Interview 101

I do a lot of interviewing and hiring for my company, since we aren't really big enough for an HR team. We see a lot of great and competent interviewers, and a lot of less than prepared interviewers. Although I don't consider myself an expert in this area at all, I have received a couple of emails asking for interview tips, and after this last exhausting round of interviews, here are some of my tips for landing a job.

Most of you probably know all of these, but if anything it is a good refresher and you may learn a thing or two. It is a tough job market, and it would be sad not to get an interview or hired for a simple mistake!

(The first post I will do is for resumes. I will follow up with an interview post next week.)

Resume tips:

1. Your resume should NEVER, under any circumstance be longer than one page. Any longer than that and your interviewer will get bored of it, and annoyed at flipping through the pages. (Yes, pages, I received one resume this week that was 5 pages long.)

2. Make the most of your space. White space is important for aesthetic reasons, but get to the point with your objective and organize it so the fonts, bullet points, and punctuation are all consistent.

3. If you are applying for a professional job, make your objective professional. Do not mention long walks in the rain, dancing in the dark, or getting ready for your "Life to take flight" with this new career.

4. Remember your audience. If you are applying for a desk job, do not use your hair-stylist resume. I learned this the hard way, and currently have about five resumes (Marketing, fashion, writing/editing, academic, medical.)

5. Make your name, email address and phone number prominent. Also, do not put nicknames on your resume. For example, if your name is Andrea and you go by Annie just put Annie. Do not put Andrea (Annie) Jones.

6. Dates are necessary. Future employers want to see how long you have been in any position. Most of them also want some idea of how old you are, so putting your graduation dates on your resume is important.

7. Do not ever have spelling errors. This might sound obvious, but if you know your resume really well have someone proofread it for you. Often you have misspellings for the situation, and spell check will not pick those up.

8. If you want to include references, make sure you include what relationship they have to you. Never include family members, even if their last name is different. Also, make sure your references know they are a reference. There is nothing worse than calling a reference only to find that they do not remember the individual, or when they are a family member who was unprepared to give a professional reference.

I know some of these might sound simple, but hopefully they help someone who is looking for a job. Any others I missed that you think should be included?

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