Interview Tips
 

Make a checklist that will help you discover vocational assets and limitations. List your assets and your limitations carefully. Include physical factors such as the way you dress, how fit you keep your body, whether you have good or poor physical tolerance; psychological factors such as whether you are outgoing or withdrawn, sharing or selfish, mature or immature, have an ability to accept critism, whether you can accept supervision in a constructive manner; social factors such as whether you have joined clubs, have contributed to activities in the community and participate in recreational activities, vocational factors such as knowledge of job skills, responsibility at home or school, work experience, vocational training; and educational factors such as good attendence, have taken courses related to your work, have an interest in continuing education and are willing to meet educational requirements of the job. Think about yourself honestly and correct any areas that may be weak.
 

Employers look for the following traits in those employees they hire and retain. Make sure you possess them all. Ability to work with others, punctuality, cooperation, self-reliance, appearance, courtesy, motivation, reliability, work tolerance, initiative, attitude, work knowledge, work skills, quality of work. If you make sure your checklist contains all of these traits and you are able to put themto good use on the jobs, you are employable.
 

The following link is a long list of transferable skill words. Emphasis is placed here on these words because as you read through them, you will discover that many of them apply to you--to skills you already have. Selecting those that apply to you will help in job goal identification and resume preparation.
 

Reviewing your transferable skills and considering the world of work are useful in job goal selection. List your most applicable transferable skills, then decide what you want to do. Use the Job Family list below to help in selecting a job cluster, industry sector and specific job title in which you may be interested. Then decide where you want to work. Matching your skills and the job is next, so make sure that your skills training and education and experience meet the required qualifications for the job. You must also consider your needs and those of your family and make sure that these needs are realistic in terms of what the market will give. Once you have established your job goal and objectives, you create a focused resume.
 

Resume preparation begins with identifying the resume's focus, tha is, the job goal or objective. This can be an objective you have come up with from a careful consideration of your transferable job skills and the Job Family List or it can match the Job title you are seeking each time you submit your resume.

A resume is a snapshot of your job objective, skills, experience and education/training. It is often the principal tool an employer uses to determine who will be interviewed among many job applicants. It is a means of reaching distant employers and it is used by you to assist in filling our job application, preparing for interviews and preparing personal references.

In regard to the references, thses are usually current and past supervisors, friends and professional peers. The potential employer must be able to verify your character and your skills, experience and qualifications. Make sure you choose a variety of references to cover all possibilities. They must all be creditable, so always to ask permission to use them as refenrences, give a copy of your resume to them can be called. Make absolutely sure that they freely and willingly act as a reference for you. A reluctant reference is worse than no reference at all.

A good general resume format to follow is found at Send Us Your Resume. Complete our form online and send it to us. If this resume format does not meet your needs, there are numerous other samples and sources of guidance found in the web addresses listed in Employment Resources.
 

This section covers these interviewing topics :

• Selling yourself
• Questions you may be asked
• Dress
• Strategy
• Etiquette
• Evaluating Job Offers                        Interview Tips

REPEAT AFTER ME: "I am good at what I do." "I look at each customer's situation objectivity." "I help customers and co-workers by listening to them." "I contribute to the company's success." "I am self-reliant and work for the good of the whole." "I am creative." "I am earnest when helping customers and co-workers with advice." "I take constructive criticism, learn from it and perform better." "I get a thank you once in a while, from prople who really mean it."

Excellent job performance, in addition to relying on the good job skills you possess, may also require you to do the following; Speak effectively, write concisely, listen attentively, express ideas, provide feedback, negotiate, pervceive non-verbal messages, persuade, report information, identity problems, imagine alternatives, locate resources, solve problems, set goals, define needs, develop rapport, be sensitive, motivate others, handle details, coordinate tasks, lead groups, delegate responsibility, teach or coach others in job duties, promote change, make decisions, manage conflict, be punctual, manage time, attend to detail, meet goals, enlist help, accept responsibility and organize.

Now that you know how to perform your job to the best extent possible, take care of yourself by ensuring that you are assigned to the job for which you are trained, know what is expected of you, have what you need to perform the work, perform your work as expected, have the opportunity to use your horned skills and remove any obstacles to peak performance. Keep up the good work !