I thought I’d give you some resume tips to make your resume stand out amongst your unemployed competitors. This week we’re following the natural progression of things and presenting the best interviewing tips we could find on the world wide web. Let’s get started…
Pre-Interview Tips – Clean Up The Internet
Most of these tips come from Lifehacker (which you’ve seen me reference many times before) and the first up to bat is cleaning up the internet. The article is called, “How to Clean Up Your Online Presence and Make a Great First Impression” and it goes over three important steps to cleaning up your ‘online presence’ before you go on your interview (and technically, before you send out your resume.)
The first step is to simply do a search on Google or Facebook and attempt to ‘erase’ any inconsistenties or anything you don’t want your potential employer to see. Second step is to create or sign up for new services (like about.me) to showcase your skills. You can also optimize your current social media. The third step is Putting Your Best Foot Forward which is basically keeping the internet clean for the future! You just went through all that work to ‘pimp’ your online, don’t start messing it up!!!!
Other new services to spruce up your online presence (via Lifehacker) – “Flavors.me, Vizify, but students may want to try Seelio because you can upload videos and projects that show off your skills even if you don’t have a resume to speak of. Business owners with projects can use Sidengo because their template pages feature things like contact pages, maps, and document downloads for things like forms and menus.”
Oh yeah…they’re all FREE!
Phone Interviews May Happen – Be Prepared
Lifehacker’s “Got a Phone Interview? Make it Awesome, Not Awkward” gives a number of good tips for preparing yourself for a Phone Interview. A lot of these tips are some of the same tips you use for doing voice-over work. Here are the highlights:
- Clarify the details
- Use notes to your advantage
- Dress the part
- Make sure all systems are go
- Keep the end game in mind
- Don’t answer questions right away
- Slow down
- Use your hands
- Say thanks
Be Prepared For Certain Questions!
“Tell me about your work history?” “Tell me about one of your weaknesses?” “Tell me about a challenge you faced with a coworker?” These are three questions you will be asked at your next interview. Lifehacker’s “How to Tackle Three of the Toughest Interview Questions” covers how you should answer these three questions.
Go read the article and then come back. You done? Not yet, it’s cool…All right, ready? Okay. The main point of the answers is to think off your resume. When you reiterate your resume you’re actually insulting your interviewer by assuming they can’t read! Talk about something different. Hell, maybe leave something off your resume just so you can talk about it during the interview.
Also, when an interviewer asks you about your faults make sure you allude to your strengths within your faults. It’s pretty easy to do. The article says an answer should be something like, “I’ve spent the majority of my career working for one industry. In some ways, that can limit my perspective. Of course, I’ve worked in a variety of departments—and in fact I was promoted faster than anyone else to run project X—but I’m ready to take what I’ve learned to a different culture and industry, and that’s why I’m here.”
Tips For The Interview Itself!
The last Lifehacker article is simply titled “Top 10 Tips for Acing Your Next Job Interview.” Here’s the summary of the great tips:
- First, Get the Interview
- Prepare Ahead of Time
- Make a Good First Impression
- Tackle the Tough Questions
- Ask Some Questions Yourself
- Emphasize Your Good Qualities
- Avoid the Common Pitfalls
- Recover When Things Go South
- Follow Up Afterwards
- If You Don’t Get Hired, Find Out Why
