Reasons to make the slanty face
Posted by Allychristine on Oct 02, 2009 · Member since Dec 2007 · 15438 posts
:\ You know, in between the smile and frown. I'm more often :\ ing.
P is gone to class, but will be back in a little over an hour. Also, he's going to a Street Fighter club thing tonight, that I would like to go with him, but I don't know that I'll be feeling up to it. The fact that he's going is a reason to smile, though.
Being able to assess one's own weaknesses and have a plan for dealing with them shows maturity. I have a tendency to hyper focus on details. It was good when I was working retail because my area of the store always passed corporate audits for things being in place and marked correctly. My catch so I did not neglect other things was to have a list of my responsibilities that was prioritized to focus on. That way I could neglect the out of place item when a higher priority item needed done. It is more about knowing yourself so you can work around the weaknesses than exactly what they are.
Oh, those are almost standard interview questions these days.
Which shows you how long I've been out of the loop.
My RTW: DH picked me up some decent, tasty juice today. "No Added Sugar!" says the front. "Made with 100% Natural Fruit!"
And on the back it says, "from concentrate." In tiny letters.
I guess artificial sweetners are OK, cuz they were in there too.
He tried.
A lot of the jobs I've been applying for have me take a 45-60 minute questionnaire. It grades your personality and gives the hiring manager a print-out of how you supposedly are. When employed, I can humbly say that I'm an excellent employee. I never do well on the tests, though.
I applied to the local Walmart (yuck) and had to take an exam. I told my mom that I never do well on the tests. She said, "I know. You need to answer them how they want you to, not how Josh would answer them." I said, "I can't give them my answer?" She said, "You want a job don't you?" I'll take that as a compliment. She always uses opportunities like this to remind me to finish school. Ha!
Jobs aren't about being yourself. It's about an employer looking for someone to perform x task in exchange for money. Your being yourself has very little to do with it. If you understand to whom you are applying and are able to perform the function they are hiring for, answer the questions from that perspective. It's about the balance. Be yourself on your own time, but can you be who they're looking for on their time is the question they're trying to answer through the screening process. Answering questions their way is still about you and who you are, but from a different perspective.
Jobs aren't about being yourself. It's about an employer looking for someone to perform x task in exchange for money. Your being yourself has very little to do with it. If you understand to whom you are applying and are able to perform the function they are hiring for, answer the questions from that perspective. It's about the balance. Be yourself on your own time, but can you be who they're looking for on their time is the question they're trying to answer through the screening process. Answering questions their way is still about you and who you are, but from a different perspective.
the weird question i stumbled on a long time ago was something like "what decision did you make that benefited the company that others didn't like" and something like "what decision have you made that helped X company financially"... i find that googling what qualities employers look for and then finding specific examples of how you have those qualities is how you do well on interviews...
questions ALWAYS asked: the strengths (have 3 in mind typically) and weakness, why do you want to work for X company (be prepared for a bs fabricated answer), and difficult coworker scenario and how you deal comes up often too (bs also probably needed), oh ya and always WHY ARE YOU LEAVING YOUR CURRENT JOB (bs answer for me for sure)...
i also agree that you just have to answer in a way that they want but you can still shine through a bit, just tread lightly... just how it is unfortunately
Thanks, JFM et al. I'm glad to have your support.
Yabbit... these questions sound simple but they kinda threw me, and IMHO they're more or less irrelevant to a particular job position.
"What are your strengths/weaknesses?"
"Describe yourself in one sentence."
"What do you believe can you bring to this company?"
I thought these were standard questions. I have pretty much been asked these questions for every job I've ever applied for (which admittedly is quite a few now).
My tip would be to prep answers for the strengths/weakness question and for the weakness turn it around to a strength. My strength for my first interview for an NZ job was 'good at communication'....and the phone promptly went dead as the line went (phone interview) ;D
The usual one I use for weakness is attention to detail - it can possibly mean that I spend too long on particular tasks but I also have very good prioritisation skills so am able to prioritise when this detail is needed and when I can go into less detail on a task.
Wow, this is really helpful! Thanks guys. Because he's being interviewed by the Airbus peeps, this huge Europe-wide joint-venture thing that builds an enormous airplane. He's to do PR I guess. So I can imagine weirdness will be the order of the day. Irish weirdness, German weirdness, French weirdness AND Spanish weirdness!
(why did spellcheck recommend I change "joint-venture" to "condemnatory"? :o)
The usual one I use for weakness is attention to detail - it can possibly mean that I spend too long on particular tasks but I also have very good prioritisation skills so am able to prioritise when this detail is needed and when I can go into less detail on a task.
This is mine now. I'll likely retire from where I work, but I'll keep it for my post-retirement job in 25 years from now.
and difficult coworker scenario and how you deal comes up often too
"If you are working on a group project and your coworker hasn't finished his portion, how do you get him to meet the required deadline?"
In my mind I was thinking it's my job to get my work done. If a coworker doesn't get work done, it's their/our supervisor's job to handle it, not mine. I translated it as, "Our staff are indifferent and our management is lackadaisical. How would you do management's job because they can't be arsed."
I'm rubbish at interviews in the first place, but I said something comically bad because I was so thrown by how poorly they just represented themselves. I guess the answer would be to check in with that person regularly and ask for sub-components of their portion of the project along the project timeline?
Storm, thank ye for the vote of confidence - I appreciate it. :)
Everyone, I also appreciate the advice based on your experiences.
I did take the lesson from my awful interview to prepare and practice more for future interviews. I know those were pretty standard questions. I was just surprised to find this style of interview for a straightforward, minimum-wage job in a supermarket, as I said before. I've worked for three stores now and this is the first time I've encountered this kind of thing. Normally the dept. manager who's hiring has had a talk with me to discuss the position and whether or not I'd suit it. You see the difference? :-\
Naturally I have personal weaknesses of which I'm aware, and find it difficult to deal with - the major one being shyness. For the record, this is more of a stumbling block in interviews than in the jobs for which I apply(!). However, I believe I am very self-aware, as well as being observant of the world around me, including in a work situation. I need to find a way to describe these things in a way that won't put prospective employers off.
I will learn to answer such questions in a way the interviewer wants to hear. I just wish they'd ask HONEST questions! Not ones couched in deceptively simple phrases like "Describe yourself in one sentence." If they don't want to know WHO I am, why don't they ask something like, "Describe what kind of employee you will be if given this job." I am a straightforward kind of person - I need more focused requests, not ambiguous ones. Grrr.
/end rant
Sorry if I sounded defensive. :-X
Nah, it's frustrating. The problem also is that if the questions are so generic, it's hard to get a feel for them as an employer too. On the other hand, if they ask a question like hh got, then you know who you're dealing with, which may not be great... ;)b
I think the conflict resolving one is the toughest. It's hard to think on your toes about, generically, how you'd resolve some fictional conflict. If it's specific to the job and something you've likely experienced before, totally different. But if it's that generic question it's easy to draw a blank and later remember all those times you actually did resolve something. It's in the forefront of your mind that you're punctual and detail-oriented, but that time that dude kept coming late and someone else had to stay late to cover his shift... probably isn't going to pop up if you don't think about it ahead of time.
Also what I had my student do is ask me some interview questions so I could show him how to bs without being obvious about it. The look on your face, body language, tone, all like that. Kind of like padding a term paper without being overt about it.
There was a power outage at my school so class was cancelled..... but I have another one later that is still happening until further notice. I really don't feel like going today. I'm nauseous and headachey and it's dry and windy outside. I just want to nap all day.
My glasses make things blurry instead of fixing them =/
That sucks uS! Did they give you the wrong prescription?
This is probably a weird slanty face but...
I've been trying to finally loose some weight and basically I've just not been eating crap and making sure to eat between 1200 and 1500 cals a day.
On one hand it's working. :) On the other hand, in the past three days I've lost a pound a day. I'm pumped, but I'm thrown off because every where it says that losing more than 2 pounds in a week in unhealthy. :(
So :-\.
I just can't help it that my body is responding super awesomely to just eating less. And I'm only burning about 200 extra calories a day in exercise. I guess I should just be happy?
It might even out in the long run, who knows. But aside from unhealthy, it's probably not very permanent weight loss if you lose it that fast... like if you went back to your reg diet after a week or two, it'd probably all come back. For some reason losing 1-2lb a week is easier to maintain even if you go back to regular eating. ??
wass, almost every diet starts with loosing some water weight. For a week or two, I would not worry but know it most likely will come back as easy as you lost it. Did you also increase drinking water? decrease sodium? All those would explain it.
wass, almost every diet starts with loosing some water weight. For a week or two, I would not worry but know it most likely will come back as easy as you lost it. Did you also increase drinking water? decrease sodium? All those would explain it.
If cutting out junk means cutting out processed foods, you have reduced your salt intake a lot...ergo water weight.
So don't worry. Our bodies respond to change. The first 5 lbs come off easy. After that it gets harder.
Yeah, it's just weird. I started at the beginning of October. And I didn't change my water intake, I've always been a huge fan of water.
Overall I've lost 4 kilos or close to 9 pounds in one month. So it's a little strange that after a week and a half of only 1/2 a kilo lost that this week I'm losing a pound per day. I just found it weird that after 4 weeks of doing this that the weight just seems to be magically falling off now. ???
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