Interview Tips from AllStaff IT & Engineering

Preparing For the Interview

• Always know the exact place and time of the interview, the interviewer’s full name, the correct pronunciation, and his or her title.
• An interview is a two-way street.  Know what questions to ask during the interview.  Your questions allow the hiring manager to evaluate your professional and personal needs.
• Learn pertinent facts about the company, such as annual sales revenue, principle lines of business, and technologies they use.  The Account Representative can provide such sources as the company’s annual report for this background.
• Visit the company’s website and review it thoroughly.
• Bring several copies of your resume to the interview (make sure that it is the same as the version originally presented to the client by AllStaff IT & Engineering).
• Find out why the hiring manager is interested in your qualifications.  Your Recruiting Representative can assist you in identifying your most marketable skills and attributes relevant to the assignment.
• Determine how the opportunity will affect your immediate and long-term career development.

Interview Questions and Statements

Questions and statements you should expect:

• Tell me about yourself.
• Tell me about your background, accomplishments.
• What are your strengths? Weaknesses?
• How would you describe your most recent job performance?
• What interests you about our opportunity?
• How do you stay professionally current?
• What outside activities are most significant to your personal development?
• Tell me about a specific time when you felt you made a personal sacrifice for your job.
• Give me an example of a time when a co-worker, employee, supervisor or client tried your patience and you became angry and/or frustrated.  How did you handle the situation?
• Give me an example of some of the things you have done in the past to ensure deadlines and standards of quality and accuracy have been met.
• Tell me about a recurring problem in your area of responsibility.  How did you identify the cause and ultimately solve the problem?  What did you do to prevent this problem from continuing?
• In your current position, have you found more success working as a part of a team or alone?  Why?
• What do you consider your greatest career accomplishment?  Why?
• Where do you see your career in 3 years?

Be prepared to ask questions, such as:

• What would I be expected to accomplish in this position?
• How would you describe a typical day or week in this position?
• What is the company’s management style?
• How do you think I fit the position?
• What is the current status of the project?
• What are the greatest challenges in this position?

*Remember that a lack of questions may be mistaken as a lack of interest

Interview Do’s & Don’ts

• DO dress professionally. The interviewer should be thinking about what you say, not what you’re wearing.
• DO put your phone on silent mode and keep it out of sight.
• DO plan to arrive on time or a few minutes (no more than ten) early.  Late arrival for an interview is never excusable.
• DO fill out the application completely, if the interviewer gives you one.
• DO conduct yourself as if you are determined to get a job you are discussing. Never close the door on the opportunity.  Enthusiastic feedback can enhance your chances of being considered further.
• DO attempt to structure all of your comments in a POSITIVE manner.
• DO greet the interviewer by last name if you are sure of the pronunciation.  If not, ask him or her to repeat it. Smile!  Shake hands firmly.
• DO wait until you are offered a chair before sitting.  Sit upright, look alert and interested at all times. Be a good listener as well as a good talker. Relax!
• DO speak firmly, clearly and loudly enough to be easily understood.
• DO speak with tact, maturity, and courtesy.
• DO look each interviewer in the eye while speaking.
• DO follow the interviewer’s leads, but try to get the interviewer to describe the position and the duties to you early in the interview.  That way you can apply your background, skills, and accomplishments to the position.
• DO make sure that your good points come across to the interviewer in a factual, sincere manner.  Stress achievements.

• DON’T chew gum or smoke even if the interviewer does and offers you gum or a cigarette.
• DON’T look at or use your phone.
• DON’T answer with a simple “yes” or “no”, but don’t over-answer question either.  Describe the attributes and experience that relate to the situation honestly and succinctly.
• DON’T make derogatory remarks about your present or former employers, management, or co-workers.
• DON’T bring up compensation or benefits (your recruiter will negotiate the best compensation for you).  The first time an employer asks about compensation, say “I’m here because I’m interested in the opportunity.  I’m making x now (or was making x at my last position), and I’ll consider your best offer.”  If the employer persists, make sure you cite the same range that your Recruiter cited when he/she presented you to the client.
• DON’T offer opinions unless your opinion is requested.
• DON’T act or speak in any way that might be construed as overbearing, overaggressive, or egotistical, and don’t use foul language.
• DON’T convey a persistent attitude of “what can you do for me?”

Closing the Interview

• If you get the impression that the interview is not going well and that you have already been rejected, don’t let your discouragement show.  Your perception of how well the interview is going may be different from reality.
• If you are interested in the position, let the interviewer know.  The interviewer will be impressed with your enthusiasm
• Thank the interviewer for his or her time and consideration.
• Call your Recruiter immediately after the interview.
• Be sure to send a thank-you email or letter to the interviewer within 24 hours.
• Don’t be too discouraged if no immediate commitment is made.  The interviewer will probably want to communicate with other people in the company or possibly interview more candidates before making a decision.

Think of yourself, your skills, experience, education, work ethic, personality, etc. as a unique product/service that you have to offer.   You are the “Seller”.  Employers have needs for employees with specific skills, experience, etc.  They are the “Buyer”.  You want to find the Buyer who will give you the best “Price” (salary and benefits) for your product/service. Now, think of your resume as the advertisement for your product.  It’s not the story of your life or even the story of your career.  Its purpose is to show the Buyer how you might fill their needs and create enough interest that they would invite you for an interview.  Keeping this in mind, the resume needs to be concise, factual, easy to scan for the important information and visually attractive. 

General Resume Writing Ideas

Employers receive hundreds of resumes a day, so they will spend about 20 seconds deciding whether or not to keep each one.  Your resume needs to make a great impression.

Follow these general resume writing guidelines for best results:

• Resumes should be no longer than 2 pages!
• Make sure there are no spelling, grammar or capitalization errors.  Check the correct spelling of technical terms.  Don’t rely on spell check.  Spell check cannot tell if you mean “there” or “their”, so will not catch the error as long as the word is spelled correctly.
• Use a font with “feet” such as Times New Roman or CG Times rather than straight-line fonts such as Arial.  The eye flows more easily over fonts with feet.  The size of the font should be 11 or 12 points.
• Use bold, italics and capitalization sparingly to highlight different sections or separate jobs.  No one wants to read an entire resume in italics.
• There should be lots of white space on your resume.
• Resumes should not be written in first person (e.g. I did this) or third person (e.g. Mr. Smith did this).
• Be consistent in tense and style throughout resume.
• Be HONEST – truth in advertising.  Employers will often hire candidates who don’t have all of the required skills or education, but if they catch you falsifying information, it’s over.
• Just as advertisers need to customize their message for different buyers by emphasizing different benefits and features of their products, you may also have to customize your resume for various openings.  Go over job ads carefully.  If a skill is listed in the job ad and you have experience with that skill, make sure it is in your resume.

Contact Information

• Make sure your name is prominently displayed.
• Use only the phone numbers that you want potential employers to use.  If it’s risky to get calls at work, don’t list your work number.
• This is not the place to use your “cute” e-mail address such as babycakes@aol.com or flemdog@yahoo.com.   Set up a separate e-mail address that is some version of your name.  Don’t use your work e-mail address.

Objective

The objective hurts more than it helps and it takes up valuable space, so it’s best to skip it.  The ideas and issues that would normally be addressed in an objective could be addressed in the cover letter.  If you feel you must have an objective, make sure it is specific and pertains to the job for which you are applying.

Work Experience

This is the most important section of your resume, so it should also be the most prominent section and should start on the first page of your resume.

• Jobs must be listed in chronological order with the most recent job first.
• The name of the company, job title and dates of employment should be clearly displayed.
• Dates should be written in months and years.
• If you worked at a company as a contractor, that should be indicated.
• Be specific about what you accomplished at each job, not just your responsibilities. Try to show how you saved time or money, improved processes, etc.
• Be sure to note how you used the major technologies at each job.  Many companies use software to scan resumes and if you don’t include the key words they are searching, your resume may be overlooked.
• Don’t assume a technical person will screen your resume.
• Use strong action words to describe your work such as designed, configured, installed, created, supported, etc.
• Use bullet points to make your resume easy to scan.  Each job should have at least three bullet points, but not too many.
• Only include the last 10 years on resume.

Education

• Recent grads can display Education before Work Experience.
• Indicate degrees earned as well as the name of college or university and major area of study.  Year of graduation is not necessary.
• If you are currently working on your degree, indicate your major area of study, name of school and “Degree expected in Month of Year”.

It’s better to list specific accomplishments under the job in the Work Experience section.  If you feel you must have this section, keep it brief and specific.  If you describe yourself in terms of soft skills, be sure to have examples to back up your claims.

This can be useful to list a lot of key words in a small area, but it is important that your resume shows major skills within the Work Experience section as well.  If you want to use this section, keep it brief and specific.  Make sure the names of all products used are spelled correctly.

There are pros and cons to using this section.  How you spend your time reveals a lot about your interests, beliefs and character.  Generally, this information is beneficial because it shows that you are a well-rounded person and have interests outside of work.  If you and the screener have similar interests and beliefs, it can be a plus.  If the screener does not share your interests or beliefs, he or she may subconsciously reject your resume even though you may be qualified for the role.  Just be aware of what you are revealing and determine if you want employers to be aware of your interests and beliefs at this point in the process.  Information such as your age, marital status and information about children is risky.  Employers cannot ask this information, so there is no need to share up front.