Tag: career

Rapport versus selling

By cclozano On December 28, 2021 In Experiences, Reflections, Vocations with 0 Comment

The biggest challenge for a salesperson is how to not sound like one when spilling spiels. That’s because “people love to buy, but hate to be sold to.” That means most customers would want to do their shopping undisturbed. One of the many reasons why e-commerce locally has seen record-breaking growth, especially since the pandemic lockdown started last year. But this came with a price of people getting scammed easily of their hard-earned money and having more trust issues with online sellers. Which makes it more important these days for telesales professionals to focus on rapport-building, at least during the first few interactions, than traditional selling with which we’ve been trained to close the deal every chance we get.

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On time versus out of time

By cclozano On November 9, 2021 In Experiences, Reflections, Vocations with 0 Comment
Time is precious

The pandemic has changed and influenced our work schedule. While most are back to the daily huddle of being physically present at the office, such as in my case, a lot of companies have implemented the hybrid work set up – a combination of stay at home or telecommuting and working on site. Of course, this is entirely dependent on the industry or type of business your company is in but given the challenges of the new normal – health and safety protocols and varying travel restrictions per city – are you able to clock in at work on time, and consistently? Or fixing your schedule is a breeze thus running out of time on tasks or catching up on deadlines were never problematic?

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How to win interviews during the pandemic

By cclozano On September 25, 2021 In Experiences, Reflections, Vocations with 0 Comment

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought us the new normal. And companies are adapting to keep business as usual. If you’re having a hard time acing your interviews and landing your next job in this pandemic, perhaps you’ll need to change how you prepare and anticipate questions that may sound too easy but are asked to reveal what most recruiters and hiring managers take as signals to flunk candidates.

Most interviews these days, if not all, are done remotely through video calls. Which is both challenging for the interviewer, who now has a bigger pool but will want to save time with speedier screening in gauging suitability for a position, and the applicant who’s weighing options if it’s the ideal company to work for but will have a tough time without the opportunity to dazzle through the interview in person.

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Happy to be ghosted and rejected

By cclozano On November 15, 2020 In Experiences, Reflections with 1 Comment

My friends didn’t know, my relatives won’t believe it, but I was jobless for almost five months or during most of the lockdown period brought about by the pandemic. It was a personal struggle that kept me off the grid. And it would have been a terribly depressing situation, except I thought this can be an opportune time to finally get it rolling with starting our own business, which we did. And thankfully Camia Eats is doing well and kept me busy and my mind off my personal worries.

When the community quarantine became less stringent and companies started opening their doors to work opportunities again, that’s when I started sending out applications. I would almost always intro myself as having 25 years of professional experience but that didn’t prepare me for the onslaught of nonreplies. LinkedIn at the time was fraught with posts from budding and seasoned professionals being let go then getting frustrated from recruiters that ghosted them. Devastating to a candidate especially when one thought it was a promising lead. That’s several months of job hunting and some, if not most, are beginning to doubt they’ll get their careers back on track given the gloomy prospects of the health crisis that have yet to end.

Perhaps due to the global pandemic, there are a lot of companies that couldn’t do business anymore and too many people lost their jobs as a result and are now all looking, and recruiters are simply overwhelmed – I was trying to convince myself with this reasoning but the more I realized it was the same case for me as those frustrated posts on LinkedIn. I thought my 25-year career is already impressive but that ain’t a guarantee. It tested my faith and I was starting to lose my confidence. Until recently, I didn’t know job hunting was this tough and frustrating. Thing is, what if the job ghosting and rejections are actually pointing you in the right direction?

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