Nowadays, jobs falling under the health care category are one of the most in demand jobs. This is because more and more countries fall short with regards to their employees and staff in the health care industry.

In fact, aside from computers and information technology, heath care jobs are the ones that are greatly sought after by both the employers and applicants.

Aside from the increasing demand, health care jobs are also one of the best paying jobs all over the world. For example, in the United States alone, physical therapist assistants get to earn $27,500 to $ 41,780 in a year. It is also expected to grow by 46% in the years to come.

For people who are dreaming to go abroad and land a job in the health care category, here are some tips that that can help:

1. Know your craft

The problem with most people who are looking for health care jobs is that they do not know the fundamental skill needed in this kind of job: care for others.

There are many instances wherein health care jobs do not necessarily require people who have a higher education diploma in health care. So, people who have a “caring” attitude, can have a lucrative job in the health care industry.

2. Health Information technicians and Medical Records rank six on United States’ 10 hottest jobs of 2005.

These positions can work well for people who are looking for health care jobs. These positions pay $19,700 to $27,400 annually.

3. Success is in the keywords, For people who are searching for specific health care jobs on the Internet, it is best to narrow down their searches with some more detailed keywords. In this way, heath care job searches will reap better results.

4. Aim for the best positions in the health care industry

For people who wish to land a good job in the health care industry, it would be better to do some homework first. In this way, they can get an overview on which position has the most demands for employees and which job entails higher salaries.

In the United States’ 10 hottest job of 2005, medical assistants are the top positions in demand in the health care industry today. In fact, surveys show that the demand for medical assistants will continue to grow and will increase by 59% in 2012.

Indeed, the health care industry continues to saturate the market with a continuous growth for the demands of its services. No wonder why most people are into health care jobs!

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There’s going to come a time when your boss saunters over your desk/cubicle/hot dog cart to give you some feedback on your performance. It happens all the time and it’s a big part of middle management’s job specifications. However, there are times when this mostly well intentioned critique is going to come off a bit harsh. What does the boss know about your day to day work? She’s busy in her office all day. How does she know what it’s like in the trenches? As much as this may be a natural reaction to your indignation, bite your tongue at all costs.

Feedback given to you at work is essential to holding onto your job. How? Bosses are ultimately the ones who determine if you keep your job. There may come times when you’re simply “too important” for a company to lose, but these are few and far between. Most people work in a team based job environment where everyone needs to set aside egos and come together for the greater good. Standing out from the crowd and being that all important X-factor can happen from time to time, but, more often than not, you’ll likely find yourself having to play along with the team.

Therefore, taking feedback graciously is key to ingratiating yourself with your employer and looking like a team player in the eyes of your co-workers. Who wants to work side by side with an arrogant blowhard? You don’t want to be that guy who overreacts to a harmless little piece of criticism that, out of context, seems a lot worse than it really is.

So, what’s the best way to take criticism without getting hot under the collar? Simply try and understand what your boss is saying. A lot of the language may be cloaked in politically correct dialogue. The point he or she is trying to make might get lost. However, with feedback, there is always a point. Perhaps you need to turn something in a little bit quicker next time. Maybe you should refrain from taking the responsibilities of another worker. How about you stop eating other people’s lunches? Feedback always has a
purpose.

Nevertheless, the real upside to taking feedback well is that you earn some serious kudos with the boss if you not only listen to his or
her feedback but you actually do something to enact it. Call it a double play if you will but that combo of good communication skills with a healthy dose of deference for authority will go a long way towards making you seem like the desirable commodity that really is too valuable to let go whenever the economy is in the toilet.

Any instances where tempers flared when you were given feedback? Sound off in the comment section and share the fisticuffs.

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So much has been written about how to find your dream job, or really any job. There are countless articles upon articles dedicated to providing you, the reader, with insight on how to score a spot and a paycheck. However, what happens when you get hired or the invitation to come onboard is extended to you? It can be intimidating to think of and it is often overlooked by new hirers or those with little experience in getting a job.

Nevertheless, this all begs the question of why you should write a job acceptance letter. Most job offers are extended verbally and it some cases it is perfectly acceptable to just say ‘ok’ over the phone and call it a day. But, if you just got hired at a large company or a professional setting, you’ll want to do a little more beyond nodding your head and saying think you.

A job acceptance letter lets you put down in ink the terms of your hiring. This lets you clear up any misunderstandings about the position and it can be a concrete letter of intent you can hold onto should there be any problems with your hiring terms. It’s just an extra measure of security for you to take in order to ensure you don’t get screwed on your first day. Furthermore, it shows that you’re professional. So, without ado, here are six
tips to writing a job acceptance letter.

1. Include your start date

After you have made it clear that you wish to take up this position, write to your new employer when you are starting. This will make it very explicit when the first day you’re due behind your cubicle is. Agreed upon salary- During the hiring process it is very likely that a salary was agreed upon. Go ahead and write down that number just to make sure your new boss isn’t going to try and pull a fast one on you. It’s rare and doesn’t happen a lot but you can never be too careful when money is involved.

2. Hourly rate

In addition to your start date, don’t forget to include how many hours per week you have agreed upon working. Sometimes this category can be implicitly expressed by a new employer so it’s a smart move to make it clear
that you are full time, not part time.

3. Leave and breaks

Don’t forget to lay down the terms of vacations and breaks when you write your acceptance letter. This will make it clear at what rate vacation accrues and other tidbits that relate to personal days.

An acceptance letter doesn’t need to have many frills. It simply needs to be a black and white document that puts down very specifically on what terms you were hired for.

Simple as that, right? Any acceptance letter stories or concerns? Leave a comment.

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When you’re looking for helpful job interview tips to help you land the job you desire, you’re probably not thinking about exercising.  What the heck does exercise have to do with job interview tips?

Believe it or not, getting exercise before an important interview is actually one of the best job interview tips you’ll ever receive.

Not only does exercise help relieve tension, nervousness and help reduce stress but it also has scientifically proven benefits that can help you do well on any interview.

Don’t go too far and show up to an interview dripping sweat and reeking of B.O., of course, but exercise is a great way to get rid of those pre-interview jitters.  In fact, many experts swear by exercise before an interview as one of the most fool proof interview tips of all time.

Why should you consider using exercise as one of your secret interview tips?

A Princeton (yes, those smarty pants intellectuals are always onto new and innovative methods of getting things done!) University study used rats to study the link between exercise and responses to stress.  Since most men are a lot like rats in so many respects, it’s pretty clear that their findings can apply to humans as well.

What the study revealed is that the rats that exercised showed decreased stressors in their brain activity over those that did not.  No wonder people that are in shape are so much happier than those that aren’t!  And not only are they happier, but they’ll also probably master these sneaky interview tips to exercise before an important interview and score better jobs.  Don’t let those skinny bitches steal the job you want.  You, too, can use these exercise interview tips to be just as happy and worry free on the day of an important interview.

The research conducted isn’t just limited to this Princeton study.  There are countless other studies that have shown that exercise increases mood, stamina, lowers stress levels and leads to overall well-being, including mental well-being.  Some studies have shown that exercise increases serotonin, while others have shown that exercise positively affects the dopamine in the brain.  Both of these are like “happy drugs” that occur naturally in our brains and who knew that by exercising to increase these chemicals you’ll be armed with one of the most effective interview tips ever.  Who needs drugs when you can pump your brain full of buzz- inducing chemicals while you work on making your body look better at the same time?

Keep in mind that exercise interview tips like running, aerobic exercise, boxing, swimming, or any other form of activity that gets your heart racing aren’t one hit wonders.  You can’t just work out on those days that you have interviews and expect a miracle to happen.  You need to do regular workouts in general so you don’t shock your system and show up to an interview looking like you just got run over by a bus, but make sure you follow these interview tips and work out the same day of an interview as well.

So pick your poison- whether dancing, blading, boarding or even just walking is your thing, make sure you start doing it regularly and then put these exercise interview tips into action.  I bet you’ll notice a difference the very first time you go on an interview after a workout.

And hey, if busting your ass in the gym or on the track isn’t really your thing, you could also just take up some really wild, crazy sex routine that lets you work that body.  Who wouldn’t love to go crazy right before an interview?  Your interviewer will wonder where your infectious smile is coming from, but it’ll be your little secret!

Exercising before an interview is one of the handiest proven interview tips you’ll ever receive, so put it in to action!

Tags: interview tips

Tags: interview tips
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If you want to stop feeling powerless during your interviews, and start having more control over the outcomes of your job search, one of the most important things you can do is start learning powerful, tested, GUARANTEED methods to influencing your prospective employers.

And I’m going to give you a simple, 3-step formula for learning how to do this. If you do these three things, you WILL get more job offers, period.

Use these steps to get more interviews and land the kind of job offers you want.

1) Start with the inner game FIRST

In this new economy, experience and technical skills alone will not get you hired. Success with getting hired starts with what’s inside of YOU… and the single most important thing you will ever do is to learn how to build a “rock-solid” foundation of confidence and power inside of you.

When you develop this unshakable feeling of self-confidence you’ll notice some very interesting things happen in your job search…

Hiring managers that you meet will all of a sudden become VERY interested in getting to know you… even to the point of pursuing you… just to find out what you’re all about.

Unfortunately, this isn’t something you can just “decide” to have.

It takes a lot of hard work…

Fortunately through my own struggles I’ve developed some almost “magical” techniques for overcoming fear and boosting your self-confidence FAST, but I won’t have time to go over all of them with you right now. Just trust me, when you get your inner game handled, you’ll be AMAZED at how everything else just seems to fall into place.

And best of all, you’ll never have to worry about not having income or being unemployed ever again.

2) Learn lots of tested techniques that WORK

Ever get frustrated with not knowing who to address your cover letter to because almost every job posting you come across wont include a contact name?

Or have you ever been confused with not knowing which way is the best way to format your resume… but you didn’t have any CREDIBLE professionals to ask for advice?

These situations happen all the time… and all too often college grads end up missing out on opportunities because they don’t know “what to do”.

I’ve found that the key to avoiding missed opportunities is to have at least one “default” thing to do in every situation… whether it is finding the contact info for who you should be addressing your cover letter to, how to format your resume, or knowing what to say on your first phone interview… and everything else up to “negotiating salaries” and beyond…

Do you see where I’m going here?

When you have an arsenal of powerful, tested techniques that work, you can take advantage of any opportunity that presents itself… and never worry about things not ending up “your way”.

And after you spend a day or two learning them, you’ll spend the rest of your life using them to get any job that you want.

3) Build and participate in a “MasterMind”

Possibly the most important action you can take right now to create success in your job search is to build and participate in a “MasterMind”.

What is a MasterMind, you ask?

A MasterMind is a group of people who have common interests and goals, who get together on a regular basis to support each other in growth and development toward actualizing those interests and goals. Traditionally, masterminds were used by high-level business owners and wealthy people to get support and feedback in their ventures. It was and still is used by people who understand that the power of the “group mind” is exponentially more powerful than the sum of the individual minds from which the group is composed.

For the sake of your job search, lets just say your MasterMind should be a dedicated group of people who are actively searching for jobs in the same industry if possible.

If you want to learn more about this, I’d recommend Napolean Hill’s book “Think And Grow Rich”.

Hill said that no individual can achieve great power with out a MasterMind. My experience (and the experience of every powerful person I’ve ever researched) confirms this idea.

Now do me a favor and tell me what you’ve learned in the comment area below. Enjoy!

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I am going to give you one of the BEST Resume strategies that I have ever learned… and I actually picked it up from a book written by a psychologist by the name of Robert Cialdini called Influence which is a NY Times, USA Today, & Wall Street Journal Best Seller.

And what I am going to deliver to you is what I believe to be the STRONGEST resume strategy that I’ve ever used…

Now before I do, I’d like to talk about how I came across this little secret of mine…

The resume actually has multiple purposes but for this training video, we’ll talk about its primary purpose aside from making YOU stand out… and that is to convert JOB POSTINGS into INTERVIEWS.

I used to have friends and teachers who would tell me getting hired is just a numbers game… just keep on going on interviews and eventually someone will hire you…

So for about a month, I went home, sat down in front of my computer and applied to probably 50-60 jobs and I would maybe get 1 or 2 call backs at best. Which really frustrated the hell out of me! I always said to myself, “There’s gotta be a better way to do this! How can I go on more interviews if no one ever calls me back??”

So I made it my goal to get really good at using my resume as a vehicle to convert job postings into interviews by using a whole new approach that I learned from Robert Cialdini’s book Influence…

In his book, he talks about a concept called Social proof.

If you’ve never heard of this concept before, Social Proof is basically the idea that whenever we’re in situations where we don’t know what to do, our brains will default to relying on the behaviors of others to determine what course of action to take…

In our everyday life, we see this in the form of word of mouth and friend referrals.

I mean think about it… When you want to buy a book on Amazon or rent a DVD on Netflix what is one of the biggest factors that would influence your decision on which book or dvd you want to take home?

It’s the feedback or testimonials that were written based on the experience of real people.

If you see a book or dvd that has zero ratings on it, you’re less likely to take the leap and get it when compared to a book or dvd that has 5 stars or even 1 star on it.

Now then, how can we use social proof on our resumes and get more job interviews faster?

Include testimonials on your resume!

You see we can use the same strategy on our own resumes. After all if it works for multi-multi-million dollar companies like Amazon and Netflix, then it can work for us as well.

Most employers, when they look at your resume they see only what YOU say about yourself, so its hard for them to trust you since most of the time people embellish what they have on their resumes anyway.

This isn’t new for most Employers… (and is also the reason why all the GOOD companies make you go through the really intense interviews to see if your for real or not)

And another thing: There’s allot of psychology that goes on behind the scenes as well. Thanks to businesses like Amazon and Netflix who’ve already trained their customers to respond positively to testimonials, people AUTOMATICALLY feel more trust when they see it. Sure there might be some skeptics out there who say testimonials are fake or they never trust testimonials or whatever, but if you’re really in the market to make a big purchase… choosing a product that has already been proven to work by others could only to be your advantage when compared to the alternative of taking a gamble on something that no one has ever heard about.

Are you starting to see how powerful it can be to have social proof in the form of testimonials on your resume?

OK, good…

So piggyback off of people’s pre-programmed behavior and use this technique to your advantage. Click here to learn more resume secrets like this one!

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So how do employers go about selecting who they want to interview?

I want to introduce you to a concept I’ve learned from a BRILLIANT entrepreneur by the name of Eben Pagan. And that is the idea that most people can be categorized as Givers and Takers.

In life, the "Givers" tend to give more than they "Take" and the "Takers" tend to take more than they "Give"… now this is obviously a gross generalization but there is some truth to this concept.

One of the biggest challenges employers face when they get hundreds of resumes and applications is that it’s hard to decipher the "givers" from the "takers". Let me give you some examples.

Givers

• Give as much value as possible no matter where they go.

• They put in extra hours to get the job done or meet a deadline

• They don’t have "expectations" or feel entitled in anyway

• They’re aware of the needs of employers and their supervisors and they do everything in their power to find a way to have those needs met

• They motivate team members and are optimistic and they help others create as much value as possible as well

• Basically they are value producers instead of value consumers.

Takers

• Take as much value as possible wherever they go

• They clock in at exactly 8 and clock out at exactly 5…they’re just "there" to collect a paycheck

• They feel entitled to get paid allot of money with all the benefits while putting in as little effort as possible

• They don’t care about the needs of employers and their supervisors and they don’t take responsibility for driving the project to completion

• In team environments, they act as an emotional drain by being cynical or pessimistic. They find more joy in gossiping and playing office politics than they do in looking out for what’s best for the team.

• Essentially they are always consuming value and looking out for #1 instead of contributing value and making life easier for others.

So what’s the lesson here? Be a Giver not a Taker when you sell yourself in your next job interview.

Now do me a favor and leave a comment below to let me know your thoughts…

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I’ve been getting allot of e-mails from frustrated college students who don’t know what went wrong during their job interviews and would like to know why. So, I thought I’d share with you one of my best techniques for doing this.

But first, I’d like to talk a little about WHY figuring out what went wrong or well during your job interview should be considered a high priority…

And it can really be summed up into one sentence: Getting feedback from your interviews is very important because it allows you to actually learn from your mistakes. PERIOD.

Think about it…

What if you went to school every quarter (or semester) and you didn’t have to do any of the homework assignments…

Wouldn’t that be awesome?

But here’s the catch- In order to pass the class, you’re required to pass an incredibly difficult final at the end of the quarter… What do you think would happen if this were reality?

Now, unless your one of those brainiac geniuses who are capable of acing tests without studying for them… I’m pretty sure you’d do pretty poorly on it. Either that or you’d have to get pretty good at not procrastinating, right?

It’s not a very hard concept to understand-If you don’t get any feedback from your professors on whether or not you’ve learned the material correctly throughout the quarter… you will fail the final. Game over.

The same thing is true with our job search and job interviews. If you are able to figure out what you’re doing wrong in your interviews, you will become more confident as a result of the success you’ll be able to achieve from the feedback you gather.

You’ll feel empowered because your answers will be so impactful that employers will begin to sell their companies to you since they won’t want to lose you to another competitor… not to mention it could very well tip the scale in your favor when it comes time to making the final decision for who the employer would like to hire.

On the other hand…

If you are NOT able to learn from your initial mistakes and you continue to make them over and over again, you will continue to have no impact on employers.

Just like passing your class at the end of the quarter would be left purely up to chance, achieving success in getting a job would be left to chance as well and soon you’ll find yourself living back home with your parents wondering why no companies want to hire you…

…and you’ll slowly creep into a feeling of hopelessness and into a "feel sorry for yourself" kind of depression, while all your other friends are out pursuing their dreams…

So if you want to avoid this kind of future, listen up because I’m about to share with you a VERY powerful technique for figuring out what went wrong during your interview…

I call it "Self-Injected Feedback"

It involves taking responsibility for capturing the interview and taking the initiative yourself in getting someone who’s CREDIBLE to give you feedback.

And here are the action steps for you:

1. Pick up or borrow some sort of voice recorder or Tunetalk & iPod (many cell phones have a recorder function that could work as well…)

2. Bring it with you to your next job interview and secretly hide it inside one of your suit jacket pockets before you enter into the office building where the interview is going to take place.

3. Right before you’re about to be called in for your interview, secretly go to the bathroom or covertly turn on your voice recorder to START recording…

4. During your interview, act normal and try to focus on the needs of the employer instead of focusing on the microphone that’s in your pocket. (Be careful not to obstruct the microphone piece or to move around too much while you’re answering questions because you will get allot of static noise when you play it back).

5. After the interview, STOP the recording and save the audio file in a safe place. (Tip: Other than checking to make sure it recorded, do not listen to your recording right away. Go home and take a load off)

6. The next day, listen to your interview and make some notes on your performance.

7. Take your recording to a CREDIBLE professional who you trust (preferably someone who is pretty high up in the corporate ladder or even better is a CREDIBLE interview expert/guru) and get feedback from them on how you could’ve done better and TAKE NOTES! (Tip: Make sure you create a list of things TO DO and things TO AVOID)

8. Lastly-Before your next job interview, review your notes carefully and focus on incorporating what you’ve learned proactively putting into ACTION the recommendations that were given to you. (Note: The amount of success you get from using this technique will be directly proportional to the QUALITY of feedback you get from the professional you asked)

In the long run, you will end up with more awareness regarding the mistakes that you’re currently making, and it will significantly increase your chances of being able to consistently get a job offer with every interview that you go on.

This is just the beginning.

If you want more techniques like this, subscribe to my "Interview Tips" newsletter by visiting http://www.interviewmastermind.com/ or download a FREE trial of my new compelling eBook called The Unspoken Rules of Getting Hired: Recession-Proof Secrets That Employers DO NOT Want You To Know…

Go wild in the comments – I appreciate it!

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I used to have no idea if I was doing well in a job interview as a college student.

I could be sitting there while the hiring manager was wrapping up the interview and I’d be thinking to myself "Hmm-I wonder if I did well during this interview or not…" but I didn’t know what signs to look for. This would often leave me worried and anxious for DAYS, and many times WEEKS, as I didn’t want to over step my boundaries and flat out ask them what they thought of me.

Here’s what I recommend for my clients to do now:

When the hiring manager asks if I have any questions at the end of the interview, I’ll go through my normal routine of questions while saving the best for last…

"So what steps should we take to continue this conversation?"

(Tip: Don’t worry so much about WHAT the interviewer says as much as HOW they say it…)

So, after I ask them this question I’ll make sure to laser in on their eyes and lips for any signs of interest or disinterest. If a person’s eyes dart from side to side, it might appear as though they’re looking to see what else is going on in the room. (PAY ATTENTION HERE…because this is where you can use a "Cool Psychology Trick" to tell if the hiring manager likes you…)

…But if you do some research behind what’s really driving this kind of behavior, you’ll discover the reality is that the human brain is actually searching for an escape route.

Think about it…

When you’re with someone who can literally bore you to tears, your natural urge is to look away for an escape route. But because most of us have learned by now that looking away while another person is talking is rude, what we end up doing instead is looking even more at the boring individual and we unconsciously use a tight-lipped smile (as opposed to a sincere smile) to pretend that we’re interested.

So, the first place to check to see if the hiring manager is interested in you is the area around the eyes. Natural, sincere smiles are generated automatically by a person’s unconscious brain and as a result, they produce wrinkle lines beside the eyes that reveal the true feelings of a person, whereas, insincere people smile only with their mouths.

By using "The Wrinkle Test," I now have a SUBTLE way of knowing if the hiring manager is interested in me that NEVER puts me at risk of over-stepping my boundaries-and I know within 5 seconds what it used to take me days or weeks to figure out… (That is, only if the employer decides to contact me… which as we all know, rarely ever happens)

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I’m sure you’ve heard the same tired-old "cover letter tips" as I have…

"Send a customized cover letter, Target your cover letter, Write simply and clearly,

Personalize your letter, etc."

And if you’re like me, you’ve already tried all of these "tips" and they really didn’t help you all that much in landing that interview you really wanted. Well what I’m about to share with you is probably one of the MOST important lessons I’ve learned when writing a cover letter to prospective employers.

This lesson has taken me several YEARS to figure out, and I want you to have it because I know what it’s like to put yourself in the line of fire-feeling incredibly depressed, completely demoralized, and de-motivated because no employers will call you back for an interview.

So, do me a favor…

I want you to imagine for a moment that you’re looking to buy a flat screen TV. You see a good-looking 52″ TV ad in the store window and you walk in to check it out. The most important questions in your mind are:

• Will the picture hurt your eyes?

• Can you mount it yourself?

• And of course, How much does it cost?

Now lets say a sales clerk approaches you and says, "The TV was designed by John Baird…Its DT Certified…I feel like it would look real nice in your living room…Would you like to buy it?" Wouldn’t you think there was something wrong with this dude?

After all, you want to know what the quality of the picture is, if it’s easy to mount on a wall, and how much it costs. Why would you care to learn about the history of the Television? And don’t you think it would be a little presumptuous for the clerk to assume it would look nice in your living room? Shouldn’t this guy at least acknowledge what YOUR interests are before making all these claims?

Yet this is the same approach we take when we write our cover letters. And it happens-ALL THE TIME.

And what happens as a result of this?

We create BORING cover letters.

We talk about how, "During my college career, I attained a strong academic background in ." We say things like, "I feel that I could apply my education and experience to your company." And finally, we finish our letter with something like, "I look forward to your reply to this application."

…And we wonder why employers barely skim over our "masterpieces" before they toss them aside. I swear I’ve seen hundreds of cover letters that literally was a variation of what you just read. Hell, when I was in college, my cover letter read the same way so I’m right there with you.

So How Do We Fix This So You can Start Landing More Interviews?

Glad you asked…

(To be continued…)

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I used to have no idea if I was asking the right questions after a job interview.

I could be sitting there while the interviewer asked me if I had any questions, and I’d be thinking to myself "What should I ask, that’ll really make me look smart and prepared?" But I didn’t know what to do, so I’d always depend on my Google supplied ‘interview questions to ask employers’ list as a crutch. This would often leave me sounding stilted-like every other college student, and many times I’d be at home wondering why I didn’t get the job, as I didn’t get a second chance.

Here’s what I do now:

When the interviewer asks if I have any questions at the end of the interview, I’ll ask…

"Who would you point to as a top performer in this position?"

(After they’ve given me the person’s name, I’d hit them with my next question…)

"What traits make him or her stand out?"

(I’d make sure to listen very carefully and take detailed notes on the specific traits that this interviewer values. Lastly, I’d ask my final question…)

"What specific actions or behaviors make him or her so successful?

(This one is CRITICAL. I’d be sure to capture ALL of the interviewer’s thoughts on what THEY think makes this top performer so successful in my notes…)

When the interview is over, I would go home IMMEDIATELY and write a killer follow up letter to each of the interviewers I met with. But not just any "generic" follow up letter that anyone could find online… Instead, I’d come up with a personal or professional success story that displayed the same attributes as the top performer based on the notes I had taken during the interview. Then I’d simply weave it into my follow up letter and send it out.

By using "The Maverick Follow Up Technique" I sound genuinely curious about the interviewer’s top performers, but by being very SUBTLE about it, I haven’t given them any hint at what I’m really after. I now have a way of knowing what the interviewer is really looking for in a candidate without asking them directly-and I know within 5 minutes what used to take me hours or days to try to figure out…

So what is YOUR dirty little secret question you like to ask employers?

Leave your best question ideas in the comments below, and let’s create a great collection to share!

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Lets face it. Its pretty much common knowledge that if you screw up your first impression before the interview, it’ll be an uphill battle for you in closing any position. That’s why many so called "interview experts" hammer in the importance of putting your best foot forward and making a fantastic first impression. Well in my opinion, aside from getting dressed and looking all fancy for your interviews, the hands down best way to make an unforgettable first impression is knowing more about the company and its VALUES than your competition does. Knowledge is power after all.

So what’s the best way to increase your knowledge about the company you’re about to go on an interview with? Why not get it straight from the source? …by calling the employees of the company and ASKING.

"But what if I mess up?" "What if I make a bad first impression?" "I dont want to RISK screwing up my chances with them."

These are all valid questions and worries that most college students have. Which is all the more reason why you’ll be able to stand out… because you’ll know something that they don’t. Most college students don’t get the juicy information that they need to succeed because the majority of the population prefers to follow the same antiquated strategies that our parents used when they were our age. Think about it, if you use the same strategies as everyone else? How is it possible to even have a chance at standing out and getting the job that you want? I say we need a different approach. One that has never been used by anyone in the past and is fit for the high demands of today’s high paced society.

If you follow my "Secret", Jedi Mind Trick technique I can promise you that you will feel like you’re in more control during your interviews instead of the other way around when you’re asked a tough question. Instead of tongue-tied or regretting that you should’ve spent more time researching the company, you’ll be confident, collected, and in control of your thoughts and emotions.

You’ll be able to walk away from the interview knowing that you gave one of the best responses out of all your competition because of the information you collected and organized from this technique. But if you choose to ignore this technique and fail to implement it, you’ll lose your one shot at making a good impression.

So how do we get around looking stupid?

Good question.

I’d like to introduce you to a concept I like to call Suicide Calling. Suicide Calling is where you partner up with one of your friends, preferably someone you know and trust who is known for being very charming over the phone, and you have them 3-way call (with you on the other line) one of your prospective employers as a potential candidate expressing interest in the position that you’re applying for.

Give your friend a list of questions to probe for in which you can use for your interview (company health in current economy, names of hiring managers, dept. heads, associations or charities that the company supports, etc.). There will need to be some preparation and coordinating done on the front end before making the call, and you success will be directly correlated with the quality of your questions.

What I love about this technique is that your friend (the suicide caller) does not have to lie about his name or where he goes to school or any of his background. In other words, he doesn’t have to get into "character" or be deceiving or any of that junk. Your friend can totally be the charismatic person he/she naturally is (which is what you want them to be because the technique works better that way).

The biggest benefit to this technique is that your friend literally has the license to crash and burn and everything would be cool because its not you that’s making the call. No risk. Plenty of reward.

Often times I’ll encounter a friend who is skeptical and hesitant about volunteering their services for this tactic. What I recommend you do is be the suicide caller for them FIRST and let them see for themselves how the process works. Sometimes people just need to understand the process before they’ll want to commit to it… and that’s O.K. Once you’ve succeeded in finding some valuable information for your friend to use in their job search, you’ll be surprised at how willing they’ll be in returning the favor to you.

Once you are able to retrieve the juicy information that you need, you’ll be able to connect with your interviewers at an entirely new level. You’ll start noticing everyone from across the table all of a sudden hanging onto your every word. The hiring managers will be eager to hire you because you’ll be able to demonstrate that you already know more about their company than any other candidate whose sat across from them, which means less training time in getting you familiar with the company and more time and money saved. On the other hand if you dont get the inside information you need, your interviewers will be bored with you because you won’t be any different from any of your competitors. They will end the interview earlier and send you on your way so they can go back to interviewing REAL prospects, and stop wasting their time with you.

Its important to remember that not all suicide callers are going to be as charming as you’d like them to be and not all "gate keepers" will be willing to spoon feed you valuable information. Persistence is key. If you can get just one gold nugget of a piece of information to use in your resume or interview, it’ll be well worth the effort.

So there you have it. Now do everyone a favor, and leave your best ideas for getting a leg up on the competition in the comments below. Please don’t just write "good post" or "I like that"… instead, add some value and contribute to this conversation with an insight, a practice, or a resource that we can all use to have a better shot at getting hired in this economy. Thank you!

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