Q TIPS:
Quick and Quintessential Tips to Guide Your Job Search and Work Life
Job-hunting tips from the October 11, 2010, issue of
QuintZine.
Bill Bagley, an HR director, offers a terrific tool for interview prep. His "Personal Inventory Prior
to Interviewing" asks job-seekers to inventory their skills, strengths, weaknesses, values, achievements,
interests, favorite and least favorite academic subjects (which interviewers often ask college
students about), role models, motivators, definition of success, goals, and more.
Richard Bolles, author of the biggest-selling career guide of all time, What Color Is Your Parachute,
writes about an astonishingly simple, direct, and effective technique for "closing the sale" in a
job interview:
"There is a simple thing any job-hunter can do at the end of a hiring interview that will
greatly increase your chances of being offered the job.
"And that simple thing is at the end of the interview, ask for the job. It doesn't seem to matter how you
ask for the job. That is to say, the actual words don't seem to matter. It can be something simple,
like: 'Can you offer me this job?'
"Or something a little more elaborate, like, 'I believe that I have both the skills and the
experience to do the work we have been discussing, in a way that would benefit your organization a lot.
Can you offer me this job?' Why asking this question should make such a difference, in terms of whether
or not you are offered the job, I have no idea. My guess would be that employers, generally speaking, want
to postpone making a decision about you just as long as they possibly can, but when put on the spot --
as, by your question -- they realize they can already feel in their bones, intuitively, whether the answer
is 'Yes' or 'No.'"
HR World offers a fabulous resource for job-seekers facing interviews. In The Interviewing Cheat Sheet:
100 Resources for Interviewers and Candidates, you'll find sample interview questions, sample answers, articles
on types of interviews, interviewing techniques and advice, interviewing strategies, articles on what not to do
in an interview, interview-prep resources, follow-up resources, resources on resumes and references, as
well as general job-hunting resources (including QuintCareers!)
Bill Bagley, an HR director, offers a terrific tool for interview prep. His "Personal Inventory Prior
to Interviewing" asks job-seekers to inventory their skills, strengths, weaknesses, values, achievements,
interests, favorite and least favorite academic subjects (which interviewers often ask college
students about), role models, motivators, definition of success, goals, and more.
