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Job Interview

Razare

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Job interviewing tips, anyone?

I have this resume posted online and this company has called and left me a voice mail twice saying they want an interview. :smoker:

That's a good sign, no? I'll be calling them back tomorrow to hopefully setup an interview. I'm very excited because I currently work at a gas station.

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Edit: Nevermind... I did company research, it's a scam. They call you into an interview but have certain "start up costs" you have to pay up front. Then they give you an impossible test and you fail it. They'll keep calling you back for interviews as long as you'll show up.
 

Razare

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But if anyone wants to give me job interview tips, go ahead, I'm still job hunting and I may get an interview one of these days.
 

walfin

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Dress well, look the interviewer in the eye, always be prepared for "tell me about yourself".
 

snafupants

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-eye contact - intps tend to look down or up when thinking. dont break eye contact for more than one minute at a stretch.
-direct answers (aka kiss method) - they give you enough rope to hang yourself with by making questions open ended...dont fall for that trap by giving tangential, voluminous answers.
-research beforehand - it will seem like you dont care if you cant answer basic questions about the corporation.
-questions for them - prepare some intelligent questions for them that they could expand on and not the yes/no variety.
-empathize - put yourself in their shoes and think about what they are looking for in a prospective employee and then meet that expectation!
comfort - stay in your normal routine. do you normally drink coffee or pop vitamins in the morning? no different here.

good luck! and may god have mercy on your soul...
 

EditorOne

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Some simple advice that's so simple it's often overlooked:

1. Read the help wanted ad carefully and use it to your advantage. Your resume/cover letter should reflect the things they say they are looking for. You need to be blatant. If the ad says "looking for self-directing office generalist comfortable with role ambiguity," your resume cover letter should say you don't need someone standing over your shoulder to work hard and you don't really care about titles, just about getting whatever job your given finished in a manner suitable for its intended purpose.

2. The resume and cover letter get you the interview. The interview gets you the job. So during the interview, focus on the job and your qualities that enable you to do the job well. Don't talk about outside-the-job stuff lke your preferences in music. Employes really aren't allowed to make decisions about your lifestyle preferences, but if you serve it up in a big rambling discourse on the meaning of life and they find out you like music by people advocating death to capitalists, don't expect to be hired. Stay focused on the job.

3. You may not know how to do every single task they outline. You are, however, INTP, so you can figure just about anything out faster than most people on the planet. Just say so. Stress that you enjoy learning new things, and make it clear one of the things your are most comfortable with is change, that after a certain amount of time passes and you've mastered something, you tend to get less interested in it and would prefer to move on to something more challenging. Not only is this probably true (going by INTPs generally) it's also a good thing to say to get into a place that does offer change. If they want you to open mail and answer phones for the next 30 years, you don't want to work there. If they want you to open mail and answer phones until they're sure you're not an idiot and worth investing in, then they'll move you up into something more useful, meaningful and challenging. (It's not all about them. No matter how badly you need a job, a job you don't like will end up worse than living on the dole a while longer.)

4. Even in the interview, stress the information in the job advertisement and be prepared to offer -- hardest thing of all -- detailed examples of how you have done those things OR related things successfully in the past.

5. As noted, appropriate dress is important. I'd not apply for a pallet-moving job in a pinstripe three-piece with a power tie, but I'd dress in a way that the interviewer would not hesitate to introduce me to the company chairman-of-the-board. Clean, neat, demonstrating an awareness of your appearance.

6. Somewhere on the forum there's a thread about reading faces. Go find it and refresh yourself on its tenets and learn the things OTHER PEOPLE look for when trying to get a read on you. While we don't usually deliberately mask ourselves, we do, as noted, tend to avoid eye contact and hold ourselves in. Above all, learning to use your eyes when you smile is really good, especially when you actually do feel like smiling. Be aware of how you look with your facial expressions. Ask somebody and adapt as necessary. You may feel happy and confident and look like you're ready to punch out a wall. You may feel sad and insecure and look like you're ready to step on your flattened enemy's chest and roar with joy. We bollocks this end of things up and don't realize it for years, so ASK SOMEBODY and ADAPT, since people misreading our emotional state is almost as big a problem for us as us misreading others.

Whew.

That's all from years on being on both sides of the interview table.

The only other advice I can offer the forum generally has to do with attitude. Younger people, especially those closer to recent schooling, sometimes have the wrong paradigm in their head regarding jobs. If you mess it up, you don't get a C grade and move on, you get fired and it becomes something you may need to explain in the next job interview. Even worse, this wrong paradigm sometimes shines through during the job interview. This was especially true in my field, explained thusly: You can get the date wrong on a concert in college journalism writing lab and the teacher will mark off five points. If you do that at my newspaper, and send 600 people to hear a concert in the park the day after it was actually scheduled, you're looking for a new job. Change the paradigm in your head.
 

Razare

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Thanks guys, that helps. I got the pants, shirt and tie dusted off and my resume ready to go.

Teachers used to push this portfolio business on me and I'm not so certain on it. In the accounting profession, should I even have a portfolio? If you don't know, it's alright, I'll ask one of my accounting friends.
 

Zadigdigs

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I had a job interview today. That was hell. I was unable to speak, unable to answer properly. The woman almost paralized me. I'd bet she was ENFJ. Hell. I was hawkward, stupid, or mute and lost. What you call INTP make me feel I'm sick. I call my brain a jail now. :mad: (mute cry).
Advice: get prepared folks, or they'll cut you into little pieces.
 

Dapper Dan

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One of the most overlooked steps is to send them a thank you letter afterwards. It can literally be only two or three sentences long, since it has only one real purpose: It lets them know you are still interested in the position.

After all, you should be evaluating them just as much as they are evaluating you.
 

Zadigdigs

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I didn't know your advice but I sent her an email explaining my strong will to work for that company, showing I'm still interested. No answer. Not even a negative one.
I sometimes think I'm dumb and totally unadapted to this world. That put myself in a strange mood for weeks like bitter and totally folded. Crap. Thank you anyway for advices, I beg your pardon for my english...
My advice: dreamers have hard times down there. And if you're smarter than you look like, as an INTP, expect to be laugh at. I wish people could be as tolerant as myself. I help people as much as possible, they take but no help back is offered. So I go back to my brain jail house...:kilroy:
 
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