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01 Aug 10 How Being Street-Smart Helps You Crack a Job Interview

A job interviewer comes to an interview table with a hope to find the best candidate for the position, and a job interviewee equipped with all the knowledge required to do the work comes to the table to get the job for himself. But both of them fail to secure the result each of them wanted: the interviewer does not get the best candidate, and the interviewee, who was the best among all, does not get the job.

Why?

Because an interviewer has only so much time and attention for one candidate, and even that time and attention shrinks down to bare minimum, for the candidates are too many. As a result, what an interviewer gets is a nearly suitable candidate for the job, and an average interviewee, who is street-smart, gets the job.

A street smart person knows the art of survival. He knows that not the best but the swiftest wins the everyday battle. He also knows what to say in which situation because he can intuitively tell what others want to hear. The tips I am going to share are the ones a street smart job searches usage to convey the interviewer how qualified he or she is.

The goal of this article is to do the same, to help you become and street smart and succeed in an interview, even if you are not the sharpest.

Experience

Your interviewer is interested in knowing about your experience in doing the job you have applied for, so instead to beating around the bush come directly to the experience part during your interview. And tell them some details of the work using jargons.

Expertise

You need to show you expertise in your domain while talking about the experience. Talk of the details tells your interviewer that you know nuisances of the job, which only the experts of the field can hope to know. And use of jargon suggests the depth of your understanding of your field. Use acronyms for “3 or more words” jargons.

Exceeding Expectation

Cracking an interview is an art of understanding the requirement and over delivering on it. There is no way that an interviewer can know about you, in any detail, in the limited time he has for you. You should, therefore, serve them what they want the most. Blow them away by showing them what they need, and more.

Follow these three advices, and you will end up getting every job you will ever apply for.

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06 Jan 10 Why Should You Write a Cover Letter?

A little over 3 years back I walked this line. I designed my CV, filled in the vital details, buttoned my shirt, and knotted my necktie for my job interview. But, I missed one thing, which HR head of the business school I studied did not tell me. I did not create a cover letter. My friends who were more into jobs suggested me to write one, but I didn’t.

What happened?

They had their job and I didn’t, for long time, and that is how I realized the importance of a cover letter in job search. Do you wish to travel the same path, and have the same experience before you realize the importance of having a nicely written cover letter?

I hope not!

Benefit of having a cover letter

Why do we need a cover letter? What difference does it make to our skills?

None. A cover letter does not make any difference to your skills. But, it helps you present your skills in the friendliest manner using the least possible words. You need a cover letter because:

  1. You have to compete with hundreds (if not thousands or tens of thousands) of applicants who have exactly same qualification as you do.
  2. You have to make your claim of being the most suitable candidate for the job stand out among the claims made by other applicants through their résumé.
  3. You do not want your CV to remain unopened and get thrown in the trash bin.
  4. You want to give an idea about who you are, what your qualification is, and what you can do even before your employer reads your résumé.

Let me tell you a HR secret. HR people do not go over all the résumés that they get. They read the cover letter typed in the mail body or sent with the CV and make their mind based on the information they get in the cover letter.

If you are not convinced with what I have said above then reread the entire post and do it until you start believing it because this is important. I am leaving you with this thought, and tomorrow I will tell you about the structure of a cover letter.

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