THE
EVERYTHING
PRACTICE
INTERVIEW
BOOK
2ND EDITION
Make the best impression
and get the job you want!
Dawn Rosenberg McKay
Copyright 2009, 2004 by F+W Media, Inc.
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THE EVERYTHING PRACTICE INTERVIEW BOOK
Dear Reader,
Interviews are difficult. I know I've been on both sides of the desk. I've interviewed job candidates and I've been interviewed for jobs myself. I can honestly think of many things that are a lot more fun and a lot less stressful. Of course, there's great deal of pressure on the job candidate. Anyone who has been interviewed for a job can attest to that. Your utmost desire is to make the interviewer see that you are the best person for the job. However, the interviewer faces pressure, too. She must make sure the candidate she selects is a good fit for the job and for the company in general.
In the more than a decade I've spent as the Guide to Career Planning on About.com (http://careerplanning.about.com) and in the years I spent before that managing a job information center in a public library, I've heard from many people who are incredibly anxious about going on job interviews. Mostly, job hunters want to know what questions to expect and how to answer them. I also get e-mails from people who have faced improper or illegal questions on a job interview. I made a point of including information on that topic in this book, as well as letting you know where to turn if you feel a prospective employer has discriminated against you.
To me, the best way to overcome the stress of job interviewing is to prepare for it as much as possible. I've included more than 300 questions in this book. Read them carefully and use them as a guide as you prepare for your own job interviews.
Good luck!
THE EVERYTHING Series
These handy, accessible books give you all you need to tackle a difficult project, gain a new hobby, or even brush up on something you learned back in school but have since forgotten. You can choose to read from cover to cover or just pick out information from our four useful boxes.
: Urgent warnings
: Quick handy tips
: Important snippets of information
: Answers to common questions
When you're done reading, you can finally say you know EVERYTHING !
PUBLISHER Karen Cooper
DIRECTOR OF ACQUISITIONS AND INNOVATION Paula Munier
MANAGING EDITOR, EVERYTHING SERIES Lisa Laing
COPY CHIEF Casey Ebert
ACQUISITIONS EDITOR Lisa Laing
DEVELOPMENT EDITOR Elizabeth Kassab
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Hillary Thompson
Visit the entire Everything series at www.everything.com
To Dean, Rebecca, Mom, and Dad: With encouragement
and love, everything is possible With all my love, Dawn
Top Ten Things Not to Say on a Job Interview
That suit looks expensive! How much money do you make, anyway?
What will my salary be? My rent is very high!
I've never heard of this company before. What type of business is this?
It wasn't my fault I got fired. My boss always had it in for me.
I quit my job because my coworkers were all idiots.
I didn't like working with any of them.
How much time do you give for maternity leave?
How much vacation time would I have? I need a lot of time off for traveling.
If someone files a sexual harassment charge against me, you'll have my back, right?
This isn't exactly what I want to be doing but let's see what happens.
I'll really need to have my own office. I don't like working with other people.
Introduction
WOULD N'T IT BE NICE if you could send out your resume for a position you're qualified for and simply be offered a job? After all, everything about you is right there on your resume, isn't it? You should know you put it there yourself.
But, no, everything about you is not on your resume. Think of your resume as a pencil sketch of who you really are. There is no dimension to it. It has no color and no expression. Basically, it's pretty flat. Not at all like you; you are multifaceted. You've made choices throughout your career. You've reached certain goals and celebrated many accomplishments. You should have a chance to talk about all of that, because those details are what will make an employer want to hire you.
The job interview is your chance to show your prospective employer who you really are and what you can bring to the position. By asking you questions, a prospective employer can learn all about you and why you made the choices you made. He can discover what motivates you and what makes you proud. The interviewer can find out how you will fit in with his company. Will you get along with other employees? Will you make important contributions to his organization?
There is a lot to accomplish during the job interview. It is perhaps the most important part of the entire job search process. It is also the most difficult part of the entire job search process. It's not like the resume you spent months poring over. You can edit your resume again and again until it lists the most important things about your career and uses the most effective wording to highlight your skills. However, a job interview usually takes place in less than an hour. When you say something, there's no delete key. If you forget to say something, the moment may have already passed by the time you realize it.
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