Cv for Interviews

Posts Tagged ‘Moving’

Are you fed up with the relentless monotony of your job? Fed up with working extra hours with no reward? Long to find something better, but not sure how?

Thousands of people every year are making the big decision to work for themselves to escape the tyranny of the 9 to 5 job and the rule of their boss. Many of these people have never worked for themselves before and are often moving in to a new and different areas of work.

Does this sound like the sort of thing that you’ve dreamed of but wouldn’t dare do? There are some simple steps that you can take to make your dream a reality.

Do a skills audit – consider what you are good at, what you are interested in, what your strengths are, what hobbies you enjoy. If you don’t come up with a long list, then ask your friends and family to help you. Are you a great salesman, or creative? Are you thorough with detail, or are you more of a big ideas person? This will help shape and form your ideas of what you might be able to do.

Do a needs audit – consider your current standard of living and how much you’d be prepared to compromise to live a different lifestyle, with only yourself as boss and being able to choose the hours that you work. Be honest with yourself, but also challenge yourself to consider other options. If you are prepared to make some sacrifices during the transition from employed to self-employed, you’re more likely to make a success of it.

Consider your support network – that is, who around you will be encouraging you and spurring you on when things get tough? Do you have friends and family who would be behind you. The one common theme in the stories of successful entrepreneurs is NOT their determination, creativity or financial acumen, but the fact that they ALL had someone who actually believed that they could achieve their dream. If you have just one person like this, who will encourage you, tell you that they know you can do it when everything and everyone else is waiting for you to fail, then you have the seeds to success already.

Consider your local area – where you live will influence what you can do. If you live in a rural area, you might be able to set up a market garden business; whereas living in the city, you may be able to offer a bookkeeping service to small businesses. Don’t forget that wherever you live, the internet gives you worldwide access to a market of millions of people and provides great opportunities.

Research the options – write yourself a list of options and ideas. Don’t do anything yet! Read as much information about your possible business as you can – either online or by visiting your local library or bookshop. Sign up to free courses via the internet and read the free information that is available on websites. Talk to people, find out as much as you can about the opportunities afforded by your new business idea and what some of the challenges you might face will be.

Don’t quit – once you’ve made the decision, keep going. Take it one day at a time, one step at a time and remember that each step takes you closer to your goal. If you believe, you can achieve.

You can find out more on setting up your home internet business at, visit

When you were a child or a teenager, did you dream of what you would be when you grew up? Most of us had dreams when we were young, but how many of us actually fulfil them? Most of us set our dreams aside when reality kicks in and unfortunately for many, those dreams stay buried forever.

Although the dream may be buried, the feeling that things could be different, that there must be more to life, never really goes away. So, its not surprising to find you have reached a point in life where you are looking for something better, but not sure how to go reach it. Perhaps the original dream is still there, or perhaps it has been replaced by a new one.

Reality, however, looks very different. You feel stuck in a boring job, which might have been interesting once, but no longer holds much appeal. But you have bills to pay, responsibilities to meet and there seems to be very little you can do to change your situation.

Change can seem overwhelming in the face of mortgages, household bills, debt and the responsibilities of bringing up a family. This is particularly true if the change of career or job which we are striving for requires further study or training. However, it isnt necessary to do everything at once. It is possible to break down the necessary steps into manageable chunks and move gradually towards our goals.

If you are in a what feels like an impossible situation, its important to analyse your skills and ambitions and then find a way of moving towards your goals, one step at a time.

Research the jobs and careers which interest you and look at exactly what needs to be done to reach your dream. What is the first step, something which you could do today?

If you need to move to a different type of job, is there anything you can do to prepare yourself? Perhaps you need to read up on the industry or talk to people already working in it.

If you need to retrain, consider starting with a short introductory course. This will get you back into the habit of studying and will also help you decide if the subject is for you before you invest a lot of cash in a lengthy course. If you do have a considerable amount of study in front of you, look at ways of doing it part-time or by distance learning, which will enable you to stay in your present job.

Look at ways in which you can create more time so that you can focus on your studies or research your options. Cut out unnecessary activities and see if you can persuade other household members to help out more with daily tasks.

Moving towards a new career may involve short-term sacrifice, but if the alternative is spending the rest of your life in a job you dont enjoy, the decision to change will be easy.

Waller Jamison 2006

Ah, the technical interview. Nothing like it. Not only does it cause anxiety, but it causes anxiety for several different reasons.

How many people will be asking questions? From experience I can tell you theres nothing like walking into a room and seeing nine people on the other side of the table.

Second, what will you be asked? Youll sometimes hear people say the questions they were asked in a technical interview were easy, which translated means they asked me stuff I happened to know. Sometimes youll hear people say the questions were hard, which translated means they asked me stuff I didnt know, or they asked me about stuff Ive never even heard of.

Having been on both sides of the technical interview table, Id like to share some tips for those being interviewed. In doing so, Ill share some of the more memorable interviews Ive been involved in.

No good interviewer expects you to know everything. The problem is, youre not always going to be interviewed by someone whos good at it.

Sometimes, the person whos giving you a technical interview was asked to do it about ten minutes before you showed up. Maybe theyve never interviewed anyone before, or maybe theyre just in a bad mood. Ive heard of technical interviewers where the interviewer derided an answer, and thats totally unprofessional. Ive had many a job candidate give a bad answer to a question, and my only response was silence followed by moving on to the next question. If your interviewer mocks any of your answers, you didnt want to work there anyway.

None of us know everything. If youre asked a question you just dont know the answer to, dont try to BS your way past it. This is a good opportunity to tell the interviewer how you would research that particular question. Its not about knowing everything, its about being able to find out anything.

If your interviewer acts like heshe already dislikes you, thats because they do. I once worked with a technician who felt threatened by anyone who applied for a job there, but especially if the applicant had a professional certification and then had the nerve to know what they were doing.

This technician participated in a group technical interview where the applicant was an incredibly bright guy, and had a particular skill that the department really needed. Problem was, the technician considered himself the man when it came to that skill. Recipe for disaster, right?

The applicant fielded four questions from the rest of us flawlessly, then faced this particular tech for a question. The threatened tech had a list of questions for the interview, but decided to ad lib. Big mistake. He asked a convoluted question that Rube Goldberg would have been proud of. When he was done, the applicant answered:

You cant do what you just described.

The tech started defending his question, and it became obvious that he hadnt been able to follow his own question! The interview went into a bit of a meltdown from there.

Realize right now that there are some unprofessional people out there giving technical interviews. Be prepared for it, but remain professional yourself.

Be prepared for a practical technical interview. The best technical interviewers find a way to get you in front of the technology youll be working with. A great way to quickly find out whether you know what youre talking about is to ask you to actually perform common and perhaps some not-so-common tasks. We can talk about technology and take all the computer-based exams we want, but it all comes down to performance. Be prepared to prove you belong on your interview day.

Be professional. This covers a lot of ground, so let me make a quick list for you.

Show up 15 minutes early. Nothing makes a technical interviewer more surly than waiting for the applicant.

Dress for success. The way you look when you walk into a room leads to your interviewers first impression of you.

Dont chew gum during the interview.

Dont be arrogant. Look, theres nothing wrong with having an ego and acting confident. I do, and you should. But dont come into the interview room acting like youre too good to be there.

Finally, relax. Easy to say, hard to do? Not really. Realize that the majority of interviewers youll ever meet are going to be professional about the entire thing. The worlds not going to end if you miss a question. If you were not qualified on paper for the job, you wouldnt be in there.

Do not look upon the interview as something negative. Rather, look at it as an opportunity to prove you know what youre talking about. With the proper mental attitude, your technical interview will be a springboard to the next step in your career!

Chris Bryant

CCIE #12933

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