Resume Help Blog

Posts Tagged ‘interview help’

The part of the hiring process known as the interview is something that scares most people to death. It doesn’t have to if you have thought of prospective questions before hand and prepared yourself accordingly and also thought of some questions you may have for the interviewer.

Here is a brief list. We kept it brief because the list could be four pages long if we so desired, however you would not read it and it would be very frightening. So we pared it down to the most likely ones:

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.  You can become more prepared for interview questions and answers by looking online there are several great interview resources like Resumeindex.com and Monster.com

With so many individuals competing for jobs, the only thing that will differentiate you from the rest of the equally qualified crowd is what you achieved while on the job. But be warned—an accomplishment must be quantified in order to hold any weight with the hiring manager or recruiter.

Too many times an individual writes: “Reorganized an entire department per management instructions.” That’s not an accomplishment, that is a daily duty. An accomplishment would read: “Generated savings in excess of $25,000 annually by reorganizing the marketing department and employing temp workers rather than full-time staff.” This speaks to what a hiring manager and/or recruiter wants to see: how you can make them money and how you can save them money.

To further strengthen your resume, make certain to put at least one, preferably two, quantified and relevant accomplishments in the Qualifications Summary. This is especially true if you use the word “proven” to describe yourself. For example, you write: “Accounting professional with comprehensive experience and proven results in negotiations with the IRS.”

Proven by whom? You? That’s not enough proof for a hiring manager or recruiter. They want more. It’s better to write: “Accounting professional with comprehensive experience and proven results in negotiations with the IRS as evidenced by the $0.5 million in savings, resulting from the 2009 audit.”

The above clearly states that you saved your company a half-million dollars through your expertise. That speaks volumes to hiring managers and puts you well above the others competing for the same position.

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.