Interviewing Tips From Your Future Boss
photo: nbc
‘PaleoSprockets’ is a guest contributor and has been an electrical engineer for over 40 years.
Last year, my team and I interviewed a candidate for a technician position. He didn’t do so well on the technical interviews administered by some Spock-like engineers of mine. This surprised me since I really liked him; he had great experience, and he came with glowing recommendations. But in the end, we ended up not hiring him because of the technical interviews.
A few days after the interview, he did something that impressed the hell out of me and ultimately landed him the job — he thanked me for the interview and asked me if I would tell him how he could do better next time. He said he was not used to rejection and wanted to improve his interviewing technique.
After some deep thought, I pointed out to him something that is important: if you put something on your resume, you should be ready to talk at length about it. His resume included some very specific technical projects that he was unable to explain and that bothered the interviewers.
The First Job: Referrals
photo: bizzia.com
Quick tip today.
Still not hired? Getting your foot in the door at your favorite company can be difficult. The dirty secret is that companies like to hire reliable, smart, competent individuals. But before you copy/paste those keywords into your cover letter, consider an alternative route. The best way for a company to check if you meet these obvious standards is to ask someone who they already know. And there’s your ticket.
Referral programs may be the holy grail of the job market. Now all that partying networking in college pays off.
Hop on Facebook or MySpace or whatever you kids use these days, and hit up that successful old roommate of yours. If you can score a job, your buddy gets a nice paycheck bump while you get the opportunity to squander your youth in a job you’ll eventually resent. Win-win.
Tell Your Friends
