How to Stay Calm with Job Interviews [INFOGRAPHIC]

How to Stay Calm with Job Interviews [INFOGRAPHIC] We all know job interviews can be stressful. Interviewees are so focused on making the best possible impression that it can be hard to relax and show your true personality and your professionalism. Thanks to our friends at Essay Tigers,  beating those pre-interview nerves and mumbling throughout your answers can be controlled. This infographic shows the main reasons that interviewees are nervous, and how to combat interview anxiety. It takes practice, but with focus and experience, interviewing becomes easier. Believe it or not, its actually possible to enjoy an interview! Takeaways: A massive 96% of job seekers find it hard to relax the night before an interview. Avoid those tired eyes, make sure you get enough rest. Common interview fears include being late, not knowing how to answer certain questions, and being over qualified. Make sure you give yourself plenty of time to get to an interview, and make sure youre prepared. The typical symptoms of anxiety include moodiness, feeling nauseous and irrational thoughts. Stay positive, its only a job interview, not a death sentence. Before the interview, make sure you get at least 6-7 hours sleep, eat lightly and prepare your documents! RELATED:  Nervous Wreck? 5 Ways to Shake Off Your Job Interview Anxiety  

How to Calm Your Job Interview Anxiety - VocationVillage

How to Calm Your Job Interview Anxiety - VocationVillage If you have a job interview coming up, these strategies will help you to calm your job interview anxiety so that you can perform at your best.Reassure yourself that there are always other job opportunities so that you don’t fall into the trap of thinking this is your last chance ever to land a great job. If you start telling yourself some scary story about how you have only one remaining opportunity so you better do well, of course, you will be so stressed out, your nerves are likely to get the best of you.Some anxiety is fine because it looks like energy, enthusiasm, and excitement. Anxiety is only a problem when it gets so intense that it interferes with performance.Remember that even seasoned entertainers get anxious before they go out on stage. They learn to do well, anyway, and you can, too. If job anxiety is consistently sabotaging your job search, hire a communications professional who specializes in helping people prepare for big presentations like TED talks or venture capi tal pitches. Here’s an example of a Seattle-based  communications coach, Connie Miller, who is excellent at curing speaker’s anxiety. I’ve worked with her myself and she’s excellent.When given a choice, choose morning interview times so that you don’t spend the entire day waiting for the interview to start.Invest in your career by spending a few hours researching the company and the type of job interview questions they tend to ask. Use sites like Glassdoor and CareerBliss where a lot of other job searchers have written about their job interviews. Also, search for articles and blog posts where there may be additional helpful information. For example, if you are interviewing at Amazon, look at the treasure trove of information yielded by a simple Google search: Amazon job interview.Life coach and career advisor Chris Delaney says, Recently I questioned confident vs. anxious interviewees how much time they spent researching, planning their interview, rehearsing questions, and practicing their responses. On average, the confident interviewees spent around nine hours over three to four days on these tasks; the anxious interviewees spent just 45 minutes.Before your job interview, practice your interview responses with a career coach, a savvy friend, or a recorder. On an iPhone, the app is called Voice Memos. If you practice your answers enough, you will feel more comfortable delivering them during the interview. It shouldn’t sound like you are reading from a script, though, so make sure you practice sounding conversational.At a minimum, be sure you can communicate why you want to work for the specific company, why you are a good fit for the particular role you are pursuing, and how this job fits into your overall career goals.If you know you will be asked to complete aptitude or situational type tests, prepare with practice tests at Practice Reasoning.Lots of people have trouble sleeping well the night before any big event, so be sure to get good sleep t wo nights before your interview so that you don’t show up for your job interview exhausted from not sleeping well two nights in a row. If you are take something like Tylenol PM, take it two nights before your interview, not the night before your interview because a lot of people report it makes them feel sluggish and fuzzy the next day.In the days before your job interview, try to avoid any people in your life who are habitually negative and undermining about your job search. (Maybe avoid these people most of the time, but thats another blog topic).Plan out where you are going to go for the interview and consider doing a practice drive there before the day of the job interview. Nothing is more stressful than getting lost on the way to an interview.Arrive at the interview site about 30 minutes early but don’t go into the building until 10 minutes before. Interviewers don’t like it when someone sits in the waiting room for 30 minutes, so don’t be that person. If it stresses yo u out to sit in the car, walk around the block (unless you live in Houston or some other super humid area…you don’t want to be sweaty with bad hair when you walk into the building).To manage the physical symptoms of anxiety, try these public speaking tips from communications coach Robin Kermode.Eat some protein an hour or so before you go into the interview. Also, carry a protein bar in your briefcase or purse in case you have interviewers who schedule back-to-back interviews straight through lunch. You can always eat it during a short bathroom break if your blood sugar starts to drop during the day.Ask the hiring manager or lead interviewer what the next steps are, but realize a recruiting process often fails to go as the interviewers planned and the reasons may have nothing to do with you. Don’t jump to negative conclusions every time something doesn’t happen in the promised timeframe. Plan to check in every two weeks but in a friendly, casual way, saying something like, â €œI’m checking in as I remain interested in this job and confident my skills are a good fit.”Manage the anxiety of waiting to hear about a job interview by exploring other job opportunities. You never want to keep all your job search eggs in one basket because that puts too much pressure on that one job opportunity.Anxiety is a highly treatable condition. If you find that anxiety is consistently lowering the quality of your life, consider getting treatment from a mental health professional who specializes in treating anxiety. Here is an article about anxiety from the American Psychological Association.Was this article helpful for you? If so, please share it.

Twitter Number Signs

Twitter Number Signs Anyone who has had a conversation about Twitter may have seen or heard illustrations like this: #revolution #mondays #tablets What does that # mean?   Well the #, or pound sign, symbol in the Twitter world is known as a hashtag.   Putting this hashtag in front of a consecutive string of letters allows you to use that word or phrase as a category in a Twitter search.   So you can do a search for #tablets on Twitter and every person who has tweeted and referenced #tablets in their tweet will show up in the search results. You can also save that search within Twitter so that if it is a topic you want to follow, you can reach it easier. This comes in handy when searching for news on particular topics, jobs or following along with a live event. What are some of your favorite hashtags to follow? P.S. My two favorites are #entrepreneur and #technology.

Why Networking is an Overrated Career Tool - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Why Networking is an Overrated Career Tool - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Critical thinkers are a dying breed and logic is becoming a lost art. Ironically, we have more access to information than any generation. Whether it be at the gym, office or on the couch, we can readily access information, however we question the validity of what we read and hear less and less. If I had $1 for each time I heard some derivative of the phrase, “so you go and network and recruit people,” I’d never technically pay for my own lunch again. Between reading articles and speaking to job seekers and hiring companies, it’s become evident that many are misinformed about what is and what is not an efficient job search/recruitment strategy. By itself, networking is ambiguous and inefficient, as the simple act of networking lacks a clear beginning and end goal. An Intangible Practice with Multiple Definitions If you ask 10 people to define what networking is, you’ll get 10 very different definitions. If you ask the same individuals how they go about networking, maybe 1/3 of those individuals can provide you with clear steps that logically make sense. Officially, the word “network” has a multitude of meanings. Some of which are in verb form (i.e. networking), others exist in noun form. For the sake of relevancy, we’ll stay on the definitions that are career-oriented. According to dictionary.com, when used as a verb, the formal definition of networking is the act of cultivating people who can be helpful to one professionally (which is vague). Merriam Webster has a bit more robust definition and defined networking for our sales recruitment specialists as the cultivation of productive relationships for employment or business. Frequently Used in HR and Job Search, Rarely Questioned By definition, the phrase is very similar to recruiting. Therefore, to claim it to be a viable recruiting or job search strategy is technically being redundant. However recruiters are very rarely asked what their definition of networking is, nor are job seekers when they claim networking to be an effective job search tool. It’s almost like when you tell your child you’re busy, “doing business.” Because the connotation of the word seems official, productive and authoritative, the child will often refrain from requesting his or her parents attention. The lack of logical thinking is advantageous to lower quality HR heads and headhunters because it allows them to circumvent having to discuss recruiting practices and strategies in-depth, while still sounding productive and professional. Rarely is the phrase, “I’m consistently networking to recruit employees,” countered with, “what do you mean by networking?” Attending Professional Events to Socialize In many instances, attending events such as trade shows or cocktail hours ceases to be professional and becomes a social event with business professionals. A cocktail hour is the same as a happy hour; it’s just with business people. Have you ever heard Warren Buffett, Michael Bloomberg or any other billionaire attribute their wealth to their ability to network or a group they found on meetup.com? Rather, they had clear strategies for success that were well defined and executed upon those plans. In business, networking is a flawed wealth building strategy. The majority of individuals who attend a professional event to find a job do or obtain new business do so because it’s social in nature, and thus requires less focus (a key component to success) and 9 out of 10 times leave with business cards which amount to little. However, they waste a significant amount of the most valuable resource we have, which is time. Usage of the internet to recruit or search for a job is much more efficient and thus is the recruiting form of preference by companies serious about hiring based upon qualifications and skills. In the End Because many people lack clearly defined strategies to reach predetermined goals, networking is going to sound professional, but prove to be inefficient. There is no question that networking as social interaction with other business professionals is interesting, enjoyable and healthy. However, in most instances, logic will tell us that there are more efficient ways to achieve our job-seeking or recruiting goals.

13 job applicant mistakes thatll turn an employer right off - Debut

13 job applicant mistakes thatll turn an employer right off - Debut Its a hard life out there for graduates. Uni  doesnt really teach you how to truly prepare for the big, bad world of work, so youre constantly having to guess your way through applications. Still, its important to take the initiative and  prepare for every eventuality. As someone whos both been through the grueling job application process AND been on the other side of filtering through CVs and job interviews, Ive seen a  ton of crazy stuff. Here are the worst job applicant mistakes Ive seen, so you dont make the same ones yourself. 1. Sending in an unreadable  CV Top tip: if you use a special font its likely your employers wont have it, making your polished CV look a bit crap. If you have a swishy, designed CV, its always best to send in a PDF document to avoid unwanted formatting changes. Ensure your documents can be opened on multiple devices if the type is too small a recruiter cant read it on their phones. A really special step would be to email ahead and ask what their preferred CV format is. Who knows? It might even be doughnuts.   2. Not personalizing the  cover letter Your brilliantly written cover letter aint gonna fly when youre addressing your potential ladyboss a letter headed with Dear Sir. Beyond that, make sure your cover letter is truly tailored to the position youre applying for. If its a freelance gig, dont write about how youre looking for permanent employment. Thats irrelevant, and it makes you seem like you wont take the gig youre applying for seriously because youll be looking for something else. Again, you could email or ring ahead to find out who you should be addressing. In this case, LinkedIn stalking is perfectly acceptable your application will be read by a human being, after all. Make sure you have a good think about how your interviewer will react to you. 3. Ghosting your future employer I run the Debut Student Publisher Network, and Im not trying to throw shade, but it doesnt look great when a potential future employee completely ghosts you. If your company is running something like a campus ambassador programme, a student writer programme or an internship, always,  always  treat it like a  pathway to a permanent position. Ive had people sign up to be part of programmes and then disappear from sight for weeks. It looks flaky, it looks like you couldnt give a damn, and it doesnt endear you to the company. The worst part? When they email you asking for a reference completely out of the blue. I mean, seriously? 4. Having terrible email etiquette Its the 21st century, so being too stuffy and formal probably isnt necessary. But misspelling names, having bad grammar, and using colloquial language will make you look unprofessional. Employers will think, If thats how this candidate emails us, their potential employer, how are they going to communicate with clients and stakeholders? Never give them a chance to doubt youll be kick-ass and polite at your job. 5. Being late for a job interview Yo, we know s*** happens. The Tube is notorious for signalling failures after all, whatever that means. However, its important that if the worst does happen you contact them as soon as you know youll be late, and apologise profusely when you finally arrive. Also important: dont let it happen again. If youre late to a follow-up interview thats usually K.O. to any job prospects you potentially had with the company. 6. Saying your dream job is working for a competitor company An ex-colleague once told me a candidate came in to my old job for an interview for a staff writer position. When asked what the candidates dream job would be, they answered, Oh, to work for Buzzfeed. Well thats awkward, considering we were Buzzfeeds direct competitor. You have to present your best self during job interviews. If a candidate appears to be using this position as a stepping stone, why would a company choose to hire them over someone else?  Somebody call the logic police, ASAP. 7. Showing up looking disheveled or worse, hungover Do we even need to elaborate? Just dont do it. And iron your shirts, please. 8. Not doing any research on the  position Treat us like sharks in the water (OK, most interviewers are friendlier than that, but run with our analogy plz). Employers can smell any whiff of unpreparedness. Before your interview, lay out the job description and scribble notes all over it. How can you fulfill the requirements? Are there any doubts you think theyll have? How are you going to  assuage your interviewers doubts? Think like your interviewer and have some answers prepared. You dont want to be caught out by anything, or appear like youre blagging it. 9. Appearing impersonal and  disengaged Its all about body language, baby. Hunched shoulders, a soft voice and folded arms dont usually give off the best impression. Make sure you work on that posture, make eye contact, and ensure you convince your interviewers youre the animated, dynamic person they want to hire. 10.  Not cleaning up your controversial social media feed   For the love of all that is holy give your Twitter account an audit. Trust us, freshers photos of a candidate at an anything but clothes party is impossible to unsee. In fact, you should probably give your personal brand a bit of a makeover. For your complete guide to doing so, have a look at our ultimate guide to creating a personal brand. 11. Being a little bit too friendly Establishing that you have good bantz with your interviewer is a great, rare thing, so absolute kudos to you if you manage it. It is however, really easy to cross the invisible line. Try to keep swearing to an absolute minimum, if any swearing at all. Dont go for the fist bumps unless they prompt it. Its all about maintaining that professional distance for the first few meetings, if you get the job the banter will come, promise. 12. When youre disrespectful to other members of staff Heres a story: someone came in for a job interview at my old job. He was wearing a fancy suit, a nice watch, and looked  hella professional.  He took one look at me, and said Darling, could you be a dear and make me a cup of coffee before my interview? Chop chop. Next thing you know he was sitting in said job interview with my boss and I while he stammered through why he would be a great addition to our sales team. Needless to say, he didnt make the cut. 13. Not following up post job interview I wouldnt say this is a dealbreaker. A lot of candidates get job offers without following up, sure. However, why take your chances? A polite, non-pushy follow-up email could take your chances of being remembered from 0 to 100. Give it a shot. You never know what could happen. Feature Image ©  Prospect Download the Debut app and you could totally grab yourself a summer internship  way before anyone else. Follow Brenda on Twitter @brendaisarebel Connect with Debut on Facebook and Twitter

Work less, do more - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Work less, do more - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog Heres a quote from the horrible book ?You Can?t Win a Fight With Your Boss by Tom Markert, the global chief marketing and client service officer at ACNielsen. Markert says: You can forget lunch breaks. You can?t make money for a company while you?re eating lunch . . . if you don?t put in the hours, someone just as smart and clever as you will. Fact of life: the strong survive. [If you ignore this] you might just end up as roadkill lying dead by the side of the corporate highway as others drive right past you. I have always made a habit of walking around early and late to personally see who?s pumping it out. If they are getting results and working harder than everyone else, I promote them. Riiiiiight. Remind me never to go work for this guy! Heres how you do it instead, from a comment from Sarah S. on this post about implied overwork: I began working at my organization about a month ago. During my first ?get to know my staff? meeting i informed everyone that i would prefer they work no more than 40 hours per week and that everyone take a full hour lunch. My staff was so used to working long hours that they would not leave on time. We had a big meeting last week where i used another tip from this blog and asked everyone to write all their tasks on post-it notes and hang them according to a three-point scale 1-hate it 2- it is ok 3- love it! After rearranging tasks to be better suited for their career desires people were getting things done more quickly and leaving on time. One of my employees still felt the need to work late every day, so i started going to her every day at 5pm and asking what she was working on and offering to stay late with her to help her. I sometimes offered to take the entire responsibility off her plate (in a non-judgemental way) to ensure she could get home a a decent hour and get re-energized for the next day. The productivity of my team has sky-rocketed lately. People come in at 8am ready to work and excited to bring ideas to me. We all leave at 5pm now as often as possible (4 out of 5 days usually) and the rest of the office seems miffed that we can ?get away with it?. However, with priorities realigned, people more energized about their work and people with more time to appreciate friends and family our work is reaching a higher caliber and output is actually increasing. Sarah S. Yes!!! This is great stuff!!! I love it!!! Exclamation points!!!!! I cant say this enough: Work is not about maximizing your hours, its about maximizing your results, and sometims you get more results with fewer hours. Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related

NYC Resume Writing - Do You Need Help?

NYC Resume Writing - Do You Need Help?NYC resume writing is an essential skill if you want to succeed in your career. In order to have a successful career, you need to be able to write well and create a resume that will stand out from the rest.How many times do you get a resume that you have submitted that has been marked with a red pen by the person receiving it? It happens to the best of us. They mark your resume because they don't like it or just didn't get it. Either way, it is not a good start.It is very important to get your resume, even if it does get marked with a red pen or a note that says something like 'sucks,' reviewed in a way that will give you a final evaluation of your application. It can make a huge difference in whether or not you are accepted for the job or not.Different people have different expectations for their resumes. If you have no idea what it takes to write a NYC resume, it is going to take a lot of research. It is also going to take a bit of time but the results will be worth it in the end.NYC resume writing is also done in different styles. The main ones are chronological and professional but there are many other styles too.Many people who are self-employed have NYC resume writing as part of their process. Having a professional resume means that if they get an interview, they have already won.For that reason, it is very important that your NYC resume writing is not only professional but is professionally written. It should include skills that will help you in your career and one that show that you can be trusted to handle the business. In order to write a quality resume that will stand out from the rest, you must understand what you are getting into. If you know what is expected of you in the area, then it will all be easier for you to accomplish.