Questions to Ask in an Informational Interview for Flexible Jobs

Questions to Ask in an Informational Interview for Flexible JobsQuestions to Ask in an Informational Interview for Flexible Jobs10Sometimes- when job interviews are few and far between- you can hone your interviewing skills while scoping out near-term or future possibilities by using informational interviewing. Informational interviewing is the art of asking knowledgeable professionals about whats going on in their businesses or industries so you can get the intelligence you need to focus your job hunting strategy. Read on to learn about informational interviewing and the questions to ask in an informational interview for flexible jobs.Informational interviews generally occur in face-to-face meetings, but you can arrange them to take place over the phone or through email. Regardless of the type of exchange, there are two cardinal rulesKeep your interviews short.Eliminate any semblance of a hidden agenda that youre looking to your subject for a job.You need to respect your subjects ti me and never leave your subject feeling used.Informational Interview Subjects Are EverywhereThe first question you might ask is, Who shall I interview? Almost any professional working in the field youre interested is fair game. The more tuned in your subject is to whats going on in his or her field, the more valuable will be the insights and intelligence you can gather from your interview.You can find likely subjects by looking for contacts on the websites of professional organizations, trolling for names of bekannt professionals mentioned in the business section of your local newspaper, or gleaning names found in newsletters articles from professional organizations. LinkedIn is also a great source of networking contacts for informational interviews.You can also ask your colleagues for recommendations of a good person to talk to. Attending a professional meeting is a great way to put yourself in the orbit of whos who in your field of interest. After the meeting or during the social period, introduce yourself to people around you and let them know you want to arrange informational meetings.All you have to say is that youd like to learn more about this or that profession, business, or industry. By the end of the meeting, youll find yourself inundated with plenty of suggestions and possible referrals for people to talk to.Key Questions to Ask in an Informational InterviewBefore forging ahead with your interviews, plan what you want to ask. Your overall interest might be to learn about what skills are required for a particular flexible job or where opportunities are likely to break in your industry. It probably wont do you any good to talk to the CEO of a software junges unternehmen about what skills are required for web information development jobs when her expertise is in marketing and database structures. So tailor your questions to each subject individually.Here is a range of typical questions to ask in an informational interview for flexible jobsHow do you us e __________ interns/analysts/engineers/architects/etc. Fill in the blank for the type of position/job youd like to learn more about.? Do you use remote workers or flexible schedule employees, and under what circumstances?What is the role of these types of people from Question 1 in businesses/organizations like yours? How do your remote teams work together?What kinds of skills or backgrounds do your________ fill in the blank from Question 1 professionals have? What traits do you look for when you hire them? What skills do flexible workers need to have?Who are the key players in this business? What associations or organizations might be good for me to get involved with?What kinds of work are these other companies doing? What are the trends in this industry such as technology being used, whether flexible work is being offered and how, directions for the profession- such as certification requirements, initiatives or practices companies/organizations are starting?Can you recommend anyon e else I should talk to? Would it be appropriate to let them know you referred me to them?Our thanks to Tom White and Maureen Mackey, the authors of this post, which originally appeared in their Independent Beacon newsletter. This husband and wife team live in Portland, Oregon, and manage a communications consulting business called the Green Galaxy Group.Stay tuned for Part II of this series, the Dos and Donts of Informational Interviewing for Flexible Jobs. Readers, have you ever been on an informational interview? What do you recommend for questions to ask in an informational interview for flexible jobs?

What recruiters look for in a resume at a first glance

What recruiters look for in a resume at a first glanceWhat recruiters look for in a resume at a first glanceMilen Ivanov is an entrepreneur recruiting entrepreneurs. He is the founding director of Horizons Recruitments, one of the biggest recruitment companies in Bulgaria. Milen is also the managing partner in CEO Search, a head-hunting company that recruits C-level executives. Having been involved in recruitment and headhunting since 2003, Milen has authored numerous articles, papers, and books on how to search your dream job and be proactive, how to brand and present yourself and how to work with recruiters.What are the key questions you want to be addressed in a resume?The way I use resumes is to screen quickly if a candidate has the keywords that I am looking for. For me the key questions are associated with experience, most importantly the last two jobs a candidate had. What I would like to see differently are some numbers, associated with candidates achievements. Its nice to sa y that you participated in a number of projects, but you need to address some metrics, such as how many people were involved, what the volume of the activity was, what budgets you managed. The mora specific you are, the better it is.I want to learn about the interfaces you have engaged with, I want to get a clear picture of what the candidates role was in a company.The education, I think, matters less the more you advance in your career. You need other side activities, which show your interests, passions, enthusiasm personal projects, awards, sports activities.What do you look for in a resume at a first glance?Relevance. If I am looking for a digital marketer, I would like to see the keywords that the employer would be interested in. The candidate should have been in the right positions in the right companies before. I also want to see a good design and an excellent structure of the resume.What would you like to see more of in resumes?I get bored a lot when I look at resumes. They all look pretty much the same. From my point of view, most resumes dont reflect the personality of a person at all. I want to see more resumes that look nice and are very well-thought-of, very well-built, representing the true colors of the person behind the piece of paper. If a designer is applying for a job, or a financial expert, I want to see a different type of resumes for both.Further, if the candidate has taken any personality tests, I want to see those on a resume, so that I can get a better perception of the person. I am not talking about a made-up, pseudo-science test, but about some of the recognized personality tests (e.g. Gallup Strengths Test). I would encourage candidates to incorporate such results in their resumes.Another thing that I dont see are the achievements. Skills are usually present in resumes, but the achievements tend to be missing. I want to see tangible results that have come out of a persons work. If you are young, you may think that you have nothing t angible to write about. But if you are creative and think deeply, you can include little things, such as endschliff projects on time. These are important and make a good impression.I also want to read about what the benefit to your employer would be from hiring you. This can be said directly and it would put a candidate ahead of competitors, who dont make a similar mention. If you can think of a direct and specific benefit of you being hired, its always a good idea to include it in your resume.What do you wish people stopped doing on their resumes?Stop using cliches and generic words that mean nothing. I see these in most resumes.In the end of the day, why do you need the resume? To choose someone from the crowd. If you write what everybody else is writing, whats the point? Try to be more specific and avoid common cliches, such as I am an open and outgoing person. What does that even mean?Try to customize your resume towards the employers specific needs. Dont mass mail, dont mass ap ply, this never works. If you dont know what you are looking for, how are you going to land a job you like? Its much better to apply to a few positions.I strongly believe in customizing resumes. This doesnt mean you have to lie on your resume. It means you have to focus on a certain set of facts important to the industry and employers.Nowadays, people talk a lot about the resume dying. Do you think thats true?Resumes are definitely being disrupted. They are beginning to incorporate more elements videos, test results, etc. In the next ten to fifteen years, we will be seeing a lot of resume usage in the recruitment process. They are definitely not dying.

The Surprising Way to Get Out of a Slump

The Surprising Way to Get Out of a SlumpThe Surprising Way to Get Out of a SlumpI am in a slump. This happens from time to time, usually after a big event in my life or career. And although I know from past experience that I will probably be on the upswing shortly, every time Im here at the bottom, I am petrified that I have nothing more to offer.When I was still life coaching, I counseled my clients to be patient with slumps. I said that slumps were the minds way of making room for the birth of new ideas. And I still believe thats true. But when youre in a slump, patience is the most difficult thing in the world- not because it is so very hard, but because we assume that patience is doing nothing, that patience is about sitting on our hands and waiting.This assumption, however, is wrong. While patience is steadfastness and self-control in the face of provocation and delay, it is definitely not idleness. Nowhere in the dictionary does it say that patience equals time standing still.S o friends, against all assumptions to the contrary, the best thing to do when youre stuck in a slump is to exhibit patience- by doing something. Now, before you go out and buy barrels full of absinthe and gin as something to weather out the storm, be warned that patience is not the same as avoidance and denial. I have learned this the hard way, so believe me when I say that being actively patient does not mean ignoring the wait, drowning out the wait, or becoming victim to the wait. It is simply making the wait worthwhile.The first thing I do when Im in a slump is remove the unnecessary from my calendar. I postpone coffee dates and errands until I can get some perspective on what Im waiting for exactly. Contrary to what you might be thinking, this is not idleness or avoidance- its reassessment, and it is at the very heart of getting out of a slump. It forces me to recharge my mental and emotional batteries, which are often depleted after firing at 100% when I was at the top of my ga me.Sometimes this reassessment feels like muck- its a sloshing through, it is replete with tears and snot and it isnt pretty. But Im pretty sure its necessary, because after the muck, after Ive gotten to the gooey center of things and found out exactly where my new normal is- then comes the fun.The fun part about being patient in a slump is that it gets your brain churning in new ways. Once you understand that patience is active and all about self control, you get to control exactly what activities to do to get your brain moving again. This is the part of the slump I am currently in. This time, the activity I choose is writing, something I havent had the pleasure of doing all summer. Its a quiet sort of churning, but really, you are allowed to be as bold or timid as youd like in picking your activities. After all, patience is all about self control.My slump before this was undone by turning my living room into a giant ball pit. I ordered thousands of rainbow colored balls and filled my home with them. What had once been reserved for childhood and Chuck E. Cheeses had a little revival in my apartment. Sounds silly, but in between the jumping in and throwing of and inviting friends over for a swim through my sea of rainbow colored play balls, my brain had time to recharge the parts that were slumped.I can tell that this slump Im in is about to be over, because my neurons are firing in new ways, unrelated to my initial problem. Had I fallen victim to the belief that all one can do during a slump is stand idly by wallowing in distraction, I may have never gotten this far. To tell you the truth, although Im happy to be nearly out of this one, Im kind of looking forward to my next slump. After all, I have a closet full of rainbow colored play balls, and Im looking forward to figuring out what to do with them next.Photo courtesy of Melissa Pierce.