If there is one thing that is certain about us financial types it is that we always know the answer.Ask us a question and it isn’t long before we are well into the “primarily due to’s and partially offset by’s.” Yet, this major strength of ours and important skill set is an impediment to s...

One of the little recognized facts about interviewing is that the most important part of what you are trying to accomplish in an interview is to make a personal connection with the interviewer.With all of the executive talent floating around these days, starting with the 34,000+ members of...

No one ever said it would be easy. And, when it comes to finding a job after the age of 40, it can easily become a demoralizing situation. For those who are even older, like in our 50’s or 60’s, it can be extremely difficult.Let me start you out with the idea that you are no longer the lea...

Speaking with strangers is never fun. And, if these strangers are deciding whether or not to hire you, it can be a little stressful, especially if you want the job. There are so many ways to offend and so few ways to ingratiate yourself without appearing overly solicitous. In the classic “...

Probably one of the most difficult issues to resolve when competing for an appropriate job opportunity is how much follow up to do. It is a fine line indeed between ensuring that those making the decision know you have real interest and making a real pest of yourself and changing their dec...

As you mature and become over qualified for just about everything, it is inevitable that you will be interviewed for a job (of limited income or responsibility) that you would like to have, but fear that you will be deemed too old or having previously earned too much money to be “happy” in...

I don’t know how many of you participated in school plays during your early years, but there is a lot to be said about thinking about the interviewing process as a series of scenes in a play. Of course, the only problem with this visualization is the degree to which the audience is i...

Over the course of our careers, as financial people, we become hard wired to never take no for an answer. When a customer claims they won’t pay an invoice, we can come up with “offers they can’t refuse.” When engaged in a debate at work about the appropriate accounting treatment of some ex...

If only those you interviewed with were legally able to tell you the truth about why you aren’t being considered for a particular job. Unfortunately, the things they are allowed to say to you are very limited. Lawyers do really run the world. If we lived in a Jerry Seinfeld world, they wou...

I know that many of our members are faced with the unpleasant truth that they have been out of work for a significant period of time. Having been out of work myself for almost two years, I know that this unpleasant question of “Why have you been out so long?” gets asked. Like anything else...

Despite all the financial scandals that we have seen in the past few years, most of us financial types by our nature have a hard time lying. For the most part, it just isn’t part of our DNA. While we may be burdened with many secrets of the organization such as payroll, we get around the q...

There is nothing worse in this world than to finally get an interview and to blow the opportunity because someone asked you a question you weren’t prepared to answer. I don’t know why some very obvious questions can take a seasoned financial professional by surprise, but they do. Perhaps w...

Most of us CFO/Controller types find talking on the telephone one of the more difficult things we do. I believe one of the reasons is that most of our work is accomplished in written form. When we do present our work to the boss or to our peers, it is usually done face to face and to a ver...

As financial officers, our natural instinct is to provide full and complete disclosure. It is all part and parcel of our basic honesty.When I was in the Advertising business, now so many years ago, I was often in a situation where I had to inform my boss about something important. He was a...

Remember back at the beginning of time when you would return to school in the fall and would have to write something about what you did all summer?Oh how I envied all those kids who did exciting things over the summer. We didn’t have a lot of money and my father was a plumbing contractor, ...

Down sized, right sized, laid off, fired, reduction in force. I think you have to agree that the world has developed a very colorful vocabulary to describe those things that have caused many of our members to be active in their respective job searches.If one of us went in for an interview ...

Anyone involved in personal selling will tell you that one of the more difficult tasks faced by any salesperson is handling customer objections.The easiest customer objections to handle are the ones the customer tells you about. Innocent sounding questions like “What colors does it come in...

It can be very frustrating to be told that you were number two. It gives you the feeling that if you had only done something different, presented something in a different way, (worn matching socks) the job might have been yours. If it happens to you more than once, it kind of makes you fee...

More and more when I talk to members considering job opportunities, the question comes up about how to choose between two similar situations.Of course, any two situations are never totally similar. There are always obvious differences in responsibilities, titles and compensation. And, if o...

The story goes that my grandmother had a marble statue. When it came time to break up housekeeping she decided that this was something she would sell. She thought it would be a good idea to clean it up a bit, but in the process managed to knock off one of the fingers on the hand of the mai...

One of the worst and rudest questions any job seeker is asked is what the minimum salary is that they would accept.Although there is a file out on our website filled with tough interview questions, this one ranks up at the top of ones I would avoid answering directly at all costs. Hard to ...