First Impression Finishing School

07/12/2015

How to Flunk a Job Interview
These common mistakes will ruin your chances of getting just about any job
Finding reliable, loyal, and competent employees is at the top of most entrepreneurs' minds. You deal with this as a start-up founder, and it continues to plague your management team through the mid-size stage and beyond.
Our company has recently expanded significantly, opening up a number of critical positions. That's pressed us to spend most of our time recruiting--and to learn a lot about the common mistakes that job applicants make.
Using a salary-driven approach to selecting your first job
Opting for a salary-driven approach to the job search--especially when you have little or no experience behind your expectations--is probably not the best long-term strategy. Those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to gain experience in a coveted field come when you're young and fresh, and the reality is that learning jobs don't pay that well. Being aware of this fact will help you gauge the opportunity better.
As an entry-level candidate, you want to show your prospective employer that you value the experience--and the potential opportunity for growth--more than your initial paycheck.
Using unlikely stories to justify past slip-ups
I frequently find myself speaking with applicants that look great on paper and turn out to be quite different during the interview. If you have unexplained breaks in employment, don't use some crazy excuse in an attempt to make yourself look better. Instead of crafting a sad tale portraying you as the martyr, try using a good old-fashioned truth: "I made some mistakes in the past. Now I realize that I didn't have my priorities properly in mind, and I'm clear on where I'd like my journey to go." It sounds better.
Confusing your employer with a misleading resume
If you acted as director of marketing for your previous employer, but you still haven't graduated from college, don't omit the expected graduation date from your resume. Even if it might get you more interviews, it misleads your potential employer into believing you have more experience than you actually do. This will come clear during the interview, by which time you will have changed from being an interesting prospect to a potentially shady candidate.
Employers are looking for candidates that are capable, reliable, and willing to go the extra mile. My advice: Check your ego at the door, and write a kickass cover letter about why you would be great for the job. Explain your capabilities, and why the company interests you. Recruiters and hiring managers are looking for the next hidden treasure. That could be you.

Source: http://www.inc.com/mayra-himenez

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02/10/2014

Ways to Improve Your Body Language:
1. Don’t cross your arms or legs – You have probably already heard you shouldn’t cross your arms as it might make you seem defensive or guarded. This goes for your legs too. Keep your arms and legs open.

2. Have eye contact, but don’t stare – If there are several people you are talking to, give them all some eye contact to create a better connection and see if they are listening. Keeping too much eye-contact might creep people out. Giving no eye-contact might make you seem insecure. If you are not used to keeping eye-contact it might feel a little hard or scary in the beginning but keep working on it and you’ll get used to it.

3. Don’t be afraid to take up some space – Taking up space by for example sitting or standing with your legs apart a bit signals self-confidence and that you are comfortable in your own skin.

4. Relax your shoulders – When you feel tense it’s easily winds up as tension in your shoulders. They might move up and forward a bit. Try to relax. Try to loosen up by shaking the shoulders a bit and move them back slightly.

5. Nod when they are talking – nod once in a while to signal that you are listening. But don’t overdo it and peck like Woody Woodpecker.

6. Don’t slouch, sit up straight – but in a relaxed way, not in a too tense manner.

7. Lean, but not too much – If you want to show that you are interested in what someone is saying, lean toward the person talking. If you want to show that you’re confident in yourself and relaxed lean back a bit. But don’t lean in too much or you might seem needy and desperate for some approval. Or lean back too much or you might seem arrogant and distant.

8. Smile and laugh – lighten up, don’t take yourself too seriously. Relax a bit, smile and laugh when someone says something funny. People will be a lot more inclined to listen to you if you seem to be a positive person. But don’t be the first to laugh at your own jokes, it makes you seem nervous and needy. Smile when you are introduced to someone but don’t keep a smile plastered on your face, you’ll seem insincere.

9. Don’t touch your face – it might make you seem nervous and can be distracting for the listeners or the people in the conversation.

10. Keep your head up – Don’t keep your eyes on the ground, it might make you seem insecure and a bit lost. Keep your head up straight and your eyes towards the horizon.

11. Slow down a bit – this goes for many things. Walking slower not only makes you seem more calm and confident, it will also make you feel less stressed. If someone addresses you, don’t snap your neck in their direction, turn it a bit more slowly instead.

12. Don’t fidget and try to avoid, phase out or transform fidgety movement and nervous ticks such as shaking your leg or tapping your fingers against the table rapidly. You’ll seem nervous and fidgeting can be a distracting when you try to get something across. Declutter your movements if you are all over the place. Try to relax, slow down and focus your movements.

13. Use your hands more confidently instead of fidgeting with your hands and scratching your face use them to communicate what you are trying to say. Use your hands to describe something or to add weight to a point you are trying to make. But don’t use them to much or it might become distracting. And don’t let your hands flail around, use them with some control.

14. Lower your drink. Don’t hold your drink in front of your chest. In fact, don’t hold anything in front of your heart as it will make you seem guarded and distant. Lower it and hold it beside your leg instead.

15. Realize where you spine ends – many people (including me until recently) might sit or stand with a straight back in a good posture. However, they might think that the spine ends where the neck begins and therefore crane the neck forward in a Montgomery Burns-pose. Your spine ends in the back of your head. Keep you whole spine straight and aligned for better posture.

16. Don’t stand too close

17. Mirror – Often when you get along with a person, when the two of you get a good connection, you will start to mirror each other unconsciously. That means that you mirror the other person’s body language a bit. To make the connection better you can try a bit of proactive mirroring. If he leans forward, you might lean forward. If she holds her hands on her thighs, you might do the same. But don’t react instantly and don’t mirror every change in body language. Then weirdness will ensue. :)

18. Keep a good attitude – last but not least, keep a positive, open and relaxed attitude. How you feel will come through in your body language and can make a major difference. For information on how make yourself feel better read 10 ways to change how you feel.

You can change your body language but as all new habits it takes a while. Especially things like keeping you head up might take time to correct if you have spent thousands of days looking at your feet. And if you try and change to many things at once it might become confusing and feel overwhelming.

Source: http://www.positivityblog.com
by HENRIK EDBERG

02/10/2014

Presentation Tips: How to Build Rapport with Your Audience

We understand that the success of a presentation is directly related to the ability of the presenter to deal with people according to their emotional state at any given time.
Hence, we decided to write this post about Rapport. But what, ultimately, does Rapport mean, and why it is important to a presentation?
An Internet search for the meaning of the word, Rapport, takes us to Wikipedia, where we learn that “Rapport occurs when two or more people feel that they are in sync or on the same wavelength because they feel similarly or relate well to each other. Rapport is theorized to include three behavioral components: mutual attention, mutual positivity and coordination.” Simply put, Rapport results from being able to establish a healthy, mutually empathetic relationship. And this is important in a presentation environment.
For a presentation, the ability of a presenter to generate empathy is crucial to success with an audience. That’s why it’s so important that the presenter knows how to hear, listen to and understand the audience and is able to imagine being in someone else’s shoes.
This ability to put oneself in another’s shoes is essential, especially as the mental state of an audience is changing throughout a presentation. And so it’s important that a presenter constantly monitor the mental state and mood of the listeners. Depending on the reaction of an audience at any given moment, to work with the mood of the group, the presenter should adapt stance and way of speaking, thus promoting Rapport.
How Can We Promote Rapport in a Presentation?
There are five important ways:
1. Treat Every Person as an Individual
Even if the audience has hundreds of people, deal with each audience member individually. If you’re dealing with somebody in particular in the audience, look that person in the eye and listen attentively. One study has shown that in a presentation the most important word is YOU. So use it as much as you like.
2. Look at People in the Eye
Eye contact is essential if people are to feel important. So be sure to look your audience in the eye, especially when addressing a particular person. But also don’t forget to take in the entire group with your gaze. The worst thing a presenter can do is address only those people in the first row.
3. Ask Rhetorical Questions
If you’re dealing with a very large audience, every once in a while ask the audience a rhetorical question. This type of question forces a mental response. So, when not speaking directly to all audience members, with a rhetorical question a presenter can establish a connection with each individual.
4. Ask Direct Questions
If your audience is small (less than thirty people), instead of asking rhetorical questions, ask specific audience members direct questions. This way one can easily perceive the mood of those individuals while also triggering interest in all. An audience member never knows when he/she may be asked the next question.
5. Address Audience Members by Name
Whenever possible, use names. Naturally, we all like to hear our names because being addressed personally makes us feel valued and recognized. So before starting to answer somebody, ask him/her: And your name is?
Apply these five simple tips in your presentation and see how your audience will naturally pay more attention.

19/07/2014

Creating environment

If you can’t go to an English-speaking country, you need to create an English-speaking environment & lifestyle as much as possible!

When you get up in the morning watch an English TV channel, or read an English newspaper
Speak English to everyone and everything: your family, children, friends, co-workers (if possible), pets, plants…
After work, watch English TV shows and movies (it’s OK to watch with English subtitles if you need to!)


Whatever you do during the day, do it in English!

Write something in English! Even if you only write one sentence a day, this will help you focus and THINK in English. Write it in a diary. Start your own blog. Use Twitter, Just start!
Do you like to watch TV? watch English channels( News or Entertainment)
Do you like clothes and fashion? Read English fashion magazines.
Do you like to know what’s going on in your country? Look for English newspapers and magazines that talk about local or national issues in your part of the world.
Use an English day planner or calendar (or set your phone/email calendars to ‘English’)

Think of it this way: if you decide to live a healthier life, you don’t say “I’m going to live healthfully for 2 hours every day, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.” When you decide to live healthfully, you do it all day long, every day, as much as possible. If you decide that you want to become fluent in English, you can’t say “I’m going to be fluent for 2 hours every day, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.” It’s something that you have to do all day every day as much as possible!

Every little bit helps!

Lots of little things add up to big things. The more you listen to and read English, the more comfortable you become with it and the easier it is to remember new words. You get used to the sounds of English and you can imitate them when you speak!

19/07/2014

For key features of budget 2014-15
http://indiabudget.nic.in/ub2014-15/bh/bh1.pdf