Start-to-Finish Job Search Guide: A Beginner's Guide to Getting the Job You Want

START-TO-FINISH

JOB SEARCH

GUIDE

A BEGINNER’S GUIDE

TO GETTING THE JOB YOU WANT

by

Richard Blazevich

This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproductions or other unauthorized use of the material herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.

Copyright © 2020 by Richard Blazevich

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 9781951678043

Amazing Job Skills Publishing Company

Dallas, Texas

www.AmazingJobSkills.com

Contents

Introduction

1. Build Your Strategy

2. Customize Your Resume

3. Practice for Opening Questions

4. Practice for Fit Questions

5. Practice for Case Questions

6. Nail Your Interviews

Conclusion

About the Author

Introduction

Over the past twenty years, I’ve interviewed hundreds of job candidates. Most of them were bright and highly motivated. Very few of them had the interview skills needed to get the jobs they wanted.

In rare instances, I’ve interviewed candidates who were amazing. They had a compelling answer to every question they were asked, and they received offers from nearly every recruiter who interviewed them.

If you want to become one of these superstar job candidates, this book is for you. You’ll find a game plan for dazzling recruiters, along with incredible answers to even the toughest interview questions. You’ll find tips for researching companies and figuring out exactly what recruiters are looking for. You’ll also receive advice on refining your skills and using resources that are available to you for free.

I used many of the techniques in this book when job hunting. When I first entered business school, my fellow students might have elected me Least Likely to Succeed (if my school had such an award). I was awkward. I had no experience in my chosen career field. Yet, by the time I finished my two-year program, I had an internship at one of the best marketing companies in the world. I also received job offers from several powerhouse companies, including Frito-Lay, General Mills, Kraft, SC Johnson, and Quaker.

These impressive results didn’t happen because I was talented. My natural ability paled in comparison to that of my fellow students. They happened because I learned the secrets to interviewing. This book will reveal those secrets to you.

When you were in school, you might have spent years getting an education in your chosen subject matter. However, you may have received very little help in getting the types of jobs you wanted.

When I was in school, I was lucky enough to receive life-changing advice from my school’s career counselors. Their coaching set me up for years of success in my career. Now, I use the techniques I learned in school to coach people on how to get the jobs they really want.

After I graduated, I started recruiting people for my company’s marketing department. I noticed that many of the most accomplished candidates didn’t know how to answer interview questions. Their responses were often vague and didn’t communicate their true potential. I knew that without strong interview skills, they would never make it through our rigorous selection process.

When I found particularly talented candidates who performed poorly during interviews, I offered them suggestions to improve their skills. Next, I began organizing interview workshops for student organizations and career development offices at the schools where my company recruited.

I’ve also helped many friends and family members with their job hunting. Career coaching is my passion. I’m excited to share my techniques with you.

This book represents the playbook I developed for my interview preparation workshops. My hope is that you can learn from my approach so that you’ll be able to get the interviews you want. Then, you’ll nail those interviews using the skills you’ve developed from the processes described within these pages.

To illustrate some of the concepts, I’ve included a story about a fictional job hunter who became successful at interviewing. While this specific person doesn’t exist in the real world, she represents the combined experiences of many people I’ve coached over the years.

In each chapter, I’ll summarize the key lessons from the story. I’ll also provide tools and templates you can use to dramatically improve the skills you need to receive job offers.

If you’ve read my other book, Amazing Interview Answers (www.amazon.com/dp/B073P38SX9), you’ll notice that some of the content is repeated in this book. Please forgive the duplication. You’ll find that most of the content in this book is new. I suggest that you read this book first to build your strategy. Then, as you practice your answers to interview questions, use Amazing Interview Answers to help refine your own amazing answers to the most commonly asked interview questions.

Also, I have a version of this book for college students: Start-to-Finish Job Search Guide: College Student Edition (www.amazon.com/dp/B079D1LMMG) If you know a student who will be entering the job market soon, please encourage them to read the student version. It includes most of the content in this book, plus additional information about resources available specifically to help college students find their dream jobs.

Now, let's get started.

1. Build Your Strategy

The first step in your job-hunting journey will be to create your strategy. Like any strategy, this involves defining your goals, identifying your options, and making the best choices to get the results you want.

Start by spending some time looking over a variety of job descriptions that might interest you, just to make sure you’re on the right path. Unfortunately, most of us were never required to understand job duties before selecting our career direction. Some of us might have taken classes in school that provided some idea of what’s involved in our future careers, but many of us didn’t.

This lack of preparation can have disastrous results. For example, I started my career in accounting, which was absolutely the wrong choice for me. I chose the field because