Tuesday, August 12, 2008

How to behave in interviews

Interviews are the starting state to shape our career. We need to face interviews from the starting of our career to end of our life, it is a continuous process. So besides having technical knowledge to face interviews, its always better to know how to behave and act in interviews.

We find many articles and materials on this topic like what to do and not to do in interviews. But this article gives you brief idea or tips on how to behave in interviews.

Dress code for interviews: there is no particle colour combination to have, but its always better to go in formal dress rather than jeans and t-shirts. If possible try to bright colours. Ladies can go in light natural look make up.

File all required papers: Its better not to take all papers in a cover. Buy good file and maintain your resume and copies of your mark list and any other credits you have. It gives you good impression that you follow some decent way to maintain your valuables.

Sitting Posture: Sit straight and don’t lean on table. Keep your back straight and sit, this implies that you are confident on you. Its better not to cross your legs. It implies that you are over confident and arrogant.

Introduce yourself: Give brief introduction about you. Your introduction should include some of your areas of interest to work, which would make them to know that you are interested in that area. Normally introduction should contain your qualification and experience in your previous companies. Here carefully their introduction and if possible try to use their names while explaining your answers.
This gives good impression that you have good listening capabilities.

Gestures: its always better to be in pleasant and good mood in interviews. I can understand that we would be little tensed by seeing panel of interviewers, but try to be cool. Keep smile on your face, this shows that you are ready to face them. Try to explain them using both your hands and correct expression on your face.

Tackle the Question: If you don’t have an idea on any of the questions they racketed, then you should not loose your confidence, you should tell in polite way that you never got chance to work in that area. If you have only theoretical knowledge of doing that and never done in your career, then explain what you know and then tell that once you got chance to work on it but somehow that project has been cancelled. Don’t be panic at any time in your interview period. No body in this world know everything, so if don’t know you can tell directly that, you never worked in that area.

Show Confidence: Tell in detail about the questions interviewers ask. It would be still more better if you explain them by taking examples in your project like how you have implemented that concept in your project. This gives full confidence to interviews that you know in detail about that concept and you really worked on it. If they ask to write some code , write it in big letters and neatly, it should be easily Understandable.

Winding up: Once your interview is completed, then they will tell something like we would let you know soon or our hr will call you back. Before you leave Don’t forget to wish them Thank you by having a quick glance on all the members of the Panel.

Any question for us: Sometimes interviewers ask whether you would like to ask any questions to them. Then don’t say no. If that is not so famous company, just ask about their company or You can ask like for what kind of project they are currently looking. How many months projects that would be. Some kind of questions like this. This gives good impression that you are really interested to know company and project you are going to join.

After all knowledge is more important. If you have full grip in your area, then you can control interview panel. Now a days infront of knowledge and experience attitude is taking back seat, if you perform outstanding in your interview then it doesn’t matter in whatever way you sit and wear. But its always good to have good attitude and behaviour. Good luck for your interview.

Saturday, August 9, 2008

How to get good score in Exams

Writing in exams is different from what you study for exams. In our daily life, We might be seeing many people who study less, but they get good score, eventhough they attempt less questions in exams. How that happens? because they know how to reproduce what they have studied for exams.Let have a look at some tips to get good score in exams.

Time Constraint: Many people say that, I know answers for all the questions, but i could not write in the given time. Except for competitive exams, exams panel set question papers by keeping time factor in mind. So We should try to avoid to say that time is not sufficient for exams. Then how to manage time in exams?
i. First have a quick glance on all the questions and its marks. If you know some question's answers very well and those questions have high marks then complete writing answers to those kind of questions first.
ii. Write what is required and improtant for small questions (less marks). Even though it is big answer, we should write in short as it is asked for only few marks. Better option to write these kind of questions is try to write in bulleted points.
iii. For mathematical papers, if possible try to skip some simple steps in solutions. Which saves some time.
iv. If you are not sure on some questions, don't waste time thinking and attempting them in the beginning. Always try to attempt them in the last.
To the Point: If question is to write briefly on something, then don't start from history and keep on writing. If you do like this, the actual point which is asked in the question will come in the middle and could be missed by valuator and its also waste of time. Its always better to highlight the actual point especially in exam sheets. Highlight with other color pen or with boxing the key workds of that answer.
Enlarge the actual question: some times we get short answers for high marks. then what to do? then write clearly what is required to that question, if any equations or formulas are there, then write them and also draw diagrams if requried for that kind of questions. its also better to write some introduction and conclusion stuff for these type of questions.
Handwriting: No need to say handwriting takes good score. good hand writing makes valuator easy to read what you have written and make them happy to correct your paper easily. but please don't spend too much of time just to write the exams with very good handwriting, which would waste some of your time.
Practice: For some questions we feel, we might have read that question but we feel very uncomfortable while writing answers to those questions. For these kind of questions we should practice with writing answers. All questions need not required to practice writing while reading, but some questions do need.

These are very few tips to get good score in exams. Anyway study well before you go for exams.
good luck for your exams.