Main Feature: Why Should We Hire You? Responding to the Job-Interview Concern that Underlies All Questions
Special Feature: Smart People, Dumb Interviews: Why the Best Candidate Doesn't Always Get the Job
Bonus Feature: 15 Quick Tips for Acing the Job Interview
A Quintet of Quick Questions: QuintZine's Q&A with a Career Expert: Pamela Skillings
A Quintet of Quick Questions: QuintZine's Q&A with a Career Expert: Ellyn Enisman
Quintessential Site: Featured Career Web Site of this Issue
Latest Additions: What's New on Quintessential Careers
Q TIPS: Quick and Quintessential Tips to Guide Your Job Search and Work Life
Editor's Note: About this Issue...
When we began planning this issue, it looked like it would be a fairly small one. Not that there's not a ton
of interest in the subject of interviewing, but we cover so much already in our interview resources section.
But then several contributors asked to write for this issue, so now it's packed with content! We even have
TWO Q&As — one targeted to new grads and college students, and the other to more established job-seekers.
Miriam Salpeter of the popular Keppie Careers leads us off with her article on her thesis that all interview questions
revolve around the "why should we hire you" concern. Pamela Skillings, who is also one of our Q&A subjects, writes about
dumb interview mistakes. And with 15 interview tips, Publisher Dr. Randall Hansen continues our 15 tips
series to mark our 15th anniversary this year. Ellyn Enisman is our second Q&A subject.
All in all, a packed issue for your summer reading pleasure.
--Katharine Hansen, Ph.D., Master Resume Writer, Credentialed Career Master,
Certified Electronic Career Coach, and editor at
kathy(at)quintcareers.com
Feature Article: Why Should We Hire You?
Why Should We Hire You? Responding to the Job-Interview Concern that Underlies All Questions
by Miriam Salpeter
"Why should we hire you?" It's the underlying question inherent in every interview inquiry. Even if interviewers
don't ask this exact question, it's what they want to know. Your job is to supply appropriate answers. You'll need to
describe reasons using concrete examples illustrating how and why you are a good fit for the organization.
Answering the question well requires two things: knowing what you offer and understanding what the organization
wants; these elements are equally important.
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Smart People, Dumb Interviews: Why the Best Candidate Doesn't Always Get the Job
by Pamela Skillings
You've got all of the right qualifications and then some. It almost seems as if the job description was written
just for you. So why didn't you get the job offer? You probably messed up the interview.
In a competitive job market, you may be up against many qualified candidates, including internal applicants.
That means it's not enough to just perform well in the interview. You must wow the interviewer.
Based on my experience as a hiring manager and my interview coaching work with hundreds of job-seekers
each year, I've identified some common interview mistakes that sabotage even the strongest candidates -- and some tips for avoiding them.
Find Your Career Future. Learn More About Yourself
Career Maze is designed to help every job seeker, at every level, make smarter
career choices. Individualized to reflect your unique personality and written in
"plain English," it is thorough and easy to complete.
Once completing the assessmemt, your 2-part report includes:
A specific, career-relevant discussion of your workplace personality
A list of job types compatible with your personality
Career Maze encourages you to think about tapping your full potential to find your future.
As part of the celebration of Quintessential Careers's 15th anniversary, we're presenting lists of 15 tips on
some of the most essential topics in college, job search, and career.
Kudos for getting invited to a job interview or for anticipating that you will soon receive the invitation.
Your cover letter and resume are important tools for opening the door -- to the interview -- but it's your
performance in the employment interview that will go far in making or breaking your shot at a job offer.
Over the years we have counseled thousands of job-seekers on how to excel in the interview — and
we offer the very best of our advice in this article.
QuintZine's Q&A with Career Expert:
Pamela Skillings
Pamela Skillings is an author, interview coach, and career expert.
"Most job searchers don't spend enough time analyzing the job requirements and thinking
about which strengths, examples, and qualifications they should communicate," Pamela Skillings said in the Q&A
she did with us. "Most never really practice delivering their interview stories. Is it any wonder that they end
up blurting, stumbling, and/or rambling on when they get into the interview room?"
Read more of Pamela's interview insights, including how storytelling skills and an elevator pitch can dramatically
improve interview results in our full Q&A with her.
Ellyn Enisman is author of Job Interview Skills 101: The Course You Forgot to Take.
"Interviewers are excited by answers that tell them about you," Ellyn Enisman said in the
Q&A interview we did with her. "Whenever I interview a candidate, I remember their stories first because
that is how I know they have the skills and qualifications that I am looking for. A prepared candidate who demonstrates
why he or she is a great fit is a memorable candidate."
Read more of our Q&A, including Ellyn's thoughts on why college students and new grads are often ill-prepared for
interviews, her top piece of interview advice, her list of top skills employers seek, and her techniques for uncovering job leads in
our full Q&A with her.
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MyResumeOnline.org -- an
interesting tool for job-seekers, especially those without your own Website. Create,
polish, and post your resume -- giving you your own online resume. You can also include
PDFs and Word documents. Site also includes useful tips. No cost to job-seekers.
Nonprofit Jobs -- a job board for the nonprofit sector, with job opportunities ranging from
entry-level to executive, and where job-seekers can search job listings (by keyword, location), as well as post/upload your resume. Also includes some useful career resources.
A service of The NonProfit Times. No cost to job-seekers.
Retirement Jobs -- a job board
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post your resume, register for job alerts, and find career and job-search advice. No cost to job-seekers
for basic services; fee-based premium membership also available.
Find even more career and job site additions to Quintessential Careers by visiting our
Latest Additions section.
We'd Love You to Link to Quintessential Careers!
If your school, organization, business or other
entity has a Website, we welcome you to link to Quintessential Careers.
If you already have a link from your site, we want you to know we
appreciate it. If you don't have a link to us, please
send a request to your site's Webmaster to establish a
link to Quintessential Careers. Thanks so much!
For more details (including sample HTML copy), see our
Link to Us page.
Q TIPS:
Quick and Quintessential Tips to Guide Your Job Search and Work Life
Tim Tyrell-Smith of Tim's Strategy is developing a high-quality series of short videos with "Smart Tips"
about aspects of the job search. At less than a minute, Keys To A Successful Job Interview is a concise
overview on how to make a great first impression
during your job interview. Find it here.
Our regular contributor Deborah Brown-Volkman offers this tip about focusing on the interviewer's
needs in an interview: "Everyone wants to be seen as someone who can do a job well. But if the interview
is only about you, and you are only concerned about you, the interviewer will be wondering about them.
Take the focus off yourself and instead put your energies on the person you are talking to. Find
out about them; what they want and what's important to them. Sometimes when I debrief
a client after an interview, I ask what the interviewer struggled with the most. Most don't know.
When you go into helpful mode, you forget about yourself, and your concentration shifts
to the other person. This is when the real you comes out."
Here are three articles on interviewing that have
caught our eye recently: In Job Interview? 9 Great
Tips to Get You to Round 2, Amy Levin-Epstein suggests some novel approaches, such as
asking upfront why the employer wouldn't hire you, preparing
sound bites, asking for homework, recording a pre-interview
practice, and bringing props. Although ostensibly for
doctors, Eve Harris's 8 Job Interview Phrases Decoded
for Physicians analyzes for any job-seeker what employers are looking in eight common
interview questions. And, Monster.com's The 'Elephants'
in the Job Interview: Handling Difficult (but Impossible to Ignore) Topics tells
how to handle situations such as a termination (either through firing or quitting in an angry blowup),
an aggressive/hostile interviewer, or one with which you have no rapport.
We are honoring our 15 favorite career gurus with the title of Quintessential Careers Career Mastermind.
In turn, they are honoring our readers in a number of ways throughout the rest of the year ... with articles,
tips, and a special feature in our 15th anniversary issue of QuintZine in November.
Quintessential Careers Press Announces Our Latest Book: The Quintessential Guide to
Job Search 2.0: Advancing Your Career Through Online Social Media.
The
Quintessential Guide to Job Search 2.0: Advancing Your Career Through Online Social Media,
by Katharine Hansen, Ph.D., and Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D., provides six chapters to guide you
through the next revolution in online job search. Since job boards, vestiges of the first
revolution in online job search, should still be part of the job-seeker's toolkit, this
book helps you navigate those while also considering the future of job boards. The book
looks at building your personal brand, teaches you to make the most of social-media venues
in the job search, guides you in creating a digital presence, suggests you consider blogging,
and discusses ways to integrate multimedia elements into your job search.
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Follow QuintCareers; Read the Latest Advice
Follow QuintCareers Latest Job Tips and Career News on Twitter
Also follow @KatCareerGal for regular career-related tweets.
QuintCareers Network of Empowering Blogs
What are QuintCareers empowering blogs?
The Career Doctor Blog:
Especially for those who miss our former regular feature, Ask the Career Doctor, this blog each day features a question and answer from The
Career Doctor, Randall S. Hansen, PhD.
Need a career expert for a story or article you're working on? Searching for college,
career, and job news? Interested in learning more about Quintessential Careers?
Our Press Room
is your one-stop location for getting the information and resources you need.
QuintZine: Topics in Upcoming Issues
WATCH FOR feature articles on these topics in upcoming issues of QuintZine:
* Warning Signs You Won't Like Your Next Employer
* New Grads: Roadmap to Work and Play
* Working Night Shifts/Odd Shifts
* De-Stressing Before an Interview
* 15 Quick Tips for Acing the Job Interview
* More Cover-Letter Components
* Crafting Transferable Skills Stories
* 15 Quick Tips for Fighting Age Discrimination and the Overqualified Label
* Older Workers Struggling at Job-Search: Is It Age Discrimination?
* Empty Nest Job-seekers
* How to Stay Motivated at Work
* 15 Quick Tips for Gaining Valuable Experience in College
* Major Stress: Quiz for Choosing a Major/Career
* 15 Quick Tips for Excelling at Work
* 15 Quick Tips for Obtaining Your Next Promotion
* 15 Quick Tips for Getting Accepted into College
* Another Option After High School: Vocational/Trade Schools
* Fourth Annual Job Action Day
* 15 Quick Tips for Career Branding Success
* Career Branding Checklist
* Special Quint Careers 15th Anniversary Issue
* 15 Career Gurus
* 15 Indispensable Career Books
* 15 tips, samples, tools, and more.
* 15 Quick Tips Strengthening Your Career Network
* 15 Quick Tips for Working with Headhunters
* Quintessential Career Profiles of YOU, our readers
* Q&As with well-known career experts
* Book reviews
. . . and much, much more...
