Ideal interviews are ones where you and the interviewer(s) are carrying a normal conversation. Both parties take turns asking and answering questions within the flow of the conversation, and you don’t feel like you’re part of an interrogation. While you may not have the opportunity to ask questions in the middle of the interview, you will always be given at least a few minutes at the end.

Most people now know that asking good questions is a key part of the interview. Asking the right type of questions can definitely leave the interviewer with a great impression about you. But what are good questions to ask? Here are 3 rules to keep in mind:

1. Only ask questions you genuinely want to know the answer to

This first rule may sound basic, but it is violated over 50% of the time. An experienced interviewer has heard virtually every question there is, especially from the younger candidate pool. We can tell almost immediately whether someone told you to ask that question to impress us, or whether you really want to know the answer. Not genuine = lose points and credibility.

“What does your company do in terms of Corporate Social Responsibility?” If we haven’t talked once about CSR during the interview, and this is how the question is posed to me, I would immediately be skeptical. Why does this person want to know about CSR all of a sudden? Are they just trying to impress me with the latest corporate mumbo jumbo? Do they even know what CSR means??

2. Don’t ask open-ended questions; try to be as specific as possible

Interviewers have to follow a fairly strict timeline, especially if they are talking to multiple candidates in one day. When it comes time to have you ask questions, the last thing we want to do is have to use our brains and think really hard. That will annoy us more than impress us. Bad examples: “What’s the one thing that you love about your job that makes you get out of bed each morning?” “What’s the company culture like?”

3. Always start your question with a bit of a preamble

If you follow Rule #3, you will almost always adhere to Rule #1 & #2. Stated another way, don’t simply jump in and ask your question right off the bat. Start by giving a bit of a description of what you know about the subject of your question. Tell us what you have read, what you’ve heard, your opinion on the matter, or what others have told you, and then ask your question.

Following this format will give you the opportunity to bring up all the research you’ve done ahead of time and maybe even get some credit for it. By giving a preamble, you’ve also automatically made the question more specific. Finally, if you’ve shown me the lengths of your research and your interest in the topic, you will come across much more genuine and sincere.

Now, if you truly are interested in the corporate culture, here’s a better way you could ask the question. “I read on your company’s website that integrity and respect for others are 2 of your most important values. Speaking to previous interns, they also echoed similar thoughts. How do these values translate into the everyday culture in the workplace?” Here, you’ve shown the interviewer that you really care about this topic. You’ve not only done research from the website, but have also gone out of your way to talk to other interns that have worked for us. Finally, the question is much more specific by asking me to comment on integrity and respect for others, not just company culture in general which can mean so many different things.

A final point to keep in mind, in addition to the 3 rules…Try not to ask “selfish” questions, questions that are only about you, what’s in it for you. “What are the working hours like?” “Will there be any overseas opportunities during this internship?” “What is the training program like?”

If you want to impress someone, the last thing you want to do is simply talk about yourself, and ask questions that only you care about. If you want to leave a lasting impression, try to ask questions that they will care about. Find out about their interests, their challenges, their ideas. Obviously, keep it professional, and try to never put the interviewers in an embarrassing situation (e.g. talking about a recent corporate scandal that has been in the news). It’s not about you, it’s about them.

Interviews are won or lost in the first 5 minutes. Experienced interviewers can tell in your initial interactions with them if there’s potential here, or if you’re just not going to fit in. Over the last 2 weeks, I’ve worked with over 75 undergraduates conducting 1-on-1 mock interviews with them, and I can definitely tell you, after just the first few questions, which were the handful that stood out from the crowd.

So what does this mean? You need to start your interview strong! Prepare for the typical introductory questions (e.g. can you start by telling me a little bit more about yourself? Why are you interested in working for us? Why this role?), and be ready to really impress the interviewer with your answer.

Today I want to focus specifically on the introduction – what should you say and how much should you say if the interviewer asks you to tell them more about yourself.

Let me start by sharing some insights on why interviewers open with this question. Firstly, interviewers will have prepared and read your resume ahead of time, most likely the night before. However, if you’re not the 1st candidate of the day, the interviewer will have a difficult time keeping track of everyone’s details. And if the interviewer is anything like me, they’ll be running a little behind. Starting with this question allows us to begin the interview right away, and gives us the opportunity to browse your resume to refresh our memories, while we try to get back on schedule.

Secondly, there is a limited amount of time we can spend with each candidate, so we have to pick and choose which areas of your past to probe. Allowing you to start first is our way to see what you highlight as the most relevant areas of your experience, and whether what we plan to ask matches and is appropriate. Despite what you may think, interviewers aren’t out to stump you or to make you look bad. Our job is to try and determine what your strengths and weaknesses are, and whether you’re a fit for the team.

With that in mind, preparing a good holistic introduction about yourself may give you the opportunity to potentially influence the questions that the interviewer asks to you. And if you’re able to better direct us to what we want to know, then it becomes a win-win situation.

A Framework: the Front Page of the Newspaper

A good introduction is one that last somewhere between 1.5 to 2 minutes long. Think of your introduction like it is the front page of the newspaper. The front page is unique as it gives the headlines of the key news stories of the day. You should do the same in your introduction – give the interviewer just the headlines, the highlights of your background.

Another key characteristic of the front page is that it doesn’t just focus on one particular area. You don’t see the front page covered with just politics. You get a little bit of business, sports, politics, arts, etc. In your introduction, don’t just focus only one aspect of yourself, tell me a little bit from different areas. Show that you’re multi-talented.

In terms of where to start, try the following the order:

1. Start with your educational background. Where are you going to school, what are you studying, but most importantly, tell us your motivation and reasons why you decided to pick this field of study. Remember to try to relate it back to the current position / industry if possible. (30 seconds)
2. Next, quickly outline some of the different roles in your work experience. Then pick the one that you think is more relevant, and tell us why. Focus first on your achievements, and the impact you made. If you don’t think that’s very impressive, tell us what you learned in that one job that would make you extremely successful in this new role you’re applying for. (30 seconds)
3. Finally, talk about your achievements beyond work and the classroom. “Outside of school and work, I’m very involved in the community and extracurricular activities…” Similar to the work experience, quickly tell us what type of activities (e.g. CCAs, community work, or extracurriculars) you’re involved in. Then pick the one that you’re most proud of, or is the most relevant, and again tell us why. (30 seconds)
4. If there’s anything else unique about you that doesn’t fit in the 3 categories above, you can add it here at the end. Perhaps a hobby, or a passion. Best if it’s somehow related to the role or the company. (30 seconds)

Remember, like the front page, just give the headlines so the reader (in this case the listener) gets excited and wants to read the rest of the story. By telling the interview what your strengths are, this will allow them to know where to probe further and perhaps even have them adjust their questions to talk about the areas you’ve highlighted.

Having a good introduction is crucial in starting your interview strong. You want to highlight your strengths early, potentially dictate where the interview goes next. Don’t miss out on an opportunity to sell yourself, but keep it to a maximum of 2 minutes.

Also, don’t forget that half the evaluation in the interview is not about what you say, but how you say it. Remember to talk confidently, be energetic and enthusiastic. Show your passion and maintain good eye contact. A solid well-rounded introduction delivered with energy is a sure way to start to connect with your interviewer. As the saying goes, you never have a second chance to make a first impression.

Everyone has heard the importance of networking and building a personal network, and in today’s struggling economy that’s even more true than normal. While job creation is beginning to slowly pick-up, experts say that as low as 10% of all available jobs are ever posted publicly (i.e. in the newspaper or on the Internet). That means that potentially up to 90% of jobs form what we call the Hidden Job Market. With that in mind, letting people know what you’re interested in, what you’re good at, and what you’re most passionate about are critically important.

Reaching out to your existing network is the first step, but that typically won’t be enough. You will need to re-connect with people you haven’t talked to in sometime, and you will definitely want to meet new interesting people. Well, there’s no better time to get going than right now! Don’t make the mistake of waiting until you’re about to graduate or suddenly out of a job to begin to think about “networking”. The first call or email you send to a friend you haven’t spoken to for a few years shouldn’t ask if they know of any job openings.

The most common questions I get next is how do I find the type of people I want to meet, where can I go to meet them, and how do I even go about it? The most common answer, “by networking”. Before we go any further, I want to state that I don’t like the word “networking”. I’m not sure if it’s only me, but over the years, networking has developed a bit of a negative connotation for me. When someone tells me to start networking, or that I should network more, all I can picture are eager beavers coming up to important people and trying to kiss up to them as best as they can.

On the first day of my MBA program, on the official schedule right after the welcome speech by the Dean, there was an event entitled “Welcome Networking Cocktails”. And sure enough, at the end of the Dean’s opening remarks he told us to enjoy our year and encouraged us to get started on “networking” . So there we all were in the cafeteria area (yup), all trying to get to know our fellow classmates on the first day. Every conversation seemed to start like this, “Hi my name is Jon, very nice to meet you…Where am I from? I’m from Canada, yourself?…Wow, that sounds like some great stuff you were doing before; I was a management consultant for 7 years.” It was like clock-work; what’s your name, where are you from, what did you do before coming here. The MBA version of name, rank & serial number I guess. Pretty sad, and totally ineffective.

As soon as people heard and saw the word “networking”, it was as if they totally transformed. They put on their fake smiles, turned on the fake enthusiasm, and tried to put their best business-like persona forward. It didn’t help that it was mandatory for all of us to come in formal business attire, so suits & ties despite the 35C+ degree weather in Singapore. Why couldn’t the event have simply been called, “Welcome Drinks” and why couldn’t the Dean have told us just to have a good time, enjoy and mingle?

When’s the last time you were at a party and the host came up to you and said, have a good time and try to “network” as much as possible? Simply using the word mingling could have easily set a much more relaxed tone and created a more friendly, casual and non-threatening environment. This would have allowed much more natural conversations to develop and most importantly allowed us to potentially develop a better initial connection with each other, which is ultimately the end goal. Great networkers are people that are able to, in a short period of time, make you feel comfortable, engage you in interesting conversations, and create that connection with you.

As you begin to expand your network, try to think less about networking and more about mingling, especially when you’re in a large group situation. Next time, I want to focus on an important 1-on-1 activity that can help you add to your network, the coffee chat.

If you’re reading this article via a RSS reader or by subscribing to my feed or through email, I don’t think I need to tell you too much about how powerful and informative blogs can be. Blogs have quickly moved from a niche personal outlet to the mainstream. CEOs from large MNCs to celebrities and politicians are all jumping on the blog (and for that matter Twitter) band-wagon.

The education industry is no different. As students begin to move away from their home town to their new university environments and experiences, they have been quick to use the blog, and other social media channels, as a way to let their friends back home know what they are up to. Blogs have been a great way for prospective students to get a real feel and insider perspective of how life can be like at the schools they are interested in.

Admission departments are now beginning to embrace this new marketing channel as well. While MBA programs have been soliciting student volunteers to be part of their official blogs for sometime now, undergraduate programs are joining in on this growing trend. One concern some administrators have had is the lack of control and influence on the specific content student bloggers write about.

This New York Times article gives you some more insights about the issue, and talks about M.I.T.’s policy of allowing their student bloggers to write censor-free.

The corporate world has also been engaged in blogging as a marketing tool for new recruits. One thing to be aware though is that corporations generally have much stricter guidelines for “official” bloggers and I wouldn’t be surprised if virtually every corporate blog has some sort of approval (read: censorship) process to adhere to. This was definitely the case when I helped Deloitte Canada start their first recruiting blog aimed at undergraduates back in 2006. Keep that in mind.

This week’s (Sept 14) cover story of BusinessWeek magazine highlights their results of the 2009 edition of “the Best Places to Launch a Career”…and $10 says you won’t be able to guess who it is. I’ll give you a hint. I know this company better than ANY other one in the world.

First, a caveat. This article is heavily biased towards the U.S. job market, and while most of the companies on the list are MNCs (multi-national corporations), some of the specifics that are mentioned in the article apply only to certain U.S. office locations, and not necessary to what is happening in all countries of the same company. Secondly, the article’s perspective is from the eyes of an undergraduate student, not necessairly MBAs or other more seasoned professionals, although I believe many of the arguments made in the article could be applied to Master’s students as well.

Now, to add a little credibility to the article, here’s a quick excerpt of how they compiled the rankings (in their words):

To compile this ranking, BusinessWeek polled 60 college career services directors across the country; collected data from a survey of 60,000 U.S. undergrads by Universum USA, a Philadelphia research company; and required employers to submit statistics on everything from pay and benefits to training programs and retention.

60,000 may not seem like a lot, but I wouldn’t say that’s an extremely small sample size of say just a 1,000 people. So who’s at the top? Well, the top 4 companies are all from the same industry and are often collectively known as the “Big 4″. Yep, you know who I’m talking about now, right? Ernst & Young (E&Y), Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and KPMG. And the winner for
2009…where I spent almost all of my professional life at…Deloitte.

With decent pay, variety and generally a strong culture of growing and grooming fresh graduates into fairly seasoned business professionals, I can see why the Big 4 dominate the list. Some of the training programs offered are also a big attractive point to students, and the fairly large and collegial group of other young professionals at these firms definitely helps.

Now, I know many of you are probably shaking your head right now and are extremely skeptical, but remember the title of the article. It’s the best place to LAUNCH a career, not necessary the best place to work for the rest of your life. The days of a fresh grad joining the Big 4 as an analyst and staying their entire career until they reach Partner/Principal are virtually over. But whether you’re in the Accounting side or the Advisory / Consulting side, working in the Big 4 definitely opens your eyes up to a wide variety of industries; you learn like you’ve never learnt before, mainly because of the situations you’re put into (and perhaps the lack of expertise on your team), and you definitely develop your soft skills, as you’re mostly always in front of clients.

Of course, even at Deloitte, there are some not so good things, and many things that could be improved. Pay yes is okay…but some may say that’s over-stating things. Compared to the actual hours you have to work at times, the pay probably doesn’t look so hot, but from a macro perspective, as a new fresh graduate, 21 – 23yrs old, you’re not starving, that’s for sure. If you want to know more specifics about Deloitte or the Big 4, feel free to leave a comment below. There are also some good sources of insider information from sites such as the Vault. You can learn quite a bit from following the company-specific forums where insiders post, but take all comments with a grain of salt. The insiders contributing on the forums are generally those that are most disgruntled

The other point to highlight from the article is around the amount of responsibility young new graduates will be getting in their jobs today. With graduate hiring down significantly at most companies, and many places have trimmed down their workforce, those graduates lucky enough to have jobs will find that they will have to take on multiple responsibilities at one time and fill the shoes of those that are no longer with the company. So, the glass may be half empty to you, but to some, it’s definitely half full.

You should be able to find this specific issue of BusinessWeek magazine on store shelves now. (Always wanted to say that)

Here’s a link to the online story.

Ensuring that MBA candidates, who’s English is not their native language, can handle the rigours of the classroom and academics is a big concern for the Admissions Committees (AdComs), especially given the huge increase in applications from both India and China. In addition, AdComs are always trying to ensure that the applications, essays & test scores all come from the same person, the candidate. That’s why virtually every top business school today insists on a face-to-face interview, as part of the admissions process.

The new English test, known as the Pearson Test of English Academic (PTE Academic), seems to be another way to help filter and legitimize the candidate pool. Pearson is one of the worldwide leaders in technology and assessment for education. They have been working since 2006 with the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), who runs the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT), on developing this new test that will debut on October 26, 2009 for non-native English speakers.

Part of this computer-based test involves providing a 30-second voice sample / recording for schools to assess your English proficiency. While I’m not sure how much you can tell in 30 seconds, the new PTE Academic seems to be gaining momentum and according to the official press release, schools already signed-up to accept these new test scores include London Business School, University of British Columbia, Queen’s University Belfast, University of Edinburgh, HEC Paris and Yale University.

John Elliott, vice president and dean of Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College, City University of New York, says enabling admissions committees to listen to a recorded speech sample will help accurately identify whether an applicant truly is proficient in English. “This element is critical in making difficult admission decisions,” he says.

“We also like its innovative design and other capabilities — and we know that it will be administered with the same high standards of security that characterize the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) — ensuring us that the test taker and the applicant for admission are the same person.”

During the launch period, the test will be available in a minimum of 20 territories including China, Taiwan, Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, South Korea, India and Canada in a price of range of $150 to $210 USD. No word yet on what this means for established tests such as the TOEFL and IELTS.

Blogging has definitely become very mainstream today, not only in our social lives but in the corporate world as well. CEOs maintain blogs, companies may have a recruiting blog, even Business Schools have admissions-based blogs. Last week, I happened to find the blog of Steven Sinofsky, who used to be the SVP at Microsoft in charge of Microsoft Office, but several years ago was promoted to President of the entire Windows Division.

To try and stop some of the exodus of Microsoft employees to other up-and-coming technology firms (aka Google), Steven was asked to start a blog to reach out to potential Microsoft candidates and offer insights into what it’s like to work at Microsoft, the different roles, and generally the valuable contribution new graduates can make at the company on Day 1.

As I was scrolling through, a short post from 2005 caught my attention that offered some advice I want to share with you today.

From Steven Sinofsky’s blog (Dec 4, 2005):

A few weeks ago I was on a panel discussion at Cyberposium 2005. The panel’s moderator was Ken Morse, a lecturer and managing director of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center. Professor Morse has quite a lot of experience with startups in the technology industry (having been involved in launching companies like 3COM, Aspen, and others) and is also a founder of the MIT center.

Although Steven specifically mentions Product Development, I believe the 2 points above can be applied to many different areas outside of technology. Let me know what you think my leaving a comment below. I hope to share more of these nuggets along the way, and will also be posting some interesting video clips on our Facebook Page. Make sure you become a fan today.

As campus recruiting season kicks off, companies are quickly lining up to come onto campus to tell you that they are hiring, they are looking for the best & brightest, and why you should come work for them. Students’ lives for the next month turn into 20hr days where you get up early (if you can) to head to a full day of classes, followed by a quick change in the bathroom into your business attire, to attend the nightly company presentation. If you’re lucky, there’ll be free food and drinks, which becomes your dinner, before you change again, come home around 10pm, and finally start work on your assignments & projects.

Attending all these company presentations can be a tiring and time consuming process, but many students feel that if they don’t go, it will lessen their chances in getting hired. Is that really the case? Well, not necessarily. While making a good first impression can get you noticed and help you score some early points, the opposite can also happen. Being rude, too competitive, or asking the wrong type of questions can also get you noticed, but for the wrong reasons. In this article, I want to let you in on some of the secrets and the mindset from the company / recruiter’s perspective.

As an employer, the main reasons for conducting on-campus information sessions are the following: (1) You want to promote your brand and get some free publicity. (2) You want to build and continue to maintain a strong presence at the school, in order to attract the top students, and let them know you’re hiring. (3) You want to try and spot potential strong candidates, and at the same time, spot ones you know for sure won’t be a good fit.

Before an event would start, I would always brief my team about some of the key messages we want to send and be consistent on throughout the evening. For a management consulting firm, the team would typically consist of at least 1 HR representative, 1 senior Partner, and then a range of actual consultants (usually alumni) with varied levels of experience and background to give students a wide-range of people to talk with. Next, I would remind them to try and remember the names of the students they talk to that really stood out to them, in both a positive and negative sense. For the good ones, I might suggest they even give their card or contact info out, and ask the student to email if they have any more questions. At the end of the night, we then would trade stories about some of the more memorable conversations we had and I would take down a list of names we remembered. Over the next few days, the list may grow as forwarded emails from keen students get sent my way.

What then happens with the list? It gets passed onto the resume review team. At the end of the resume screening evening, where we categorize our resumes into the “yes, no & maybe” piles, we would then review our selections with the list. If you were on the negative side and made it into our “maybe’s”, this was easy for us; you move to the “no” pile. If you made it into the “yes” group, we would have a second and third look at your resume, compare you again with some of the yes’ and even perhaps the maybe’s. If we still felt that an interview was warranted, we’d add a little warning note to the file of our initial negative impression of you.

The exact opposite would happen if you had made it onto the positive side of the list. An original “yes” will get a note added to make them a stronger yes. A “maybe” will have a second or even third review to see if there’s a possibility to be pushed into the “yes” pile. And most importantly, if you’re in the “no” pile, we’ll take an extra few minutes to pull your resume out again and see if perhaps we overlooked something.

Making a good strong impression at the information session won’t guarantee you an interview, but it can help increase the likelihood we spend more than just 10-20 seconds reviewing your resume. However, making a memorable bad impression almost certainly ensures that even if you do make it to the interview stage, you’ll be starting at a slight disadvantage.

What’s one of the main things to take away from this story? Whether you know it or not, you’re being evaulated and “interviewed” even at during what would seem to be a marketing / PR-type presentation, so make sure you behave accordingly. The safest way to play it may be to simply attend, don’t say anything to anyone, and basically go un-noticed, which by the way is probably 90% of the people. However, I believe you’d not only be wasting a great opportunity, but your own time. You might as well stay home then. If you really want a job with Company X, go prepared and with the right mindset. In today’s competitive environment, you can definitely use all the points you can get.

In Part 2, I’ll share some tips of what you can do to make the best use of your time at the information session and perhaps even make it onto the positive side of “the list”.

As you enter your final year of school before graduation, whether it’s at the high school, university or post-graduate level, you will inevitably have to make the choice of what you want to pursue as a possible career. If you’re one of the lucky ones who have always known what they want to do, I’m jealous. However, if you are still not sure you’ve found your true passion or calling, well maybe you’ll find some comfort in the fact that you’re in the majority.

One of the challenges when trying to determine what career to pursue is understanding what one actually does in a certain profession. New careers and specialties are also always being invented, so with what can seem like endless possibilities, the thought of making a choice can be daunting.

While I’m not a big fan of “Top 10″ lists or rankings, one useful trait of these publications is that they give you a consolidated source of information to kick-start your research. The U.S. News & World Report has recently been publishing a list of Best Careers which it updates each year. They say they score hundreds of careers based on the following 5 criteria:

1. Job outlook, which took into consideration the above three factors
2. Average job satisfaction
3. Difficulty of the required training
4. Prestige
5. Pay

While I wouldn’t put too much weight on what they consider “hot or not”, the 1 page profile they include on each career mentioned is a great source of information. They also take some time to profile up-and-coming, as well as best-kept-secret careers such as: Creative Perfumer, Simulation Developer & Orthoptist

One other great resource I highly recommend, and is mentioned in the article, is the Occupational Outlook Handbook, which profiles more than 250+ occupations, including a description of the nature of the work, listing of training / education requirements, and a job outlook analysis with data projections.

In terms of Best Careers in 2009? A few that made this list include:

• Health Policy Specialist
• Management Consultant
• Pharmacist
• Registered Nurse
• Urban Regional Planner

Some notable omissions from the 2009 list: Investment Banker, Dentist and Editor.

Note: Some of the analysis is very U.S.-centric. Click here for the original article.

Any careers you think are missing or haven’t gotten a fair shot? Let us know what you think by leaving a comment below.

For those of you based in Singapore, and studying at Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial College or LSE, your Career Centres have put together what looks to be a can’t miss event.

Singapore Careers Fair
Monday, September 7, 2009
2:30pm – 4:30pm
Suntec City, Singapore

You must register in advance, and submit a resume that will be sent to all employers ahead of time. Unfortunately, it looks as though this event is restricted to those currently studying in the UK.

More details can be found here.

NOTE: The deadline to register is Friday, August 14th, 5:00pm

Companies attending include:

• Accenture, Bain & Company, Barclays Capital, Bloomberg,
• Cadbury Schweppes, Citi, Contact Singapore, Credit Suisse,
• DBS Bank Ltd, Health Promotion Board, Gallup Organization,
• HSBC, Infineon Technologies, Lee & Lee,
• L’Oreal, Ministry of Education,
• Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Monetary Authority of Singapore,
• Norton Rose, OCBC Bank, Oliver Wyman, Pratt & Whitney,
• Roll Royce, Schlumberger, Shell, Standard Chartered Bank, Unilever