The Job Interview: The Top 50 Questions Asked and 50 Behaviors You Must Avoid

The two most popular and well-attended career development seminars that I offer are about resume writing and face-to-face interviewing strategies. Because many of the participants are first time jobseekers, interest is largely and rightfully focused on resume writing. After all, a well crafted resume is an essential first step in any job search. However, if you are lucky enough to advance to the interview stage, you must be aware of the rules, regulations and terms of engagement of the interviewing process.

First, as many veteran jobseekers know, you will be asked a lot of seemingly irrelevant and whacky questions. Second, people who are interviewing for a job are expected to behave in professional and socially accepted manner. In other words, there are certain attitudes and behaviors that must be avoided at all costs if you want to get a job offer from a prospective employer. To that end, I found a couple of lists on the Internet—“The Top 50 Interview Questions that Employers Ask” and “50 Worst of the Worst (and Most Common) Job Interview Mistakes"—that are likely to be helpful to persons who may be preparing for an upcoming face-to-face job interview.

While many of the recommended behaviors to avoid may be fairly obvious to most of you, crafting appropriate answers to some of the questions on the Top 50 list may not be. By now, some of you may have googled “answers to the top 50 interview questions” and found a variety of lists that supply answers to some of the questions. However, while it may be helpful to look at those lists for guidance, I strongly advise that you come up with your own personalized responses. This is because prospective interviewers, like you may have found the same lists!

Until next time…

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!

 

BioJobBlog Makes a Top 50 Biotech Blog List

Emily Johnston of Medicareer sent me a message last night to inform me that BioJobBlog made its top 50 biotech blog list. While I don’t know much about Medicareer (nor does BioJobBlog have a business or financial relationship with the organization) this is a first for the blog and it is quite an honor to be included on the list. I guess spending hundreds of hours over the past three years writing blog posts is actually beginning to pay off!

A quick perusal of the list reveals some very interesting and useful biotechnology blogs that are worth reading. And, surprisingly, there are a couple of blogs on the list that I previously didn’t know about.

Hat tip to Medicareer!

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Blogging

 

The World's Top Fifty Life Sciences Companies in 2008

Pharmaceutical Technology Europe published a list last month called the Pharma Exec 50 for 2008. To qualify for the list, companies had to have more than $510 billion in sales.  Unlike other lists of this ilk, it is easy to read, visually appealing and mentions each company’s top selling drugs and their annual R &D spending.  It is definitely worth a read by people who need or like to stay abreast of the life sciences industry. And for a change, the list was compiled by a European rather than an American publication. Not that there is anything wrong with that!

Until next.....

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!