city. Why? He had seen a blog post where I mentioned I’d eat pizza 24/7 if I could, and cleverly worked that into his follow-up. It made him stand out in a good way, and as a result, we eventually had a call.
The lesson: If done well, a little creativity in your follow up can go a long way. If you’re following up about a job, try Alexandra Franzen’s tips for giving the hiring manager something he or she can’t resist.
Rule 5: Change it Up
If you’re not connecting with someone, try changing it up. In other words, don’t send the exact same email at the same time of day on the same day of week. Getting people to respond can sometimes just come down to catching them at the right time. If you always follow up in the morning, maybe try later in the day a few times.
Remember: If someone does ask you to stop following up, stop following up. But until you hear that, it’s your responsibility to keep trying.
1. Do Some Power Poses
A few minutes before the interview, prep by doing some “power poses.” Research shows that standing with your legs shoulder-length apart with your hands on your hips and your chest out for just two minutes raises your testosterone levels, lowers cortisol, and makes you sound more confident. You might feel silly, but at the very least, it’ll help calm some nerves. Definitely a good thing!
2. Stand Like a Speaker
Like anyone who’s speaking or telling a story, you want to sound dynamic and engaged. And slouching in a chair is just not going to help with this. Instead, try positioning yourself like a speaker: A good setup is having some relevant materials on a desk or table in front of you as you stand. (And by relevant, I mean bulleted talking points, not prepared documents — remember, you want to sound natural and energetic!)
3. Don’t Forget to Smile
And feel free to laugh! Yes, this is an interview for a job, but ideally it’s also a conversation between two mutually interested parties. Don’t make the mistake of sounding overly serious or timid. Your skills and qualifications got you the interview, but it’s your personality and commitment that wins over hiring managers. The fact is, no matter how standardized companies try to make their interview processes, being friendly and getting the interviewer excited about working with you will have a huge effect on whether you get invited to the on-site interview. So, smile! Even if they can’t see it, your voice will sound more cheerful.
As a final note, treat this as you would an on-site interview, and do the proper logistical preparation. Make sure you have a quiet place to conduct the interview, and check to see if you have good phone signal (better yet, use a landline). Confirm the date and time with your interviewers a day before, along with a line letting them know you’re looking forward to it. Because, you are! Especially now that you’re ready to blow them away with your energy and drive.
Let the company be what the company wants to be.
. Don't worry about the details until the details matter. Keep moving. Send the email. What will be will be. A word here or there doesn't matter that much. Worrying about the details before you even know if there will be details to deal with is a waste of time. It's all written in the stars.
. The big decisions and grinding are what matters. Big decision: our Chairman Ken Lerer strongly felt BuzzFeed needed to go into hard news. That big decision, hiring Ben Smith and going into news and reporting, was transformative for the company. Grinding: Ken also said that climbing a giant mountain is too hard. Instead climb one peak at a time, and once you summit one little peak, climb the next one. In this spirit, my first month at BuzzFeed, I just focused with Jonah and the team on getting to $50K in revenue. That was small but it was a start, thinking about a big revenue target a year out would have been like trying to climb the whole mountain at once.
The study compared personality traits gleaned from Facebook profiles to job candidates' self-reported personality tests, to see which method was a better predictor of job performance.
"Not only can you find very current information on someone's social media profile, but you can also access a record of that person's past behaviour," said Katelyn Cavanaugh, one of the study's authors and a doctoral student at Old Dominion.
I had a conversation with a friend the other day about his job search that went something like this:
Friend: I wrote to him last week and still haven’t heard back. It’s so frustrating.
Me: Why not follow up and check in?
Friend: I don’t want to be annoying.
I understand the fear. No one wants to be annoying or bothersome to a professional contact, especially when you want a job, meeting, sales dollars, or something else very important from that person.
But here’s the rub. The average person can get a few hundred emails a day. That makes it pretty tough to respond to all of them, and things naturally fall to the bottom of the list. If you don’t get a response, it doesn’t mean that someone’s ignoring you—it just may mean that he or she is too busy.
So, to the question: Should you follow up? Absolutely. In fact, it’s your job. And how often should you do so? My philosophy is: As many times as it takes. The important thing is to do it the right way. Or, as I call it, to be “pleasantly persistent.”
Here are a few tips on how to (nicely) follow up with that hiring manager, sales lead, or VIP—and get the answer you’re looking for.
Rule 1: Be Overly Polite and Humble
That seems obvious enough, but a lot of people take it personally when they don’t hear back from someone right away. Resist the urge to get upset or mad, and never take your feelings out in an email, saying something like, “You haven’t responded yet,” or “You ignored my first email.” Just maintain an extremely polite tone throughout the entire email thread. Showing that you’re friendly and that you understand how busy your contact is is a good way to keep him or her interested (and not mad).
Rule 2: Persistent Doesn’t Mean Every Day
Sending a follow-up email every day doesn’t show you have gumption or passion, it shows you don’t respect a person’s time. The general rule of thumb is to give at least a week before following up. Any sooner, and it might come off as pushy; let too much time pass, and you risk the other person not having any clue who you are. I typically start off with an email every week, and then switch to every couple of weeks.
Rule 3: Directly Ask if You Should Stop Reaching Out
If you’ve followed up a few times and still haven’t heard back, it’s worth directly asking if you should stop following up. After all, you don’t want to waste your time, either. I’ll sometimes say, “I know how busy you are and completely understand if you just haven’t had the time to reach back out. But I don’t want to bombard you with emails if you’re not interested. Just let me know if you’d prefer I stop following up.” Most people respect honesty and don’t want to waste someone’s time, and they’ll at least let you know one way or another.
Rule 4: Stand Out in a Good Way
I once had someone trying to sell me something that I was remotely interested in but that was nowhere near the top of my priority list. Every week, he’d send me a new email quickly re-explaining what he sold—as well as a suggestion for good pizza to try around the city. Why? He had seen a blog post where I mentioned I’d eat pizza 24/7 if I could, and cleverly worked that into his follow-up. It made him stand out in a good way, and as a result, we eventually had a call.
The lesson: If done well, a little creativity in your follow up can go a long way. If you’re following up about a job, try Alexandra Franzen’s tips for giving the hiring manager something he or she can’t resist.
Rule 5: Change it Up
If you’re not connecting with someone, try changing it up. In other words, don’t send the exact same email at the same time of day on the same day of week. Getting people to respond can sometimes just come down to catching them at the right time. If you always follow up in the morning, maybe try later in the day a few times.
Remember: If someone does ask you to stop following up, stop following up. But until you hear that, it’s your responsibility to keep trying.
