50 Toughest Interview Questions to Ask or to Answer

50 Toughest Interview Questions to Ask or to Answer50 Toughest Interview Questions to Ask or to Answer50 Toughest Interview Questions to Ask or to Answer Putzier and David Baker As former outplacement counselors, we created these questions for our clients to practice in advance of their bewerberinterviewing candidatesas part of their interview preparation.These questions should be asked andanswered both positively and in job-related terms. This is the first rule of a solid interview process. Try asking yourself some of these interview questions and see how your answers would resonate with you That will provide you some context to better hiring.1.Tell me about yourself.2.Why do you want to work here?3.What are your strengths?4.What are your weaknesses?5.What do you know about us?6.Why should I hire you?7.Why did you (or why do you want to) leave your current employer?8.If you could turn back time and live your life over, what would you do differently?9.Describe the ideal work environm ent for you.10.Tell me about the worst boss you ever had.11.If you could change one thing about your last (current) job, what would it be?12.How do you think your coworkers would describe you, both good and bad?13.How do you think your bosses would describe you, both good and bad?14.In prior performance reviews, what were your opportunities for improvement?15.What are your greatest accomplishments so far?16.Describe yourself in three words.17.Are you interested in managing or leading others? Why or why not?18.How do you define success?19.Besides money, what do you value or need fruchtwein if you are to have job satisfaction?20.Have you ever been fired (laid off, outplaced, etc.)? Explain the circumstances.21.If you gave your last boss a performance review, what would he or she need to change?22.Do you prefer to work alone or with others? Why?23.Describe a difficult situation or task that you had to deal with, and how you did so.24.How do you feel about travel or relocation?25.Is the re anything that would physically or mentally prevent you from performing this job?26.What other organizations are you pursuing, or are pursuing you?27.Do you consider yourself to be creative? If so, give some examples.28.How would you describe your personality?29.How much are you expecting to earn in this job?30.How do you feel about incentives, which are heavily tied to performance?31.How do you feel about psychological tests?32.How do you feel about drug tests?33.What are your goals for five years and ten years out?34.Do you prefer a job with clearly defined tasks, or one that is more self-directed?35.Do you prefer to work for a man or a woman? Why?36.How do you feel about working in a diverse workplace (with minorities, for example)?37.If you could change three things about yourself, what would they be?38.Do you consider yourself to be a traditionalist? Why or why not?39.What motivates you?40.Do you think that people are basically lazy and need to be pushed to perform?41.Have yo u ever had to fire someone? Explain why and how you did it.42.If you could be in your own business, what business would it be?43.Do you consider yourself to be more of a people person or a taskmaster?44.What qualities do you think are necessary to be a leader?45.How long do you anticipate being in this job, or with our organization?46.Do you believe that success depends more on what you know than on whom you know?47.How do you perform under stress?48.Do you keep current in your field? How?49. Do you have any role models? If so, who are they, and why are they role models?50.What more would you like to know about the job, or about this organization?Ready To Hire? Do This NextNow that youve got the questions, you need to find the candidates who have the answers you want to hear. Could you use some help with that? Join for free today. As a member, youll receive interview advice, hiring tips, special offers, industry trends, and much more. Let help you prepare an interview strategy that makes sense for your business so you can make a strong hire the first time around.Excerpted from The Everything HR Kit A Complete Guide to Attracting, Retaining, and Motivating High-Performance Employees by John Putzier and David Baker. Copyright 2010 John Putzier and David Baker. Published by AMACOM Books, a division of American Management Association, New York, NY. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

How To Survive A Company Reorganization

How To Survive A Company ReorganizationHow To Survive A Company ReorganizationOh the re-organization, with its org charts, flowcharts, floor plans and motivational chit chats. If youve been through it, you know how this goes. The shuffling of kollektivs, cubicles and offices, and the frantic flurry of messages chronically underestimating how long this limbo will last and desperately pining for the new normal to begin. Transition is always a challenge, and change at work can be especially difficult. People often need routine to feel secure and to be productive. If your workgroup is in flux, here are some tips to help navigate the chaosIdentify a sound information source Every workplace has a worrier who is going to tell you the sky is falling S/he heard there may be lay offs. S/he overheard someone say there will be downsizing. Dont invite the worrier to be yourre-org news source. While everything is in flux, it may not be clear who your manager will be, but hopefully the management t eam is in place. Identify either the best communicator on that team or the person who you think is fruchtwein likely to be your manager. Then get your information from only that person. If you hear a worrisome rumor, confirm it with your source. S/he will be interested to know what kind of information is being circulated and you are much better served to get the details of the transition from one trusted source thanfrom a rumor mill. Hopefully the management team will have a good communication plan, but there is always a lot of upheaval during a re-org and sometimes the communication plan cant catch up with the changes that are happening. It serves you well to have a personal plan for getting news. Create for now goalsReframe your expectations for yourself. Maybe some of your projects are going to be tabled, or maybe the usual process for getting them approved is going to change and in the meantime you have to hold them until certain people are in place. However the eventual plan af fects your day-to-day, create temporary goals for yourself. Its difficult to stay motivated without a trajectory, and sometimes you loose your goals in the shuffling that happens in a re-org. Part of what you need to stay engaged is a sense of your own workload and yourown plan. If theres no manager in place to help you with this, do it for yourself. It will make you feel so much more in control of your situation. As new information comes out about the re-org, you can readjust your goals to keep yourself on track. This way, you will stay focused and also have a track record for your new manager when the department is fully functional again. Stay positive Reorganizations confuse people, and that causes stress. But you can approach this differently. Watching a team go through this process gives you the chance to truly see leadership in action. Pay attention. Note what you see working and where you see stress mounting. This is one area where you really get to see the quality of the lea ders steering your institution and if you hope to someday have a leadership position, this is a wonderful case study for you to observe. Be positive and optimistic. You may notice coworkers complaining about this every step of the way. Dont absorb that approach. Watch and learn. Do you best to be optimistic and flexible. And if your final assessment is that you can do better with a different job and a different leadership team, Simply Hired is a great way to target a new opportunity for yourself.

ISTP - Learn About This Myers Briggs Personality Type

ISTP - Learn About This Myers Briggs Personality fontISTP - Learn About This Myers Briggs Personality TypeIf you went to a career counselor who administered the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), you may have learned that your personality type is ISTP. You are probably wondering what these four letters can tell you about your career and what you should do with it. This article will clear up all your confusion. ISTP is one of 16 personality types Carl Jung, a psychiatrist identified many years ago. The MBTI is based on his theory. Jung believed that personality types are made up of four pairs of opposite preferences for how we do certain things. We energize through introversion (I) or extroversion (E), perceive information by sensing (S) or intuition (N), make decisions by thinking (T) or feeling (F) and live our lives by judging (J) or perceiving (P). Each of us favors one member of each pair of preferences over the other one. That doesnt mean Your code is ISTP because the results o f the MBTI indicated that your preferences are Introversion, Sensing, Thinking and Judging. Career development professionalsbelieve the code can be used to help people make career-related decisions such as choosing a career and accepting a job offer.Thats the Jungian theory in a nutshell and how it applies to your career choice. Now lets examine your code more closely. Well look at what each preference means and then explore how you can use this information to make career-related decisions. I, S, T and P What Each Letter of Your Personality Type Code Means IWhen you hear the word introversion, like most people, you may think shy or unable to be around others. Theres actually so much more to it than that. As someone who prefers Introversion, you are energized by things within yourself. It doesnt mean you dont like being around other people, just that you prefer to spend time alone. Therefore, you dont need friends or coworkers to motivate you.SAs an individual who favors sensing , you use your five senses help you decode information that comes your way. You see details rather than the patterns that might emerge from them. You dont tend to forecast what the future may hold but live fully in the present. T Your preference for thinking means you take a lot of time to make decisions. It is not because you are indecisive, but instead that you carefully consider all your options. You use logic, not emotion. You dont mind critiquing people.P As someone who is perceiving, you are flexible and spontaneous. It means you can easily adaptto change. On the downside, however, you dont do very well with deadlines. It is important to keep in mind that these are only your preferences. That means that while you prefer to do things a certain way, you can adapt and use the opposite preference when you need to. Also remember that each preference in your four-preference type affects the other three. Finally, your preferences are dynamic in that they can change throughout your li fe. How to Use Your Code to Help You With Career-Related Decisions You can consider your personality type when you are choosing a career or deciding whether to accept a job offer based on the environment in which you will have to work. When making a career choice, you should look at the two middle letters in your code, S, and T. Because you prefer sensing and thinking, you should look for occupations in which you can solve concrete problems. You also want to work in a career that values the importance of careful and deliberate decision making. Take into account, as well,yourinterests,aptitudesandwork-related valueswhen choosing a career.These are some options for you to think about Airline PilotDental HygienistAthletic CoachEMT and ParamedicBiomedical EngineerEngineering TechnicianBrick MasonGeoscientistCamera OperatorIntelligence AgentCarpenterParalegalCivil EngineerPhotographerComputer ProgrammerRadiologic TechnologistComputer Systems AnalystSoftware Developer Your preferences of introversion and perceiving can guide you whendeciding whether a work environment will be right for you. As someone who prefers introversion, you would enjoy making your own decisions about how to complete projects. Since deadlines arent your thing, consider a job that allows you to work at your own pace. Sources The Myers-Briggs Foundation Web Site.Baron, Renee.(1998)What Type Am I?. NY PenguinBooks.Page, Earle C.Looking at Type A Description of the Preferences Reported by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Center for Applications of Psychological Type.Tieger, Paul D., Barron, Barbara, and Tieger, Kelly. (2014)Do What You Are. NY Hatchette Book Group.

Military Chow Halls and Food Allowance Guide

Military Chow Halls and Food Allowance GuideMilitary Chow Halls and Food Allowance GuideThe military promises to feed you, and they do so primarily by using three separate methods chow or mess halls, basic allowance for subsistence, and meals-ready-to-eat. If you are enlisted and reside in the dormitory or barracks, in most cases, you will be given your meals for free. Different services have different names for this. In the Air Force, its called being on a Meal Card (although physical cards are rarely used anymore). Most chow halls offer four meals per day breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a midnight meal. Some are open 24 hours a day. For the health conscious, there is a heart-healthymenu, as well as a salad bar. For breakfast, youcan choose anything between a small fruit cup to a full-fledged made-to-order omelet with all the side dishes. Take-outcartons are freely available in many chow halls. Some military dining facilities even have drive-through windows. In recent years, the milit ary has been trying to reduce the number of chow halls at its facilities, as the size of the Armed Services has shrunk. And the menus are becoming more and more healthy, which may deter some younger troops from partaking, especially if inexpensive fast food is readily available nearby. KP Duty in the Military Other than a few exceptions at some military training centers, boot camp, while embarked on a vessel, while deployed, etc., kitchen patrol, or KP, duty is a thing of the past. Most military dining facilities are contracted operations, so troops arent assigned to KP. Although there are procedures to be reimbursed for missed meals, they are paperwork intensive and usually require justifications and explanations to the first sergeant and or the commander. Enlisted and officers receive full-rate BAS after initial entry training. However, for those required to consume meals in the dining facilities, most of the BAS is automatically deducted from their paychecks. Basic Allowan ce for Subsistence (BAS) For officers and enlisted people who do not reside in the dormitories, the military pays a monetary allowance for food. BAS is an allowance, notpay. It is not taxable.Officers are paid less BAS than enlisted personnel. The allowance is not designed or paid to provide any subsistence to family members. It is solely for the subsistence of the military member. It used to be that when an enlisted member deployed, and they received BAS, they would lose the BAS during the time of deployment (because they received free meals at the deployment location Chow Hall). However, responding to complaints of many service members following the first Gulf War, Congress passed a law requiring the military to continue to pay BAS to deployed members, if the member received BAS at their permanent duty station. Enlisted members who receive BAS are usually authorized to eat in the dining facility (they have to pay for the meal), but the number of meals they are allowed is restrict ed. Officers may only eat in the enlisted mess for special purposes, requiring special permission (for example, a commander checking on the quality of meals). Military Meals Ready to Eat (MRE) No article on military food would be complete without mentioning MREs. unterstellung have replaced the old C-rations and field rations.MREs are sealed, foil envelopes and can be heated or eaten cold. The packet contains an entree, a side dish, crackers and cheese spread, a dessert item, cocoa powder, and a few other misc. snack items. There are several choices of entrees. Every couple of years theDepartment of Defensesurveys military members to find out which MREs were popular and which were not. Unpopular menu items are taken out of service, and new menu items are introduced all the time. You dont have to join the military to try an MRE if youre so inclined. They are available in many camping storesand mostmilitary surplus stores.

Sensitive Info About Custodian Resume Only the Experts Know Exist

Sensitive Info About Custodian Resume Only the Experts Know Exist Key repairs are finished by a skilled but the Custodian is the person who can spot any big repair needed. Organizations can easily elect for fast, easy and competent recruitment process immediately. What to search for When deciding on a Custodian Starting a RIA isnt nearly managing a customers money. Custodians might be hired even without prior experience because its all manual labor that may be learned after awhile. The New Fuss About Custodian Resume Show yours by finding whatever you love about the business or school. In order to be meaningful contribution, we often say, we have to be passionate about our work. To acquire the eye of an employer, you will need to supply examples of earlier fest experience and detail the ways your involvement directly resulted in the events success. Likewise, in the event you search for job beneath your degree of skill, you are likely to wind up being bored. There are a few formal certifications its possible to obtain should you would like to pursue employment outside the conventional apprenticeship model. If youre composing a resume for a position for a Janitor then it is crucial to compose an objective that will capture the interest of prospective employers. The Career Objective is intended to provide a brief and impactful introduction to you as a man and as a prospective employee. Its possible to also use a Custodian Objective if youre an entry-level candidate. Tailoring your resume to suit a prospective employer is the same. There arent any exceptional education requirements to be a custodian or janitor. Other chemicals can be damaging to your hands so that you may need to wear safety gloves. Understanding what you would like your business to look like will help you select the custodian thats the ideal fit for you. You may use the sites samples and templates to get your care and janitorial resume. You may feel like the document is un necessary as youre presently supplying a resume with lots of advice. Utilizing resume maker program program is the right option when looking for work out there at present. You may use the websites templates and samples to make your maintenance and janitorial resume. The Tried and True Method for Custodian Resume in Step by Step Detail Likewise an expert babysitter searching for a job may choose the assistance of the babysitter resume template. Youre going to be ready write a work cover letter Sincerely, Jane Smith Below is a good example of a resume for an event planner that could be adapted to suit your wants. When its just straightforward info, you might prefer to leave it away. Custodian Resume Explained If youre seeking to land a part in the high-energy, high-turnover food and beverage business, then youll want a resume that touts your previous experience and drives home your customer service abilities. It might be hard to detect work in the present industry. Consider product offerings despite the fact that most custodians provide a core, there are differences, especially when it comes to alternative investments. When youre considering employment, then it is quite critical youre mindful showing how to provide yourself at the ideal approach to a corporation. The Custodian may be in charge of just particular regions of the building based on the size and the quantity of work required. Janitorial and maintenance work isnt only about cleaning. You will recognize the proper structure. If youre searching for a resume and you dont want to obtain it created from a knowledgeable but want to write everything on your own, job application examples will most likely be of fantastic aid to you. If you pledge to compose a cover letter make fish an employer is really going to read, youre a success even before the time that your job cover letter reaches the organization. There are a lot of programs on the market which provide resume maker software, but a l ot of them, especially the absolutely free versions, will not be that beneficial and everyone appears to be using them, so your resume will probably look the identical anyway. In some instances, you will also interact directly with a providers customers, particularly if youre on the job during business hours. Simply take the opportunity to generate a resume specifically for the company that you are considering working for. A custodian is a person whos normally saddled with the responsibility of creating certain that a building is kept clean at all times. Because you have to perform plenty of work to produce a school custodian resume compatible with the requirements of the employer. Whats more, youre ready to get started searching for custodian projects on Monster. On the flip side, an individual applying for the job of a janitor would be in a position to use the janitor resume templates. Top Custodian Resume Choices Have your spelling and grammar checked to be koranvers yo u can submit a resume thats simple to read and understand. Reading comprehension skills are necessary to understand written instructions. In nearly all instances, your soft skills can boost your hard skills. Its also important to get oral comprehension skills in order to follow verbal cleaning instructions. What You Dont Know About Custodian Resume By carefully targeting resumes for certain jobs and situations, its possible to greatly enhance your odds of getting noticed in the work marketplace. The exact same way, youll be in a position to compose a great custodian career objective statement by knowing what the job entails for a specific employer. Your chance of finding the job may get incredibly slim when it happens. Its possible to choose one based on your purpose or the sort of job that you desire.

How to Stop Being Lazy and Get More Done

How to Stop Being Lazy and Get More Done Article by Paul BoneaHave you everhad to do a task with a long timeline, but you couldnt muster the will to complete it until 0.2 seconds before it was due?Of course you have at least once. You wouldnt be human otherwise.And even if thetimeline were shorter,you still would have been able to complete the task on time, right? Why is that?At first glance, you might say Procrastination, duh But heres an alternative explanation that wont make you feel as bad.The phenomenon is called Parkinsons law, which states that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.The first person to observe and write about this phenomenon extensively was Cyril Parkinson, a British naval historian and public administration specialist. He noticed that the mora time bureaucrats were given for a task, the longer it took them complete it. Shorten the allocated time, and things moved quickly again.We procrastinate for a w ide variety of reasons, such as fear or simple laziness. However, theres also an evolutionary motivation behind laziness. Our ancestors lived in a world where food sources were nowhere near as plentiful as today. As such, they conserved energy for important tasks such as hunting, foraging, exploration, building, and so on. If an ancestor of ours wasted his energy on useless tasks, he wouldnt have been able to cope with the hardships of food gathering. So, in a counterintuitive evolutionary twist, laziness has proven to be an important trait in keeping our species alive.Which brings us back to Parkinsons law. Our biology urges us not to spend energy on a task that isnt (yet) important to our survival. So, we postpone, delay, avoid, create excuses, and so on.But then, the deadline comes. It pulls you out of idleness and gives you a sense of urgency. Deep down, you know that missing the deadline is bad for your survival, because it can cost you at leastyour work reputation,if not your job, income, valuable assets, friendships, and relationships. This fear pushes you to do an all-nighter to finish a project.However, there is a way to use Parkinsons law to send yourself into a lau survival mode where you actually get stuff done without lazing about (too much). How to Use Parkinsons Law 1. Get Used to Setting DeadlinesGiving yourself time constraints will force you to restructure work tasks so they can fit intoyour schedule.More complex projects and tasks with distant deadlines lull you intoa false sense of security. The work should be done now, but not now now. In cases such as this, breaking the main task down into smaller bits and assigning a deadline for each will make the components of the project feel mora immediate, thereby giving you a sense of urgency that motivates you to complete the task.Deadlines can also help you work less or at leastspend less of your time at the office. Its easy to treat the 5 p.m. threshold as more of a guideline than a rule, worki ng past it in order to finish tasks you postponed throughout the day. The thing is, you almost always know when postponing the task will keep you overtime, and yet you are fine with it. Thats because you dont feel you lose anything by staying longer at office, which brings us to the next point. 2. What Do You Lose If You Dont Respect the Deadline?The easiest way to make yourself respect a time limit is to give yourself something to lose if you dont stick to it. Think about what you are missing out on by lingering at the office.If you came home earlier, you could watch a movie with your partner, relax in the kitchen while cooking your favorite dish, or work on that side project of yours. Instead, youre wasting all these opportunities by doing last-minute work you could have done earlier in the day.A good way to keep yourself to a time constraint is to schedule something else right aftereach deadline you set. For instance, if you want to be koranvers youll finish sending a bunch of em ails by 6 p.m., schedule a date at 630 or 7. Now, you have real skin in the game. 3. Learn How to Create Reasonable DeadlinesThere are really only two reasons why you might want to use Parkinsons lawCut down on lost hours in which you could be doing something else.Stop feeling guilty and stressed about wasting time.When first applying the rule, you might feel overzealous and set yourself impossibly tight deadlines in an effort to work faster. This doesnt work. Instead, youll just end up giving yourself even more stress as you rush to meet the time limit. Not only that, but the quality ofyour work will drop, too.According to a study by Dan Ariely, a behavioral economics professor,self-imposed deadlines are effective, but people have difficulty properly optimizing them.Arielysexperiment involved groups of students submitting three papers over the course of a semester. The free choice group could choose their own submission deadlines. The control group, however, had to hand in their pa pers at a time set by the professor. Compared to the control group, the free choice students enjoyed their task less, and their papers had more errors.The point of the deadline isnt to enter a competition with the clock, but to cut down on stress and wasted time. If a task realistically requires six hours of work, dont try to do it in five. If you can complete it in seven hours, thats awesome. That extra hour isnt wasted time, but a buffer period for unexpected events such as an urgent phone call, a loss of concentration, or even just a short period of relaxation.Parkinsons law can help you cut down on some of the wasted time and stress of your life as long as youkeep the following in mind whenever applying the lawAlways have a deadline.What do you lose if you cant keep the deadline?Is the deadline realistic?And one other thing Be gentle with yourself. See the time limit as a tool to help you out, not a race to be won.A version of this article originally appeared onSUCCESS.com.