Advice to job interviewees…

…as given to me by a recruiter

  • Spit out your gum.
  • lose the water bottle. (or ask if you can leave it with a recruiter)
  • don’t sit till asked to do so.
  • turn off your cell phone/pda/blackberry/pager…you get the point.
  • please have examples of past work (or give a url)
  • please have a copy of your resume
  • dress nice. funeral clothes….
  • **due diligence & research.

    • Granted, a lot of these seem like common sense. but it’s not. One of the people, who I interviewed as my replacement for the last job, wore cowboy boots and jeans to the interviews. This was for an IT position, not as a ranch-hand for the “back 40″.

    **If you don’t know what due dilligance is, then look it up. Know something about the company to which you’re applying. Seriously, go to Google, type the name in.

    This entry was posted by sacredcowtipping on Wednesday, May 17th, 2006 at 12:33 pm. It is filed under Business, Geeks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

No Responses to “Advice to job interviewees…”

  1. I think you mean “diligence”. [grin]

    On the jeans and cowboy hat, remember that the applicant is interviewing you just as much as you’re interviewing the applicant. While out here in California I’d probably do a khakis and a silk shirt, in the southeast, depending on the company, for a developer position I’d be more likely to show up in a T-shirt and jeans, to make sure that the company I’m talking with is serious about development prowess. I want to know that the company I’m working with isn’t just a marketing shell, and I’ve made the mistake a few times of thinking that good products could come out of cultures that placed more of an emphasis on appearance. I’ve since learned that there’s a reason that even at IBM, you can tell the best technical folks at Armonk by their flip-flops.

    If the person is a web or graphic designer, on the other hand, you’re hiring a designer, and their personal design should convey the image you want the company to project.

  2. Yep, it’s diligence..LOL

    If I blog on Windows I’m sans spell check. One of the reasons I miss my Mac….

    Now granted, I’d love to be able to wear flip-flops to work….and shorts and t-shirts. It’s my comfort zone. I like that I can wear a t-shirt and jeans to the current job, but it’s mainly business casual.