EmploymentGuide.com offers a winning combination of recruitment solutions to target hourly workers. With weekly employment publications in more than 60 markets nationwide, an award-winning national online job board and more than 225 job fairs, EmploymentGuide.com will meet all of your hourly recruitment needs.
In the Southeastern region we cover Memphis, Nashville, Atlanta and in the Carolinas we cover Charlotte, Raleigh, The Triad, Greensboro and Surrounding area.
As we continue to prepare for the Atlanta Job Fair, on Tuesday, August 3rd, we wanted to prepare you for the best chance of landing a position with a company that can not only bring in the paycheck, but also involve a career that you are passionate about.
Today, I wanted to share 5 interview questions that you should be prepared to answer at the Atlanta Job Fair. At the event, you will be meeting and talking to recruiters nd employers who are looking for people to stand out amongst the hundreds of job seekers that pass by their booth. Having strong and confident answers to the following questions can give you a competitive advantage over other Atlanta job seekers.
So your homework today is to jot down these questions, create compelling answers and practice saying them into your mirror. It may sound silly, but if you are sitting at a new desk next week, you wiil know that your preparation payed off!
5 Top Interview Questions To Answer And Study:
Tell Me About Yourself...
What Are Your Strengths?
What Are Your Weaknesses?
What Skills Do You Have That Would Benefit Our Company?
What Questions Do You Have About Our Company?
For more information on answering the last question, check out this video on researching employers.
Today we have a great guest post by Jessica Holbrook Hernandez. Jessica is an expert resume writer, career and personal branding strategist, author, and presenter. You can find out more about her and her career tips at http://www.greatresumesfast.com.
There’s an old adage in communication: “Tell the audience what you’re going to tell them, then tell them, and then tell them what you told them.” In other words, preview, present, and review. The objective of this communication strategy is to make sure your message gets across. While saying something five times may seem redundant to you, you can be sure that it will stick in the mind of your listener.
The Preview: Your Resume
During your job search, your resume serves as the preview of who you are as an employee and what you have to offer a company. Your resume should include a summary of your accomplishments and a branding statement that sets you apart. Regardless of the specific focus of your resume, you want to be sure that you’re presenting the same image at other times during your job search as well.
The Presentation: Your Interview
An effective resume induces an employer to call you in for an interview. It can be helpful to review the resume you submitted to an employer prior to your face-to-face meeting or phone call with them. This way, the information you’ve already presented will be fresh in your mind. You can use the information summarized on your resume to relate to specific qualifications for the job and to discuss your previous accomplishments in more detail. However, you don’t want to just repeat the existing summary on your resume—the employer is interviewing you because he wants to know more.
The Review: Your Thank You Note
After meeting with or talking by telephone to an employer, a professional thank you note can serve to remind the employer of why you’re a particularly outstanding candidate. You want to use language consistent with that of your resume and the accomplishments you discussed during your interview. You may choose to actually include your branding statement at the top of the letter, or you can incorporate the language from the statement throughout the body of the note. Usually, the interviewer will have spoken with multiple other candidates by the time he receives your thank you letter, so the letter serves to remind him of your resume and interview conversation.
Your online presence
One final consideration is whether any information you have online, such as a LinkedIn profile, is consistent with the information presented throughout your job search. An employer may look you up online during the “preview” stage, before he ever meets you, or he might look you up in the “review” stage when he’s trying to decide between several candidates. Since you don’t have control over this part of your job search, it’s important that your message be consistent throughout all the phases of finding your new job.
Remember: preview, present, and review. Presenting a consistent message will help you stick out in the minds of employers who meet you!
We all do it. If you think you don't you're either lying or really, really efficient!
I'm talking about procrastination. You know, getting to that big project tomorrow. Or updating your resume later. Checking email but telling yourself you will reply to them later.
When you are looking for a job this becomes an alarming problem. Procrastinating on updating your resume can cost you a job. Procrastinating on walking into that business, putting it off a day or two means that your peers (who are essentially your competition) are going to beat you to the punch.
Beating procrastination isn't easy. If we didn't want to push this off till later we wouldn't need DVR's to watch LOST or Grey's Anatomy.
In a recent video post, we talked about having persistence during your job search. This is one step towards beating the procrastination bug. Learning from your past successes and failures can help to build your confidence and momentum that will have you up and back on the prowl in no time.
But for some, it's just not that easy. Over on the "On The Job Blog" by 43 Things, author Anita talks about some of the ways you can overcome procrastination that can be applied to both on the job and on the job hunt:
Most people don’t like to admit they put off tasks they need to get done. After all, no boss is going to be overjoyed to hear such news, and neither will co-workers whose own productivity can be impacted when you don’t pull your weight at work. And yet, it’s sometimes easier than ever to procrastinate, especially when you have so many more enjoyable things at your fingertips – such as the Internet.
...if you find yourself checking out Twitter when you’re supposed to be completing a boring report, tell yourself, “I know this report isn’t fun, but by getting it done I’ll make my boss happy and that means I’ll keep my job – and my paycheck will help me take care of my family.”
Sounds simple enough but we all know sometimes our mind can be stronger than our will power. That's why there are power tools - like saws and drills that you can apply to your life that help whip you into shape and get back on track.
Rescue Time is a web based application that keeps track of the things you do online. This can really help with procrastination when you get your report and see that you spent 5 hours browsing pictures on Facebook and only 10 minutes on the EmploymentGuide.com looking for jobs!
It also allows you to voluntarily block sites when your brain wants you to get off track to say head over to check out ESPN or something. Here is a cool intro video
Workrave is almost the opposite. It is a program that assists in the recovery and prevention of Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI). The program frequently alerts you to take micro-pauses, rest breaks and restricts you to your daily limit.
This is great for those that may be extremely focused on writing your resume or cover letter and need a break to re-focus. Workrave will give you a nice overall picture of when you should take your breaks and get you into a groove that is healthy.
Offline Procrastination Tools
One of the oldest tricks of the trade is using a stop watch in intervals of 40 minutes on, 15 minutes off. During these 15 minutes you should have some water, take a walk, stretch or engage yourself in activities that make your laugh or smile.
With today's technology much of this can be done on your cell phone.
The goal is to find your comfort zone, get in the groove and STOP Procrastinating. Remember the difference between still looking at sitting in the interview chair when faced with similar candidates is the one who is faster, has great follow up and follows directions.
Happy hunting Atlanta and let us know what you think of the tips and tools in the comments below.
