If you are searching for a new job or your next career step, you have already noticed that there is an abundance of resources available on the internet for resume help, finding job openings, applying for jobs, and interviewing well to get to the "You're Hired" status. The purpose of this article is to provide some perspective on these resources, and will it help your odds of getting a job to pay for targeted resources versus just using free?
Free Interviewing Tips
You can find a lot of information on Interviewing at very credible sites like Monster.com under their advice sections. Sites like this provide information on what questions are asked, standard answers, and also context behind the question. However, when I read through a lot of these free resources, some of them I view as useful, but in many cases I find them not as helpful as I would have liked, and think they shouldn't be utilized as your only resource due to:
Paying for Interview Advice
Should you ever pay for interview advice? Absolutely. Most free sites have other motives than educating you, and the "free" content is provided as an ancillary benefit or even lure to other items on their site. This translates into the potential for outdated content, suspect content written by people that don't make hiring decisions today [if ever], and lack of connection with whether the content helped or hurt job candidates. You should use this content, but not as your only source of education.
Whether you are buying a book at Barnes & Noble on Interviewing, or have found a highly targeted advice guide online, you want to get the experience of an actual manager - one who is still hiring and managing employees today. Only this type of advice will help you with focusing general knowledge into targeted advice on interview questions and answers, and behaviors - and you will know that it is up to date.
There are many experienced managers creating and providing these type of guides on the Internet as E-Books, special reports, membership sites, or as live coaching sessions. This should supplement the general research and education done using free content, as the paid content should provide razor sharp focus on the few critical things you need to learn. Basically you are paying not only for the managers experience, but also his insights into distilling down hundreds of elements of an interview into a short, actionable guide.
Free Interviewing Tips
You can find a lot of information on Interviewing at very credible sites like Monster.com under their advice sections. Sites like this provide information on what questions are asked, standard answers, and also context behind the question. However, when I read through a lot of these free resources, some of them I view as useful, but in many cases I find them not as helpful as I would have liked, and think they shouldn't be utilized as your only resource due to:
- Too much information. One site has a page with "101" Interview Questions and answers. this is too much - Do you need to memorize all of these, some of these, etc? As an interview candidate, how do you know which question is valuable and which one isn't?
- Credibility of the information. So advice on major career sites would be assumed to be accurate and credible right? Wrong. The problem is that while much of it may be good, you have to look at where the information came from. Did a professional writer author this content, did a recruiter, did a technical editor, or did an actual real hiring manager write it? Ideally you want to follow advice on interview questions and answers that comes directly from the people interviewing you and making the decision - the hiring manager population. This will be by far the most credible information.
- Relevance of the information. While the content provided around interview questions, answers, and expected behavior may have been relevant at a point in time, is it still relevant today? We are in one of the most severe recessions in history, and every job opening has 1000's of applicants. Is the information available on free sites applicable to today's hiring situation, or is it generic information added to over the years and may or may not be relevant to how managers are hiring today.
- Which site to use. This is especially problematic when you see different sites provide different "preferred" answers to the same exact interview question. Do interview candidates following the advice on one site get job offers more often than candidates following advice from another site? Unfortunately sites don't allow feedback and ratings.
Paying for Interview Advice
Should you ever pay for interview advice? Absolutely. Most free sites have other motives than educating you, and the "free" content is provided as an ancillary benefit or even lure to other items on their site. This translates into the potential for outdated content, suspect content written by people that don't make hiring decisions today [if ever], and lack of connection with whether the content helped or hurt job candidates. You should use this content, but not as your only source of education.
Whether you are buying a book at Barnes & Noble on Interviewing, or have found a highly targeted advice guide online, you want to get the experience of an actual manager - one who is still hiring and managing employees today. Only this type of advice will help you with focusing general knowledge into targeted advice on interview questions and answers, and behaviors - and you will know that it is up to date.
There are many experienced managers creating and providing these type of guides on the Internet as E-Books, special reports, membership sites, or as live coaching sessions. This should supplement the general research and education done using free content, as the paid content should provide razor sharp focus on the few critical things you need to learn. Basically you are paying not only for the managers experience, but also his insights into distilling down hundreds of elements of an interview into a short, actionable guide.
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