Counter-Offers Are a Sucker’s Play

By Kris Dunn · 03.15.2013

Retention is important for organizations.

Paying substantially more for the talent that’s currently sitting in your office is a total sucker’s play. Don’t confuse the two.

Let’s break this down a little bit. You found that diamond in the rough. You hired them, nurtured them and grew them to the point where they’re relevant in your industry, their profession, etc. Or maybe you just bought them from someone else at a price you considered at the time to be fair, right?

Either way, after a couple of years with you, they have more value on the open market. That means people are going to ping them and see if they can strip them away to another company. At which point many managers and companies start freaking out, even in reaction to the potential of a slightly above-average talent leaving the company to go to work for a competitor.

It all comes down to replacement cost. Can you find another cog to fill the gap with? If you can, you don’t freak out and you don’t counter with a raise that gets into the 20% range to save the referenced employee with another offer in hand.

In the Talent game, there are really two types of employees that warrant a counter-offer when they’ve told you they’re getting ready to accept an offer from another company:

Great Creators = the people who create what you sell, and I mean truly create. In a lot of companies, those are software developers. Good creators in any type of company that produces products and services are worth ten of their peers.

True Rainmakers = not salespeople in general, but people who have the ability to bring in business in a way that an average salesperson can’t. Generally, these people have networks that have been formulated in a way that’s different from the average sales pro. Normal sales pros bitch about the quality of the leads. True Rainmakers never seem to give a flip about the leads marketing is producing. Hmm.

Not everyone who creates or sells for a living is special. In fact, most are average. BUT – when you find a top tier creator or rainmaker, they are different. They can drive results for your company in ways that others can’t.

That’s why they’re the only people you should counter when they appear to be seriously considering another job. Everyone else’s replacement cost is too low to freak out about.  Accounting, Marketing, HR, Operations, Customer Service – you only save people in these areas if they qualify somehow as a creator or a rainmaker. Few will qualify.

Four final thoughts about retention and counter-offers:

1. You should pay people aggressively/fairly and provide career paths so talent can grow and get theirs at your company in at time frame that’s fair. I’m not talking about playing hardball when you pay people at the 17th percentile.

2.  You create a culture over time related to how you handle resignations and counters. If you always go into save mode, there are a lot of people who play games. If it’s crickets when even a solid player brings their notice, you’re going to stop “I’m taking another offer” games.

3.  Your tendency to freak out over average people resigning means you haven’t institutionalized knowledge transfer and operational soundness. The knowledge is in the average person’s head and nowhere else, thus your freakoutedness (that’ a word, I just made it up).

4.  For a great primer on who Creators and Rainmakers are and who is replaceable, look to the New England Patriots. Their creators are Tom Brady and Bill Belichcik, and everyone else (and they mean everyone) is replaceable. The goal should be to have our stuff together as organizations to the point where we can replicate great results with different talent – while protecting the creators/rainmakers.

Retention and counter-offers.  Don’t confuse the two.  Counters are a sucker’s play in most cases. If they’re not, we’ve got to look at our organization to find the answers why.

http://fistfuloftalent.com/2013/03/counter-offers-are-a-suckers-play.html

Managers often think that they have reached a career level where they have been magically imbued with the gift of giving a good job interview. It doesn’t work that way.

By Stephenie Overman

FORTUNE — What songs best describe your work ethic? How many cows are in Canada? A penguin walks through that door right now wearing a sombrero. What does he say and why is he here?

Those queries come from the Top 25 Oddball Interview Questions for 2013, as compiled by the job hunters’ website Glassdoor. Allegedly, they’re all actual conversational gambits used by corporate interviewers.

You may think such questions could produce useful insights. Or you might see them as off the wall. But are your interview questions any better?

Managers tend to think of interviewing job candidates as “something that’s easy,” says Pamela Skillings, president and chief trainer at Skillful Communications in New York. Believing they’ve reached a career level where they have been magically imbued with the gift of giving a good job interview, such managers wing it and fail to prepare questions that will reveal the best potential employees. All too often, they get a penguin in a sombrero.

“They end up hiring someone who costs the company a lot” in wasted training time and salary expenses, Skillings says. “You try to fix the mistake you made in the interview process. Then you have to fire the person or move them into a different role, and you have to start over.”

A bad interview “hurts the manager first,” Skillings says. “A bad hire is going to come back to bite you.”

Some managers try to protect themselves with vague questions of the “tell-me-about-yourself” variety. But experts say such prosaic questions produce answers of little use.

Before you sit down with job candidates, “you need a great shopping list” that lays out what you need to know about each applicant for a particular position, says Mel Kleiman, author of Hire Tough, Manage Easy and president of HR consulting firm Humetrics, which is based in Sugar Land, Texas. It’s basic stuff, Kleiman says: “Can you do the job? Can you do the job at the degree of excellence needed? Will you do it? Can you and I live together? If you are hired, can you put up with our culture and [can] we put up with your personality?”

Those aren’t the interview questions, Kleiman says. They’re templates you can use to design questions whose answers will tell you, “Is this person right for the job and is this job right for the person?”

Rather than focusing on eliciting the answers they need, inexperienced interviewers often ask rote questions that “bounce along the surface without getting to know the real person behind the interview hype,” says Paul Falcone, author of 96 Great Interview Questions to Ask Before You Hire. “There’s not much rhyme or reason to their questioning techniques” and they ask the same basic types of questions to all candidates for all positions.

Falcone’s examples of rote questions:

• Who was your favorite boss, and what would he or she say about you?
• Which position was your favorite and why?
• Why do you think you’d want to work here?
• What questions can I answer for you?

Effective interviewers ask “behavioral” questions, according to Skillings. They use phrases such as, “tell me about a time, give me an example,” she says, because the way a person reacted to a past situation may be an indication of what he or she will do in the future.

So, “instead of asking ‘Are you a good negotiator?’ it’s better to say, ‘Tell me about a negotiation and how it went.’ Get a real example. Probe for details. Get to the heart of what you need to know,” Skillings says.

Falcone agrees. “We need objective diagnostic indicators of an individual’s probability of succeeding within our organization.” Otherwise, interviewers are “left picking from among people who may sell themselves better than others.”

Falcone’s examples of effective interview questions:

• Walk me through the progression in your career leading me up to what you do now on a day-to-day basis.
• What makes you stand out among your peers?
• What criteria are you using in selecting your next employer, including the industries you’re considering, company criteria, and the roles and titles that you’re pursuing?
• If you were to accept a position with us today, how would you describe that to a prospective employer five years from now in terms of your career development and longer-term goals?

Ask questions that “reveal a candidate’s level of career introspection,” Falcone says. “Do they know what they want? Can they articulate their career history in a clear and compelling manner?”

During the interview, really listen to the candidate, Kleiman says. “You’ll never learn anything while you’re talking.”

If hiring people isn’t your main job, don’t be afraid to ask for help, recommends Skillings, who teaches workshops and online courses on conducting interviews. “We see a little bit of attitude from managers” at the beginning of training, she says. “`I don’t need this, I know how the deal works.’ By the end, they realize they didn’t know things, or were rusty.”

http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2013/03/08/why-so-many-job-interviewers-are-terrible/

Everyone wants to be the candidate that stands out.  Many of the rumored tricks are mostly hot air. Others, like attending an elite university, may make you an attractive candidate, but knowledge without experience can be an obstacle.

Here are some common missteps candidates make when applying to larger corporations in the hospitality industry.

Post High School Job Experience

Were you a waitress instead of an intern when you were 19? the path to landing your dream job shows your intent. Did you lifted boxes to pay debts, and another candidate interned within the hospitality industry for an assistant manger. These not only reveal your interest, but it also makes you more interesting and ‘stand out’ from the other candidates.

Your Major

Did you major in liberal arts?  You don’t pick a major like that if you want to work for one of the big hospitality corporations.  Your guidance counselor might have said that it doesn’t matter what you major in as long as  you are passionate.  This may sound great in secondary education, but it doesn’t look good on a resume. A psych, business, or leadership major will stand out. Also, why just one major?  The best advice is to pick majors that are directly relevant to the hospitality industry, and working with people

Community Service

Everyone volunteers today to improve their resume, but what you do says a lot about you. Did you serve soup in a soup kitchen? This may be great if you want to focus on the customer service, entry level of the hospitality industry.  No HR manger will look at a resume and say ‘how sweet, you fed Christmas dinner to homeless children.’

From a success or career coaching standpoint, start standing out when you start your career. Try hunting for sales or marketing positions with a charity.  Look for team management positions.

Communication

The higher you aim, the better your communication skills. This is important in any career, in any industry. If you cannot ‘say what you mean and mean what you say,’ and if you cannot get your point across succinctly then there is no way you’ll sell ideas to a board, or talk your team into working overtime, taking a benefit cut, or network in the business community.

Network

Did you get to know your professors? Did you go the extra mile to network in the business community, or when volunteering a charity?  Everyone has heard a story where a professor, manager, colleague went to bat for someone when writing a letter of recommendation for a job application. Sometimes the name at the bottom of the resume is more powerful than the recommendation itself.

Specialize

The ‘Jack of all trades’ has never been in high demand. If you want to work with one of the top hospitality industries then you must be able to handle one aspect of the corporation. The best restaurant mangers have specific things in common. The best general managers share traits that are different than those shared by the best kitchen managers.

Associating with professionals, interning, and volunteering in the hospitality industry can help you find the niche where you belong, the career where you will excel.

Your GPA Doesn’t Matter

There is little truth to the rumor that a low GPA can limit your future. In fact, companies like Google, Apple, and Microsoft place GPA low on the list of prerequisites for their candidates.  Top companies look for the top candidates, people with a track record of success, not successful students.

Don’t Limit Yourself

Even if you have none of the aspects listed in this article, you may still be the restaurant manager some corporation is looking for. You really don’t know what you have to offer a company until you start. You never know what skills you’ve acquired and how those skills can be used to excel in the hospitality industry.

HR managers and headhunters see huntress of resumes each day from all levels of restaurant managers. They quickly stop looking for the right or perfect resume format. A properly laid out resume does not guarantee that the candidate will be a successful restaurant manager.  The most the resume format can identify is your personal choice.

10 second commercial

The resume should not be a job description. The HR manager knows the restaurant manager’s job description and assumes that if you’ve held the job, you’ve done the tasks. The recruiter wants to see where you’ve been, and your level of experience. They want to know whether your skills have developed a General manager, kitchen manager, etc… But if nothing catches their eye than they will move on.

At the most, you have 30 seconds to capture the recruiters attention. This is probably much shorter later in the day, and may be extremely short Friday afternoon.

Success and Accomplishments

Save the task details for the interview. Your successes will highlight your skill base, strengths, and weaknesses. They want to know the impact your decisions made on the bottom line.

Did you save the restaurant money?

Were you a problem solver?

Are you a team leader/trainer?

Will your skills save the company money/reduce outsourcing?

Did you increase revenue, reduce costs, reduce overturn?

Are you good at marketing and customer retention?

Are you a good organizer, planner?

Are you a good problem solver?

Do not try to be everything for every HR manager. Identify your greatest strength and focus on the skills and experience that show your ability to handle problems, and find solutions in this aspect of the job.

Tips and Advice

Instead of listing:

- tasks – focus on the outcomes

- education – highlight leadership skills

- achievements – recognize awards and acknowledgements

- experience – outline your personal development

It is important to realize that you won’t win every job in the job seeker campaign. It is dangerous to try to be ‘everything to everyone’ and hope to get ‘a bite’. Instead of trying to get ‘a’ job, work to win ‘the job’, your dream job.

Once you’ve developed the skills needed to manage a restaurant, successfully, and develop a strong team who are motivated and goal oriented, it is time to sell your skills.  The restaurant manager’s job requires good communication skills, and the ability to present projects and reports in a way that will sell ideas to the team, management, investors, and to the customers who walk through the doors each day.

The resume is the first place you have to highlight your skills.

Identify Yourself as a Serious Candidate

HR managers are less interested in what you have done for others, or what you have learned. They are interested in seeing what you can do for them. If you’ve followed this blog then you’ve seen multiple places that discuss your personal development. Invest some time in personal development. Listing coaching, courses, and career development steps you’ve successfully completed is a great way to alert HR managers to the fact that you are aggressively and seriously focused on becoming the solution to the restaurant’s problems, not another problem.

Identify Yourself as a Team Leader

The days when managers barked orders and punish poor performance are over. Today’s manager needs to develop their communication skills. They need to be able to motivate and encourage, not push. The stakes are high. The cost of replacing disgruntled employees is staggering. The cost of investing in training, and then having an employee leave because they do not feel empowered, fulfilled, or challenged is immeasurable.

A manager needs to be able to develop their team, encourage and motivate them, and create an environment that encourages longevity.  Even when this is done, the good manager understands that the team’s personalities, boundaries, and personal habits can undermine the team. They learn to identify problems and create solutions that will empower the team, and encourage them.

They understand that the reason to build a strong team is to reduce the loss caused by employee overturn, days off, conflict in the workplace, and resentment directed toward management.

Understanding these is only half the battle. It is important to learn how to condense that information into your resume. It is necessary to understand which skills will make your resume stand out above the crowd.

The hospitality industry is a highly competitive one. Whether you are looking for a job as a Chef, restaurant or general manger, or are carving a niche for yourself in another area of the restaurant industry, job seekers need to learn how to sell their skills to the HR manager.

There are many execution strategies. Most are good but fall short of producing results. This is because they tell people what needs to be done. They don’t tell people how to do it.  The ability to understand and execute a plan is important to selling your skills. The HR manager will not assume that all restaurant managers are able to redesign a restaurant, solve problems within a team, or pull a restaurant out of the red. Candidates need to be able to identify their strengths in their current job, and sell their solutions to current management. Then they need to document their ideas, measure their success, and record the results. These case studies will become a sales tool they can use for landing their next job.

Here are some basic fundamentals necessary in any career development strategy, and plan of execution:

•           Know your resources.

This is an excellent idea. Once a manager can identify their resources they are able to manage them effectively. This is still a backward thinking management strategy. It is designed to identify the results of what has been done in the past, not what can be accomplished in the future.

•           Find how to use resources in ways that open new opportunities.

The hospitality industry is always looking for new opportunities. People who learn how to solve problems, and find opportunities are valuable resources in today’s job market.

•           Look for resources that have been missed by others

•           Do not look for obstacles, problems, and assets but look for opportunities.

•           Include People in your strategy

The narrower your network the easier it is to topple the mountain. Everyone has something to contribute. Some of the greatest breakthroughs have been found when management stops to ask the people on the front lines what they need to do a better job, what complaints do they hear, or what would make the customer happy.

Part of making sure the right people is in the right place hinges on a leader’s ability to listen. People let us know what is important to them, what they need and want, and how to become a better manager in the things they don’t say as much as what they do say.  Learn to listen and to delegate. This training can start long before you ever sit behind a manger’s desk.

•           Effectively expect.

Establish a way to measure the results of execution. Do  not focus entirely on what has happened but learn to measure what is happening. Do not focus on whether a task is being completed, and by whom. Instead, focus on if the task is being done right. What is right? How is that measured?

This involves Strategic Evaluation. This cannot be done without first doing your homework. Again, knowledge is power. Even ‘gut instinct’ and intuition can be a primal part of an execution strategy.

•           Stay in the Real World.

The problem with dreams, goals and expectations is that they are self evident reflections of who we are at the time they are created and executed. They are often based on our personal wants, needs, and perceptions of reality

How To Give Your Employer Notice…. That You’re Leaving!

CONGRATULATIONS! You have just spent two weeks going through the interview process with a great new company and have accepted a fantastic offer from them. Now comes the hard part. You must go back to your current employer and give them notice that you will be leaving their employ. What people sometimes fail to realize is that this is as an important part of the process as any. Very often I hear this…”well they have been really good to me and I do not want to screw them over, so I would like to give a three or four week notice”. In almost every scenario, this is overkill. What you must take into consideration when giving notice is the following points…

· You have now committed to a new employer and are obligated to start when they need you to. They are as anxious to have you start with them as you are. Plus they obviously have a need that you are filling and most likely need you to start training as soon as possible to fill their gap.

· Two weeks notice is customary and widely accepted as a proper notice. Even when leaving on good terms, anything more than two weeks becomes burdensome on both parties. Giving two weeks is the proper way to handle a company that has been good to you.

· On the converse side, giving anything less than two weeks notice to a current employer will be frowned upon by most hiring companies and may make them rethink their hiring decision. They expect you to give two weeks and you should be wary of any company that doesn’t.

· Some companies are known for not letting people work out their notice. They may ask you to turn in your keys at the time you give them notice. This should not impact the way in which you give your notice. Always leave a company properly even if they don’t do the same with you. If you are told not to work out your notice, then you can either let your new employer know that you can start sooner than expected or just take it easy and enjoy some time off before starting your new endeavor.

· Some companies may try to use the two week time frame to try to get you to change your mind. They may use heavy pressure from above or talk badly about the new company you are going to. They may also try to counter offer with more money to entice you to stay.

COUNTER OFFERS NEVER WORK OUT! Realize that the same issues that caused you to begin looking in the first place will still exist after a counter offer. And now the company is aware that you were looking and trust may then become an issue. Plus, if you take the counter, you have now burned your escape bridge when you realize it was a mistake. And you will.

So submit your resignation with confidence, don’t give in to counter offers as they never work out and give a proper TWO weeks notice and everyone involved will be appreciative in the end.

5 Ways to Spot a Bad Boss In An Interview

Stephanie Taylor Christensen, Contributor Forbes.com

A boss can literally, make or break your career. Here are five ways to spot the bad ones before they become yours.

A great boss can make you feel engaged and empowered at work, will keep you out of unnecessary office politics, and can identify and grow your strengths. But a bad boss can make the most impressive job on paper (and salary) quickly unbearable. Not only will a bad boss make you dislike at least 80% of your week, your relationships might suffer, too. A recent study conducted at Baylor University found that stress and tension caused by an abusive boss “affects the marital relationship and subsequently, the employee’s entire family.” Supervisor abuse isn’t always as blatant as a screaming temper tantrum; it can include taking personal anger out on you for no reason, dismissing your ideas in a meeting, or simply, being rude and critical of your work, while offering no constructive ways to improve it.  Whatever the exhibition of bad boss behavior, your work and personal life will suffer. Merideth Ferguson, PH.D., co-author of the study and assistant professor of management and entrepreneurship at Baylor explains that “it may be that as supervisor abuse heightens tension in the relationship, the employee is less motivated or able to engage in positive interactions with the partner and other family members.”

There are many ways to try and combat the effects of a bad boss, including confronting him or her directly to work towards a productive solution, suggesting that you report to another supervisor, or soliciting the help of human resources.  But none of those tactics gurantee improvement, and quite often, they’ll lead to more stress. The best solution is to spot a bad boss—before they become yours! Here are five ways to tell whether your interviewer is a future bad boss.

1. Pronoun usage. Performance consultant John Brubaker says that the top verbal tell a boss can gives is in pronoun choice and the context it is used. If your interviewer uses the term “you” in communicating negative information ( such as, “you will deal with a lot of ambiguity”), don’t expect the boss to be a mentor.  If the boss chooses the word “I” to describe the department’s success—that’s a red flag.  If the interviewer says “we” in regards to a particular challenge the team or company faced, it may indicate that he or she deflects responsibility and places blame.

2. Concern with your hobbies. There is a fine line between genuine relationship building, and fishing for information, so use your discretion on this one. If you have an overall good impression of the potential boss it may be that he or she is truly interested in the fact that you are heavily involved in charity work, and is simply getting to know you. On the other hand, the interviewer may be trying to determine whether you have too many commitments outside of work. The interviewer can’t legally ask if you are married, or have kids, so digging into your personal life can be a clever way to understand just how available you are.

3. They’re distracted. The era of email, BlackBerrys and smartphones have made it “okay” for people to develop disrespectful communication habits in the name of work. Particularly in a frenzied workplace, reading email while a person is speaking, multi-tasking on conference calls and checking the message behind that blinking BlackBerry mid-conversation has become the norm of business communications. But, regardless of his or her role in the company, the interviewer should be striving to make a good impression—which includes shutting down tech tools to give you undivided attention. If your interviewer is glancing at emails while you’re speaking, taking phone calls, or late to the interview, don’t expect a boss who will make time for you.

4. They can’t give you a straight answer. Caren Goldberg, Ph.D. is an HR professor at the Kogod School of Business at American University. She says a key “tell” is vague answers to your questions. Listen for pauses, awkwardness, or overly-generic responses when you inquire what happened to the person who held the position you are interviewing for, and/or what has created the need to hire. (For example, if you are told the person was a “bad fit,” it may indicate that the workplace doesn’t spend much time on employee-development, and blames them when things don’t work out).

You should also question turnover rates, how long people stay in given roles, and what their career path has been. All of these answers can indicate not only if the boss is one people want to work for, but whether pay is competitive, and employees are given a career growth plan.

5. They’ve got a record. Ask the potential boss how long he or she has been at the company, in the role, and where he or she worked before coming to it to get a feel for his or management style, and whether it’s what you respond to.  For example, bosses making a switch from a large corporation to a small company may lead with formality. On the other hand, entrepreneurs tend to be passionately involved in business, which can be a help or a hindrance, depending on your workstyle.

Goldberg also recommends searching the site eBossWatch, where you read reviews that former employees have given to a boss. If you’re serious about the position, she also suggests reaching to the former employee whose spot you are interviewing for, and asking for their take on the workplace. (LinkedIn makes this task easy to do). The former employee’s recount may not necessarily reflect your potential experience, but it can help you to determine whether his or her description of the job and company “jibes” with what the potential boss said.

Okay, so for the past three years you finally got the courage to take that leap of faith and put your resume out there and go after the job of your dreams. Restaurants are starting to expand once more and you figure ‘now is the time’ (and in my professional opinion your opportunities couldn’t be more plentiful). You do your homework and target the three restaurant companies as your next ‘home away from home’ and after the two to three week courtship, you accept the best offer, throw in your two week notice and take a weeks vacation to get energized for the next chapter of your life. Sound too familiar?

While you’re sipping on your Pina Colada on the warm beaches off of some exotic Caribbean island, now’s the time to start thinking and ask yourself “how do I get to the next level of my career”. Let’s face it; unless you have a crystal ball, that actually works, there is no textbook answer that any professional can offer because every restaurant operation has their own set of rules, culture and beliefs. However, there is one constant variable that is universal no matter what segment of the restaurant or hospitality industry you’re in and that’s people, people, and people. A successful manager knows how to identify, relate and lead multiple groups of people from various backgrounds and genders to a common goal of customer satisfaction. Restaurant professionals need to remember that perception IS reality in the eyes of consumers and your employees play a large role in your success as a manager.

If you’re looking to fast track your restaurant career you may want to consider integrating these 5 tips:

1. Share Your Career Path With Your Company. There’s a saying in business that, “If you don’t promote yourself, nobody else will.” Don’t be reserve and keep your goals to yourself when it comes to your desire to move up the company ladder. Share your goals with your immediate supervisor and ask them if they’re attainable. Get your immediate supervisor to “buy in” to your goals and set reasonable time limits to have them completed. By having this “buy in” with your company, you’re demonstrating that not only can you accomplish the goals set by the company, but those that you have set for yourself.

2. Help As Many People As You Can. People develop relationships with those around them when you offer help. The more people you help in attaining their goals, you’ll find that your goals get a lot easier to accomplish. Why? Not only are you investing in the future to those you assist but karma seems to make its way full circle.

3. Be Consistent. As restaurant managers, we make hundreds of decisions each week that, whether good or bad, decide various outcomes. No one person keeps a mental tally of your impartiality, fairness and consistency than your employees and the professionals you surround yourself. Restaurant operations, as well as its employees, are based around routines because each routine is meant to be consistent. From how an employee is counseled on excessive tardiness to loading the dishwasher, each company sets its standards for each routine that must be followed and employees need to be able to depend on its management staff to be consistent.

4. Hire and Retain Quality Employees. Bottom line, quality employees inspire and motivate others by their example and enthusiasm. Good employees will inspire others directly and indirectly toward higher achievement and those around them feel more confident because of that higher level of competency. As hiring quality employee’s accounts for fifty percent of the equation, keeping those superstars happy account for the other fifty. What managers fail to realize is the smallest gestures mean a lot and don’t cost much to keep employees happy. Notoriety for a job well done in the presence of and surrounded by fellow employees is gratification that employees crave. Employees want attention and recognition and are hungry for any and all types of acknowledgement of their value.

5. Educate and Train Constantly. Continuing to improve your employees to become more educated within additional areas of your restaurant operations so you can be more effective with them is an area that many managers do not take enough advantage. Training not only maximizes overall efficiency of restaurant operations but also encourages a culture of constant progression and learning in a dynamic industry. A quality-training program not only assures that all employees have the tools they need to succeed but reduces the turnover rate, which subsequently increases the ROI for each employee. Your commitment to the art of People Development assures you of a rewarding career within the restaurant and hospitality industry.

As mentioned earlier, there is no one silver bullet that can propel a manager from one level to the next but if you look closely, the restaurant industry revolves around two words; passion and people. If you’ve been in the restaurant business for as very long as I have, the word passion gets thrown around so loosely like rice at a wedding. If you take into account the amount of hours a company demands of its restaurant managers for the salaries being offered, accompanied by the strain this industry places on ones personal life, others would call it extreme lunacy while we in the restaurant industry call it passion. How quickly you rise through the ranks is not determined in the level of passion that you possess but the passion that is bestowed upon, filtered and carried on through your employees.

By Alison Doyle, About.com Guide

You’ve done it! You passed the first interview with flying colors and you just got a call to schedule a second interview. What happens next? How can you use a second interview as a means to get a job offer? It’s important to be aware that the company is seriously interested in you, or they wouldn’t have called. You are definitely in contention for the job! Here are suggestions on how to use your second job interview to help secure an offer.

Second Interview Tips

Get the Agenda
Sometimes, a second interview can be a day-long interview. You may meet with management, staff members, executives, and other company employees. Ask the person who scheduled the interview for an itinerary, so, you know upfront what to expect.

For example, at Microsoft the second interview process involves meeting with people from different product groups. Candidates usually meet with four or five people who are geared to provide an idea of what it’s really like to work for Microsoft.

Research, Research, Research
Learn everything you can about the company. Review the About Us section of the company web site. Use Google and Google News (search by company name) to get the latest information and news. Visit Message Boards to research what’s being discussed. If you have a connection, use it to get some insider information on management and staff, as well as the company in general.

Review Interview Questions and Answers
You may be asked the same questions you were asked during the first interview. So, review the questions you will be asked and brush up your responses. Like the first time around, it’s good to take some time to practice interviewing, so, you are comfortable with your answers.

Dress Professionally
Even if the workplace is casual, until you get the job, you will want to dress in your best interview attire, unless you are told otherwise. If the person scheduling the interview mentions dressing down, business casual attire would typically be most appropriate.

Lunch / Dinner Interviews
When you are scheduled for a full-day of interviewing, lunch and/or dinner may be included on the agenda. Dining with a prospective employee allows the company to review your communication and interpersonal skills, as well as your table manners. It’s important to dine carefully. The last thing you want to do is spill your drink (non-alcoholic, of course) or slop food all over the table. Order appropriately and brush up on your dining skills, and your manners.

What You Didn’t Say
Was there something you thought you should have mentioned during your first interview? Or was there a question you had difficulty with? The second interview will provide you with the opportunity to expand upon your responses from the first interview. Review the notes you took during the first interview, to see what you might have missed talking about and what you can clarify or add.

Ask Questions
When you’re invited to interview a second time, the chances are good that you are in contention for the position. It’s appropriate to ask for a copy of the job description to review, as well as to ask about the organization structure and how you will fit in.

Is There a Fit?
Sometimes, whether a particular job is a good fit is hard to define. I’ve been in a position where I had an uneasy feeling that I really didn’t want the job. It wasn’t anything I could pinpoint specifically, but, it was there. If a voice is telling you you’re that you are not sure about this job, listen to it. You don’t have to turn down the job, but, you can ask for additional meetings with staff, especially the people you are going to be working with, to make sure the job is a good fit for you.

If You Get a Job Offer?
In some cases, you may be offered a job on the spot. You don’t have to say yes, or no, immediately. It actually makes sense not to say yes right away, unless you are 110% sure that you want the job. Everything may seem perfect while you’re there, but, once you have a chance to mull over the offer, and the company, it may not seem as wonderful. Ask for some time to think it over and ask when the company needs a decision by.

Say Thank You
You have, I hope, already sent a thank note to the people you interviewed with the first time. Again, take the time to send a thank you letter (email is fine) to everyone you met with and reiterate your interest in the company and in the position.