The Last Top-10 List of Job Seeking Advice Tips You'll Ever Need; All in One Post! – Walter Sabo
Stop the obsession with top 10 lists! Every single day someone posts a list of the top 10 things to do or not do to get a job. If they have a job, where do they get the time to write these lists?
Top 10 job-tip lists should be banned. There are too many of them. Enough already. Focus on important things like TMZ and the New York Post.
Because all the lists are essentially identical, this is the last and only top 10 list of job-getting tips you'll ever need.
1. Know the company before you go in for the interview. Really know the company. For example, get the address the day before the interview, not when you are almost late and walking back and forth on the block looking at where the building should be located, but isn't.
2. Don't dress like you're a poet in Brooklyn -- even if you want a job as a poet in Brooklyn. Do not accept any offer of food or beverage from the interviewer. Say, "I'm fine, thanks," rather than, "Do you have that with almond lactose free milk?"
3. Flatter the interviewer with knowledge of their work and the work of the company. But, get it right. Make sure the Joe Smith you study on LinkedIn is the Joe Smith living in America.
4. Make up a plan for what you are going to want in five years. You will be asked. This answer has no relationship to what you will actually be doing in five years. In five years you will be in a "committed" relationship and holding a car loan on a Chrysler Town and Country because you'll need room for the kid. (Full disclosure, I did not receive compensation from Chrysler for this endorsement.)
5. No need to tell rehab stories during the interview. Save those for the holiday party which you should only attend for the first 12 minutes.
6. If you went to Union County Community, be proud of it. After all, it's right near Five Points, the best hot dog stand in New Jersey. (Discuss in Comment section.) Visiting your only rich-kid friend at Harvard is not the same as “attending" Harvard.
7. Have ideas.
8. Send a follow-up thank you note, the same day, on paper. On the way out, say "goodbye" and "thank you" to the receptionist. The receptionist actually decides if you get the job. Really.
9. If the interviewer is named Walter, do not start calling him Wally without invitation.
10. There aren't 10. Writers make up the 10th so they have a top 10 list.
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Walter Sabo
Walter Sabo is a Westwood One network talk show host aka Walter M Sterling. His show, Sterling on Sunday, is aired live Sunday nights at 10 PM-1AM Eastern. Walter Sabo is the Chairman of Sabo Media, a company that offers executive-on-demand services. He has …
