Oct

31

Corporate America vs Entrepreneurship

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I came across this article, Why do you work so hard?, from SFGate.com. The article is targeted toward anyone who is over-worked in their corporate job and questioning why and how that happened to them. Why are they in a job with excessive hours and workload? Why are they stuck with in unsatisfactory career which is causing negative effects on their personal life?

This article forces you to think about your career and what you are willing to sacrifice if any changes need to be made. How do you come to that decision to make a drastic career change? It depends how bad your current situation is. Certain types of commitments obviously make it harder and riskier for someone to make any sudden career changes. Here is some good advice from the article:

It is not for everyone. It implies incredibly difficult choices and arranging your life in certain ways and giving up certain luxuries and many, many people seemed locked down and immovable and all done with exploring new options in life, far too deeply entrenched in debts and family obligations and work to ever see such unique light again. Maybe you know such people. Maybe you are such people.

But sometimes people do take those risks and suffer the career loses for the greater good of their personal life.

Not long ago, the CEO of one of the largest and most powerful international real estate firms in the nation quit his job. Stepped down. Not, as you might imagine, for retirement and not to play more golf and not to travel the world staying only in Four Seasons suites, but to work on rebuilding his relationship with his estranged wife.

The way we think about our careers needs to change. Entrepreneurship is not taught enough in today’s society therefore many people don’t know what their other options are besides Corporate America.

We always think such lives are for others and never for ourselves, something people with huge chunks of cash reserves or huge hunks of time or huge gobs of wildly ambitious talent can do. It is never for us. And truly, this mind-set is the national plague, a fate worse than death.

Because of this, very few people break from the norm and go on to do great things in business. We need to learn from the people that do and keep educating ourselves to make better career choices.

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Oct

17

Funny Interview Stories

Filed Under Career, Misc | 2 Comments

I came across this article on the Fortune website titled 10 dumbest job-interview moves. After reading the article, I went on to read the comments and many of them definitely had me laughing. Here are some of my favorites:

I was interviewing a middle-aged man and asked why he was interested in a job as a complaint-intake person. He said that he really needed insurance because his wife had numerous health issues and he knew our health insurance coverage was great!

- Posted By Jane, Madison, WI

My roommate worked for GE and he brought a resume home to show me - a guy applying for an internship had his email address on his resume listed as ‘gangbang69@hotmail.com’.

- Posted By Anonymous

My medical group was interviewing physicians to join our practice. One candidate asked one of our female partners to introduce him to all the “hot nurses”. (He didn’t get the position.)

- Posted By Elizabeth Wallen, Columbus, OH

People who have FedEx’d there resume to me, using their current employers airbill number (charging them for it).

- Posted By David Clark, Mobile, AL

I group-interviewed an applicant who took a cell phone call and we sat waiting for at least 5 minutes while she went outside and took it. She came back and explained that that was her husband - they were trying to start a real estate business on the side and they always had to be available to take phone calls.

- Posted By Anne, Chapel Hill, NC

Looking for unskilled labor I asked a candidate could he draw a straight line. His reply was that he was not aware the position was that complicated.

- Posted By Joe Clarke, Brisbane, Australia

Had a young man come in for an interview, nice suit, clean, sharp and had two different color shoes on. Hired him on the spot. Oh his nick name soon became 2 shoes.

- Posted By Dave, Boca Raton, Fl

I am an executive recruiter. Following an interview, my applicant called to tell me how well it had gone. The hiring manager did not agree with that assessment, as the interviewee had vomited on the interviewer’s desk.

- Posted By Mick, Yorktown, NY

When I asked an applicant to tell me some of her positive traits she paused and then said, “The only time that I get drunk is on the weekends!”

- Posted By John Galbreath, Collinwood, TN

I once had a candidate tell me he loved the job and the responsibilities it entailed, as well as the salary being offered, however he had to decline it since the title wasn’t important enough and was concerned how it would appear on his business cards (you can’t make this stuff up!).

- Posted By Mario, NJ

I was interviewing a candidate and I asked him what the biggest misconception his boss had about him? He told me, “that I actually work 8 hours a day, I am on the internet surfing the web all the time.” Needless to say, I did not hire him.

- Posted By Carol, Boston, MA

When I joined the Navy, the recruiter asked, “Can you swim?” I replied, “Why, don’t you have ships?

- Posted By W. E. Gutman, Tehachapi, CA

A friend said a company should hire him, because he could work under extreme pressure, unstable weather conditions and under high temperatures such as 100 F…this was to work on computers in an office environment.

- Posted By Orsi, Germany

Sure some of these may be fake, but they are still entertaining. What is frightening is that most of these probably are true and how completely oblivious some people are to proper interviewing.

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Oct

12

Simple advice for finding your first job out of college

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So you graduated college and you still have not found a job. Are you trying hard enough? It’s time to stop going out on weekday nights and start applying to jobs instead. I am a pretty firm believer that if anyone dedicates themselves enough to finding a job, they can find one within a reasonable amount of time. I understand that certain professions are very hard to get into, but I don’t think that is the case for most entry-level business related jobs. Even if it may not be your dream job at your favorite company, stop being picky because the reality is it might take a lot of hard work and time to get to that dream job.

By now, I hope you have some idea of what field you would like to get into. If you graduated with a BS in Business, you most likely concentrated in something like Management, Marketing, Finance, Economics, or Accounting. There are many others concentrations and even other business related fields like IT, but you get the idea of what I am talking about.

Here is some simple advice to help you with the job search process.

1. Prepare Resume and Cover Letter

I will not go into detail here, just do a Google search such as “college graduate resume tips” and follow the proper guidelines to make sure your resume is clean and professional. Being a recent graduate, some people might find it very hard to fill up a page of accomplishments, but you will have to get creative with this. Use filler like your major courses, any retail positions, and worthwhile involvement in any college organizations and clubs.

Once you think your resume is complete, I urge you to have other people review it. The best resume advice I have gotten has been from professors, co-workers while interning, and my older sister. Any of these people will be able to catch corrections and give you great tips on strengthening your resume.

Do a search for sample cover letters and have those handy when it comes time to write one for a specific job. With my experience, cover letters are not absolutely necessary, but if the job posting requests one then definitely supply one. If done right, it can really make you stand out. The first thing I was told when I went on the interview for the internship I got was how they really liked my cover letter.

2. Search & Apply

First, take your major and find out what kind of job titles correlate to entry-level positions in that field. For instance, a Marketing major might look for “Marketing Assistant” or an Accounting major might look for “Entry Level Accountant”. The key words (which are quite obvious) being Assistant and Entry-Level. Mashable has a great list of pretty much all the job search sites available online. My favorite site is probably Indeed because it’s simple and searches many of the popular sites at once. It also has good filtering options to narrow down results.

Posting your resume on Monster and CareerBuilder is also a good way to get employers to find you. Be careful though because you will most likely get many calls from shady companies or recruiters. There are many good business recruiters out there that would love to help you find your first job, just be clear with them of what you are looking for or else they will just try to push you into the job that will make them the most money.

Find out what companies are the best and biggest in your area. Generally, they will pay the best salaries, but also be the hardest to get into. But it doesn’t hurt to try if they have entry-level positions open. If you know someone that already works for a company you want to apply to, it also helps very much to have them submit your resume for any open positions your interested in. Most of the time, they will be more than willing to help you, especially since most companies provide referral bonuses.

By using sites like Monster, CareerBuilder, and Indeed, you can browse and see which companies you recognize and appeal to you. I like to also go directly to the companies career websites if they have one. Going directly to their site makes it easier to see all their open positions at once and their sites usually provide complete job descriptions and all the qualifications for every open position.

3. Wait & Pray

The first call will usually be from Human Resources telling you they are interested in setting up an interview. If you do not hear from any of the positions you applied for within 2 weeks, move on and apply to more jobs. There is really not much you can do if you don’t get a call at all. Most likely they reviewed your resume right after you submitted it and decided you were not qualified for the job. Just move on.

4. Interview Tips

Do a search for common interview questions and behavioral interview questions. Pick at least 20-25 questions and practice your answers until you are confident you could answer them without getting nervous, but make sure you don’t sound too rehearsed. Try to stay as honest as possible, while tailoring your answer to what the employer will want to hear. If you are unsure on how to answer a certain question, Google the whole question and start reading tips and sample responses like this one. Look at samples and tailor them to your own experiences and characteristics.

I hope I don’t need to tell you how to dress professional, arrive early, ask good questions, and bring extra copies of your resume.

5. Thank You Email

Try to get business cards from everyone you interview with. I like to send a short email, maybe 3-4 sentences with simple “thank you for the opportunity” and “looking forward to the next step” type statements. Again, search for some examples of thank you emails for guidance. Some of the examples you find could be lengthy. It is up to you to decide how long you want your email to be but my advice would be to keep it short.

6. Wait & Pray

Very similar to Step 3, except now you are waiting for a call where they tell you they are going to make you an offer.

7. Offers

Take the time to think about an offer and review it over a day or two before you respond. Take everything into consideration and not just compensation. Try the commute during rush hours to see how traffic is and ask yourself if you could handle the commute everyday. Usually there is not much room for salary negotiation for your first job so don’t get too greedy. Companies normally start all entry-level employees at the same salary depending solely on the position.

In Conclusion…

Your first job will give you a chance to show what you are capable of so take it seriously and network with as many people as possible. If you are not happy right away, give it some time before you decide it’s not for you. It may take years to finally settle into a job you enjoy so it’s important to make sure you are accepting the right job in the first place. Of course, you may think it’s right for you at the time and end up not enjoying it, but that is part of the learning experience that comes with being new to the job market. Just remember, any experience is always better than no experience.

This is obviously not meant to be a complete guide, but just some general quick tips that will hopefully be helpful to you in some way. Be smart and be patient. If your lucky, the whole process from applying, getting a callback, interviewing, to getting the first offer could take 2-3 weeks.

If you are unable to find a job within a month of applying to many positions, then I would start questioning “Why?”. Search for more advice, talk to more experienced people, make the proper adjustments, and try again. If all else fails, start your own business or go back to college.

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