Interview tips you won’t find elsewhere

I have read so many blogs on great interview tips etc., here are some that I would love to have shared with potential candidates from my past. Yes, I have dealt with at least one of each.:

 

1. Be sure to clean your eye glasses. Having smudges or even mascara rubbed on them is distracting when I am talking to you. You may not see them, but I do.

 

2. Be sure to brush your teeth – again very distracting.

 

3. Take it easy on the cologne. I may have asthma, or at least may have by the time you leave.

 

4. I do not want to see you butt or breasts, so keep them covered please.

 

5. Don’t call me honey – yes you women too. I am not hun, honey, or sweetheart.

 

6. Don’t lie on your resume and then forget what you had on it. And keep in mind, I do verify references.

 

7. When I ask what your best qualities are – don’t tell me getting along with others and then tell me you left old job due to personality conflicts. You see my point here don’t you?

 

8. When explaining your past responsibilities, don’t lay in with how the old supervisor was a bitch – that just means you will be calling me names too one day.

 

9. Don’t introduce yourself as Jane /John Doe and then say but all my ID says Julie/Josh Adams. I will have some questions…

 

10. Don’t show up a half hour early with your lunch to the interview and ask if you can use the waiting room as your cafeteria. Leave your food and drink in the car. It probably won’t be long before you will be joining it anyway.

 

And if/when hired, keep in mind:

 

1. If the back of your SS card says do not laminate, and you laminate it – I cannot accept it as ID. Don’t yell at me, you laminated it.

 

2. The law tells me I have to ask for your documentation – if you don’t have it, please get it before your first day of work. You should be old enough to have your VALID driver’s license, SS card and / or passport available. You needed it at your last job, so please bring it to this one too. Not my law. Again, don’t yell at me.

 

3. Don’t show up late for your first day – first week – first month.

 

4. Don’t come to work and then take 20 minutes in the bathroom to fix yourself up. Come in 10 minutes early and be working when your start time arrives.

 

5. Don’t ask me for an advance the first day on the job. Prove your worth to me, and earn your paycheck.

 

Others may not concern themselves with these tidbits of information, but I do.

 

Thank you and happy job hunting!

Repost because nothing has changed: Why I am not a journalist!

Originally posted 4/13/2010:

I love to write. I love to do research. I love to read. So, why am I not a journalist?

 

Because your job is harder than mine.

 

You are given or come up with a topic. You work hard to find the right resources and work out a schedule to interview those resources and gather all the necessary information and make a powerful, informative article that people will want to read. Sounds easy to some, but I know better.

 

The topic must be something that you are familiar with, interested in, or can at least relate to. Or for those who just have wonderful skills, be able to KNOW how to sponge the information from various research for use in a fabulous paper for print.

 

Resource can be anyone. Can ramble so badly that you want to shout – GET TO THE POINT, or worse, could answer your questions without really answering your questions. Occasionally the smooth, precise, clear speaker is found, but it is a rarity. (trust me, this I do know.)

 

Scheduling the interviews – Resources can schedule the interview and change ten minutes before it was to begin, as if their time is the only time to consider, or can start the interview and have to go due to some conflicting appointment after just 5 minutes, or even want to do the interview so early in the morning or middle of the night – just because they can. Others just want to talk to hear themselves talk and can go on and on and on. For these however, many of you have your interview stopping statement to bring it to a close, and are so charming when you use it.

 

Those items can be tough enough, but what’s worse is when you are interviewing someone who is so arrogant, uninteresting, incoherent, or a double talker. Someone who assumes you know nothing at all, questions your abilities and knowledge and lets you know it. Or someone who said they could help you in your mission for a really good story and you find out they really have nothing at all. For example, you asked about really great marble to use in a bathroom remodel and they talk about port-a-potties. You know what I mean. And many of you are so diplomatic that you find something – anything – this person has talked about in order to say it was not a wasted appointment.

 

And then there are times the interview goes well. You have what you need and you find that you did the entire 50 minute interview and forgot to turn on your recorder, or it malfunctions during the interview (or after), or your computer crashes and you lose the entire kit and caboodle.

 

All of this is just the items I can decipher from transcribing your interviews. All of this is what amazes me when I see your final product after publication and am amazed how wonderful it is. Your job is much harder than mine.

 

I just transcribe the interviews and other material. If I had to deal with just that kind of “stuff” I would probably be unemployed from saying something like “hey, Buddy, do me a favor and just answer the damn question. And while you’re at it, can you pay attention to what you are responding to and stop eating or calling out to your friends who are walking by as you talk to me, and hey buddy – the phone works better when you talk into it. Can you get any closer to the man yelling in the background, I am not hearing what he is so mad about. I was ready yesterday for our 10 a.m. appointment and you changed it to 3 a.m. so how about pay attention to the questions so I can go back to bed.”

 

Me, I can sit here, transcribe your audio, and smile…better you than me. I will just wait for you to go to print and see how amazing you made the information into something that others can understand and draw from.

 

That is why I am not a journalist. I am just a transcriptionist, here to type your audio, help you meet your deadlines and watch you take all that hard work you do and make an article worth reading, sharing, and discussing for months and months.

 

Better you than me. I will stick to reading your articles thus remaining employed.

 

 

 

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As a journalist, do you ever have enough time?

As a journalist/writer, when you have a project that has been assigned, there are so many steps to get through to be able to develop the perfect article, the perfect end-product, that it’s a wonder you have enough time in the day to even think about them all.

There are phone calls to make. Interviews to set up and then to hold. Outlines to write, and even the final article/chapter/paper to complete. Possibly even photos to choose. Editors to deal with. The list goes on and on. All the while, juggling the business of life that is always there, and quite frankly more important that any article, book, paper you will ever write – your family.

So when you can, it’s nice to know it’s okay to ask for help. Help that will give you that hour, hours, or even days to handle the other aspects of your project and the important parts of your life. And when you can find that help, and it’s within your budget, that is all the more reason to consider asking for it.

CLK Transcription understands the needs of the journalist. We understand their deadlines and we understand their budgets. We have been fortunate to be able to assist many with their audio/video transcription and we have grown to understand that their audio is a valuable tool in their work, but that the transcription of it is time-consuming and cumbersome for them to handle on their own. It, quite frankly, can interfere with the completing the project itself and absolutely interrupts the family time they could have if they just didn’t have to do it themselves.

 

The good news is THEY DON’T!

CLK Transcription can handle their audio/video transcription and develop a quality document, and return it to them in most cases within 36 hours or less. Now they can get on with the project and get on with their enjoyment of a little bit of family time. We even transcribe voice mail. Yes, many can get that service for free, but are the messages usable, understandable, or delivered timely? If it’s free, do you get what you pay for?

We are able to work with any downloadable audio, and yes, we work with cassettes, DVDs and CDs. We even convert white paper to an electronic document. And if you have an audio you want to transcribe yourself, but just need it converted to a different medium – we can do that, too! We even offer a FTP site for those who need the transferability of their files to others. All at a cost that fits within your budget.

So, when you have a project and you need a little or a lot of help with the transcription, why not find out how we can assist? You may just find the time and money you have been looking for.

We are an email away from starting your project today and having it back to you with a day or so. We are US owned and operated and never send anything off shore. We offer a confidentiality agreement to every client. We never use speech recognition, and every project is proofread before delivery.

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