Emotional intelligence is a huge factor in employee success, and hiring managers are increasingly looking for it during job interviews. Studies at Google have found that their most productive employees and teams excelled not because of their technical skills, but because of emotional intelligence and related soft skills such as communication, listening, problem solving, understanding others and showing empathy. Psycho...

Interviews: They’re all about pressing the flesh or running for office, or a first date. You are talking to a complete stranger. Sweat comes out of glands you didn’t know you had. Relax: It’s probably easier to just blow them off. If you want to know how to “blow” an interview, be sure to take any or all of the following actions: Don’t prepare. Your intention to be sponta...

You’ve waited for months to finally get invited to the interview for your dream job, and tomorrow the big day will have arrived. Excitement and enthusiasm about the role can add a lot and sometimes even push a candidate to the top of the choices. But if you’ve not prepared sufficiently, neither excitement nor enthusiasm will take the place of carefully thought-out responses to interview questions. In the past...

The term “ambush interview” refers to an unscheduled interview that occurs because someone has forced or tricked another into on-the-spot participation. Although the press typically uses the term to describe a journalism interview tactic, it can also refer to a tactic used by some employers and job seekers. An ambush interview can have a negative or positive result depending on the ambusher. Are you prepared...

The original article can be found on Thea's blog. I hated writing that title. There is not some big GONG! that sounds at age 50 shutting us out of opportunities. But ageism and stereotypes are common, so if you're older you'd be wise to adopt strategies to reduce the drag that these mindsets can have on your interview success. Age discrimination can occur regardless of the interviewer's age, but...

Did you know that subjective traits play a critical role in the evaluation of your candidacy and the determination of the recruiter to hire or not hire you? Wouldn’t it then be to your benefit to know exactly which traits are the most important to recruiters when making a hiring decision? Of course it would! I’m going to share with you the eight traits that recruiters said play a determining factor in their deci...

Both job seekers and recruiters know that over the course of the last few years, the job market has gone from a buyer’s market to a seller’s one. The talent shortage is intensifying. Employers are finding it more and more difficult to fill open positions with top candidates. Time-to-fill rates are getting higher. Line managers are putting more pressure on recruiters to get the talent the company needs to reach i...

Job interview preparation is critical - if you hope to have a positive outcome for interviews. And why else would you be pursuing interviews? Very few people in this world, from entry-level to senior executive, can afford to blow off interview preparation as if they’re somehow “above” it and don’t need to pay attention to it. I’ve never met anyone who could legitimately make that claim&ndash...

If you have a career of any kind, you need an elevator pitch (some call it an elevator speech or a value proposition). An elevator pitch is a roughly 30-second sound bite - a response to the question, 'Tell me about yourself' or 'What do you do?' Has anyone ever actually used the elevator pitch in an elevator? While I doubt you will actually use it in an elevator, you will most definitely use it at BBQ's, confe...

Are you aware of the nonverbal signals you send? Do you know how to interpret the body language of colleagues and clients? We both send and receive conscious and subconscious nonverbal messages. Experts say that 70 to 90 percent of communication is nonverbal. Gain a competitive edge in the business world. Attend to nonverbal messages. What you say as well as how you say it give you advantages during interviews, prese...