Happy Holidays!

The Three Stages of an Interview

You’ve got a job interview coming up – fantastic! You probably have heard all kinds of tips regarding what to do during the interview, but the interview itself is only one part of your preparations. You also need to prepare pre-interview and then there are the things you need to do post interview. Here are a few general tips for what you need to do at each stage of the interview process.

 

Pre-Interview Preparations

If you didn’t already do your homework on the company during the application process you had better make sure you are fully acquainted with them by the time you step through the door for the interview. Read their website, check out what they’re posting on all their social media channels. Know what they’re up to and the sort of culture they probably have.

 

Make sure you have a couple of copies of your resume in a manila envelope to keep it looking fresh and professional.

 

Take the time to turn your cell phone off. You absolutely don’t want it ringing during your interview. Even if you don’t answer it the noise is still a distraction that ruins the flow of the conversation and throws an unprofessional light on you.

 

Check your travel times. Build in an extra twenty minutes so there’s no risk of running late no matter what the traffic is doing.

 

During the Interview

 

No matter how you’re feeling about yourself or your chances at this interview make sure you look the part of a confident, consummate professional. Maintain eye contact, square your shoulders and smile as if this is the easiest thing in the world for you.

 

You know they’re going to ask you to tell them about yourself, so practice what you’re going to say beforehand. You’ve heard of the elevator pitch right? Well that’s what you need to create about yourself. Who you are what makes you tick, highlighted skills or accomplishments in about a minute.

 

Stay positive. Even if they ask about your previous job and you left because your boss was a jerk find some way of framing your answer in a positive light. Find something good to say about the company or your co-workers.

 

Provide examples. It’s easy to say I’m good at X,Y,Z. What will make you a stand out candidate is the way you back up your statements. Give quantifiable examples of how you used your skills to improve something or help someone, or, increase profitability. For example, I implemented a new workflow system that improved the admins team performance by 20%. Help the interviewer imagine what a great asset you will be for their company.

 

Interview Follow-up

 

Always send a thank you note following the interview. Thank them for their time and their consideration and reiterate a point discussed in the interview. Emailing the thank you is acceptable, but a hand written note is still the most meaningful.

 

A Purposeful Plan For Productivity

You look out at the week ahead, an expanse of unfilled time, and imagine all the things you are going to accomplish. Then the week ends and you look back on a pile of things that for one reason or another didn’t get to the finish line. Day after day, week after week you just can’t seem to match your intentions with your accomplishments.

 

The problem is, without taking concrete steps to implement them, plans in your head are too vague to consistently see the light of day. In order to be successful a plan in your head needs to be concretized, somewhere you can actually see it written down every day. That starts with a bit of pre-planning.

 

Plan monthly accomplishments

In the process of working towards weekly goals, it helps to step back and look at the bigger picture. What are your goals for the entire month ahead? Write them down. Now put them in a priority list. Some people like to use planners, some have a white board by their desk, some have stickies on their computer (virtual or actual). The point is they need to stare back at you every day to keep you accountable.

 

Break down each goal

Now that you have your prioritized list of what you are going to accomplish, create an action plan for each one. This is where you get specific. By taking the time to really think this through you are already setting your mind into accomplishment mode.

 

Create a weekly schedule  

Take your action plan for each goal and break it down into a weekly do-to list for the month. This is where plans meet action. It’s overwhelming to think about a large overall goal. It’s much easier when you look at it in digestible weekly bites.

 

Make a daily plan

Productivity is all about specificity. At the beginning of the week set daily timelines for each thing on that week’s plan. That makes it simple. It’s 10:00 time to do X.

 

Adjust your plan accordingly

At the end of the week review your performance. If there’s anything that you didn’t manage to finish reschedule it into the to-do list for the following week. Planning out the week in advance and reviewing your progress is what will keep you on task and productive. In this way you’ll be able to make productivity a habit!

You Get To Choose How Your Past Dictates Your Future

No matter how well you plan or how hard you strive, sometimes things simply don’t work out. Sometimes you feel like you’re totally on the right track and everything is exactly how it should be, then out of nowhere – BAM something unforeseen happens and everything gets derailed.

 

Life happens. Things don’t go as planned. People come out of nowhere and steal the prize from under your nose, your girl chooses some other guy.

 

Taking the good and bad in stride

Good, bad, amazing, horrible things will happen to us. It’s easy to take the good stuff in stride because it’s good! It’s so much less easy to take the bad in stride. When bad stuff happens, it makes us want to stop and stare at it, as if staring will change it. It immobilizes us, as if we’ve forgotten how to go around it. It creates a shadow as if we are the negative, as opposed to being in a negative situation.

 

Your reaction is your choice

You may not have any control over what happens to you, but you do have full control over how you choose to react. Over what you choose to do about it.

 

You absolutely know negative things will happen. Only you can determine how long you will let them hold you in their sway. You get to choose how you’re going to frame the situation. If you can find any positives in the negatives. Whether or not to get stuck in what if land.

 

No matter what move life chooses to make, the next move is always yours!

What Words Do You Use To Describe Yourself?

 

 

They’re going to ask you about your experience during the job interview, they’ll ask you why you want this job in particular and they will ask you to describe yourself. Those questions are guaranteed.

 

Don’t wing it

With everything else you have to think about, you might be tempted to ignore the question about yourself and just wing it when you get there – after all you’ve lived with yourself your whole life. You that should be the easiest question to answer. That’s about the worst thing you can do. If you’re not prepared you’re as likely as not to sound like a robot rattling off a list of attributes that sounds like just about every other robot going through a similar list – I’m hard working, punctual and I’m good with numbers. Or you might go off on a tangent, without explaining exactly how this ability you have to tame numbers saved your last employer thousands of dollars over the past three months.

 

Make a list

Do yourself a favor and make a list of short descriptive sentences you would use to express what you’re like both personally and professionally.  This is just for you now. Show off your skills, what people like about you, what they’re impressed by. How those skills made a difference in other people’s lives. Now find the adjectives that reflect those sentences.

 

Meticulous be an example. An adjective like meticulous indicates an attention to detail to the hiring manager. That you care about the details and are not one to sit back and let someone else do all the heavy lifting. Give an example of how your meticulousness caught a small mistake before it became a big one or ensured that the job got done right -the first time.

 

Have five examples ready

 

Come to the interview prepared with five strong adjectives that describe you, the impact you have had in other workplaces and what you can bring to this new one. Great examples are team player, imaginative and driven.

 

The last thing you want to happen is to have all great ways of describing yourself pop into your head on the trip home. By taking this question seriously before every stepping into the interview you can ensure the interviewer sees you as the fighter you are. They will ask to ask you about your experience during the job interview. They’ll ask you why you want this job in particular. And they will ask you to describe yourself. Those questions are guaranteed.

 

 

Are You Your Own Energy Drain?

Live It First, Become It Second

When you were a little kid you might have dreamed of growing up to be Superman or Wonder Woman or a dinosaur. You might have cycled through fire fighter, veterinarian, astronaut before settling on your current goal.

Now that you have your sights set on a specific goal, whether that be head of a company, a best selling poet, the first person to orbit Mars, or team leader in your current position how are you doing in that quest?

Are you getting closer to achieving your ambitions everyday? Are you doing something to get yourself closer or hoping someone will notice how good you are at waiting for your turn?

Present the person you want to be to the outside world

Something many people have used to improve and accelerate the push toward their future is to wear the coat (metaphorically) of the person they aspire to be.  If you want to be head of a company then dress like the head of a company. Walk like them. Wake up and think of yourself as already in charge of a room full of people.

Be confident in your speech. If you want to be a best selling poet then get yourself in front of rooms full of people are read your poetry. Share it online. Own it.

When you present the person you want to be to the outside world, it goes a long way toward internalizing that person.

Fake it till you make it

In the super popular Ted Talk called Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are, Amy Cuddy, discusses how something as simple as changing your body language can have profound effects on your level of success.  Amy says, “Fake it till you become it. Do it enough until you actually become it and internalize.”

Descartes said, “I think therefore I am.” Tweak that just a little. “What I think I am, I am.”

A More Modern Resume

 

Gone are the days where a resume could just be a simple word document in New Times Roman, where you bolded a couple of things and threw in an Objective at the top. Today’s resumes are slick and stylish. They are designed to help you stand out from the rest of those black and white CVs. Some modern resumes have a photo with them, some modern resumes are just videos. Modern resumes are almost 100% digital.

 

For everything that makes a modern resume different, writing a modern resume still has a lot in common with resumes of old. You want to focus on what you’ve accomplished and demonstrate how you fit the specific job you’re applying for. When you’re writing your resume, keep these things in mind.

Social Networks

Is your Twitter handle on your resume? The best place for it is in the contact section, right under your email address. While having social networks listed on your resume isn’t a must, it can show even more of your abilities to a prospective employer. If you’re applying for a job in trades, you can show your style and work through Pinterest. Make sure that they can see who you are, beyond your resume.

The Importance of Visual

Recruiters and Hiring Managers don’t look at your resume very long. Don’t give them an excuse to spend even less time with it. A boring black and white resume doesn’t give much incentive. Writing a modern resume involves using a small amount of color, separating the different sections of your resume and using multiple fonts. Check out Hloom for some great modern templates to get an idea of what we’re talking about.

Tell a Story

Your resume should all revolve around a central theme. That theme should be why you’re perfect for the job you’re applying for. From your Summary, all the way to each of your past positions, highlight specific accomplishments and goals you have as an individual. Is your theme that you’re a dedicated worker who focuses on meeting goals? Or maybe it’s that you’re a creative person who finds out of the box solutions. Bringing your resume together with a common theme will help your prospective employer get to know you better.

 

The resume is changing. It’s not completely different from what it used to be, but these subtle little changes are essential to making your resume stand out, and getting you called in for an interview.

 

Make A Great Impression At Your Next Interview With These Questions

Don’t Let Your Doubts Limit Your Tomorrows

 

When In Doubt, Get To Work

Of course we all know what doubt is, because we likely run into it on some account or other on a daily basis. I doubt I’m going to make that bus. I don’t care how good you say that mouldy cheese is, I doubt I will like it. Sometimes doubt is perfectly justified. In the case of the bus, it’s physics. The bus is going faster than my legs.

Doubt creates preconceptions

Sometimes doubt is more of a preconception. In regards to the cheese it may be true you didn’t like certain cheeses in the past, but until you taste this one you won’t know for sure. However, opening your mouth with doubts in your head will certainly direct the outcome toward dislike. While opening your mouth with an open mind opens your pallet to possibilities. Doubt as a rule has a way of closing doors. It limits our abilities to see possible outcomes before they arise.

Uncertainly or lack of conviction

Doubt, as defined by the dictionary is, “A feeling of uncertainty or lack of conviction.” Having a lack of conviction about something insignificant like whether or not you’ll like the taste of something probably isn’t a big deal, but what about when doubt enters more important aspects of your life?

If you go into a job interview with doubt in your heart how do you think you’ll compare to someone who is absolutely positive they are qualified for the job? If you have any doubt in your abilities to complete a task or worse, reach your goals, how do you think that will impact your results?

The enemy of doubt is preparation

Some people are naturally less sure of themselves than others, but doing your homework and preparing to the absolute best of your abilities will help turn that around. Preparation opens the doors of perception that doubt closes. Confidence steps in through those doors. Confidence that has a way of putting doubt in its place.