Outwit, Outlast, Outplay Non-traditional Job Interviews

Job interviews are not just limited to the typical face-to-face dialogue inside a conference room at an office. Thanks to the advancement of technology, virtual or online job fairs and video-conferences, phone, and chat kind of job interviews are now possible. These are identified as non-traditional job interviews-a highly technological and convenient system of communication between companies and job seekers.If you want to be a survivor, just like in the reality show, follow these tips to outwit, outlast, and outplay phone, video and virtual job interviews:

Phone Interview

Remember to speak up in a phone interview. The interviewer can't see your facial expression and body language. You will be assessed only on the way you verbalize your thoughts. Speak with confidence and enthusiasm; you will surely leave a lasting expression to the interviewer.You need to minimize distractions. Once you get the call from the employer, make sure you'll have a quiet and private spot for the job interview. If the employer hears earsplitting sounds from your stereo and TV or even from your pet, he or she will not be impressed. Also, make sure your resume is within your reach during your phone interview. This can help you in remembering your work experience, skills, and accomplishments. You may tend to forget important info when you feel jittery.

Virtual Interview

Virtual interviews are gaining popularity. Second life, an online community, holds virtual job fairs to reach job seekers across the country. If you want to try this kind of job hunting stint, make sure to display professionalism. Choose an appropriate avatar: Use the one that truly depicts your character. Using comical icons like vampires, space alien or animals might lead your potential employer think you're not taking your job application seriously. You signed up for this virtual job fair to get a JOB! So choose the appropriate icon and send messages with care. Avoid using cyber slang, emoticons, and IM environment to create a "professional" vibe even in cyberspace.

Video Conference

Even if the video conference is conducted at your home, wear a business attire outfit to exemplify professionalism and set you in the mood. Use the same wardrobe you will be using for an on-site interview. Rehearse, rehearse and rehearse. As a form of rehearsal, do mock up interviews with your friends or family. From this recorded interview you can study areas you need to work on and also helps you ease your nerves since you're in front of a camera. Focus on your posture, speech, and confidence. In any case, whether you get hired or not, remember to send a thank-you note to your interviewers. This shows

by: Mary Shad Moss

College Financial Aid Guide - 3 Steps to Secure a Scholarship

Every student wants a scholarship to fund their college study, but not all students manage to secure one. Although you can apply for all scholarships that are opened for application, but you may not qualify for all and applying for scholarships which you are not qualified for will waste your time and efforts. You should only apply the scholarships that you are qualified for. Here are 3 important steps to secure a scholarship:

1. Get Your GPA As High As Possible

Most scholarships are reserved for students with best academic results. Hence, the first thing you must do is get your GPA as high as possible so that you can qualify for more scholarships. Some scholarship application requirements required you to maintain a certain GPA through out your academic years while other might need you to achieve a certain GPA to qualify for application. Hence, your GPA is an important factor that will determine your opportunity to secure a scholarship.

2. Search & Apply For Scholarships

The second thing you must do is searching for the scholarships which you are qualified for and apply for them. Be sure to read the requirements and prepare all the necessary documents to be attached with the application form. You can choose to search individual scholarship online or your school might have certain recommended scholarships for their students.You can also use the online free scholarship search services to help you match the scholarships with your qualification. The two most popular free scholarship searches are FastWeb and Scholarship Experts. They will send the details information about the proposed scholarships to your email address; what you need to do is review these scholarships and apply the scholarships you are interested in. These free scholarship search services are a great service to help you identify the scholarships that match your qualification so that you have the best chance to secure at least one.The only thing you should beware is the scholarship scams which try to cheat your money; they are around especially on internet, so you must double confirm about the scholarships offers before you make any payment if there is a processing fee involved.

3. Be Persistent To Follow Up On Your Application

Today, most communications are through email, if you submit your scholarship application and put your email address in the contact column. Be sure to check your email periodically. There are students who submit their scholarship application but never check their email regularly; when they found out there is a scholarship offer which ask them to confirm their acceptance before the due date, but at the time they read their mail, it already past the due date. Don't miss any scholarship offer due to your laziness of checking your email. Don't give up and keep applying for scholarships until you secure one. You will have success if you keep persistently in applying the scholarships which you are qualified for.

Summary

The basic 3 steps to secure a scholarship to fund you college study. These steps are: maintaining your academic result with as high GPA as possible, do the search for scholarships that match your qualification, apply them and persistently check for the status.

By: Amelia Turner

Niche Job Boards: Their Correlation to Recruiting Success

We've all encountered what the industry terms as the "Job Board Giants." These are the employment classifieds that are visited by the large volumes of people; but are they the highly targeted group of professionals who you need to fill your openings?
Working with a quality, well-marketed, niche job board to perform a micro-focused career search for your next new hire is "the new essential strategy" of savvy hiring managers and HR departments. These specialized sites can focus on a particular industry, a segment of a certain field, or even hiring for a specific position.
Niche job sites that continuously reach out to the targeted professionals to direct them to their job site, through creative techniques often forgotten by the general employment boards, greatly benefit both employers and prospective hires.
A solid niche job board offers employers the following unique services:
~ Cost-effective job posting. ~ Cost for annual access period, under $5000.00.~ Access to a team of well connected contingency recruiters for positions which are especially difficult to fill.~ A contingency fee of less than 10% of the first year's annual salary.~ A job board with recruiting presence, that can literally serve as a "virtual human resources department" in the absence of the hiring manager.~ The opportunity to "try before you buy" to ensure the niche board works for your staffing situation.~ Offers you a volume discount program, if you're making multiple job postings per month.
Are you receiving all of the aforementioned services from your current job board and recruiting solutions combined?
If not, it's time to consider a niche job board and recruiting combination, that will position you to win the war on talent; at overall cost that will easily gain approval from your accounting department.
There are several important reasons employers are moving toward the niche job boards:
1. received targeted resumes

2. spend less time weeding through under qualified applicants

3. niche boards are not cost prohibitive

4. hiring managers have the option to post and fill their own jobs, or bring in the qualified team of staffing specialists for "hard to fill" positions.
Whether you're currently utilizing the major "general employment" job boards with success, or you're completely frustrated with your company's recruiting strategies, niche job boards are the wave of the future, and the answer to saving your own precious time and energy
By: Christina Archer

The Future of Job Postings

So many times we see the same type of job postings on job boards and newspapers and wonder why employers even bother posting them in the first place. Stating that a position requires X years of experience doing this, and Y years of experience doing that rarely attracts the top-quality people that employers want to hire, and ultimately only adds to the number of unqualified and overqualified applications employers need to process.
According to many HR experts, employers should be using job descriptions to attract the right people, rather than attempting to pre-qualify them. Employers can do this by focusing on the unique and exciting aspects of positions, the challenges candidates might face, the type of work that needs to be performed and other aspects of the job that prospective candidates might find appealing.
Though posting a job description that attempts to attract candidates may help prospective candidates better understand what a position is about, job descriptions still suffer from a fundamental limitation - they cannot provide all the information necessary for different people to determine whether the position is the right one for them to pursue. Therefore, rather than risking revealing their identities, which may have negative ramifications with their current employers, and going on tedious interviews just for the slim chance a position might the right one for them to pursue, most people choose to avoid applying to job postings altogether.
What if prospective candidates could read a position’s description and anonymously ask the hiring manager questions about it, allowing them to find out the information they need before revealing their identities or going for interviews, and what if employers could effectively collect and easily respond to these questions?
Open communication between prospective candidates and employers that can provide candidates with the information they deem important can assist employers in selling their positions better, thereby encouraging the better-fit people to apply, and limiting the number of least-fit people that apply. As a result, both employers and candidates can save substantial time and effort on the recruiting process, particularly in limiting the time spent on pointless interviews.
Job postings have been with us for quite some time, but in the 21st century employers seeking top- talent people must take the next step and offer effective and accommodating ways for these people to be able to explore new opportunities without compromising their privacy or having to commit much time and effort to the recruiting process.
By: Gil Shabat

Finding the Best Talent for Your Open Positions

You're the hiring manager with a major company, and you've just been given the task of hiring 5 new professionals within a 30 day time frame. Perhaps a nearly impossible task, you choose to distribute your positions to several contingency recruiting firms, in hopes that someone can find a "needle in a haystack." The problem is, if the recruiter finds your new hire, you'll be in the hole between 25 - 30% of the new employee's first year's salary. While their service does provide you with a value you really need, it would be nice if there was something that didn't take such a bite out of your department's budget.
The good news is there are alternative staffing agencies popping up across the web, that specialize in finding you the quality talent you are seeking, for a fraction of the cost. These companies harness the power of technology, powerful niche job boards, social networking, and other methods to effectively find the ideal candidate for your open jobs, and connect both parties. These quasi-staffing companies never charge any up front fees to handle your jobs, and employ staffs of thousands of recruiters who work in unison to fill your open positions. Instead of charging the typical and customary fees charged for years by Recruiting Agencies, employers can expect to pay anywhere between three to ten percent of the first year's annual salary.
Whether it's the ease of use, the affordable cost, or the satisfaction guarantee that comes as part of using this recruiting alternative, one thing that is for sure, is alternative staffing solution companies are here to stay.
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By: Christina Archer

Wanted: 20,000 Workers Recruitment Crisis on Boomer Exodus

The estimated shortage of 10,000 workers across the ACT could double over the next three years when large numbers of baby boomers retire. Public service job cutbacks in Tuesday week's Federal budget, tipped to cost Canberra up to 3000 positions, is likely to have little impact on the capital's worsening skills drought. Today, The Canberra Times begins a three-part series on the extent of the ACT skills drought, which is worse here than anywhere else in Australia, and what could be done to fix it. ACT Chamber of Commerce chief executive Chris Peters said business growth in the territory had been stalled for 18 months due to insufficient workers. "About two years ago staff shortages were No13 on businesses lists of concerns. It's been No1 for about 18 months, so it is the major impediment to business growth." The ACT Skills Commission and the chamber's research shows the ACT will continue to be hardest hit of all Australian states and territories from a shortage of skilled and unskilled workers. Access Economics research shows the ACT's population is biased towards the 45 to 59 age group. The demographics report compiled for the Skills Commission says the retirement timing of this age group and especially those aged 50 to 54 will have an even greater impact on the ACT workforce than it will nationally. Access Economics expects increasing labour force participation rates up to 2010, with a reversal of that trend from 2010 to 2015 and a sharp reduction in participation after then because the main part of the baby boom generation will have reached the age of 65. ACT Skills Commission chairman Derek Volker warns that today's delays will become tomorrow's disaster when too few people are available to look after elderly folk. "It is not a skills problem, it's more a people problem and if we don't do something about it, it could turn into a crisis not too far down the track." Home Help Service ACT, a not-for-profit organisation that provides in-home support to the elderly and frail aged, could place 20 people immediately in its stretched ranks of carers. Canberra employers scouring the country and overseas for employees are competing with the remainder of the western world which is suffering a skills drought. Mr Peters said three factors contributed to the territory's exceptional worker shortage: Having both the lowest unemployment (2.4 per cent) and highest participation rates in Australia, which meant there weren't too many stay-at-home mothers, or unemployed, to fill job vacancies; The ACT and Adelaide had Australia's two fastest aging populations; and Older public servants in a former superannuation scheme had to retire before 55 to maximise their superannuation benefits. "Canberra has the highest percentage of public servants than anywhere in Australia and they retire a decade earlier than the rest of Australia." Mr Peters said Federal budget cuts in two weeks were expected to cause a net loss of 1000 people from the Commonwealth Public Service. At best those leaving would have wide-ranging expertise. "It depends on what the mix is I expect the mix will be fairly broad, which would be widely welcomed by the business community, but all of those won't solve our problem." Shortages are in all sectors, from engineering, health, trades, services and construction. Multinational construction company Bovis Lend Lease said employers were competing with unprecedented building in the booming Middle East countries, and project directors could command salaries of up to $300,000. Hays senior regional director for Canberra Jane Donnelly said financial controllers and managers on salaries of up to $100,000 and $130,000 were in demand following the meltdown of global financial markets last year. "Within the banking sector they are far more aware of the risk associated with certain products, they are seeking people with extensive risk analyst-type skills." Mr Peters said the shortage meant people were finding the service in places like restaurants, hairdressing salons and workshops slower. "If you have an accident driving home tonight in your car, typically your car will sit on the panel beaters shop floor for two weeks until they can get to it. That's now. In three years time that [timeframe] will double."

By: John Thistleton

Physical Therapist Jobs are Hot Right Now

Physical therapy jobs are hot right now since there is an ever increasing demand for qualified and skilled physical therapists in all the health facilities. This situation has been brought about by the increasing numbers of elderly population, a group which is particularly susceptible to a variety of debilitating physical conditions that demand physical therapy services. Besides the rise in the elderly population, other factors that contribute to this increasing requirement for physical therapists are (a) the baby-boom generation entering into an age when they are prone to heart attacks, strokes and other diseases and (b) increasing number of babies with birth defects who are being saved with the help of advancing technology. Physical therapy professionals treat individuals with disabling conditions such as fractures, arthritis, low-back pain, heart disease, cerebral palsy, and head injuries. The main responsibility of a physical therapist is to restore function, relieve pain, improve mobility, and prevent or limit permanent physical disabilities of patients suffering from injuries and disease.Career opportunities for physical therapists are growing much faster than the average for all other occupations. Individuals seeking a career in physical therapy should have strong interpersonal skills, communication skills, patience and integrity. To become a physical therapist, an individual must have a graduate degree from an accredited physical therapy program and pass a licensure exam. Physical therapy jobs give qualified health professionals an opportunity to work in prestigious medical facilities in different locations such as hospitals, clinics, skilled nursing facilities, rehab clinics, home health agencies, long term care facilities, doctors' offices, assisted living facilities, employee health centers, and private offices that have specially equipped facilities. Physical therapist jobs are well paid ones and the total earnings depends on the type of facility one works in and the nature of the job. Physical therapists on travel assignments usually get numerous benefits including paid homes, travel expenses, completion bonuses, medical and dental insurance, necessary licensing, and help in immigration processing.

BY : John Stephen

What is the Right Job for You?

The first step towards finding the right job for yourself is the answer to this question; what is the right job for you? So many times people have faced this dilemma that they cannot decide what are they made to do. You have to decide about this at so many times in your life. Like, during your education, you always wanted to choose the right course, right subjects and the right questions from an examination point of view. Decisions you made during your academic career decide the fate of your professional career. So, choosing the right line of education is elementary. It should suit your instincts and be fit to be economically viable in future.It can be safely assumed that you must have made right decisions during your course of studies. All you have got to do now is to choose such a professional career which thoroughly justifies the learning you have acquired. The logic being the simple fact that you can best excel in a profession about which you have learned for years. May be you are a very talented, a very dynamic and multidimensional person; yet you ought to know what are you best at? And if you are not all that, it is in your best interest to maximize your potential. A wise man once said, "You are not what you were born, but what you have it in yourself to be."If you are still fresh from your studies and you are seeking yourself a profession, you should make sure that the profession you choose fully accommodates your line of education. This is how you can extract the most out of your learning and make sure that you are in a position to deliver your best performance. The theoretical knowledge you possess is the key to your success in your professional life. If you have specialized in commerce subjects, there is whole lot for you to choose from in any line of business; either it's related to services, trading or manufacturing. Your options range from a clerk to a financial analyst, from a data entry operator to a chartered accountant. It's all there for you to take, but what you can actually take depends upon your qualification and experience. Similarly, the application of marketing and computer sciences or information technology is universal – a wide spread phenomenon in vast world of business. But a cunning marketing student is not likely to make a very good accountant, and a foxy IT student will serve no good as a brand promoter. Or you might argue that a person of your quality can fit in any job; okay – it's possible but not probable! In most cases, it actually turns out to be a mere waste of talent and people end up disheartened, losing confidence in them which is obviously a set back and a negative prospect.If you are a person with just basic or no education, it doesn't mean you can do anything. May be you can, but a more realistic and more fruitful approach will be to decide for the right job keeping in mind, your instincts and natural ability. There are certain things you can do better than the other things; there are certain works you feel comfortable doing. That’s where your real potential lies and this is how you can be more beneficial to yourself and your job. For those who are not a new entry in the profession field, their experience and technical expertise play a vital role in deciding for the right job. The assumption being on the fact that, practice makes a man perfect. A good experience with your previous job can guarantee your success with the next one. But if you have lost your appetite for that particular field, you should consider changing your line of action that again based upon your potential and interest. So, when you are faced with this situation to decide for the right job, you better think twice because it’s a sensitive matter.

Ali
(articlebase.com)

Using Your Language Skills to Improve Career Options

There are many employment opportunities for people with language skills in a limitless range of industries. 94% of the world's population does not speak English as their first language and 75% do not speak english at all. As you can appreciate its a multilingual world and companies are now realising that they need foreign languages to compete in an international market.Practically any job can involve languages. Some examples include: credit controller, journalist, market researcher, personal assistant, recruitment consultant, technical help desk. Occupations such as those listed above are typical of the majority of jobs where languages are used. Language skills may be less pivotal in such jobs but when combined with specific qualifications or expertise they can really enhance your career options.When applying for a post where using your language skill is not you primary function it is important that you do not over emphasise your desire to use your language skill but rather sell it as an added bonus in addition to your other skills. Your language ability is a very useful tool but you need to be convincing about how effective you will be at applying it in all kinds of different situations.Fluency in a language tends to give jobseekers more options but even basic ability is much in demand as employers seek those capable of communicating with foreign customers or breaking the ice with a few phrases at a meeting. You can acquire or refresh your language knowledge in a number of ways such as evening classes at a local college, at home with family if your mother tongue is not English, time spent in another country where the language is spoken or enrolling on a university course.Companies and organisations that have overseas business, customers or links tend to offer the most opportunites for people with language skills. This also applies to companies that are web based or foreign owned. However with the ever expanding EU and migration of skilled workers between member states there are just as many opportunities within the public sector. In the UK alone over 300 different languages are spoken – English is very often not the mother tongue. To provide better service and ensure access to equal opportunities, many local government roles need people who can speak community languages. Communicating internationally is also vital, to bring new investment, or to work in partnership with other regions in Europe and around the world.

Andy
(articlebase.com)

Language Jobs in Interpreting

Interpreting (or interpretation) is an activity that consists of facilitating oral or sign language communication, between two or more speakers who are not speaking (or signing) the same language.Interpreters can work in a variety of settings such as international events and conferences; at technical, business, legal or political meetings; at court hearings; and at police interviews.There are two types of interpreting: consecutive and simultaneous.In the most popular form of simultaneous interpreting the interpreter sits in a booth wearing a pair of headphones and speaking into a microphone so that delegates at a meeting or conference receive a real-time account of what is being said in a language they understand. Consecutive interpreting is used for smaller meetings, discussions between individuals, politicians or journalists and the interpreter gives an accurate account of what a speaker has said immediately after they have spoken. During consecutive interpreting the speaker stops every 1-5 minutes usually at the end of every paragraph and the interpreter then steps in to render what was said into the target language. A key skill involved in consecutive interpreting is note-taking, since few interpreters can memorize a full paragraph at a time without loss of detail.In addition to the above there is also whispered interpreting. In whispered interpreting (chuchotage, in French), the interpreter sits or stands next to the small target-language audience whilst whispering a simultaneous interpretation of the matter to hand; this method requires no equipment. Chuchotage is used in circumstances where the majority of a group speaks the source language, and a minority (ideally no more than three persons) do not speak it.Qualifications of a good interpreter include:Knowledge of the general subject of the speeches that are to be interpreted.General erudition and intimate familiarity with both cultures.Extensive vocabulary in both languages.Ability to express thoughts clearly and concisely in both languages.Excellent note-taking technique for consecutive interpreting.At least 2-3 years of booth experience for simultaneous interpreting.Because of the very different nature of contact, interpreters can expect to travel frequently. They need to work well with people in groups and on a one-to-one level, be presentable and quick-thinking.The institutions of the European Union (EU) jointly constitute the largest employer of interpreters, with the majority working in the Commission or European Parliament. The Commission currently uses up to 800 interpreters, set to rise to 900 in the near future.Within the the UK Civil Service, there are occasional specialist vacancies for interpreters in the Ministry of Defence (MoD). There are very few other interpreter posts in the UK. It is rare for even very large industrial and commercial organisations to have in-house interpreters, either in the UK or elsewhere.Freelancing is increasingly dominating the proffession. Within the public sector the Border and Immigration Agency has a very large pool of freelance interpreters that they use at nearly 100 locations in the country. Each freelancer has an approved qualification or attends an assessment/training programme.Interpreters with a diploma in public service interpreting are employed in public services such as health, law (including work as court interpreters) and local government. African and Asian languages, including Urdu, Gujarati, Punjabi, Bengali and Turkish, are most in demand.International organisations like the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) or the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) normally employ members of the Association Internationale des Interprètes de Conférence (AIIC). The United Nations (UN) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) also employ interpreters and use many world languages. Most members of the AIIC (about 400 with English mother tongue) are freelance.

Andy
(articlebase.com)