5 rules for asking better interview questions

By Kate Lorenz

With the addition of 573,000 nonfarm payroll jobs since December, American workers are feeling more optimistic about their employment prospects. Those who had all but given up their job searches have started to re-enter the job market, which accounted for the rise in the unemployment rate in April despite the positive job growth.

Fewer job openings for job seekers also mean fewer interviews and it’s possible your once-sharp interview skills are now out of shape due to lack of practice. Today we have a guest blog from John Kador, author of the new second edition of “301 Best Questions to Ask On Your Interview” Practice these before your next interview, which will hopefully come before you know it.

Interview the interviewer: 5 Rules for Framing Better Questions

The landscape for job seekers today is more treacherous than at any time in recent memory. In other words, if you want a job today, you may actually have to work for it.

One way to really shine is by asking questions. Questions are the best way for you to demonstrate that you understand the company’s challenges, emphasize how you can help the company meet them, and show your interest in the most unmistakable manner possible — by actually asking for the position. These rules, excerpted from “301 Best Questions to Ask On Your Interview” will help arm you with new interview questions and techniques for selling yourself and getting the job you want.

Here are five rules for framing questions that will put you in the best light.

1. Ask open-ended questions.
Closed-ended questions can be answered “yes” or “no,” and begin with words such as “did,” “have,” “do,” “would” and “are.” Open-ended questions — usually begin with “how,” “when,” and “who” — create opportunities for a conversation and a much richer exchange of information.

This is a closed question:

Candidate: Does the company have a child-care center on-site?

Interviewer: Yes.

Open-ended question:

Candidate: How does the company support working parents?

Interviewer: Let me show you a brochure about our award-winning day care center located right here in the building. “Working Women” magazine recently rated it one of the top ten corporate day care centers in the U.S. . . .

2. Keep it short
Nothing is as disconcerting as a candidate spewing out a long, complicated question only to have the interviewer look confused and say, “I’m sorry I don’t understand your question.” Restrict every question to one point. Resist mouthfuls like this:

I know that international sales are important, so how much of the company’s revenues are derived from overseas, is that percentage growing, declining, or stable, do international tariffs present difficulties, and how will currency fluctuations impact the mix?

No interviewer should be expected to take on such a complicated question. If you really think a conversation about these points is in your interest, indicate your interest in the issue and then break the question into separate queries.

3. Don’t interrupt
Wait for the interviewer to finish the question. One candidate reported the following exchange:

Hiring Manager: I see by your resume that you’ve had six systems analyst jobs in six years . . .

Candidate [interrupting]: . . . And you want me to explain the job-hopping, right?

Hiring Manager: Actually, I was going to ask what’s one new skill you took away from each job. But since you mentioned job-hopping, I am concerned about your ability to stick with one employer for more than year.

Oops. Better to wait for the full question. How much better it would have been for the above candidate:

Hiring Manager: I see by your resume that you’ve had six systems analyst jobs in six years. Can you mention one specific skill you took away from each experience?

Candidate: You’re asking what’s one important skill I added to my portfolio from each of the jobs I’ve held, is that right?

Hiring Manager: Exactly.

Candidate: Good question. Let’s take my jobs in order . . .

4. Getting to yes
Your goal in the job interview is also to end the interview on an affirmation. In fact, the more “yes’s” and statements of agreement you can generate, the better off you will be. Why? People, including job interviewers, really prefer being agreeable. Few people enjoy saying no. Who needs arguments? The best way to avoid arguments is to say yes.

If the job interview features wave after wave of yes’s, think how much easier it will be for the interviewer to say yes to that last question, whether it’s asked explicitly or implicitly:

I think I’ve demonstrated I’m qualified for this job. I’d very much like to join the team. Can we come to an agreement?

In tactical terms, that means framing your interview questions so the answers you want or expect will be positive:

Candidate: I have long been impressed by Acme Widgets. It’s been the leader in pneumatic widgets for over 50 years, right?

Interviewer: (proudly) Yes!

Candidate: I noticed in the current annual report that the company sets aside $50 million or 2.5 percent of revenues for research and development. That’s more than all of your competitors, isn’t it?

Interviewer: Yes. We lead the industry in allocation of R&D by revenue.

Candidate: As the market for widgets gets more commoditized, the we will have to differentiate the product, right? What specifically is the company doing to preserve the market share it has gained over the years?

5. Use inclusive language
Look at the last dialogue again. Did you notice that the candidate subtly shifted from “you” to “we”? Words such as “we” and “our” subtly give the impression that the candidate is already a member of the team. The more comfortable the interviewer is with the concept of the candidate already being on the team, the better the candidate’s chances. It’s so much easier extending a job offer to someone who the interviewer on some level already perceives as part of “us” instead of “them.”

John Kador is the author of the new second edition of “301 Best Questions to Ask On Your Interview” (McGraw-Hill, 2010). He can be reached at jkador@jkador.com.

Original Article

Why more people feel now's the time to seek a job

By JEANNINE AVERSA

A Miami woman who exhausted her unemployment aid needs to pay bills. A Phoenix job-seeker wants a greater sense of purpose. A Boston woman has heard that hiring is picking up.

The economy absorbed a flood of 805,000 new job-seekers last month -- the sharpest monthly influx in seven years. They were driven by economic need, renewed optimism and evidence that more employers are hiring.

They're right. Companies added a net total of 290,000 jobs in April, the most in four years. Yet so many people poured into the work force that they drove up the unemployment rate from 9.7 percent to 9.9 percent.

Hundreds of thousands more will likely join them in the coming months, drawn by the improving economy and the possibility that Congress won't continually extend unemployment benefits. Their influx would send the unemployment rate back into double digits before it's likely to decline. And it will keep competition for jobs intense.

But those who have streamed into the labor force feel they can't wait any longer. They are people like Laura Gonzalez of Miami, whose on-again job hunt is the product of necessity. Her unemployment benefits cut off in April.

Gonzalez felt disheartened after being laid off from her job as an associate at an investment company early last year. At times, she stopped looking for work.

In the past few weeks, in need of money to pay for food and rent, she began looking more actively. She's applied for about 10 jobs a day over the past month.

"As much as they say there's new jobs out there, I don't see a turnaround at all," says Gonzalez, 28.

Neither does Julie Anderocci of Phoenix.

Six weeks ago, she lost her job as a customer service rep for Medicaid. For the first month, she mainly slept and ate. She was too upset to consider looking for work.

Now, besides needing money, Anderocci says she yearns for the pride and fulfillment a new job would bring. It isn't always easy to persevere, she finds.

"I'm working on being optimistic on finding a job -- that's a job in itself," Anderocci says.

To try to stay positive about her search, she began volunteering at an animal rescue shelter.

"Looking for work at my age is the most stressful thing you can think of," says Anderocci, 56.

A sense of urgency infuses the job searches of many. Even with Congress' recent extensions of unemployment aid, hundreds of thousands of people a month could exhaust their benefits within a few months, according to some analysts' estimates. Under current law, jobless people can draw unemployment aid for up to 99 weeks.

Fear about losing that aid, along with rising job openings, will keep up the stream of new job-seekers. April's total of 805,000 new job-hunters -- the most since 2003 -- won't likely be topped, economists say, though it didn't set a record. More than 1 million people engulfed the labor market in June 1983, after the 1981-1982 recession. Still, nearly half a million new job-seekers a month are expected in coming months.

That's why the unemployment rate could top double digits again, economists said. The rate hit 10.1 percent in October.

Ken Goldstein, an economist at the Conference Board, a research group that monitors consumer behavior, says people tend to form a collective feeling that the time is right to look for jobs.

A neighbor or fellow churchgoer mentions openings. An unemployed friend lands work. Expenses pile up. Improving economic signs flash on TV.

Optimism spreads. Suddenly, more people start looking.

"It's like pulling a brick out of a dam," Goldstein says.

Caught up in the rush is Karen Vigurs-Stack, who began hunting again a few weeks ago. She hasn't worked full time since she left her job as marketing director for a Boston TV station when her son was born in 2002.

With her husband as the family's sole earner, the household budget has been squeezed. Weeks ago, Vigurs-Stack learned that more companies in the Boston area were hiring. Then she read about an Internet marketing firm hiring 100 people.

She made a decision then: "I thought, 'OK, now it's my time.' I wanted to take advantage when it's hot."

Yet it hasn't been easy. Vigurs-Stack notices that jobs posted to Internet boards are filled almost instantly. She has hooked up with an employment agency in hopes of getting an inside track on jobs before they're posted.

"I'll just have to pound the pavement a little harder," she says.

She's got plenty of company. About 5.5 people, on average, are competing for each available job opening. That compares with only 1.8 people per opening when the recession began in December 2007.

Jena Hartman of Greenwood, Ind., is among the fortunate ones.

On April 21, she landed a part-time job with an extension service run by Purdue University. She'd been looking since August 2008. Her husband had worked for three nursing home companies that all went bankrupt.

Hartman works 20 hours a week with elderly people and others on low incomes, teaching them how to stretch their dollars and buy nutritional foods.

Hartman, 60, used to work in the food industry before taking time off to watch her granddaughter while her daughter returned to school and then to work.

She had sent out hundreds of resumes over the first several months of her search.

"There must be a room someplace here in Indianapolis -- and it's a fairly large room -- that is wallpapered with my resumes," she says.

In June 2009, she found a job. But she was let go soon after.

"It took me about a month to lick my wounds and gather my self confidence again, and I just started the whole networking process again."

Hartman resumed the search last fall. She and her husband needed the steady paycheck. Hartman applied to work in dietary services at nursing homes. She looked for work with school lunch services.

Then the job at Purdue came through.

"I personally didn't see any turnaround," Hartman said. "I am a very religious person. As far as I'm concerned, this position is a gift from God, an answer to prayers."

------

Associated Press Writers Christine Armario in Miami, Terry Tang in Phoenix, Tom Murphy in Indianapolis, Christopher Leonard in St. Louis, Stephen Manning in Washington, Page Ivey in Columbia, S.C., and Matt Leingang in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report.

Original BusinessWeek Story

Top 3 Mistakes People Make on LinkedIn

Everyone is on LinkedIn these days. Let’s face it. Almost every CEO from every fortune 500. Last count was over 60 million users.

In contrast, job boards only have about 3.5% of available jobs. This is common knowledge in the career industry, but why do so many people spend so much time on job boards?

Answer: Because it feels safer.

LinkedIn is really all about networking. And socializing in an unfamiliar environment can be frightening. I know, I’m an introvert. I totally understand why job seekers try to spend as little time as possible in front of LinkedIn.

So what I want to offer 3 of the most common mistakes in using LinkedIn and how to avoid them. My goal is to help job seekers get over any unconscious resistance to using the most powerful job finding tool ever invented.

And if you want to register to a free webinar about how to proactively get job interviews using LinkedIn on 12/22, CLICK HERE TO REGISTER.

Mistake 1: Not Having a Brand

Shoe companies have brands, not people!

Wrong.

Looking for a job is just another sales situation. You are your product. And everything about you is going to either sell you, or turn people away.

It’s really just a choice you have to make inside.

Just like how we make buying decisions emotionally, sometimes based on silly things, like the color of the packaging. So too do hiring managers unconsciously make decisions about our candidacy.

If your Resume doesn’t quite match your LinkedIn profile, and that doesn’t match what your referral said about you, then you are in big trouble.

The risk of being inconsistent is huge, and it helps to have defined “who you are” long before you put yourself out there.

The second part of branding is knowing your audience. What are their 2 biggest problems right now, that you could potentially solve?

The trick is to align the “who you are” with the “what they need”, so that there is a nice overlap.

This, my friends, is your personal brand. It will define your strategy, your writing style, your colors, photos and everything else about you online.

Most people crank out their LinkedIn profile without doing this step first.

Mistake 2: You are NOT Your J-o-b

“Systems Engineer”

“Marketing Executive”

“Fundraiser”

These appear under someone’s name in their LinkedIn profiles. And they tell us nothing about who this person really is.

They are a commodity.

Quick story. I had a client, a network engineer, who wanted to work for a very large shoe company. No, not Nike, but good guess.

He knew they had 2 problems. First, they had no internal network. Second, their external network was so broken that it was affecting supply chain.

So in order to really appeal to this company, we needed to directly address their biggest challenges- challenges that he had the capacity to solve.

So his headline went like this, “Powerful Intranet builder|Supply Chain thought leader|Project management guru”

You have 120 characters to tell the world who you are and what value you bring.

And every communication you generate on LinkedIn will have this professional headline attached to it.

So choose wisely.

Hint: don’t use your job title as your headline

Mistake 3: Don’t Look Like an Axe Murderer

Every single time I speak about social media in the job search, someone always comes up to me afterward to ask me this question, “But I’m just not that comfortable putting my picture up”. They are either too young or too old or too something.

Yes, ageism, racism and sexism are very real. It’s sad and terrible that they still happen in our society. But using a black and white photo, or zooming way out to try and hide something about ourselves is not going to solve the problem.

The only thing we can do is put some time and effort into our photos, to reflect who we are honestly. And to make a nice looking photo.

All too often, people will put up a mug shot, and wonder why they aren’t getting call backs.

This really happened to a friend’s client. And the day he changed his photo, he got a job offer. No exaggeration. (I can hear the HR people cringing from this story, but it’s true).

So the lesson from this is that it is worth getting a professional headshot taken if you are serious about getting a job.

Original Post On Careerealism

Power Job Search Tips With Google

Original Article

Child's Final Superheroic Wish Is The Greatest Thing You'll Read Today

The Make-A-Wish Foundation made 13-year-old Erik Martin's superhero dream a reality with a giant city-wide role playing scenario that incorporated all of Seattle. With the help of the Seattle Sounders, Spider-Man and a DeLorean, Electron Boy saved the day.

Martin, who is living with liver cancer, always wanted to be a superhero, and the people of Seattle, along with the Make-A-Wish foundation were more than happy to make that fantasy a reality for one perfect day.

On April 30th, Martin woke up to a desperate phone call from Spider-Man, the only other super that knows his superhero identity as Electron Boy. The Seattle Sounders had been taken hostage by Dr. Dark and Blackout Boy, and they needed his help! Electron Boy suited up and rode out to Qwest Field via DeLorean on a shut down road with a police motorcycle escort. And that's just the start of his day.

After Electron Boy freed the Sounders, much to the joy of his awaiting fans, Dr. Dark and Blackout Boy struck again! This time, they threatened to plummet all of Seattle into darkness. So it was back on the road again for Electron Boy. After saving a few civilian hostages, along with finishing up a few other heroic deeds, his wild chase landed Electron Boy at the Space Needle. After a big show down, Electron Boy bested the evil doers, and the police carted them away. And the crowd went wild. We urge you to read the entire story at the Seattle Times, because there really was no limit to this town's outpouring of love, support, and role playing creativity.

This is by far the most amazing thing we've read all day. We wish Electron Boy all the best in all his future heroic endeavors. He's definitely our new hero, along with the good people of Seattle.

Here's are a few snapshots that captured Electron Boy's heroic acts:

Thanks for the tip Kat!

Additional Make-A-Wish Foundation information.

UPDATE:

Original io9 Story

Long Job Search? 25 Action Tips To End Yours ASAP

How to shake yourself from the daze of a long job search and start getting conclusive results.

Although most of these tips are useful for any job seeker, all of them are intended for people who’ve been job searching for much longer than they expected, possibly even a year or more.

My own long job search story

In December 2001, I started looking for a career job in Israel for the first time, having taken a few months to relax after resigning from my managerial position at Amazon.com in France.

In July 2002, 8 months later, I didn’t have much to show for my job hunting efforts and with my savings dwindling, I was starting to feel a little desperate and more alone than ever on my job search. However, I made one major change to my job search strategy and within a few weeks, I entered the recruitment process that resulted in my starting a new job on October 1st of that year.

That major change I made is #25 at the bottom of this list of tips for others like myself who know too well the frustration of a prolonged job search.

25 tips

1) Open yourself to change. There’s a fine but clear line between getting into a job search groove and a job search rut: in the former, you actually feel like you’re getting somewhere, moving closer to your next job, while the latter seems to go on forever. Once you get into a set of habits, it’s not easy to change out of them, and it’s never easy to experiment when you feel that your livelihood (and reputation?) are in the balance, but you will need to embrace change if you’re not getting the job search results you desire.

2) Take a short vacation to recharge your batteries. Vacations are also good for inspiration and meeting people, plus- haven’t you ever felt like your best ideas sometimes come to you when your mind is 100% thinking about something else?

3) Stay positive. No one’s going to give you a job interview out of pity, and no one’s going to hire you out of pity. You need to stay upbeat; your next job literally depends on it. Do whatever it takes. Build on the successes of little things like finding a new job lead, making a new contact, etc., and by letting little achievements from outside of the job search throw some good feeling into your job search. Another way to get the positive juices flowing is exercising regularly.

4) Stop job searching alone. For the 8+ months of my 2002 job search above, I spent almost every single day in front of my computer looking for jobs online, rarely ever meeting with anyone outside of the occasional interview. It was no wonder that I felt alone and isolated, which certainly didn’t help my morale. Instead, look for every opportunity to partake in your job search activities with other people, both job seeker and not, both online and off. Have lunch weekly with other job seekers you know, hang out here on JobMob, asking questions, and so on. I wish I had known of such options back in 2002 when I struggled so much to find a job.

5) Write your curriculum vitae as if it was the first time, making a full job history you can reference moving forward. Go back to the beginning of your career. For each job you had, list your title, required skills, responsibilities, achievements and anything you were proud of. Numbers are good if you have them. Were there any memorable stories that may be worth recalling in a job interview? Jot them down too, for each position. Can’t remember all the details? Use that as an excuse to re-establish contact with past colleagues or former employers.

6) Get an independent, expert audit of your job search to date. Go over what you’ve done well, what you’ve done wrong and get specific, actionable ideas of what you should be doing right now to change your luck. Look for such help from your college/university alumni association, local employment center, favorite blogging job search expert, etc.

7) Hire a job search coach. They can conduct the above audit with you, and give you those kickstart ideas.

8) Reach out to local headhunters who specialize in your industry. They’ll immediately know if your skillset is in demand based on what their clients are looking for, among other things. Get a second opinion too; you don’t want to make any decisions based on just one person’s thoughts.

9) Consider relocation. Perhaps there really is no demand for your skillset in your local area. The farther you’re willing to move, the more job opportunities you open yourself to.

10) What about teleworking? If there’s no local demand for your skillset, find out where there is demand and apply for a teleworking opportunity. This allows you to respond to a company’s needs without the radical changes of a potentially unnecessary move, or possibly to test the waters before such a move.

11) Update your skills. The irony of having a job is that you’re often so busy, you don’t have time to refresh your knowledge, and this can even be true in countries where employee education budgets are required by law like in France. Technology is always advancing, discoveries are made, new ideas are practiced. If you’ve been job searching for a long time, stop to look around and make sure you know what you need to get a job today, not what you needed to know a year ago. Add value.

12) Learn new skills. When meeting local headhunters, ask them which skills are most in demand. Browse recent job board listings to corroborate, and choose the skills that can most increase your worth within a reasonable amount of time. Then start learning every day. If you’re not someone who learns well on their own, take a course online, sign up for workshops at a local community center, college or institute. Again, add value.

13) Followup with old contacts. You probably told everyone about your job search back when you began looking? That was well over 6 months ago, and unless they know better, they may think you’ve already found something. Send a gentle reminder that you’re still available.

14) Stay in touch with your contacts. Once you’ve reached out to someone, whether at the beginning of your job search or now so much later, stay in contact with them so that they are less likely to forget about you. Also, don’t break contact again once you do find something, leaving them to feel used. Perhaps you can help them back somehow.

15) Find new contacts. Over months of searching, it may feel like you’ve exhausted all your contacts. Discover new networking opportunities by joining local associations or networking groups, attending conferences and Tweetups, both offline and online; if they’re locally-based, you can then carry over an online meet into a real world meet. Learning new skills (#6 above) will also introduce you to new communities of people.

16) Reapply to a former employer. As long as you left a good impression on the way out, they may only be too happy to have you back since they know what you’re capable of, making for a shorter, less-expensive recruitment and a quicker integration. Another good reason to stay in touch with your ex-colleagues and ex-bosses (at least, the ones you enjoyed working for).

17) Start consulting as soon as possible. Whether you’ve been looking for work for 1 week or 1 year, get yourself business cards that say you’re a consultant in your field of professional expertise. When people ask what you do, reply “I consult on X, but am also available for full-time work” and hand them a business card, which leaves a better impression than just saying “I’m looking for a job”. Plus, you might even get some clients, which is a great way to fill a resume gap while potentially leading to a permanent position with a client company or business partner they referred you to.

18) Offer job trials to prospective employers. Let employers see what you can do by working in a temporary job capacity for them or on a per-project basis. However, the end goal should be definitive i.e. a ‘yes or no’ achievement, to prevent employers from taking advantage of you.

19) Get a temporary job. Use a temporary job to impress employers into finding ways to convert the position into a permanent one. Also a great way to build your network of contacts even more, and discover other jobs, both temporary and permanent. You might even decide you like the temping lifestyle and aim for those types of positions, which are in constant demand due to natural company turnover.

20) Line up information interviews. If you need a hook, find a magazine/trade publication/blog (your own?) to whom you can submit an op-ed or guest post and then tell companies how you’re researching an article for them. If you write well, aim for this interview reason first. Otherwise, you can always take notes or record the interview on your cellphone and then hire a freelance writer to finish the article for you.

21) Be selective in which positions you choose to apply for. Aim for the quick win by applying for jobs you have already succeeded in. This will mean fewer jobs to apply for, but will increase your chances of finally getting a positive response. Fewer job applications also means less demoralizing rejections or non-responses, and more time for other more interesting job search activities listed here.

22) Avoid career changes. Similarly to the previous tip, now is not the time to look for a change in career direction. It’s much harder to convince someone you can do a job without any experience than when you’ve already succeeded in that role. That said, be open to new opportunities if such an unexpected offer comes your way.

23) Volunteer. There are many reasons to volunteer while on a job search, but these are even more true on a prolonged job search. Achieving through volunteering will improve your morale in leading to new contacts while potentially improving your skills, if you choose an appropriate organization to volunteer for, such as the leading association of professionals in your industry.

24) Consider a move downward. Like an army that retreats to fight again another day, it’s better to take a step down the career ladder than stay off it entirely. This can be tricky as employers may see you as overqualified and you may be frustrated by not being able to show off all that you can do. All that really matters is what you can achieve for your new boss and how you can leverage that into a position that will allow you to meet your potential. Even entry-level jobs can be used to springboard you back up the ladder again.

25) Be flexible. Take a good hard look at the self-imposed limits of your job search and decide which limits you can remove, opening yourself to new job opportunities. In the story of my 2002 job search in Israel, what made a big difference was my decision to no longer limit myself to jobs in Israel itself, and with that, my wife and I returned to France with a good job in hand, found almost immediately after I’d become more flexible.

Bonus tip

26) Keep trying! Don’t give up. New opportunities can appear at any time. In hockey, a goal scorer in a slump will eventually score as long as he keeps shooting pucks at the net. Likewise, if you persevere in following best practices while trying new ideas in looking for leads, growing your network and improving your skills, something will eventually come your way.

Original Article

Finding your dream job just got easier

Finding your dream job just got easier

Parker Barrile

In this economic environment it’s tough to find a job. But LinkedIn can help. Today we’re excited to announce a major upgrade for job seekers on LinkedIn: the Job Seeker Premium Account.

We spoke with hundreds of job seekers to understand their needs and designed a package of features to help them stand out from the crowd, reach out to hiring decision makers, and manage their job search more effectively. The new Job Seeker Premium Account enables job seekers to:

• Move to the top of the hiring manager’s list as Featured Applicant when you apply to jobs on LinkedIn
• Send personalized InMail messages directly to hiring managers, even those outside their network
• Save profiles, add notes and keep track of contacts from your job search with Profile Organizer

We’re also launching a new Job Seeker Webinar, hosted by career expert Lindsey Pollak, that provides guidance on how to use LinkedIn to find a job and take control of your career. The webinar includes a series of specific, tactical tips for how job seekers can make the most of LinkedIn’s free and premium features. The 60-minute session is held monthly and is free for all LinkedIn members, which you can sign up for here.

And don’t forget that LinkedIn has tens of thousands of high-quality job listings that you can search, view and apply to for free. So if you’re looking for a job, give LinkedIn Jobs a spin. We think you’ll agree with Fortune Magazine that “if you are serious about managing your career, the only site that matters is LinkedIn”.