There are three types of questions you may fact during an interview that can make or break your chances of getting the job. You’ll need to be prepared before the interview with ways to answer them sincerely and in a way that puts you to best light. Here are some suggestions.

The Bitterness Check
Employers don’t want to hire on a bitter new employee who will bring down the team and probably leave soon, as well. Therefore they will ask you questions that will give them a feel of your “bitterness quotient.” These questions include, “Why did you leave your last job?”
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You are sitting in your car in the parking lot. You’ve arrived early for your job interview so that you would not appear hurried or disorganized. However, those butterflies in your stomach will not be tamed. Of course, being nervous before an interview is quite normal. But you don’t want your anxiety to show through and ruin your interview.

What can you do? The following are a few suggestions for calming your nerves before going to your interview:

Serenity Now!
Picture someplace in your mind that you associate with peace and serenity. See it. Feel it. Smell it. Experience it with every sense that you can. For example, I like to imagine myself on a cool summer day sitting beneath an old oak tree eating fresh strawberries. I see the field of of flowers before me. I feel the breeze on my skin. I smell the sweetness of the strawberries and and taste their juice in my mouth. After a moment of virtually experience this relaxing scene, I am often much calmer.
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This topic has become something I think about, now that I’m over 40. (I don’t feel over 40, but the years are what the years are.) Some employers prefer a younger workforce, while others appreciate an older applicant’s experience.

One recruiter told me that it takes more time to find a new job the older you become. Although, this trend may be mitigated by the fact that employers are starting to see the potential of older and much-experienced applicants.

For example, in Australia, the Bureau of Statistics showed that between the period of August of 1989 and August of 2003, the workforce aged 15-24 lost more than 380,000 jobs to older workers.
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Before you even think about looking and applying for jobs, you need to make sure that your are looking for jobs that match your skills set. Skills are the things you do well. The key to finding the most appropriate jobs in your industry is recognizing your own skills and communicating their significance in both written and verbal form to a potential employer.

The skills you need to look at are those that are most viable in work settings. What are these skills? And how does this help you find a job? Here is a mini plan of action to use at the beginning of your job search, especially if this is your first time out.

Determine Your Skills
If this is your first job hunt and you have no job experience to date, you still have a chance at finding work, for you still have skills that you’ve developed in school.

The majority of skills, including knowledge-based and transferable, can be absorbed and developed as a volunteer, a student, a homemaker, or in your other personal activities. The skills you have used for these activities can be applied to your job search.
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It’s a new year! Is it time for a new job, too? If you’ve been in the market for awhile, I hope you didn’t let up over the holidays. I’ve had some very busy interview schedules in December!

The purpose of this website is to help you stand out from the competition, primarily through the use of direct mail techniques. This is an example of “thinking outside of the box,” because most people do not use these techniques. But there are other ways to think out of the box, as well.

But first, lets try a little brain stretch, shall we? Here are four words:

Which one does not belong to the group?
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