Interviewers Are People Too

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IN THIS ISSUE:

1. Interviewers Are People Too
2. Your Laptop: Even if It's a Dell, It Might Be a Gateway
3. Tech Giants Stock the New-Hire Pool via Internships
4. An Animated Discussion About One's Career Path
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1. Interviewers Are People Too

It's natural to be nervous about a job interview. You have to provide the
right answers and ask the right questions. But what if you and the
interviewer just don't hit it off? In a careerbuilder.com article, hiring
experts reveal that the person sitting across the desk is not out to get
you. In fact hiring managers are often just as concerned about getting you
to like them and the company. "I tend to walk into every interview wanting
to hire that person," says Christine Peterson, Senior Vice President of
Marketing for TripAdvisor. Candidates who come across as "nice, smart and
fun...are going to have to work pretty hard to convince me NOT to hire
them," Peterson says.

2. Your Laptop: Even if It's a Dell, It Might Be a Gateway

The glowing screens on laptops, PDAs, and smart phones can draw the
attention of thieves like moths to a flame. But increasingly, it's the data
on the machines--client lists, research documents, prototype plans for new
products or services, and personnel records--that is the lure. Some
cyberthieves have taken to infiltrating wireless devices and copying their
contents copied or remotely installing software that turns the gadgets into
entry points for a company's otherwise secure network. Security experts
advise frequent business travelers to take precautions such as encrypting
their laptops' hard drives or making sure that they don't contain sensitive
information, then having their company's IT department run a scan the moment
they return from a trip.

3. Tech Giants Stock the New-Hire Pool via Internships

Tech companies, in an effort to ensure that they will continually be able to
tap into the pipeline of next-gen IT workers, are expanding their college
internship programs and making the positions increasingly indistinguishable
from regular staffers. "[Our interns] aren't given side projects," says Ann
Forbes-Cannon, the university programs specialist at Google. "They're doing
real work to help give them a sense of what it is like to work here. We make
sure they're working on active Google projects." The positions resemble
full-time jobs in other important ways. Many are salaried, and some
companies even offer health benefits and offset relocation expenses. "The
good news," says a Computer World article, is that "most of them still have
openings for this summer."

4. An Animated Discussion About One's Career Path

What's the best way to communicate? Send your message in the format with
which your intended audience is most familiar. Business publishers are
taking the advice that appears in some of their own tomes and putting out
practical guides for young people entering the business world in the form of
stylized Japanese comics called manga. One such comic, "The Adventures of
Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need," skips the how-to's of
creating a resume or networking, and focuses on dispelling erroneous
assumptions that young people make about the job market. Using Bunko, an
office jockey who won't seem unfamiliar to anyone who's ever read Dilbert,
and Diana, a supernatural career advisor, the author offers six career
lessons that include "Persistence trumps talent" and "It's not about you."