April Career Coach Insights: Zoom Etiquette, HR Interviews, and Layoff Preparation

This week is a short audio only session, so if you're looking for the video, don't bother. I didn't record a video for this. I just wanted to go through our new Career Coach column that just dropped this week in Biospace and sort of give you some backstory and a little extra color around each of the questions. We have had some really fascinating questions asked in the group and so the questions here actually range with a few different topics. So there's something for everyone here. We're going to go over how to present yourself on zoom calls so that you come across as somebody who's actually ahead of your current title and that is going to set you up for getting noticed and being taken more seriously on those work meetings. I also talk about what to do in a zoom interview with someone from hr. This kind of a first pass or a screening interview is a little bit different than an interview that you might have with somebody who is in the hiring team, like the hiring manager or a scientist in the group. So there are some different things that you can do to make it really, really effective. And I also talk about somebody who came to me saying that they think their company is about to do a layoff. They feel scared, they feel unsafe, and they're not sure what to do. So I give them a plan of action to take back a little bit of control in that situation. I hope you enjoy and you can head over to Bio Space. I'll link it in the show notes to read my column if you like reading things. But I'm going to go a little more behind the scenes into the thought processes behind what I advised for these three different situations. I'm Karina Klingman, scientist turned CEO of a talent strategy consulting firm. I've helped over 85 biotechs hire and develop thousands of amazing employees. So I know what works and what doesn't work when it comes to landing a job and then excelling in it. I created the Biotech Career Coach Podcast to give you simple, actionable, step by step strategies to help you land your dream biotech job, then move up the career ladder. If you are a exploring career paths, looking to learn about biotech, or simply striving to be the type of person who makes an impact and gets promoted, you're in the right place. Somebody came to me privately and told me that they got the feedback from their boss that they didn't present themselves well in their video meetings with their with their department, with their company. And first of all, they're mortified. They're so embarrassed, and they feel like they cannot save face from this. They feel really, really bad that maybe people have been perceiving them all this time as unprofessional and they didn't even know it. Unfortunately, there's not much we can do about the past, but we can move forward. We can definitely fix that image in the future. So here are my tips. So first of all, I think it's great that this person is so receptive to feedback, because often people shut down in the face of feedback, and I did talk about this in a previous column and in a previous podcast. But the ability to take feedback gracefully is an art and it's hard. And so I just commend them for realizing that they needed to do something about this and taking the initiative to do that thing. So here they are, asking me for my insights. Now, if there's one thing the Pandemic taught us, it is how to do Zoom calls. So I am not the expert on getting your space set up and all of that. You can find endless articles, YouTube videos, resources on how to set your space up, how to set up your equipment for zoom. But what I can tell you are a few things from my experience that have made a huge difference in presenting myself to potential clients while I'm teaching in the community, while I'm doing my podcasts. But also what I've noticed that candidates do really well. That makes them seem very professional when they're interviewing. And so here are a couple of things to note. First of all, your equipment does matter and so you are now a professional. In a professional situation, if you are being asked to work remotely, you may actually have a budget that you don't even know about to purchase some equipment. It may be that there is an allocation or a budget for purchasing some better equipment. Now, it doesn't need to be wonderful equipment, but I can tell you that a professional microphone, a USB microphone is fine. For a long time I used a YETI I did upgrade for the podcast to a nicer microphone that I absolutely don't think is necessary unless you're doing a podcast. But a YETI is great. They are affordable, they plug in via USB and they work really nicely with Macs and PCs and it is going to upgrade your sound quality tremendously over using your laptop microphone. So that is one tip. I've got a MacBook, a newer MacBook, and the webcam on that is actually pretty good. I have used it for my podcast recordings in a pinch. I do have a better camera that I don't think is necessary. I think people who use their better quality MacBook camera are just fine. But if you have an older device, you can get a Logitech camera that also works really well and will upgrade your video quality a lot. So that's something to keep in mind. Again, there are so many blogs and resources, I don't think that I'm the expert on this. I have followed those resources myself. And luckily I did have a podcast company that helped me with my setup so that I can get really professional sound. And it was more expensive than I think you probably need to spend for this use case. The next thing to think about, though, is the setup that you have. So one thing that screams home setup is stuff in the background, right? When you have your setup and you've got like shelves and boxes and just stuff in the background, or, you know, a spare bedroom, things like that, that tends to look less professional than if you can just arrange yourself so that you're into the corner of a room or in front of a wall. Now, this is a little bit weird in a home setup, right? Most people want their desk against a wall, which means that their setup is going to be looking into the room if it's videotaping you. So if you work from home a lot like I do my office, when you walk into it, my desk is sort of facing outward, and I've had to carefully arrange and gather my cords, and I've done a lot of things to make it look okay. But I am set up because I'm on video all day, every day. I am set up so that I'm into a wall in a corner of my office. That does two things for me. First of all, I don't need to worry about what's going on in the rest of my room. I can tell you that the rest of my room is actually my gym as well. So my office is my home gym. I have a peloton in here. I have a tonal in here. This is where I work out. I don't have to worry about you seeing that because I have arranged my space so that you don't see that. I don't have to worry about what time of day it is with windows and things like that that might cause weird backlighting. That's another thing that we see a lot is that someone looks really washed out because they're sitting in front of a bright window. But at different times of day, that could be very different. So eliminating that is going to be your friend. You never have to pick up the room. You never have to worry about what it looks like. If you're going to jump on a last minute meeting, it is fine. So I recommend if you're able to, and this is a luxury, I will admit, but if you're able to arrange your space so that when you have those calls, you are against a wall or into a corner, that's going to just elevate your professionalism a little bit. Now, if you can find some light decoration for that space, that is going to kick it up even more. So if you have a nice bookshelf that's just kind of curated for the purpose behind you, or you have some shelves, you have a piece of artwork, something interesting, that's really going to help you as well. But that is my feedback for the look, the visuals. Now, a lot of people sit too close or too far from their camera. Most of the time it's too close. So I recommend, and this came straight for my podcast producer, an arm's length from the camera, which means that your face is framed nicely, there's a little bit of background, but you're not sort of breathing down the camera, right? You're not getting the awkward chin shot or, you know, shot from the forehead or something like that. And you, we've all seen that, right, where someone's just too close to the camera and it feels awkward. It's a lot more professional if you feel like you're sitting across the table in a conference room from somebody. And that's usually achieved by a bit of distance from the camera and that camera being at eye level with the person. So to achieve this, I've seen all kinds of great setups. If you're using your laptop or your computer camera, put it on a pile of books, that brings it up to eye level. I personally have an adjustable laptop riser. I think it was $20 on Amazon. So just thinking about what could you do to elevate your space and to give yourself a little bit of an extra edge when you're chatting with somebody so that it seems like you're in the room with them and it's very natural. The next thing is lighting, and I can't overstate the importance of lighting. And this can be accomplished again with a very inexpensive ring light behind your setup. I personally have a softbox light because I do so much podcast recording and so much recording for the courses that I provide within the collaboratory community. Just know there's a lot of ways to achieve the lighting that you want, but having a nice light on your face just makes everything look More professional. So that's my final tip with regard to kind of the setup, the space, the feel, the aesthetic, I think the next piece is you, right? I got the best advice from a mentor early on, and that advice was simply to dress for the job I plan to have in 10 years. If you show up as the person you plan to be in 10 years, I think if you look at a mentor, a person that you admire who is in the job you want in 10 years, and you just look at how do they dress, how do they present themselves, try and emulate that a little bit. When you slip into that Persona, it sticks. It really does. You absolutely can show up very professionally on zoom calls, in virtual meetings with a very small budget. But I do think that it is worth your time. It will mean more promotions for you. People who show up more professionally get taken more seriously. They get a seat at the table and they get promoted. So it's worth your time to do. Our next topic is a really frequently asked question. So I want to go over it in depth here. It is that somebody in our community, many somebodies, a lot of people ask this question when they get a zoom or a virtual meeting with somebody in the HR department that could be an HR person or a recruiter. They're wondering how this interview, how that first screening interview step differs from the rest of the interview process and how they should prepare. So I think that's a really good question because it is very different. So first of all, I think you should celebrate yourself. That's a great first step, especially in this market. I know it's hard to secure those interviews because it's hard to get noticed with your resume. If you're getting those screening calls, you know that your resume is working for you. If you're not getting as many screening calls as you'd like, you may need to tweak your resume. And we are happy to help with that. So feel free to pop into our community and get some help on your resume. If you're not getting as many of these interviews as you'd like, but now you've landed one, what do you do? So I first want to stress that this interview is not with a technical specialist. I have a PhD in biochemistry. That does not make me an expert in every single thing across all genres. And for that reason, I really appreciate it. When candidates come to these interviews prepared to concisely deliver their value proposition and not with the expectation that they're going to go into the nitty gritty of every single assay, they've ever done and all the troubleshooting that they've ever done. That is not the purpose of this interview. You will not do well in these interviews if you come into them with that mindset. Your goal in this interview is to put together a concise set of answers to commonly asked questions. And typically there will be a couple of technical questions, but they're going to be high level. So for example, it might be a question like tell me a little bit about your oncology experience. Well, if you're a cancer biologist, you have a lot of experience. How do you even choose. What I would suggest is to practice questions like that for a generalist who understands the reason that we are hiring for the role, but doesn't understand the science particularly. So think about a 90 second answer to questions like that that can give a high level overview of your experience in a certain area. And then here's the key. Tie that back to the underlying problem in the job description. The biggest mistake we see candidates make honestly throughout the interview process, but especially in this first screening interview, is that they go on and on about their experience and qualifications and they don't relate it back to, to the job. All the recruiter or HR person cares about in this interview is are you a fit for the job? So you have to show them that you are. That is your job. That is the only thing you need to do in this interview. It's also important in these interviews to prepare a brief. Again, aim for 90 seconds, a brief elevator pitch so that when they ask you tell me a little bit about yourself, you are prepared with a high level overview of what, what your experience is, but more importantly why you applied to the role and how your experience is relevant to that role. We want to hear your passion. We want to hear why this role particularly was exciting to you and how you can solve our problem. So practice that. And again, this is something that we practice in the community. This elevator pitch is really, really important. And shorter is better. So we typically budget 15 minutes for these screening calls. 15 minutes. It's really important that you realize that half of that time is the time that they are going to want to screen you for things. And the other half that should be your time. You should be able to screen the company as well. So the next part of your preparation is to come prepared with some great questions. You should be able to go much deeper with these questions than asking generic things like what's the culture like? Or what's the day to day. If you use this as an opportunity to ask deeper questions, you will get tools for the remaining interviews that you can then use. So if you're interested in the company culture, for example, you could ask a deeper question like can you describe the company culture and how it influences the work environment? That's going to force your HR person or your recruiter to really think about how the company is going to shape your job. To get more information about the job itself so that you're armed for the next set of interviews, ask deep questions about the role. For example, I love the question what does success look like for this position and how is it measured? Or what are the biggest challenges the team is facing right now? If you ask that question and they tell you, you will be able to get some information about how you could prepare your answers for the next round. In terms of framing them for the pain points, the things that are really challenging right now for this team, you can also ask about the team because I think the team structure is really important to understand. It's going to give you an idea of who you'll be speaking with in the next rounds. Also, what opportunities for professional development or growth does the company offer? Another great forward looking question for this particular round would be what opportunities for professional development and growth does the company offer? Now again, you're going to be speaking with somebody from the HR department, so they should be able to give you a broader overview of this than even the hiring manager could. So after all of this is said and done, you want to send a thank you email. I almost never get one, but I'm really impressed when I do. So don't forget that step. It really leaves a nice lasting impression on your interviewer as well. Hey, I just want to cut in to say that if you are enjoying this podcast, you may enjoy the Building Biotechs podcast from our sister company Recruitomics Consulting, which is a talent acquisition strategy firm that specializes in helping small biotechs hire exceptional talent. In that podcast we interview amazing people who are building biotechs. They are industry leaders in all different verticals and it will allow you to explore career paths in biotech and to get to know companies that maybe you've never heard about. So if you are a biotech fan, you are exploring careers in biotech. I highly recommend the Building Biotechs podcast. We'll link that in the show notes or you can search for it on Apple Podcasts or anywhere else you get your podcasts. All right, back to our show. All right, our final question that I wrote about in my column this month and it's one that I've gotten over and over is somebody coming to me and saying, hey, I think my company is prepping for a layoff. I feel it in the air. There are murmurs, there are rumors. What do I do to prepare? Because I feel scared and unsafe. And I just want to acknowledge that that is a really natural feeling. It is really scary. Right now we're seeing so many companies have layoffs. We have seen so many companies have layoffs. It is definitely a time to be worried about it, but not to let it affect you in your day to day. So I'm going to give you some tools right now to deal with those worries and fears so that you don't let those fears take over and maybe sabotage you in the long run. So here's the worst case scenario and I'm just going to paint this picture for you because I've seen it happen. Somebody fears that there's a layoff, they completely check out of the company. They stop doing their work adequately, they kind of quiet quit. We heard a lot about that in the last few years while they start actively looking for another job or frantically networking or they're just depressed and they just don't want to deal with the work environment because they think it's coming to an end. And then in the background, the company is in fact making plans to reduce its workforce. And since your performance has slipped because you have already, already anticipated this happening and therefore checked out, now you're on that list when maybe you weren't before, that is the worst case scenario. And that's something I really want to help people avoid. Because these layoffs, these reductions in force, they are a business decision. They have nothing to do with you unless you make yourself a problem once you suspect they're happening. So first I want you to acknowledge your feelings because being scared is fine. Find a good friend, use your family, use your connections, get the support you need so that you're in a great headspace to get to work. Okay? You cannot let this paralyze you, but you can use this to be sort of the activation energy you need to take action. And taking action is going to allow you to feel more in control. And when you feel more in control, you are going to feel better. So this is how you're going to get the flywheel of feeling better going. Okay, the first thing you can do is start to update your resume. Why not? It's always good to update your resume. Think about the most recent projects you've had, any new roles, if you've had any promotions or upward Mobility, make sure that you are listing those out and thinking about the data that you'll need to make a case for your specific impact. So we talk a lot about how to use your resume to convey your impact as opposed to just list out what you've done. And so this is a good chance, when you are not put on the spot to sit down and think, what was my specific impact for this project? Or how many cell lines did I develop for this IND enabling assay, start to list things out in numbers and start to gather that data. You have access to the data because you're still there. So it's a good time to do it. The next thing you can do is to start to strengthen the connections that you have with your professional network. Because what we see often is that when people are happily employed, they're not on LinkedIn and they're not using their network, they're not engaging there and then all of a sudden they become really active on the platform and it's weird. So don't make it weird. Get on the platform all the time. I always tell people, make it a habit. This is part of your career. Consider it part of your workday always. Because then when you need your network, it will be primed and ready for you. But if you haven't been doing that and you're starting to hear rumblings of a layoff, start to get a little bit more visible. You can also start to go to in person events if you live in a good area for that, like one of the science hubs. I would say we often discount those in person events, especially since the pandemic. But they are fun and they are a great place to make authentic connections. And when you're doing this networking, don't mention your fears about a layoff. Just don't mention it come from a place of service. Think about how you could be of service to all the people in your network because that is paying into this piggy bank that is your network, so that when you need to make a withdrawal later, it is there for you. So try and pay into that network genuinely, authentically and with joy and it will come back to you in the same way. And the next thing you can do to really start to feel in control of this situation is to start having conversations, if you haven't already, with your manager about your specific impact in the organization so that you can align yourself with projects or areas that are critical to the business needs and that will help you to stay engaged and not to check out. My advice always in every step of your career is to have regular check ins with your manager that are goal oriented so that you always know you're marching toward the next promotion or step in your career career. If you have not already done that, make sure that you set that up now because this is the time to get a line into the business and your manager is going to have a better idea of the business mandates that are coming down. And if you can start to plug into that, you're going to have a better chance of weathering a layoff than somebody who is not plugged into that. That goes for your whole career. At this point we're kind of playing defense, right? This is the point where you think, oh, I think this might be happening to me, but let's say it doesn't come to pass or let's say it does and you end up in another position. If you take this advice and you are continually working your network, you keep your resume nice and shiny and up to date and you are always checking in with your manager and having really goal oriented discussions with them so that you're pushing your career forward. You're going to be in a much better place come any sort of company turmoil. And we are in biotech, so it's inevitable, right? This will not be the last time you think maybe your company's doing a layoff. That is the beauty and curse of biotech, right? It is so fast paced, it is so exciting and it's volatile. It's all of those things at once. And so the more things that you proactively do through your career to prepare yourself, the better. And look, if it does happen and you do get laid off, this is also a time to surround yourself with a supportive community, Think very deeply about what your next steps are and allow yourself to see that sometimes a layoff can be an opportunity for a change or a pivot. If you ever want to talk about it. We have a great group of people in our Slack community, many of whom have gone through a layoff, are going through a layoff, or have pivoted their career as a result of a layoff. It's a great place to learn from other people, to network, to think deeply about your next steps. So please, please join us in there. And I wanted to let you know that we are offering our Accelerator membership, which includes office hours with me. It includes all of our course modules, it includes the ability to workshop and use our tools to create your application materials, and it includes an expanded career development library. Because once you get your job, you need to excel in it. So like I just said, how do you set up those great meetings with your boss that are goal oriented? How do you stay on track with your career? All of that is included in our super cost effective membership. We are offering this for just $37 a month. So if you're looking for something a little more supportive than our free community, which is very supportive by the way, you are welcome to join our career Accelerator community and see what it's all about. And of course we have a 30 day money back guarantee. Please know it's completely risk free and I would love to personally help you through your journey. Thanks so much for listening to the Biotech Career Coach Podcast by the Collaboratory Career Hub. To join our free Slack group and to get access to other great free resources and materials, head over to CollaboratoryCareerHub.com and be sure to connect with me on LinkedIn. Pro Tip when you connect with me on LinkedIn, you get instant access to my entire network of biotech folks, which is powerful for your career. If you found this podcast valuable, please subscribe or follow us on YouTube so that you never miss an episode. And if you leave us an honest review, screenshot that review and send it to helloolaboratorycareerhub.com we'll give you totally free access to our popular LinkedIn course so that you can learn all of the secrets behind creating a magnetic LinkedIn profile that drives your career forward. Have an amazing week and we'll see you back here next Friday.