Nailing an interview

Welcome to nailing a job interview. The purpose of these posts are not to go through all the generic do's and don'ts about everything you have to do but rather some exclusive information that will help you stand out just a little more than the rest.

Quick tips a about the interview process...(beyond the basics)

Phone interviews

1. Make sure you find out if you are going to call them or if they are going to call you.
2. Have notes written down- they don't know that you have them.
3. Know your resume and have it right in front of you
4. Practice with a someone on the phone before the real deal
5. Make sure you are in a quite location, strong cell phone reception and check your phone's battery

In person interviews 

1. Remember names of everyone you talk to
2. Use mirroring techniques, as in use the same body language as they do
3.  Relax and be yourself, don't market yourself as someone that you are not

Prepare in how you respond to any interview question by mastering the  S.T.A.R. 

Specific Situation

• In order to avoid generic, broad examples, start your response with an example. Set the background by saying something like, "Two summers ago I was doing door to door sales for X company"

Task

• What responsibilities or events that you had to act upon. "We had to do training every day at 9am"

Application/ Innovation/ Development

• What did you do that separated yourself from the crowd? "I went in at 8 am every day by myself to get additional training" 

Resolution/Results 

• Give an example to show how you increased numbers or became better.  "Because my sales increased, more and more employees started to catch on to my positive energy and  join me at 8 am."

Practice doing the S.T.A.R. approach. 
Comment below what you would put to the question below and tomorrow's post will feature the best one. 

Example: What is your greatest weakness?

Situation:
Task:
Application:
Resolution:

Getting a minor vs. work experience; Do I pick one or the other or both?

Chances are you have the same question as i do; are minors worth the effort? What value will they bring to me and which one should I pick? My main argument in this post is that it all depends. Lets break it down. 

Why you should get a Minor 

Besides making you sound cooler, what value does a minor add to the individual that work experience cannot offer?  Well first a minor adds diversity and an intellectual expansion, or said simpler  it helps you stand out because not every gets one and you become more ed-amin-cated. You want your minor to give you a skill set that helps you toward your graduation goals. If you want to go into being a dentist, chances are that you are going to run your own dental office and a minor is business would come in handy. Grant it that a freshman has more opportunity to get one than a second semester senior, weigh your options. Minors extend your major and give you that niche. 

Why you should get work experience? 

Going to school is important, don't get me wrong but the extra three words on the resume is hard to compare to "battlefield experience". Experience can come through various ways such as clubs, interviews, internships, shadowing, part-time gigs, and even summer adventures that send you to the craziest places. You wont have to waste time on pointless assignments that you do in class but chances are that you will be stuck doing pointless work tasks, like filling up the water cooler or fixing the printer. The best experience that I have gotten has been from joining up with clubs, as tacky as that sounds. I wanted to learn more about business but did not have the time in my schedule to take on 6 more credit hour a semester so I joined three business clubs. Each club does real life case studies that can go right on the only resume, I have gotten job interviews because of the connections that clubs give to you. Although you do not get any credit for taking them, you do get a lot of free pizza and valuable application of your studies. 

The choice is yours

Personally I have done with the experience route and find more value in the field than in the class-room but every situation is different. What do you think? Comment below.  

3 critical factors in a winning mindset

Turned on +Spotify  and this song came on...... Let's start off with a chill beat <----Love this song.

Okay... back to business. We need to have a winning mindset. If you don't you will be spending more time redefining your goals than reaching them. Pick a destination of where you want to be and do not let anyone stop you. 
Defining yourself is limiting yourself 
How do you define yourself? Do you say that you are a good writer, good at math, science, and oh let me guess a hard worker right? Words are very dangerous, I am doing an internship at the justice courts and what I have learned is that WORDS CAN AND WILL BE USED AGAINST YOU.  So many times defendants talk their way into jail and harsher punishments. That being said, when you are asked to describe yourself; 1) hopefully you have thought about it before 2) you don't limit yourself to what you have studied in school 3) you best define yourself as adaptable, versatile and always learning. If you can't say that about yourself, start now!  
Doubt the haters before you doubt yourself 
This whole idea comes from Dieter F. Uchtdorf from the +The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. if your want to see it -->(Cool message). So this happens to me all the time when I go to a marketing strategy events, students trying to network like dogs always come up to me and ask me what my major is. I say with a smile, "American Studies". Every time, not even lying, they get this puzzled look on their face. At that time they have two thoughts racing through their head, "Is he serious? He has no chance! haha " and then soon it sets in, "crud I have no idea what that is, he is so much diverse than me and the other 100 marketing majors". Darn toot'n bro. Don't let people faze you, honestly you will notice this more and more as you begin to meet more people, most of the time they are very insecure about where they are at and they try to validate themselves through putting you down. This being said, don't put them down but do not let them walk on you. Be more prepared than the haters and make them wish to have been a part of your humanities major by the end of it.   
Having a "set apart" attitude
Going off of the last topic, you have to have confidence in yourself. If you are not 100% sold about yourself you have NO CHANCE of having anyone else buy into your brand. You have to be almost crazy about your goals and ambitions, no matter how extreme they are. Take time to prepare in how you want others to see your personal brand. It is really important you understand who you are and where you are going so that when you are in the situations you can be more natural at it. In every conversation you have about your career goals, do all you can to get people to jump onto your bandwagon, instead of jumping off because of you. If you have enough passion and drive you can do anything and it is SO MUCH EASIER once you have people backing you. 


What are your winning mindset attributes? 

5 Tips that are NEEDED in preparing for your first job out of college

Finding your next job starts days, weeks, months and even years before you quit your current job

1) Have an updated resume

Make your resume look good, please use the outline above so that you don't get owned. You should always be updating your resume and linked-in account (that requires that you are doing things that builds your resume and linked-in account, instead of using Facebook to look at cat videos, use it to learn about opportunities). Don't know what to say about yourself? This is where the magic of Linked-in steps in. Lets say that you are trying to put down your experience and do not know what to say; simply just search your current position and look through what people have already said about themselves. It is like a monkey see monkey ideology but think of it as a monkey see monkey do better. Take the best parts of what you find, add in your own zest and WABAMO you got a hot profile. LET ME SEE YOUR RESUME'S AND LINKED-IN ACCOUNTS. I would love to go over them and offer some advice. 
2)If you are in college talk to a college counselor
College counselors are paid to make sure you get paid after college. You are their job. Don't go into a meeting with one and say, "I have no idea what to do with my life, tell me what I should do." That is a very lazy way and sure, you will get some help but you are not exploiting the opportunity to the fullest. Instead try to bring a sense of urgency and a plan of what you want to do. Do some homework. This does three things for you 1) tells the counselor that you need business 2)saves you a lot of time 3)you are able to get the most out of the counselor. You do not need to have the next 30 years of your life planned out, but start with having your day planned out, then your week, month, year and so on. Ask them for suggestions to improve your current path instead of having them give you a life plan to live out. It is your life, so take charge.  
3) Getting as much education as possible does not cut it anymore; in today's world get as much experience as possible. 
Education is no longer required to be just within the walls of an university. Go out there and learn about everything your job requires. If a potential requires you to know how to code, then go to codeacademy.com and spend 5 hours mastering the basics. If you need to learn spanish then watch disney movies on Youtube in spanish until you can sing along to the songs. Yes you need to get into a good university and get good grades, but that alone will not set you apart. Extend your education through your own passionate learning. Then apply, apply, apply everything that you are learning every where you go. Give advice, write blogs, ask questions, JOIN MANY DIFFERENT CLUBS. 
4) The "N" word....Network
This is by far the most important one of them all. Every day go out of your way to meet 5 new people. It is easy. MAKE SURE YOU WRITE DOWN THEIR NAMES, ADD THEM ON FB, TWITTER, LINKED-IN. You will forget them if you don't. Share with them your life's passions and goals and listen to theirs. Make them a brand champion in your self brand and have them be excited about what you are doing and offer your services to help them out. As you help them, they will help you. Need more tips about networking? Ask me your questions in the comments below. 
5)Don't be afraid to ask questions
My favorite question to ask is, "What more do I need to do to become qualified to work at company X?" If you ask that question to yourself, friends, family, job recruiters, and even strangers on a daily basis you will get a wealth of knowledge poured out. Take time to come up with 3-5 really good questions that you can ask to anyone that will increase your value. Asking questions shows that you are willing to change and listen to others. That humility will alone set you apart. Ask and ye shall receive, know and it shall be open unto you. (anyone know where that scripture is? comment below)

The take away- Get your life so that you have some kind of base, then build your dream like upon that foundation. 

Adding humanities majors to your team will add HUGE value

I'll keep the intro short. Everything and everyone has a stereotype attached to them, we have to look past the status quo and focus on the individual if we don't want to miss the boat. Ideologies comes and go and so do our presumptions on people. My goal today is to change your mindset to show you how much value hiring an Humanities major can bring to your team.

B- is math is not always > an A in english

Who ever said getting an B- in a hard science is better than getting an A in humanities has no idea what it takes to get an A in an upper level class. The critic most likely had to take some humanities GE class and hated it. Yeah I hated mine too, but the same argument could be made for the GE math requirement. GE's only get your feet wet and a whole lot of information that is not really applicable to life but as we transcend into the upper level classes, this is where the real value comes from. Don't get me wrong doing calculus is hard, i've taken the class, but with a math class you practice problems going into a test. Imagine having you whole grade based off of three essay questions. Professors in humanities don't hold your hand and do practice problems, but rather they focus on unlocking the mind to challenge and question the social norms and require you to produce. In math you have a final answer, it is a safety net. There is always a right answer and with that comes the warm blanket of reassurance from working around the problem until it is solved. Once you come off conquerer you move onto the next problem to "plug and chug" you way through life. Crunching numbers does give a sense of accomplishment and a lot of good comes out of it, but it is a very conservative approach. For Humanities there is passion because there is no such thing as a 100% right answer in writing, but only a defendable one. The best trait that comes from writing is that it is impossible to BS your way through anything in humanities. Sure, there is an occasional paper that can be busted out on a whim but you can't tell me that writing for upper level class can be a cake walk. 

Each Professor has a different grading style; Versatility 

Now there is a fine line behind being a brown nosing snob and playing the field to your advantage. The beginning stages of listening to the voice of the customer starts but changing writing styles to the professor. Think of a paper like a product; it has information( features) that add benefits to the consumer(those who read it). Each Professor has a different PHD from each other; for example I have had professors who's focus was on urbanism, cinematography, African American studies, satire (yeah you can get a PHD in that) and even early American Christian history for women. All PHD means is that they are as segmented as it gets on their studies and know a certain topic very, very, very well. It is a classic joke that the first paper is always failed because nobody knows the teacher's writing style, but as the semester goes on the students are able to adjust their writing style so that they can get the A. It doesn't cut it being a stubborn writer. University level writing skills require versatilely and the ability to listen to the consumers (professors) effectively to have them "buy into your idea". 

Humanities majors know how to research and apply segmentation,

Primary and secondary research are vital resources for any humanities major, we live and die off of that. No student can make it far without sticking his or her nose into books and painfully collect information. I call this "panning for gold," A person who is looking for a place to prospect has to find a plot of land (subject matter) and a lot of times has to move from spot to spot until they find the ideal spot. After that they have to sift through rocks, mud, water, fish and who knows what in order to find those golden flakes, and an occasional nugget. The golden flakes are added up over time and as they are placed together real value comes out. I would say that a good 95% of all research doesn't not get into any paper. For each and every paper there is a vernacular that has to not only be mastered but must be used as a tool to create new ideas to cater to an audience. Each and every paper calls for the student to do hours of archive building. For example one possible subject matter for a paper would be how Hurricane Katrina hurricane changed an aspect of New Orleans. Sounds easy right? For that class I wrote about Hurricane Katrina was exploited by Lil Wayne in his album Tha Cater III. Sounds cool right? Well talking about a rapper or a music an album wont last 10 pages. This is where I had to collect mountains of data about musical theory in general, then for specifically New Orleans and even then for a target group the lower-class African American's musical history in New Orleans... just for my intro paragraph. It is a classic segmentation exercise that is commonly used in business.  

Now go hire a humanities major. 

Agree or disagree? Comment below your thoughts

Peace

Top 5 Monday morning songs to get you through anything.

If only Monday morning were like that

Huge shout out to all of you guys and gals who have been reading my blog. I will hit 1,000 views after this post, well unless this post is a epic flop. It means a lot when I see that my viewers like, share and comment on my posts because each and every time it happens, it is like giving me a major high five (who doesn't love those?).

Back to business,

Monday mornings are sometimes more like Monday mournings. Coming off a weekend of failed attempts to do homework, upcoming deadlines,looking forward to things that we are really excited about and even the approaching unknown can bring lot of anxiety that magically appears only on Mondays. As we depart from the mystical land of the weekend back to reality we need to come out of the gate swinging and not let the doubts of Monday morning even think about coming into our lives. No'body got time for that! Lets turn that arise and grind to be an arise and shine; we all could use a little shake up wake up and what I found out is that music can give us that much needed boost. Below are my favorite songs to get my inner fire going, let the fire spread! Listen to them and lets go take over the world this week. What are your favorite Monday Mash ups? Comment below ----->  Here is the playlist on Youtube 

"Over My Head" The Fray

"The Fighter" Gym Class Heroes 

"Safe and Sound" Capital Cities 

"Good life" One republic

"Float On" Modest Mouse

What I've learned from my first business case study

Don't tread on my bro

What I learned from my first business strategy case project is that bachelor's degrees can only bring you so far. It is about how badly you want it. Give me passion or give me death. 

Work hard enough to earn respect 
This is where everything begins. How much do you want it? Do you want it more than you can breathe? Are you willing to sacrifice grades, friends, employment, entertainment, sleep, eating and spending time with love ones so you can get done what is required? In a never ending world of improvement, it is a requirement to be a Peter B. Kyne's Go Getter if you want to amount to anything. If you set the tone in work ethic, it doesn't matter if you have a degree in scuba diving, your team will look to you as a leader. Now, there is a fine line, let your actions speak for yourself and don't boast about how awesome you are... use Facebook for that. Instead, lose all your fear about how under-qualified you are and do what you can do. If you can research, research the pants off the project, if you make cookies- make the best dad-gum cookies known to this world. If you can organize and plan effective meetings then gosh darn it make sure you take control of it. The worst thing, absolute worst thing you can do is to wait around and be told what to do. I hate those people. Literally hate them. Those people are still in a diaper high school mindset.

Be humble enough to ask for help and even more importantly embrace criticism:
In each and every case, you do not come up with the right idea in the first five minutes. I would say about 94% of the ideas that your team comes up with will be wrong. Being wrong is the worst. After all those hours of preparation and refining your ideas, some team member just shuts it down. haha Sometimes you just want to go "shut them down" if you know what I mean. The American experience is about compromise. You have to be able to adjust and open your mind to deeper prospectives. So this area is my favorite, asking for people's criticism because this helps you gain a better connection with the person you are asking help with. Don't get me wrong, they will have to prove me wrong but when they do they feel like a Boss and you get the much needed help. The worst thing that can happen here is that they are not 100% honest with you and cripple you. Since you are a go getter, that should not bother you at all

Finding your competitive angle means digging deep:
There are some base traits that everyone has such as hard worker, high level of detail, passion but there are some that make your different diversity in the team means playing to your strengths, delegating your weaknesses, exploiting opportunities and eliminating your threats. It might take you a couple of weeks, projects, and even months to fully understand what you bring to the table, but once you find that niche exploit the heck out of it.  

The difference between quantitative and qualitative data: 
haha just go to this website. It helped me out and it will help you out. 
http://www.regentsprep.org/regents/math/algebra/AD1/qualquant.htm

The take home message. 
Humanities majors can make it in the business world. It is all about how much you want it. I don't care if you are a tuba major, if you want it enough you will force yourself above and beyond anywhere close to where you have been before. 
HOW MUCH DO YOU WANT IT?????????

What are your top 5 ways to get fired up? Comment below?