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Turning a Layoff Into Success

Baby boomers are probably disadvantaged by being older.  While our society, in both the U.S. and Canada, is largely beyond the point of discrimination by race, gender, nationality or religious preference, for example, I do believe there is an age-based discrimination that has continued among some companies.  I deplore this situation and consider it to be something that we will get beyond principally based on supply and demand factors in the future.


Career Management 101

Does this sound like anyone you know?


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1. Preparation

Some if this is so simple, yet all too often people fall at this first hurdle. Do you know the location of the office the interview is being held in? What about parking? How much change will you need? Is there a school just down the road that will mean all the car parking spaces will be full just when you arrive? The answer? Do a dry run the day before at the same time you need to be there for your interview. The second aspect of preparation is knowledge of the company. A client of mine recently went for a job interview with Amazon. The very first thing she was asked was, "Is Amazon an English or Scottish company?" Of course, it"s American, but to the interviewer it was very important that she knew about the company. Use the internet to find out about the company; What do they sell or produce? Who are their customers? Are they local, national or international? When were they founded? How many people work for them? Are they acti Resume Creator Click hereve in the community e.g. charity support? What is their mission statement? And so on.

2. First Impressions

There are estimates that well over 90% of a person"s initial judgements of others are made in the first minute of meeting. That may sound unfair, but I assure you we all do it and your interviewer is no different. You have to dress to impress and there are some simple guidelines to follow:

ò€¢ Clothes should be clean, smart, and appropriately professional for the company

ò€¢ Hair needs to be clean and well groomed, including facial hair for the guys, visit a hairdresser the day before to tidy up if needed

ò€¢ No heavy perfumes or aftershaves

ò€¢ Shoes polished

ò€¢ No heavy or overly fashionable jewellery

ò€¢ No tattoos or piercings on show

ò€¢ Clean hands and fingernails

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If you make a bad first impression you may as well no bother with the rest of the interview, which I know seems a harsh thing to say, but it"s true. If you start off on the wrong foot the interviewer won"t spend the rest of the interview trying to prove that their initial assessment of you was wrong, no, they will spend the interview finding evidence that they were in fact right about you, which will make the interview more difficult.

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3. Body Language

Some simple tips:

ò€¢ Don"t cross your arms

ò€¢ Maintain good eye contact and smile

ò€¢ Don"t point or have flamboyant arm movements

ò€¢ Try to mirror the body position of the interviewer

ò€¢ Shake hands firmly, but don"t break any bones!

4. Answering their questions

There are thousands of websites showing the typical interview questions you might face. You should have pre-prepared answers to all of them and a good knowledge of them so you can answer them effortlessly in the interview. You need to do the groundwork on this, but don"t commit the answers to memory so you sound like a robot.

5. Asking questions

You MUST ask some questions at the end of the interview, but don"t focus on the money and what"s in it for you. Here are some examples;

ò€¢ How will my performance be monitored?

ò€¢ Who will I report to?

ò€¢ What will my training consist of?

ò€¢ What are my key responsibilities?

Just take care not to ask something you should already know e.g. if it says it in the job advert don"t ask about it, unless you need clarification.

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