Professor Bucki, the Director of GCC’s Information Technologies Department, attended my Professional Sales class as a guest speaker to discuss the side of the job interview process that usually isn’t covered, that being what does an employer actually looks for and consider during an interview. He lead into his presentation simply titled “The Interview” with some humorous personal stories as well as an inspirational story about a lumberjack. Some key factors he shared were:

1. Develop your self-brand
2. A good Resume and cover letter can take over 100 hours to perfect and should always be changing as you gain more skills and experience
3. Most employers spend less than 30 seconds looking at your resume
4. The point of the interview is not just to see if you have what it takes to do the job, but finding out who you are and if you’ll fit in culturally as well
5. Easiest ways of killing your interview
   • Trashing a previous employer
   • Ignorance of the company
   • Not having questions
   • Bringing up vacation, promotions, and salary
   • “BSing” your way through the interview
6. Most common and important interview questions
   • Why should I hire you?
   • Tell me one of your weaknesses
   • Tell me about a time you failed
   • Tell me about your greatest success
7. How to beat nervousness
8. Make sure to follow up or send a thank you letter

Special thanks to Professor Bucki for bringing such a unique and exciting viewpoint to our classroom. The presentation was full of valuable information that we can all incorporate into our future job searches.