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Interview tips from an experienced recruiter

Quick Reference Guide

* Prepare
* Dress well
* Mobile phones off
* Firm handshake
* If you use glasses, wear them in the interview
* Think before you answer

Introduction
So we have helped to secure you an interview.

Now it’s up to you to convince the employer that you are the best person for the job. It’s time to sell your skills, your experience and most importantly sell yourself!

Although your technical abilities are most important, interviewers don’t only consider your qualifications and on job experience. Employers also use interviews to assess:

* Your communication skills
* Your ability to articulate your views
* Your ability to perform under pressure
* Your ability to think on your feet
* Your personality

Therefore the way you answer the questions is as important as the content of the answer.

Preparation
Even if you are a successful contracting professional, and have attended countless interviews it pays not to be too complacent.

Always spend some time preparing for the interview – the extent of the preparation is up to you, but make sure that you are ready.

Some helpful preparation tips:
Where to go?
Do you know exactly where you need to go? Address? Floor? Contact name?

If you do not have all the information make sure that you ask.
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How to Answer the Toughest Interview Questions

You know they’re coming: Those seemingly unanswerable questions that pop up during job interviews.

You can’t clam up. And you don’t want to stutter and stammer. So what’s a job seeker to do?

The ‘Future’ Question

Otherwise known as the “big picture” question, the future question goes something like this: “Where do you see yourself in five years?”

The best tactic: Talk about your values.

Don’t get too detailed about your specific career plan. Instead, discuss things that are important to you professionally and how you plan to achieve them. If growth is a goal, mention that. You can also talk about challenge, another value that employers prize in their employees.

The ‘Salary’ Question

Most people will tell you that whoever answers this question first loses. But that’s not necessarily true.

When an interviewer asks your salary requirement, try first to gently deflect the question by inquiring about the salary for the position.

If the interviewer presses you for a number, give a range. To decide on a range, think about the salary you want, your salary at your most recent position and the industry-standard salary for the job.

The bottom line: The salary question is one of the most important, so you should prepare for it in advance and plan what to say.
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An e-mail’s style says much about the sender

I’ve learned that there are two types of people in the office — highly important and regular. You can’t immediately tell which camp a colleague belongs to simply by looking at him, nor is it obvious from the size of her cubicle or office.

So how do you determine who’s highly important and who is regular? You will know them by their e-mail.

The highly important make sure that every e-mail they send is marked highly important. Sometimes the e-mail even comes with those waving flames; it will always land in your in-box with a return receipt.

The contents of these highly important e-mails usually range from “I’ll be in at 10 because I need to bring Poochems to the vet for his worms,” to “team lunch at Bennigan’s,” to “who stole my yogurt from the refrigerator?” Needless to say, the highly important return receipt e-mailers always include a cc: list that appears longer than the entire company directory.

I used to laugh at the messages from the highly important because they were usually sent by a person whose status on the company’s organizational chart was conversely proportionate to the e-mail’s placement in my in box. That was until I discovered that my new boss was in fact a highly important, while I proudly remain a regular. It wasn’t long after his arrival that we were hit by a departmentwide highly important e-mail epidemic.

One day, after receiving 36 highly important e-mails from my boss and another 17 from my teammates, I decided to conduct some unscientific research. My results showed there are eight distinct traits of the highly important. The first three, as cited above, are the use of highly important status, usually accompanied by a graphic symbol underscoring the importance of the message, and always sent with a return receipt.
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Getting the inside scoop on a future boss

There are now more ways to get the inside scoop about an employer - before you are hired.

In the latest expansion of the Web phenomenon of social networking, more sites are launching features that make it easier for job seekers to connect with the employees of prospective hirers. Still, before you gather around the virtual water cooler, keep in mind that on many sites, what you post can be viewed by anybody - including your current or future boss.

Jobster Inc. is scheduled to launch a revamped job-search Web site today that includes people’s posts on what it’s like to work for their employers. Job hunters can link to these employees and ask to contact them.

At the same time, social-networking Web sites are expanding into the professional arena. In May, Facebook Inc., whose Facebook.com Web site is popular with college students, started letting users log in with their work email addresses to connect with fellow employees. Users could previously log in only with their .edu email addresses, which restricted the Web site to students, alumni and faculty.

In April 2005, LinkedIn Inc. announced the integration of a broad job-search engine into its Web site, which has traditionally served as a networking tool for professionals. You can click on a link to see if any of your online contacts - or their contacts - work for employers who have posted job openings. Even networking giant MySpace.com, the social-networking Web site owned by News Corp., has joined in: It added a basic job-search engine powered by Simply Hired Inc., which runs LinkedIn’s engine, to its site in June.
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Workers go online for career networks

Roger Akers hasn’t stopped handing out his business cards.

But the Sacramento, Calif., venture capitalist has found another tool for expanding his network of contacts — and this one’s online.

Akers is one of more than 6 million worldwide who are members of LinkedIn.com, a networking site often described as the MySpace of the business world.
And while its membership is just a fraction of such popular social networking sites as MySpace and Facebook, analysts say Palo Alto, Calif.-based LinkedIn is king among the few sites devoted to business networking.

At LinkedIn, members can post their professional credentials, search for jobs or employees, seek out college classmates, hunt for business opportunities and otherwise expand their network of business contacts.

Membership is free through www.linkedin.com, but most individuals are invited to join by an existing member. Once you join, you’re able to link to other members you know. These multiple connections act as a personal reference, of sorts, as well as a business lubricant.
If John Smith invites you to join, for instance, you can see what other members John also knows. You then can contact those members using John Smith as your common ground.
“In the real world, people are much more inclined to deal with you if they get a recommendation,” said LinkedIn co-founder Konstantin Guericke.
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8 Best Careers for Job Satisfaction

Management consultants, social workers, and hospital managers are among the eight best careers for job satisfaction, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal’s CareerJournal.com.

CareerJournal.com used a survey, analysis of government data, and interviews with experts and people in the workplace to come up with a list of the best careers for job satisfaction.

The site worked with Harris Interactive to conduct a survey of workers to identify the factors that highly satisfied workers cite in describing their jobs. The survey found that highly satisfied workers most commonly point to four factors about their jobs: intellectual stimulation, strong job security, a high level of control and autonomy, and extensive direct contact with customers or clients.

After looking at survey results, examining government data to find jobs most likely to offer those four traits, and conducting interviews, the CareerJournal.com came up with the following list of eight of the best careers for job satisfaction.

* Curriculum and instructional coordinators
* High school special-education teachers
* Hospital and clinic managers
* Management consultants and analysts
* Medical researchers
* Physical therapists
* Sales, marketing, and advertising managers
* Social workers, counselors, and related managers
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‘Digital Dirt’ Derailing Job Seekers

More than one-third of employers have eliminated a candidate after digging up “digital dirt,” according to ExecuNet.

In a recent survey of 100 executive recruiters, 35 percent said they dropped a job candidate because of information uncovered online. That is up from 26 percent just one year ago, according to ExecuNet, an executive job search and recruiting network.

Seventy-seven percent of respondents said they use search engines to learn more about prospective employees. Another study showed that 82 percent of executives expect companies and recruiters to enter their name into a search engine during the course of their next job search, yet only 33 percent have ever actually conducted an Internet search on themselves.

“Conducting searches for your own name is something that should be done on a regular basis,” Dave Opton, ExecuNet CEO and founder, said in a prepared statement. “Until you’re aware of everything that’s connected to your name online, it’s impossible to try to overcome any potential employer objections.”

The survey also found that 16 percent of executives said they fear that information found online could eliminate them from consideration for a job opening. Thirteen percent said they have taken steps to add positive personal information online.
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FBI Warns Job Hunters Of Online Scams

Be extra careful when looking for work in cyberspace. The FBI is investigating some cases that involve fake job interviews and offers of employment that are actually ways to lure people into helping crime rings.

Job candidates should be cautious when seeking employment online, according to the FBI.

The FBI has released a warning, saying it is investigating several “online employment scams. The FBI outlined several schemes and told candidates to protect their information and be skeptical of some prospective employers.

Some of the cases under investigation involve fake job interviews or offers of employment that are actually ways to lure people into helping crime rings.

According to the warning, fake recruiters are pretending to do background checks or set up bank accounts for direct deposit. Instead of getting a job, the candidates become victims of identity theft or owners of empty bank accounts.

In other cases, job ads for correspondence managers or import/export specialists are ruses to get people to ship items ” purchased illegally online ” using stolen credit cards, to Nigeria and other places.

The FBI states that people should never pay upfront for any job opportunity and never provide identification or financial information to prospective employers. Job hunters should consider posting resumes anonymously, withholding personal information and using e-mail as a primary means of contact. The FBI also warns people to be wary of ads with misspellings, grammatical errors and terms like “money transfers,” “wiring funds” and “package forwarding.”
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Tech workers plugging back in, but for some jobs power has faded

A growing economy is producing the first sustained high-tech hiring surge since the dot-com stock boom’s collapse threw hundreds of thousands of technology professionals out of work five years ago.

Yet even though a cyclical recovery is creating good opportunities for many workers as employers scramble to fill openings, trends such as outsourcing are making it harder for others to find work.

The varying fortunes of tech workers in a healthy economy illustrate the paradox of an era in which highly skilled workers in a fast growing industry face challenges staying fully employed even in good times.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in technology, where rapid change is constant.

“Even when companies are adding labor they’re also hedging their future,” said Gartner Inc. senior adviser Howard Rubin. “They’ve learned the economy doesn’t always go up. They’re only hiring specialized skills close to home” that are essential.

And for those skills, the market is heating up.
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How to Stay Motivated and Focused During a Tough Job Search

The job market ebbs and flows, and it’s easy to get discouraged when the market has little to offer. However, it’s important for you to stay focused and motivated during this difficult time. Here are tips to help you through this professional lull, according to Stacey Lane’s - a career and life coach - published report:

Challenge Yourself. Try to change the way you approach your job search. You might find improved results and get a confidence boost as well.

The number of interviews does not equal success. Don’t measure your success by the number of interviews you get. Measure it by how you’re extending your network.

Get Connected. Find a job search group that works for you (keep shopping until you find one). Or, you can start one. Do something informal. Enlist a friend as your NP (negativity police) - who will let you know when you’re negative. Negativity begets negativity - and people are like dogs - they can smell it from a mile away.

Hang out with employed friends. Spend time networking with friends that are employed. Maybe they have the inside track on open positions at their company.

Take a break from the news. It’s great to be knowledgeable of current events, but you don’t need to hear about job market fluctuation constantly. It’s good to substitute hard news for light-hearted, human-interest pieces from time-to-time.
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