You’ve been sending cover letters after cover letters and résumés after résumés and finally the telephone rings or you get an e-mail asking you to come in for an interview. Well pat yourself on the back and congratulate yourself! But don’t start dreaming about how you are going to spend your new salary or about how you are going to show off your new job, because you’ve got a lot of work to do BEFORE all that. You still have to face the ‘Interview’!
So now let’s get onto figuring how you can market yourself to a prospective employer on this first meeting!
1. Homework to be done
Doing some research about the company before you go to the interview can help you show off your knowledge during the interview. This will make the interviewer feel good about you.
2. Know the place
Make sure you know where you are heading and where the office is and how to get there. Get an idea of how long it will take to get there and don’t forget to get the name and phone number of the person you are supposed to meet.
3. Look PROFESSIONAL
Look your absolute best on the day of the interview; neat clothing, well ironed and professional looking. Get a haircut if necessary and have clean well groomed nails too.
4. Have pre-prepared answers
Have answers to common questions ready on hand. They could be for questions like: Tell me a bit about yourself? What do you think are your positives and negatives? Why did you choose us? Why do you think we should hire you? and so on…You could even ask a friend to come over and pretend to interview you.
5. Ready up those references
Find at least two to three people who could be your former boss, colleagues, instructors or even teachers who would put in a good word to your prospective employer. Get their permission before hand and be SURE that they won’t speak ill of you.
6. Come EARLY!
Come into the interview at least 15 minutes before your given time. Go to the restroom and do a double-check on your appearance.
7. Bring in the needed papers
The night or day before the interview make a checklist of documents that you need to take with you and put them in a good looking file cover or in a small briefcase. Some hints - extra copies of your résumé, your driver’s license, educational certificates, certificates of professional experience.
8. Follow up!
As a post-interview procedure, it’d be great if you sent a handwritten note or a friendly email thanking the interviewer for the opportunity. If you don’t get any new news after a week, you can always ring up and politely ask when the final decision will come in.
Just remember that every interview is a great learning experience and even if you don’t get the upcoming job, you’ll be a step ahead for the next interview…Good luck!
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Resume Writing
The purpose of your resume is to make the reader want to interview you. Resumes should be informative, concise, consistent, and should highlight intriguing skills and experience. They should grab attention early and provide a concentrated, convincing argument that you perfectly match the position at hand.
The basics Those who have been in the workforce for several years would customarily list professional experience first, followed by education and other elements such as publications or skills. Most resumes use reverse chronological order, listing the most recent experience first with the rest following chronologically. This type of resume gives a prospective employer a sense of where your career is headed and how it evolved into what it is today.
For entrepreneurs, sales personnel, recent graduates, and others with less-than-standard experience, an alternative format called the functional approach might make more sense. This format puts an emphasis on your abilities and achievements, categorizing your experience by industry, type of position, skill, and what you did rather than when you did it.
There is no right or wrong way to write a resume. Whatever sets you apart from the masses while requiring a minimum of effort for the recruiter will probably be your best bet. Here are some general guidelines to follow.
Be concise. Unless you have been working for a long time, stick to one page. Even with extensive experience, a resume should rarely exceed two pages.
Use vivid language. Include hard facts showing your impact on the company. Employers want to know what you did and how closely that experience matches their needs. Use action verbs and eliminate pronouns. Be grammatically consistent and proofread rigorously for mistakes.
Go easy on the eye. Graphics in a resume should make it easy to read. Use topic headings and lots of space. Forget clip art. Use one typeface. Pull the reader in from the top. Be creative, but clean with the layout.
Tell them what they need to know Resumes should start with your name, address, e-mail, and phone numbers. Include your education, accomplishments, and related experience. List unique talents or specialized skills in hot demand, like those related to computers.
Objective. Write one line stating your career direction and the job title you seek. It will direct your resume to the proper department and provide a key to interpreting the contents. This statement will be of greater strategic value if you have a specific focus or are in the midst of a career change rather than if you are just starting out and unsure of your career path.
Education. List schools, years attended, graduation dates, degrees, majors or concentrations, and awards. Highlight a master's thesis topic or academic honors. Put your most recent or most impressive educational achievement first. If it is not your highest degree, leave out high school unless it's extraordinary.
Experience. List your employers, job location, employment dates, job titles, and descriptions of your tasks, accomplishments and skills. Use statistics.
Skills. Highlight your computer, language, or other technical skills. List software you have worked with including any unique programs or expertise. For an Internet job, list any certifications or Web programs and computer languages you are familiar with.
Title the sections of your resume as you prefer, but remain consistent grammatically.
The order of the resume should reflect the position being sought. If your computer experience is more relevant to the job than your work history, put your computer skills first. If your educational achievements outweigh your actual experience, put them up higher. List other personal information at the bottom.
The basics Those who have been in the workforce for several years would customarily list professional experience first, followed by education and other elements such as publications or skills. Most resumes use reverse chronological order, listing the most recent experience first with the rest following chronologically. This type of resume gives a prospective employer a sense of where your career is headed and how it evolved into what it is today.
For entrepreneurs, sales personnel, recent graduates, and others with less-than-standard experience, an alternative format called the functional approach might make more sense. This format puts an emphasis on your abilities and achievements, categorizing your experience by industry, type of position, skill, and what you did rather than when you did it.
There is no right or wrong way to write a resume. Whatever sets you apart from the masses while requiring a minimum of effort for the recruiter will probably be your best bet. Here are some general guidelines to follow.
Be concise. Unless you have been working for a long time, stick to one page. Even with extensive experience, a resume should rarely exceed two pages.
Use vivid language. Include hard facts showing your impact on the company. Employers want to know what you did and how closely that experience matches their needs. Use action verbs and eliminate pronouns. Be grammatically consistent and proofread rigorously for mistakes.
Go easy on the eye. Graphics in a resume should make it easy to read. Use topic headings and lots of space. Forget clip art. Use one typeface. Pull the reader in from the top. Be creative, but clean with the layout.
Tell them what they need to know Resumes should start with your name, address, e-mail, and phone numbers. Include your education, accomplishments, and related experience. List unique talents or specialized skills in hot demand, like those related to computers.
Objective. Write one line stating your career direction and the job title you seek. It will direct your resume to the proper department and provide a key to interpreting the contents. This statement will be of greater strategic value if you have a specific focus or are in the midst of a career change rather than if you are just starting out and unsure of your career path.
Education. List schools, years attended, graduation dates, degrees, majors or concentrations, and awards. Highlight a master's thesis topic or academic honors. Put your most recent or most impressive educational achievement first. If it is not your highest degree, leave out high school unless it's extraordinary.
Experience. List your employers, job location, employment dates, job titles, and descriptions of your tasks, accomplishments and skills. Use statistics.
Skills. Highlight your computer, language, or other technical skills. List software you have worked with including any unique programs or expertise. For an Internet job, list any certifications or Web programs and computer languages you are familiar with.
Title the sections of your resume as you prefer, but remain consistent grammatically.
The order of the resume should reflect the position being sought. If your computer experience is more relevant to the job than your work history, put your computer skills first. If your educational achievements outweigh your actual experience, put them up higher. List other personal information at the bottom.
The Weakness Question
You're sitting in a conference room or office, face-to-face with the person you most want to impress - your prospective boss - and he or she is asking you, "What is your biggest weakness?" How do you answer a question like that?
The good news is, it's a job interview, not a confessional. No one expects you to demonize yourself in hopes of appearing forthright. After all, you are selling yourself and you want the interviewer to buy, not pass.
You could try stalling - think hard for a minute or two and answer something to the effect of, "I can't really think of any aspect of my personality that has compromised my performance at work. All of my performance reviews have been positive and I've never had any problems with past employers." The problem with this approach, though, is that you run the risk of appearing smug.
A better approach to take with the weakness question is to answer it honestly in a way that makes you look positive. Try to come up with a problem or difficulty you had at work a long time ago - the farther back, the better. Explain how that one minor flaw affected your performance in a way that enabled you to correct the problem and learn from it. This will show your employer how you have learned from a mistake.
"The classic 'weakness' answers are those where the weakness is a strength in disguise," said Jenn Schraut, Human Resources and Compensation Associate at Salary.com. "But avoid the blatant, overused ones, like, 'My problem is, I work too hard'," she said.
With the weakness question, you'd better be prepared. If you think of something on the spot, your example might have flaws you don't have time to think about.
- Brian Braiker, Salary.com contributor
The good news is, it's a job interview, not a confessional. No one expects you to demonize yourself in hopes of appearing forthright. After all, you are selling yourself and you want the interviewer to buy, not pass.
You could try stalling - think hard for a minute or two and answer something to the effect of, "I can't really think of any aspect of my personality that has compromised my performance at work. All of my performance reviews have been positive and I've never had any problems with past employers." The problem with this approach, though, is that you run the risk of appearing smug.
A better approach to take with the weakness question is to answer it honestly in a way that makes you look positive. Try to come up with a problem or difficulty you had at work a long time ago - the farther back, the better. Explain how that one minor flaw affected your performance in a way that enabled you to correct the problem and learn from it. This will show your employer how you have learned from a mistake.
"The classic 'weakness' answers are those where the weakness is a strength in disguise," said Jenn Schraut, Human Resources and Compensation Associate at Salary.com. "But avoid the blatant, overused ones, like, 'My problem is, I work too hard'," she said.
With the weakness question, you'd better be prepared. If you think of something on the spot, your example might have flaws you don't have time to think about.
- Brian Braiker, Salary.com contributor
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