Own the Interview: 10 Questions to Ask
by Larry Buhl, for Yahoo! HotJobs
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For many job seekers an interview can seem too much like an inquisition. That's usually because they're doing all the answering and none of the asking.
"Somewhere in the interview you have a chance to impress the employer on your own terms and see if the job is a good fit for you," says Florida-based career coach and executive recruiter Jonathan Milligan. "And you absolutely should take this opportunity. By asking the right questions you can determine if the job is right for you and also show you're engaged and interested in the job."
Employment experts identify five key question areas where you can gain insight, put yourself in a good light, and take some control in the interview.
Identify their pain.
* "What is one of the biggest problems the company faces that someone with my background could help alleviate?"
* "If I started in this job tomorrow, what would be my two most pressing priorities?"
Find out where the company is going.
* "Where do you see this department/company in five years?"
* "What are the long and short term goals of the company/department/work group?"
Determine whether you'd fit in.
* "How would you describe your company's culture?
* "What tangible and intangible qualities attracted you to the organization?"
Show you're really interested.
* "What additional information can I provide about my qualifications?"
* "What are the next steps in the selection process?"
Ask follow-ups.
* "Can you clarify what you said about ...?"
* "Can you give me some examples of ...?"
"By requesting clarification or examples, you show interviewers you care and that you're thinking deeply about the issues they brought up," says learning and development consultant Bill Denyer. He suggests taking notes in the interview, using keywords to jog your memory of what was discussed but not burying your head in your notebook.
What you don't want to ask are questions with obvious answers, according to Susan RoAne, author of "Face to Face: How to Reclaim the Personal Touch in a Digital World."
"You really need to do your homework," RoAne tells Yahoo! HotJobs. "Before the interview go to the company website and use search engines to get up to speed, and browse social networking sites like Yahoo! Groups to see who knows what about the company."
"And never, never ask an interviewer, 'How long is the vacation'? or, 'What does your company do?'" RoAne added.
Some experts suggest waiting for the inevitable "Do you have any questions for us?" at the interview, while others recommend looking for conversation openings to ask appropriate questions.
"It depends on the situation," Milligan says. "If the interviewer seems to be reading from a sheet of questions, don't interrupt. If it's a more casual conversation, you may have chances to turn the questions back on the interviewer."
"It's important to remember the job interview is a two-way street," RoAne said.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Ancient Greenland gene map has a surprise Reuters
Ancient Greenland gene map has a surprise
Reuters
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An artist's impression shows "Inuk" who is believed to have lived among the Saqqaq people, the earliest known culture in southern Greenl Reuters – An artist's impression shows "Inuk" who is believed to have lived among the Saqqaq people, …
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor Maggie Fox, Health And Science Editor – Wed Feb 10, 4:44 pm ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Scientists have sequenced the DNA from four frozen hairs of a Greenlander who died 4,000 years ago in a study they say takes genetic technology into several new realms.
Surprisingly, the long-dead man appears to have originated in Siberia and is unrelated to modern Greenlanders, Morten Rasmussen of the University of Copenhagen and colleagues found.
"This provides evidence for a migration from Siberia into the New World some 5,500 years ago, independent of that giving rise to the modern Native Americans and Inuit," the researchers wrote in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.
Not only can the findings help transform the study of archeology, but they can help answer questions about the origins of modern populations and disease, they said.
"Such studies have the potential to reconstruct not only our genetic and geographical origins, but also what our ancestors looked like," David Lambert and Leon Huynen of Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, wrote in a commentary.
The DNA gives strong hints about the man, nicknamed Inuk. "Brown eyes, brown skin, he had shovel-form front teeth," Eske Willerslev, who oversaw the study, told a telephone briefing. Such teeth are characteristic of East Asian and Native American populations.
He had the genes for early hair loss, too. "Because we found quite a lot of hair from this guy, we presume he actually died quite young," Willerslev said.
The man lived among the Saqqaq people, the earliest known culture in southern Greenland that lasted from around 2500 BC until about 800 BC.
Scientists have disagreed on who these people were -- whether they descended from the peoples who crossed the Bering Strait 30,000 to 40,000 years ago to settle the New World or whether they were more recent immigrants.
Willerslev's team pulled DNA from hairs found in a frozen Saqqaq site and sequenced it just as they would a modern person's full genome, looking for characteristic mutations.
"Recent advances in DNA sequencing technologies have initiated an era of personal genomics," the researchers wrote.
"The sequencing project described here is a direct test of the extent to which ancient genomics can contribute knowledge about now-extinct cultures," they added.
The DNA links Inuk to modern-day Arctic residents of Siberia. He had almost none of the mutations seen in Indians living in Central and South America.
"We have an increasingly powerful forensic tool with which to 'reconstruct' extinct humans and the demographics of populations," Lambert and Huynen wrote.
A year ago scientists sequenced the genome of a Neanderthal -- early humans who went extinct 30,000 years ago -- and other groups have sequenced DNA from dried-out mammoth hair.
(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
Reuters
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An artist's impression shows "Inuk" who is believed to have lived among the Saqqaq people, the earliest known culture in southern Greenl Reuters – An artist's impression shows "Inuk" who is believed to have lived among the Saqqaq people, …
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor Maggie Fox, Health And Science Editor – Wed Feb 10, 4:44 pm ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Scientists have sequenced the DNA from four frozen hairs of a Greenlander who died 4,000 years ago in a study they say takes genetic technology into several new realms.
Surprisingly, the long-dead man appears to have originated in Siberia and is unrelated to modern Greenlanders, Morten Rasmussen of the University of Copenhagen and colleagues found.
"This provides evidence for a migration from Siberia into the New World some 5,500 years ago, independent of that giving rise to the modern Native Americans and Inuit," the researchers wrote in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.
Not only can the findings help transform the study of archeology, but they can help answer questions about the origins of modern populations and disease, they said.
"Such studies have the potential to reconstruct not only our genetic and geographical origins, but also what our ancestors looked like," David Lambert and Leon Huynen of Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, wrote in a commentary.
The DNA gives strong hints about the man, nicknamed Inuk. "Brown eyes, brown skin, he had shovel-form front teeth," Eske Willerslev, who oversaw the study, told a telephone briefing. Such teeth are characteristic of East Asian and Native American populations.
He had the genes for early hair loss, too. "Because we found quite a lot of hair from this guy, we presume he actually died quite young," Willerslev said.
The man lived among the Saqqaq people, the earliest known culture in southern Greenland that lasted from around 2500 BC until about 800 BC.
Scientists have disagreed on who these people were -- whether they descended from the peoples who crossed the Bering Strait 30,000 to 40,000 years ago to settle the New World or whether they were more recent immigrants.
Willerslev's team pulled DNA from hairs found in a frozen Saqqaq site and sequenced it just as they would a modern person's full genome, looking for characteristic mutations.
"Recent advances in DNA sequencing technologies have initiated an era of personal genomics," the researchers wrote.
"The sequencing project described here is a direct test of the extent to which ancient genomics can contribute knowledge about now-extinct cultures," they added.
The DNA links Inuk to modern-day Arctic residents of Siberia. He had almost none of the mutations seen in Indians living in Central and South America.
"We have an increasingly powerful forensic tool with which to 'reconstruct' extinct humans and the demographics of populations," Lambert and Huynen wrote.
A year ago scientists sequenced the genome of a Neanderthal -- early humans who went extinct 30,000 years ago -- and other groups have sequenced DNA from dried-out mammoth hair.
(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
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