Confident Answers To Questions About Career Goals

Some applicants have short-term goals for the job they are applying for and getting asked questions like, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” can be disorienting. This can be difficult to answer, so it’s best to really have a clear map of what your career goals are before plunging into an interview.

Experts say that hiring managers often ask this question to applicants for them to know and hire those who are willing to work for the company for many years, as employers want to get a discernment of how long an applicant intends to be in the company or role. For applicants to buoy up interviewers that they anticipate a future working with them, they must indicate the means by which they propose to grow with the company. Let them know that the opportunities for growth align with your career goals, or that you hope to lead a team in the future.

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Before you find yourself seated across the table from the hiring, educating yourself about what the company is looking for will assist you in emphasizing your ability to solve their issues. Refrain from discussing personal goals outside of work and focus your answers on how you can be of help to the company, with regard to their growth path. The objective is to have your goals and the company’s vision aligned at all times.

Let them know that your long-term goals include growing with a company where you can continue to learn, take on additional responsibilities, and present as much value as you can.

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Larry Polhill spent the last 40 years helping job applicants succeed in the hiring process. He has found the experience productive and fulfilling. For more posts like this, visit this blog.

Ready, Set, Go: Preparing For a Job Interview

Are you getting ready for a job interview? Here are helpful job interview preparation tips to help you land your dream career.

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Take time to review the job posting. Do you have the required skills for the job? The job posting states what the company is looking for a candidate. Have a list of your knowledge, skills, and qualities to see if you are fit to do the job. 

Research about the company. Not all companies are the same. Some are big corporations, others are startups, and there are also nonprofits. Knowing what the company does can help you manage your expectations. It can also help you answer critical questions during the interview. 

Practice running through interview questions. Where do you see yourself professionally five years from now? How can you be an asset to the company? These questions are commonly asked in job interviews. Practicing these questions can help you be more confident during the actual interview. These can also help you reflect on what you really want to do in the long run. 

Find the appropriate attire for your interview. First impressions do last. One of the many ways you can stand out in the job interview is by choosing the right clothes to wear. Dress accordingly. If you’re eyeing a professional position, get your business attire ready. If you’re applying for a job in a casual, relaxed environment, make sure your clothes are still tidy and well-groomed. 

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Larry Polhill is a retired career consultant. Visit this blog for more tips on how to land your dream job.

Numbers Talk: Quantifying Accomplishments In Your Resume

If you think that the only numbers that should be included in a resume are your contact numbers, then it is time to have a change of mindset. Numbers can highlight your accomplishments by providing a metric for them, which enhances the resume and leaves a greater impact on hiring managers.

For instance, if you put yourself in a hiring manager’s shoes and see these two accomplishments:

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• Wrote blog articles daily

• Wrote 40-50 blog articles within a week under daily deadlines

Which do you think is more impressive? The second statement carries more weight because it quantifies the achievement and provides a picture of the responsibilities of the job applicant and how much productive they were. Hiring managers tend to notice and hone in on digits, especially since metrics is the language of business nowadays.

There are many ways to include metrics in writing down your accomplishments. As seen in the example above, the amount of production can be included in the resume, instead of merely pluralizing your accomplishments.

Another way is to describe achievements and responsibilities in terms of money – how much was earned, saved, or managed in your previous job, internship, or extracurricular activities. This can showcase your aptitude in dealing with money and how instrumental you can be in affecting the company’s bottom line.

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Time-oriented entries should also appear in the accomplishments section because it can highlight your ability to meet deadlines and manage your time.

Follow me, Larry Polhill, on Twitter for more tips on writing a resume.

Resume Or Curriculum Vitae: Which To Use And When

While both the curriculum vitae (CV) and the resume reflect a person’s skills and experience, they are different documents. Let’s look at the distinctions and what’s more appropriate to submit in a given situation.

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Resumes are much shorter, typically just one to two pages long. Keeping your resume brief and concise means that you’ve to omit older positions and details from time to time. CVs keep these data and add new ones in your career as they are meant to be comprehensive. A typical CV may grow in pages upwards of a dozen, depending on one’s experience.

Resumes often allow management to look at one’s qualifications at a glance, so they require the use of short phrases and often come in a bullet-point format that highlights select accomplishments. CVs are deliberately more in-depth and are studied closely by a company’s HR department.

CVS usually begin with a listing of degrees earned, followed by academic interests and thesis and dissertation titles. These are followed by former work positions, published work, and any grant, award, or honor received. The last entry is usually a list of references.

It is in a job seeker's best interest to have both these documents ready, as they serve different purposes. While resumes are more common for applying for most jobs in the U.S., research work, positions in the academia and grant applications often require CVs.

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Arizona-based retired career consultant Larry Polhill believes that clean and well-written resumes and CVs will help the job applicant stand out. For more insights for jobseekers, visit this blog.

Responses to a job interview must be consistent with submitted resumé

Not a few job seekers in their attempt to enhance their chances of success contract professional assistance in the preparation of their resume’. Such is a strategically wise decision but must be dealt with proper care and caution. The biggest fault is not giving attention to details in the personal document and just be engrossed in distributing it to preferred companies. Many don’t even bother to review what has been prepared by their consultant, confident that the latter has followed strictly the data provided and just embellished them to be palatable to a prospective employer’s predisposition.

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However, it is highly probable that the hired professional could have transformed several layman’s terms into more technical fashion to which the job applicant might not have the accurate familiarization. Possible, likewise, is the consultant’s misinterpretation of data and therefore might have inputted an erroneous entry. 

Without close scrutiny and in-depth evaluation of the document to ensure the absence of inconsistencies could spell an irreparable disaster. The entire conference with the interviewer would be rendered futile once discrepancies between what was written and what were expressed verbally are established. 

An essential part of a successful interview is articulating with confidence and coherence the information in the submitted resume’ without a hint of equivocation or beating around the bush. Thus, the effort in putting on the best suit for the conference with a potential employer must be equal to that spent on reviewing the document submitted and knowing its content to the last detail.

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Sometimes, it can be easy to slip into a mode where instead of writing accomplishments, you tend to write duties. Be very wary of this because what recruiters and employers want to read in a resume are the things that you, the job hunter, are capable of. My name is Larry Polhill, a retired career consultant from Arizona. Visit my blog for more resume writing tips.

Avoid These Three Interview Mistakes If You Want To Score Your Dream Job

When job hunting, knowing what and what not to do is as important as having a polished and impressive resume. Though your job interview results can be subjective, there are things that you need to avoid doing to improve the chance of making a great impression.

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1. Failing to prepare

“If you fail to prepare, then prepare to fail,” is a saying no better applicable than in a job interview. Treat it like you would an exam. You can’t just wing it. With thousands of applicants you interviewer has already faced, they’d see your unpreparedness from a mile away.

2. Wearing the wrong outfit

We know it’s wrong to judge a book by its cover. But your interviewer is there to do just that – to judge you. If you show up to the interview underdressed, then you make a wrong impression before you even sit down to introduce yourself.

3. Coming in late or very early

Of course, never ever be late for your interview, but don’t come too early either. It may inconvenience your interviewer. The best time is about 10 minutes before. It’s enough time to compose yourself, use the restroom, and prepare yourself for the conversation.

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Hi there! I’m Larry Polhill, a retired career consultant from Arizona. I give advice to people looking to land a job. Visit this page to learn more.

Proper And Important Questions To Ask After a Job Interview

Job hunters usually focus an inordinate amount of time troubling over questions that the interviewer might ask during a typical interview session. Obviously, this is of paramount interest because all interviewees, in the end, want to impress the potential employer. What is unfortunate about the situation is that people forget that the last part of the session involves the opportunity to ask the interviewer the right questions.

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If one dismisses it as simply the interviewer’s way of capping it off, then the prospect of learning more about the job is lost here, not to mention leaving the impression that one is simply not that interested in acquiring more knowledge about the company or the work being done there. Asking questions gives the interviewee this chance of a lifetime to gain insider’s insight into employee relations, the nature of the job, and other things that might eventually be pertinent if one eventually gets hired.

This part of the interview is for the benefit of both parties. The interviewee must not ask questions just for the sake of it. One must also refrain from focusing on questions where the immediate gain is personal and not really for the future good of the company.

Information about health benefits, compensation, or leave allocations can probably wait and may be raised after the hiring process is through. One should instead ask questions about career growth potential, typical and particular demands and obstacles of the job, and anything that illustrates one’s interest in the possibility of working there.

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Gutsy questions that might give one an inkling as to how the interviewer sees the applicant’s qualifications might also be added. Although they can be very difficult to ask, they are ultimately appropriate. The interviewee should be able to assess his or her chances at the onset, phrasing the questions subtly to avoid the risk of sounding insolent.

Hello! My name is Larry Polhill, a retired career consultant from Arizona. If you want to learn more about how job applicants succeed in the hiring process, follow me on Twitter.