Staffing Solutions of Hawaii

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Happy Thanksgiving!

In observation of the holiday, Staffing Solutions of Hawaii will be closed on Thursday, November 22nd. We will resume business at our normal hours beginning on Friday, November 23rd at 7:30am.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

100 Potential Interview Questions

By Thad Peterson, Monster Staff Writer

While there are as many different possible interview questions as there are interviewers, it always helps to be ready for anything. So we've prepared a list of 100 potential interview questions. Will you face them all? We pray no interviewer would be that cruel. Will you face a few? Probably. Will you be well-served by being ready even if you're not asked these exact questions? Absolutely.

Basic Interview Questions:

Tell me about yourself.
What are your strengths?
What are your weaknesses?
Why do you want this job?
Where would you like to be in your career five years from now?
What's your ideal company?
What attracted you to this company?
Why should we hire you?
What did you like least about your last job?
When were you most satisfied in your job?
What can you do for us that other candidates can't?
What were the responsibilities of your last position?
Why are you leaving your present job?
What do you know about this industry?
What do you know about our company?
Are you willing to relocate?
Do you have any questions for me?

Behavioral Interview Questions:

What was the last project you headed up, and what was its outcome?
Give me an example of a time that you felt you went above and beyond the call of duty at work.
Can you describe a time when your work was criticized?
Have you ever been on a team where someone was not pulling their own weight? How did you handle it?
Tell me about a time when you had to give someone difficult feedback. How did you handle it?
What is your greatest failure, and what did you learn from it?
What irritates you about other people, and how do you deal with it?
If I were your supervisor and asked you to do something that you disagreed with, what would you do?
What was the most difficult period in your life, and how did you deal with it?
Give me an example of a time you did something wrong. How did you handle it?
What irritates you about other people, and how do you deal with it?
Tell me about a time where you had to deal with conflict on the job.
If you were at a business lunch and you ordered a rare steak and they brought it to you well done, what would you do?
If you found out your company was doing something against the law, like fraud, what would you do?
What assignment was too difficult for you, and how did you resolve the issue?
What's the most difficult decision you've made in the last two years and how did you come to that decision?
Describe how you would handle a situation if you were required to finish multiple tasks by the end of the day, and there was no conceivable way that you could finish them.

Salary Questions:

What salary are you seeking?
What's your salary history?
If I were to give you this salary you requested but let you write your job description for the next year, what would it say?

Career Development Questions:

What are you looking for in terms of career development?
How do you want to improve yourself in the next year?
What kind of goals would you have in mind if you got this job?
If I were to ask your last supervisor to provide you additional training or exposure, what would she suggest?

Getting Started Questions:

How would you go about establishing your credibility quickly with the team?
How long will it take for you to make a significant contribution?
What do you see yourself doing within the first 30 days of this job?
If selected for this position, can you describe your strategy for the first 90 days?

More About You:

How would you describe your work style?
What would be your ideal working environment?
What do you look for in terms of culture -- structured or entrepreneurial?
Give examples of ideas you've had or implemented.
What techniques and tools do you use to keep yourself organized?
If you had to choose one, would you consider yourself a big-picture person or a detail-oriented person?
Tell me about your proudest achievement.
Who was your favorite manager and why?
What do you think of your previous boss?
Was there a person in your career who really made a difference?
What kind of personality do you work best with and why?
What are you most proud of?
What do you like to do?
What are your lifelong dreams?
What do you ultimately want to become?
What is your personal mission statement?
What are three positive things your last boss would say about you?
What negative thing would your last boss say about you?
What three character traits would your friends use to describe you?
What are three positive character traits you don't have?
If you were interviewing someone for this position, what traits would you look for?
List five words that describe your character.
Who has impacted you most in your career and how?
What is your greatest fear?
What is your biggest regret and why?
What's the most important thing you learned in school?
Why did you choose your major?
What will you miss about your present/last job?
What is your greatest achievement outside of work?
What are the qualities of a good leader? A bad leader?
Do you think a leader should be feared or liked?
How do you feel about taking no for an answer?
How would you feel about working for someone who knows less than you?
How do you think I rate as an interviewer?
Tell me one thing about yourself you wouldn't want me to know.
Tell me the difference between good and exceptional.
What kind of car do you drive?
There's no right or wrong answer, but if you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you be?
What's the last book you read?
What magazines do you subscribe to?
What's the best movie you've seen in the last year?
What would you do if you won the lottery?
Who are your heroes?
What do you like to do for fun?
What do you do in your spare time?
What is your favorite memory from childhood?

Brainteaser Questions:

How many times do a clock's hands overlap in a day?
How would you weigh a plane without scales?
Tell me 10 ways to use a pencil other than writing.
Sell me this pencil.
If you were an animal, which one would you want to be?
Why is there fuzz on a tennis ball?
If you could choose one superhero power, what would it be and why?
If you could get rid of any one of the US states, which one would you get rid of and why?
With your eyes closed, tell me step-by-step how to tie my shoes.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Response Strategies for Interview Questions

By Michael Neece, Monster Contributing Writer

Every interview question thrown your way presents an opportunity for you to make your case for why you're the best person for the position. You want to highlight your positive qualities and avoid giving reasons to disqualify you. That said, think about your overall response strategy for the interview.

Examples Speak Volumes
For each quality you present, make sure you're prepared to describe a situation where you demonstrated that quality. Basically, you always want to be able to back up any claims you might make. For example, if during the interview you say that you work well under pressure, be ready to describe an example where you did work effectively under pressure and delivered the results required.

Steer the Interview Your Way
One thing to guard against is getting lured into the interviewer's game of alternative or trick questions. Be like a politician. The next time you watch a debate or press conference, notice the kind of questions reporters ask, and then observe how the politician responds. Politicians often answer questions indirectly by presenting information they want to convey. You can do the exact same thing in a job interview.

For example, if the interviewer asks if you prefer to work alone or on a team, he may be trying to get you to say you are one way or the other. But you don't have to play this game. The reality is that most jobs require us to work both independently and in teams. Your response to this question should show that you have been successful in both situations.

Your answers also need to provide the reason to hire you, and you want to avoid providing reasons not to hire you. Before responding to any interview question, take your time, breathe and think about your answer. Thoughtful answers delivered clearly are much better than empty answers given rapidly. And you're not being measured by your response time.

Be Clear and Concise
Be honest and succinct with your responses. Tell the truth in as positive a manner as possible, and don't discuss things or events in a negative fashion. Long answers are less effective than concise responses and tend to make interviewers suspicious. If you are talking more than 90 seconds without interaction with the interviewer, you may be providing more detail than is needed. If you feel you may be talking too long, just stop and ask the interviewer a question like, “Am I giving you the level of detail you're looking for?” This prompts a response and promotes an open exchange of information. Besides, if you're putting the interviewer to sleep with your long-winded answers, asking a question will wake them up.

Open the Conversation
After your response, ask the interviewer a tag-on question, such as, “Does that give you what you were looking for?” This ensures you are understood accurately, conveys that you want to be sure you're providing what the interviewer is looking for and promotes two-way communication.
You deserve the best, so practice your responses to frequently asked interview questions, and prepare to be your best when it matters most.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Tips to Show Your IT Skills on Your Technology Resume

By Allan Hoffman, Monster Tech Jobs Expert

Employers often screen candidates based on their technical skills, so technology job seekers naturally want to make sure they present their skills properly. As a result, creating the skills section of a technology resume section can be a challenge.
Typical resume issues technology professionals wrestle with include:

Whether to list skills alphabetically or in order of importance.
Whether to include every skill and how much detail to provide.
How to differentiate between expert knowledge of a technology with passing familiarity.

Don't Exaggerate
One recruiter's advice is simple: Don't obsess over the skills section to the point of embellishment. "In adding a skills section to their resume, a lot of people have a tendency to exaggerate their level of expertise in various technologies," says Scott Hajer, senior corporate recruiter for Software Architects. "They figure the more keywords, the more exposure."
Such tactics are likely to backfire, especially during a technology job interview. "We had a candidate who had a big grid on his resume, listing all the skills he had and rating himself on a scale of 1 to 5 in them," says Hajer. One of the skills was J2EE, with a "3" (for average ability) tagged to it. "When asked to talk about J2EE, he could not even define the term, much less talk about his experience in it," he says.
Some employers provide questionnaires asking candidates to rate themselves on particular technology skills, but they don't expect such ratings in a resume's skills section. Keep things simple. Denote each technology skill with the number of years' experience or, if you're intent on including a rating, with words like novice, intermediate and expert.
Skills and Their Uses
The skills section should be buttressed with job descriptions detailing how those skills have been used in the workplace. For example, a resume listing Java, Oracle and UML in the skills section should describe how each technology was employed on a particular project. Those details provide employers with genuine insight into the depth of a person's knowledge and experience with those technologies.
Stay Relevant
Consider these tips:

Delete outdated skills or those with no relevance to your resume objective.
Separate technology skills into familiar categories such as operating systems, networks and programming tools.
List skills in the order of their relevance to your objective, rather than alphabetically.
If you've only read about it in Computerworld or on News.com, don't include it.

Resume Organization
Technology job candidates may want to place the skills section after the job objective and before the experience section. But there are exceptions. If you're just starting out, you may want to place a greater emphasis on education and internships. If you're seeking management or sales positions, you may want to avoid crowding the resume with a list of technical skills. Instead, consider placing the list below the experience section or adding other elements, such as communication abilities and foreign languages, to the skills section.
Here are examples of one job seeker's technical skills section:
Paragraph Format -- the Most Common

Languages:

Tools:

Operating Systems:

List Format -- Gives Employers a Quick Overview

Languages	Tools	Operating Systems
Java XML C C++ JavaScript SQL HTML UML	Borland JBuilder Sun ONE Studio (Forte) Macromedia Dreamweaver MX Rational Rose UltraEdit-32 Borland CBuilder Oracle SQL Plus	Windows (XP, 2000, NT) IBM OS/2 2.0 HP-UX 9.0 DEC VMS 4.1 Unix (Linux and Sun Solaris)

List Format with Years of Experience -- Shows Depth

Web Technologies	Dreamweaver, JavaScript, HTML	4-7 years
Languages	Java, C, C++, UML	5-8 years

List Format with Years of Experience and Skill Level -- More Detail
An alternative is to denote only the years of experience.

Languages	Years' Experience	Skill Level
Java XML C C++ JavaScript SQL HTML UML	6 3 6 4 6 4 6 2	Expert Intermediate Expert Intermediate Expert Intermediate Intermediate Novice

Friday, November 2, 2012

Discover the Work You Were Born to Do

By James Gonyea, Monster Contributing Writer

So you've been hearing that voice again, the one that says you're not doing what you were born to do. That may be true, but how do you figure out what you should be doing?

To begin answering this question, examine whether your current career path matches your core interests, beliefs, values, needs and skills. Professional career counselors usually undertake this strategy when attempting to help clients identify appropriate career directions.

Here's what I ask clients to help them find their core. Ask yourself these questions, and record your answers:

1. What subjects do you most enjoy reading about?
2. What television or radio programs do you most enjoy?
3. What are your favorite types of movies?
4. What are your favorite hobbies or pastimes?
5. What type of volunteer activities do you prefer?
6. What subjects do you enjoy discussing with friends?
7. What subjects come to mind when you daydream?
8. What have been your favorite jobs?
9. What were your favorite school subjects?
10. What are your pet peeves?
11. If you doodle, what do you often draw?
12. If you ran the world, what changes would you make?
13. If you won a million bucks, what would you do with it?
14. Who are your favorite kinds of people?
15. How would you like to be remembered after your death?
16. What are your favorite toys?
17. How would you describe your political beliefs?
18. Who do you most admire in life and why?
19. What tasks have brought you the most success?
20. What tasks do you think you could do well that you haven't yet done?

Examine your answers. Do you see a certain behavior or belief in more than one aspect of your life? What information do you see repeated that seems to reveal a behavior pattern? What are your long-lasting interests?

Using this information, paint a self-portrait by completing the following statements:

I am mainly interested in…
I believe most in…
I most value…
For a good life, I feel I need…
I can do the following well…

Now ask yourself if your current job helps you achieve these five statements. If it does, you're probably in the right career. Chances are, however, that the nagging voice means your current career is not satisfying your core features. If this is the case, then it's time to find a better fit.
If the right career choice is not obvious from the information you have gathered about yourself, then try reading What Color Is Your Parachute? by Richard Nelson Bolles.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

How Not to Say Thank You After an Interview

By Gladys Stone & Fred Whelan, Monster Contributing Writers

In the job search, there's nothing like performing well at the interview. And after researching the company, practicing your interview presentation and answering the interview questions with confidence, you want to follow up with something impressive. You want to thank the employer with a gesture that makes the company want to hire you -- or at least bring you back for another round of interviews.

This is the point when some people come up with what they believe are clever ways to thank people for the interview. Sadly, these attempts at being memorable can leave the wrong impression with the interviewer.

So be sure to avoid these three unconventional post-interview thank-you strategies in your job search:

Don’t Say It with Plants or Flowers: A candidate for a communications position thought sending a plant would be a nice way to say thank you after her interview. What it really said was that she did not know that doing so was unnecessary and inappropriate. It is never proper to send a gift after an interview. The interviewer is doing his job by interviewing you, and sending a gift of any kind can be interpreted as a bribe to move your candidacy forward. Rather than helping your cause, this move could hurt your chances of getting the job.
Don’t Friend the Interviewer on Facebook: Trying to connect with an interviewer on Facebook crosses a boundary that should not be broached. It tells the interviewer you don’t know how to draw the line between employer and employee, and you would likely have difficulty with that distinction if you were hired for the job.
Don't Follow Up with a Call the Day After the Interview: If you follow up by phone too soon after the interview, the interviewer will interpret the action as too aggressive. A follow-up call the next day will signal that you lack good judgment and that you would probably act inappropriately on the job. At this point, the ball is in the prospective employer's court. Any follow-up by phone on your part should reflect what you and the interviewer discussed.

What Should You Do? Send an Interview Follow-Up Letter

The best advice is to follow up with a short thank-you letter after the interview, thanking the interviewer for his time and reiterating your interest in and qualifications for the job. The more succinct, the better. An articulate post-interview follow-up letter or email can only strengthen your candidacy.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Dress for Interview Success

You probably already know that appearance counts, but this is especially true at the job interview. Your interviewer will be judging not only your answers to his questions, but also how you've put yourself together. Check out these articles to create an overall look that says you're professional -- and hireable: