Dangerous Job Interview Questions

I’ll be doing a job interview questions series over the next few days. This being the end of the year, quite a few people are considering where they stand in their carreer, and if you’re one of them it’s worthwhile to also think about these sneeky questions you’ll come across from HR (human resources) people, trying to unearth your so called weak spots….

Here we go with the first question:

How long have you been looking for a job?

(The HR person wants to know if is there something wrong with you. Have other employers noticed a problem area and are you therefor on job search for a long time already?)

This could be your answer, especially if it’s been a while since you last held a firm employment:

Your tactic: Explain the long period with a type of sabattical, you took some time to assess your position and to make sure you know where your future will bring you. Sounds good, nobody can wrong you for that and it nicely explains, why it’s been some time since your last job.

“After I was laid off from my last job, I took the opportunity to take some time out to examine my career goals and where I was going with my life. I have just begun my search in the last few weeks. I have a definite goal in mind and have been very selective about the positions I consider. Your company and this position are of great interest to me.”

There are plenty more job interview questions that can come your way. I suggest you take some time to seriously prepare. Here are a few good audio books that you can listen to:

Audio Books about job interviews

You can listen to sample recording of these book online and if you like what you hear, they are ready for immediate download! Good luck!

 

Positive Mental Attitude

A Positive Mental Attitude is the key to your success.

Does this situation seem to be familiar:

You enter a room and see a few rather uninspired faces, people moving about with hanging shoulders and seemingly uninterested, even annoyed, are doing their daily chores and you can see that they would give nearly anything to be elsewhere…. ???

Having such a stance and mental attitude is making their day pure misery.

On the other side of the scale, you may have experienced an other scene as well:

When entering a room, smiling faces and friendly words greet you. People are bouncing about and seemingly hardly touch the floor when moving. Everything seems to be fun, feindly words and jockes float about. These people are happy! Happy to be where they are, happy to do what they do.

What is it that makes the big difference in these two images?

It’s their mental attitude. They are working daily to cultivate a positive mental attitude. And they now have made it nearly a habit, soemthing that starts to be natural. This poritive mental attitude is the foundation of success.

Because what you send out also comes back to you. If yousmile at people, are friendly and positive, it’s only natural for others to replicate. You start a vicious circle, but you make it turn the right way round:

The more you are radiating positive energy and hand out smiles, the more of the same is returned to you. That fuels your energies and you can give out even more, more comes back and so on.

Isn’t that great???

Read more about positive energy and how to cultivate the right attitude in ‘The Secret’ by Rhonda Byrne. It’s a great audio book that you can listen to on the go and that will not only educate you on the way of being positive, but this book will change the way you look at your life. Listen to a sample of ‘The Secret’ audio book here

 

Job Interviews – Use ‘The Secret’

Preparing for a job interview means getting ready to be grilled, getting ready to be your best and show your positive assets. Be also prepared for the interviewers to try and ferret out all the other stuff, things you don’t like to talk about, your weaknesses etc.

Here’s what a potential applicant for a job might be asked by the person screening applicants. If you prepare for these questions and are ready, you will outdo 80% of all other applicants:

1. Looking back over your career – and your time at high school and college – what are the talents and skills that set you apart form others? What can you do better than almost everyone else?
2. What made you decide to apply for this position? What is the attraction that this particular opportunity and our organization holds for you?
3. Tell us which activities in your previous jobs have you enjoyed the most? Which tasks and activities have you had the most success with?
4. Which activities on the other hand could be dealt with by others in your organization better than you could? Why was that so?
5. If I were to ask your former bosses and your colleagues about you, what would they say are your greatest strengths and talents?
6. In you last two jobs: What results have you delivered? What accomplishments are you most proud of?
7. Now let’s assume we offer you this job amd you start working with us. What would need to be true about our organization, the team, and your job for you to be able to tell your friends half a year from now, “I’m glad I took this job. I made an excellent decision”?
8. When you leave here, you’re likely to go over this interview once more and you’ll probaly wish that I had asked one question. What question will you wish I had asked?
9. Do you have questions we have not covered yet?

In The Secret by Rhonda Byrne you’ll find a great set of information how to mentally prepare and to set yourself into a very positive mood. The inner strength you’ll gain from these techniques will help you feel better and thus also make a much better and composed impression on the interviewers.

You can use the Law of Attraction to your advantage, you can concentrate on your goals and create in this way a very strong force within yourself that will send out positive energy. Naturally you have to prepare for the interview also n the conventional way, do your home work and research into the company to prepare. Using a combination of the old fashioned prep work and the mental strength as described by Rhonda Ryner, you’ll succeed!

A few  other great audio books may also help you to prepare for the worst: audio books about job interviews . You can listen to sound samples online, just click on the link above.

 

Concentration – The Secret To Productivity

Concentration is the key element to productivity. Manage to concentrate on whatever you do right now, and you get it done faster, better and it’s easier.

Experiments have shown, that we are able to fully concentrate for approximately 15 minutes at the time, then the mind needs a short break. People who train hard, can increase this span to much longer times, but full, 100% concentration can not be upheld indefinitely. Chess players know how difficult it can be to concentrate for long time spans. We seem to reach a saturation point after which the brain overloads and refuses to focus on a single goal or task.

The trick therefore is to work in phases of high concentration and then do something else that releases the pressure on the system and lets you breathe for a few minutes and then work with a spell of concentration again.

The very same problem of upholding the concentration applies to listening. We tend to listen to others for a short time and then our thoughts wander off….. Misundertandings are the results. If you want to increase your listening skills, concentration is key.

In her audiobook ‘Listening: The Forgotten Skill’ Madelyn Burley-Allen shows you how to acquire active, productive listening skills and put them to work for you – professionally, socially, and personally. With her time-tested techniques, you’ll learn how to:

• Eliminate distractions and improve your concentration on what is being said.
• Locate key words, phrases, and ideas while listening
• Cut through your own listening biases
• Interpret body language clues
• Ask constructive, non-threatening questions that elicit real information
• Get others to listen to you
• Master a whole range of listening skills that you can use on the job and in your personal life

Sure Listening is only one area where concentration is VERY important. Just ask yourself how often you are drifting off in your thoughts whilst talking with others and whilst you really should be listening. Maybe you should make an effort too?

 

‘The Secret’ And Your Body

Thoughts are not just non-matter floating about. Thoughts – positive or negative – have an immediate effect on the way your body chemistry behaves. This has been researched in depth and the results are accepted knowledge:

Our body is very strongly affected by our thoughts. Ongoing scientific research keeps showing new dimensions of that fact nearly every day. In a nutshell, this is the result of all these experiments: Think positive thoughts and your immune system is stronger and works better. Think negative thoughts and your immune system is weaker and you are more susceptible to illness and attack by bacteria and viri.

An other clear evidence how our thoughts influence our body and it’s self healing capacity: Placebos have a very strong influence on the way an illness progresses or regresses. A person who thinks he or she is receiving real treatment with real medicine when they are getting just a placebo very often show the same positive healing progress as people who actually get the real medicine. Why is that possible? Because theye are really healing themselves by thinking that they now have what they need and focus on this positive development subconciously.

That positive or negative influence goes even one step further: People who are in a positive environment where others are behaving well towards others, where the social climate is agreeable and supportive, experience a mental reaction in themselves, which then also creates a positive change in their body chemistry. They feel well and relaxed, smile and have a good time. All conditions that help to stay healthy. On the contrary, people who are in an environment, where hate and violence abounds, where they are under constant pressure and stress, feel bad, develop negative thoughts and worry a lot. They sooner or later fall ill. Think burn-out syndrome, depressions etc.

‘The Secret’ by Rhonda Byrne is available as audiobook and gives many more examples how thinking the right thoughts and affirming your positive thoughts will help you feel better and healthier.