Summary – Don’t just give answers, give them the questions too

One of the biggest fear for anyone attending a job interview is the fear of not knowing the answer to a question. I’ve been there and I can safely say that nobody is exempted from it. If you think about it, it’s a perfectly normal thing. There is no way a person can know everything there is to know about a topic.

However, don’t you think you will have undergone a perfect interview session if you know the answer to every single question? Don’t you think that will make you memorable and in the end hired?

Now would you believe me if I tell you that there is actually a trick to accomplish exactly that?

The Trick

The trick to actually know the answer to every questions in an interview is to give your interviewer a list of questions to ask you (Not literally of course). Allow me to elaborate.

Let say you are an expert in gearbox maintenance and you are attending an interview for an engineering position. Be sure to drop some hint in your answers that you are directly involved in gearbox maintenance. The interview conversation below will show you how.

Interviewer : What are your past experience?

You : I have been working as a maintenance engineer for about 5 years and my job usually covers fabrication, servicing of machinery especially gearbox etc.

Interviewer : Hm so tell us how do you take care of a gearbox?

You : Bla Bla Bla

/end example

As you can see, by hinting that you are involved in gearbox maintenance, the interviewer will usually make use of the topic as their next question. Of course being an expert you will be able to answer the question effortlessly.

Once you know this, any interview will be a walk in the park. However, you may want to first read a few ground rules of using the trick.

Rule 1 : Be very subtle with the hinting

Do not end every answer with the word “Gearbox”. The interviewer will start noticing the effort and it will not end well. If your first 2 attempts fail, try other topics that you are good at.

Rule 2 : Never show off your expertise

A friend of mine had actually memorized one whole book about Machinery Act and he boasted about it in the interview. As a result, the interviewer asked him question from other books and he failed.

Rule 3 : Do not give all the details

If for example, the interviewer asked you about “Gearbox”, don’t explain to him from A to Z. Be smart with your explanation and leave out interesting topics hanging for him to ask. A person who can answer every question asked is more memorable than a person who can answer only one question in the interview.

Rule 4 : Prepare a few real life stories

Everyone loves a story and if you play your cards right, the interviewer will want to hear more from you. They will then start asking the related question about it. That’s an extra point for you.

Rule 5 : Ask questions

Try to shoot some questions to the interviewer related to your expertise. You may know the answer but still ask away. It will convert the whole process from an interview to a mini discussion. Believe me, it will help reduce the stress and more importantly you will be memorable to the interviewer.

The best topic to be discussed is the topic you know best.

- I wonder –
Any other tips to subtly highlight your strength in an interview?

———- Personal Note ————
I just came back from my first semester of Palm Oil Milling Diploma in MPOB. There are 23 lectures compressed in 7 days. To make things even more interesting, the examination for this first semester will be held on 11th May. Wish me luck!

Photo Credit – DIDEO

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Summary – Cats Meow & Dogs Bark

The Problem

Have you ever had that day where you just don’t know what to do, despite the mountains of things you can do? It worsen when you actually know what you are supposed to do but you just don’t want to do it. Am I making any sense here?

For example, you know you have a blog entry to write, the ideas are pouring but when you switch on your laptop, you just end up spending your day browsing through millions of other blogs or socializing via twitter instead. At the end of the day, no entries were written. And there goes another day of your life.

This is NOT another case of procrastination. It’s more like doing everything else except for the one thing you need to do. It happens to me all the time and I’m sure it happens to you too. Can I ask? How do you overcome it?

Ths Solution

This is how I overcome the problem everytime I encounter it.

I am often overwhelmed with a thousand things to do, like researching, visitting others’ blogs, stumbling interesting articles etc, when all I really should do is write an article here in Lesson In Life. What I will then do is to rediscover what my immediate role at the time.

There is only one rule to this technique – There should only be one role to play at any time.

If I am a blogger, I should be blogging.. Period. Something is definitely wrong if I declare myself a blogger when I’m not even blogging. Realizing this immediately gives me more focus and clarity to write. Try it, you will be amazed that something so simple can do wonders.

The same goes to your career. Something is definitely wrong if you are a fireman but you like to show off how brave you are by creating fire.

Or if you are an assistant manager but the manager has more work on his table than you.

Conclusion – if you are a blogger, you blog. Everything else should take second place. Apply this to everything in your life, and your life will be so much simpler.

- I wonder -
If you can pick any one role to accomplish something today, what will you be? A blogger? A kitchen slave? A student? or others?

——— Personal Note ———–
What I usually do when I am supposed to be writing

• Stumble new interesting entries (Befriend me)
• Check out what’s top stories on Digg (Befriend me)
• Explore Facebook (Befriend me)
• Reading Twitter (Follow me)
• Replying emails (Shoot me an email)
• Read forums
• Visit others’ blogs
• Analyzing the blog’s statistic
• Reading my RSS Feed
• Tweaking the blog

Photo Credit – Striatic

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Summary – 3 tips on how to keep work at your workplace

One of the biggest problem for working people is that they always bring back work home. I used to think that this is nonsense. Who would want to bring work back home? But when I started working, the habit comes naturally and without even realizing it, I’m already doing it.

The worst case scenario would be when you bring back your problem from your workplace. The problem is in your head, and it will haunt you the rest of your day at home. If you bring back only paperwork, you will be able to finish it and you’re done. But if you bring back your problem which is in your head, it will always be there. And this will have more negative effect on your life.

• You will have no mood to have fun.
• You may accidentally channel your anger and frustration to your family.
• You will suffer stress and your work is becoming more of a burden to you.
• In short.. nothing good can come with bringing work back home.

How to leave work at work

If you are suffering from the above symptoms, and you know it is because you are bringing work back home, you may want to try these tips :

1) Create parting ritual
Create a parting ritual everytime you finish your work at your office. I personally clear up everything on my table and put it in one tray. I imagine that that is my black hole tray, where no work will be able to break free until 8am tomorrow morning.

You can create your own ritual like consciously locking the door of your office and saying goodbye to your work. This may sound silly but it has a great impact on your subconcious mind. You are making a closure.

2) Put up the sign – Do Not Disturb
Even when we successfully leave the work at work, the work sometimes manage to find you. Your colleague may call you during your off day to help him with something. What you should do, is to formally inform everyone that you are not to be disturbed unless it is a matter of life and death. A bit harsh, I know, but works like a charm.

I however am working as a maintenance engineer. And I almost always will be called to work if there’s any major breakdown. In my case, I can’t really turn down any call for help even when it is 3 in the morning.

If you are in other line of work, you should put up the sign. It’ll help.

3) Remind yourself in black and white
Take a piece of paper, and write these sentence on it. Whenever you are returning from work, read them out loud.

• My family is the most important thing to me.
• The time with my family is precious. I don’t want to miss a single thing.
• My family deserve the best from me, the best attention, the best conversation, the best treatment.

After a week or two reading them, you will memorize the sentence and it will be permanently written in your subconcious mind.

I’m sure there are many other methods we can do to keep work from following us home, but these three are the best way to do it. Try it.. You’ll see.

- I wonder -
How do you leave work at work?

——– Personal Note ———-
In two more days Muslims around the world will celebrate Aidilfitri (It is pronounced Eye – Deal – Fit – Ree). Just a brief explanation of the day, it is to celebrate the victory of successfully completing the one month of fasting. It is a joyous holiday here in Malaysia, where everyone will take this opportunity to be with family.

I will be returning home to Kedah (about 500km journey) on Tuesday. I’m going to take this opportunity to wish all of my muslims friends reading enjoy your Aidilfitri. Do not celebrate your Aidilfitri with work on your mind kay

“Selamat Hari Raya, Maaf Zahir Batin”

Photo Credit – JCardinal18

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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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