Summary - 5 uncommon interview tips
If you google the keywords “interview skills”, you will be presented with all the basic, which generally includes -

• Dress sharp
• Speak confidently
• Research the company
• Be polite
• Etc

Can I suggest another few tips that may also help?

1) Talk to stranger.
Try this, get on a bus. It can be any bus. And immediately say hi to the stranger besides you. Please don’t just pick seats to flirt. The idea is not for you to flirt. It’s for you to practise your interview skill.

Expected results:

• You are no longer afraid to speak.
• You can generate question on the spot.

2) Redo a sketch of your favorite sitcom.
You will need the help of another fan for this. For example, you love “Friends” the sitcom. Pick one scene about 1 -2 minutes long and memorize the dialogue.

Now redo the whole scene without looking at the script. I’m very sure you will forget most of the line, so improvise. Make up your own line. It can become another story.

Expected results:

• You should be more confident in improvising your interview script whenever necessary.
• You will learn how to be witty with your words and make you memorable to the interviewer.

3) Go for a “mock” real interview.
Spend some time to go to a shopping mall and apply for a job there. Any job. Practise everything you have learn to get the job. You can try being very funny, or very aggresive. It shouldn’t matter if you were accepted or not, this is just for you to practise. So go crazy

Expected results:

• You will get used to the whole interview scenario, it no longer terrifies you.
• You can actually ask the interviewer how you can actually improve yourself.

4) Help a friend to haggle.
You have a friend, and this friend wants to buy a laptop. You should follow him and do the haggling part for him. Haggle the price until you can get what you want. After all, you have the buying power. Why not get the most out of it.

Expected results:

• You will have more confident in discussing your salary or benefit.
• You will learn a few tips on how to haggle.

5) Monitor people being interviewed.
Assuming you have a friend of a friend who interview people. Why not ask him to let you in in one of the interview session. You are not interviewing people, you are just going to watch how people are interviewed. Take note on what works and what’s not.

Expected results:

• You will have an updated and real version of interview skills.
• You will see that the interviewer is actually not that scary.

/end list

Conclusion - Being interviewed is actually not that difficult. They are not going to ask you why you fail English, or make fun of the weird society you joined. They already have all the details in your resume. What they want to see is how you behave, what’s your attitude and motivation, and most importantly how you potray yourself.

The best part is they can only see all these via the way you express yourself (listening and speaking). Concentrate on those as suggested by the 5 items above. You will do fine

- I wonder -
Any other interview tips you would like to add?

——— Personal Note ———–
I still remember my first successful interview. To tell you the truth, I was not that prepared. I didn’t research the company, I have no idea what my job scope is, and I think I was very hungry at the time. It’s a difficult time then. I needed a job ASAP.

However I believe they accepted me to the company simply because of the following conversation that happened in the interview (written from memory)

Interviewer - So banji, do you have a girlfriend?
Banji - Yes, I do

Interviewer - I must inform you that this job will require you to be sent to Sabah and maybe Indonesia. Most girlfriends will not understand this. What would you do if you were sent there and your girlfriend doesn’t approve?

Banji - Hm I can always find a new girlfriend there
Interviewer - (Laughing out loud.. both of them)

Photo Credit - Nathan Callahan

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Summary - Associate

Anybody here actually hate their job say “Yes” I know the feeling. The fact is we are not hating the job every single day. It’s just that on some days, the idea of quitting our job and do our dream job can comes to mind. And it is tempting.

But a job is still a job. Who’s to say that when we quit and do our dream job, we will not suffer the same hate feeling sooner or later. So what we can do is to try to find a way to be in love with what job we are having now.

This is what I do.

I searched my heart for the one thing that I really enjoy. One that I can do 24 hours a day without realizing it’s already 24 hours.

Upon checking, I realize that one of the things that I enjoy is playing games. Not any kind of games, specifically Role Playing Game. For those who has no idea of role playing game, it is basically a game where you play a character in the game. And you start with a mission for your ultimate goals and as the story folds you encounter a lot of adventure, mini mission, upgrade level etc.

Still clueless? No problem. Let me explain further. When I’m bored or starting to dislike working, I will imagine that I am the character in the game. And that with completing all the mini task, I am gaining experience point. I can actually see the point being added (Of course in my imagination)

Sometimes I was assigned by my manager to negotiate with the worker’s union on some matters. I quickly get into my game mode. And with every successful negotiation, I imagine 1 point of Communication Skill is added to my stats I’m sure those who play RPG game will understand.

I don’t know about you, but this alone will help me get through some tough day.

You too can do just the same. If the thing you enjoy the most is gardening, and you’re working as human resource manager. Try imagining your workers are like plant. You need to give them attention and all the right nutrition for them to grow. When they do grow into a more efficient worker, take the time to enjoy your success.

- Disclaimer -
This method may not work for everyone. But try away, maybe you can further expand it to cater yours

- I wonder -
What are the thing you enjoyed the most? The thing that you will lose track of time the minute you started on it.

———- Personal Note ———-
I have to make it clear that I don’t hate my job. It’s just sometimes, I feel like quiting my job and maybe start blogging professionally. Anyone hiring?

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Summary - 2 + 2 - 1 = 3

People always complain that somehow their workload seems to be endless and not decreasing in number. There are always files or documents to do on the work table, and even though we spend a lot of time to finish the work, the files and documents doesn’t seem to be reducing in number, instead they are increasing.

I’m not going to venture about prioritizing or the Pareto application. Instead I am more interested in the how to motivate ourselves to clear our desk by the end of the day.

This is what I do for motivation

The secret to the motivation actually lies in this mathematical formula

2 + 2 - 1 = 3

This is the formula that describe why our work will always pile up. Simply, we have 2 works, and 2 more works were given, but we just finish 1. So logically tomorrow we will start the day with 3 works.

Yes, this is very logical. Everybody knows this. But the logical truth is, if we don’t finish up more work than the amount of extra work given, it will definitely pile up each day. No other secrets

We can learn everything there is to know about getting things done or GTD, but all those theory will not reduce that mountain of work if we do not finish more work than the amount of work added.

So if later, you are not interested to finish up your work, or maybe that procrastination gene kicks in, remember the formula given.

I leave the other two formulas for you to decipher

2 + 2 - 2 = 2
2 + 2 - 3 = 1

- I wonder -
How do you motivate yourself to finish the work?

——— Personal Note ———-
I spent most of the working time in the mill, however I know that back in the office, my mountain of paper work are there waiting and smiling. I’m still working on a more efficient system on how to finish the work. Currently I dedicate my 4pm especially to do the paperwork.

Anybody interrupt me during this period will face my wrath. A cute kind of wrath (I am not that good in being angry at people)

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Summary - 3 interview lessons learnt from working temporary

As previously mentioned in my post on mindset needed to survive job hunting, just after I finished my study, I worked as a customer service assistant at a department store in Kuala Lumpur. Generally my task involved assisting customer’s query and complaints, help in membership registration, wedding gift registry and most importantly, wrapping present.

The work was very rewarding, and in a way had helped me greatly in my quest for job hunting. In fact it helped me a lot in my coming interview. Here’s how :

1) Interview = Communicate = English
There’s no way you can sell a product just by pointing, smile and giving a thumbs up. You need to speak comprehensible and confident English. Please notice that I didn’t use the word fluent and good English I can testify that out of the years of learning English, these periods were the time I improved the most.

2) Know the product in and out
In my line of work (at the time), I need to know how to differentiate between red wine glass and a goblet. I need to know how to point out the reason why some bedsheet are expensive and some don’t. In general, I need to know how to sell everything there.

Let say I’m selling the expensive bedsheet, and the customer ask why is it more expensive than the other one. If all I can say is, “I’m not so sure”. Do you think the customer will buy it?

The same with interview, everyone is trying to sell themselves. They say that they are more special than the others. But when asked, they usually don’t know how to describe their strength.

Tip : Try to describe your strength with respect to what you can offer to the company, and not just by saying that you are this and that.

3) Don’t sell the wrong thing
When potential customer call me and ask for some information on a product, I was advised by my manager to avoid persuading them to buy. All I need to do is to provide all the information needed and help him in any way I can.

Most of the time, the customer will buy the product, simply because he is impressed by the attention given.

Similarly in an interview, the interviewer usually have read your resume and they were already impressed. The interview is just their way to see your attitude, confidence and passion for the job. Highlight these as often as you can. No need to worry about technical knowledge or your present perfect tense.

When they’ve already like you, the job is practically yours.

- I Wonder -
Any interesting stories on your experience undergoing interview? Please share

———- Personal Note ———
One of the thing I love the most about my job then is wrapping gift. I learnt there the actual art of wrapping gift. I really take pride of the work done.

Anybody want their gift wrapped?

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Summary - 4 most important mindset for job seekers

I still remember when I first graduated. It was a very difficult time looking for job. You see, I am not from a wealthy family, so I know immediately that I have to work just to finance my job hunting. I started with a job at a department store as a customer service personnel. Seriously one of the best time of my life, a job without that much responsibilityIt is my belief that the most important things during job hunting is not the resume, or your interview skills etc. It is your mindset. You will need to have these mindset in order to survive that period.

1) It’s all you
If you don’t do it, it will never get done. This is particularly important when you have that lazy feeling that you don’t want to do anything for the day.

Yes, it’s really hard work to go through the paper for job advertisement, and to write that cover letter etc. But remember, that thousands of people are looking for the same job, and they are possibly more motivated than you. If you didn’t apply, it will be just the same as you handed them the job on a silver plater.

2) Everyone is a different person
When I was in the job hunting phase, I basically just reprint the cover letter with some slight changes for every advertiser. Doing the same thing 10 to 20 times a day, everyday was very exhausting.

So what I personally did, was to consider that everytime I send the resume, I try to have that feeling of first time applying. Generally, it means that I try to maintain that excitement of sending my first application everytime.

I know it’s hard, but I truly believe that when we have that excitement in writing the cover letter, call the advertiser, they usually can tell that we are excited. Our writing will become more personal, and not just a copy paste from other cover letter (even though we are copy pasting it)

3) It takes time
Let say, We have been job hunting for half a year, sometimes it get frustrating when one of the company we applied for is taking his time to call us for interview.

The truth is, whether we have been job hunting for half a year or a year is not relevant to the company. They will treat each application through the same process. However, there is always this urgent feeling in us that they should speed up their process. And this frustration can have negative effect on your overall job hunting attitude.

Let it go, you do what you can the best you can. That’s actually what we can ONLY do. whether the application is accepted or not, is not for us to decide. So don’t think too much about it. Concentrate on the more important task - how to improve and where else can we apply for?

4) No place for being shy
Some people do have this problem. They are being shy for the wrong reason. Job hunting is a process where you are selling the most important product of all, YOU.

Would you buy a television that is said by the salesman to be nothing special? The same goes to the whole job hunting, you need to market yourself, your skill, and highlight to the company what you can offer to them.

Stop being embarassed or shy. You just can’t go far with that attitude.

- I wonder -
What other mindset do you think should a job seeker have? Or maybe you can share your experience?

—————- Personal Note —————-
I studied Chemical Engineering while I was at the university. Generally, my colleague all aim to work in the petroleum based field, myself included.But not long after I started looking for job that I know I had to accept any offer that came and of course applying for almost any engineering field. I even send out for management trainee post.It took me about 4 months to secure this current job I’m having. And it took a friend of mine more than a year to secure his. As long as you keep working on it patiently and motivatedly, you’re bound to be accepted.

Stay motivated kay!

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