Chapter 15
Building Careers and
Writing Résumé
1. How can you “think like an employer” if you have
no professional business experience?
Your perceived ability to perform the job is obviously an essential
part of your potential quality as a new hire. However, hiring managers consider
more than just your ability to handle the responsibilities you’ll be given.
They want to know if you’ll be reliable and motivated, if you’re somebody who
“gets it” when it comes to being a professional in today’s workplace.
2. If you were a team leader at a summer camp for
children with special needs, should you include this in your employment history
if you are applying for work that is unrelated? Explain your answer.
Yes. Because many employers are involved in their local communities, they
tend to look positively on applicants who are active and concerned members of
their communities as well. Consider including community service activities that
suggest leadership, teamwork, communication skills, technical aptitude, or
other valuable attributes.
3. Can you use a qualifications summary if you don’t
yet have extensive professional experience in your desired career? Why or why
not?
Yes. Because the qualifications
summary “brands” you as a candidate and also expresses your career objective
and title of the qualifications summary signals the type of job opportunities
you are seeking.
4. Some people don’t have a clear career path when
they enter the job market. If you’re in this situation, how would your
uncertainty affect the way your write your résumé?
I would make a functional
résumé, sometimes called a skills
résumé, because emphasizes your skills and capabilities, identifying
employers and academic experience in subordinate sections. This arrangement
stresses individual areas of competence rather than job history. The functional
approach also has three advantages:
(1) Without having to read through
job descriptions, employers can see what you can do for them.
(2) You can emphasize earlier job
experience.
(3) You can deemphasize any
lengthy unemployment or lack of career progress.
Or a combination résumé meshes the skills
focus of the functional format with the job history focus of the chronological
format. The chief advantage of this format is that it allows you to focus
attention on your capabilities when you don’t have a long or steady employment
history, without raising concerns that you might be hiding something about your
past. If you have little or no job experience and not much to discuss outside
of your education, indicating involvement in athletics or other organized
student activities lets employers know that you don’t spend all your free time
hanging around your apartment playing video games. Also consider mentioning
publications, projects, and other accomplishments that required relevant
business skills.
5. Between your sophomore and junior years, you quit
school for a year to earn the money to finish college. You worked as a
loan-processing assistant in a finance company, checking references on loan
applications, typing, and filing. Your manager made a lot of the fact that he
had never attended college. He seemed to resent you for pursuing your
education, but he never criticized your work, so you thought you were doing
okay. After you’d been working there for six months, he fired you, saying that
you’d failed to be thorough enough in your credit checks. You were actually
glad to leave, and you found another job right away at a bank, doing similar
duties. Now that you’ve graduated from college, you’re writing your résumé.
Will you include the finance company job in your work history? Explain.
It will depend because
to a potential new employer it may leave an unfavorable connotation on the
candidate but, if there is little to no
relevance between the positions, you do not have to showcase it on your resume.
The hiring company is primarily interested in relevant experience and skills
you can bring to their company. If the reason you were terminated
was due to a minor issue that can be easily explained and seen from your point
of view by a potential employer, than including the position on your resume
should not be a concern. Be honest with yourself and think through your
response to a potential interviewer. Your answers to the questions above will
tell you whether it is appropriate to include the job on your resume. If it is
included, consider the following to help you through the application and
interview process.
Chapter 16
Applying and Interviewing for Employment
1. How can you distinguish yourself from other
candidates in a screening interview and still keep your responses short and to
the point? Explain.
During these interviews, show keen
interest in the job, relate your skills and experience to the organization’s
needs, listen attentively, and ask insightful questions that show you’ve done
your research.
2. How can you prepare for a situational or
behavioral interview if you have no experience with the job for which you are
interviewing?
To prepare for a behavioral
interview, review your work or college experiences to recall several instances
in which you demonstrated an important job-related attribute or dealt with a
challenge such as uncooperative team members or heavy workloads. Get ready with
responses that quickly summarize the situation, the actions you took, and the
outcome of those actions. In the situational interview, the situations will
likely relate to the job you’re applying for, so the more you know about the
position, the better prepared you’ll be.
3. If you lack one important qualification for a job
but have made it past the initial screening stage, how should you prepare to
handle this issue during the next round of interviews? Explain your answer.
Recruiters don’t need that much information about you at the initial
screening stage, and they probably won’t read it. But, if you lack one
important qualification, then in the selection
stage, show keen interest in the job, relate your skills and experience
to the organization’s needs, listen attentively, and ask insightful questions
that show you’ve done your research.
4. What is an interviewer likely to conclude about
you if you don’t have any questions to ask during the interview?
The questions you ask are just as
important as the answers you provide. By asking insightful questions, you can
demonstrate your understanding of the organization, you can steer the
discussion into areas that allow you to present your qualifications to best
advantage, and you can verify for yourself whether this is a good opportunity.
Plus, interviewers expect you to ask questions and tend to look negatively on
candidates who don’t have any questions to ask.
5. Why is it important to distinguish unethical or
illegal interview questions from acceptable questions? Explain.
If an interviewer asks a potentially unlawful question, consider your
options carefully before you respond. You can answer the question as it was
asked, you can ask tactfully whether the question might be prohibited, you can
simply refuse to answer it, or you can try to answer “the question behind the
question.” Only you can decide which is
the right choice based on the situation. Even if you do answer the question as
it was asked, think hard before accepting a job offer from this company if you
have alternatives.
