We’ve all heard stories of job candidates who looked great on paper but who were absolute disasters in person. With fewer interview opportunities available in our competitive job market, it’s essential to make the best possible first impression. Learn from the mistakes of others and avoid these top five worst interview blunders:

1. Not preparing for the tough interview questions.

Like every job seeker, you probably have your own set of tough interview questions you hope will never be asked. The best strategy is to prepare ahead of time with answers to ALL of these questions. A career coach can be a great resource for helping you work out suitable answers with a positive spin on negative or challenging career situations.

2. Failure to match communication styles.

Making a great first impression is easier to do when you communicate effectively with your interviewer. The best way to do this is by mirroring his or her communication style. Allowing your interviewer to set the tone of the conversation will put him or her at ease and makes the conversation flow more naturally.

For instance:
* If the interviewer seems all business, don’t attempt to loosen him or her up with a joke or story. Be succinct.
* If the interviewer is personable, try discussing his or her interests. Personal items on display in the office can be a clue.
* If asked a direct question, answer directly. Then follow up by asking if more information is needed.

3. Talking too much.

In my recruiting days, I abhorred over-talkative candidates, and so did most of my client employers who interviewed these candidates. Over-talking takes several forms:
* Taking too long to answer direct questions. The impression: This candidate just can’t get to the point.
* Nervous talkers. The impression: This candidate is covering up something or is outright lying.

To avoid either of these forms of over-talking, practice answering questions in a direct manner. Using role-playing in preparing for your interview will help you avoid excessive, nervous talking.

4. Saying negative things about your current or past employers or managers.

Even if your last boss was Attila the Hun, avoid stating your ill feelings about the person or work situation. No matter how reasonable your complaints, your negative comments will be viewed as disrespect towards your boss. When faced with the challenge of talking about former employers, make sure you are prepared with a positive spin on your experiences.

5. Giving away too much salary and earnings information.

Candidates often weaken their future earning potential by speaking too freely about their current income. No matter the official salary range of the position you are interviewing for, your current earnings have an enormous effect on the size of the offer. Investing in a career coach to help you answer salary questions can add thousands of dollars to your new job offer.

You already know that it takes a strong resume that sets you apart as a candidate of choice to be invited for an interview. The next step is to hone your interviewing skills to actually win job offers. Polishing your interviewing skills can mean the difference between getting the job and being a runner-up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Deborah Walker, Certified Career Management Coach
Read more career tips and see sample resumes at:
www.AlphaAdvantage.com
email: Deb@Alphaadvantage.com

Hello to all Industrial Engineers and Friends of Industrial Engineers,

Welcome to our February Newsletter. February is a very busy month for engineers everywhere. It is National Engineers’ Week. As always, we have the Nation Engineers’ Week Luncheon and Awards Dinner. Members of the National Capital Chapter will also be participating as judges in the Finals of the Future Cities Competition. In March, we are co-sponsoring the Washington Academy of Science CapSci 2012 Conference. This year our Chapter is joining the Washington DC Chapter of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (WINFORMS).

Please check for all details inside our Newsletter.

My best to you, until our March Newsletter,
Russell Wooten
President IIE National Capital Chapter

JFAssociates, Inc. has an opening for an Industrial Engineer in the Vienna, VA office. At JFAssociates, Inc, you will be part of an exciting team of Engineers who specialize in providing engineering and scientific consulting services to companies, government agencies, and law firms. JFAssociates, Inc. has advanced application-based degreed engineers with consulting experience in diverse industrial settings. Our team of dedicated professionals works together in an entrepreneurial atmosphere, providing a broad range of innovative tools and services to niche markets.

More information available here: http://www.jfa-inc.com/careersJFAssociates.htm

In preparation for the annual Chapter Activity Report please let us know by email to joseph.scheibeler@iienationalcapital.com if you have participated in any of the following activities between Jan. and Dec. 2011 that qualify for CAR credit for the chapter:

1. specific dates and page numbers of any articles you authored that appeared in an IIE publication other than our chapter’s newsletter
2. for any professional talks or webinars you may have given, please provide the name of the group and the specific date and title of your talk.
3. please provide the name of the group and the specific date for any visits to schools or student groups/meetings, including career fairs and judging at science fairs, Future Cities, or mentoring of students or young professionals
4. IIE-sanctioned events, conferences or seminars you attended
5. Participation in IIE Regional or National leadership position
6. Voluntary application of IE skills for the benefit of a non-profit organization, church, hospital, school, boy scouts, etc.
7. Member recruitment or retention activities you implemented
8. Discussion/Bulletin Board or Listserve you provided on chapter’s behalf
9. Nomination(s) for IIE’s Honors & Awards you facilitated
10. Publication of chapter activities or member news in local publications you may have provided (please provide publication name, date and page number)

Hello to all Industrial Engineers and Friends of Industrial Engineers,

Welcome to our January 2012 Newsletter. It is a new year for all and also a new program year for the National Capital Chapter. We have two board members rolling off this year and three new board members. I wish to thank all our board and executives for their fine and dedicated efforts over the last year. I also look forward to working with our 2012 board to bring you the finest support in industrial engineering.

We can also use more volunteers. It is not necessary to be a board member to volunteer your support. It is just necessary that you are interested. Please contact any of our board members listed on our website to volunteer to assist on any of our current efforts or to suggest something of special interest to you. If your idea is of value to our membership, then there is a very good possibility that we will be able to support you in making it a reality.

The very best for a new year to all,
Russell Wooten
President IIE National Capital Chapter

A few days ago I was asked to serve as a “career representative” for IIE and SME at the 17th Annual D.C. Career Fair for DC Public and Charter High School students, December 1st at the Washington Plaza Hotel, sponsored by the DC Rotary Club.

I managed to accumulate flyers from TSA, the Technology Student Association in Reston, which has acquired the defunct JETS, the Junior Engineering Technical Society, from Joe Scheibeler, and some wonderful, informative and comprehensive 64-page IEEE magazines depicting many aspects of engineering as a career, from our friend Bill Knight at National Engineers’ Week.

Thus armed I was able to brief some 100 students, many articulate, well dressed and full of prepared, sensible questions about engineering in general, the kinds of courses needed to prepare for an engineering career, what engineers do, what they can expect to earn, how long it takes to become an engineer, what subjects they should study, and my own 50-year career experience.

Just FYI, what made the magazine, actually published by the American Society for Engineering Education, so useful, was its description of the different kinds of engineering, including:

• stories about clothing made from corn;
• a British plastic cell-phone body containing sunflower seeds (to urge customers to recycle the innards when no longer needed and to plant the housing;)
• Adidas running shoes with a heel that adjusts the heel cushion while the foot is in midair, making 1000 changes per second;
• a bridge en-route to the Riviera in France that rises 1122 feet above the river below, and that incorporates a slight curve, because a straight road would give drivers the sensation of floating;
• such critical aspects as women in fields like automotive engineering, (since women buy 65% of the cars in the U.S.)
• and listing average starting salaries for CE’s, ChemE’s, EE’s and MechE’s (albeit as of 2005.)

Bet you didn’t know any of these things; I didn’t.

Knowing that I can count on all of our local IIE and SME chapter members for support, I also offered all the youngsters who plan to participate in Science and Engineering Fairs, help in reviewing their planned projects.

Sincerely,
John Baer

Hello to all Industrial Engineers and Friends of Industrial Engineers,

Welcome to our December newsletter. Wasn’t Thanksgiving in the DC area great!

It is that time of year again. Please consider volunteering your time to our local industrial engineering organization. That would be us, we are the men and women, young and old, independent business people, government workers, retired and private sector workers who try to bring you the very best to support you in all your efforts. (Remarkably, we don’t have any academics on our board, but we would like to have some.)

Requirements to serve on our board as a director are simple. You need to be willing to serve on our board. Technically, you must also be a senior level member of IIE in good standings with your membership.

The number of volunteers serving on our board positively influences our ability to bring you value added products and services. Also, the more volunteers we have the easier is the workload for everyone. We try to utilize small teams to get most of our projects completed. We work together so no one has too great of a load or expense of their time.

If elected to your board of directors, you will have the opportunity to get involved on many efforts that you will find interesting and invigorating. The key is to volunteer an amount of time that is acceptable for your personal situation. Work and family come first, but really getting involved and helping us accomplish a meaning service for our organization is a great and fun way to charge your energy levels.

Contact information for our executive officers and board members are located on our website. Give any of us a call or email to ask us any questions you have. If you are interested in serving on our board or want to nominate someone, please send me an email. In the subject line, please put “board election”.

Our nomination period is December 1st through December 15th. Our election will be by electronic ballot and it will run from December 20th through December 30th. We will announce the results on the 31st for December. The board and our program year is the calendar year.

We have one board meeting per month. Occasionally, we will hold our board meeting by conference call. Attendance is not mandatory. However, the president is known for bring in great breakfast food.

Please consider, please volunteer. We can make 2012 our best year yet.

Until next month,
Russell Wooten
President IIE National Capital Chapter

The Department of Statistical Sciences and Operations Research within the College of Humanities and Sciences at Virginia Commonwealth University invites applications for three faculty positions, pending funding, to begin August 16, 2012.

At least one faculty position will be in the area of statistics and at least one faculty position will be in the area of operations research. Two of the positions will be hired at the rank of tenure-track Assistant Professor, and the third position is at an open rank.

Candidates must have a clear potential to secure external funding with research interests in any relevant focus, but preference will be given to those with interests in environmental or biological applications, homeland security, financial applications and engineering. Those with methodological expertise in data mining, stochastic processes and simulation are desired. Additionally, statistics candidates with methodology in semi-parametric statistics or nonparametric statistics, or operations research candidates with methodology in optimization and decision and risk analysis are desired. Candidates must have demonstrated experience working in and fostering a diverse faculty, staff, and student environment or commitment to do so as a faculty member at VCU. Ph.D in Statistics, Operations Research or a related field required, and must be completed by August 15, 2012. Incumbent will teach graduate and undergraduate courses, with possible collaborative teaching in related areas. Departmental service will be expected. Candidates applying at the Professor or Associate Professor level must have an established research program and nationally known scholarly activity.

Send vita and three reference letters to Darcy P. Mays, Chair, Department of Statistical Sciences and Operations Research, 1015 Floyd Avenue, PO Box 843083, Richmond, Virginia 23284-3083. Position open until filled; review begins December 2, 2011.

Virginia Commonwealth University is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. Women, minorities and persons with disabilities are encouraged to apply.

Jason R. W. Merrick
Professor and PhD Program Director
Statistical Sciences and Operations Research
Virginia Commonwealth University
PO Box 843083
Richmond, VA 23284
Phone: (804) 828 5865
Email: jrmerric@vcu.edu

Have you ever experienced brain freeze during a job interview? You are asked a question and your mind goes blank—it’s horrifying. You lose composure as well as confidence. Your interview goes downhill from there. Brain freeze most often happens as a result of behavioral or situational interview questions that are not anticipated beforehand. As a career coach, this is the most common interview problem I hear about from my clients. With the right preparation you can avoid the nightmare of brain freeze and improve your interview performance greatly.

1. First of all, it’s important to understand what a behavioral or situational interview question is. It is any question that start with:
• Tell me a time when …
• Give an example of …
• Describe a situation when …

Employers ask these types of questions with the assumption that past behavior indicates future performance. These questions reveal a lot about a candidate, including a candidates ability to think fast on their feet. Given that interviews are inherently stressful, many job seekers find it extremely difficult to think fast during interviews. Here are four steps that will help you prepare for any interview question.

2. Take inventory of your accomplishments.

This requires more than a cursory mental note of the good stuff you’ve done in the past year. Take a systematic approach by asking yourself what challenges you’ve faced in each of your positions over the past five or more years. Try asking yourself

• What processes have I improved?
• How have I made work easier for others?
• What did I do to save my company money?
• When did I find a solution to a departmental problem.
• How did I save time?
• When did I go beyond the call of duty to solve a customer problem?

Write out your answers to these questions. Remember to include the quantitative details when appropriate. Include dollars saved, hours cut, percentage increased etc.

3. Study the job description.

With your list of accomplishments in hand you are ready to turn your attention to the job description. Study the requirements to determine all possible challenges involved with the job. If the actual job description is skimpy in details, look to other similar positions listed to help fill in the blanks. Additionally, ask others who hold similar positions what their greatest challenges of the job are. Write out your list of anticipated challenges.

4. Create a list behavioral questions.

Turn your list of challenges of the position into a list of questions that start with:

• Tell me a time when you …
• Describe a situation when …
• Have you ever had to …

Your list will look something like:

• Tell me a time when you had to cut costs out of your annual budget.
• Describe a situation when you had to fire a friend.
• How would you go about repairing a relationship with a disgruntled client?

Use your list of accomplishments to answer your behavioral questions.

Ask a friend to help you role play your interview answers. You should feel very comfortable communicating your success stories. The more time you practice actually talking about your accomplishments the faster you’ll be able to recall your stories in your next interview.

With interview performance more important than ever before it pays to prepare, prepare, prepare. There is no such thing as over preparation when it comes to interviews. Use this 1,2,3,4 approach to interview prep and you’ll be surprised at how much more confident you’ll feel in your next interview. The better you interview the faster you’ll be at your new job.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Deborah Walker, Certified Career Management Coach
Read more career tips and see sample resumes at:
www.AlphaAdvantage.com
email: Deb@Alphaadvantage.com

Hello to all Industrial Engineers and Friends of Industrial Engineers,

Welcome to our November Newsletter.

Please note that a joint meeting announcement with WINFORMS originally went out with the wrong date on it. The correct date is Wednesday, November 16^th for our joint Social Networking meeting at BLACKFINN.  This should be a great evening. It is geared for our younger members, but if you are young at heart, you are certainly invited.

It is that time of year. We need volunteers. We want volunteers. Please volunteer for a Board of Director position. Today we have great volunteers on our board, but we can always use more volunteers. If we had more volunteers; we could accomplish more and greater things for our members, our community, our chapter and or organization. Send an email to any board member if you have any questions. If you are interested in nominating yourself or someone else, please contact Patrick Foxworthy.

Remember! Volunteers are the key to our success. Volunteering will not consume all your energy; I promise you this. The key to successful volunteering is:

1. Volunteer for those activities that “move you”.
2. Don’t overextend yourself; if it doesn’t “move you” and it is a great idea, it will “move” someone else.
3. Once you have committed; you must delivery or we all fail.
4. Everyone is there to help you succeed, but we all succeed.

Our current board consists of:

• An octogenarian
• A half dozen who are or could be a grandparent
• A half dozen under the age of 35
• 2 retirees
• 3 who own their own business
• 2 new parents
• 2 with twins
• Most are volunteers for multiple organizations

And we all try very hard to make this the best Senior Chapter in IIE. Wouldn’t you like to be an active part of this!

Until next month,
Russell Wooten
President IIE National Capital Chapter