CONTENTS

Why Knock ’em Dead?

Part I. The Well-Stocked Briefcase

Resume creation and job search tactics, interwoven with smart advice on professional growth and long-term career management.

CHAPTER 1: The Realities of a Job Search

Get a grip on the essentials for your economic survival and success in a half-century career.

CHAPTER 2: The Transferable Skills and Professional Values That Guarantee a Successful Job Search and Career

Learn the transferable skills and professional values that underlie every professional success story and apply them to your own life.

CHAPTER 3: How to Build a Killer Resume

How to build a resume that is discoverable in databases and that resonates with recruiters and hiring managers.

CHAPTER 4: Networking and the Successful Job Search

Here are the most intelligent, integrated networking strategies you will find anywhere to help you build cutting-edge social networks for today and tomorrow.

CHAPTER 5: Professional, Alumni, and Community Networks

Professional associations, alumni societies, and community networks all play an important role in a practical and comprehensive networking strategy.

CHAPTER 6: Network-Integrated Job Search Tactics

In today’s competitive job market, you need to leverage the smartest job search strategies and tactics to find and win the best job offers. This is where you will find them, integrated into one practical approach that only a true expert could weave.

Part II. Get the Word Out

Job search is all about getting into conversations with the people who can hire you as quickly and as often as you can. Powerful networking techniques to quadruple your hit ratio on every job posting.

CHAPTER 7: Making Contact

Study the best strategies for making contact with employers, from emailing resumes to making calls. Here’s how to introduce yourself to employers, get past gatekeepers, and handle initial interview questions and objections to your candidacy. Effective tactics for getting useable leads from every conversation you have.

CHAPTER 8: Ace the Telephone Interview

Telephone interviews are a common screening device. How to prepare for the scheduled telephone interview and to be ready for the unexpected call. Headhunter tactics for turning the telephone interview into a face-to-face meeting.

CHAPTER 9: Dress for Job Interview Success

You never get a second chance to make a first impression at a job interview; so unless you dress the part, don’t expect an offer. Here are men’s and women’s guidelines for correct professional dress.

CHAPTER 10: Body Language

Learn the seven techniques for body language success during a job interview. Learn to employ positive body language messaging that can help your entire career.

CHAPTER 11: The Curtain Rises on the Job Interview

First impressions are the strongest. Here are twenty small preparations you can make before you walk into the interviewer’s office that will help calm your nerves and psych you up for a successful interview.

Part III. Great Answers to Tough Interview Questions

Hundreds of tough job interview questions, what’s behind them, and how to develop powerful, honest answers.

CHAPTER 12: The Five Secrets of the Hire

Knowing how an interviewer thinks is a critical element of the job search that is frequently overlooked. Here are the five secrets of the hire, showing you how to get inside the hiring authority’s head. Master them now and they will serve you throughout your career.

CHAPTER 13: Why Interviewers Do the Things They Do

Learn the questioning techniques an interviewer uses to find out whether you will fit into the department and the company, whether you are a team player, and if you are going to be a management headache.

CHAPTER 14: How to Knock ’em Dead: Great Answers to Tough Interview Questions

The greatest fear is fear of the unknown. Learn about the toughest questions an interviewer can throw at you: what’s behind the question, what they are looking for in an answer, and how you can give an honest and winning answer without sounding like a snake-oil salesman.

CHAPTER 15: Questions of Manageability and Team Spirit

Learn the right way to answer questions an interviewer asks to find out whether you will fit into the company and department, and, most important, whether you are a good person to work with, and will fit into the team.

CHAPTER 16: How to Handle Stress Questions

Your worst nightmare can come true at a stress interview, but once you learn that these questions are just amplified versions of much simpler ones, you’ll remain cool and calm.

CHAPTER 17: How to Handle Illegal Job Interview Questions

A vital discussion on handling illegal interview questions, what mock meetings, role-playing, and in-basket tests are looking for, and how to handle them.

CHAPTER 18: Answering Unanswerable Questions

For jobs that require high analytical skills there are baffling questions—but they all have answers.

CHAPTER 19: Welcome to the Real World

For the entry-level candidate, some special interview questions specifically tailored to discover your business potential when real-world experience is lacking.

CHAPTER 20: Strange Venues for Job Interviews

Learn the tips that will help you master job interviews in noisy, distracting hotel lobbies, in restaurants, at poolside, and in other unusual settings. Includes an essential review of table manners you’ll remember for the rest of your career.

CHAPTER 21: How to Ace the Psychological Tests

We are all professional schizophrenics! Approaching psych tests casually can be hazardous to your professional health. How to prepare for them, what’s behind the questions, and techniques for answering correctly in the heat of the moment.

CHAPTER 22: The Graceful Exit

All the critical dos and don’ts to ensure that the lasting impression you leave is the right one.

Part IV. Finishing Touches

Steps you can take to keep your impression fresh in the interviewer’s mind.

CHAPTER 23: How to Fight Age Discrimination in Your Job Search

Learn to fight against silent discrimination with the hard-won street smarts that come with age, experience, and understanding.

CHAPTER 24: Making a Career Change

How to plan and execute a successful career change.

CHAPTER 25: The Stealth Job Search

How to conduct a confidential job search while you’re still employed.

CHAPTER 26: Out of Sight Can Mean Out of Mind

The seven steps that keep you fresh in the interviewer’s mind and encourage the continuation of your candidacy.

CHAPTER 27: Negotiating the Job Offer

The job offers finally begin to arrive, and you’re never going to have this much leverage with this employer again. Learn the essentials of salary and benefits negotiations: handling good job offers and poor job offers, negotiating future salary, and how to evaluate the salary and the job offer. Fifty great questions you can ask to make sure the job offer is one you want to accept; and essential information on reference checking, job offer letters, employment agreements, relocation, and stock options.

CHAPTER 28: Snatching Victory from the Jaws of Defeat

Rejection? Impossible! Then again, you won’t be right for every job. Here are some techniques that help you to create opportunity in the face of rejection.

CHAPTER 29: Multiple Job Interviews, Multiple Job Offers

Relying on one interview at a time can only lead to anxiety, so you must create and foster an ever-growing network of interviews and, consequently, job offers. Implement the Knock ’em Dead job search plan and you will be able to both generate multiple job interviews and turn them into job offers. This is not hype; it really happens when you get on board with the plan.

CHAPTER 30: Clouds on the Horizon

You never want to be caught in a layoff, job-hunting with 500 of your colleagues; this is how you stay ahead of disruptions to your career and economic stability.

General Index

Index of Interview Questions