The Interview

Interviews are the culmination of your time in the job hunt. This is usually the make or break of a new job. They can be nerve shattering or they can be enjoyable. Either way they demand your peak performance. You’re selling your abilities in person to a stranger (or strangers) who are potentially in a position of authority over you provided you get the job. No pressure.

While interviews are uniquely tailored to suit that particular work environment, and there are many variables about how well the interview will go, there are a few things you can do to be your most prepared.

• Know the ins and outs of the job. What exactly will you be responsible for? To whom do you report? What kind of hours will be expected of you? Does anybody report to you? What is the scope of this position in the larger sense of the company?
• Know as much as you can about the company. Nothing is more embarrassing than having Human Resources explain the business as if you were 6. Find out as much information online, off-line, through friends, and the news as you can. Know exactly what the company does, how it is perceived in the community, what the purpose for its existence is (or has changed to), and any relevant news about the company. This may help facilitate your understanding of the job you’re about to be interviewed for.
• Dress like you’re part of the company. Obviously they’re looking for someone to fit in. Don’t be like me. My first interview in Seattle, I showed up in a full suit, looking like a million bucks. Once in the interview, I learned it was casual Friday, and West Coast culture is “business casual”. The interviewer jokingly remarked “lose the tie”. I hate suits, but figured to always wear one to an interview. Lesson learned. Dress like you already have the job there. Don’t be slovenly, but dress as you would after working there for about a month and a half. If you’re really unsure about the attire, be covert, and get a friend to go in pretending they’ve got the wrong address or something. Don’t do anything rash, but do get a sense for how you’d be expected to dress.
• Arrive early. I generally like to be in the parking lot 15-20 minutes early and sit in the waiting room for 10 minutes. Being on time is good, but you never know if their clocks run early or some nonsense. Play it safe and be slightly early.
• When you introduce yourself, stand up, shake their hand, look them in the eye, and repeat their name before saying yours. For example “Hi Elaine, I’m Bob. It’s nice to meet you.”
• Bring copies of your resume, just in case they don’t have any. Be prepared to explain your resume and flush out particular points they ask about.
• Have questions ready for the interviewers. Having no questions is assumed to be the same as having no interest in the job. It can simply be a few questions such as “Is this a new position or a replacement?” “What is the career path for this job?”

Hopefully these tips have helped you to construct a cover letter, a resume, and given you an idea of what to do in an interview. It’s considered common courtesy to send a Thank You letter after your interview. Something that can be sent out a few days after the interview is best, and keeps you fresh in the minds of your (hopefully) future job.

Good luck.

Today is the 2nd part of a 3 part series.  I’ll be discussing the most important documents and skills needed in beginning the search for a job.

The Resume

Before moving to Seattle, I had decided it would be best to land a job before I got here (that didn’t happen). Part of that quest, and any job search, includes putting your resume together. Thesimpledollar has some really great suggestions as to what to do. However, I felt that unlike him, I fell short in the creativity department.

There are some areas he didn’t cover. For example, what should you do if one of your former employers is now out of business? That happened to me for 2 businesses on my list. I put the one I liked better, and am fortunate enough that I know the employer personally so I can call them at home. However, for most people the conventional wisdom seems to be:

• Keep this on your resume as this counts for experience.
• Keep in touch so they can be used as a personal contact or
• or get a letter of recommendation before the job ends.
• Depending on how recently this happened, you may want to explain this in the almighty cover letter.

I’ve looked over some friends who happen to be graphic designers resumes. They’re impressive. Visually distinguishing yours is the key. They use all types of fancy colors, fonts, and paper. I’d recommend that if you’re not going into the graphic design field, to use colors sparingly. A conservative resume is best, but not boring. For example, on mine I used bold blue headlines for important categories. This stands out to the eye, but isn’t garish. If you’re feeling adventurous, perhaps a graphic with your initials.

The main point is to keep your resume visually appealing and clean. This grabs the most attention. After you flush out your main points in your resume that you won’t send anyone, you can tear it down until you have something concise and interesting for a future employer.

Tomorrow I’ll be discussing interviews.

Today I’m beginning the first part of a 3 part series.  I’ll be discussing the most important documents and skills needed in beginning the search for a job.

The Cover Letter

It’s the essential thing to send with your resume. Cover Letters with resumes attached. Always.

Man I hate that thing. It’s so simple compared to a resume, but it’s wide open. What exactly do you write? If you’re applying to a bunch of companies, how do you keep that from taking up all of your time?

The point of a cover letter is to sell your reader to your resume. That’s it. Once they’ve decided that your letter is interesting enough, they’ll continue on to your resume. The idea is to sum up your resume to the reader, and flush out some sticky points and emphasize your personality.

Sounds easy but is time consuming. You always want to open your Cover Letter just like the inside of a standard business letter. Your name and contact info, The name of the recipient and their info followed by your letter.

• The body consists of a 3-4 paragraphs. I don’t want to write a book, and if it’s done well enough both the reader and I will have more than enough to talk about in the future, face to face. Brevity is key. You want to sell them your resume, which will sell you.
• Be sure to include the name of the person who’s reading it. This person could possibly hire you, so it’s better to take the time to find out their name than just using the generic “to whom it may concern”.
• Be sure to include something about the position and the company. Explain how you’re qualified for this particular job and what concrete skills you can bring to it. You want them to be interested enough to continue on.
• Use a casual link if you can. It’s better that you know them through your neighbor Bob, than through the classified section of your neighbor Bob’s newspaper.
• When you close, don’t just end it. Be proactive. Human Resources loves this. Add a statement that says “I’ll call you Tuesday the 20th at 3:15pm” or something specific. This shows initiative, and it puts a voice to your paper. It’s harder to turn someone away once they’ve heard your voice.

For e-mail, a cover letter generally consists of the body of the e-mail with the resume attached. Write the exact same thing as in a normal professional cover letter, and just put it into your e-mail.

For mass resume drops you may want to consider a generic cover letter. This usually involves a certain line you’d edit. Instead of going in depth about the company or position, you can really go in-depth as to why you are a great worker. Nothing eats up space like your knowledge of yourself. Keep in mind that this isn’t very effective. In my experience only 1 out of every 10 cold drops gets a response.

Tomorrow I’ll be discussing the Resume.

I just moved recently, and if you check the date between this entry and the 2nd prior entry, you’d notice a large gap.   It’s mostly due to the fact that I moved cross-country.  I used to live on the East Coast and now I live on the West Coast.   Writing that disturbs me a bit, since there’s so much in between that is this country, but it seems that the financial prosperity has blessed all the coastal cities save for a few on the interior.

Regardless, I’ve decided to write a post about moving.  Moving anywhere is an expensive, exhausting ordeal.   Anytime you move, there’s tons of unexpected costs to be encountered.  From the basic foods, to even the oddest of purchases…a broom and a toilet plunger, to floor mats for the bathroom and everything in between.  That gets expensive.  And for the most part, it’s hard to cut costs when you’ve moved to a new city and don’t know up from down (or in my case; North from South).

A few things that have helped.

• I bought a GPS unit for my car before I left.  While this is a splurge, roughly $150, it’s been worth its weight in gold getting around.  On the fly navigation is the bees knees and has saved me many times over after I’ve gotten lost.  Coupled with the fact that after 6 months or so, the value will be mostly retained since it can update the maps over the internet.  My knowledge of getting around can only increase, so it’s a good investment that I don’t feel will depreciate very quickly, as long as it is kept in reasonably good condition.
• 1-800-GooG-411.  A free version of 411 that is directly linked to Google.  It’s a machine, so it can be frustrating to use at times, but is insanely cheaper than using normal 411.  Naturally, this helps a lot in a new city.
• Craigslist.  Craigslist.  Craigslist.  When I moved here I had NO furniture.  Now I’ve got a night stand (for free) and a Dresser ($20).  Fortunately the place came with a bed, but I’m betting I can grab a nice queen size bed with box springs off the CL for $50 in a few months.
• If you’re moving to a big city…love the bus.  Here in Seattle, the fare is $1.50 (I think it’s up to $1.75 soon) for a trip.  The ticket lasts for 6 hours, so a round trip fare is the same in that time frame.  Automatically you
  • Won’t have to fight for parking downtown
  • Won’t have to pay parking tickets or parking garage prices
  • Won’t have to fight traffic (I read or listen to my iPod)
  • Won’t have to pay for gas.  I don’t know what the price is like where you live, but here it’s expensive! $3.56 for a gallon of regular gasoline (as of this writing).  My car gets 23 mpg in the city, and I know it’s less in stop-and-go bumper to bumper.  Not to mention the wear on the brakes and transmission.

While you’re going to eat a lot of costs up front, The more you can get initially, the cheaper it becomes over the long run.  It hurts at first, there’s no doubt about that, but it does get better.

In light of DebtKid’s recent post about his bad purchase, he has asked for others.

While mine doesn’t top the list, it is still rather embarrassing. However, I’ll disclose it simply because I see it as a lesson in itself.

When I was in High School, like most kids, I was dying for my own car. The family’s station wagon would simply not do. Unfortunately for me, I also happened to be working that summer at an Auto Parts store. Well only so many stories about old guys driving 60’s muscle cars would satisfy me. I had a need for speed.

So I spent a few weeks pouring through the classifieds, in search of something with some decent power. They say there are 3 things you want in a car, but can only have 2. Fast, Cheap, Reliable. For example, A Ferrari is fast and reliable but not cheap. A Focus is reliable and cheap, but not fast (no matter the amount of stickers). You get the point. Being naturally stingy, I didn’t want to save up a lot for a car. I wanted fast and cheap. Reliability was not very important to me.

$750 took the car. A 1984 Pontiac Trans Am (A fancified Firebird). It had a 305 V8 with a 4 barrel carb and a 5 speed transmission. It was all mine. It had T-Tops, and the driver’s side window didn’t roll down, but that didn’t matter. I could get the big Aviator glasses and make Tom Cruise blush to the Metallica as I drove to the gas station.

Since reliability was not an initial factor to me, it quickly became one. The first time I drove it more than 20 minutes at speed, it overheated on me. So that means the radiator is broken, right? Replaced that. Still overheated at speed. Found out a 3 inch $3 dollar piece of plastic would prevent that (Firebirds have no grill, so air has to be forced up into the radiator to prevent overheating at speed. These pieces of plastic can also be torn off going over speed bumps).

So what all was replaced on this bird? Whatever was replaced was usually upgraded with better than stock aftermarket performance parts. We’re talking top $ on these. Hurst Short shift, hi-performance clutch, new starter, new carburetor (the old one would stick wide open and would full-throttle the engine at odd times) which of course had to be a Holley 4 barrel. New Battery and Alternator, New water pump, new washer fluid and coolant overflow buckets (if you’ve seen them in old GM V8 engine bays, you’d understand), and finally a new engine.

Yes a new engine. New as in not rebuilt. I came upon a windfall senior year of high school and decided to drop in a newer (and therefore more reliable) engine. It also happened to be a 350. So I attached as many performance parts to it, without taking it apart and voiding the warranty (in hindsight I should have done new pistons and camshaft for more power, which I’m glad now that I didn’t). So after a month of replacing the old 305, I had a boss new engine. Only problem was the transmission wasn’t up to the task. So after a year that died. The answer? Put a new transmission, of course. At that point I was so fed up with its shenanigans at that point, I called it quits. The car sat in the driveway for the next 3.5 years. I finally sold it to a guy looking to restore it for $800.

So what did I learn? Well a car isn’t worth making go fast. Especially with gas at over $3 a gallon. Even then, sinking money into a car for performance not only makes it less reliable, but also helps to depreciate what value there was even further. Fortunately for me the value of the car was already bottomed out. Unfortunately I kept sinking money into that ship hoping it would become a hot rod.

Now It’s A to B with reliability as the focus. Hopefully this story didn’t sound like anyone you know.

The latest federal budget was released today.  It’s all available online at www.budget.gov, a measure that the President said was a cost cutting procedure.  What’s interesting to note, is that there are charts of current expenditure in several sub-sections of the Federal Government, and there are 2 year estimated increases in the same areas.

Now this is a unique budget, as it’s the first time in history $3.1 Trillion (with a T)  is being spent in a 12 month period.  Give it a look, it’s very interesting.  Fortunately none of our finances are on such a large scale, makes this seem like a piece of cake by comparison.

Here’s an article on ATM Fee increases. While the current average fee for using an ATM is $1.78, it’s now being raised to $3.00.

This could hurt, unless you’re smart about using ATMs. A trick I’ve picked up, and I’m sure is fairly common is to use the cash back option while at the store. Yes you’ll incur an expense, but it’s not really a fee. You’re actually purchasing something tangible for your withdrawal. I usually buy a twix or some gum. Or it’s a great time to actually get what you need at the store (don’t forget the milk).

Naturally there are better options, such as using a high-interest checking account. Trent over at the simple dollar is a big fan of ING and uses both their checking and savings account which have high interest options. When you open a checking account with ING, they give you an ATM card (works as a debit also) and allows free use of a large ATM network nationwide. However most of the ATMs are inside of Target stores, and are those dinky ones you find that are privately owned, which I’m not too keen on.

E*Trade gives you unlimited ATM refunds, which is nice, as does the Salem Five Bank.

There are other options available, but I prefer these the best. I’m going to set up a high-interest checking account in the next few months.

To find out the best option for your needs, bankrate.com has a nice side-by-side comparison of different options currently available.

I’ve read a few articles recently on how to save while a student. These articles are ok, but for the most part kind of miss the obvious points that most students would pick up on. Here’s an example. As a recent grad, I feel more than qualified to make a useful list to students.

1. Don’t shop at the bookstore. They sell books at full price, and even the ones that are marked ‘used’ aren’t very good deals, and the buyback is pathetically low. This makes you lose out twice, even though they are buying it back. Instead, research what is going to be used for your class this semester, often it’s the same as the last, and look for the book online. I recommend looking for used copies on Amazon. Powell’s, Half.com, and Ebay are good sources too. If it absolutely can’t be bought online, or you procrastinated and don’t have the time, then buy it at the competitor to the school’s bookstore. Most universities are big enough to spur competition in this respect.
2. Since you’re probably going to drink, learn what bar has the best deals during Happy Hour. Some of my more intense friends made a spreadsheet and always got sloshed on less than $5 between 4 and 7. Or develop a taste for cheap beer. Not necessarily Beast, but PBR is a favorite sample. I know this depends on the city, whether it’s a Miller or Bud, but you take what you can. The cheapest thing is obviously not to drink. Better yet, brew your own.
3. Learn to cook. Making your own meal is easier than you think. Buying groceries at the store might cost more up front than eating out, but you save in the long run. And 4 years (hopefully) of school is looking ahead long-term. Buy a cookbook with recipes you enjoy, and have at it.
4. Learn to love spicy food. Yeah I mean foreign food. Indian, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Korean….try it, and go spicy. I didn’t learn this until late in college, and as such I’m a spice wuss. Spicy food is good for you, opens a whole new world of food to your palate, and is much cheaper and filling for the cost. It can give that Ramen a zing!
5. Always sign up a full load of classes. 18 credits is the most you can take as a full-time student without an override at most schools. Anything under 12 credits is part-time and you pay per the credit hour. Most schools charge a flat rate for a full-time course load. If you’re going to drop a class and know it, try it out for a few classes, see if you can hack it, and if you can’t, then drop it. If you do this every semester, you can potentially graduate in 3.5 years. This is a great way to get the most bang for your buck.
6. Get rid of your car if you can. Depending on the campus, you can easily get around without a car. Get a bicycle, which is great exercise, cheap and earth-friendly (the parking situation is almost always excellent, just get a good U-lock). Or just walk. I have several friends who would walk across town to get to class, to the tune of 1 hour each way. You can easily depend on friends to go places when needed, and it’s a way to strengthen friendships and your health. The financial perks? You don’t have to pay for parking, car repairs, oil changes, tires, tickets, or annual governmental vehicle fees. This leads into my next point.
7. Live as close to campus as reasonably possible. This is an excellent way to experience all that college life has to offer, good and bad. It puts you closer to classes (read sleeping in) and the social scene. Roommates are a must to keep cost down. This is always a move for the better.
8. If you’re living off-campus, subscribe to as few services as possible. Granted water, gas and electricity aren’t to be avoided. What I’m talking about here is Cable, Internet and whatever else might be available. Often TV in college is a great idea as a distraction and at the rate of around $40 a month, is probably spent better towards the future. Internet can be tacked onto the monthly cable bill for around $60 total, but if you have a laptop, and most colleges require incoming freshmen to have a laptop (which I take issue with) and WiFi, then it doesn’t make sense to pay for it on your own. Studying at the library, or on campus in general is always a better idea than at home on your comfy bed.

This is just an idea list, but these 8 points are things that I’ve picked up on over the years that have helped me out. I’m sure you’ll pick up on your own tips as time goes on.

A great way to supplement your savings, in addition to your regular income, is through money on the side. Odd jobs, and yard sales are great, but what about making some money online?

Most everyone is aware of ebay and craigslist. These are great services, and can help get rid of clutter in your house. I’m personally a fan of craigslist (I’ve found an apartment, sold my car and some bicycles) as there’s no listing fee and the item can be left up for 45 days. Ebay’s not bad either, but the market is much tighter, there are listing fees and shipping charges.

Aside from selling yourself, you can sell your money….and expect more back than you gave there are online lending sites such as prosper.com. It’s billed as a P2P online lender, which gives cheaper rates than banks. The return for a lender is from 8-12%. It’s a fairly healthy rate, but like most loans they take awhile to be repaid.

Interestingly some other alternatives include signing up as a mock juror. OnlineVerdict.com allows you to participate in a mock trial, and you are presented trial information before the actual trial that Lawyers pay for the information. It typically pays $20 per case, and there is a clause that makes you promise not to blab about the case.

Guess what? The internet is great for increasing productivity and efficiency.But let’s face it, the internet is also great at wasting your time and an efficient source of distraction too. Probably more than you think. Whether you realize it or not, you probably have a set routine when you open up your browser. For me, once the browser loads, I check my e-mail, facebook, craigslist, digg, woot, thesimpledollar, and then if I remember what it was I signed on to check, that. And if you have Stumbleupon, that may never happen.

Frankly, I’m fed up with being so inefficient online. So I’ve devised a simple plan to get back on track, and then maybe check my daily haunts after the specified tasks have been completed. Before you open your browser do this instead:

1. Create a list of what site you must go to, in order of most important to least.
2. Sub-list what you must do at that site
3. If you get an idea of something else to check while online, write that down and visit it later.
4. Once you’ve finished your list, roam free or just sign off.

This is an easy, effective and offline way to keep your internet browsing intact, on-track and hopefully a more efficient experience.

I’d also add, that if your computer automatically signs on to a messaging program (AIM, MSN…) that you uncheck the option to sign on when you start the computer, and instead sign on when you are done when you have completed your list for the browser. The key here is to minimize outside distractions while online.