Job Hunt/JobHunt.iso/jobhunt.ti_/jobhunt.ti

Text File | 1995-03-25 | 12KB | 253 lines

POWER-TIPS (tm)

This section includes some powerful information that can help you
immensely in your job-search.  It addresses "Dressing", "Action Verbs
in Your Resume", "How Many Applications to Mail", the "100,000-
Company HitList (tm) CD-ROM" and other vital topics.


DRESSING FOR A SUCCESSFUL INTERVIEW

It is an indisputable fact that people do judge us by the way we look
and dress.  Sure, it is unfair to judge someone's capabilities by the
quality of their suit but rather than fight it you are better off
accepting it as a fact of life.  After all, tact is the name of the
game, and you are playing to win.


For Men:

Try finding a suit that complements your personality style and the
type of job that you are interviewing for.  It is better to err on
the positive side, i.e., to show up looking over-dressed (your
interviewer is wearing semi-casual clothes and you have a suit on)
than to show up looking under-dressed (your interviewer is wearing a
suit and you show up in semi-casual attire).  Avoid wearing suits and
ties that are too trendy unless you are absolutely sure that you
are applying at a company where the interviewer will value the
importance of being on the forefront of modern fashion.  Even then,
it may be safer to err on the conservative side.


For Women:

A suit with a matching skirt and jacket conveys the greatest
authority and competence.  Avoid wearing suits that are too revealing
or trendy unless you are sure that being on the forefront of fashion
is an attribute that the interviewer will value.  Even then, it may
be safer to err on the conservative side.  Jewelry should be kept to
a minimum.  Carrying both a purse and a briefcase may be clumsy
because you may have to shake hands with several people.  It is best
to keep one hand free.  You may want to keep a slim purse with some
essentials, inside the briefcase.  If you have to go on a factory
tour or out to lunch, you can just grab the purse and leave the
briefcase behind.


ATTITUDE

The first few sentences that you say when you first meet your
interviewer are critically important.  At all cost, try to keep them
positive.  Do NOT complain about the weather, the traffic jam or for
that matter, anything.  Remember, you are trying to convey a positive
image and not that of a complainer.  You can be positive, courteous
and enthusiastic without being over-friendly.  All of your answers
should be precise and concise.  If your interviewer is a busy
executive he or she will appreciate it.  Most of us don't like people
who go off on a tangent anyway.


THINGS TO TAKE

In addition to the other things that you may want to take to the
interview, do take several sets of your Resume and Letters of
Recommendation (even if you have mailed the same to the company
earlier).  Chances are, that if it is a big company and you are being
interviewed for an important position, you will be interviewed by
several people.  You may want to hand out a set of your documents to
each one of them if they don't already have it.  The personnel
department will usually distribute copies to everyone who will be
interviewing you but it is a good idea to prepare for the unexpected.
Plus, one of those people might say at the last minute, "I think it
will be a good idea for you to meet with Mary, our Director of
Marketing, even though she was not supposed to interview you today".
If that happens, you will have a set ready to hand out to Mary.


TURNING A NEGATIVE INTO A POSITIVE

A favorite trick-question of some interviewers is, "What is your
biggest weakness?"  Sure, you can state that you have no
weaknesses--but then aren't we all human?  A better approach is to
state something that sounds like it is a weakness but which the
employer might actually view as a strength.  For example, you could
say, "I work so hard that sometimes I tend to ignore my social life.
My friends seem to think that I don't spend enough time with them".
There is not a single employer in the world that dislikes a hard
working person!


ACTION-VERBS ON THE RESUME

Prospective employers want to know quickly what your past
accomplishments have been and how they can translate into a positive
bottom-line for them if they hire you.  Don't say on your resume, "My
duties included...".  Instead, try to start each paragraph with an
Action Verb and follow up with a quantitative description of your
accomplishment(s).  Some examples:

"Accomplished a 50% increase in sales by using..."

"Generated 1200 more new leads in one month through..."

"Reduced scrap by 30% with better quality control..."

Some other Action Verbs for your reference are:

Accomplished, Achieved, Administered, Advised, Allocated, Arranged,
Assisted, Attained, Bought, Built, Chaired, Coached, Conducted,
Coordinated, Created, Demonstrated, Designed, Developed, Directed,
Established, Exceeded, Executed, Expanded, Forecasted, Guided,
Generated, Handled, Implemented, Increased, Instituted, Integrated,
Launched, Led, Marketed, Motivated, Negotiated, Organized,
Overhauled, Performed, Pioneered, Planned, Prioritized, Processed,
Programmed, Publicized, Purchased, Recommended, Recruited, Reduced,
Repaired, Represented, Restored, Saved, Sold, Solved, Supervised,
Trained, Transformed, Translated, Upgraded, Validated, Won.


HOW MANY APPLICATIONS SHOULD YOU MAIL?

The answer to this question obviously depends on the field that you
are applying in (Computer Science, Medicine, Business, etc.), your
qualifications (level of education, years of experience, etc.) and
many other factors.  However, according to the Law of Averages, all
other things being equal, the person who sends a larger number of
applications stands a better chance of receiving an interview call.

Simple marketing logic (and YES, you are trying to market yourself)
therefore implies that the more applications you send, and the better
you can target them, the higher your chances of landing the
interview.

Of course, you can opt to spend months in the library researching
specific companies in great detail and sending one to five
applications a day (as some "experts" on job-hunting would advise you
to do) but we believe that that is an inefficient concept.  In our
opinion, the person who mails five applications a day is no match for
the person who mails five-hundred a day.  Of course, all that you
really need is one good address (the one that will hire you) but to
be able to get to that one "YES", you may have to sift through
thousands of "NO"s and the faster you can do it, the faster you will
get to that one "YES" as the following examples illustrate.

Someone once asked the founder of IBM what his advice was to someone
who wanted to become successful more quickly.  He replied, "Double
your failure rate".  Thomas Edison did NOT fail 10,000 times in his
attempt to invent the light bulb.  He just discovered 10,000 things
that did not work.  And the sooner he was able to get the 10,000
things that did not work out of his way, the sooner he was able to
invent the light bulb.

Direct-mail experts will tell you that a response rate of one percent
(1%) in many direct-mail campaigns is considered successful.  2.5% is
considered a home run.  3% is sheer ecstasy.  Since, your goal is to
get an interview first, if 1% of your letters (one in a hundred) get
you an interview call then you are doing good.  Of course, your rate
of success may be higher or lower than one percent depending upon
many different factors.  Plus, not every interview may result in a
job offer.

Assuming that you may have to go to five interviews before you get an
offer (this may differ from person to person) simple arithmetic
dictates that you mail 500 applications.  Many business mailers
routinely mail several million pieces of catalogs and fliers to get
you to buy their products.  We don't want to tell you how many
letters you should mail because no one can predict that number
without knowing more about your specific situation.  It could be one
letter or it could be 5000.  You have to use your own judgement.

What we CAN tell you for sure is that JobHunt helps put the Law of
Averages on your side.  It saves you months of effort that you would
otherwise spend researching addresses, sales figures and phone
numbers in the library.  It then gives you a very efficient way to
write to the companies that meet your search criteria.  In today's
competitive marketplace it could be your best ally.  If you need more
addresses please order the 100,000-company HitList (tm) CD-ROM
described below.


OTHER RESOURCES

You have seen how the JobHunt (tm) Software saves you a tremendous
amount of typing and research effort by providing a ready-made
database of major companies nationwide.  We also sell a powerful
CD-ROM with a database of more than 100,000 companies.  It is called
HITLIST (tm) and works very similarly to JobHunt.

If you are job-hunting on the electronic superhighway then you may
want to use Scope's upcoming INTERACTIVE RESUME (tm).  Just type your
name, address, experience, etc., into this program and it will
automatically create a multimedia presentation on YOU (complete with
sound and animation) and generate a Windows compatible executable
file (*.EXE).  You can then send that file on disk to a prospective
employer or upload it electronically.  The prospective employer would
be able to run it just like any other Windows program.  When they
click on "Objective" they will see YOUR Objective on the screen, and
an arrow will fly by and hit a target (Yes, they will hear the
"ZZZING" of the arrow!).  Similarly for Experience, Education, etc.

For more information on these products, please call Scope at
1-800-843-5627 (24 hours, 7 days).


COPYRIGHT, LICENSE AND DISCLAIMER

Program and Database-compilation Copyright (c) 1995, Scope
International.  All rights reserved.  JobHunt and PowerTips are
trademarks of Scope International.  The Data may not be used to
compile commercial mailing lists for sale or rent.  It is seeded with
decoy names to prevent unauthorized use.  Please do not modify,
decode or reverse-engineer this product.  This Software, Data and
Documentation are Licensed, not sold, and are protected under Federal
and International Copyright Law.  Any misuse may be prosecuted to the
full extent of the law.

Printing of Letters, Envelopes and Labels (for a fee) by registered
career businesses for an unlimited number of clients is allowed.  If
you paid for only one program, it may be installed and used on only
one computer at any given time.  Institutional users such as
Placement Offices and Libraries may allow multiple users to use this
software on the "same" computer one after the other.  For
simultaneous multiple-computer or network usage you must buy an equal
number of copies or a site license.  Independent users must not allow
friends or acquaintances who have themselves not bought this software
to use it.

Scope International specifically disclaims all warranties, express or
implied, including but not limited to any implied warranty of
merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.  Scope
International does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the
Data as it is gathered through numerous other sources.  The companies
listed may or may not have any job-openings.  Please use your own
judgement.  By using this product you agree to indemnify and hold
harmless Scope International from any claims whatsoever related to
this product.


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Company-Data contained in JobHunt is gathered through independent
library research, newspapers, magazines, business journals, trade
indices, in-house mailing lists, direct input from companies &
employment agencies and from various other sources which change
constantly and are too numerous to list individually.


ALL THE BEST TO YOU!

Copyright (c) 1995, Scope International, U.S.A.  Ph: [phone]

                                                    ---- * --- * ----