Posted by ResumeHelp on March 11, 2010
When you go into an interview, you need to leave your nerves at the door. The best way to prepare is to develop beforehand, your own story (or stories). This is especially great for the “behavioral” or “competency”-based interview being used more today.
A behavioral interviewer will spend about half the interview on your job skills, and about half on your behavioral competencies. He or she will be looking for evidence of how you have acted in real situations in the past. So having your stories ready to go plays very well for this type of interview.
What is a Behavioral Interview?
Also known as ”competency-based” interviews, these go further than the traditional skills-based interview. You can expect additional questions about your character and personal attributes that can better determine whether you fit their corporate culture. These are called “behavioral competencies”.
Specifically, this is simply an interviewing technique used to determine whether you are a good fit for the job by asking questions about your past behavior. Your answers are then used as a predictor of your future success. For example, if you’ve done it in the past, you probably will do it again.
How is this different than other questions you might encounter?
A behavioral question will be very specific. For instance, when asked, “Tell me about a time when you overcame a crisis, solved a problem, dealt with failure, etc.”, the focus is on a specific “time” in your past when you __________. Here your answer must elucidate a particular action that you took at some point in your past.
In contrast, a traditional interview question would be “what if” type questions. For example, “What would you do if such and such a situation were to occur?” The difference here is there are no past experiences to call upon. You merely put yourself in the situation and use your imagination for the answer. The interviewer is looking for your thought process and how you might think through a problem.
How do you prepare for behavioral interviews?
The best way to prepare is to take the initiative by preparing several 30 to 90-second personal stories.
Consider developing your stories around these areas:
1. A crisis in your life or job and how you responded or recovered from it.
2. A time when you functioned as part of a team and what your contribution was.
3. A time in your career or job when you had to overcome stress.
4. A time in your job when you provided successful leadership or a sense of direction.
5. A failure that occurred in your job and how you successfully overcame it.
Preparation is especially important for success in the behavioral interview. A word of warning: you must have stories to back up anything you claimed on your resume.
All stories have three parts and yours should be no different. They include:
1. A beginning (set the stage – describe the situation, the time)
2. A middle or process (this is the process you took or the action that you took to solve the problem)
3. A resolution (How was the problem solved, overcome or resolved)
A good story should be interesting and full of action. Give them something memorable about you that make you stand out. Since these are your stories, it shouldn’t be hard. Let your personality and your core character shine through. Make sure you let them hear the steps you took to solve the problem. The more details and skills you can add, the better.
Summary
Spend some time well before your first interview to craft and polish several “short stories” about your past using some of the above examples. Take the best examples you can and hone them to a fine edge. Practice them out loud in front of a mirror, and often. These are your successes. Done right, they’ll give your interviewer a clear picture of who you are enabling him or her to determine whether you’re the right person for the job. Click here for more Interview Help.
Authors Bio
As a recruiter, Joe Turner has spent the past 15 years finding and placing top candidates in some of the best jobs of their careers. Author of “Job Search Secrets Unlocked” and “Paycheck 911,” Joe has interviewed on radio talk shows and offers free insider job search secrets at: http://www.jobchangesecrets.com.
Posted by ResumeHelp on March 10, 2010
Often, while perusing the job postings, you’ll see listed under the requirements section wording such as “Bachelor’s degree or equivalent”.
Does this mean that those without a degree need not apply?
Not necessarily.
Although many corporate cultures require that their employees be degreed regardless of their position or length of experience, others will allow the degree to be trumped by industry experience. This is especially true for those job postings that have a degree **or equivalent** tagged to them. As such, you may have a chance when you lack the degree. Generally speaking, a degree will usually be mandatory for those younger candidates lacking solid, relevant job experience. The operative word here is “equivalent” and how that is defined.
Sell Results Instead
While these employers may have different requirements for equivalent experience, a good rule of thumb is to demonstrate past performance and proven results in your previous work. To accomplish this, your goal is to show how you either make money or save money for your employer. From your past work experience, develop as many specific instances when you actually have done so. If you can attach a dollar-value to several of those, so much the better. Put these in your resume.
Here are some actual examples:
- Responsible for generating 13 new accounts by creating database and mailing piece
- Booked $150,000 in new business for 2007 by contracting with 2 major groups for the 2nd and 3rd quarters of 2007.
- Increased revenue by 38% from new social market bookings.
- Chaired meetings and headed the negotiation discussion that resulted in the settlement of a long protracted contractual and legal issue with the subcontractor and client.
- Improved cash collection and debt aging from average 100 days to a more manageable 30 days and realized savings of about $276,000.
- Reduced turnover by 45% over previous management within 15 months through my training program and development plans.
- Won the Leadership and Excellence award in 2007 for outstanding achievements during my project management role.
- Increased our customer satisfaction survey scores by 32% on average by training my team on the proper way to provide a great customer experience.
- Reduced non-beneficial spending costs by 40% by effectively researching and analyzing accounts payable data.
You should also have a USP (Unique Selling Proposition) near the top of your resume. Also called a “Personal Branding Statement”, this is a short, one-sentence “pitch” that describes who you are in about 15 seconds. You USP should state the single greatest strength you offer and the biggest benefit that you bring to an employer.
Example:
Hospitality business development professional with a strength in creative sales and marketing techniques that generated $500,000 in new revenue for my employer in 12 months.
You can outweigh the formal education by showing exactly how your specific work has benefited your previous employer. The bottom line is that employers today more than ever, want to have problem solvers on board. Though you may have no degree, you can prove yourself a resource that fits into their larger profit and loss picture. If you can demonstrate that, you can get hired.
Summary
You can overcome the “degree or equivalent” obstacle if you can (a) show proven benefits to hiring you, and (b) they are open-minded or flexible enough to get past the degree hang up. There will always be some inflexible companies when it comes to having a degree. But, you’ll also find those companies who are more impressed with actual real-world results.
Authors Bio
As a recruiter, Joe Turner has spent the past 15 years finding and placing top candidates in some of the best jobs of their careers. Author of “Job Search Secrets Unlocked” and “Paycheck 911,” Joe has interviewed on radio talk shows and offers free insider job search secrets at: http://www.jobchangesecrets.com.
Posted by ResumeHelp on March 8, 2010
IT’S tempting to think of a résumé as a low-maintenance aspect of your job search. Just list where you worked, what you did and where you went to school, attach that to each application and press the button.
In fact, though, you have considerable flexibility in how you structure your résumé. The decisions you make about what it says and how it looks can affect whether you get the job you really want, or get a job at all.
A résumé is a marketing document that “can serve as a magnet to draw job opportunities to you,” said Susan Ireland, author of “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Perfect Résumé.” That’s largely because more résumés are now on job boards and social media sites, and are included on company databases, she said.
Often, people place too much emphasis on the parts of past jobs that they hated — and get new jobs they end up hating, too, she said. “Your résumé is about your future,” she said, “it’s not about your past,” so stress experiences that are most relevant to the position you aspire to hold.
Let’s say you were in a data-entry position but want to move into project coordination. Give your true job title, she said, but you can highlight the parts of your job that involved projects.
You aren’t obliged to list every single job you have ever held. If a job is 15 or more years in the past, stop and consider how much it’s worth mentioning, or how much space to give it, said Wendy S. Enelow, a résumé writer for executives and co-author of “No-Nonsense Résumés.”
“Your résumé is not an autobiographical essay of your entire life,” she said. If the sales job you had 20 years ago does not relate to where you are headed, leave it out or summarize it very briefly, she said.
In listing your most relevant experience, quantify your achievements whenever possible, Ms. Enelow said. For example, you could write “automated internal record-keeping processes, resulting in a 27 percent reduction in annual operating costs,” she said.
People with gaps in their recent work history often balk at a résumé that lists their latest jobs first, thinking that a “functional” type, stressing skills rather than dates, will work in their favor. But in most cases, job seekers should go the reverse-chronological route.
Most hiring managers become suspicious when they see a résumé without prominent dates, Ms. Ireland said. Try to list things like your community service, your volunteer work or other activities to fill in gaps in your recent work history, she said.
Many companies use software to weed out unqualified applicants. Pay attention to key words, repeating some defining terms from the job description. For example, if you are applying to be a solar energy engineer, you could include the words “solar,” “installation” and “photovoltaic (PV),” Ms. Ireland said.
Be concise in the job-objective or summary part of the résumé, which comes after your name and contact information. If you are seeking a position similar to one you have held, simply state your professional title, Ms. Ireland said (for example, user interface architect). Otherwise, indicate the job you want next or emphasize the skills that the job involves.
Tweak your résumé when necessary. Be sensitive to wording differences among industries. For example, banks have customers, while libraries have patrons and hospitals have patients, Ms. Ireland said.
Generally, unless you are a very recent graduate, list education after work experience. The older you are, the less necessary it is to list the year you graduated, Ms. Enelow said.
Make sure your résumé is easy to read, both on the screen and on paper. Even though most résumés are sent via e-mail, many H.R. people still print out the attachments, Ms. Ireland said.
Résumés are shorter than they were even five years ago, Ms. Enelow said, perhaps as a result of social-media behavior like 140-character tweeting. Keep them “tight, lean and clean,” she said. Ms. Ireland warns against the “big cement block” effect, meaning the use of dense paragraphs. A paragraph should be no longer than three lines, she said.
Make good use of white space, point size, boldface and bullets. But if you start seeing a laundry list of bullets, group them into clusters under skills headings so they are more readable, Ms. Enelow said.
And if you are a mid- or late-career professional, don’t feel that you must keep your résumé to one page.
Many companies have older versions of Microsoft Word, so make sure that your résumé attachment is compatible with them, Ms. Ireland said. It’s also wise to have printed versions ready, to hand out at interviews.
Finally, have someone review your work. If you need a complete makeover, the services of professional résumé writers may cost from $100 up to thousands of dollars. The price will depend on your job search area and how much work is entailed but most times is worth the cost.
But even an extra set of eyes from a friend, family member or career center employee can be enough to set a wayward résumé on the right course.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/jobs/28search.html
