Florida Executive Serach, Largest Job Search

Author: William Z. Piker

Preparation is everything in life and as well in preparation for job interviews. You may think that it is fine to ?run by the seat of your pants.” In your mind it may even be admirable.

However employers and your prospective employer who is sitting across the desk or hotel room at you may not. A major component of fire departments is to prevent rather than fight fires. Preparation and planning shows an employee with traits and skills that they admire and hire. You may think that it is just great to do things at the last moment.

However have you ever considered the extra effort and meager results that usually results? By waiting to the last moment you are severely limiting both your options as well as your success rate.

A major way to demonstrate your planning skills as well as your ability to implement your plans is to do an in-depth investigation of the company that you are planning to work for. In the end you should know more about the company - its strengths, shortcomings, goals, customers and products than even the person interviewing you.

What questions should you focus on in your research?

First of course what is the ownership of the company, Is it privately owned, a public company on the stock exchange or a government institution. Public companies have a wealth of information available from your stock broker, online or at your public library.

Private companies are somewhat more guarded. You can shine in your research skills here. Again online searches and the public library may be useful. Newspaper searches or clippings again at the library may also yield results. Seeks out customers and even competitors for your targeted company. After all who knows better about the sales and problems of the aspirin company than the salesman of the competitive product Tylenol?

Government organizations present a challenge in that some information is available and even more is supposed to available but may be well be shielded from public view by a possessive protective beauracy. Again your research and interpersonal skills and contacts come into play.

Find out what the main stated goals of the organization are. Is this consistent with their appararent actions and direction. Consistency down the line is important. The captain may be sailing in one direction yet the staff is paddling like mad in another direction to stay out of harms way.

Prepare for questions as to what skills, education, experience and knowledge you will bring to the organization. It is important that this meshes with the job position.

The employer may well ask you what salary you are asking. Again research industry standards in that particular field. Total salary including benefits, bonuses and perks are what count.

Be prepared to discuss ongoing concerns in the specific field and industry involved as well as current trends. Ongoing educational needs in the field, particular field and the firm are important.

Finally at the end of the interview it is always best to ask for feedback. Are there any questions not covered? Are there areas for improvement in your presentation, education or skills? Assuming you are successfully hired what areas of emphasis should you have - training, skill development and personal development?

Author: Luke T. Axton

Twenty or thirty years ago, finding the right career was limited by lack of global internet tools, limited by more old fashioned values and opinions, and less important than ‘finding yourself.’ I recall when my counselor, the savior of all saviors as far as I’m concerned, laughed with me over how I had gone about finding the right career I had taken all the courses I found interesting and many I hoped were somehow related, then tried to decide on a major or career.

She gently joked that many people decide first, then do the footwork of taking the required and necessary and important courses, doing internships, and getting in at some entry level. Clearly, I didn’t have the tools we do today for finding the right career, or I didn’t know about their existence and value, at least.

For example, a lot of students will use personality testing and employment or goal evaluation for finding the right career right from the start of their semesters in college. ERIK, sychometric testing tools, and career skills assessment batteries will help to define aptitude and save you time futzing around with majors and minors that you THINK you MIGHT like when six years later decide you need to start all over finding the right career, as offshore tool is not for you or interplanetary travel studies will take too long or anthropological studies of tribes now wiped out of the college catalogs three quarters of the way into your educational plan.

A unbelievable implement of guidance, information, and statistical projection for finding the right career is the Index to Careers Guide, created, updated or maintained, and provided both online and off (in college and high school career centers, for instance) by the U.S. Department of work or agency of Labor Statistics.

If finding the right career is a task you feel or think requires a knowledge of salaries, working conditions, descriptions of the nature of the work involved, training and other qualification requirements, the number of jobs or positions held in that field and the competition involved, and projected job openings, then go to http://bls.dol.gov and type in any career title or browse the index of thousands of positions or job types.

Another brilliant tool is one that comes in workbook form and accompanies the What Color is Your Parachute and The Boxes of Life books by Richard Bolles. The workbooks (and books) have you take intensive (but interesting, fun) question that lead you to slowly but surely work out or do a process of illimination experiment that helps you in finding the right career FOR YOU. not your Mom, your dead Grandfather, or the culture around you who has all kinds of opinions about who you are and who you should be but who does not pay your rent or feed your kids when push comes to push. Nor are they the ones who need to live in your skin, sleep through the night, or answer to your higher needs and greater consciousness.