Resume Help Blog

Posts Tagged ‘How To’

Here is a brief list:

1. How would you describe yourself?
2. To be successful in this career, what do you think it takes?
3. Do you have the qualifications and personal characteristics necessary for success in your chosen career?
4. Why should we hire you?
5. What are your long-term goals and objectives?
6. What major problem have you handled recently? Did you resolve it? How?
7. What characteristics do you think make a manager successful?
8. Why did you apply to our company?
9. How do you approach critical assignments?
10. If you had to think on your feet to solve a difficult situation, what would you do?
11. Why were you fired?
12. What steps do you take before making an important decision?
13. Name the most difficult assignment you had and how you finished it.
14. What kind of supervisor do you prefer?

As you can see, the questions are open-ended, not allowing for a simple yes or no answer. The more you talk, the more the hiring authority learns about you. That’s why you need to be prepared before you utter one word. Each answer must be crafted carefully to maximize your chances of being hired.

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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.

Despite all the bad news, people are getting hired. We posted an article in August 2009  reprinted from CNN on 13 companies (by name) that were hiring. The news services are not reporting a lot on these things because good news does not sell.

People who are getting hired are putting together an aggressive plan. So here are some basic ideas. There are jobs, not as many as we need but there are jobs!

Have your resume prepared by a Professional

Unless you have written a lot of resumes and understand the significance of keyword density and crafting value propositions, this is the best investment you can make. Your resume is your most important document in your career. That’s why we emphasize the importance of having it written by a professional.  Having a resume written by someone who does this for a living will give you a competitive advantage over the do-it-yourselfers. Employers receive hundreds of resumes and having yours prepared by a professional writer may just be the competitive edge you need.

A good professional resume writer will craft your resume to distinguish you from everyone else. They know the keywords, formats, skills and performance metrics for your industry and they know the kinds of resumes you are competing with. And many times they have inside-information of who is hiring and can point you in that direction. Having a professional writer will slash weeks from your job search and pay for itself in your first paycheck. According to About Jobs.com 77% of professionally written resumes get immediate contact from recruiters.

There is another option. If you know your resume could use some work but don’t know where to start, let me encourage to take a look at this option. We have excellent Resume Software available that will take all the guesswork out of writing your resume and it’s much less expensive. This too is an excellent investment in your future. And if you struggle with interviewing, (many people do), the same site offers help with that and resume templates as well. Jobs are scarce, you are scared and you need help. These are an Investment in your future!