I’m having next Wednesday my first professional interview (eeeeek) so I decided to share the research I’m doing. I googled all of this and chose the information I found most important, and organized it. I truly hope it’s helpful for someone out there 🙂
PLAN AND PRACTICE:
always do your homework: learn about the organization, its ideas and story
don’t necessarily memorize responses, but try to have a planned general strategy for answering common interview questions
practice in front of the mirror
be ready to briefly describe related experience
compare your qualifications to what the organization wants from you
COMMON INTERVIEW QUESTIONS:
“What’s your biggest weakness?” Think of a genuine issue you have as well as ways you have managed to work with/around it.
“What’s your biggest strengths?” Stand out from the crowd and don’t be afraid to speak about your strengths in an authentic and compelling way. See if your strengths align with the company’s needs.
“
Why do you want this job?”/ “Why should we hire you?”
Stay focused on why your background makes you an ideal candidate and tell them how you are going to contribute to that department and that company.
“Tell me about yourself.” Don’t tell them your life story, instead discuss what your interests are relating to the job and why your background makes you a great candidate.
“Why did you leave your last job/position/school?” Do not go into details about your dissatisfaction, tell them that while you valued the experience and education you received, you felt that the time had come to seek outo a new opportunity, expand your skills and knowledge, and to find a company with wich you could grow. Try to put a positive spin on things. Be honest if you were fired but don’t trash your previous boss.
“Where do you see yourself in five years?” Be honest about what your greater aspirations are.
And much much much more (from your behaviour to work experiences, education, interests and motivation or problems and challeges you’ve faced previously), I would encourage you to try to write down some topics for each questions that work for you. Being prepared is everything.
THE DAY OF THE INTERVIEW:
sleep and eat well so you look rested and healthy on the big day
give yourself time to calm down/meditate/relax
don’t noodle around on your phone or electronic device while waiting – it may communicate boredom and frivolousness, maybe stick your notebook/notes
What to wear: normally it’s best to dress neutral, professionally/formal, not overly fashionable or trendy, and brightly colored clothing is bad. Make sure your clothes are neat and wrinkle free, and make sure your image is very clean and neat.
What to bring:if revelant, extra copies of your resume on quality paper, a notepad or professional binder and pen, information you might need to complete an application.
IMPORTANT TIPS:
make eye contact
show courtesy to everyone during the interview, this means everyone from the reception staff to the interviewer herself
smile
have good posture
avoid fidgeting too much or playing with your hair/touching face
have a good handshake
don’t cross your arms over your chest
walk, act, talk with confidence
be comfortable and relaxed
choose the words you say
don’t place stuff on their desk
manage your reactions – facial and body expressions give clues on how you feel: project a positive image
show interest and enthusiasm
show warmth and personality – being personable is about getting the interviewer’s emotional side to like you and believe in you
don’t lie to make it seem like you know something you don’t. You probably won’t fool your interviewer, and admitting to not know something is much more impressive than lying
be honest
keep things simple and short, talk in 30-90 second chunks. Any less and you’re likely to seem unqualified; any more and your interviewer is likely to lose interest in what you’re saying
THINK OF QUESTIONS TO ASK: participating actively during the interview gives a good impression of your level of interest in the job. Most of times it is more adequeate to ask in the end of the interview.
But I feel like you really need to make sure your questions are adequate. Examples:
“What types of training opportunities do you offer?”
“What are the chances for professional growth in this job opportunity?”
“Is there anything else I can provide you with that would be helpful?”
ALWAYS ask the “
When can I expect to hear back from you about the position?” question if
the interviewer does not tell you.
Good questions are open-ended, and thus cannot be answered with a “yes” or “no.” Better questions are behavioral: they ask how things are done or have happened in the past, because current and past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior.
AFTER THE INTERVIEW:
shake hands with the interviewer – try to invest some feeling into the handshake and pleasantries, even if you think you bombed the interview
hold your head high and keep your cool
your emotions are probably teetering at the highest of highs or the lowest of lows, but try to stay measured
project a cool confidence, not cockiness, and walk out of the interview with your head held high
SOMETHING TO ALWAYS KEEP IN MIND:
when you know in your heart and your gut that you bring to the table something just as valuable as a paycheck and maybe much more – your tremendous experience, intellect and instinct – you’ll carry yourself differently. You won’t trip over your words in an effort to please His Majesty or Her Highness, because you’ll see yourself and the interviewer as equals on a level playing field.
you are valuable and unique. You have something very special in you and you deserve to be given a chance. good luck!
Hope this will spread as much as save net neutrality posts
it’s way worse than that law actually, in US they “just” wanted your money, here the EU goverment wants to take our freedom without even giving a choice
SPREAD THIS
I’m just speechless. Dudes, this is wayyyy worse then The Net Neutrality bullshit in the US. Spread this like a wildfire! I don’t wanna lose everything I have thanks to this law!
Oh my gosh why am I only hearing about this now? Please everyone, spread this! Most of the time we talk about problems that are happening in the US but this time it’s in the EU and we need to stand against it!!
Please help if you can it’s going to make so much damage! Just for an example, both of my blogs will disappear if it isn’t stopped, ao3 will also disappear for european countries just like every website like these ones.
So please, help!!
Actually reblogging that one because 1) I checked the original poster and 2) I felt doubt when no french media outlet that wasn’t obviously alt-right dwelved on the subject, so here I go with a list of reasons this post is dead wrong.
1) made by a self-proclaimed fascist with a blog called “Think-critically” whose blog is full of racist, transphobic, fascistic, mysoginist content. Allow me to doubt.
2) the guy in the video is a friend of the EDL. You can see another of his videos from 2 days ago where Tommy Robinson, leader of this islamophobic group which is on numerous hate watch list, supports this channel’s messages.
3) EDRI and Techdirt are also websites associated with the alt-right.
4) From everything I’ve gathered about said article 13. It’s actually meant to stop, block and disable fake news campaigns. Like the ones Russia did in France in 2017, the UK during brexit, Italy, Germany, Poland, etc…. It’s a way to also put responsability on websites that host the information (YouTube, Twitter, Facebook. All 3 having a pretty tulmutuous relationship with European countries (Read: don’t comply with the law and refuse to pay taxes)) as a deterrent to make sure they’re careful during election season (Which, to their credit, they were during the Irish referendum, blocking foreign media outlets). That means
5) The alt-right just got 30k Tumblr users to sign a petition against blocking Russia’s interference in our elections, dressed it up as a brave struggle for freedom (This will END the internet guys. Trust me on this one. They want to destroy it because….. BAD. Not GOOD.) And y’all not checking your damn sources played right into their hands.
In conclusion: Fuck Putin and fuck the Alt-right, go out and vote, check your sources.
The EU are not going to shut the Internet down omg! You just got trolled by the alt right. The only thing in the UK and Dutch press with regards Internet access is over GDPR – which is a good EU regulation designed to protect consumers. If there’s no news about it, then there’s a reason for that???
The English Defence League (EDL) are such a nasty racist bunch of fuckers, and now many tens of thousands of you have just given them and their fascist, xenophobic cronies at places like InfoWars your support because you didn’t spend 5 fucking minutes Googling the truth behind this post.
They deliberately put shit together that sounds legit. Don’t people think anymore??? Read up on something before you mindlessly hit the reblog button! There’s no excuse to not check something out!
Seriously people please research things yourself when you see them. A very quick google search brings up 1 article from a website I’ve never heard of. If international news sites like, to name a few, BBC and Al Jazeera, aren’t reporting it, it is probably not an issue.
(I know I joked about it earlier but, honestly, please do your own research)
Sorry, I know this is a very unexpected reblob but I just want my European followers to not panic and please please PLEASE check sources and research stuff.
I feel a bit upset at being tricked, but I was in a huge panic about this 😦
[Caption; A series of tweets by josie duffy rice/ @jduffyrice
Now that we’re all on twitter because of this game, I am making a public service announcement: PLEASE STOP SHARING THAT STORY ABOUT 1500 KIDS MISSING. The outrage I’ve seen is the result of a total misinterpretation and could SERIOUSLY threaten the children you want to save.
Before I get to it, I’ll answer the question that 99 million ppl will inevitably ask: I know this because I’m a lawyer, i works on criminal justice issues (sometimes incl immigration), and 4 of my closest friends are immigration attorneys dealing with this EXACT THING.
There are two things going on. 1) HHS doesn’t know where 1500 unaccompanied minors are. 2) we are separating parents and children at the border.
These are different. The kids in 1) were not separated from their parents at the border. They crossed the border alone* or arrived here without a parent.
That’s not really the point I want to make, though it is important.
These kids were dealt with by ORR, the office of refugee resettlement. They were released into the care of people that almost always fit within one of these three categories:
1) immediate family 2) extended family 3) other people that the child has a pre-existing relationship with. If none of these categories apply, then the kids normally stay in a shelter.
(After a number of children were trafficked in 2014, these restrictions got tighter.)
So those kids are released and then they are no longer ORRs responsibility or problem. THIS IS A GOOD THING.
One analogy I heard from my dear friend who I won’t tag without her permission, is that ORR is basically a jailer. Do you want the jail keeping track of where every former inmate is?
Now I have more to say about that but before we do that, let’s talk about the word missing. Basically by all accounts HHS did a cursory reach out to check on these kids, and couldn’t find out where they were exactly.
When I say cursory I mean cursory. We’re talking about phone calls. Phone calls! Like, no door knocks. No checking school records. They called. They didn’t find answers.
There are so many reasons why people wouldn’t answer. Maybe these kids are living with someone undocumented. Maybe they aren’t but their sponsor is (legitimately) completely scared of immigration authorities in trumps America.
They aren’t missing! They are almost certainly living with family members who almost certainly don’t want to interact with the government and WE SHOULDN’T ASK THEM TO
ORR’s job is NOT to track and monitor these kids, and it shouldn’t be. As my friend said, if there were an issue- abuse, or other wrongdoing- it should go through the appropriate agency: children’s services or what have you. It SHOULDN’T GO THROUGH HHS/ORR or DHS/ICE
When your school loans provider can’t reach you, are you missing? No. When your boss can’t find you on a Friday night, are you missing? No. They aren’t missing. Some unanswered phone calls does not a missing child make.
Now, I started out identifying two things that were happening. The second- the separation of children and their parents at the border- is goddamn unconscionable and sickening.
But DO NOT confuse the two. The potential for it backfiring is real. What we’re demanding is that ORR, which works hand in hand with ICE, “keep better track” of kids they basically would like to deport if giving the chance. We don’t want that!!!
You’re asking immigration authorities IN TRUMP’S AMERICA to BETTER MONITOR UNDOCUMENTED CHILDREN AND THEIR FAMILIES. You don’t want this. I promise you don’t.
I get it. It sounds awful. But at WORST it’s benign. At best, it’s a GOOD thing that ORR doesn’t know where these kids are. There’s a reason. We actually now have pretty strict requirements before we release these kids. They aren’t all being trafficked. They aren’t dead.
It doesn’t mean life is easy, but life won’t be easier if ORR starts tracking them. Trust me. And trust my brilliant friends who know about this shit and have warned me and are now warning you. DONT conflate the two things.
AND because some people are obviously taking this as an opportunity to exonerate the president- NO. Trumps immigration policy is disgusting. His separation of kids and parents at the border is SICKENING. He’s a tyrant. Just don’t conflate them.
Man oh man I forget that at least 50 percent of people on twitter refuse to learn basic reading comprehension. Tonight should be fun!
] *[Also it says “alien” up there where it should say “alone”, cool, autocorrect.]
*corrected autocorrect/typo in my transcription for the sake of being less confusing, especially for anyone listening to the text rather than reading it visually.
I’ve written a lot of fanfiction, much of it novel-length, and for whatever reason, never had too much trouble hitting 80k or 100k or more. Previous novel-length projects of mine had the bonus of already having established characters, and the plots were always based on essentially an escalation of the same scenario because the purpose was some sort of wish-fulfillment.
When switching from fanfiction to original prose, I ran into a major issue: having an intentional plot, that is, a plot that has an intentional structure, a framework that allows for intentional narrative contrast and symmetry. Essentially, writing something that’s meant to be enjoyed on more than one level. That, and constructing a cast of original characters that don’t look, act, or sound the same as each other or previous characters I’ve written.
I’ve been trying to write this novel like fanfiction, only to realize that a different medium requires a different approach.
In case it helps someone in a similar situation who’s stuck, now that I’m entering a place of good flow, I’m putting out a detail of my process for the novel I’m working on. It’s a combination of methods that, imo, takes what’s necessary and beneficial and leaves out the rest
Oh my god, food extract is not the same as an essential oil.
Food extract is the flavoring of something cooked down into a carrier oil or alcohol that is safe for human ingestion.
Essential oil is the pure extract of the plant refined down and distilled for concentrated medicinal purposes to a significantly higher strength than simply adding ground up mint leaves to your water. The two are not comparable in any way.
Cinnamon extract and cinnamon essential oil are not the same thing.
One is about 100 times the strength of the other and can also cause acute organ failure. I’ll give you a hint, it’s not the food extract.
Sweet gods I’m not trying to be mean, I want you to be aware and safe and stop putting yourselves and others at risk. Please.
Like maybe my tone is hard to read, maybe it just comes off as really angry but it’s not, it’s fear and worry. I read posts and clutch my head in alarm going “no! No! That’s how people die!” And then I get exasperated because a bunch of people not formally qualified chime in with “um actually this is a lie” and it’s not, it’s really, really not.
I’m not some big pharma advocate. I’m a crunchy witch hippy just like you with salt rock lamps and rose quartz all over my house. I just happen to have spent the last 15 years of my life studying the actual science of holistic medicines and I’m trying to help you not get hurt (or worse) becuase you trusted a sales person with no idea what the ever loving hell they were talking about beyond a sales pitch designed to maximize profit. Gah.
I see this so often in the Mommy world. There was a lady not long ago in one of the mom groups who was really worried about her toddler. He’d had a persistent cough for weeks and the doctor couldn’t figure out why. Someone asked, well what have to tried to treat it with, so far? She said she was using a humidifier, honey, and eucalyptus EO in the shower every night.
Yeah.
In case you were wondering, eucalyptus can cause respiratory distress in young children.
Sadly I don’t wonder. I have a friend whose daughter died from a home made menthol oil chest rub. She wasn’t even ten yet, but her mom– a qualified aromatherapist– thought she’d be old enough to handle it. She went into respitory distress and died seizing in her mother’s arms on route to the hospital. It was one of the most harrowing stories I had to listen to during my holistic training. She stood up there, on this podium next to a bunch of ponzy scheme essential oil sellers who looked like they wanted the floor to swallow them, and said “I killed my child with good intentions”.
I’ll never forget the look on her face.
So to reiterate, children under the age of ten should not be directly exposed to things like eucalyptus oil, peppermint or wintergreen. If you are using such things in your house and your child starts to complain of headaches, lethargy and general “feel worse”, don’t just assume it’s the cold/flu. Those are all signs of menthol sensitivity and they only get worse with increased exposure. Ventilate the room, take them outside if you can until the air clears. Do not apply again.
Rapid onset wheezing may be a sign of allergic reaction or possible asthma attack triggered by the menthol too. If they tell you their chest is warm or fuzzy when you use it, that’s another sign it’s not going down well with them. Again, ventilate the area or remove anything you applied to them. Administer inhalers if necessary. Watch for any more labored breathing or if they suddenly go limp or you can’t wake them up. If they do call 911.
This can also apply to people with allergies and asthma who are otherwise healthy.
One of the safest, natural ways to alleviate congestion is with just pure good old fashioned warm steam. Keep the air moist, drink plenty of warm fluids. Menthol can help relieve the feeling of congestion, but there’s limited evidence to suggest it actually clears the airways. And for the love of god don’t inhale mustard or horseradish (I’ve seen that suggestion on posts too, though how you’d get those oils I don’t know). That’s literally what tear gas is made of.
Saw this on Essence Magazine’s Snapchat and thought it would be helpful💕
Yeah seriously, sex education never told me any of this in school. Little me was panicked seeing the dark coloured bits and i had no clue that’s just the normal colour blood goes when its clotted or dried.
Also keep in mind that it’s perfectly normal for the blood and tissue to be “stretchy” and feel like there’s mucus mixed in.
When you have to use the original meme to get a point across
Walk out. There is no such thing as a permanent record, but there is such a thing as ‘the entire administration gets sued and fired’.
I want to add again that schools are allowed to punish you for missing class to protest, but it has to be the standard punishment for missing class (as though you were missing for any other reason). If they would not normally suspend you for 3 days for missing class, then they cannot do it for this. It is a violation of your first amendment rights to punish you more harshly for protesting than for any other reason for an absence from class. [source – ACLU]
If your school is threatening you with a punishment that is beyond what would normally be given for an unexcused class absence, you should contact your local ACLU chapter. You should be able to find the standard disciplinary actions for excused and unexcused absences in your student handbook; if the punishment for protesting is different from the punishment listed in the handbook, then you need to contact that ACLU. You can find your local ACLU chapter by clicking here.
Figment, the recently closed writing website, has just launched (after a long delay) their long-awaited successor to figment known as Underlined, where users can post their work and receive feedback, supposedly.
DO NOT USE UNDERLINED. DO NOT POST YOUR WORK ON UNDERLINED.
Underlined’s terms and conditions contains a clause stating that the rights to all your work that you post on their website belongs to them!!!!
Underlined belongs to Penguin Random House. This is an extremely dirty trick for them to play on writers, especially young writers and children, who come to the internet to get feedback and will lose the rights to their work. Please boost!!!
For my writing friends looking for an online writing community, DO NOT USE Underlined.
I went to confirm @greater-than-the-sword‘s post, because seriously publishers are still pulling this garbage? And yes, they are. If you want to check out the full terms and conditions, have at it. They are full of writers’ nightmares, a few of which I’ll highlight under the cut.
Death By Catchphrase 