(This is Part IV – the last one of the series. Here are Part I, Part II and Part III)

Once you get past the interview stage, the hard part is over. If the company starts talking to you about money, you can high-five or pat yourself on the back. They just gave you a sign that they could be (not necessarily are) interested in hiring you. All you have to do now is maintain a good impression that you left at the interview, agree on the money, and hopefully see what you’ve been waiting for – the offer letter. Here are some tips on making it happen.

Money negotiations

If a company decided to hire you, there are two ways in which your salary can be determined. One way is that the salary for the position is fixed. Usually, that’s true for big bureaucratic organizations such as US Government. In that case, there’s not much room for negotiations. The other case is when the salary for your position is flexible (as long as it is within the department’s budget.) That is where you’ll have the most freedom to negotiate your salary.

First you should do research to find out the average entry-level salary in your industry. Remember, the biggest weapon you can have during any negotiations is knowledge.

After you’ve done the research and found out what kind of money others are getting, you’ll be ready to actually negotiate. There are countless books and web articles written on the subject of negotiating, so I’ll be very brief: the most important thing is to not name the number first. When they ask you how much you’re looking to make, say you’re open to anything.

Take the focus off what you want, and try to make the conversation go to what they are ready to give you. Say that money is really not the number one priority for you, and you’re much more excited about the learning opportunity. If you’re hard pressed, name a range. A good possibility is that once the offer is on the table, it will be closer to the higher end of the range that you gave.

One last thing I want to mention about money negotiations is even though you’re talking about money, the interview is not over yet. If you’ve been on your best behavior so far, now is not the time to reveal your true identity as a maniacal psychopath. Wait until you get hired. J

Considering the offer

If you work hard enough and stay dedicated to finding the job of your dreams, then you will finally get a call that will make your heart beat tem times faster (sometimes it happens at the end of the interview while you’re still there, but don’t hold your breath.) Your hand may even visibly tremble as you press the “Talk” button. Feeling completely euphoric, you will not believe your ears when you’ll hear those magic words – “We would like to extend an offer.”

I was initially planning on advising you not to scream “Yes! Of course I accept, I’ve been waiting for this forever, when do I start!?”, politely thank the person and say you’ll think about it. But I know you’re going to do the former anyway – I certainly did.

But if you do decide to think about the offer before accepting, consider this: it’s not all about the money. There are other things to consider too – vacation, health insurance, 401k, etc. If you’re going to be in the situation where you have to choose between two offers, you have to take everything into account.

And so ends this series of articles. If you stayed with me through all of this, congratulations! You now know more about looking for a job after college than most graduates. Certainly more than I did at that time. If tips that I presented in this series will help even one person find a career, I consider my job well-done. As always, feel free to comment below or email me, as I’m always looking to hear from you. Good luck!

(This is Part IV – the last one of the series. Here are Part I, Part II and Part III)

While you’re talking to friends about job openings in their companies, and sending out resumes, you should keep in mind why you’re doing this. And even though your ultimate goal, of course, is to find a job, everything that I’ve described up to this point has been dedicated to one intermediate goal: getting an interview.

When does the interview begin?

Most people have a wrong impression of when the interview starts. They think that it begins with the question “So, tell me about yourself” at a formal sit-down with the hiring manager. In reality, your interview began a lot earlier, when the company contacted you – either by phone or email – regarding your resume. Everything you do from that point on will determine your hiring chances.

How to behave at an interview

One thing you always have to keep in mind about interviews is that appearance is key. Don’t listen to anybody who tells you otherwise. No matter how smart and talented you are, if you don’t act the right way, you won’t get the job. If you don’t dress sharp (unless they specifically tell you to dress casually) you’re not getting the job either.

Remember, you will be evaluated by people who are facing the prospect of spending the majority of their waking time sitting right next to you. And more often than not, they’ll have about half an hour to get to know you.

It’s not as serious as it sounds – use common sense and you should be all right. Dress in a business suit. Shave/put makeup on. Don’t pick your nose during the interview – wait until you go home. Speak clearly, don’t be arrogant or annoying. Don’t overdo the dressing part. Smile, use etiquette when applicable (i.e. hold doors for others). Don’t appear overly serious and nervous.

Another major thing to remember is to act enthusiastic. As I mentioned before, you always have to keep intermediate goals in mind. At the interview stage, your goal is to get a job offer. Even if you’re having doubts whether you really want this particular job, you should act like it’s your dream opportunity. If you’re planning to think long and hard whether to accent the job offer, you should still do everything in your power to get the offer in the first place.

Just about the worst thing you can do on an interview is to act like “I don’t really want this, and I’ll be doing you guys a favor if I take it.” Instead, you should be practically bursting with enthusiasm over the prospect of being hired at this place!

Asking questions

A major ingredient of being prepared for the interview is coming up with questions of your own. Asking questions about the company, the industry, the position, the team – everything relevant – shows the interviewer that you’re serious about this job. Put some thought into preparation, because a creative person that takes initiative is a trait that most companies look for in all their candidates.

What kind of questions should you ask? Anything and everything. Browse the company’s website before the interview and try to come up with some questions about it. Ask about the business, what technology they use, how the team works, etc. You should also ask as much as possible about the position itself, even if it’s just to elaborate on the job posting.

When asking questions – listen. Don’t just ask to put a checkmark that you did. Make sure you listen to the person’s response and ask any follow up questions necessary.

Answering questions

While you’re going to ask a lot of questions, most of the interview will be spent answering questions from others. Some questions are going to test your knowledge or experience directly related to the job. Others will be more generic, probably asked of all candidates this person ever interviews. Most of these are fairly common and you should get ready to hear them everywhere. Do you work well in a team? What do you think about working long hours? Tell me about yourself. What are your biggest strengths and weaknesses? For some of those questions, you should have the answer prepared.

Sometimes you may also get “impossible” or “puzzle” questions. These are designed to test your ability to “think outside the box” and the most famous example is “Why are manhole covers round?” (So it cannot fall through the opening)

Job knowledge questions

With questions such as “Do you know…”, or “Have you done …” there can be only two possible outcomes – yes or no. If yes, then great! Otherwise, the answering gets a little trickier. If you don’t know something, do not guess or lie. Guessing will make you look incompetent and will only get the interviewer irritated. Lies will eventually get out, usually with disastrous results.

However, what you also don’t want to do is just flatly say “No, I don’t know / Never done it.” In fact, the word “no” should probably not escape your lips at all. Always try to add something positive to your answer. If you can’t think of anything, you can always say “While I haven’t had a chance to do that, I am a very quick learner and always pick new things up very fast. I would absolutely love the opportunity to learn that, I’ve been wanting to for a while.”

General questions

When you’re being asked questions like how well you work in a team-oriented environment, you should remember a few things.

First, this is not a B.S. question, no matter how much it seems like one to your cynical self. If it was one, people that are interviewing you wouldn’t waste their time asking it.

Also, you should remember your goal. Why are you at the interview? Because you want to pass, and you want to get an offer. It then becomes obvious that the right answer is yes, you’d love nothing more than an opportunity to work in a team with a hundred people, even if all you really want from a job is an office with a door that locks, and the freedom to snarl incoherently in response to all attempts to socialize. Why shouldn’t you answer that you’re a “lone wolf” kind of person? Because it will decrease the chances of you getting the job.

Every question like the one above should be answered positively. Otherwise, you are ruining your chances of getting an offer.

Tell me about… questions

A lot of interviewers like to start with a broad question like “tell me about yourself” or “why do you want this job.” Another popular one is “what are your strengths and weaknesses?” Or “tell me about your biggest project” In your industry, there may be other, more specific ones.

The only trick to those questions is to prepare. Figure out in advance what you’re going to say, write it down if needed, and practice your speech in front of the mirror. But what should you actually tell? Believe it or not, that’s not as important! When the interviewer asks you those questions, he or she mostly wants to see if you’re able to speak coherently.

One exception to the rule is the ‘weaknesses’ question. This is actually a trick one. The intent of that question is to get you to reveal something that would hurt your chances of getting the job. Don’t fall into that trap. Instead, prepare the answer that turns the negative into positive. For example: “My biggest weakness is that sometimes I get so absorbed in a task, that I forget my surroundings. I forget to eat lunch, go to the bathroom, or go home until it’s finished.”

Puzzle questions

Finally, there’s a category of puzzle questions. I won’t spend too much time on it, since most companies don’t ask them. But generally, those questions will sound impossible to answer – “How many gas stations are there in LA? How do they make M&Ms? “. Microsoft is the company that made those questions famous on their interviews.

Once you know the secret, it’s very simple to answer these questions. Just remember: more often than not, there is no right answer. I mean, there probably is one, but even if your interviewer knows it, he or she is least interested in hearing it. What they’re interested in hearing is your way of thinking. They want to know that you don’t give up when faced with a seemingly impossible task. So start thinking out loud. When you need a number, take your best guess. “Hmm, so there must be about 10 million people in LA, and ¾ of them drive a car… “ In the end, if you come up with an answer that’s not obviously, outrageously wrong , the interviewer will be happy with it.

And that is it for Part III. Remember, I’m always looking for questions and comments, so feel free to email me or post below. Part IV (the last one) coming up very soon!

(This is Part III of the series. Here are Part I, Part II and Part IV)

(This is Part II of the series. Here are Part I, Part III and Part IV)

Now that you got your resume and cover letter prepared, you’re ready to submit it. The most important thing to realize about the process is that it’s quantity over quality. The more places you send your resume to, the better the chances of you finding your dream job. When I was looking for a job after college, I must’ve sent out a thousand resumes, without exaggeration.

Of course, I don’t mean that you should go on Monster.com and apply for every job that you find. That gets you nowhere and will only aggravate the people reading your submission. You should only send your resume to relevant positions that you think there’s a good chance you’d be a fit for. That means, unfortunately, you can not apply to “senior” and “mid-level” positions either.

The most effective way of finding a job

The most important way to land a job is through personal contacts. You are at enormous advantage when an employee comes up to his boss and says “Here’s a resume of my friend Dave, he’s a pretty bright kid that’s looking for a job right now”. All of a sudden you are ahead of all the faceless resumes that are stacked on the manager’s desk.

At this point, I bet some of you are thinking “that sounds great, but I don’t have any friends like that.” Of course, being straight out of college, your personal network is bound to be small. But your extended network is guaranteed to be large.

Make a list of everybody you know you can ask. It can start with your family, no matter how remote, and should include literally everyone you know – your friends, classmates, professors, family, friends of family, etc. Prepare a plan of what you’re going to say in advance, and call everybody. Explain your situation to them, and ask if their company is hiring and whether they have a position similar to what you’re looking for. Chances are, the answer is going to be “no”, but don’t get discouraged.

(and by “calling everybody” I do mean EVERYBODY you know)

Next, ask them if they know of anybody who might help you. In this case, the answer will most likely be “yes”. If they do think of somebody, ask if they can give you the number. You should then call them yourself so that your friend won’t be troubled.

Put the new contact’s info on your list, and update it with results of this phone call. Then, call your friend’s friend. Immediately introduce yourself and say something like “I’m a friend of Tom May, and he gave me your number. I just graduated college, and Tom said you might have a position in your company.” Trust me when I say this: the above method is by far the most efficient way to find a job. It is how I found my dream job a few months after college. One final thought about calling your friends and acquaintances: if you’re naturally an introverted person, it provides invaluable experience in communication skills.

If you have ambitions of a long and successful career in any field, you have to learn how to talk to people. And if you’re going for a career as a scientist, hoping to be locked in the lab and never talking to anyone, it’s not going to happen. This is not how real world works. Any career involves communicating with people. If you ever want to be successful, you have to get over your fears.

Other, less efficient ways to find a job

Another way for you to find a job is a job fair. Here you’re at advantage, because you’re a recent graduate (or still at school). At the job fair, you won’t compete against people with experience in the industry.

When it comes to job fairs, there are a few things worth keeping in mind. First, you don’t have to go to every company there. Go to the fair’s website in advance, and look over the list of companies that are going to be present, then go to their tables only.

When you attend, make sure to look professional and have a plan of action. And by “plan of action”, I don’t mean mumbling something incoherent and trying to hand in your resume as soon as possible so you can leave. Instead, you should do research beforehand and come up with some questions about the company.

Don’t start by handing in your resume. Start by asking those questions to show that you’ve done your homework. That will instantly set you apart from others. Be courteous, show your enthusiasm, and once you do hear satisfactory answers to your inquiries, give them your resume.

Finally, we have come to the least efficient method of getting your resume to a company. Of course, I’m talking about online job boards.

Online job boards

When I say that job sites such as monster.com are the least efficient way to look for a job, I mean it sincerely. Consider what happens when you submit your resume to one of online job postings. In most cases, your resume ends up in a gigantic pile on HR or recruiter’s desk. While some excellent recruiters will be able to find a great job for you, it’s a level of resistance you have to pass before your resume ends up where you want it – in the hands of a manager.

(Recruiters are also known as headhunters, because you don’t want to mess with them)

Once your resume leaves the recruiter, it is passed on to the HR department, where they will weed out the good from the bad, and pass those to the manager. That’s two levels of resistance you have to fight through just to get your battered and bruised resume onto manager’s desk.

To maximize your chances of finding a job, you should use all the ways that are available to you. Don’t count on any one method to do the magic trick for you.

Having said that, here are some of the ways to make online job searching more efficient:

1) Use niche sites.

Monster.com is great. You should definitely use it all the time. But, it’s not enough. You should also seek out other sites, preferably ones that cater to your industry of choice. For example, for IT and programming jobs, there is no better site right now than Dice.com. Also, look for local job postings as well. For example, craigslist.org has an abundance of jobs by smaller companies, such as recent start-ups.

2) Keep your profile updated

It’s not good to create a profile on an online job board, and then forget about it. Companies usually search only the most recent profiles, so if your job search is taking longer than you expected, you’re running the risk of not appearing “fresh” enough. Update your profile once a week, so the date remains fresh.

3) Quantity, not quality

You have to remember that the probability of your online resume submission landing you an interview is very low. Therefore, to increase your chances you have to submit numerous resumes. Of course, I’m not advocating submitting your resume to every possible position out there – that’s not going to do you any good. You have to submit your resume to as many positions that fit you as possible. Maximize your chances. The more people see your C.V., the more likely it is that someone will like it.

Keeping track

If you followed my advice from the last section, you’ve been submitting a whole lot of resumes. When I was looking for a job, I didn’t go to sleep until I sent it to at least 10 places, more often 20. After a while, you’re going to experience a mild case of déjà vu. Haven’t I seen this job posting before? And haven’t I submitted my resume there? The only way to avoid confusion like that is to keep track of where you submit your resume.

Don’t worry, I’m not about to advertise some high-tech solution to this. A simple text file will suffice. Every time you submit your resume somewhere, through a friend or online, put some basic info about it in that text file. Date, job description, company name, contact info of a person your resume was submitted to, and which version was forwarded (very important!)

And that is it for Part 2. Part 3 coming up soon, where I’ll talk about a job interview and why those words should not inspire fear. If you have questions or comments, please post them below – I’m always looking for feedback.

(This is Part II of the series. Here are Part I, Part III and Part IV)

(This is Part I of the series. Here are Part II, Part III and Part IV)

In 2003, I graduated from Stony Brook University with a bachelor’s degree in computer science. In retrospect, I could not have picked a less appropriate time to enter the job market. During my senior year, I met some recent computer science graduates driving trucks or working in a deli – the job market was so atrocious that they could not land an offer.

There were very few companies willing to hire recent grads, because a lot of people with 10 or more years of experience were jobless, and were willing to work for entry-level salaries. Those that did hire set impossibly high standards – 3.5 (out of 4.0) GPA, degree with honors, and years of real world experience in a big corporation – right after you graduate. My GPA was below 3.0 and I graduated with no honors whatsoever.

Nevertheless, with hard work, I found the career of my dreams. After coming home from my temporary job, I put in 4-5 hours daily into my job searching. At the time I wished there was a complete guide to job hunting, but there was none. With this article (split in multiple parts due to length) I hope to fill the void for that guide. If you’re not a recent college grad, you should still read on, because some of the items you will discover will come as a surprise to even the most experienced job hunters.

The single most important thing you have to realize is searching for a good job is a full-time job in itself. Fully expect spending a few hours job hunting, even if you have taken a temporary “McJob” to make ends meet. Make sure you’re ready, mentally and physically, for the search. The easy part ended when you graduated college.

Learning the industry

You should start by learning everything you can about the industry. If your goal is as vague as getting a good job in the fashion industry, you need to do a lot more research. At the very least, ask yourself the following:

- What are good and bad companies to work for in this industry?

- What positions are available that would provide greatest career potential?

- How is the market?

- What is the salary range I can expect for the entry-level position?

Doing research on good and bad companies can lead to some interesting discoveries. It may even make you reconsider your “dream job.” For example, as a teenager I loved playing video games and dabbled in programming, so it seemed only natural that I wanted to become a computer game programmer. However, when I started researching that industry, I learned that computer game developers on average are overworked (80-90 hour weeks with no overtime pay [link to EA Spouse blog]), underpaid, stressed out and generally unhappy. I decided that I wasn’t that interested in making computer games, and attained a job as a programmer in financial industry. Overall, I am satisfied with the outcome.

(make sure you research the job before applying)

When you consider different positions within the industry, you have to look at the big picture. You’re planning to make a career in this field. How do you envision yourself in 5 years? 10 years? For example, my friend had a tough choice out of college – either a job as a software developer for 40K/year, or as a Quality Assurance analyst for 50K. To a recent graduate, difference between 40 and 50 is immense. But my friend was smart enough to look at the big picture and realize that a developer has a much better career potential than a QA analyst. Now, 9 years later, he’s making far more money than he would ever be able to had he taken the other position.

Your next step should be preparing your resume and cover letter.

Cover letter

While cover letter is not as important (generally, managers and recruiters don’t pay much attention to it), a lack of it is noticed. Don’t put too much time into writing one; however make sure you that the one you send out is up to par. Make sure that the cover letter is personalized. Do not write one from scratch for every job application; instead, make a generic template and fill in the blanks. For example:

“Hi, my name is Frederick Hollingsworth and I’m applying for a position of _________. I believe my skills such as ___, ____ and _____ [here you list off the skills that the job posting mentions] make me a perfect candidate for this job. I’m very excited about this opportunity to work at ______ , because it would give me a chance to _______ [here you put a task that the job description mentions being part of the job ], which I really like. Etc…”

Of course, it goes without saying that you should not follow the above example verbatim.

Resume

There are a bunch of excellent books and articles written on this topic, however some items are usually omitted, such as:

- Leave off your hobbies, marital status, and all other irrelevant information. References shouldn’t be on the main page either, put “References available upon request” and have them ready in a separate document.

- Focus on what you did, not what the job consisted of – i.e. “Baked a thousand cakes a day” instead of “Worked at a bakery which produced a thousand cakes a day.”

- It’s very important to try to put as much relevant experience on your resume as possible. Try to imagine that you’re an employer in your dream industry reading the resume. If you’re looking for bright young people for a fashion designer job, are you more likely to appreciate seeing a candidate working at Wendy’s over the summer, or participating in fashion design show for a project in college?

- Your objective should clearly reflect what you’re looking for. Don’t put something generic like “Find and interesting job that fits my skills.” Be specific. Put “Looking for an interesting and challenging position as financial analyst that would allow me to utilize my quantitative skills.”

- If you’re applying for two different jobs (for example, accountant and financial analyst), you should have two different versions of your resume. At the very least, you should put different objectives and tweak your skill list.

(lying on your resume is not a good idea)

However, there’s one thing you should be aware of – don’t name your files something like “resume_accountant.doc” and “resume_fin_analyst.doc”. The employer/recruiter will suspect foul play (even if there isn’t any) if he gets the resume by email, attached as a file called “resume_accountant.doc.”

Instead, create different folders on your computer, called “resume-accountant”, etc, and inside them, always call your file “resume_YOURNAME.doc” (UPDATE: Per Tiffany’s comment below. Thanks!)

- Make sure there are no time gaps in your resume. If they exist, then be ready with a good explanation. There’s nothing that employers like less than seeing a resume with gaps between jobs (or between college and a job). What do the recruiters assume? Usually, the worst – that you did absolutely nothing in that time frame. Not fair? I know. To avoid this situation, you have to put something in for filler. If you have a good explanation of what you were doing at that time, like volunteering at the hospital – definitely post it. If, however, your explanation is that you sat on the couch watching “The Biggest Loser” reruns, you should probably bite the bullet and leave the gap there … which brings me to my next point:

- DON’T LIE ON YOUR RESUME. Truth has a tendency of eventually coming out, and even if it doesn’t for a while, lies are going to bear down on your consciousness.

There’s a plethora of advice on how to prepare your resume, so devote some time to it. Your resume is the first impression the potential employer is going to have of you, chances are you don’t want to make it the last.

Stay tuned for Part II, where I’ll cover most efficient ways of looking for a job (you might be surprised by the results) … coming soon!

(This is Part I of the series. Here are Part II, Part III and Part IV)

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