Do Your Homework before Attending any Interview

The wrong perception young and aspiring fresh graduates have about attending interviews is all interviews are passive. If you think that attending an interview means sitting back and answering questions about yourself, then you are wrong. Many people fail in their interviews because they do not play an active role before the interviews.

What is the active role you need to play before an interview?

Begin with reflecting all accomplishments or achievements before you attend the interview:

- Accomplishments in school

·Grades

·Special commendations

·Clubs / activities

·Positions held

·Responsibilities

·Awards received

·Participation in sports and games (if any)

·Part-time jobs – when and where

- Accomplishments at home (in the community)

How do you plan your day

Part-time jobs

Hobbies and interests

Volunteer work

- Accomplishment at work

·Organization

How do you organize your work

Have you set up systems to make your job more efficient

Have you helped to increase your organization’s profit

How do you help to keep costs down

·Coming up with new ideas

Have you contributed any new ideas for your organization

Were the ideas implemented

Were the ideas successful/

Why did the ideas fail

Have you learned any lesson from the failure

·Teamwork

Do you get along with your colleagues

How is your relationship with your bosses and other supervisors

Have you lead any team project

Are you a co-operative team member

·Contribution to the society

Do you belong to any work-related non-profit organization

Do you hold any position

Have you been featured in any of the newsletter of the organization

- Check to see if you possessed any hidden skills

A skill is something that you have learned previously and you are able to use it to solve problems competently. It is an ability that can be taught, practiced and mastered effectively.

You should know that you are not able to sell yourself if you cannot convince the prospective managers the skills you possess. These skills are abilities that can be applied to whatever jobs you happen to be doing. You can easily sell yourself to any employer.

These skills really make you ‘attractive’ to any hiring employer. These skills also help in your promotion or when you decide to change job or career.

Go through the list and check some of the skills you may possess.

• Utilize materials correctly
• Analyze and evaluate ideas and presentation
• Produce good and detailed research work on various to
• Develop new approaches to solve problem
• Observe, inspect review the work of other
• Plan, organize, systematize and revise projects/tasks
• Meet work deadlines
• Motivate others/team members/colleagues
• Invent, imagine, create and design
• Think logically
• Good time management
• Work on long term projects
• Supervise and lead team members
• Manage work-related stress effectively
• Produce detailed and accurate work
• Set goals for team/department
• Delegate jobs to relevant subordinate/team members
• Teach, instruct and coach others/colleagues/team members
• Think and act independently
• Take risks when required
• Communicate effectively with others/colleagues/bosses
• Run and handle meetings effectively

The skills listed in the list above are just an example of some hidden skills you may have. Other people cannot see these skills unless they work with you. Interviewers will be interested to know how you helped to solve a problem faced by your previous organization. So, be honest. What are the skills you have used in solving the problems?

Supposing, you have no experience in solving any problems faced by your previous organization; think hard how you have helped to solve problems for your team/department. Your skills may be used once a while, but you know you have them.

- List your job requirements

This is your list of the ‘features’ you may want in the job. Everyone has a different set of priorities when they apply for a job. You have one too. Ponder carefully and make a list of the features.

Think of your situation now. What is important to you right now? Money, job or experience? List them down. Then rearrange the items again.

Some of the features you may include can be:

·salary

·type of organization

·size of organization

·traveling time

·location of organization

·your willingness to relocate

·job responsibilities

·own office/cubicle or share office space

·basic remuneration plan

·fringe befits

·with/no traveling

In case you do not have any idea what to list in this section, get a copy of your daily newspaper. Turn to the job classification or job search page and you will know. Some organizations are very detailed with their list of requirement, while others stress more on experience and qualification.

The reason you need to list all these questions is to help you to write one or two of your achievements in your cover letter to your prospective employers. Of course the other reason is to uplift your morale to appreciate all you have achieved until that moment. You may need to be able to communicate these accomplishments to the people who will value your skills.

- Rewrite your resume and cover letter

This may surprise you, but most prospective employers are hoping to receive a new set of resume and cover letter from you when you attend the interviews. You may have sent in yours a while ago, but the hiring employers wish to know more of your accomplishment between the period you first applied for the job to just before the interview.

Use what you have discovered about yourself to let them know what you have to offer. Focus more on your accomplishments. Use dynamic and strong action verbs to describe your achievements.

You have successfully done your homework. You know yourself and what you are looking for. You do not have to tell tales to impress the interviewers. You have answers to the questions because you know what you want. You will make a good impression.

You may want to keep a job for a long time. So, it is good to attend interviews for positions that meet your criteria. Do not let yourself get stuck in a dead-end job. That is why you need to do your homework, before you write your job application letters!

Write Your Resume Well

There are many inquiries about writing resumes. It is not easy to write a good but easy to understand resume. However, always try and write a simple resume without many spelling errors.

Your resume is representing 'you'. If there are many errors in your resume, nobody bothers to read it. If so, who will know that you are the ideal candidate for the opportunity?

If you are poor in English Language, then get someone to write it for you. However, make sure the resume is personalized to your qualification and experience.

What to take note when writing or planning to write your resume:

1. Do not exaggerate about your projects and experience with former organizations
Why?
- To save yourself from being rejected for being 'too smart for us'.
- Suppose your ex-colleague happened to be the hiring manager, you will be embarrassed for such exaggeration!

2. If possible write a sum for Expected salary but in brackets add in 'Negotiable'
Why?
- Organizations know what price they should pay for certain positions. When your asking price is too, you might be overlooked. If too low, they would think you are not serious.

3. Do not name any of your reference.
Why?
- This is not an important part of your resume. If you are qualified for the opportunity, you will be offered a job, regardless of your references. Although many reference books have this part, you can ignore it. Do not be miserable just because you do not have a good reference.

4. Do not expose too much of your personal life in your resume
Why?
- A resume represents your professional self. You should be detailing about your experience and qualifications and not anything else.

5. Be as truthful as you can
- All right, you cannot get rid of your exaggerating nature. So, be as near the truth as possible. This is so that when you attend the interview, you will at least know what to answer.

6. Write or print your resume on a piece of clean A4 size paper.
Why?
- Again, it is professional. You are not writing any love letters, so be it!

7. Ask for help to edit your resume
Why?
- As a writer, you may not realize the errors you have made. Your reader would do that easily. If you want to ace that opportunity, get someone to edit it now!

There are many other points you should take note. However, these are the ones you can do for this time!

Selling Yourself with a Powerful Resume

Can your resume grab someone's attention for more than 10 seconds? No, you don't know, and may not even know. But, why only 10 - 15 seconds? Can't it be longer? Well, that's how long a hiring manager would pay attention to anyone's resume and cover letter.

Whenever there is a job vacancy, there will be hundreds of applicants. A 10-15 second is better than none! No hiring manager is not going to read the resumes word by word. Your resumes are like advertisements. You are selling yourself to get an interview.

Like advertisements, you need to highlight your strengths, competencies and quantifiable accomplishments in order to grab the interviewer's attention. You need to answer the question every hiring manager has in his mind - ‘Why should I hire you?'

How you write a good copy of resume and use it over and over again is important. All the resumes need to have powerful messages. Customize the messages in your resumes each opportunity. Use industry-specific words or phrases in your resumes.

Convey to the readers your experience and accomplishments to demonstrate that you do have the expertise. Then, keep your message short and simple, but powerful. If you think interviewers like long resumes with boring information, then you are wrong.

Many resumes ended in the waste baskets everyday. Companies are always in a hurry to hire and there are many applicants to choose from. Every hiring manager has limited time to choose the best candidate, the one who can answer, "Why should I hire you?"

Readers can easily detect the image you are trying to portray in your resumes and cover letters. So, be professional.

A powerful resume should contain these elements:

• Profile or summary :

This is a very important part. You write it to provide an overview of your personality and experience. Your message here must be short, simple but powerful. You need to capture your reader's immediate attention. It can be written like this:

- ‘Experienced, result driven, high profile corporate management coach known for consistently delivering exceeding expectations'

- ‘Meticulous, results-oriented, dedicated and accomplished consultant with a proven track record of achieving significant objectives'

• Accomplishment or achievements :

Include in this section a bulleted section of your quantifiable accomplishments and results. This is also the part where you can hard-sell yourself. Grab the reader's attention using positive quantifiable descriptions such as:

- reduced expenses by 25% - increased annual revenues by 45%

• Expertise or skills :

Be specific in this section. Do not simply state some general skills and ask the reader to guess. Use words/phrases that describe you area of expertise. Get clues from the job descriptions of the advertisements to help you. Make sure you are using the correct words/phrases for each opportunity you desire.

• Education :

Include the pertinent education that is relevant to the opportunities. If you have no working experience, you can expand this section by listing some of the courses you have attended. However, if you have some working experience, limit this section to only what is important.

• Work experience:

This is the list of different jobs you have had. You may need to provide objective details about your duties (main responsibilities) for each of the position listed.

You can organize the information according to the date or category. You do not have to start your resume with an objective. Your profile has described you well. Putting an objective on your resume can really limit your opportunities.

An objective specifies that you are only interest in that particular position only. The hiring manager may not pass your resume to another department which may give you the opportunity you need.

Another element which you do not have to include in your resume is references. It is enough to include the statement - ‘References available upon request'. If you are applying for certain senior positions, you may need to include references. However, include the list of references on another sheet of paper.

Follow these few rules when you write your resume:

• Brief, clear and drive to the point

- Do not use long descriptive sentences which can cause confusion.

• Objective and quantifiable

- Write factual statements with simple but powerful messages

• Action oriented

- Use more action words to bring your experience to life and get you noticed.

• Easy to read

- Do not include too much information. Interesting and relevant information will do.

• Short (One to two pages only) - This is important as all hiring managers have only 10 - 15 seconds to scan through every resume. If you can create interest in anyone in that short time, you do not need a long resume.

• Relevant to the position applied

- The information provided must be relevant to the position applied only. Hiring managers know what type of candidates they want. So, do not try to show off by including all unnecessary information.

• Include only sensible information

- Do not list these items : expected salary, weaknesses, or any of your IQ results!

• Internet ready

- Create resumes that you can send to the prospect companies by emails. Use ‘text only' format. You can also convert your resumes into PDF files so that the format stays when it is viewed by the readers.

• Attention grabbing

- If your resume is an advertisement, it must be able to capture at least 10 -15 seconds of the reader's attention. If your resume is not getting any response, it is time to review and rewrite it.

• Reviewed and edited by someone else

- Ask someone to give you the feedback to your resume. If there are criticisms, good, re-edit it. Be careful with spellings and typo-errors. Do not allow the readers to laugh at you because of a silly mistake. Edit it a few times until you can produce a good and powerful resume. You can use bullets and simple paragraphs when writing your resumes. Just do not overdo it.

Good and well written resumes can open the door to many interviews. You can also refer from so many books on resumes in the market. So, start writing your resume now!