Job tips for you

(If you have a job presently tell the hr)

If you’re not yet 100% committed to leaving your present post, don’t be afraid to say so. Since you have a job, you are in a stronger position than someone who does not. But don’t be coy either. State honestly what you’d be hoping to find in a new spot. Of course, as stated often before, you answer will all the stronger if you have already uncovered what this position is all about and you match your desires to it.

(If you do not presently have a job tell the hr.)

Never lie about having been fired. It’s unethical – and too easily checked. But do try to deflect the reason from you personally. If your firing was the result of a takeover, merger, division wide layoff, etc., so much the better.

But you should also do something totally unnatural that will demonstrate consummate professionalism. Even if it hurts , describe your own firing – candidly, succinctly and without a trace of bitterness – from the company’s point-of-view, indicating that you could understand why it happened and you might have made the same decision yourself.

Your stature will rise immensely and, most important of all, you will show you are healed from the wounds inflicted by the firing. You will enhance your image as first-class management material and stand head and shoulders above the legions of firing victims who, at the slightest provocation, zip open their shirts to expose their battle scars and decry the unfairness of it all.

For all prior positions:

Make sure you’ve prepared a brief reason for leaving. Best reasons: more money, opportunity, responsibility or growth.

As with faults and weaknesses, never confess a regret. But don’t seem as if you’re stonewalling either.

Best strategy: Say you harbor no regrets, then add a principle or habit you practice regularly for healthy human relations.

Example: Pause for reflection, as if the question never occurred to you. Then say to hr, “You know, I really can’t think of anything.” (Pause again, then add): “I would add that as a general management principle, I’ve found that the best way to avoid regrets is to avoid causing them in the first place. I practice one habit that helps me a great deal in this regard. At the end of each day, I mentally review the day’s events and conversations to take a second look at the people and developments I’m involved with and do a double check of what they’re likely to be feeling. Sometimes I’ll see things that do need more follow-up, whether a pat on the back, or maybe a five minute chat in someone’s office to make sure we’re clear on things…whatever.”

“I also like to make each person feel like a member of an elite team, like the Boston Celtics or LA Lakers in their prime. I’ve found that if you let each team member know you expect excellence in their performance…if you work hard to set an example yourself…and if you let people know you appreciate and respect their feelings, you wind up with a highly motivated group, a team that’s having fun at work because they’re striving for excellence rather than brooding over slights or regrets.”

There are several factors that are essential to a strong resume. This tutorial will explain the importance of each category in a resume.

Visual Appeal

Make it attractive and organized by being consistent! Be sure to use tabs instead of spacing. Each element should be presented the identical way from section to section. For example, if you center and bold a heading, center and bold all of your headings. If you indent your experience under an employer, do the same for the rest. If you use just the years for a position held, do not use months for the other positions. If you skip one line between two sections, skip only one line between all sections. When you are done, examine the format. Does it look uniformed?

Many job seekers make the mistake of creating a simple, hard-to-read heading or “Resume Letterhead.” To start your resume off right, bold and capitalize your name and make it at least a 16-point font size. Place your address in an interesting way. For example. break the address up on either side of the name, placed in the center, and add a line to separate the name and address from the body of the resume.

Focus

Indicate your objective so the reader doesn’t have to guess. Instead of using an objective statement that really doesn’t say anything specific, place an objective title in its place, all caps and bold. Or: Boring/cliche:

Objective: Seeking to secure a growth-oriented position utilizing my experience and education.
Focused:

Objective: Customer service representative with five years of experience in automotive manufacturing seeking a sales position with a major auto dealership.

Qualifications

List several key qualifications (hard skills) that match the requirements of a position. This could include length of experience, type of experience (i.e. sales, customer service, technical expertise, licenses, certifications, and degree).

Personal Attributes

Sparingly list soft skills and personality traits well suited for the position. This should not be confused with qualifications. This could include strong communication skills used as a group presenter, excellent time management skills, people-oriented, project-oriented, team leadership, problem solving skills, mathematical aptitude, confidentiality, patient advocate, etc.

Experience

Provide a presentation of where you worked, in what positions, and for how long. Convey what the positions were about and what your main responsibilities were. Take into consideration who you reported to, if you supervised and trained anyone, who your customers were, how you interacted with them, what type of projects you worked on, if you handled monies or managed budgets, if you utilized the computer to retrieve and update information, etc.

Skills

If you possess certain technical skills such as patient care, computer systems, automotive repair, scientific R&D, etc., be sure to emphasize it in a situational way to show the reader how you used these skills. If you have extensive computer skills, be sure to create a separate category called Technical Expertise.

Accomplishments

List accomplishments to show you make a difference in the workplace. This could include process improvements, streamlining workflow efficiencies, training others when a new computer system was implemented, starting up a new department, etc. You can include your accomplishment directly under each position or in a separate category called Accomplishments, Achievements, or Contributions.

Technical Expertise

This is an important category for an information technology professional to itemize their expertise in hardware, software, operating systems, protocols, programming languages, website development, etc.

Licenses & Certifications

This is mandatory for many positions requiring state licensure. For example, a teacher (teaching certificate), nurse (registered nurse), hairstylist (state licensed cosmetologist). Some occupations offer certifications that demonstrate a level of proficiency, but is not state mandated to work in that capacity. This is true in the case of information technology, for example, it helps to maintain certain certifications to advance professionally and demand higher pay.

Education

As with licenses and certifications, many occupations require a degree. Some certifications and licenses are not offered without appropriate academic training. Again, these include teaching, nursing, and cosmetology. These occupations require a certain level of training defined by hours or semesters, such as student teaching, clinical training, and hands-on classroom training. If you have experience and are not transitioning, list your education at the bottom. If you are just starting out or are transitioning, include your relevant education at the top. The main idea is to place your strongest selling points first. If you are in a higher education such as school principal, list your education at the top because that is your field.

Professional Affiliations

List only the current organizations that you are affiliated with. If you were with an organization for a very long time and it would help to include it, then list it with the years of membership. If you are involved in doing things for the organization, include “active” in your “membership” title. For example, Active Member, ABC Organization, 1998 – Present. If you are actively involved in many unrelated organizations, use your discretion when deciding to include it. You do not need to list experience when listing your affiliations. Just your position, i.e. Chairperson, The Organization, XXXX. You do not need to list locations. The exception with the verbiage is if you are a college student or just graduated. You would then want to include how involved you were in fundraisers and special projects. That will show your character and leadership potential. Once you have gained experience, be sure to remove the verbiage so you don’t look “green.” By then you should have more impressive information to include.

Computer Skills

If you are in information technology, use a Technical Expertise category. If not, list your software without proficiency level. You do not need to list email, faxing, and calculators. Those are expected.

References Available Upon Request

This category is not necessary. You should bring copies of your references to the interview to leave with the hiring manager if you feel you are still interest in the company after the interview. The only time it is a good idea to include this cliche category is if you are just starting out in your career. If you are very seasoned and have lots of letter of recommendation, you can always indicate that you have a "Portfolio of Letters of Recommendation and Exceptional Professional References"

Disguise a strength as a weakness.

Example: “I sometimes push my people too hard. I like to work with a sense of urgency and everyone is not always on the same wavelength.”

Drawback: This strategy is better than admitting a flaw, but it's so widely used, it is transparent to any experienced interviewer.

BEST ANSWER: (and another reason it's so important to get a thorough description of your interviewer's needs before you answer questions): Assure the interviewer that you can think of nothing that would stand in the way of your performing in this position with excellence. Then, quickly review you strongest qualifications.

Example: “Nobody's perfect, but based on what you've told me about this position, I believe I' d make an outstanding match. I know that when I hire people, I look for two things most of all. Do they have the qualifications to do the job well, and the motivation to do it well? Everything in my background shows I have both the qualifications and a strong desire to achieve excellence in whatever I take on. So I can say in all honesty that I see nothing that would cause you even a small concern about my ability or my strong desire to perform this job with excellence.”

Alternate strategy (if you don't yet know enough about the position to talk about such a perfect fit):

Instead of confessing a weakness, describe what you like most and like least, making sure that what you like most matches up with the most important qualification for success in the position, and what you like least is not essential.

Example: Let's say you're applying for a teaching position. “If given a choice, I like to spend as much time as possible in front of my prospects selling, as opposed to shuffling paperwork back at the office. Of course, I long ago learned the importance of filing paperwork properly, and I do it conscientiously. But what I really love to do is sell (if your interviewer were a sales manager, this should be music to his ears.)

You know that your key strategy is to first uncover your interviewer's greatest wants and needs before you answer questions. And from Question 1, you know how to do this.

Prior to any interview, you should have a list mentally prepared of your greatest strengths. You should also have, a specific example or two, which illustrates each strength, an example chosen from your most recent and most impressive achievements.

You should, have this list of your greatest strengths and corresponding examples from your achievements so well committed to memory that you can recite them cold after being shaken awake at 2:30AM.

Then, once you uncover your interviewer's greatest wants and needs, you can choose those achievements from your list that best match up.

As a general guideline, the 10 most desirable traits that all employers love to see in their employees are:

A proven track record as an achiever...especially if your achievements match up with the employer's greatest wants and needs.

Intelligence...management "savvy".

Honesty...integrity...a decent human being.

Good fit with corporate culture...someone to feel comfortable with...a team player who meshes well with interviewer's team.

Likeability...positive attitude...sense of humor.

Good communication skills.

Dedication...willingness to walk the extra mile to achieve excellence.

Definiteness of purpose...clear goals.

Enthusiasm...high level of motivation.

Confident...healthy...a leader.

Start with the present and tell why you are well qualified for the position. Remember that the key to all successful interviewing is to match your qualifications to what the interviewer is looking for. In other words you must sell what the buyer is buying. This is the single most important strategy in job hunting.

So, before you answer this or any question it's imperative that you try to uncover your interviewer's greatest need, want, problem or goal.

To do so, make you take these two steps:
Do all the homework you can before the hr interview to uncover this person's wants and needs (not the generalized needs of the industry or company)

As early as you can in the interview, ask for a more complete description of what the position entails. You might say: “I have a number of accomplishments I'd like to tell you about, but I want to make the best use of our time together and talk directly to your needs. To help me do, that, could you tell me more about the most important priorities of this position? All I know is what I (heard from the recruiter, read in the classified ad, etc.)”

Then, ALWAYS follow-up with a second and possibly, third question, to draw out his needs even more. Surprisingly, it's usually this second or third question that unearths what the interviewer is most looking for.

You might ask simply, "And in addition to that?..." or, "Is there anything else you see as essential to success in this position?:

This process will not feel easy or natural at first, because it is easier simply to answer questions, but only if you uncover the employer's wants and needs will your answers make the most sense. Practice asking these key questions before giving your answers, the process will feel more natural and you will be light years ahead of the other job candidates you're competing with.

After uncovering what the employer is looking for, describe why the needs of this job bear striking parallels to tasks you've succeeded at before. Be sure to illustrate with specific examples of your responsibilities and especially your achievements, all of which are geared to present yourself as a perfect match for the needs he has just described.