Keeping your shoes on in your next interview

Posted on March 20, 2012
Filed Under Employment, Finding a Job, Interview | Leave a Comment

Nowhere does Murphy’s Law ring more true than in an interview. It’s a gauntlet. Something through which job seekers are forced to pass, hoping to make it out the other end intact; a series of carefully devised challenges, tailored to incite confusion, anxiety, and, sometimes, (mild) panic. For many job seekers, living through an interview might appear like surviving the garbage compactor—a room of sodden of trash and debris, its walls closing in without any evident means of escape—into which Luke Skywalker and his motley gang tumble in “A New Hope.” While some job seekers may face this daunting challenge with greater air of confidence and courage than others, the experience strikes every job seeker with the same, inextricable fear. And some job seekers, unsure of how to handle the situation or pressure, box themselves in, committing some of the most egregious interviewing sins. Read more

Even more things you shouldn’t say or do at an interview

Posted on November 14, 2011
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Every now and again CareerBuilder comes out with a list of unbelievable acts perpetrated by job seekers in interviews. The acts detailed on its lists seem to touch the limit of human absurdity, with some so thoroughly unbelievable that they seem more like performance art than an excusable gaffe or a simple misstep committed by someone unfamiliar with interviewing etiquette. CareerBuilder’s career blog, TheWorkBuzz, recently supplied a new list—the contents of which were provided by staffing firm Robert Half—which goes far beyond past lists, detailing acts so absurd, they seem almost to come straight from the mind of Kurt Vonnegut. Read more

Dress to impress

Posted on October 15, 2011
Filed Under Employment, Finding a Job, Interview | Leave a Comment

Have you ever watched the show, “What Not to Wear”? Each of the show’s hosts, Stacy London and Clinton Kelly, might be accused of perpetuating superficial conceptions of beauty and a superficial aesthetic governed by arbitrary trends in fashion. However, each adheres to the valid yet unpalatable truth that how you project yourself—the clothes you wear—helps to determine how you will be received by society and can affect how you measure your own self-worth. London and Kelly’s mantra, which is an extension of this view, is repeated in almost every show, “Dress for the job you want, not the one you have.” Read more

3 things you can do when an interview isn’t going your way

Posted on October 3, 2011
Filed Under Employment, Finding a Job, Interview | 1 Comment

Have you ever read the children’s book, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day? It is the story of a downtrodden little boy, whose life is routinely interrupted by un-fortuitous events, and against whom the whole universe is seemingly conspiring. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day might be interpreted as a narrative driven by Murphy’s Law, which explores the bounds of human perseverance and humanity’s ability to copy with a universe spinning out of control. The fact is, sometimes, no matter what we do, the whole world seems to be conspiring against us. Yet, embedded within Alexander’s sad narrative lays the idea that we are ultimately capable of controlling whether a bad day seriously affects our mental state. Read more

How to get a leg up in your next interview

Posted on July 21, 2011
Filed Under Employment, Finding a Job, Interview | Leave a Comment

Before the age of Myspace, Facebook, Google, and the Internet, job seekers had to go into interviews relatively blind. With only their resume and perhaps a vacancy announcement in hand, the 20th century job seeker had to go into interviews without much knowledge about the person interviewing them and without the convenience of being able to troll corporate websites for important information about a company’s mission or current operations. Of course, in the age of Facebook and Google, all of this has changed—most information is literally only a click away. Whether or not they know it, job seekers stand to benefit from this great proliferation of online resources and the dawn of the social network. In the Information Age, clever job seekers can get a decisive leg up in the interview process. Read more

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