Wikipedia comes thru with a list of company names and their origin. Interesting, and good, to know before an interview.
Wikipedia comes thru with a list of company names and their origin. Interesting, and good, to know before an interview.
Here are some great tips from jobmob, an Israeli job blog, when applying to jobs. With funnelthru, we’re trying to put emphasis on the last point. Everyone deserves an answer if they took the time to fill out an application.
1. READ THE AD.
Don’t just send out a resume because you are desperate. No one will hire you for a job you can’t do because you are hungry. Sorry.
2. Get the details right.
Sending resumes to the wrong person, with the wrong details, or calling someone on the phone if they ask for emails will not get you anywhere.
In the US, I would get 3-4 messages a week on my business answering machine from people applying to a placement agency, something that I was not. If I did call them back after a while, most people were actually mean to me, acting as if I had stolen their phone call from the people it should have gone to.
3. Make sure you can actually do the job.
Sounds obvious but it is not.
Just because you think it’s a job anyone can do, don’t insult the person looking to fill the job with that attitude. For example, not all women are maternal so don’t take a daycare job if you are not, and vice-versa with men.
4. Do some research.
Check the company website to be certain you can work in that field, in that location and at the times the job is open i.e. the work hours.
5. Make sure you understand what they want.
For example if you are a religious Jewish chef, don’t apply for a Saturday afternoon dishwashing job at Joe’s Pork Palace.
6. Understand the language requirements.
A PhD from the US or Russia won’t help if the job requires you to speak a language you can’t.
7. Don’t expect them to be flexible for you.
Unless you are the top person in a rare field, no one is going to go out of their way e.g. to rearrange their schedule for you.
If a job requires you to work on Friday mornings, don’t expect them to give you the day off. Or, in many cases I saw, religious Jews who wanted non-Jews to give them Shabbat off. A now-defunct call center tried that and ended up losing the contracts to the company that got the Friday night and Saturday contract.
This also applies to telecommuters. Friday is a work day in the US, and it’s Shabbat here in Israel in the evening when it’s still morning there. If your employer wants you to be available, it may not work out (to be polite). I had a job here where I was on call on Shabbat. Not for something basic like a computer crash, but a few times an alarm went off and I was called. If you are not going to take the call, don’t even apply for the job.
8. Make sure they can read your resume.
If your resume comes in some obscure document format from software that no one has, it will be deleted without being opened. Do not rely on format over content.
In terms of being legible to begin with, someone I met in the technical writing business used to stick a resume up on the wall and see what it looked like from afar. Everyone else I’ve known read the content. If it was difficult to read, it wasn’t read.
9. Don’t expect an answer.
If you had so little consideration to apply for a job for which you were not really a viable candidate, don’t expect anything in return.
If you wasted someone’s time, sent your resume for a job you had no business applying for, then don’t feel bad if they make you spend an entire day traveling to an interview so that they could show you to their boss as a bad example and then hire their cousin.
Are looking to get a very early head-start on your internship search? Entry Level Careers Examiner posted a list (with tips) on how to get started. The problem? Most companies have NO IDEA how many (or any) interns they’ll need. Traditionally internship hiring, for college students, starts in January or February so you may come off as annoying. Regardless, you can find the full details after the jump but here’s the list:
I guess it’s never to early to start…
Entry Level Careers Examiner’s Heather Huhman discusses leveraging an internship into a full-time job:
Your summer internship is likely nearing its end in the next few weeks. If you’ve already graduated from college, the question likely on your mind is whether or not the internship will become full-time employment.
In a recent interview with Dr. Joanne Sujanksy and Dr. Jan Ferri-Reed, authors of “Keeping the Millennials: Why Companies are Losing Billions in Turnover to This Generation, and What to Do About It” they provided advice for individuals in this exact situation:
1. Find opportunities to expand your experience when interning. In addition to completing your assigned tasks and projects, offer to help in other areas when you find ways that you can add value. Is someone researching something for which you have a resource? Do you have connections to professionals who may be of assistance to your firm specific to a project or problem?
2. Make contributions to the organization beyond your job. Tactfully make recommendations or give suggestions when you see an opportunity to improve or enhance something. Are you able to show a colleague how to get something done faster or with better accuracy? Are you volunteering to take on extra tasks that contribute to the organization while adding accomplishments to your résumé?
3. Keep track of your accomplishments. And speaking of adding to your résumé, keep a daily journal to of your activities and accomplishments for each day. It’s often difficult to remember the number of projects and activities that you supported throughout your internship. Review your weekly journals and pick out key areas to add accomplishment statements to your résumé.
4. Get balanced feedback from others. Ask for feedback on your work periodically throughout your internship. Be careful not to bombard your boss daily or weekly. Instead, schedule a mid-term review half-way through your internship and final review as you finish your internship. Remember to ask for feedback on what you can enhance in addition to what you have done well. And don’t forget to ask for suggestions on things that you still may need to learn or specific job skills you may need to attain.
5. Know your company inside and out. Before and during your internship, continually research the company. Find out how the company makes money, and indicate how you may be able to make a further contribution during your feedback and review discussions.
6. Look for mentors. In addition to your manager, find someone who you respect in the organization. Observe how he or she does business, and ask for advice or feedback from that person on what you can do to make a stronger impact. As you build your own relationships in the company, you are able to find more opportunities and more people who can advocate for you for future opportunities within the company—or outside of it.
7. Network. Ask your manager and colleagues for others in the organization who may want to meet you and know about your skills. Your company contacts may also know of others in the industry or community who may be interested in providing you with career advice or job opportunities.
Final note…it’s all about relationships. In addition to updating your résumé throughout your internship, don’t forget to request permission for references and secure referral letters from those who have admired your work or provided you support. Your ability to build and maintain relationships during your internship is the key to securing the future position that you covet.
1. Why would I hire you? - 10 tips from Silvana Avinami after interviewing candidates for a sales job.
2. When should you spend money during your entry-level job search? Heather Huhman has the answer. We’ve consolidated it into a list:
3. Online Job Demand Holds Steady in July - From ResumeBear.com comes news that online advertised vacancies inched up by 700 to 3,295,500 in July, according to The Conference Board Help-Wanted Online Data Series (HWOL)(TM). Nationally, online job demand has been relatively flat over the last several months after sharp declines in December 2008 and January 2009. Nationally, there were over four unemployed looking for work for every online advertised vacancy, as the number of unemployed increased even as the number of advertised vacancies held steady.
They also shared some job trends:
4. From The Recruiter’s Desk: Lindsay Olson answers the question “is unemployment a disadvantage in your job search?”
5. Extreme job interviews from CNN Money follows readers that have gone to great lengths to land a job.
Target the companies you want to work for. Despite lean times, companies are secretly almost always up for considering hiring dynamic achievers in their area of expertise after a time of layoffs and realizing they need some good staff again. Cold canvassing with compelling cover letters that are sincere and inviting coupled with powerful resumes are reputed to have the highest success rates of finding your next employer. Don’t wait for your dream companies to advertise openings. Your next employer might appreciate your initiative that you sought out his/her company before openings are advertised. If that is who you are, be that person. (“To Thine Own Self Be True”—Shakespeare) Choosing the companies, agencies or organizations in your field and the individuals who head the departments in those companies is now easier than ever with the Internet. Years ago, the tool for cold calling was the Yellow Pages. Today there are many resources, including your public library, the company website, and innumerable publications including trade and media. Wall Street Journal; New York Times; Dun & Bradstreet; Crain’s New York Business News; Hoovers.com; Business Week; U.S. News and World Report; Forbes and Fortune Magazine. The infinite cyberspace of man’s creation has company websites with missions stated plainly and links to affiliates, as well as endless vehicles for learning trends, challenges, changes and new developments in every field of work and occupation. The gleaned material makes great fodder for introductory cover letters and for purposeful conversational interviews marrying your talents to their challenges. The same way you had to write substantive reports for school, term papers, essays and theses, you are already primed for this job search strategy. A traditional interview where one answers an advertisement for a position always puts one at the ‘mercy’ and judgment of a stranger. Traditional interviews eliminate candidates more often than not, and leave one feeling like a sitting duck in a penny arcade. So pick the places you’d love to work for, if you had the choice, and go for it. You might send hard postal copies. You can start out with three to ten and go from there. Nothing is ever a waste of time because it directly or indirectly hones you into someone ready for re-employment. You just never know when a seed planted today may yield results in the near future. You could be re-employed and miserable when a fresh opportunity is ripe for harvest down the road. If you do not hear back, you can follow up with a phone call or email at another time. Even if your cold canvassing doesn’t lead to a job, you will feel better about taking charge of your own future rather than sitting home and waiting…No one job search strategy is guaranteed. Some find a new job through a head hunter in their occupational areas, others from connections on Linked In and in their social and professional circles. You have to try everything. You just never know what will work for you to get back to work. While targeting companies you want to work for and telling them why, may not yield direct results, the result it will most definitely yield is the satisfaction of knowing you tried and gave it your best shot and didn’t lay down and die just because the media says the economy is bad and the business world is thrown into a panic.
From micronation:
Information about you that is currently available online for free:
- Your age
- Current and past addresses
- Current and past phone numbers
- Names of your immediate relatives (spouse, children, parents)
- Donations made to political parties
Information about you that is currently available for some money:
- Your criminal record
- Your bankruptcy and lien history
- All court documents
- Your educational and work history
- Your friends and relatives
- Where you’ve lived
- The value of your home
- Your credit details
Here are some sites to explore:
- pipl.com- Perhaps the most comprehensive “deep web” search.
- peekyou.com- Personal information compiled from the internet.
- peopledata.com- Your email, phone, address. All for free.
- peoplelookup.com- Very in-depth commercial service.
- peoplefinders.com- For a fee: profile, phone, address, email, and birthday information.
- ussearch.com- Another commercial service to purchase personal information.
- whitepages.com- Well known and detailed free service.
Don’t lie when applying for job (or anything else).
Get that resumé ready. Here are some good tips to prepare for the onslaught that is waiting in line to speak to someone for 2 minutes who will probably not remember you.
Prepare well and you’ll standout.
The blog for funnelthru.com - a job board dedicated to honest entry level jobs. We discuss interview tips, hiring trends, videos we love, and anything else we think you might find useful or fun.
