Posts tagged ‘interview’

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Selling Yourself on Paper

When it comes to selling yourself on paper, you will find that newspaper editors are tough customers. After all, they put information on paper every day. There are no bonus points for correct spelling, punctuation or grammar. Those are givens. A single error can consign your résumé to the circular file. Edit your work, proofread the final copy and then double-check everything. Twice. Have someone else go over it. Make sure the editor is NOT the first person to see the finished product.

Understand the purpose of a résumé. It is not intended to get you a job. It is meant to tell the prospective employer enough about you so that they’ll look at your work samples or call you in for an interview. Use the interview, tests, tryouts and other activities to land the job. In a business where word economy is valued, one-page résumés are twice as effective as two-page résumés. Even editors with 20 years and several papers behind them limit their résumés to one page. You’re certainly free to go over that, but it’s not very smart — especially when your experience, in comparison to the editor’s — is modest.

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Negotiate The Best Deal for Yourself Going into a Job

If you want to negotiate the best deal for yourself going into a job, do as I say, not as I do.

When the Free Press asked me whether I wanted a job, I immediately yelled, “Yes!”

Not very cool, I know.

And I quickly slammed any door I had for negotiating. Fortunately, I was treated pretty well anyway. Now, I tell people (even people I make offers to) not to accept instantly.

A little about the dynamics of hiring: Between the time when a company offers you a job and you accept, you have leverage.

Inside the company, a bunch of people have met and decided that you are the person, out of a handful of candidates, whom they want to hire. The person who makes the call is expected to get your acceptance. They do not want to reconvene, go to the next candidate or re-ignite their search.

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Focused on Your Qualifications for The Job

Job interviewing can be an unnerving experience, but if you know how to handle some of the stickiest situations encountered in interviewing, you can be that much more confident. Here are 10 of the stickiest.

1. The Bad Interviewer. Not every professional who conducts job interviews with candidates knows how to conduct an interview effectively. In fact some are downright lousy at it. A bad interviewer might be unfocused, disinterested, unprepared. He or she might dominate the interview by doing all the talking or might ask inappropriate and illegal questions.

    The unfocused, unprepared interviewer probably hasn’t read your resume and maybe can’t even find a copy. This hapless soul doesn’t even know what to ask you. Be sure to offer this disorganized interviewer a copy of your resume while asking, “May I take you through some highlights of my career?”

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    Posted in Talent and Career

    Reasons Your Job Search is Failing

    On paper, the prescription for unemployment is rather formulaic: send in résumé, go on interview, be your charming self, get hired.

    The frustrating reality isn’t nearly as simple.  Getting an interview alone is an exercise in persistence and patience.

    Here are 10 reasons for why you’re not landing that interview and what you can do to reverse the trend.

    Your résumé and cover letter are as articulate as Courtney Love’s Web blog. If your application materials contain typos, grammatical errors and irrelevant or inconsistent information, employers will take notice — in a bad way.  Once you’ve looked over your résumé and cover letter to the point of dementia, take this advice from Joyce Gioia of the Herman Group: have three people, for whom English is a first language, review your résumé and cover letter before you send it.

    Your cover letter is generic. Make it personal by tailoring it to the particular job and addressing it to a person, not “To Whom It May Concern.”  And include a sentence or two about how you are the right fit for that particular job.  If no contact is listed, take the initiative to find out who the hiring manager is by searching the company’s Web site or calling the reference desk.

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    Posted in Talent and Career

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