Like many around the country, we’re dealing with some unemployment issues ourselves. Not directly online, but within our own family. With that in mind, and if you’re facing the battle of trying to make headway to secure a new position, upgrade a current position, or even sell your business ideas online to someone else (see below for further clarification), here’s information that may help you turn mountains into mole hills:

Handle a Disaster Job Interview

Disastrous job interviews happen to even the best candidates. You can often sense the interview is slipping rapidly downhill: The interviewer loses interest, becomes openly hostile or tries to shut down the interview after 10 minutes. If you’ve got a gut feeling an interview is going terribly, trust your intuition. It probably is.

For most, the natural reaction is to lose confidence, clam up a bit and just get through it. However, you also know this approach doesn’t serve your goal of advancing your career. This advice will help you handle the interview gone awry.

Confront the Obvious

In this nightmare scenario, you have nothing to lose by changing the game. When you sense disaster, the best tactic is to confront it candidly. You could say, “Excuse me, but I don’t think this interview is going very well. Do you agree?” If the interviewer says, “You’re right, it’s not,” you are done. The interviewer will probably tell you that you will not get the job. Remain positive for the duration of this ill-fated encounter.

Often, however, the interviewer will say, “No, maybe we just got off track.” You can reply, “You’re right. I feel like we missed a beat on that second question. May I try that again?”

If you deal directly with an interview that’s going downhill, you have a 50-50 shot at getting back on track. Some interviewers will keep a poker face, and you won’t have any idea what they think. Often, however, your openness will snap interviewers out of their negative feelings. For example, an interviewer may say, “You know, you’re not right for this job, but I like your experience, and maybe there’s a job for you in another department.” Even if it doesn’t result in a job, the fact that you changed the interview from negative to positive says good things about you.

The worst tactic for dealing with disaster is to continue through a declining interview as if everything is fine. Practically speaking, you’re wasting both your time and the interviewer’s. Nobody wins, and more important, the interviewer’s negative assessment of you won’t change.

So if you feel that sense of dread that things are going very wrong, call attention to it, and ask how you can get back into a positive conversation. It’s the only path back from disaster.

Career Advice from Doug Hardy, Monster Staff Writer

Above I mentioned “your business online” and inferred this article applies in this arena, too. It does. When you join an affiliate program, or open a new website of your own with products or services, you are often faced with what can be called the “reverse interview.”

In this instance, you are doing your best to persuade “the other guy” that what you are promoting is worthy of their time, money, and attention.

Too often we see, and speak with, people unprepared to explain what it is they just joined, what the program provides, what the benefits are for the people they are actively looking to recruit.

As with any “job interview” be it you going out to look, or someone coming to you wondering about your product or service, if you can’t talk about yourself (or it) properly, things rapidly go downhill.

Marketing online means marketing not only your product or service, but also “selling yourself.” People tend to join when those they contact are knowledgeable, helpful, and informed. The uninformed find life online difficult and even hateful, all due to a lack of personal knowledge about their area.

If you’re of the latter - study up! You should know the program you are promoting inside and out. No question should take you unawares. And, should that unlikely event happen, again be honest. Tell your inquiring individual, “I don’t know the answer to that question, but I will most certainly find out and let you know.” (Of course use your own words.)

Times are rough. It will be the informed and helpful that make the big splash online - and have the power to sustain that growth.

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