Ask Simply Hired Commuting, Cookies and Insomniac Bosses

Ask Simply Hired Commuting, Cookies and Insomniac BossesAsk Simply Hired Commuting, Cookies and Insomniac BossesAt Simply Hired we come across many questions from job seekers, from what to say to tough interview questions to how to know if you should quit your job. Here are answers to some of the common, and sometimes wacky, questions from job seekers.How far is too far to commute?The distance and time it takes to commute to a job is a personal preference. Some people wont take a job outside of their city, while others are willing to drive from hours away and stay in commuter hotels each week. When youre evaluating the commute of a potential new job, here are some factors to consider.Are there reliable public transit options available? By taking public transportation you can use your commute time to get in some extra work or relax.What is your tolerance for traffic? Dont let an attractive salary fool you into thinking a commute is better than it is. If you get frustrated and impatien t in traffic the joy of a high salary will wear off quickly, and youll resent the time taken away from family or hobbies.How is your overall health? There is plenty of researchindicating that even a moderate commute can take a toll on health. Although research is never one size fits all, if you are already prone to high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or anxiety, you may want to look for a job closer to home.Is working remotely an option? If you can successfully stay on track with your work from home (be honest) you might be able to handle a long commute if its only one or two days per week or if you can work flexible hours. If the job is otherwise a great fit, discuss this with the hiring manager when you negotiate your salary.How can I become a fortune cookie writer?Treat becoming a fortune cookie writer like you would any other writing job. Practice your writing by starting a personal blog or take freelance assignments from newspapers, magazines or established blogs. You can al so look for more formal writer jobs to build your resume. Additionally consider networking at food and baking events to meet contacts in the fortune cookie industry. Good luckHow can I find an office job if I dont have experience?If you dont yet have work experience, use the term entry level in your job search to find jobs and add the word office to your search to eliminate non-office jobs. Internships are also an option that often dont require previous experience.How do you get hired on the spot?Although walking into a company with a resume and being hired on the spot may have worked at some companies in the past, it is extremely uncommon in most industries today. Unless youre looking for a job in retail or food service, almost all companies prefer that you apply online or by email and go through their formal hiring process. You can help keep the hiring process moving along by being responsive and flexible when scheduling interviews and providing requested items (like work samples) promptly. But beyond that hiring can sometimes take a long time, so do prepare yourself for a little bit of frustration.How do you work for an insomniac?Do you have a babo who contacts you at all hours of the day? Here are two strategies to tame your insomniac boss.Clarify expectations. Perhaps your boss emails you because she prefers working late or odd hours,but she doesnt expect an answer until the next day. If youre not sure, then ask.Set boundaries. Your boss may not know that it bothers you to be contacted late. Before setting a precedent of always responding to midnight emails, give your boss an idea of what to expect from your work habits. You can say, I noticed you called me at 1130 last night, but Im usually asleep by 10. I just want to make sure you know that so you arent waiting on me for anything. Please leave me a voicemail if anything urgent comes up, and Ill make sure to jump on that task first thing in the morning.Do you have a question for Ask Simply Hired? Let us know at blogsimplyhired.com.

Job Interview Questions for Writers and Editors

Job Interview Questions for Writers and EditorsJob Interview Questions for Writers and EditorsIf youre a writer or editor looking for work, you already know you can write well, but you may be feeling nervous about an in-person interview. But, you can ace your interview by prepping with some common job interview questions for writers and editors. Practice is important for preparing for a job interview. Taking the initiative before an interview will likely make you appear cool, calm, and collected when you face your potential new employer. Your composure and knowledge alike can give you an edge over the competition. Questions About Personal Preferences To better understand you and your relationship to the written word, your interviewer will likely ask you about your personal interests and preferences. For example, what books, magazines, or newspapers do you enjoy reading? Youll need to do more than just rattle off a list of reading material. Be prepared to state why as well. The in terview may also ask if you read any blogs on writing and editing and which ones? He or she may also ask what you like about those particular blogs and websites. Your prospective employer may also ask you ifyou have a favoritestyle guideand why you prefer one over the others or how much experience you have with a specific style. Keep in mind, however, that many publications have a designated style guide thats similar to, but not the same as, one of the common styles. Newspapers commonly choose the Associated Press style guide, so your preference isnt likely to sway your employer to choose an altogether different guide. On the other hand, some news organizations use a style guide as a base and tweak the recommendations to meet their needs. Questions About Interpersonal Skills and Conflict Conflict is part of any job, so expect your interviewer to ask you how you handle tension andstressful situations. You might be asked how you would handle sensitive writers who question every ed it you make. You might also be questioned about how youwould handle a freelance writer who regularly hands in subpar work. Your interviewer will likely want to know how you handle the stress of deadlines. She might ask you to give an example of a time when you had to edit or write a piece under a strict deadline. Be able to describe how you ensured the deadline was met. The employer will also want to know how you prioritize assignments. For example, if you have a 300-page document thats a rush job and you must edit it by the end of the day, how would you approach the task? Alternatively, you might be asked to imagine youre faced with two projects with the same deadline. One client is easygoing while the other constantly calls to ask when it will be done. Which project do you make your top priority and why? Computer Software Programs and Content Management Systems In the 21st century, working as a writer or editor isnt just about putting words on a piece of paper. Employers want to know your experience with computer software programs and content management systems as well. You might be asked how well you know InDesign and quarkspeise and if you are familiar with any other page layout software. And dont be surprised if the interviewer asks you about your experience with web publishing using software such as WordPress. mora Job Interview Questions In addition tojob specific interview questionsfor writing and editing, you will also be asked more general questions about your employment history and education as well as your strengths, weaknesses, achievements, goals, and plans. Consult a list of the most common interview questions and examples of answers to prep for these sorts of questions. The best way to prepare for an interview is to answer the potential questions out loud or have a friend or colleague read the questions to you so you can practice in front of a live person. More Interview Preparedness Tips You want to make a great first impression at your interview so be sure to choose an outfit thats befitting of the job and company you hope to work for. Business dress may be the most appropriate or perhaps business casual will do. If youre not sure how to dress, its probably better to dress up rather than dress down.

The College Students Guide to a Winning Resume

The College Students Guide to a Winning ResumeThe College Students Guide to a Winning ResumeBy Deborah FedericoGone in sixty seconds. Recruiters spend less than a minute reviewing your resume. With a stack of resumes to review, recruiters naturally want to make their workload easier, tossing bad resumes right off the bat. Reasons for your resume to be quickly tossed into the No pile Typos, misspellings, mismatched fonts, a sloppy appearance. Even a resume thats too text heavy or runs onto two pages will get thrown into the discard pile.Every time I teach my class on resume writing, I always start the lecture with the question, What is the goal of a resume? Is it to get a job? as most students will answer? To them, I say, No, thats not it. Eventually, someone guesses the real goal of a resume to get an interview. I make the absatzwirtschaft analogy that the resume is an advertisement about you, and you need to make the most of that 8.5-by-11-inch sheet of paper. Sell yourself to the e mployer by convincing them that youre the best candidate to bring in for the interview.So, what can you do to increase the chances that your resume will be read by the recruiter? Follow my lucky 13 tips outlined below, and you will produce a winning resume that not only gains the attention of the recruiter, but also garners his or her admiration. Pretty soon your phone will be ringing with calls from recruiters inviting you in for an interview.Length Keep your resume to one page. No exceptions.Formatting Your resume should look clean and readable with plenty of white space to make it inviting. Keep the font size consistent and use bolding or italicization for effect. Stay away from cutesy fonts or graphics. Some students will tell me that they want to get attention that way. I tell them that the only attention they get will be the negative kind. Put your energies into the content.Contact information Make sure your email address is professional. Sticking with your name is the best be t. Again, this is not the place to be creative by using addresses like surferdude87 or hotchick143. Put both your permanent address and school address on your resume. If you have room for only one, put the address on thats closest to the job location. I worked with a student once who wasnt getting any interviews despite having a terrific resume. The problem? She had put her home address in New Jersey down while applying for full-time positions in Boston.Use bullet points I highly recommend using bullet points on your resume. Stick with the standard kind of bullets. If you decide to use paragraphs, make sure you write concise readable prose.(Okay, by now youre probably thinking, How will I get my resume to stand out if its just like everyone elses? Just keep reading)Use action statements That means starting each bullet point with an active verb (avoid words like assisted, helped, worked or aided). Use verbs that are relevant to your industry, e.g. design or create for the fashion ind ustry or calculate or audit for the accounting field.Avoid laundry lists Dont use phrases like responsibilities or duties included, then proceed to list everything you did at a particular job in one long bullet point. First of all, this is boring to read and, secondly, youre shortchanging yourself. When I work with students on dissecting these long statements, we very often break them into two or three active statements , highlighting accomplishments, results and purpose.Quantify when possible. Numbers always make a point stronger. For example, instead of saying something like, service customers by answering questions, selecting appropriate merchandise and processing abverkauf on register in order to meet sales goals, try, service 50 customers per shift by answering questions, selecting appropriate merchandise and processing sales on register in order to consistently meet and surpass daily sales goal of $500.Highlight accomplishments and results In the example above, the accomplishm ent is that this student consistently met the sales goal of $500. When writing your bullet points, think about what you accomplished or achieved. If you were a tutor, did you help students improve their test scores? If you were a server in a restaurant, did your persuasive upselling techniques result in increased profits for the restaurant? To make your statements even more powerful, start with the accomplishment, e.g., Achieved highest monthly sales out of 10 salespeople by.State the purpose of what you did Whenever I show students how to do this, their statements always end up being so much stronger. Think about what the purpose was of what you did, and put that at the end of your point. Sometimes students think that what they did was insignificant, but by adding the purpose to the statement, it makes them realize that it wasnt. Which is better Researched demographic variables and environment factors in the childrens toy market? Or Researched demographic variables and environment factors in the childrens toy market for clients use in new product development.?Prioritize your bullets When ordering your bullet points, always think, If the recruiter only had time to read my first or perhaps second bullet, what would I want him or her to read? Most students think that they have to list their bullet points based on what they did the most. If 75% of their job involved cold-calling prospective clients, they will want to list that first. However, if they worked on a project that was presented to the CEO of the company, then by all means, that should come firstCategorize your Experience section Because work experience needs to be presented in reverse chronological order, many students are faced with the problem of having to put their current job first, which is often a part-time job unrelated to what they want to do, while they did a terrific internship last summer and want to showcase that. What to do? Simply break your experience section in two Relevant Experience a nd Other Experience.Target your resume Many students will have a master resume from which they create more specific, targeted resumes for the different industries they want to work in. If a student is simultaneously pursuing internships in marketing and finance, he will have a marketing resume that has his marketing-related team projects, which uses lost of marketing keywords, while his finance resume will do just the opposite. Tip Look at the job description for key words to incorporate into your resume.What to include on your resume In addition to your education, include work experience, both relevant and not, volunteer experience, college activities/clubs/organizations, leadership roles, team projects, skills and interests. Interests are great conversation starters in an interview. So often students will tell me they made a connection with their interviewer by talking about a mutual interest. In short, your resume should provide a picture of a student who is well rounded. A word about GPA the standard rule of thumb is to put it on your resume if it is greater than 3.0.Deborah Federico is an Assistant Director of Undergraduate Career Services in the School of Management at Boston University. Prior to her career in higher education, Deborah worked in the corporate world, primarily doing marketing and market research. She blogs about career advice here and her LinkedIn profile is here.