2018 has started with a bang in terms of organizations recruiting fresh talent and career seekers motivated to make a change. Be it operations, marketing, sales, business development or technology, there are ample openings in the #parkingindustry to explore new opportunities nationwide.

 If you’re ready to jump into the pool of possibilities, consider the following three aspects of any recruitment process as you prepare to present your best self.

 Know Your Exact Salary Expectations. While it used to be recommended to play the “coy” card until the final interview and say something along the lines of, “I think I should be paid what my experience dictates…” until that point, in today’s world candidates are expected to know their worth and just ask for it. If you’re not sure how your current compensation package aligns with your local market conditions, find out before the first interview. You can always lean on your network to gain some sense of your salary band or spend a few dollars on a website like www.payscale.com to gain a data driven response. 

 Anticipate Questions and Know Your Answers. At some point, you may have to answer the much-overused questions related to you describing your long term career goals and/or your greatest weakness. The former is a bit challenging because for many of us, it’s hard to picture where we are going to be in five, seven, ten years. The latter just has the feel of a bear trap – you answer truthfully, and it may hit a nerve on the other side of the table. Here’s what we recommend for both: honesty is the best policy. When thinking about the long-term vision of you, recognize how your experience has been building your expertise block by block and day dream a little bit about the possible places you could go with your career. Have one, but no more than three career objectives and articulate each one in a succinct manner. As far as your greatest weakness, which strikes me as an oxymoron, own one to two limitations regarding either your knowledge or leadership competencies and round out your response with ways you continually work on for improvement.

 Have The Little Things Down Cold. I’m not really sure why, but candidates commonly shoot themselves in the foot over the little things that we just assume they’re going to have covered, so here’s a quick list of items all candidates should have down cold when attending an interview:

• Know the directions and the parking(!) situation of the interview place prior to the day of your appointment.

• Hand in hand, if for some reason you do have a last minute emergency, know the cell number and email address of your contact to reach him/her immediately.
• Unless specifically volunteered that the dress is business casual, wear business formal.
• Have enough copies of your resume on clean stationary ready for distribution.
• Bring along at least 5 questions related to the opportunity that are not self-serving (e.g., what are the company’s top three imperatives for this year vs., how are salary increases managed?)
• Don’t chew gum, ever! Seriously. Don’t do it.

 Trust me, you will be one of the memorable ones when you follow the little things, answer the interview questions with confidence and competently state your salary expectations.

Want to learn more? Click here!