5 Tips for a Truly Successful Interview

5 Tips for a Truly Successful Interview Getting a job in today’s market can be very difficult. As a recruiter people are always coming up to me and telling me their horror stories of how they are out of work, can’t get an interview or arent being made offers. I sympathize with them because I know how hard it can be. If I post a position I am being flooded with resumes. The majority of the people applying are hoping to get a call and be considered for an interview. Unfortunately the percentage of applications that get called to interview is low. So if you are considered for a position it is important that you take all the necessary steps it takes to landing that job: 1) Do  your homework: Doing your research on the company is probably the first piece of advice a recruiter gave to a candidate since the dawn of time. But what are you looking at? Dig Deep. Do not just research the company but research the people you will be meeting with. We live in a well-connected digital world. It is not hard to get on Google and pull up information on the people you will be meeting with. Do they write a blog? Have they been published? You do not have to go into the interview gushing about them, but it wouldn’t hurt to start off the interview by congratulating them on a recent award or complimenting them on their latest published piece. 2) Dress the part: The way you dress on interviews is probably more important than you know. Research done by Nicholas Rule Ph.D.  suggests that a persons appearance alone can trump knowledge. Meaning it doesn’t matter what your technical skills are, if you don’t make a good first impression your knowledge isn’t as important. Rule says As soon as one sees another person, an impression is formed. This happens so quickly just a small fraction of a second that what we see can sometimes dominate what we know. That doesn’t mean you have to go into the interview in a suit and tie all the time. Ask the recruiter what the dress code is and adhere from that. And if you are cutting out of work early for an interview let the interview team know that. This way when you show up in clothes that you would normally wear to work they aren’t caught off guard. The reason for this is because if you dress out of the norm you can cause some suspicion. For example, if you show up to work every day in jeans and a polo and one day you show up in a suit and tie, you will raise some eyebrows with your current employer. READ MORE: What to Wear to an Interview 3) Interview etiquette: I recently heard a story where a candidate came in and blew everyone out of the water with his technical skills. The hiring team was so impressed they wanted to make him an offer on the spot. Unfortunately when it came turn for the recruiter to interview this star candidate he walked away with a different impression. Recruiters are not technical. We know enough to decide if you as a candidate meet the needs we are looking for, but we do not get into the finite technical aspects of the job. Our job on an interview is to make sure you match what we are looking for culturally. This star candidate in the previous example just had a bad attitude. He spoke down to the recruiter and was outright rude. The technical folks missed this because they were too focused on his skill set. After meeting with this star candidate the recruiter made a recommendation to not hire him; and that is what the company did. In some cases it does not matter how technical you are, those skills will not be enough to pass the interview. You must treat those around you with respect and show them you are a cultural fit as well. RELATED: Interview Etiquette: A Guide 4) Interview questioning: How you answer questions is very important on the interview. Yes and No’s do not cut it. If the answer is a yes, elaborate, if the answer is a no, same thing. For example if someone asks you if you have ever worked in a specific programming language and you haven’t, do not just answer no. Inform them you haven’t but also let them know of similar languages you have worked in that are very comparable and picking it up would not be an issue for you. If it is even more important than that let them know you would even be willing to take classes to get you up to speed faster. Looking at things in black and white in interviews can hurt your chances. You must be willing to elaborate on your skills and show them what makes you the best candidate possible. 5) Follow up: I once had a VP of Human Resources interview for me at a well-known national retailer. The role she interviewed for was a very high level VP of HR position. The interview went well, the candidate came back with positive reviews and so did the client. However a week and a half went by and I had not heard anything. When I finally did the client came to me and told me they were put off because the candidate did not send them a thank you note for their time. Now as a recruiter I should have coached the candidate on this but being at the level she was at in her career I did not think that was necessary. Lesson learned. Regardless this left a bad taste in the mouth of the client. Some could argue maybe the client had other reasons and decided to just go with this one to make it less messy. Either way this was the reason I was told. Your follow up is just as important as the interview itself. You want to let the company know you are excited about the chance to come on board and make a diffe rence. You need to effectively communicate that to them.

Admin Job Description - Algrim.co

Admin Job Description - Algrim.co Admin Job Description Template Download our job description template in Word or PDF format. Instant download. No email required. Download Template Using Your Template Follow these instructions to use your new job description template Step one: Fill out all details in your job description template using the provided sample on this page. Step two: Customize your requirements or duties to anything special to your workplace. Be sure to speak with team members and managers to gauge what's required of the position. Step three: When the census of the team has agreed on the description of the work, add in a Equal Employment Opportunity statement to the bottom of your job description. Step four: Check with your legal department, management team, and other team members to ensure the job description looks correct before creating a job advertisement. Choose a job board that's specific to your needs. Related Hiring Resources 80+ Best Salesforce Admin Interview Questions To Get Hired With

11 ever become a time of celebration

Could 9/11 ever become a time of celebration I was there, at the base of the first tower when it fell. That night I wrote a piece for Time magazine to make sense of what happened. And each year on 9/11 I write again. This year I was thinking that I’ve been back to New York City  so often with my  kids that  maybe my 9/11 phase of life has passed But then I decided to tell you a story. After 9/11 my ex-husband volunteered  to connect lawyers with immigrants who were illegally detained. One of those immigrants was a Palestinian guy who was  in  the US raising money to fight the Israelis. His seventeen-year-old son was in New York helping him. So the night the dad went to jail, the son had nowhere to live. The other volunteers decided he should go home with someone since he was too young to be by himself. So he went to our apartment. You might think its weird for a Jew to be helping out a Palestinian who is raising money to fight the Jews. I am left of center on the Palestinian question. Im not sure how far left. But Im definitely able to put aside grievances to take care of a kid who is in a new country with nowhere to sleep. And anyway, the Jewish problem was not the big problem in our apartment. Before he retired, my Exs dad was huge in the defense industry and worried constantly that I would do something insane to make him lose his security clearance. (Did you know that the person who has the clearance is not usually the problem but rather a nut case who is close to him?) So my Exs dad told us that if we were going to harbor an illegal Palestinian we should stop using our phones. We thought he was nuts. People are listening in on our phones? We would make jokes like we were talking to the government when we talked on our phones. But my father-in-law stopped talking to us while the Palestinian was at our house. (Now I know why. Now I think about all the other things he told us. Like the safest place to sit on a plane is in the middle of the back. Not too close to the exit because the people there get sucked out. And also because the planes often break in half. The front is the least safe. Which makes sense  -there’s no way airlines could charge extra money for the safest seats. He also told us that in a nuclear war, the mountains outside of Seattle are the safest, because of how winds on earth move. I should publish a book: Things My Ex Father-in-Law Told Me.) Tariq. That was the boys name. I thought we would just give him a place to sleep, and maybe Id take him for breakfast in the morning, and then hed be on his way. But after breakfast he had nowhere to go. So my Ex went back to rescue prisoners and I spent the day with Tariq. In the apartment. It was a small apartment. Its New York City, after all. He read. He talked on the phone. Actually on my phone, because he didnt have a phone. The next day he asked me for money. You dont have any money? No. How did you and your dad live? Apparently people in the movement supported his dad. He is the head of the movement in the US. Tariq  mentioned the movement a lot and Icould not quite put my finger on what it was, because Tariq really had nowhere to go and nothing to do, so I was having a hard time believing the movement was significantly large. I gave him money. I asked him how much he needed for the week because I felt bad that he might have to ask every day. I gave him $40. It was gone the next day. I asked him where it went. He bought a phone card. And meals. Meals? At the diner. I told him to eat at the apartment. He said he didnt know how. In fact, he had very few life skills. He didnt have another set of clothes and he didnt seem to mind. He was in constant survival mode. He was fighting the cause. But the thing is, there was no fight in our apartment. And there was no fight he could do with his dad because his dads fight now was that he was being illegally detained. In Tariqs mind he was fighting for Palestine but he didnt actually know how to do it on his own. He didnt know how to do anything on his own. He didnt know how to go to bed and wake up on a schedule. He didnt plan meal times. He didnt plan anything. He worked best in crisis but there was no crisis. He sort of focused on the crisis of his dad in jail. But Tariq had no idea how to do anything. His dad had lead the fight his whole life. Tariq did not know how to lead a fight. His maturity level was actually really low because he was so focused on the fight instead of on his own development. Tariq  was traumatized from not being able to focus on himself. I was going to skip writing about 9/11 this year. I couldn’t figure out why I was still writing. Now I see, though, that after 9/11 I received lots of trauma counseling. The counselors taught me how to relive the fear until I could reframe it and then I understood how to learn from it. All of that time could be summarized as personal development. I want to tell you that I saved Tariq. But I didnt. After three weeks, Tariq went to someone elses house. But I saved myself. And I think I still write about 9/11 to celebrate that, and to take time each year to be thankful for learning how to grow from  bad events in my life rather than avoiding them. I am always thinking of labels  I don’t  like for this blog. I don’t like “women’s blog” or “mom’s blog” or “personal development blog”. Really I don’t like anything except rock star blog.” But the reason I couldn’t stand NOT to write on 9/11 is because this really is a personal development blog. And for me, 9/11 is a celebration of the resilience we find to turn  turn setbacks into twists on the path  of personal development.

The Challenge of Seeking Challenge

The Challenge of Seeking Challenge I recently read an article by a well-respected author on what she refers to as “The Velvet Coffin.” She defines this as the complacency that causes one to remain at a job that is comfortable, but devoid of challenge. If you’re in this situation, your job holds few surprises â€" you know what to expect each day and can put yourself on auto-pilot and complete your work with minimal stress and effort. The salary is adequate, your coworkers are amiable, and it’s far easier to fall into a predictable routine than to leave your comfort zone and chase down challenges and new opportunities that bring with them a number of uncertainties. This, according to the author, is when you start dying a little each day. While abandoning your mundane job and seeking out challenge and stimulation may be the typical outlook of an optimistic go-getter, I see several problems with this viewpoint. I’m aware that these can all be debated, especially by someone who has taken a leap of faith into a new and challenging career and emerged better off. However, I consider myself neither an optimist nor a pessimist, but rather a realist â€" and as such, here are my problems with this viewpoint. A Bird in the Hand The first thing you must do before jumping ship is to weigh the constants with the variables. Do you have job security at your current job? If so, that’s a constant. Will you at the new job? If the answer is no, or you don’t know, that’s a variable. Will you receive a salary increase in your new position? If yes, that’s a constant. Will the work definitely be more challenging, or will you learn your new role, then continue to do it day in and day out as you do with your current role? Do you know for sure if you will get along with your boss and your coworkers? Will you have a good work/life balance? If the answer to these questions is anything other than yes, then these are variables. You must then ask yourself if you’re willing to trade your current job for one that may contain a number of variables. Constantly learning and being challenged are important in a job, but they must be weighed with a number of other factors. If you accept a position that’s challenging, but in the process give up job security, work/life balance, camaraderie with coworkers and a good working relationship with your manager, you will most likely regret it. Patience Is a Virtue Surprising as this may sound, every job I’ve ever had included brief periods where I didn’t feel challenged. It’s only natural that companies and careers go through an ebb and flow that includes periods of downtime where challenges don’t come on a daily basis. However, jumping ship every time you don’t feel challenged is not only impetuous, but will eventually label you a job hopper. Instead, consider these options. Wait It Out Here’s another revelation â€" while every job I’ve had may have included brief periods without challenge, had I left each time it happened, I would have missed out on the greatest opportunities and accomplishments of my career. Just because you don’t feel challenged now doesn’t mean you won’t a month from now. The question you must answer is whether your lack of challenge is temporary, and the answer shouldn’t be rushed. Schedule a meeting with your manager and tell them your concerns. There may be changes right around the corner that you aren’t yet aware of. If not, making your manager aware of your dissatisfaction may be just the impetus they need to throw more challenge and responsibility your way. In my experience, every career advancement has always left me saying, “Thank goodness I didn’t leave.” Make Your Own Change If you don’t feel challenged in your current position, it may be up to you to make a change within the company. Sit down with your manager and map out a plan. Perhaps you can take on more responsibility, begin training for a new role, work toward earning a certification or even a graduate degree. Your manager may welcome your interest in expanding your horizons â€" something a new manager at a new company may not be open to. For some, leaving one job to start another brings with it not only new challenges, but better opportunities, better benefits, a better salary, and often a much-needed change of scenery. But leaving a job only because you no longer feel challenged can lead to regret. I can’t begin to think of how many coworkers I’ve seen leave for “better” opportunities, only to see them return, or try to return, a few months later. If you truly feel bored at your current job and that you have nothing left to learn, then it may be time to move on. Just make sure that your new role can provide what you’re expecting, and that you won’t end up in the same situation or worse within a few months at the new company. Also, be sure you explore every opportunity at your current job before leaving, because opportunity lies around every corner…and often when you least expect it.

How to Start Networking With People Outside your Industry

How to Start Networking With People Outside your Industry People build their networks over a matter of time, it happens through the people that they spend the most time with.As professionals, it makes the most sense that you will spend most of your time surrounded by your colleagues, and therefore your network generally starts to consist of them and their friends.evalHowever, having a network that is a little too narrow, or limited to your profession, isn’t just hindering your career options, it could also have an impact on your personal growth.Having a broad network is a great way to have a foot in the door for other industries, meet new potential employees/employers, diversify your skill set or even meet new business partners. Thus, it’s important to meet people outside your limited industry network.It isn’t always easy to meet people out of your circle .So we decided to make a list of tips for you to use that will increase your chances of forming a connection with people from other industries.1. Use Your Existing ConnectionsOne of the easiest avenues to find and form new professional connections is to use the existing ones that you already have. Have a look at your current network â€" undoubtedly around 80% will be in the same line as you, but there will be some who aren’t.Get hold of old contacts, or form closer connections with those that are just on the fringes of your current network. Reach out and get to know those that you might not normally associate much with.2. Do You What Makes You HappyEveryone has hobbies, and luckily this is an easy, fun way to meet people outside of your current professional network.evalJoin a book club, volunteer at an animal shelter, or join a cycle club; do whatever makes you happy and you are bound to meet interesting people that can expand your network along the way.3. Don’t Be Afraid To Ask For RecommendationsEven though your own network may be filled with people in the same profession as you, chances are that most of them will know other people that are in another ind ustry.If one of your friends or colleagues has strong connections with say â€" people in the finance industry â€" then don’t be afraid to ask them to put you in contact with them.4. It Isn’t All About Immediate Returns or Work ConnectionsevalMaking connections outside of your industry isn’t all about getting immediate returns, or finding some way to use their connections to further your career.In fact, one of the best things about increasing your professional network is that it’s likely to increase your friendship group, expand your thinking and expose you to things that you may never have been introduced to in your own network before.So instead of looking for quick wins or immediate returns, take your time to nurture and grow the relationship over time into something that is more meaningful than a mere business connection.At the end of the day, this could be more enriching to your life than someone who can simply further your career.

Is It Time For Your Resume Checkup

Is It Time For Your Resume Checkup This month my Career Collective colleagues are discussing tactics for giving your job search strategy a mid-year checkup. My tips for a resume checkup are below. Be sure to check out the sage advice of my colleagues as well by following the links at the end of this post. You can also view my video on resume tips for $100K+ professionals here.In today’s challenging economy, job seekers will need to implement a strong self-marketing campaign in order to get noticed in a crowded job search space. That campaign starts with strong marketing collateral, particularly a quality resume that quickly gets their candidacy to the top of the resume pile. Below are five strategies for crafting a more powerful presentation of your qualifications to get noticed faster and accelerate your job search.Create a Personal Brand What comes to mind when you think of companies such as Apple, Google, and Nike? All of these companies have a strong company brand and employer brand and the mere mention of their name brings certain images of their value and market differentiators to people’s minds. It’s really no different for job seekers. They also need a strong brand and a clear and compelling message of value that tells employers why they should hire them. Every resume needs a profile or summary at the top to position them as a leader in their field and showcase their top achievements and brand attributes.Lace Your Resume With Keywords Every resume needs clear evidence that you are qualified to do the job you are applying for. Keywords are the words that validate your candidacy and help the hiring authority determine if you have the “must haves” for the job. By creating a special category for your competencies on the resume, you make it easier for your reader to quickly understand your areas of knowledge or expertise. Since both humans and computers may be screening your resume, it is important to list keywords in all the forms that they may be recognized by employers and comput ers. For example, if you were involved in mergers and acquisitions, use this term and the acronym MA.Focus on Accomplishments Over Job Tasks Anyone can slap information from their job description onto a piece of paper and call it a resume (and many do). But the resume should not be a laundry list of “stuff you did.” Instead, it should be a marketing tool that proves your value to the organizations you supported. Discuss initiatives you led that helped the organization do something smarter, faster, or more efficiently. What impact did you have on the companies you supported? Can you show how you helped these companies make money, save money, save time, grow the business, or keep the business? Do you have metrics (numbers, dollar figures, percentages) to validate your achievements? To create your own accomplishment statements, use the CAR formula. Think of Challenges you faced in your position, the Actions you took to address those challenges, and the corresponding Results. By foc using on your stories of success over job tasks you can demonstrate to your reader not just what you do, but why you are good at what you do.Just Say No to Cookie Cutter Resume Templates Ditch the Microsoft template and create your own unique resume design. You never want to look live everyone else when you are applying for a job. The point is to create a one-of-a-kind representation of you as a candidate. Keep the presentation tasteful (no neon green resume paper!), but don’t be afraid to infuse a little bit of style or even color into the document. Use text boxes, bold, and spacing to call special attention to the most important information in the document and use space efficiently. You only have a certain amount of space to communicate your message (1-2 pages) so consider that space precious real estate and use it wisely.Take Your Resume Past 1-2 Pieces of Paper Traditional paper resumes will continue to be an important part of the hiring process, but Web 2.0 now plays a leadin g role as well. More and more recruiters and hiring authorities are “googling” candidates to review their online presence, so it is becoming increasingly more important to have a branded online presence and virtual resume that matches the one you are using to communicate your message of value offline. For right now, LinkedIn still appears to be the darling of the recruiter and hiring manager community. Recruiters and hiring managers are leveraging LinkedIn to find candidates because it is an extremely robust database. Take the time to build out your online profile/resume with information about key achievements and consider adding your LinkedIn URL to your paper resume or email signature line for greater exposure.  Additional tools that people are using to build both online identity and their network are Google Profiles, ZoomInfo, Facebook, Branchout, BeKnown, Twitter,  Plaxo, Spoke, Xing, Ecademy, Ziggs, and Naymz.Your resume is an important part of your search strategy, but i t is not the silver bullet. Make sure that you are using multiple methods of search to get in front of employers and not just relying on the job boards. Be sure to enlist the help of recruiters and your network. Research the companies you are interested in and try to build relationships with decision makers at these organizations even if there is not a current opening. Build out your profiles on the various online networking sites and don’t forget the value of professional organizations for education and relationship building. Happy hunting!4 Summer Strategies to Step Up Your Job Search, @DebraWheatman, #careercollectivePutting Your Job Search Up On The Rack For Inspection, @dawnrasmussen, #careercollectiveMid-Year Job Search Checkup: Are you wasting your time?  @GayleHoward, #careercollectiveWhat is your unique value proposition?  @keppie_careers, #careercollectiveIt is Time for Your Check-up Ms/Mr Jobseeker, @careersherpa, #careercollectiveMid-Year Career Checkup: Are You On You r Game?  @KatCareerGal, #careercollectiveHow to Perform a Mid-Year Job Search Checkup, @heatherhuhman, #careercollectiveReposition your job search for success, @LaurieBerenson, #careercollectiveMid-Year Job Search Checkup: Whats working and Whats not?  @erinkennedycprw, #careercollectiveMid-Year Job Search Check-Up: Getting Un-Stuck, @JobHuntOrg, #careercollectiveMid-Year Check Up: The Full 360, @WalterAkana, #careercollective5 Tips for Fighting Summer Job Search Blues, @KCCareerCoach, #CareerCollectiveAre you positive about your job search?  @DawnBugni, #CareerCollectiveWhere Are The Jobs?  @MartinBuckland, @EliteResumes, #CareerCollectiveMid-Year Job-Search Checkup: Get Your Juices Flowing, @ValueIntoWords, #CareerCollectiveWhen Was Your Last Career Job Search Check Up?  @expatcoachmegan, #CareerCollective

Monster Professional Resume Writing Service Review

Monster Professional Resume Writing Service ReviewMonster professional resume writing service is just one of the many online resume writing services that are available. Whether you are looking for a one-time job or if you need to make use of the service for several jobs, the chances are good that you will end up with a resume through the Monster format. The best part about it is that it will not only help you get hired, but will also help you land a well-paying job as well.One thing that you need to keep in mind when considering using Monster professional resume writing service is that you should spend some time researching various writers and companies. This will enable you to figure out which writers will be the most productive to your needs.In this Monster professional resume writing service review, I will let you know how you can know which writer you should hire. I believe it is important that you figure out what kind of writer you want to use because the outcome will be your bu siness and not something that the company wants.If you find that Monster writer is not the right fit for you, then I suggest that you go ahead and hire someone else to do the job. I am certain that you will not have any problems hiring someone other than a human who will do the job for you.One other tip to remember in the Monster professional resume writing service review is that you should be able to trust the company that you choose to hire for your resume writing service. This means that they should be a reputable company.You may have all the resumes that you need from your friend or family member, but you should be able to ask for copies of their resumes and compare them to yours. This will ensure that you are getting the same quality and that you will be getting the highest paying resumes possible.Finally, try to find a writer that you feel comfortable working with. This is one of the most important things that you can take into consideration in this Monster professional resume writing service review because you should be able to trust the writer.Try to make sure that the writer understands your needs and what it is that you want out of the resume that they are going to write. Even though you may be offering them a job, you should still like working with them.