"Why Should we Hire You?"

Liz Ryan tackles the question "Why Should we Hire You?" in this blog post. In her opinion this fairly standard job interview question shows a lack of imagination. She suggests some new questions that could be asked that show more respect to the candidate and allow for the demonstration of the candidates thinking skills.

The problem with her advice is that it is very likely to turn off about 90 - 95% of HR managers. Since this questions can come at any point in the interview, as the candidate you have to be prepared with several points that you can use to build the appropriate answer. While I have not had the time to read all of the comments on the original blog post (over 420 when I last checked...) it appears to me that many of the comments from actual HR folks are explaining/defending the use of this question. The comments from others seem to be split between: "great article", "this bothers me too..." and "won't this make you appear negative..."

Timing is Everything

So why might this be bad advice? Well the first reason is that depending on when in the interview the question comes, might indicate the types of information that the interviewer is looking for.

If the question comes near the beginning of the interview, it is your opportunity to demonstrate your understanding of the position and company before the interview process. It also allows you to demonstrate your abilities to summarize your qualifications and link them to the skills/abilities they are looking for. Finally it allows you to begin asking about additional insights for what they are looking for in the ideal candidate.

If the question comes near the end however you have used the interview to demonstrate what you learned about the company/position before the interview. So now you are using your answer to demonstrate what you have learned during the interview, and how you view yourself in relation to the stated need for the position. Even though I as the candidate know nothing about the other candidates, I should be the end of the interview know a great deal about the position and company. I obviously know a great deal about myself. The interviewer, therefore, is looking for how well I can communicate my knowledge about myself and how my skills/abilities match the needs of the company. It is in essence my final pitch to sell myself to the company.

As a job candidate I can sympathize with the sentiments expressed by the people commenting on Ms. Ryan's blog post, but as a research expert I hope to instill the opportunity this question presents to the candidate. Remember to use these opportunities as a chance to make yourself stand out from the candidate crowd!

As always I welcome comments/feedback.

The Interview: How not to blow it...

Even though this piece is written in the Chronicle of Higher Education, and is intended for college instructors, the advice works for all. Robert Sternberg is the president of the University of Wyoming and writes "How Not to Blow the Interview." His 10 tips (below) are as I said universally useful for the job seeker once you reach the interview stage.

1. Ask in advance if they have any particular concerns about you.
   
2. Don't assure people that your great idea will work for them because it worked elsewhere.
   
3. Find out the hot-button issues on the campus in advance.
   
4. Don't try to solve the institution's problems in the interview.
   
5. Assume that anything you say to anyone in the interview could end up in the local news or somewhere on the Web.
   
6. Never lie about anything, no matter how small.
   
7. Try to understand how you might fit in to the institution's vision of its future.
   
8. Know the hiring institution's story of its past.
   
9. Don't assume you know who holds the real power.
   
10. Be enthusiastic.

Now tips 3, 4, 7, & 8 can all be traced back to doing your research. Replace institution with company and this translates to any field. So this is another great example from someone who does hiring about how knowing about the company/institution (i.e. doing your research) can improve your chances of interview success. I have learned this lesson the hard way once, and hope to never be in that situation again.

The importance of asking job interview questions as the candidate.

As regular readers of this blog will already know, I am very much a proponent of proper preparation for job search or interview. Doing that research about the position, company, and industry are great ways to make you stand out and get interviews and hopefully job offers. So when I saw the following piece by Joel Peterson via LinkedIn I was prepared to agree with and sing the praises of the article:

"The One Job Interview Question to Get Right"  and as I began reading I initially thought I was going to be right... but then it turned south quickly.

First, I agree with the general premise that the most important question to be prepared for in the interview is when the interviewer will ask you as the candidate if you have any questions for them. Mr. Peterson's reasons for this questions importance are also spot on, it can be used to demonstrate to the interviewer what you know about the position, them as a company, and the industry they are in. I also agree with the reasons behind not asking the first three questions he details. As he mentions these will leave the interviewer with the impression that you as a candidate are looking to the position to solely benefit you, and not as a mutually beneficial relationship between you ans the company.

But when he gives his suggestions for four questions that would be better, I have to strongly disagree with three of the four. Before I get too far into why I object I feel that I need to give just a bit of background to remind regular readers and inform any new readers of where I am coming from. I am a librarian, more specifically a reference and instruction librarian. For the last ten years I have spent almost every day of my professional life teaching people not only how to research, but how to evaluate the information they find from their research. For about four of those years I was in an large academic library setting where I got the opportunity to work with the various career service offices at the university. In this time I learned first hand from the company recruiters exactly the point Mr. Peterson is making:

To stand out from the crowd of applicants, one must demonstrate with every interaction your knowledge of the position, company and the industry they operate in.

So now back to Mr. Peterson's suggested questions:

1. “How can new employees become familiar with, and begin to contribute to, the culture you’ve developed here?

To me this says you did not do that research. Instead you should have used the interview to demonstrate you know something about the culture and give examples of how you would contribute if hired. If you have done that, then you could ask a followup to clarify if you have the right understanding about their culture, or if the examples you gave would mesh with current initiatives. 

2. “What’s the most important way that your company differentiates itself from competitors?” (Focus the question on the particular industry you’re in, showing that you’re knowledgeable about the company and its sector.)

By asking this question, I again feel that you are demonstrating you didn't do enough research. You should have been able to learn some about them and their competitors and what the differences are... instead you might mention some of the specific things you have learned about them or the competition in the interview and make a connection with your background. (ex. "I read in the XXXX that your competitor is about to introduce YYYY and I feel that my experience at company ZZZZ would allow me to contribute immediately in your efforts to ....")

3. “What are a few of the most important challenges that the industry is facing, and how is your company going to approach them?

Again you should already know the challenges, and if the opportunity was available addressed how you can make a contribution during the interview.

4. “What might I do to add the greatest value to the business?” -- followed by, “What kinds of things can I do to prepare myself for the job?”

This combination is very good, but I think it needs to be paired with the suggestions I have made above. After sprinkling suggestions of ways you can contribute built upon the things you have learned about them and/or the industry during your research, these two questions can be a great way to wrap up the interview and hopefully receive some initial feedback on how they viewed you and the examples/suggestions you brought to the table.

The research is vitally important, but just as important is how you use what you learned and demonstrate it in the cover letter, interview, and all communications with the company.

I value comments and feedback as always.

Finding your voice

Vicki Salemi has written this very good piece in US News & World Reports' On Careers blog called: "5 Speech Tips to 'Find your Voice' for the Big Interview". In this piece advice from noted career expert Caroline Dowd-Higgins discussed several key tips for when speaking in a job interview:

• Use ample volume, don't speak too quickly, and think before you speak.
• Watch for nervous ticks ('um', 'ah', 'like', 'you-know') that manifest as filler words.
• Allow the words to "land and be heard without the filler."

The article then outlines the following five tips to let your voice shine:

1. Eliminate the filler words.
2. Practice with technology.
3. Listen to your interviewer.
4. Carry authority.
5. Remember to breathe.

Now I can only hope that most of these are things that we have all heard before, but I think that this nice reminder can help any of us who are still looking. As the interviewee it may feel like the pauses are long and unbearable... but if we had someone time them for us in practice, then it will turn out that these pauses (when practiced) are very short and help the interview. Couple that with tip three 'listening to your interviewer' can allow you to truly hear the questions and answer what they are asking of you. This, combined with the research you have done on the company/position will make you standout from the crowd of applicants.

I would love to hear about examples of using the pause to effect.

Job hunting secrets/Interview tips

So I have been reading a lot lately about things that either are or could be come trend in hiring/employment. Several of my recent posts have been about these trends, especially the raise of the freelance economy. In some industries/sectors this is nothing new. For example academia has called this class of employee adjuncts and the practice has been around for decades.

Because of this focus I haven't had as much time to pass on general job hunting and interviewing advice columns. These two did register on my radar and I set them aside to pass along. The first is by Lou Adler, who wrote The Ten Best Job-hunting Secrets of all time. The second is by Jeff Haden, who wrote What Interviewers Wish They Could Tell Every Job Candidate.  Neither of these seemed groundbreaking to me, but admittedly I read a lot of these columns/articles, so they may be new to you.

In Mr. Adler's piece he provides 10 tips, mostly about networking and answering interviewer questions. They are all sound, but as I said nothing that seems radically different. Also as is typically the case there is very little description or explanation of how to apply the tips. One thing I will give him credit for is linking job seekers to a column he wrote on advice for the interviewer to use in judging our answers, so obviously it might be helpful to review that advice as well.

In Mr. Harden's piece he talks about nine traits/attributes that the interviewer wants to see/pick up on in the interview. Used along side the two articles by Mr. Adler these could help develop a picture of what you might expect the interviewer to think/feel about you as a candidate.

So as a example the #3 tip from Mr. Harden's column was that interviewers what candidates to stand out. If you paired that with the #'s 7 & 8 tips from Mr. Adler's piece (and some Google searching for what exactly SAFW is and how to do it...)you should be able to construct some strong answers to questions you expect the interviewer might ask.

How do you determine what questions they might ask (you might be saying to your self...) well you have a few choices:

• First examine your resume and cover letter and be prepared to talk about any and all statements, experiences, accomplishments you have provided  to them.
• Try a sight like Glassdoor.com (I wrote this review) and look up sample interview questions.

Another interviewing technique similar to the SAFW that Mr. Adler describes is STAR. It is another way to help you organize your thoughts and prepare a strong answer.

Hopefully these and other things I have written about over the past year and a half are helping people out. As always I would love to hear from readers and get a conversation going.

Answering the BIG question...

We all know it's coming, yet we may not be fully prepared for it. The moment in the interview when the human resources representative/committee/interviewer asks "Why do you want this job?". Hopefully you have prepared and have a solid answer, if not you may want to read this from the Undercover Recruiter and how to answer the question.

In the article there a four steps to help you prepare your answer, but it seems to me the two keys are use the question as your chance to make your sales pitch (i.e. highlight why you are the perfect candidate) and second you want to know what they want in a candidate.

What this article fails to tell you is that in order to know what they want in a candidate you will undoubtedly need to do some research about the company, position, and possible the industry in which you hope to work. I have written pieces in the past about this type of research, the most useful may be this on Company research - business news.

Some additional things to remember are the power of LinkedIn and other social networks. Before the interview you may want to search by job title to see the career path of others in the career you are pursuing. You also will want to use Glassdoor.com or Career One Stop to look up salary data and interview question styles.

Use all the tools that are available to you, go into the interview prepared, relaxed and confident and hopefully everything will work out.

Beating Unemployment.

J.T. O'Donnell is a career expert, and this recent piece (3 Tips to Beat an Unemployment Stigma) got me thinking. She starts out by mentioning a new study (written up in the Washington Post piece here) that says long term unemployment can be a source of discrimination during a job search. I first want to echo her sarcasm over the shocking nature of these results. It is certainly something I have written about, providing links to advice and offering my own thoughts.

I like the 3 tips that Ms. O'Donnell shares. They are more than just general advice/common sense things that we all already knew. Hopefully anyone reading this will take heart in that (to me at least) they are simple and actionable steps that I can apply today.

Her second tip can involve some heavy lifting with the research muscle.  Don't forget to refer back to my posts of research tips to find useful advice on how to approach learning about a company beyond just reading their web page.

When approaching this company research, while it is important to learn as much as possible from the information that the company produces, it is vital to gather background about the company from 3rd party news outlets and to learn about the industry that your target company is a part of and something about it's major competitors as well.

For anyone who has read this blog long enough will remember that I work in academic libraries. At my FPOW I had the pleasure of working closely with several campus offices that helped students find work. They mentioned time and again that the feedback they got from recruiters is that job candidates don't know enough about their company. Since leaving that university and starting this blog I have seen many advice articles that also mention this. Doing the research about the company is critical. So here is a senerio:

Candidate 1 has not done much research, and therefore the interview is mainly about them and their background.

You (as candidate 2) have done some of this research and you can mention things you have learned (big bonus), but if you can mention these things and make a connection to your background and how it will help you help them... (BIG BIG bonus)

Hopefully it is clear the power of this kind of research. Much of it can be done with smart web searching, but you can find better more reliable sources of information if you use a library. Try this post for a list of high quality resources provided by most state to all of their residents to perform this type of research.

I would love to hear from anyone who has used this type of approach to improve their interviewing.

The Only Three True Interview Questions

From Forbes Magazine contributor George Bradt writes this piece about Acing the only three true interview questions. His questions are:

• Can you do the job?
• Will you love the job?
• Can we tolerate working with you?

and he has a more detailed piece about why these are the only three questions.  First I encourage everyone to read both of his pieces, but his advice for acing these interview questions he gives three simple steps:

1. Think before opening your mouth.
2. Answer the question asked.
3. Bridge to answer the true underlying question.

I have unfortunately not been  meticulously documenting all interview questions I have gotten in the past two and a half years of my job search. I can however give some examples of how I think I have done this well and how I have not done so well.

First the not so well...

I was interviewing for a job as an academic librarian where the primary job function was managing the information commons (which was being built in the new building.) My understanding of one of the primary job functions was that this position would be responsible for programming, that is organizing and putting on events to bring students, faculty, and the public to the library. I can freely admit that this was not my biggest strength, but I have experience putting on these types of events. So at several points in the interview (and for those of you who are unfamiliar with academic interviews, they average a day and a half!) when I was asked about programming background and/or ideas I described my experiences. Now my personal experiences primarily center around using games (board, computer, console, and trivia) and while I am sure I mentioned other ideas I can with hindsight see that if most of my ideas appeared to be centered on games and gaming this might not jive with the library and staff.

By using Mr. Bradt's three steps here is something closer to how I might have answered the question:

think about my gaming experience
Begin the answer with a brief example of one of these game events, but quickly pivot to how I have planned events, and programs around many themes depending on circumstances.

Where I think I did well...

In this case I was interviewing for an academic librarian where the primary job function was business reference. The question was about my experience developing a collection for students and faculty in this area. I answered by describing which business areas I had supported in a previous position, talked about how I worked with the faculty in these areas to learn what was important to them and their students, and then described a project at that previous job where we analyzed the collection and removed a large amount of material that was dated, and no longer as important for students and researchers.

Now I did not get that job either, but I did have a very positive conversation with the administrator in charge of the search about how well I did, and my strengths as a candidate (which is unfortunately rare) but how the candidate they chose had twenty years experience and an advanced degree in business.

I for one am going to be practicing the techniques that Mr. Bradt describes. Have you had any experiences positive or negative with job interviews and these types of questions? How do you answer them?

Ten ways to make your XXXX job application better than everyone else's

This post was written by Matt Thompson (a journalist) with ten tips for other journalists to improve their job applications. These tips however are applicable to ANY profession. I strongly encourage you to read the full piece, but here are his tips:

1. Read between the lines of my job description.
2. Get your vanity search in order.
3. Speaking of which, please have a personal site.
4. Your cover letter should tell me two stories, and both should be fascinating.
5. There’s more than one way to skin a resume.
6. Even if I’m not following you on social media, assume I am.
7. Don’t hesitate to get one of our mutual colleagues to recommend you to me.
8. A little follow-up at any point in this process doesn’t hurt. A lot might.
9. The very best interviews feel like great conversations.
10. Every hiring manager is different.

His narrative does a great job explaining how these can be applied to job searches/applications. The number one suggestion to me seems to be arguing for doing your homework/research about the position and company (hint: if you haven't read this blog for long this is my mantra.)

I like the idea of the cover letter telling two stories. I wish there had been room in his piece to give examples, or at least more advice... which leads me to my charge for all of you. If you have done this please share tips, advice, examples in the comments. If you have not, but have thoughts share those as well.


 

Skills shortage an employer problem?

Let's start the week with a thought experiment.

This piece by Neil Sandell in the Toronto Star discusses how the claim of many CEO's and corporate executives that there is a skills gap is actually a self-inflicted wound. While the articles data and studies are about Canada, the insights are universal. The current trend in corporate hiring is to higher experienced candidates and to no longer train/develop current employees.

We have all probably seen job ads asking for what seems like an impossible combination of education and experience. There are many career/job hunting blog posts across the internet detailing this trend (see some of my other posts on employment trends) of employers fishing for the best possible candidate at the lowest cost. In the short term companies may be acting in their own self-interest... but what will be the long term consequences of these practices?

My personal opinion is that this will have a long term negative impact on the skills of the workforce. Only time will tell if this will be overcome by changing hiring practices, technology or some other change in the way businesses work in the future.

Your thoughts are welcome.

Embrace Insecurity?

This article by Allison Vaillancourt featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education discusses how being a bit insecure might make you a better employee. Before you discount the advice as only applying for academics, the article is discussing a study conducted by the Harvard Business Review Blog. The original HBR Blog piece offers three tips:

• Lower self-confidence makes you pay attention to negative feedback and be self-critical
• Lower self-confidence can motivate you to work harder and prepare more
• Lower self-confidence reduces the chances of coming across as arrogant or being deluded.

My thought is that these are all a fine line, but when you are in the good place between having a level of self-confidence that is too high and too low can produce great employees. I would encourage everyone to read both articles, and then reflect on where you may fall of the sliding scale.

If you are too high on your skills you may act without considering all the ramifications... but if you are too low on your skills you might become paralyzed with self-doubt. As with many things in life finding the right balance along this scale can lead to a better more well rounded employee/job candidate.

For the job hunter/candidate I see this applying most to the interview and/or networking opportunities.

'Perfect' Job Interview?

In this piece featured on LinkedIn in late November Jeff Haden of Inc.com discusses the perfect job interview. He first discusses that landing an interview is a success that we shouldn't discount, with potentially hundreds if not thousands of applicants for each open position. He then provides eight steps help you shine in the interview.

1. Be likeable.
2. Never start the interview by stating you want the job.
3. Ask questions about what matters to you.
4. Set a hook.
5. Know what you can offer immediately.
6. Don't create negative sound bites.
7. Ask for the job based on the facts.
8. Reinforce your connection with your follow-up.

Tips 3 and 7 remind us the importance of studying/researching the company/position before the interview. Not only will this increase you chances of landing the interview, but it should increase your odds of landing the job.

-Good luck!

Job Interviews: what they are and are not

This post from the Metropolitan New York Library Council describes job interviews and does a great job of reminding us what they are and are not. The advice is applicable for all, and stresses early on the importance of preparing (i.e. doing the research as I have described many times.)

I can certainly attest to how I knew the things written here, but also have fallen into the traps they describe many times. I encourage anyone who is getting stressed out and/or burned out with interviewing to read this article then take a moment to reset. Getting interviews are great, but it is only a step in the process.

Good luck!

Job applicant experience can effect business!

Alice Diamond is a career counselor at an academic institution. Her piece for Career Convergence Magazine discusses how the applicant experience can effect a business. She uses some generalities that I think we can all identify with. Interviewing and not hearing for weeks if ever are unfortunately things that many if not all job searchers can understand.

I have tried to avoid boring you the reader with too many personal stories of my job searches, so I'll just say that all of the situations she used as examples are ones that I have experienced or were experienced by someone I know closely.

What I wanted to talk about in more depth were the things she shared about how these experiences can effect the hiring company, and more importantly what we as job seekers can do about it.

First if the situation was really bad, vote with your wallet. Tell family and friends about the bad experience and if the company provides services that you consume then consume accordingly. But if the experience was not so egregious that you must take to the streets so to speak... her tips offer some interesting options.

As I have discussed in several of my posts about employment trends, the job search process is changing. The nature of work is changing as well. In this new environment providing feedback either directly or indirectly is a vital piece of business. Keep that in mind during your next interview.

Are you shooting yourself in the foot?

About two weeks ago J.T. O'Donnell wrote this piece for LinkedIn about job seekers taking advice from the wrong person.  Ms. O'Donnell is the CEO of CAREEREALISM a career coaching site on the web. In this article she sites a study by the non-profit Career Advisory Board that found that 58% of job seekers are not seeking professional advice, instead they are looknig for work on their own. She then links to a story she wrote about her own experience when she did this as well.

Now as the CEO of CAREEREALISM she has a vested interest in all of us job seekers using professional services for help in our searches. If we all did her company would get some portion of that business, a.k.a. her bottom line would improve. But I don't want to sound too negative, the advice is still sound... just consider all the professionals out there.

1) The workforce development office in your community (or whatever the name may be)
2) The career services at any college you attended
3) Professionals companies like the one MS. O'Donnell founded.
4) Librarians

Now the first three will make sense to all of us, but the last may take a bit of explaining... I have worked with the career service units at several colleges I have worked at. In every case I have heard the anecdotal evidence that they receive from employers: '...the students are academically smart/qualified, but they don't know about my company/industry...'

I have paraphrased here, but the sentiment has been expressed to me and others I have worked with many times. This is actually one of the reasons I started this blog, to try and write about ways the average job seeker can improve their research skills to improve their knowledge about the companies/industries they want to work for/in. With this increased knowledge it is easier to tailor your resume and cover letter to the job. This then increases the chances of getting the interview. Once you have the interview you can conduct additional research to find more information that will strengthen your answers to the interview questions.

For all these reasons I believe that most librarians can be a valuable source for helping the job seeker understand how to conduct quality research. My posts about research tips are a great place to start, but actually seeing them in action and having someone to walk you through the use of the tools can be invaluable.

Almost everybody in should live near a public library, and as I pointed out here 49 of 50 states have programs to either purchase these tools for all their citizens or help the libraries purchase the tools. My biggest caveat is that depending on the public library they may not make the connections I have made in my career. If you go in asking for job related help you may get pointed to job ads, or local resources for finding jobs. But if you ask them to teach you how to effectively search their databases to find information you can then apply that skill for any need, career related or otherwise.

Good luck, and let me know how it turns out.

More interview question advice

Another piece from Forbes about interview questions designed to trip us up, in this piece Jenna Goudreau lists 10 of these questions. Notice that number three is very related to the theme of this blog, researching before the job interview. I was actually asked this question at a recent interview.

Being able to connect with their situation goes a long way, and being able to tie your skills and abilities to their situation gets you even further.

Her analysis seems very reasonable and helps dig into the intent that interviewers are trying to get at by asking these and similar questions.

I hope that these are helpful to anyone who is interviewing in the near future.

Is it a Mistake to Hold Out For a Full-Time Job?

This is the question posed by Fran Hopkins in a piece over on the AOL Jobs blog. Before I get into her reasoning I must state the obvious, that this is a very personal decision that hinges on many factors that are all unique to your own situation. For Ms. Hopkins she feels that she can support herself as a freelance writer. I she is being published on AOL Jobs, then we can assume that this is a reasonable decision for her to make. We of course don't know how long she has been looking, what exactly her specialty/field is or her geographic location. All of these will play a large role in this type of decision.

For myself, I have taken part time work. First I am geographically tied to one place, so I can only apply for jobs in a limited area. Second my profession (librarianship) is tied directly and indirectly to government spending, which as most know has been declining in recent years. Lastly and probably most importantly I had been out of work for close to two years. As I described in my last post, a lengthy unemployment is becoming increasingly harder to overcome in this job market. If I had continued to hold out for full-time work I could have been hurting my chances with each passing month.

Unlike Ms. Hopkins I am finding my part-time work very rewarding. The job functions are nearly identical to those I performed in my last full-time job, so that helps. The part-time hours still gives me time to search for full-time work. Perhaps most importantly I can be a little more selective in what full-time jobs I apply for. This is of course something that many might not be able to do, but for my current situation I can be more selective.

If you have been reading my blog long you will be aware of the importance of researching a job and company before and during your application/review/interview process. This means that if you can be more selective (a big if for many job seekers) you have the ability to only apply for jobs that truly match your skills and abilities AND that you are passionate about landing. This will show in both the cover letter and the interview process, which should count in your favor.

I hope that all of you are fortunate enough to have a situation that allows selectivity. Take the time to prepare for the writing of the cover letter and the interview(s). Your dream job is out there for you.

Reasons for employers not calling back.

I have been intending to write about this for a little while, and this article from Fortune is a good place to get us started...

Their list includes:

• Job hoping
• Outdated skills
• Getting fired
• Age
• Unemployement

Three of these five you can't do much about if they are a factor for you (job hoping, getting fired, age.) One you can address/improve (outdated skills.) The final (unemployment) is more of a concern if you don't use the time to stay active in your field. Some of the suggestions from the article include:

• Online courses
• Certifications
• internships/volunteering
• networking

There is on item that they have overlooked, which if you are in the long-term unemployed you want to think about and try to improve. Your credit. If you are asking yourself why? keep this in mind: It is legal (and becoming more common) for employers to check your credit as a factor in employment decisions. Here are some articles that explain this further: Can credit kill a job offer? or Credit scores and jobs.

If you want to learn more about credit scores and how it can effect you, try this site I designed for the Community College I work at.

Good luck!
-George

Questions, Questions, Questions!

I have written several posts that highlight the importance of asking questions during the interview process. This piece from Fortune Magazine's Ask Annie column highlights key questions of a potential boss to judge fit with the organization.

I have always found that asking a variation on the "key attributes that the next candidate will bring to this job" is highly effective. First as the column notes you can hear what they are looking for in a slightly more informal way and judge if what they want matches with what you could bring. Second, not mentioned is that if you ask this near the end of the interview you can then recap some of the information you have presented to them during the interview of how you feel you would match those characteristics (assuming you still want to be considered for the job.) If you think that it would not be a good fit you can then work on crafting a respectful communication to send to the hiring manager after the interview detailing why you are removing your self from consideration.

Never underestimate the power this can bring to your networking! Most professions/industries are small. By this I mean that the people you know and who know you may easily know a person that will be interviewing you for your next job. By declining a spot earlier (if you truly feel you don't think you would enjoy the job or the company) you can create a positive image of yourself as a professional (i.e. you know when a job would not have worked and you are respecting their time and resources.) Therefore in the future if you are interviewing for or being considered for a position that you know you are qualified for and want... that person/company may ask some of their colleagues whom you possible interviewed with. They will be able to not only comment on how you presented yourself but be able to comment on your commitment to finding the right job fit for you.

What other questions do you find useful to ask a potential boss?

Reasons you may not hear back after applying.

Do you ever get frustrated after applying for a job then waiting and waiting... well Meghan Brio of Glassdoor.com has written a piece for Business Insider with 5 reasons why you may never hear back.

Her reasons include:

• You really aren't qualified.
• You haven't key-word optimized your resume or application.
• Your resume isn't formatted properly.
• Your resume is substantially different from your online profile.
• The company received 500 resumes and yours was #499.

notice a pattern? These are all resume/application centered. Her suggestions?

• research interesting companies on social media.
• start a blog in your area of interest and/or expertise.
• get professional resume help.
• if at all possible don't wait until you are out of work to find your next job.
• network.

I commend her for having research the company as suggestion #1. I have many posts that may help with research tips and networking. As a job seeker who is blogging about an area I have experience with, I can say that this second tip is good advice... but I can't say yet if it has made a positive impact on my job search. I would like to think that it has.

What do others think? Is this type of general/generic advice helpful? Have you read a piece such as this, made a change or improvement based on that piece and seen tangible positive results?