A job interview is a session where you meet your potential employer and have a good chat with each other. The role of the interviewer is to judge whether you are suitable for the position and for the company. Your role, on the other hand, is to be honest to yourselves and to the interviewer so that you will be able to decide whether the job suits you.

I do understand that in certain conditions, you might be quite desperate for a job. And when you are desperate, you tend to come out with lies and become dishonest. You will start saying that you know this and that, but in actual fact, you know none of them.

By doing this, you might be able to get your desired job. But at what cost? What if the interviewer realized that you are not who you said you are? Believe me, if you try to cheat your way into a job……you will end up suffering because the job might not be what you want, and you might struggle to do things that you do not know.

So it’s important for you to be honest in the job interview and also for the interviewer to be honest with you. Set the expectations right. The key elements here are your honesty, your experience and also your attitude.

Remember, there’s no point to cheat your way into a job that you are not suitable, only to change job again few months later. It’s not good for both yourselves and for the company.

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p/s…. I went for a job interview on Monday. I passed the technical test but it didn’t work out because the interviewer was looking for a potential technical architect and I’m not. On the other hand, I’m looking for a job with more client interaction, which they don’t have. So our expectations were pretty different. Some people said I should’ve lied and get the offer first but I chose not to do that. I prefer to be honest upfront since I don’t want people to waste their time.

One of my HR friends (she’s a recruiter) told me about an incident which happened to her few weeks ago. There was this candidate who went to her company for a job interview. The scheduled time was 1pm and the entire interview process (the test, the form filling and the interview process itself) took 2 hours 30 minutes. It ended at approximately 3.30pm.

Guess what happened next?

The interviewee, or in other words, the person who needs the job, started complaining to my friend in a not-so-polite manner. The person told my friend why didn’t she inform him earlier that the interview process was going to take so long, bla bla bla and he has this appointment he needed to attend in another far far away place at 4pm.

When my friend told me this, my first response was “Friend, just fail that guy. He’s an idiot who doesn’t know how to manage his time and he’s too unprofessional to blame others for his own mistake”.

As a job candidate, one should always allocate at least 3 hours for the entire interview process. I’ve been to an interview which took me 5 hours (the manager forgot about my existence). This is because each interview process can be quite different from one company to the other. Some companies require you to take a lot of tests, some don’t. Some companies have long-winded interviewers, and some just don’t bother that much. So it’s pretty hard to predict how long the actual interview is going to last. That’s why it’s very dangerous and risky to schedule another important appointment right after the interview. Always leave a buffer of 2 to 3 hours between the 2…. unless you can fly or teleport.

Remember that time management is very important. If you cannot even manage the schedules for your interviews and appointments, what makes you think your employer will give you the job? You are just another disorganized person to them.

Oh, and even if nothing is going right for your schedules……you should never ever blame the interviewer. That’s way too unprofessional.

I’ve been looking around for jobs nowadays and I just got the news from one of my recruiters that I failed my interview this morning. It’s really not easy to find jobs nowadays especially due to my working experience.

I came from a consulting firm and my company encourages people to be flexible and able to adapt to a situation FAST. Due to the nature of our business, we cannot really focus on specific technologies since at any given point, we will just have to take whatever that comes. That’s why in this field, we need people with very good working attitude and also people who are very flexible. In other words, a generalist.

But what proves to be our selling point, happens to be our biggest weakness when we go out for job interviews. Most companies are looking for specialists and not jack-of-all-trades-but-master-of-none. This is a reality that I’ve faced.

However, when you come to think of it, do you think a company should hire someone who is a generalist or only pick someone who is a specialist? Here’s a brief overview about the pros and cons of each.

Generalist

• Flexible, has good attitude and willing to learn.
• Dedicated to serve and contribute to the company no matter what has been asked from him.
• Has good technical exposure and knows what kind of technologies (or skills, if you’re not talking about IT) to use based on requirements and needs.
• Salary will not be high but easier to find a ‘normal’ job since he can just move into any role. Most companies will hire such people as junior or medium level roles.
• Is not expert in the technical side of things. Will not know the very low level kind of stuff.

Specialist

• Is expert in his field or even in a particular technology/skill/product. Can be the lead for that knowledge.
• Only certain companies can offer positions for these individuals because the skillset requirements might not match. But if there’s a position, it is usually medium to senior level.
• The salary is normally pretty high but not as easy to find a job since certain companies might not require his specialty.
• Might have good technical exposure to other technologies but his priority is to focus on his specialty. Anything too far away from that, will be ignored.
• Can be quite not-so-flexible and not willing to pick up new technologies as the project requires. This is because picking up something different will make his existing skill to become rusty. He will become a generalist if this continues.

I’m a generalist, and I’ve met some specialists who would just refuse to do anything outside their scope. If you try to force it to them, they will quit. Simple as that.

This is quite similar to the football world. If the manager asked you, a striker, to play as a midfielder……will you do that? If yes, it proves you are loyal to the club but your overall value will drop. If no, it just shows you are not flexible enough and does not want to commit to the club. They will just try to sell you off.

So pros and cons actually. It really depends on what you want and who you are.

As for me, I still prefer to be a generalist even if I’ve failed 2 interviews in a row. In my opinion, if a company really wants me, then I should be fully committed and do whatever they need me to do. It can be my biggest weakness, but it can also be my strength.

So for now…just wish me luck. LOL.

P/S….. I’m actively looking for freelance projects. Do let me know if anyone of you have any. Thanks in advance.

In every good CV, there will be a section reserved for referees, their positions and their contact details. This is a very important section and is often overlooked by the job candidates.

Why is it important? Because job interviewers will most likely call the referees for a reference check if you managed to pass the interview process. And this is where your past behavior will either help you in your job application….or ruin your chance.

And it wouldn’t help if you are only putting your friends or relatives as referees. You can put at most 1 close friend but most of the referees should be those individuals who have worked with you before. They should be the people who know how you work, and what is the attitude that you bring to a workplace. They should either be your supervisor, former supervisor or senior colleagues.

Also, by putting your supervisors/colleagues as your referees, it is very obvious that you have nothing to hide and you are willing to let the interviewer knows about your past records. If you can’t find anyone from the company or your ex-company, then finding someone (from within the same industry) who knows you well will help too. It’ll even be better if that someone holds a senior position in a reputable company.

However, one thing that you must always make sure is that these referees will say good things about you and not the other way round. You wouldn’t want to get a referee who would back stab you. Also, always remember to ask permission from the person before you actually put their contact details inside your CV.

Last but not least, be honest in your job interview. The referees are important but they are only there to prove whatever you said during the interview is correct. They are more like the supporting casts. The main cast is you.

As for me, I’m very fortunate that I have good supervisors (former and current) who are willing to help me out by becoming my referees.

p/s…… if you don’t have any good referee…maybe it’s time to perform better in your job so that you can get good testimoninals from your bosses or even ask one of them to be your referee.

Some of my friends are getting tired with their jobs – irresponsible colleagues, chinaman bosses, unreasonable supervisors, long working hours (no rest at all), the management people getting weird……and the list goes on and on. I can only say that during times like this, the list of weird things will become even longer than before.

Better to check what's on the other side first, Mr Fishy

And all the signs are pointing to one thing  – get the hell out of there and find yourselves a better job!

But how true is that? How much “better” do you want your new job to be?

The thing is, when changing job, there’s always the risk of leaving a not-so-good company for a super-duper-bad company. Or in other words, jumping into a deeper shit.

But how can you do that? Here are few things you need to pay attention to.

• Research the company. Check the company web site, information, history and also Google around for any information related to the company. It’s not difficult to actually know more about the company by using Google.
• The outlook of the company web site. This is quite important. If a company does not pay close attention something as simple as web site, which is the first thing clients see (and clients here mean $$$), what makes you think they care about something more complicated like their own employees?
• Try to search Facebook and LinkedIn for contacts within the company. Most likely you will have some friends who have worked in that company before…or their friends. Try to dig some information about the company and its working culture.
• Study the office and its atmosphere. If you are not comfortable with the office and the environment, or some of the employees there look pretty much like zombies, then maybe it’s better for you not to put too much hope in that company.
• Be yourselves during the job interviews. If the interviewer is trying to find faults with you, or is not being polite and friendly, then most likely he will be the same after you’ve joined. If you think you can work with such person, fine. Otherwise, it’s better not to torture yourselves by joining them.

So make sure you do all these homework before you actually make the decision whether to join a company or not. And if you’ve done all those stuff listed above, and you personally feel it’s safe to join the company, then by all means go ahead. The last remaining element is your luck, which is completely out of your control.

But if you’re afraid that you have pretty bad luck and thus might end up jumping into a deeper shit…then take some time to think of what you really want. Grass is not always greener on the other side but if you don’t have the courage to go to the other side……..how would you know?