Dealing with Rejection after an Interview

It is true that you have spent many months, weeks and hours over preparation and managing the interview process and you feel dejected and withdrawn when not getting a favorable response but time spent mourning is the previous time spent wasted. Use this time instead on research and analysis on what went wrong and how to deal with the rejection in the positive light.
When you get to the fighting stage you have now made up your mind towards identifying the reason for the interview failure. You have now taken your first step towards turning that rejection into success. The essence is in having a fighting spirit and a character that says “I will not quit”. It is not the time to take the rejections personally; it is not always you it could be them. But judgment must come after a careful analysis, not before.

• The first message you must have with you is that a few negative results do not mean “never”.
• The second very important message – It is not you. There could be many different reasons why the firm you interviewed with never got back to you – maybe they fell in a hiring freeze after a series of interviews, or the advertised position could not take off due to budgetary issues or some other unforeseen reason.
• The third message which is also a well used clich√© – you must learn from your mistakes. There is a possibility that it was you, not them. Rejections are not the time to sulk and get in your cocoon of self-depreciation or the statement “oh it’s just not possible to re-enter the workforce at this stage”. As with every stage in life, it is a time to learn from your experience and analyze why and what is not going right.

There is no use worrying about things over which you have no control, and if you have control, you can do something about them instead of worrying.- Stanley C. Allyn
Article by Shweta L. Khare, founder and president of Careerbright and Speakbright and courtesy of Careerbright blogspot

FaceBook Strategies (1)- The Power of FaceBook Groups

Want to communicate your subject matter expertise to a targeted audience, or would a scatter shot approach be more effective?
If you want a tightly targeted audience, that will have a high likelihood of facing problems that you are uniquely qualified to solve, then check out FaceBook’s groups, one of its most powerful features.
FaceBook is all about database segmentation, to allow highly targeted marketing. So why not use the same features that financial services, auto, and CPG companies see in FaceBook, and use them in your career search?
So how can you use FaceBook groups to help your Career Search?

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Employment Trend: Intern First, Then Full-Time Hire

Increasingly, employers are looking to their internship programs to find new employees, according to results of a new survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE).
Results of NACE’s 2008 Experiential Education Survey show that emphasis on hiring from the intern program is growing. Employers reported that nearly 36 percent of the new college graduates they hired from the Class of 2007 came from their own internship programs, up from 30 percent from the Class of 2005.
In addition, “more interns are getting offers of full-time employment,” says Marilyn Mackes, NACE executive director. “Currently, employers say they extended job offers to nearly 70 percent of their interns; in 2001, they offered jobs to 57 percent.”
The trend toward using the internship program to feed hiring is fueled, in part, by employer satisfaction with interns and internship programs.
“Nearly 90 percent of employers who use their programs to hire say they are very or extremely satisfied with their interns, and employers consistently name the internship program as one of the most effective tools they have for hiring new college graduates,” says Mackes. “Employers see results with these programs.”
Survey findings also indicate that interns who become full-time hires are more likely to stick with the organization than their co-workers who didn’t go through the program: More than one-third of employers (37.3 percent) reported higher retention among those converted from intern to employee within the first year of hire, and nearly half (48.8 percent) said former interns had higher retention five years after hire.
Not surprisingly, employers expect to add to their intern numbers this year: Respondents project a 3.7 percent increase in the number of interns they bring on in 2007-08, building their pool of potential full-time hires for next year.
Since 1956, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) has been the leading source of information about the employment of college graduates. NACE maintains a virtual press room for the media at www.naceweb.org/press/.

He Really Needs a Job

Recently, I heard from a guy named Larry, who got a job by putting a cover letter on the back of a T-shirt that had the “Damn I Need a Job” logo you see here on its front.
Now he sells them for $25, customized with your cover letter. (No, I don’t get an affiliate cut — or do I, Larry?)
Here’s his story:
I found myself unemployed. “No big deal” I thought. “I’m a pretty smart guy with some pretty marketable skills and this shouldn’t be a problem,” I told myself.
I got on all the big job boards, feverishly scanned the classifieds, hooked up with employment agencies, called all my contacts and considered moving. I even opened up the Yellow Pages, started with the “A”s and sent resumes to every listing that had an e-mail address or web site.
I couldn’t help but feel like my resume submissions were getting lost in stacks of other applicants and getting “filed” without ever being read. It was totally freaking frustrating and I thought “If I could just get some face time.”
I was walking around downtown one day and realized that everywhere I looked there was someone who was either hiring or knew of someone who was and they might even be looking for someone exactly like me.
So I started thinking about printing a stack of resumes and handing them out like flyers to passers by or putting them on wind shields. Pretty shameless, I agree, and I’d probably have to change my phone number after that. Also no guarantee people would even read it.
But . . . no bones about it, no way to dispute it, if they can read, people WILL read what’s on your shirt!

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Phone Interviews

Job seekers everywhere tend to fret about interviews. However, when the occasional phone interview comes up, preparation is throwng against the wall. Keep in the mind, that a phone interview is a good thing. Instead of becoming confused about the process, just keep in mind that the employer wants to know a little bit more about you. They want to put a voice to your resume. You have to nail this part of the interview process to get your foot in the door.
Treat the phone interview the same as you would a real interview. Keep in mind that you will have more ammunition for the face to face interview as well. Most of the time, the employer will still call you to schedule a future phone interview, so use this time to research the company, and re-research the position you applied for.
As long as you take the interview seriously and stay composed, you will do fine. Then you get to worry about the face to face!

Sloppy Men’s Dress Code Rules the Cube

What the hell has happened to the way the average American white collar male looks today? If I didn’t know better, and just looking around, scanning offices and cubicles, I would swear that I had just landed in SLOBovia, no passport or visa required.
True, the number of studies, books, advice columns, etc. are virtually endless in stating the very obvious – that looks do indeed count. And not just first impressions, either. In fact, a recent book by Prof. Gordon Patzer ‘The Power and Paradox of Physical Attractiveness,’ states that not only is physical attractiveness a very potent measure of a guys’ future, but that this is a universal phenomena, transcending all cultures and countries. So what happened to the gentlemen at my office?

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How much did your family influence your career choice?

Tremendously. My paternal grandfather was an entrepreneur. My father is an entrepreneur. And I’m an entrepreneur.
I love running my own business. Those who have never done so often misunderstand. They think you work less and have no boss. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most entrepreneurs work more and every client and potential client is their boss. Running your own business is not for most people but I love it.

– Submitted by S. R. from Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States through the CollegeRecruiter.com Career Blog Application on Facebook.com.

How to re-energize yourself and your job search

Reprinted courtesy of TheCareerNews.com
CHICAGO, IL — You have been out of work and looking for a job for several months and feel discouraged. How can you re-energize yourself and your search? Patience and persistence will help you get your job search back on the fast-track.
When you begin a job search, it’s easy to feel hopeful and excited. But if months go by without an offer, that enthusiasm can wane. Job seekers can lose their motivation and start feeling personally rejected. When a job search isn’t working you feel like a failure. You need to refocus and get outside of your own head.

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How Students and Recent Grads Can Get More Job Interviews

We regularly hear from college students searching for internships and recent graduates looking for entry level jobs that one of their biggest frustrations is getting interviews. Overwhelmingly they believe that if they can just get an interview that they will be able to demonstrate their worth to the recruiter or hiring manager. Many times the student or recent graduate is correct, but the question remains: how do you secure more interviews.
Tony Beshara recently wrote an article for the free recruiting content exchange service RecruitingBlogswap.com in which he provided this excellent, excellent advice:

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The Right Place at the Right Time

“Those who say some people were just lucky because they were in the right place at the right time don’t realize that the lucky ones show up at a lot of the right places a lot of times.”–Tony Beshara
Next to performing well on interviews, which is covered later in this program, the most important hurdle to getting a job is securing the face-to-face interviews. Obviously, you can’t perform well on the interview until you have an interview. That interview needs to be face-to-face, with a manager who has authority to hire and feels the “pain ” from an urgent need to hire someone.
You cannot really control whether you are offered a job. You can only influence the hiring manager to offer a job – by interviewing well and selling yourself. However, even if you are the best person for the job, you can’t make them offer it to you.
While you cannot control job offers, you can control interviews – their number and how they are conducted. Securing interviews is hard work. Certainly, it requires tenacity and technique. For most people, however, it also requires courage – they are not comfortable initiating conversations or don’t have the natural instincts for doing it. To these people, it can be a daunting, if not excruciating, task.
No one likes rejection. Unfortunately, it is a risk one must face to find a job. Accept that reality and prepare for possible rejection then get to work. Pristine resumes, brilliant research, and great contacts – even superior references – do not increase your odds of finding a job anywhere near as much as numerous interviews will.
Who You Gonna Call?
The most effective vehicle to get face-to-face interviews is going to be for you to pick up the phone and call everyone you can, whether you know them or not. Find people available for an interview that might result in you being hired. Find an employer with a “pain” that your employment can solve.
Think of all of the people that you can call. Below I provide the “script” you should follow in those calls, but first, you need to identify who you are going to call. Write on the form provided below the names of people that you might call to get an interview or a referral for an interview. Here’s a partial list of the types of people you should consider:

• Companies you have worked for, part-time
• People who are a generation older than you
• Employers where your peers might have worked part-time
• Parents of your peers and friends
• Your immediate and extended family, as well as friends of all of these people
• Alumni of your school
• Alumni of your fraternity or sorority, if that applies
• All of the people recommended by your college or university placement offices
• Bankers of your parents or friends (bankers usually know which companies in their area are expanding).
• Hometown contacts
• Contacts made at job fairs
• Internet postings
• Newspaper ads (maybe fewer today, but don’t overlook them.)
• Professional service firms to which your degree applies, i.e. accounting, engineering, architecture, marketing, banking etc.
• Employment agencies/recruiters
• Internship possibilities

The reality is that very few positions available to first-time job seeker, recent graduates, and others with very little experience are ever going to be advertised. However, the companies hiring the experienced people may also consider someone with little experience – for the right salary. Don’t hesitate to call companies who are advertising for experienced people.
By: Tony Beshara, Ask for personal advice from Tony, the #1 recruiter according to the industry’s leading journal, The Fordyce Letter.
Article courtesy of the Recruiting Blogswap, a content exchange service sponsored by CollegeRecruiter.com, a leading site for college students looking for internships and recent graduates searching entry-level jobs and other career opportunities.