The Monster Blog

The Monster 5 for Friday -- Careers Edition -- Week of June 25

It’s Friday, and we’re spotlighting five more articles we consider to be must-reads for job seekers this week. 

Here are the top 5 stories from the world of job seeking you might have missed:

5. A Hiring Manager Perspective: Do's and Don’ts of Applying to an Internship: Wondering what the hiring manager is really thinking? Get inside the head of hiring manager Chris Brablc as he explains what really stands out when reviewing the resumes and cover letters of internship candidates.

4. 10 Interview Styles That Make My Blood Run Cold by Tim Tyrell-Smith: Review these interview styles so you know what NOT to do in your next interview.

3. The Weirdest Job Interview Questions and How to Handle Them: You’ve prepared everything for the interview from company background research to news results. You’re ready for any question they could ask -- or are you? Susan Adams from Forbes magazine explains how to prepare for the weirdest questions you could be asked.

2. Top 10 Annoying Habits at Work: Don’t be "that guy" at work. Beverly West outlines the annoying habits you should avoid.

1. Some Assembly Required: Wondering why you aren’t getting a call back after applying to a job online? Dawn Bugni asks whether you're following the directions.

For more must-read content, check out the Monster 5: Works Edition for this week’s top articles from the world of talent management.

Which of these was your favorite? What did we miss? Let us know in the comments below.

The Monster 5 for Friday -- Careers Edition (Volume 3)

We’re back this Friday spotlighting five new articles we consider to be must-reads for job seekers this week. 

Here are the top 5 stories from the world of job seeking you might have missed:

5. Resume Tips for Job Fair Success: Check out this piece by Kim Isaacs to learn tips and tricks for networking, finding job leads and making the best impression at a job fair.

4. Addressing Salary Requirements in a Cover Letter: Ever felt uncomfortable addressing salary requirements in a cover letter? Overcome this challenge with these tips from Jessica Hernandez.

3. Great Questions to Ask in the Interview: You know you’re supposed to ask questions in the interview but what should you ask and why? Susan Kennedy gives examples of questions to ask to get the real picture of the company and its culture.

2. Reverse Googling: Interview Prep Strategy: Never thought to try this? Dan Klamm explains why having basic knowledge about your interviewer will help you make a positive impression and build stronger rapport during your interview or meeting.

1. 7 Steps to Succeeding in Corporate America: Don Sabatini on the CareerRocketeer blog highlights some key areas you can focus on to ensure you can excel in corporate America.

For more must-read content, check out the Monster 5: Works Edition for this week’s top articles from the world of talent management.

Which of these was your favorite? What did we miss? Let us know in the comments below.

How to Wreck a Job Interview in Truly Spectacular Fashion

We recently posted an article by Monster Senior Contributing Writer John Rossheim offering insight into a question we get from job seekers all the time -- why am I getting interviews, but never the job? With five applicants for every job opening these days, of course the economy has something to do with it. But, as the article explains, it could also be how you relate -- or don't relate -- to the interviewer.

So for a short case study on how not to get along with your interviewer, let's review the litany of mistakes an individual we'll call Candidate J made when I interviewed him several years ago at another company. Where did he go wrong? For starters, he argued with me, insulted me, shouted me down, refused to answer key questions asked multiple times and talked himself so hoarse that he needed to leave to get water. On his way back from the water cooler, he chatted up a former colleague in the hall for 10 minutes, at which point I decided I had had more than enough and ended the interview.

Candidate J interviewed with several other people on the team that day and behaved just as boorishly with them as well. I don't remember if he sent a thank-you note, but I do remember he couldn't think of a weakness. And no, he didn't get the job.

This behavior goes way beyond the more common ways to wreck a job interview, such as being late, dressing inappropriately, not researching the company and failing to ask any questions. None of this is to suggest that there aren't boorish interviewers as well -- surely, there are -- but job seekers still need to do their utmost to develop a good rapport with any interviewer they face. Here are some tips that Candidate J failed -- spectacularly -- to heed:

·   Respect Your Interviewer: Even if the interviewer would be a peer or direct report, he already has a job at the company you're applying to -- and may have more influence over the hiring decision than you know.

·   Read the Interviewer's Body Language: You may be in trouble if the interviewer leans back in his chair, shakes his head or checks the time.

·   Actively Listen: The interviewer may be revealing an important point about the position or key concern about your qualifications. Respond well, and you could advance your candidacy; miss it, and you leave the door open for someone else.

·   Check In with the Interviewer: You'll have only so much time with the interviewer, so keep your interview answers concise, but remember to ask from time to time, "Do you need me to go into more detail?" This way, you'll spend the bulk of your time discussing what the interviewer considers to be the most important aspects of the job.

Have you ever had any disaster job interviews -- either as the candidate or interviewer? Leave a comment below, and check out these articles to brush up on your interview etiquette:

·   Think of Your Interview as a Simple Conversation

·   Interview Tip: Listen Well

·   Steer Clear of Interviewers' Pet Peeves

The Monster 5 for Friday -- Careers Edition

Every Friday, we’re spotlighting five articles we consider to be must-reads for job seekers.

Here are the top 5 stories from the world of job seeking you might have missed:

5. Is Any Job Better Than No Job? Career bloggers and other experts sound off on the NYTimes Blog, discussing the question weighing on the mind of every unemployed job seeker in this economy: Is any job better than no job?

4. Best Cities for Jobs by Dona DeZube: Planning to move to find your next job? Consider these growing cities.

3. Four Secrets of Grabbing the Recruiter’s Attention in Your Cover Letter: This post from the CareerBright blog gives you four easy-to-follow tips to get noticed with your cover letter.

2. Standing Out in a Job Search: Having trouble figuring our what hiring managers want to hear? Joshua Waldman showcases why it’s important to tell an interviewer (and everyone you network with) not only who you are, but who you aren’t.

1. What Kind of Writing Sample Do Employers Want To See? The hiring manager just asked for a writing sample -- what should you do? Alison Green tells you the dos and don’ts of this crucial element in the job application.

For more must-read content, check out the Monster 5: Works Edition for this week’s top articles from the world of talent management.

Which of these was your favorite? What did we miss? Let us know in the comments below.

Cooking Up New Opportunities by Volunteering

Volunteering can be a great way to network and gain career skills while helping give back to the community. Monster recently teamed up with Points of Light Institute's HandsOn Network as part of our 2010 Keep America Working Tour to deliver volunteer opportunities to job seekers.

We spoke with Veronica Parages, director of skills-based volunteering at HandsOn Network to get more information about how volunteering can benefit your job search. A native of France and cooking enthusiast, Parages is going to take a crack at using cooking as a reference point to answer some questions about her other passion: volunteerism.

Are volunteer organizations looking for a specific age range? Is it better to be older, younger, or can anyone with a passion to help others volunteer?

Any age is perfect. Volunteering on a project is like helping in the kitchen. Even if you don’t know how to cook, everyone has unique skills and talents that can be put to use. The same is true for volunteering. You have skills that can help others -- professional or personal -- and as long as you’re willing to give it a try, volunteer organizations will help you find a project that meets your competencies. 

How can volunteering help a job search?  Does it help with networking? 

Let’s use another cooking reference. Suppose you know a good chef, an expert who was recently laid off during these tough economic times. Without a full-time job, a chef could choose to stay in bed all day. But, because they’re helping the food bank to find new resources, they’re meeting vendors to get some fresh ingredients for free. They feel helpful and productive, and stay engaged in the community. In the process, they meet new people, expanding their network of contacts. A growing network is one way to increase your chances of finding employment, and it all started with volunteering.

How do you see volunteerism playing into a larger career-development strategy?

Chefs aren’t born cooking -- they must learn. Volunteering your expertise, sometimes working completely outside your normal realm, could help you develop leadership skills. Suddenly you’ve got a whole new set of skills to offer an employer and, again, more opportunities to find a new job. Plus, volunteering is a great way to try something new in a low-risk environment. Who knows -- you may find your true passion in the process.

What tips do you have for people who might be volunteering for the first time?

·   Be Open-Minded: Skills-based volunteering is a new world that can give you a lot, but is quite different from a business environment.

 

·   Nonprofit Organizations Need Help to Provide Help: Here is an example: I was talking to a young volunteer when I discovered he specialized in logistics. He was currently volunteering every Saturday for a food bank delivering meals. He liked what he was doing but was disappointed that the distribution system wasn’t efficient and that he was not delivering to the same families every week. I suggested he offer up his logistics knowledge to the food bank to help reorganize the food distribution. His skills and help would be appreciated and he, and the other volunteers, would be able to have more impact as they continued their food deliveries. Be proactive in proposing your talents, skills and knowledge.

·   Be Creative: This is your opportunity. Constraints and lack of resources in the nonprofit sector shouldn’t stop you. Think outside the box, put your "noodles" to work to find solutions.…It is worth it.

What’s the most unique or offbeat volunteer organization you know of? 

HandsOn Network, of course. We are always trying to find new recipes, and skills-based volunteering is just one. We want to connect the right volunteer with the right skills to the right project for a major impact -- how great is that? Contact HandsOn Network at one of its 242 Action Centers across the United States to discover skills-based volunteering initiatives. Or to find the right project for you, check out the HandsOn Network Web site. If you are interested in the subject, the National Conference on Volunteering and Service is offering plenty of opportunities to learn more about skills-based volunteering.

Now, get out there and start cooking -- I mean, volunteering your skills.

Want to learn more about volunteering to develop your professional skills while you’re unemployed? In this video, a HandsOn Network volunteer at the Los Angeles stop of the Keep America Working Tour answers a frequently asked question about volunteering:

How have you leveraged volunteer work in your career or job search? Leave a comment below, and check out these articles:

·   Volunteering Can Boost Skills, Advance Careers

·   Online Volunteering: A Win-Win for Techies, Nonprofits

·   Leverage Volunteer Work on Your Resume

The Monster 5 for Friday -- Careers Edition

Today, we’re bringing you our first Monster 5, a weekly recap of the top 5 news items from the world of job search. Each Friday, we’ll spotlight five articles we consider to be must-reads for job seekers. 

5. Your Cover Letter Is Not About You: Guest blogger Lori Bielek on the Student Branding Blog explains what you need to know to write a cover letter that will stand out and show an employer you want the job.

4. Nine Tips to Improve Your Chances at Job Fairs by Carole Martin: With more competition in the job market, it pays to get out there. Attending a job fair beats sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring, right?

3. Pretty and Professional: Summer 2010 Women’s Business Fashion: This piece from the Ms. Career Girl blog gives you tips to keep your office apparel classy this summer.

2. Resume Rehab: Are You Guilty of Adjective Abuse? In this BNET article, Mark Jaffe teaches you how to avoid and correct this problem before you apply to another job.

1. What Not to Do on Facebook When You're Job Searching: Over on About.com, career expert Alison Doyle gives you tips to avoid letting your Facebook profile impact your job search.

For more must-read content, check out the Monster 5: Works Edition for this week’s top articles from the world of talent management.

Which of these was your favorite? What did we miss? Let us know in the comments below.

Is Your Resume Authentic?

If you perused resume advice when writing your resume, you learned the basics such as the importance of including accomplishments, creating a qualifications summary, customizing the resume to your goal and proofreading to make sure it's perfect. But now that your resume is done, do you recognize yourself? If your resume doesn't reflect the real you, chances are that employers will pick up on that and you will lose job opportunities.

Stay true to yourself by avoiding these resume traps:

1. Don't Copy: Avoid the temptation to adapt your resume from a sample, a template or a friend's resume. I've published hundreds of resume samples, and quite often I see some version of a resume I've written -- sometimes more than 10 years ago -- come across my desk. If your resume looks like all of the other resumes based on a template or a sample, you are not going to stand out from the crowd.

2. Don't Use "Resume-Speak": In the resume writing industry, we refer to overuse of clichés and pompous words as resume-speak. It's better to write as if you were speaking in a professional setting and use words that sound genuine to you. Remove tired phrases that lack substance and are just wasting space. For example, instead of saying that you are a "results-driven, top-performing team player with excellent communication and organizational skills,” cite specific examples of accomplishments that relate to these skills.

3. Don't Lie: The tight labor market has left many people unemployed or underemployed and wondering how best to explain job changes and long gaps. It's tempting to lie or exaggerate to get an edge, and many job seekers do go down that road. However, misrepresenting yourself has consequences, including guilt, constant worrying and even job termination if the lie is discovered. The truth is that hiccups in your work history are never as bad as you think, and can be overcome by a carefully thought-out resume strategy combined with an aggressive job search campaign.

Check out these articles for more tips:

·   Three Ways to Fill Your Resume Gaps

·   Let Sample Resumes Inspire You, Not Define You

·   Understand Smart Resume Packaging vs. Exaggeration

What strategies have helped you create a resume that reflects who you are? Please share in the comments below!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kim Isaacs is the Monster Resume Expert and director of ResumePower.com.