Cv for Interviews

Archive for December, 2008

If you wanted to be a flight attendant in the old days, it was a pretty straightforward process. You simply went to the airline’s ticket counter, asked for an application and took it home. After you filled it out, you sent it in to the home office and waited for them to call you for an interview.

Times have changed, and so has the recruitment process for jobs as a flight attendant. These days, the quickest and easiest way to apply for a job as a flight attendant is on the Internet. Your first stop in your job hunt for that perfect flight attendant job is a search engine or directory to find the web sites of as many airlines as possible. Don’t forget to include the charter services and fractional owner airlines that are among the highest paying of all jobs as a flight attendant. With that list in hand, fire up your web browser again and start hitting the airline company web sites.

Be sure that you have your entire resume details gathered together. Many of the airline web sites now do their preliminary screening of applicants for flight attendant jobs over the Internet. You may be able to simply upload your current resume along with a cover letter, or you may have to enter your details into a web form. Many job experts recommend that if you’re given a choice, opt to use the provided form rather than uploading your resume. Often, the form feeds names and details directly into a database that the company will use when sending out invitations to applicants to attend group interviews and informational sessions scheduled around the country.

Telephone Interviews for Flight Attendant Jobs

Some airlines have recorded telephone interviews to screen out people applying for jobs as a flight attendant. You may find the telephone number in a recruitment ad in your newspaper, or get it through the reservations line for the airline you want to apply to. When you call, you’ll hear a short description of the jobs that are available, and then you’ll be asked to submit your name, address and contact information over the telephone and to answer several questions about situations that you might run up against in the job. Those recorded interviews will be reviewed by hiring managers, and those that do well on the questions will be invited for face-to-face interviews for jobs as a flight attendant.

Airline Open House Interviews (and on Campus Recruitment)

The most common way to begin the process when you’re considering a job as a flight attendant is through an open houseinterview held by an airline. Airlines often hold these when they’re planning to start a new training class, or to open a home base in a new city. Usually, they’re advertised in the job sections of the local newspaper a few days before the open house. On the day of the event, the recruiters will give a short presentation about what it’s like to work as a flight attendant for their airline. When the presentation is finished, interested applicants will be invited to step up on stage and introduce themselves with a short explanation of their job history and qualifications. Those who seem best suited for the job will be discreetly asked to remain for one on one or small group interviews.

Because the airlines hire far fewer people in jobs as flight attendants than the number who apply, they can afford to be choosy and hire only those that really catch the eye of the recruiter. That means, though, that you need to be persistent. Don’t stop with one airline or one try. Apply to several different companies, and follow up on your resumes. There are far more jobs as flight attendants than you’d expect – you just have to keep looking for them.

There are many things that you can do that can take some of the pressure off during an interview. The way that you behave is one of the most important. Its not all in the words that come out of your mouth, but often has a lot to do with the mannerisms that you use.

Interviewers are not just wondering if you are skilled enough for the job, they are often wondering if you would fit in nicely with you co-workers. Your personality is a big part of your interview and can make all the difference. Here are some of the little things that you should pay particularly close attention to during an interview.

You do not want to be chewing gum or breath mints during your interview. You also dont want to speak in slang during your interview either. It is unprofessional and rude.

Show Confidence

You cannot enter into an interview with a defeatist attitude. You cannot mope or exude too much placidity in your manner. It is not inviting, and does not give the impression of a person that you want to face every day.
Be sure of your abilities without appearing cocky or narcissistic. You want to let you interviewer know that you are equipped to perform well at your job, without alienating other workers. You should point out your accomplishments in your field while remaining somewhat humble.

List your accomplishments in a matter of fact way without going into too much detail. I know this sounds repetitive, but you can never get this point too strongly. Understand that body language plays a large part in exuding confidence to others. Sit straight. Practice good posture, and keep your head up.

Keep a Positive Attitude

You should always try to smile and keep a positive outlook during your interview. If what you are hearing something that doesnt sound good to you, dont frown and look disgruntled, just keep a slight smile on your face until it is time for you to say something. Then approach your interviewer with your questions or concerns when the time is appropriate.

Maintain Eye Contact

Keeping eye contact with your interviewer is very important, especially when one of you is speaking to the other. If you are looking around the room or at the items on the interviewers desk, you will appear uninterested. Just imagine what you would be thinking if you were speaking to him and he was looking all over the room. You would probably think that you already lost the interview.

Body Language

Weve touched on this a little bit but you should mind some of the common errors that many people make when they are speaking to others. Ive listed some of the common things that you should avoid when sitting through an interview.

Avoid fidgeting while speaking to your interviewer. It shows a lack of self confidence.

Avoid speaking while using overly expressive hand gestures. It is distracting.

Avoid biting your lips in between sentences. It gives the impression that you are making things up.

Do not sit with your arms crossed because it makes you appear stand-offish.

Do not shrug your shoulders when asked a question that you are unsure of. Take a second to think of your response. Shrugging your shoulders gives the impression that you dont know the answer.

Dont answer with nods and head shakes. Use your words to answer questions.

Get plenty of sleep the night before the interview. You dont want to yawn in front of the interviewer. He will think that you are expressing boredom.

Job searching can be tough enough all by itself. There is no need to make it even harder by doing or saying the wrong thing when job searching or interviewing. Here’s a list of what you shouldn’t do. These tips might sound simple, but, you might be surprised at how many people make a mistake without thinking much about it. Then they wonder why they didn’t get a call or didn’t get the job.

Make a Mistake. Should a typo in your resume or cover letter drop you out of contention? It shouldn’t, but, it might. Employers typically get hundreds of resumes for each position they list. Perfection counts.

Limit Your Job Search. Don’t limit your search by only applying to positions that meet your exact criteria. Instead, having an open mind (remember, you won’t know exactly what the job entails until you interview) when reviewing the job ads will increase your applications and increase your chances for getting an interview.

Expand Your Job Search. Sounds contradictory, doesn’t it? You shouldn’t limit your job search, but, there is no point wasting your time or anyone elses applying for jobs you aren’t qualified for. The gentleman working as a child care provider didn’t, and won’t, get called for an interview as a C++ programmer.

Job Search Only Online. Don’t post your resume on Monster and HotJobs and hope that your email In Box will start to fill up or your phone will start ringing off the hook. It won’t happen. You need to be proactive when job searching and use all available job search resources – online and offline.

Contradict Yourself. If you are interviewing with several people make sure you keep your story straight. Telling one interviewer one thing and another something else is a good way not to get the job.

Insult your Former Employer. Even if your last job was horrible and your boss was an idiot, don’t mention it. Speaking poorly about former employers is never wise. How does your future employer know that you won’t talk about him that way, next time around?

Underdo It. Don’t be a slob. Candidates who are unkempt, disheveled and poorly dressed won’t get the job.

Over Do It. I once worked for someone who wouldn’t hire anyone he could smell before they walked into his office. He might have been overdoing it a little, but, the candidates would have done better if they had minimized the perfume or the after shave.

Show Your Desperation. Are you almost out of unemployment? Don’t know where you next meal is coming from? Do you absolutely have to have this job? Don’t give an inkling of any of that away. You want employers to believe that you want this job because it’s a good opportunity and you can be an asset to the company, not because you need to buy groceries or make your car payment.

Show Your Tattoos. If you are applying for a position in the corporate world, and other worlds too, you might want to cover up your tattoos and remove some of your rings if you’re pierced in lots of places. They probably won’t impress most employers.

Give Up. Regardless of how good the job market is, job searching isn’t simple, and it’s not always easy to stay positive and focused. When you’ve sent hundreds of resumes without much of a response it can be difficult to keep going. It’s important though to keep plugging away, to use all the job search tools available, and to keep a positive outlook.

What are you passionate about? We didnt ask if you are passionate. But what are you passionate about? What stirs your emotions? What is it you cant stop talking about whenever someone asks: What are you passionate about? Whats the fire in your belly? What really turns you on? What do you love doing most?

What is it that you love doing so much that you forget time? You forget others. You are so focussed that you dont hear anything. What is it that gets your creative juices going? What is it that you love more than anything else?

Graham is passionate about books. He loves them. He just loves books. They are all placed in their respective homes on the shelves. Each has a neighbour. He fondles them. Cares for them. Places book marks in them, never folds the corner of their page.

A bookshop is like a magnet to him. He will spend hours with his head tilted to one side as he scours the shelves for works that interest him. He loves books that have a different angle on coaching and developing people. He loves reading unusual biographies. He loves books where people have beaten the odds to survive. It doesnt matter whether they are fiction or non fiction. They have to be about improving self.

At least thats what it appears to the outsider. But, you see, books arent really his passion. It just looks like it. He loves books yes of course he does. But really the books are a vehicle. A method of giving him what he truly craves for..

And that is learning. Graham has a passion for learning about the human spirit. How to get the most out of it. How to tap into it. How to push it to new heights. How to get to its potential. How to climb out of the feelings of mediocrity. How to, excel at what ever he does.

His Passion is for the human spirit.

Often, that which appears as a passion, at first, is just the vehicle for the real deep down passion that lights you up.

Florence Nightingale is known for her nursing in the Crimean War. And most people know that Nursing was her passion. But it wasnt.

Believe it or not Florence Nightingales passion wasstatistics. Yes good old fashioned Statistics. She was so good at it, in1858 she was the first female elected member of the Statistical Society of the UK and an honorary member of the American Statistical Association.

When you think about it you can see the connection. Because she was passionate about Statistics she was able to see and prove that disease was killing more troops than battle and then do something about it.

What about you? What is the deep down passion that lights your life up. What is it that you love doing and being beyond all else.

Michael Jordans passion is basketball. But most are unaware that his passion was such that he had written into his contract that he could play pickup games whenever he wanted. (For us non Americans this is playing with whoever is available on public sites) He just wanted to play basketball whenever he felt like it. There is no doubt that it was his passion that made him so brilliant, so extraordinary.

Go on.. you can tell yourself. There is no need to tell others. Just have a go and tell yourself.

What is that love that stirs you up – that love that others may not be interested in but is so important to you. What is it that makes you forget time? What is it that you love doing?

We all have it. We all have at least one thing that we are passionate about.

Whats yours?

The bottom line is; passion is motivating. Passion is more motivating that money.
Passion energises and transforms you. When you are passionate about something then you enter that flow state where time stands still. You are so focussed. You are really in tune with yourself.

Go on try it.

Good Luck

Graham and Julie
www.desktop-meditation.com