I am in my mid-thirties, and, as you can imagine, I have changed and looked for jobs many times in my life. No matter how successful was in my job hunting research, I realized that there are certain ground “rules” that need to be respected; otherwise, we will not get what we want from our careers.

First of all, forget about your resume.

1. Be Complete

Make sure that your resume includes EVERYTHING your prospective employer would need to know to be able to offer you an interview.

It is NOT unheard of for your carefully-crafted cover letter to be separated from your CV - if your contact details were only on your cover letter, how will they get in touch to arrange the interview?

Therefore, make sure that your CV includes AT LEAST the following information:

---> Full contact details

---> The position you are applying for or are interested in

---> Employment history
Author: Jonathan Lewis
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An interviewer’s mission is to assess your qualifications compared to the other candidates interviewed. Asking you questions is their way of accomplishing that mission. Preparing meaningful responses in advance is your way of impressing the interviewer.

Be prepared to talk about your skills, competencies, qualifications and accomplishments especially as they pertain to the specific opening. Know how to state your likes and dislikes, your strengths, weaknesses and goals succinctly and fluently.

In the limited time an interviewer has with you, their mission is to know you and assess your worth, especially in relationship to the other candidates interviewed. Asking you questions is the way they accomplish that mission.

When there is an opening to fill, a company has four basic approaches at their disposal:

• Advertise the position on Internet job sites

• Network

• Probe the Internet for viable candidates

• Use recruiters

When a company advertises an opening on an Internet job site, they receive hundreds of resumes. It simply is too long of a process and financially prohibitive to review every resume and move through each step of the interviewing and selection process to fill the opening.

You’ve been successful in your job hunt and have received a job offer. Maybe you received more than one offer. That’s great. The next question is, how do you evaluate an offer to see if it is the right one for you? Let’s look at some real answers.

The first step is to identify your priorities. Many people make the mistake of evaluating just the offer. They look at salary, work content, benefits, etc but not what they themselves value in a job. Unfortunately, if you don’t know what satisfies you, you’re evaluating in a vacuum.

Moving into a new job always involves some degree of uncertainty. You should do your best to find out all you can about a prospective employer, starting right from the pre-interview stage.

Here are some things to look out for. If one or more of these warning signs are present, you need to be doubly careful about joining that organization.

1. The company is in the midst of mergers and acquisitions, or there is a major reorganization taking place, staff cutbacks are on the anvil or some other major flux is occurring.