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In February, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced its employment projections for the next eight years. They predicted that four industries will see the fastest job growth by 2020, and one of those industries is healthcare. In fact, seven of the top twenty industries for job growth are within the healthcare sector. The total number of healthcare jobs is expected to increase by 5.6 million, as projected by the BLS.
With more than 12 million Americans still unemployed and many overworked professionals contemplating the pursuit of greener pastures, it’s easy to see why competition for jobs is fierce in most industries.
Hiring managers and human resource professionals are looking for the best of the best within the resumes they receive and the interviews they conduct. Unfortunately, there are many opportunities for job seekers to go awry. If you’d like to avoid an extended unpaid vacation from the workforce, steer clear of these five ways to run your chances of getting the job.
Higher stress levels may cause you to react to situations emotionally, or to behave in an otherwise less than professional manner. You may say things you later regret, even at the office. Unfortunately, there are certain statements which, when made to your boss, are almost always guaranteed to damage your career. Avoid saying the following things at all costs.
“Proper” interview attire has traditionally meant formal business wear – think suit and tie for men, skirt suit and hosiery for women (even if it’s 100 degrees in the shade). Ask your mom, dad or grandparents what they wore to their last interview and you’ll get the picture. Fortunately, in many industries, extremely rigid dress codes have gone the way of typewriters, pagers and paper memos. Rather than forcing your fabulous sense of fashion or wildly appealing personality into the “standard” boring garb expected by interviewers in the olden days, consider the industry as well as your audience when choosing your interview attire.
A recent survey by Doodle, an online scheduling company, found that professionals spend nearly five hours each week scheduling meetings. That figure doesn’t include the time actually spent in meetings. An estimated more than 25 million meetings take place in businesses across the U.S. every workday, so we can assume the total time spent in meetings represents a significant productivity loss to the businesses in question. How do you put an end to meetings? The only certain way is to quit your job. All kidding aside, you can minimize the effects of meetings on your productivity without resorting to that extreme.
Every interview requires a sales pitch – and you’re the hot commodity up for grabs. If you want to land the sale, you must stand out from all the other products on the market. Sure, you could take the Billy Mays approach and proclaim your problem-solving prowess in a loud, impassioned manner. You could also drape yourself in bling like one of hip-hop’s brashest rappers. Neither approach is likely to garner the result you desire. Instead, consider the following ways in which successful candidates set themselves apart.
What is a behavioral interview question? It’s a doorway leading to opportunity; the chance to illustrate for a potential employer – in great detail – how awesome you already are at doing the job. Unlike those questions that ask you to hypothesize about the future (e.g. “Where do you see yourself in five years?”), behavioral interview questions allow you to explain how you’ve acted in very specific situations. These questions are popular with experienced interviewers, as past behavior is often indicative of future performance.
It has happened to all of us. Everyone has experienced a bad job interview sometime in the past. Anything from being late, botching answers to key questions or not being able to show knowledge about the company. Although the proverb is true, you never get a second chance to make a first impression, you do have an opportunity to make up some of what you lost in your bad job interview.
While December 2011 employment data (released in January 2012), showed the U.S. unemployment rate was continuing to trend down, the number of long-term unemployed held almost steady at 5.6 million. This group is comprised of individuals who have been jobless for 27 weeks or more, and makes up 42.5 percent of the total unemployed. The commonly flawed hiring process—lack of an acknowledgement of resume receipt, hiring managers who do not know what they want, inept interviewers, and little follow up by companies—is particularly frustrating for this group of individuals and the reasons are understandable.
Before you make a big purchase, do you read product reviews? If you’re like many people these days, you do—and that’s a good thing. You can invest your hard-earned money in a product or service that you’ve already ascertained will best suit your needs. You’ve minimized risk and maximized your chances for success. Today’s employers do this as well.
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Five Ways It’s Your Fault When Employees Slack Off by Donna Fuscaldo June 19th, 2013
What Not To Say In An Interview by Heather Huhman June 18th, 2013
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Top 10 Job Search Trends NOT To Pay Attention To – Part 2 by Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter, MRW June 13th, 2013