Photo by Jeff Sanders

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Throughout my own personal career search I have stumbled aimlessly into many interviews completely unprepared.  It was one thing to tackle a one-on-one interview, answering a question or two without any clue of what I was talking about, but to do it in front of a group of people took my lack of preparation to a whole new level.  Group interviews are hard.  Simple enough.  They are a different beast than than the traditional one-on-one and it takes a different skill set to master the tricks necessary to avoid getting weeded out by the employer.  The hard part is figuring out what the employer is looking for and why they have chosen the group format over others.  Some of them may come right out and tell you what they want, most won’t.  You’ll have to be the mind reader and the observant cool kid in the back who catches the vibe before your competition does.  Here are some tricks to help edge you in the favor of the employer. (more…)

Photo by Jeff Sanders

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Recently, I attended a Career Fair in Nashville, along with close to 2,000 others.  No joke, there were thousands of attendants and no more than 20 booths, 6 of which were colleges, not employers.  I stood in line for more than 45 minutes where I casually listened to the numerous conversations taking place between many unemployed strangers.  The small-talk taking place was mostly nervousness and obvious attempts to size up the competition.  Many were discussing their turmoil to find work and how desperate they were to take anything they could get their hands on.  Others were comparing previous work experiences and offering advice to one another.  A couple of older ladies behind me in line were commenting on how they believed their age would eliminate them from any possibility of getting hired over the “young bucks.”  Another pair were discussing how they should ditch the job search altogether and go back to grad school.

The conversations were varied in nature, but they all shared one common denominator: FEAR.  Everyone was scared.  Everyone was nervous.  Everyone was anxious and unsure of (more…)

Photo by Jeff Sanders

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Can you see the forest for the trees?  Put another way, can you see beyond the money and understand what you’re really getting yourself into when considering selling insurance?  If you’ve ever spent any time on the major job search engines – Monster, CareerBuilder, Yahoo! HotJobs, etc. – you’ve almost certainly been solicited by an Insurance Recruiter whose given you a line like this: “Based on the impressive qualities of your resume we would like to offer you a Management Position and a 1st year salary EASILY exceeding $100,000!”  Sounds exciting, right?  Sounds like a job you’ve been waiting for, right?  Sounds like a bunch of BS, right?  Well, not entirely, but close.  Big cities are insurance hot spots.  If you’ve ever looked at a map of insurance companies around cities like Boston, Nashville, and or Houston,  they light up like a swarm of lightning bugs on a summer night.  The reality is that insurance is an old school business that is here to stay.  People need it whether they realize it or not, and it’s not cheap.  There’s a lot of money to be made by someone, and every Insurance Recruiter out there thinks it could be you.  So is it?  Let’s find out.

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Photo by Jeff Sanders

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Your first job will most likely not be your last.  In fact, your first job may not last long at all.  There are many reasons why people quickly quit their first few jobs, most notably, because they’re not fulfilled.  The job market today is looking dreary, the applicant pools are increasing daily, and the likelihood you’ll end up working a job in your chosen career field is becoming highly unlikely.  So, what may end up happening, or what you’re experiencing now, is that you find an employer who is willing to hire you to perform a set of tasks for which you are OVER qualified and don’t enjoy doing.  This rapidly results in your extreme boredom and unwillingness to continue.  Thus, you want to quit.

Solution?

Option One: you could quit.  You could become unemployed again and repeat the extremely (more…)