Summary: Jaime Allen gives some tips and strategies to help listeners land their dream jobs, as they prepare for their final on-site interviews. To download this podcast, click hereJaime covers the stage of the hiring process where you have been invited to the corporate headquarters for the final round of interviews. Your resume and performance have gotten you this far, but now the company is looking for a cultural fit within the organization. Jaime urges that it is extremely important to be yourself and not what you perceive the interviewer to be looking for. Jaime personally looks for three major things. First, while it is important to talk about your performance, it is also important to showcase your personality. She looks at how you carry yourself and your attitude as you answer general questions. Her recommendation is that candidates talk about their interests outside of work to give the company a better sense of your life outside of work. A good time to do this is in those 5 minutes or so between interviews as you are escorted from one office to another. While this conversation is casual, it shows that you can balance work and life, and allows for your passions to shine through. This can help you connect with the interviewer on a more personal level. Many candidates feel they have to “suck up” to the interviewers, but this is very pretentious and disingenuous. One pitfall that people fall into is being too focused on the interview process itself and forgetting to show off their character and personality. She suggests that you talk about things that make you unique and that can help you stand out. Another possible pitfall is that people are not prepared to ask relevant and thoughtful questions, and instead tend to ask predictable questions taken off a company’s website. A good question to ask could be on what the insight was behind a new product or marketing campaign. Jaime also stresses the importance of not only talking to the directors and VPs, but being truly genuine and friendly to everyone that you meet. She ends the interview by discussing how to behave during professional dinners and includes some tips on what to wear, whether drinks are to be ordered, and overall appropriate behavior. Jaime Allen is currently a Director of Marketing at Darden Restaurant Group in Orlando, Florida. There she leads Marketing Strategy for Promotion Pipeline, Merchandising and Local Marketing for the Olive Garden brand. Prior to joining Darden, Jaime spent 8 years at SC Johnson in Marketing working on new product development and various brands such as Scrubbing Bubbles, Edge, Skintimate and Glade. Jaime has worked briefly as a personal chef and has passed the Level 1 Master Sommelier exam. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree at Cornell University in 2000. You may contact her at: jaimeallen9@hotmail.com Like this podcast, why not share it?
