Social Media and Your Job Search: An Interview with Tamara Joiner

The key to a successful job search is to make sure you use all available channels to connect with opportunities. “If you focus on just one, like the newspaper, you’re really missing out. Only about four percent of available jobs show up there.” Joiner says that older candidates (we mean you, baby boomers) are having trouble adjusting to social media as serious career tools; many still consider them time wasters and frivolous activities.

Why Didn’t I get the Offer?

You may have experienced what you consider to be a great interview – I mean a GREAT interview. You waited; maybe you even decided not to pursue other opportunities because this job and the chemistry in the interview felt so right. But the call didn’t come. It can be frustrating.

Prepare for a Phone Interview

The credit for this post goes to Susan Heathfield, a Human Resources expert who has been covering HR for about.com since 2000. In her HR newsletter, Vol. 11 No. 81, dated July, 2010, she writes an excellent article for recruiters about how to construct questions for an effective telephone screening interview. Viewed in reverse, you can use her questions as a way to prepare for a phone screening – or any in-person interview.

Handling the Panel Interview: Part 1

A panel interview consists, as you might imagine, of a group of interviewers instead of a single person. The panel interview is a time-saving method for companies who wish to have several representatives from different parts of the company see a candidate. Instead of scheduling several interviews over a period of days or weeks, the company reps can all see the candidate at once. They also have the advantage of seeing the candidate at the same time and hearing the question responses in the same context.

Behavior-Based Interviewing (Part 2)

The primary difference between traditional and behavioral based interviewing is that traditional interviewing asks generalized questions such as, “What motivates you to put forth your greatest effort?” while Behavior-Based Interviewing (BBI) asks for specific examples from the recent past, such as: “Give me an example of a time recently when you needed to adjust quickly to new information. What did you do and how did it turn out?”