by Leslie Macomber ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 20, 2013
Narrowly focused but useful tools to help maximize your job-interview performance.
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This self-help guide presupposes that readers know interview basics and instead hones in on some often overlooked elements of the job-interview process.
Self-help shelves overflow with books recommending how to look and apply for a job, put together a resume, and show up for an interview looking and acting your best. Often, however, the deciding factors in an interview aren’t the candidate’s qualifications, experience and conduct, but subtle clues in his or her language, mindset and approach. In her clear, efficient guide, Macomber, a recruiter and interview trainer, explores traits that lurk as undercurrents in a job interview and teaches how to identify them, bring them to the surface and organically weave them into conversation. She dubs these soft skills “personality assets,” which she subdivides into three categories: individual (basic character traits, such as creative or methodical), social (interaction style, such as competitive or tactful) and leadership (such as self-starting or team-oriented). The columns of adjectives that flesh out each category are intended to provoke more than just thought; they complement the workbook and do-it-yourself interview coaching system, complete with sample scenarios, personal research tools and scripts. The goal is to develop and stockpile information that emphasizes strengths and grabs an employer’s attention. The protocol: Select your strongest assets from each of the three categories and prepare examples of each based on events from your life. Also included are hints at crafting an elevator pitch and the trick of turning a weakness into a strength. After self-paced efforts, the final exercise is a mock interview, requiring the assistance of a committed ally, with a script of questions that will help compassionately evaluate the candidate.
Narrowly focused but useful tools to help maximize your job-interview performance.Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2013
ISBN: 978-1480177871
Page Count: 74
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 29, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Daniel Kahneman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2011
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
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by Erin Meyer ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 27, 2014
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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