Posts tagged ‘offer’

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.

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?”

    Job-Search Advice for College Senior

    College Senior Job-Search Advice

    1. Max Out Your Experience.
    While you’re still in school, find time to fill any experience voids in your resume so that by the time you begin your job-search, you’ll be an unbeatable prospect to employers. If you have not yet worked in your field, now is the time to secure an internship — whether during one of the terms or during your holiday break (or even during your spring break). Internships are your strongest experience, but certainly not your only experience.

    If you’re like most college students, you probably belong to a few student organizations. As a senior, you’re typically expected to help lead — and employers want to see that leadership ability, so grab a leadership position in at least one organization.

    Of course, many other types of experiences can benefit you — some of which few students ever list on their resumes, such as work-study, part-time jobs, volunteer work, team sports, and class projects.

    The job-search advice

    It seems pretty unfair when you think about it. You’ve worked hard in school for some 15 or more years, including 4 or more years in college, all with the plan that once you made it through all that schooling, you would have a good-paying job waiting for you. But now, with the U.S. and global economies mired in the slowdown of a generation and saddled with college debt, you face an uncertain future.

    There may be no good-paying job waiting for you. Those who have already graduated and are still searching for a job in your career field know that. And for you seniors graduating in 2009, many fewer good-paying jobs waiting for you. That said, the more prepared you are — and the more you maximize your job-search efforts — the more likely you will be one of the lucky ones who does land a great job.

    It’s certainly not the best time to be a recent college graduate or a college senior, but that doesn’t mean you have to give up on finding a good job and retreat back home to your family’s basement (since your mom has already made your bedroom into her workout room). Nor should it mean you give up on a job-search altogether and forge on to grad school, hoping by the time you finish your graduate degree the job market will be better.

    No. Instead, if you follow the advice in this article, you can increase the odds that you will indeed be one of the lucky few who find a good-paying job. And yes, by the way, these strategies will work in all economic situations — but they will especially help in times of uncertainty.