The ultimate goal of every employee is to be considered an asset to the team, get promoted, gain respect from your co-workers and have a successful career. For which, professionalism is the key.

After all, it is not something that can be taught. A person is supposed to grasp it up by himself through osmosis and observation, which can be tricky at times. It is about focusing on your performance and reaping the benefits of your hard work.

Make professionalism a habit and watch it open doors for other career opportunities for you. Here’s how you can adopt professionalism at your workplace:

1. Look Presentable and Well Groomed

Your appearance speaks about you before you could. Of course, people would judge you by your appearance. Make sure to look neat, fresh and well-dressed at work. Dress up appropriately following the dress code of your workplace. Some workplaces have an easy going business casual apparel while others require the formal dress code. So follow the code and dress up accordingly. A professional appearance would not only make your colleagues respect you, but will also make you feel fresh and energetic.

2. Follow the Cultural Norms at Your Workplace

Look around and observe the practices other people are offering. That is how you go about important stuff on “that’s how it’s done here”. Such trends might include arriving a few minutes early for the meetings, turning off your cellphone or keeping it on the silent mode to refrain from disturbing others, interacting with the clients, etc. Perceive what is considered professional from your environment so that people don’t find you an odd-one-out.

3. Get Done With the Work

Being passionate about your job is vital. Old-age advice about “do what you love” i.e. choosing a career that interests you has been going wrong as people are seen to get tired, exhausted and frustrated at work. Why not flip the words and be it “Love what you do”? This might solve half of the problems in the world. It’s not about loving your workplace, because you don’t know when your workplace might stop loving you. It’s about enjoying your work rather than thinking of it as a burden over your shoulders. So, the key to being prolific is staying focused at work. A to-do list can be a good idea to organize your work and manage time according to the tasks. Because nothing describes professionalism more than accomplishment, especially constant achievements.

4. Be Punctual

Try to always show up before the reporting time. Be it casual meetings, important panel discussions, client meet up, or arriving at your workplace, always reach on time. Also, do not call in sick unnecessarily because you slept late last night since you were watching your favorite series.

5. Communicate Professionally

You should sound clear and confident while facing people. Listen actively during meetings and when it’s your turn, speak on point and in such a way that everyone understands. Make use of good vocabulary and well-structured sentences, especially while presenting in front of a bigger audience. Make sure you prepare well to build up what it takes to be a great presenter.

6. Be Good to People

Build better relations with the faces you have to see daily at your workplace – regardless of whether you like them or not. It would be highly professional not to let them get under your skin and go easy. Greet them when you arrive, an eye contact with the ends of your lips turning up to a smile is a humble way to say hello. Help them when they need you. This will help you gain professional reputation. And after all, what goes around, comes around. Avoid being harsh to someone you don’t like and especially gossiping behind their back. I can’t stress enough over this. Simply, remain cordial because pleasant is the new sexy.

7. Learn From Your Mistakes

Being professional is not about being a perfectionist. It’s about working on your flaws and turning them into your strength. The best way to know your mistakes is to take feedback. Most of us, due to our ego problem, take feedback personally and start being defensive. This is highly unprofessional. If you want to do better, don’t you want to know where do you need to pay the most attention? The feedback from your mentor or manager should always help you perform better.

Summing it all, you can not turn into a professional overnight. It requires constant learning and hard work over time with attaining control over yourself. Professionalism opens up new challenges and brings opportunities that are knocking at your door every day so that you can grow and achieve job satisfaction. It is a skill you can acquire to become a better employee than you were before.

After all, nothing is constant, but the change (for the better).

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So you’re probably done with high school and looking for majors that could be chosen as a career, or you are a senior expecting graduation soon, or simply an alumnus who is thinking about a career change. You may have been facing people questioning about “What do you want to do?” Well, you only wish you knew as you may have shrugged. There are so many options to look into. You are unsure about the direction that suits you the most. And you are being conscious since one wrong choice can prove to be very costly. But, there are ways through which you can be your own counselor and determine your dream career path.

Secrets to Determine Your Dream Career Path

1. Purpose of Your Life

First of all, you should know that what you are going to start in your life? You might be afraid to fail for the first time, but you should believe in your dreams, you will definitely experience and understand new things in your life that will make a great change. You will learn many new things and you will get mastered in your skills. Everyone is born with some creativity, express it in your work whatever you will going to start. Trust me you will succeed.

2. Your Interests Matter the Most

To discover your real life’s purpose you also need to consider other things such as to consider the other areas of focus that might be able to shelter some light into your deepest desires, needs, wants and passions. It’s easy. Look for the things that excite you the most. After that, imagine yourself doing that job 10 years from now. Do you look happy? You probably got your answer.

3. Don’t Compare Yourself with Others

Don’t compare yourself with others; everyone has different choices and interests. Not necessary that if they are good at something, then you could be too. This can never make your dream path a success. Realize that you have your own identity and caliber and that there is no need to put limits on yourself, neither at the highest nor at the lowest levels.

4. Choosing the Right Career

Once you get to know your true potentials, you will position yourself to chase the right career options. If your potential doesn’t match up with the career you desire, then you know you still need to develop a skill set.

As the time will pass, your professional attitude with your job or career will help you meet new people, experience new things, learn new skills, and expose yourself to new knowledge and information. After all, learning never stops.

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In this era of technology, it is no surprise that many young graduates are choosing computer science as their profession. Even the 3rd world countries are jumping on the bandwagon because they know this profession is the field of the future. Forbes even lists this as the field with the “most employment rate”. However, some specific qualities can mean the difference between a great programmer and somebody who is not very good.

5 Things To Look For When You Are Hiring a Programmer

Here are 5 things to look for when you are hiring a programmer:

1. Shooting the troubles out

Problem-solving skill is the main technique to master in Programming. Solving particular problems effectively require candidates to identify, define and solve problems using logic, and lateral and creative thinking. Whenever programmers are tackled with a problem they use their logical skills to solve it and this does not stop there programmers need to find all the ways in which the problem will be solved and then use one of the quickest ways to do it. This requires huge commitment and problem-solving skills.

2. Using your brain

You are only as good as a programmer as your imagination. It might sound evident, but programming is an exercise in thinking. Programming is a whole new world where you have to design each and everything using your own technical and thinking skills. This is the reason that programmers with strong science and math backgrounds are always preferred. It makes them better at programming, but more significant, it usually indicates good logic skills. When interviewer discusses the job, they sometimes leave blanks to check whether the candidate is able to fill them in. Also, if your hiring process contains formal testing, that is a good way to test logic skills.

3. Creativity in demand

Steve Jobs did not build his Technical Empire because he was good in programming. What he had was his imagination and passion to build something innovative. When you are looking for a programmer you have to look how far he is willing to go to get the work done when big tech companies like google are hiring they often ask random off the topic question to test your creativity. Creativity is one of the programmer’s deadliest weapon which influences his career. Creative programmers can often find rather strange ways to tackle a problem which is very important in this field.

4. Going an extra mile

Many programming schools do not have the time and budget to provide training to their programmers. Unfortunately, it’s the current business reality. The effect is that most programmers self-teach their skill and expertise (with a helpful mentor) once their formal schooling is over. Programmers who are great at self-learning will be better at programming. No respected programmer will say that he has fully understood any particular programming language. There is always a learning phase in a programmer’s life. When you hire a coder, you have to see how far he is willing to learn and apply new skill rather than using his old and outdated approach. Interviewers often ask questions related to latest technologies to see how much the programmer is indulged in his field.

5. Communicating well

Good communication skills are often used by programmers to convey his views accurately. Programmers who experience difficulties understanding what others are trying to tell them or expressing their point of opinion won’t be effective in the long run. It does not matter how good of a programmer he is, if he can’t efficiently communicate with the client, he can never give the clients what they want and unhappy clients is bad for business. Long interview sessions are held by big companies to test the confidence of the programmer. You will need to hire a programmer who is confident while communicating as he is while programming. There should be a perfect balance between his communicating skills and programming skills. Programmers who boast too much and then under-perform are like cancer to this industry.

Choosing the right programmer could be challenging, but it’s always better to wait than paying the price of a wrong choice.

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Are you a resource having great technical knowledge related to your field but still not able to go through the interviews? Well there is this non-technical stuff you need to learn before appearing for your next job interview. It is quite possible that the interviewer is asking you a bunch of tricky interview questions which you are not getting right. I am going to list down 10 job interview questions along-with the DO’s and DONT’s to answer these questions.

10 Tricky Interview Questions with Answers

Before you read further, I want you to understand is that technical knowledge does not solely guarantee you a job. Though you might have heard these questions earlier in your career, the important thing here is to learn to answer these questions wisely as these questions are still being asked in 2016 by recruiters around the globe.

Without further ado, let’s get started.

1. Tell me about yourself

99.99% of recruiters will ask you this question which makes it a most common interview question. What is something special in you that every wants to know about you? If you are thinking that they want to know about your family, your property or your belongings, you are totally mistaken. The interviewer doesn’t want to listen to your lifetime story. Instead, he is looking for a brief answer stating your skills. Here is how you should answer this question:

• Keep your answer clear and concise.
• Tell them about your education and qualifications in no more than 2-3 sentences.
• The most important thing here is prove why you are the best candidate for this position.
• Do little research on the company and their projects. Try to find out what strengths is this company looking for.
• Try to convey in your answer that you possess those strengths and give examples, where required.

2. Why are you interested in working with us?

“Because I need money”. If you think this is a cute answer, yes it is but this answer is not going to land you a job. Everyone needs money but this is not the right way to answer. You are not supposed to tell them that you are here for a monthly paycheck so you can pay your bills. Be professional and work-oriented. Include the following in your answer to impress the interviewer:

• Do some research on the company. You need to tell them how you plan to polish your skills while working with them.
• Briefly explain how your expertise and skills can add value to their business.
• Tell you want to be a part of an experienced team and learn from the team-mates.

3. Why should we hire you?

“Because I am the most-talented guy you will ever come across” or “I think I deserve to get this job”. Sorry, but you don’t deserve it. This is an incredibly common interview question almost every interviewer asks. You need to be specific in your answer to this question. Follow these tips to answer this question better:

• Tell the interviewer how your skills will add value to the company’s processes.
• Present a solution to the problems company is facing. You need to be the one who solves their problems, rather one who brags his skills.
• You may quote an example from your past experience stating your qualities that contributed towards solution of a serious problem.

4. Why did you leave your previous job?

Don’t take it just another interview question. It is neither tricky, nor a funny interview question. The employer wants to know reasons that can make you quit a job. Hiring is a time-critical process and employers don’t like spending lots of time and resources for recruiting for same positions again and again. Therefore, they make sure that the person they bring forward is competent as well as a long-term asset for their organization.

Don’t bash your previous employer or any of the team members. No matter whatever was the reason to leave your previous job, you need to answer this question wisely, and honestly on the same time. Just a simple answer like this would suffice:

“I am looking for better opportunities in order to enhance my skill set. I strongly believe that this position will help me explore new learning curves in the field of my interest.”

If you were fired by previous employer, be open and have the courage to tell the truth.

5. What is your greatest strength?

This is another important job interview question among most common tricky interview questions. Don’t make huge claims which you can’t prove later. This is a straight forward question which requires a brief answer. This is your chance to convince the interviewer that you are the best fit for this position. Mention your most impressive success story from the past which adds value to the answer of your question. You may include the following to provide best answer for this question.

• Mention your strengths that are important for the position you have applied for.
• Avoid mentioning a strength that is not related to this job.
• You can state how you use these strengths in the past and solved some big problems.

Again, you need to do some research about the company and strengths this position requires in order to provide a better answer.

6. What is your greatest weakness?

Most of the experts will tell you present your greatest strength as a weakness. e.g. “I work very hard and sometimes I don’t even take care of my health and work late night”. NO, this is not the right way to answer it. Pick a weakness that doesn’t matter a lot to the position you have applied for. For example, if you have applied for a position for programmer, you might say that you are not very good at writing or planning things. Saying this, you can also tell them how you are already working to overcome this weakness.

7. What do you know about our company?

Again, do a thorough research about the company you are applying for. It doesn’t mean that you need to memorize the date company was founded or the story of the founders but you must at-least know the following about the company before appearing for a job interview:

• Vision and Mission
• Portfolio of the company
• Clients and the nature of projects
• Products, if any.

8. Why have you been unemployed for a very long time?

This is a tricky question and does not have any definite answer. The interviewer wants to know why have you been out of the market for so long. It is your chance to convince them that you learned some valuable skill while you were unemployed. A good answer could be:

“I got enrolled in some advanced courses which helped me learn new skills and kept me engaged and productive.”

9. Where do you see yourself in 5 years from now?

Some people would answer this question in a funny way and think they would get a green signal right away. e.g. “I see myself sitting on your seat in 5 years.” Some would say “I want to be CEO of the company”. If you are one of them, stop doing it right now. They are not interviewing you for position of a CEO.

Be specific in your answer. All you need to do is to demonstrate your commitment to the position you have applied for. By asking this question, the interviewer wants to know your level of commitment for this position. So convey the same in your answer. Tell the interviewer that you want to be a long-term asset for their organization.

10. Do you have any questions?

70% of people would answer this “No” and having said this, they are missing on an important opportunity. An opportunity that lets you demonstrate your interest for the company and position you have applied for.

Don’t ask them about the perks and benefits, work hours, vacations, etc. It is too early to ask questions like this. You can always ask these questions after you have received an offer letter.

Before you appear for the interview, prepare a list of questions based on company research. You don’t need to ask all of those questions. But you must prepare at least 3 or 4 questions and ask one of them depending on the scenario. Here are some of questions you may ask:

• “Can you tell me your expectations from the person you select for this position?”
• “If I am hired for this position, will I be provided any prior training before I start work?”
• It is also wise to ask questions about the products of projects of the company. This will tell interviewer how interested you are in this position and that you have done some homework before appearing for job interview.
• It is also fine to ask about next steps in the hiring process, if you can’t ask any of the questions above.

Conclusion

This is all to the tricky interview questions you may encounter during job interview. The bottom line is that tailor all your answers to the needs of the employer and focus on how you will be a valuable asset for the organization. Don’t make them sense that you are just one other greedy human being looking for a monthly paycheck to pay his bills.

What are some other tricky interview questions you have been asked recently? Do share with us in the comments section below.

You may also like: Email Etiquette Mistakes that Are Killing Your Career

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Many believe that they have what it takes to draft a formal email. There are people who claim absolute command over the English language, yet they fall short of the skill to construct a formal, professional email especially when applying for a job. This could be a reality for many students who have not received any training in this department from their academic institutions. It’s not a very technical feat, or one that requires extensive study or an enrollment in a concentrated course. But sometimes common email etiquette mistakes can cost you a lot. All it requires is consideration of a few prerequisites and pointers while drafting a professional email.

Communication – the human connection – is the key to personal and career success.

Therefore, while dropping an email to potential employers, make sure you have gone through this list to increase the chance of you getting hired. Avoiding these mistakes does not provide a job guarantee but if you have committed any of these blunders, 99% chances are that your emails are making their place to trash. An effective email can convey a positive impression and build your reputation whereas an informal email can potentially damage your reputation. There are a lot of good email etiquette examples including appropriate capitalization of letters, staying to one topic in en email, etc. But we are going to discuss common mistakes that can be easily avoided.

Infographic

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<br /> <b>Click Image to Enlarge</b><br /><a href="http://www.aqibnazir.com/email-etiquette-mistakes/"><img src="http://www.aqibnazir.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Email-Eitquette-Mistakes-Infographic-768×1711.png" alt="5 Common Email Etiquette Mistakes That Seize Your Chance of Getting Hired"></a><br />Source: <a href="http://www.aqibnazir.com">5 Common Email Etiquette Mistakes That Seize Your Chance of Getting Hired – Infographic</a><br />

Common Email Etiquette Mistakes That Seize Your Chance of Getting Hired

Mistake # 1: Using email addresses that don’t look professional

There are students who create funky email addresses during their early years at school and keep using those until they graduate. If you are one of them who has a flirty email like hotmale@xyz.com or coolvegasguy@xyz.com, dump it right away. This is the strongest signal of a non-professional attitude and recruiters might not even look at what you have written in the email.

Always Remember:

Your email address brands you, even when you’re not working.

Follow these tips to get a professional email address:

• It could contain your first and last name separated by a period.
• If that isn’t available, try to find a different email server.
• If you don’t find such email address with any email provider, you can use your initial followed by your last name.
• Try not to include numbers in your email address.

Mistake # 2: Sending email with Incorrect or No Subject line

Subject is your tool to tell your readers about the content of the email. If they don’t find it interesting, chances are that your email will be overlooked. A good subject helps people find their emails later on. Follow these tips to get your resume noticed by recruiters and employers:

• Never send an email without a subject line.
• Your subject line should neither be too long that it is boring to read neither too short that it is vague.
• Read job description carefully before dropping your resume. If the recruiter has mentioned a subject line to use, follow it. If not, choose a clear subject line so that recipient gets an idea of what to expect when they open the email.  You can use, for example, “Resume for” followed by the position you are applying for.

Mistake # 3: Writing Pointless and Irrelevant Details

If you are dropping resumes with lengthy content in email body, stop doing it right now. Brief and descriptive emails that consider only important and relevant details are considered much more effective as compared to emails that contain long stories.

Remember! Recruiters receive hundreds of emails against a job vacancy and they don’t have time to read wordy emails. Therefore, avoid writing lengthy emails. Never write cover letter inside the email body. Instead, attach it with the email. Don’t write about your experience or anything else in the email body. Everything is in the resume already. An email with a formal greeting and 1-2 sentences showing your interest are enough and effective.

Mistake #4: Bad Manners in Email Body

Writing a good and effective email is an art and you must master this art before you enter your professional life. Start and end your email with a formal greeting. Use proper salutation while greeting the recipient. DON’T WRITE IN ALL CAPS as it looks rude (Do I look angry?).

Use proper signatures that contain your name at least. Avoid using colorful and funky signatures. Use one font throughout and don’t write in all bold. You can bold few words only that require to be emphasized but don’t bold whole sentences.  Don’t use huge font sizes. A font-size of 12-14 pt. is well-suited for email body.

Mistake #5: Not Reviewing Before Sending Email

One of the most important things most of students forget to do is proofreading the email before clicking the Send button. There could be spelling mistakes, grammatical errors or punctuation mistakes that look sloppy. You may at times forget to attach your resume or other documents with the email and send an email without attachments or at worst, send email to the wrong person.

All these mistakes could be avoided by reviewing your email before sending it. Start practicing it from now as it is a lifetime lesson and will help you in your professional career as well. Also, try not to enter recipient email before you have completely reviewed your email. This decreases the chance of email being sent to the wrong person.

As the saying goes think before you speak, and look before you leap, you should review email before sending.

Students must be well aware of proper email etiquette in the workplace before sending out their resumes to employers. Hiring managers receive hundreds of emails against each vacant position and students committing such blunders ensure that their resume gets overlooked. If you want to get your resume noticed, make sure you have not committed any of these mistakes.

Don’t forget to share it with your friends who are struggling to get a job. If you have ever committed or noticed any email etiquette mistake in your career, do share with us in the comments section below.

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