Month: November 2014

Why Do You Want to Work for Our Company?

Why Do You Want to Work for Our Company?  This question is helpful for you to know before you go to the interview.

  1. Preparing to answer this question will help you prepare to discuss the opportunity with the company. 

If you know enough about a company to explain why you want to work for the company, you will have a much more meaningful conversation during the interview.  You should never go to an interview without first knowing the job description.  Other things that you should know include the company products, as much as possible about the company culture, and the history of the company.

  1. The question will help you prepare to discuss how your skills match the job.

By knowing why you want to work for a company, you can explain why the company should want to hire you.  The information that you put together in preparing for this answer help you understand what ways your skills and experience match the requirements of the job.

  1.  It will help you show that you have an interest in the hiring company and not just any job at just any company.

To the hiring manager, interviewing an applicant who has a genuine interest a company raises the level of interest that the hiring manager has in an applicant.  It reflects positively that you have evaluated other companies.  The fact that you show that you are interested in the specific company, you are showing the hiring manager that you are a candidate worth the time it takes to interview you.

  1. It will help you show hiring managers and interviewers that you appreciate their time by taking your time to research the opportunity and prepare for your interview.

In researching your answer to the question, you will be able to show how much you value the opportunity to interview for the job.

‘Why Were You Fired?’

“Why were you fired?” is one of the most difficult questions in interviewing.  How do you prepare your answer?  How do you deliver it?

Write down and rehearse your answer.

Do not let a bad case of the nerves and poor interview preparation allow you to trip over your words.  Rehearse your answer so that you can give a short, clear reply.  Test your answer with people you trust.  Get comfortable with your answer so that it makes you look confident in your ability to go forward with success in your next job.

Discuss your answer with your references.

Discussing your answer with your references is helpful in at least two ways.  First, you want your references to give an answer that is consistently with your answer to this question.  Second, your references may help you prepare an answer that is honest, unemotional, and make your firing nothing that should prevent you from getting a new job.

Stick to the truth.

Telling lies can catch up with you through reference checks and backgrounds checks.  Even worse, if the hiring company does not discover that you lied until after you have started to work for the new company, you might find that you are being fired again.

Structure your answer to show how you will be a great hire at you next company.

Being fired from a job does not mean that you do not deserve to get a job where you are interviewing.  If you were fired, because your last company was laying people off, you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Understandable the reasons you are being fired

  • A new boss came in and replaced everyone with people from his or her previous company.
  • The company shifted its business model and eliminated jobs for your skills.
  • Your boss was highly skilled but had high turnover, because he or she is a micromanager.

Eleven Things that Annoy Co-Workers

Eleven things that annoy coworkers is a starter list for etiquette around the workplace.  You might want to read more articles on the subject.  Being annoying is not the best way to advance your career.

Using Big Words and Jargon to Impress People

Using big words to impress people is phony and annoying. Building your vocabulary is a good practice. Just using those words to impress people is an annoying.

Using Facilities for the Handicapped

Those facilities are there for people who need them.  People who routinely use specialized needs bathrooms or handicapped parking annoy will soon lose credibility and trust.

Texting or Writing Emails During Meetings

You are in a meeting.  Everyone is focusing on the speaker except you.  You feel that texting urgent messages or answering emails during the meeting is professional.  You believe that you are being diligent.  However, you are creating a distraction for everyone in the room.  People who are in a meeting are like members in a marching band.  They are in meeting mode.  When you start texting or sending emails, you become a distraction to everyone who can see what you are doing.

Talking Loudly Enough to Disturb Other People

Talking loudly enough on the phone to distract other people is rude and unfair.

Blocking Doorways and Hallways

Be thoughtful of how you use passageways.  Some people do not know how to navigate blocked hallways or aisles.  People who block these spaces making passing awkward for people.

On the other hand, if you do need to get past a people in a blocked passageway, simply say, “Pardon me.

Disappearing from Work

People notice when you are not at your desk or not in meetings.  Often people cannot do their job when you are not around to do your job.

Constant Complaining

Negative information makes other people feel unpleasant.  When you complain, you bring people down with you.

Gossiping

Gossiping is unfair and will cost you the trust of other people.

Personal Grooming

Clipping your nails and combing your hair seem so minor an event to some people that they forget that doing either one around other people is makes them uncomfortable.  At your workplace, do personal grooming in the restroom.

Talking About Yourself

For some people, talking about themselves is so easy to do.  It is also healthy.  However, talking about ourselves all the time pushes people away.  We not only distance ourselves from other people, the habit can prevent us from building strong business relationships.

Discussing Politics and Religion in the Workplace

Religion and Politics in the Workplace: I read an article recently that helped me know that not everyone understands the impact of religion and politics in the workplace.  The author started his article with religious jokes.

The jokes weren’t clever.  They were flippant.  Furthermore, they distracted from the point of the article.

How to Bridge Employment Gaps in Your Resume

If you have gaps in your resume, you are not alone.  Long recessions and a restructuring of the economy in the United States have created new complications for people who need to find jobs.

New types of jobs often require that job seekers develop new skills.  In some cases, job seekers must receive certifications, credentials, or licenses that require formal training.  Some of this training can require that job seekers take time from work.

The result is that many people go through extended periods of unemployment.  According to an article in USA Today, 20% of the people who have lost work over the past 5 years are still unemployed, and many of those who found work are in temporary jobs.

Knowing how to handle unemployment gaps on your resume is important.

There is value in doing consulting work, temporary assignments, and even volunteer work.  Include information on your resume to help people know what you are doing in addition to seeking a new job.

Job searching involves fundamentals.

The uncertainty of job searching can challenge you mentally, emotionally, and physically.  Your finances become uncertain.  Trying to focus on job searching is just part of the mental challenge of finding a job.  Finding mentors and working with friends can help you stay focused and positive as you go through the daily grind of getting a job.  Practicing the fundamentals of contacting employers, making applications, and continuing to seek employment are all critical to finding a job.

Your social media profile has a role in job search.  

Maintain consistency between your social media and your resume.  If you place a record of your career track on LinkedIn or Google Plus, make sure that the records you keep on those websites and profiles on other sites are consistent with each other and with your resume.

List employment periods in years.

Job seekers frequently list periods of employment in years only.  The goal of your resume is to get you to an interview.  If there are periods of weeks of unemployment in your past, getting to an interview to discuss those periods of unemployment is better than not getting to an interview at all.

You Do Not Have to be a Genius to Manage Well

You do not have to be a genius to manage well.

As a new Navy ensign, I was assigned me to work directly for a limited duty officer.  The first day that he and I met was my first day of service in the Navy.  He did not hire me.  I reported aboard the USS Midway and went to his office.

The Navy has different groups or classes of officers.  The limited duty officers are men and women who have worked their way up through the enlisted ranks into the ranks of officers.  Their opportunity for promotion caps out at the rank commander (pay grade O5).  They are specialists with high aptitudes for certain skills.

The limited duty officer for whom I worked had the ability to master Navy administrative skills far more rapidly than his peers did.

When I transferred into his department, he was a lieutenant.  He assigned me the responsibility of managing the education office.  In this role, I managed a chief petty officer and six enlisted men.  My responsibilities in this office were to give educational support and testing for career advancement of the 5000 enlisted members of the ship and air wing.

However, I knew nothing of my responsibilities as an educational officer.

At the same time, I stood bridge watches.  During these watches, I developed the skills to maneuver an aircraft carrier on the course and speed for launching and recovering aircraft, replenishing ships at sea, and other navigational and working functions.

When I was not on bridge watches, I worked with the limited duty officer, who was my departmental boss.  He quickly taught me how to manage and evaluate the men under my responsibility in the education office.

He and I worked together well.  I learned a great deal.  I wanted to do a good job.  My boss took the time to teach me how become a better manager.  As a young, inexperienced manager, I had a tendency to give higher evaluations to people I liked.  He showed me to focus on how quickly and accurately people performed their duties as well as how much I enjoyed working with them.

Within a year, the Navy promoted me to lieutenant junior grade.  Within 3 years, I was promoted to lieutenant.  My role in the administrative department had gone from simply managing the education office to manage the ship’s television station and newspaper and managing the ship’s public affairs program.  I wrote press releases that the Navy sent to U.S. Command for declassification and release to media.  I worked with the Bob Hope troupe and the Miss America Troupe for their performances in front of thousands of members of the crew and guests.

At the same time, I became qualified as an officer of the deck for fleet operations.  I was a competent ship handler and enjoyed working alongside senior officers aboard the ship.

My boss in the administration office was perhaps not as smart as I was.  I draw this conclusion because, in 3 years, my skills in the areas where I worked became as strong as the skills of my boss, who had over 20 years of experience.  I also had developed skills for ship’s bridge operations.  My boss, as a limited duty officer, did not qualify to work on the bridge of ship.  Perhaps the best sign that I was smarter than my boss is that I reached the rank of lieutenant in 3 years.  Reaching that rank had taken him nearly 20 years.

I was certainly never upset by the fact that I was smarter than my boss was.  His skills for the department in which I worked helped me greatly.  I was able to learn to do my duties.  I was fortunate to have his leadership and knowledge as tools and examples for growth.

I respected that he had a gift for specialized administrative skills and that he had 20 years developing those skills.  I showed respect by seeking and following his direction.  In addition, I knew that he had 20 years of experience in successfully working with other men and women in the Navy.  I knew that I could and did learn how to work with other people the way he worked with other people, not just for a day, but the grind of day in and day out.  I went to him for direction in dealing with difficult people and situations.

What I learned from this was the value of experience.  I learned that, when I have decisions to make, I should turn to people with experience to help me with ideas on making those decisions.  I learned that you do not have to be a genius to manage well, but that you do have to have experience and skill to manage well.

What are Your Salary Expectations?

What are your salary expectations?  At some point in the interview process, you may have to answer this question.

Some companies will ask you to give the information at the beginning of the interview process.  If the question comes up on a job application, you can try to leave the answer blank.  With some online applications, you cannot just skip past the answer.

Knowing how to answer the question accurately, involves more than just salary.  It includes knowing the expenses and hidden costs of the new job.  It involves knowing the difference in tax base, commute costs, vacation time, benefits, and insurance coverage.

There are several articles on this website to help you handle salary discussions and negations.

The best time for you to discuss salary is after you receive an offer and begin to negotiate the offer.  Many companies make a verbal offer and then follow up with a written offer once the detailed have been finalized.  Therefore, holding off on giving an answer to this question until you have all the details of the offer can help you respond in a practical manner that is meaningful to you and to the hiring company.

How to Write a Resume

How to write a resume: having a resume is an essential part of getting a job for most people.  I based the information in this article on two sources.  The first source is the hundreds of resumes I have read as a corporate recruiter.  The second source is the feedback I have received from hiring managers, staffing managers, other recruiters, and from interviewing hundreds of applicants.  These are suggestions only, but the layout is a working format.  If you replace the information below with your information, you will have written a resume.

A resume is similar to a job application.  When you complete a job application, you will need to list the jobs you have had, where you performed those jobs, and when you had those jobs.  Therefore, you will find it useful to have your resume with you as you complete job applications.

Related Articles
Resumes for Managers
Resumes for Recent College Graduates

CONTACT INFORMATION
Your name
Street address
City, State Zip
Home phone
Cell phone
Email address

OBJECTIVE AND SUMMARY
Stating an objective or a giving a summary at the beginning of the resume is common practice.  Stating an objective or providing a summary is optional.

EMPLOYMENT HISTORY 
There is no sentence structure in a resume.  The wording in a resume is simply a series of statements of actions and accomplishments.

For example, this is a sentence: I doubled the company’s sales in 6 months.
This is resume wording: Doubled company’s sales in 6 months.

The history in a resume is just a list that includes employment periods, performance, skills, responsibilities, accomplishments, and education.

(Most recent job first)
Company Name; company Location,   From –to
Most recent title, Location, From – to

Use bullet format.
•        List things you have accomplished.  Do not waste space on your just giving a job description.  List things that showed that you made a difference in the positions you held.
•        Use facts—for example, exceeded assigned sales goal by 30%, reduced costs, promoted people, saved time, increased productivity, etc.
•        Employers and recruiters search their databases for specific words, so list successes with specific industry words or functions.  Include the real name of your product categories, product names, sales accounts, functions (e.g., Profit & Loss, Market Research or Software Names, New Product Development, Market Insights, Innovation), etc.

Then include Previous Companies going back in time from most recent.

More Career Article
Building Professional Relationships Everywhere
Are you a card collector?

EDUCATION
Normally, education goes at the bottom of the resume.  People who have recently received an educational degree or credential that alters their employability might consider putting education at the top of the resume.

Other items that might go at the bottom of the resume are awards, extra skills, volunteer work, or perhaps some relevant college employment.

HOW TO SHORTEN YOUR RESUME FOR READABILITY
Hiring managers only spend seconds looking at each resume.  They are going through stacks of resumes, often in documents that they have to open one at a time.

Avoiding the following items might make the difference as to whether a hiring manager reads your resume.

Objective
Summary
Hobbies
References
References available on request
Compensation
Long paragraph formats
Long-winded discussions of core responsibilities
Too many details on jobs with well-known functions
Details on jobs that date back in time
Paragraph formatting
Third person reference

Why Did You Quit Your Last Job?

Why Did You Quit Your Last Job?

If you are unemployed, a common job interview question is why did you quit your last job.  The answer has value to the interviewer for several reasons.

Your answer can help the interviewer know whether the type of job you are seeking is available at the interviewer’s company.  Your answer can also help the interviewer evaluate your integrity when the time comes to conduct reference checks and background checks.  The way you answer the question can help the interviewer draw conclusions about the way you view work and view your role in the workplace.

There are a number a valid reasons people quit their job.

  • Safety issues can make jobs undesirable.
  • Commute costs or commute distance are sometimes overwhelming.
  • Job stress can create the necessity for finding a different job.
  • A change in a person’s home life can force a person to have to find a new job.
  • A challenging work relationship with your supervisor or co-workers can make you want to find a new place to work.

Quite often people lose a job for reasons beyond their control.

  • Companies run into difficulty and lay off people.
  • Automation can create changes in the numbers and types of employees a company has.
  • Companies move offices, retail locations, or manufacturing facilities to new locations, cutting local jobs.

Prepare thoroughly on how you want to answer the question on why you left your job.

Write out a solid, brief answer.

Try your answer out on several different people.  Of course, different people will have different views on how to answer the question.  Based on the discussions you have with other people, you will find that these people ask you questions about your reason for quitting your job.  Include these questions and your answers to these questions in your thinking about why you quit your job or lost you job.

In the end, you will need to select an answer that works best for you.  Thoroughly rehearse your answer.   How you answer why you quit your job can help you move on to getting an offer for your next job.

How to Cancel and Reschedule a Job Interview

How to Cancel and Reschedule a Job Interview

Knowing how to cancel and reschedule a job interview is an important part of the job interview process.

Having to cancel a job interview can cost you the opportunity itself.  Before you can return for a rescheduled interview, another applicant might fill the job.  Additionally, frustrated hiring managers who now have a hole in their schedule may not even grant you the opportunity to reschedule.

Cancel Immediately

Failing to cancel until the last minute will only make you appear flakey or disinterested. The more lead-time you provide when you cancel an interview and reschedule it, the better is your opportunity of rescheduling another interview. Certainly, call to reschedule as soon as you know you have a problem making the appointment.

Cancel and Reschedule in the Same Call

When you call to cancel an interview, ask to reschedule during the same call.  You may not have another opportunity to speak directly with someone to reschedule the appointment.

Emphasize your continued interest in the job. Remember to state how much you still want to have the opportunity to interview for the position.  Ask the hiring manager or recruiter what time would be another good time for them.

Valid Reasons

There are valid reasons to cancel and reschedule an interview.

  1. Work conflicts with your current employer can create a need to reschedule an interview. When rescheduling an interview because of a work conflict, you don’t need to be specific about the details of the work conflict.
  2. Health is certainly a valid reason to cancel and reschedule. Some interviewers will not be happy to greet a person who has symptoms of a cold. If you have a cold, you might call to let the interviewers know.  You can offer to come to the interview, but say that you felt you should let the interviewers know about your condition.
  3. Personal conflicts do arise. Let the person know that you regret having to reschedule. Sharing details of the situation are not always necessary and perhaps better avoided.  For example, a death in your family or among your close friends is certainly valid reasons for rescheduling. However, you don’t need to say who died.

How to Calm Your Nerves Before A Job Interview

How To Calm Your Nerves before a Job Interview is an important skill for many applicants.

Many job applicants are nervous before a job interview.  A bad case of the interview jitters works against you.  Instead of having a clear mind, you think less clearly and effectively.  At a time when want to feel poised and confident, you feel tense and uncomfortable.

Interview jitters are a form of stage fright.

Applicants know that another person or other people are judging the things they say and the things they do.  They fear rejection.

If job interviews give you the jitters, you are not alone.  Everyone experiences some feelings of uncertainty from time to time.  There are things you can do to become calm and feel confident.

Have a light, healthy snack before your interview.

Being hungry or loaded with caffeine can make you feel nervous.  Take a health bar and a bottle of water with you.  Find a comfortable place to relax.  Enjoy your health bar and bottle of water about thirty minutes before your interview.  Give your body time to digest the snack and get the food into your system.

Reduce the amount of caffeine you eat or drink.

You might avoid chocolate bars.  They are great for energy.  The sugar and caffeine can get you energy boost.  However, as the sugar wears off, you can feel an energy drop.  The caffeine can leave you feeling a little on edge.  If you enjoy coffee or caffeinated soft drinks, you may want to avoid them before your interview.  Caffeine from chocolate or from coffee or soft drinks added to the adrenaline of having interview pressure can give you a heavy case of the jitters.

Prepare thoroughly for your job interview.

Know the details of the company.  Know the details of the job for which you are interviewing.  Review your resume.  Know how to discuss your experience in terms of how are qualified for the job.

Prepare questions for the people who will interview you. 

Having questions will show that you are interested in the question.  Having your questions written out will help you remember to ask the questions that you will need answered.

Remember to breath.

Baseball players use this simple technique often.  Watch pitchers right before the windup or batters right before stepping into the batter’s box.  The players will take one or two deep breaths.  You don’t need to master any complex breathing meditation.  Just breathe.

Related articles

Going from Self-Conscious to Self-Confident
Overcoming Intimidating Titles
Turn Your Career Worries into Career Plans
Job Security: How to Stop Scaring Yourself
Clearing the Mental Clutter of Job Stress

error: Content is protected !!