Florida Executive Search Employment Opportunities

Author: Eric Hartwell

When attending for a job interview, it is tempting to think that the interviewer is there just to try and catch you out. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Basically, an interviewer will need to assess your interpersonal abilities and common sense to forecast your success in getting through the training and working with team members. If you’re applying for a job with hard skills such as programming computer code, you may be given more pointed questions about your past work, etc.

In addition, you’ll be expected to strongly desire the company’s purpose, mission, and overall feel. Interviewers want to see passion because it leads to long-term security in a job. If you love the company, you’ll feel more comfortable working there.

Moreover, interviewers often try to find the person that’s self-disciplined and driven. If a person’s motivated from the inside, the person is more likely to be reliable, efficient, and energetic. This person, ideally, likes to be challenged.

Use original stories to back up claims. Instead of just saying, “I have strong leadership traits,” provide some concrete examples and originality. College students frequently make bold claims without stories that support them well enough.

Furthermore, answer the question concisely. Interviewers commonly fall into the trap of listening to answers that spill over into tangents and long-winded explanations. Be concise in your answers so as not to add stress to an interviewer’s day. Try not to go off on tangents.

In addition, be honest. If you’re lacking an important skill, show that you’re more than willing to learn the necessary skills to do the job well.

When you need to prepare for a job interview, there are some basic precautions such as arriving 10-20 minutes early, dressing in formal attire, and observing all the rules of workplace etiquette, propriety, and politeness inherent to a working environment.

There are also questions that you can expect to be asked. For instance, when I went for my first job interview, they asked me the following questions:

What expectations do you have about working here?
What is your favorite movie? Why? How would you describe it?
What are some of your hobbies and interests? Describe yourself.
What are your strengths and weaknesses?
Where do you expect to be in 5 years time?

These types of questions are likely to be relevant to your working environment or to the particular position you are applying for.

When you prepare for a job interview, be prepared to answer the following questions:

What defines you?
What are you best at? What strengths do you have?
What are you worst at? What don’t you like doing? What are your weaknesses?
Where do you see yourself progressing in the company?
What is your favorite part about this job? Why do you want to work here?
What is your proudest achievement?
What are some ideas for how you could improve the company?
What is your work style? What kinds of people do you work best with?
What was your favorite part of your last job?
What was your least favorite part?

Author: Shaun Stevens

It is interesting that for all the charts and graphs displayed at meetings that you have attended t hat never once have you ever seen a graph of the true and major cost of ?employee turnover”. Turnover is the polite management word for employee loss - whether it is from death, retirement, firings or in many cases employees disgruntlement.

To make matters worse organizations actually even reward high turnover rates. A whole industry has emerged to deal with these issues … The first question should have been asked as to ?Why are we hiring in the first place?” ?Why did this employee leave?
Retrospection by upper management is often difficult. It is in most cases easier to criticize someone else rather than yourself and as well the quickest route to a career limiting move is to draw attention to mistakes of superiors. You may have heard the phrases at company meetings ?We are a proactive organization or business??. We do not want yes men (or people) here”.

Yet when proper corrective action or a memo is taken it is often the messenger ?who is shot” rather than problem makers. There is a major difference between efficiency and effectives. Efficiency can be seen as ?How fast did we dig the hole?” Whereas effectiveness is asking the proper question ?should we have wasted our time digging the hole in the first place?’

To hire and train an employee d takes a great amount of time, energy and cost.
First the replacement employee has be sourced. Either an ad has to be written and placed in a suitable medium - whether it be online or in a newspaper or magazine.
Cost and time one. Or a commercial employment operation, often referred to as ?headhunters ?may be employed. There is a cost saving to using such an operation.
Initial screenings are done, expensive management time and travel costs may be saved in screening to rule out lost causes. And as well the employment firm can offer interview rooms which can be costly if the interviews are done away from head office. Headhunters are not cheap. They generally charge a commission charge of 1/3 of the salary, bonuses and perceived value of benefits of the new employee hired down to the benefit of the company car.

Standard interviewing and job hiring procedures usually involve three interviews. A first screening interview. A second more serious, more in depth second interview. Finally another member of ?the team” is called in for the final interviews. Usually a more senior member of the ?management team”. The concept is that the more senior member will be more experienced and skilled in assessment and hiring judgment skills. As well there is the additional advantage that:” if things do not work out” no one person can be blamed.

Now that finally the new employee is hired the fun and costs are only just starting. The new employee has now to be trained. It is often estimated that the time period to train the employee to adequate performance is approximately a year to a year and a half. There are costs to employee training. Actual time spent in training, the cost of training, management and training staff being taken off the job. There may be travel and hotel costs. The new employee is being trained to benefit the profitability of your organization. However there is nothing so energy inefficient as an empty train rolling down the rails.

All of these costs involved to the organization or business could have easily been prevented in the first place if the experienced employees had been encouraged to stay with the organization either by proper treatment or other means. Remember a major role of fire department is to prevent fires not to fight them.