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How Part-Time MBA Program Can Increase Your Career Prospects?

Management education is now becoming widely popular in the growth of career prospects. MBA degree along with any qualification increases your job opportunities to a great extent.

In fact, having an MBA degree from a reputable institute will leave you in an advantageous position.

Young professionals mostly, therefore, opt for the degree to seek better job opportunities.

In the race, even mid-career professionals are seen to choose MBA degree to boost their career but not keeping their job at stake.

You can check on the MET’s guide on PGDM to gain more information about the part-time courses.

Career Opportunities after Doing Part-Time MBA

Boost to Existing Career

Yes, you are already designated on a very good post in a reputed company. However, you definitely would desire to see yourself in a higher-level 5 years down the line, isn’t it? For this reason mainly, many executives, managers and even other professionals in the industry enroll themselves into the course to improve their current skills and look forward to be promoted in higher designation. It further opens up the path for new job offers from different well-known companies.

Core Areas in a Part-Time MBA Program

Similar to full-time MBA program, part-time course gives you opportunity to pick up your area of interest in the field. The areas in which you can build up your career after completion of part-time course are stated below:

   

Operations

Being selected as operations manager, you will be handling every activity i.e. needed to create as well as deliver a service or product. From the selection of suppliers to management & distribution of supply chain, everything you will have to take care of.

Sales & Marketing

The job responsibilities that you will be in charge of as a sales and marketing manager are research and develop marketing plans as well as opportunities, executing sales plans and managing staff as well.

Finance

Have to manage the funds in a way that it maximizes ROI thereby reducing the risk factor and guaranteeing adequate control over the fund investment and transfer. You will also be focusing on key areas such as predicting, budgeting, analyzing on cost reduction and also assessing operational performance.

Human Resources

Human Resources (HR) has the primary function to be carried out in an organization. Right from conducting interviews of candidates to placing them in the right position and even deciding on their pay scale is what you ought to do as a HR manager.

Retail

As a retail manager, you will be looking into daily affairs of the departments or stores. Your aim would be to maximize profits thereby reducing costs.

Accounting

Here your primary task would be to prepare as well as examine the financial records accurately. Even you will have to be sure that taxes are being paid on time. Other services will be like auditing, improving profits and revenues, improving business efficiency and inspect on the accounting systems and books as well.

So, you see there are a number of career opportunities awaiting your path even if you consider doing part-time MBA course.

Career Prospects

Even seeking a part-time MBA degree will give your CV an added weightage. You not only will be eligible for promotions in your current company but also can register with the employment consultancies to get calls on promising and attractive job opportunities.

Author Bio

Jenny Richards is a regular blogger and also a career consultant. She wrote the latest blog on career prospects you can have enrolled into a part-time MBA course from a recognized institute.

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Job Interview Diction

With a job interview due in a couple of weeks, you have spent your time preparing and writing your well researched interview answers.

After answering each interview question, using prepared and well researched answers, you are surprised that you rarely revive job offers, why is this?

It doesn’t matter how much effort you put into your interview preparation, if the interviewer cant understand your point, communication or perspective, you will fail to win over any employer.

Professional interviewees practice their diction, tonality and the delivery power of their voice. This creates an a confident, persuasive and charming interview.

Job Interview Diction

With a well prepared interview, you may believe that your answers will go down well. But, unless the interviewer can clearly hear each word, your well prepared answers wont hit the mark.

These are 3 key reasons why audiences turn off when listening to a poorly delivered interview answer

  • Nervousness speaker, lacking in confidence – people mumble during the interview when feel emotionally stressed 
  • Talking to fast – with a lot top say in such a short period of time, the interviewee may rush to get the words out 
  • Poor diction – rushing words or not pronouncing words clearly can leave the interviewer thinking “What did they say?”  

   

How to Improve Diction Before a Job Interview

A great technique for improving your diction, to practice talking slower and to boost your confidence is to use Tongue Twisters.

Here is a famous example to use as a practice tool “I am the very pattern of a modern Major-General; I’ve information vegetable, animal, and mineral; I know the Kings of England, and I quote the fights historical, From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical; I’m very well acquainted too with matters mathematical, I understand equations, both simple and quadratical, About binomial theorem I’m teeming with a lot o’ news, With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse. I’m very good at integral and differential calculus, I know the scientific names of beings animalculous, In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral, I am the very model of a modern Major-General.”    

3 Steps to Improve Diction Prior to your Job Interview

Step 1 – Start by practicing your diction using tongue twisters before practicing the diction of your forthcoming job interview

Step 2 – Start by saying the tongue twister out loud slowly, ensure each word is said clearly and that each word is crisp at the word start and end.

Step 3 – Once the statement is communicated clearly, repeat the tongue twister faster and faster, repeating the paragraph if a word is not said cleanly.

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Your Values and Their Impact on the Job Outcome

Values shape the person you are. Your values affect your work ethic, personality, beliefs and what you deem to be important.

Often people with similar values create strong rapport and build strong friendships.

In the job interview, you can use values to create likability with the interviewer increasing your chances of a job offer. The employer will value certain aspects of the job more than others, they deem certain company policies and procedures over others and they will reference ways of working. 

If your values match the interviewer’s values you will increase interview rapport.

Understanding Your Values

What is important to you in your career? To understand what you value in  a career I would first ask you to write down your values on a piece of paper. 

Example Values

Your Values

Money

Career progression

Working with others

Seeing the end result to my work

Working close to home

Having targets

Feedback

Personal development

Flexibility

Reliability

Ongoing support

Variation

Now you have a list of your career values; you need to reorder them according to importance, which of your values is more important to you? If you had a choice would you take a job that had value A or value B?

Your Values in Order of Importance

 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Once you know your career values and the values you most require, ask your self “could I have a job that didn’t have Value X?” – Pose this question for all the values on your list.

People who accept a job offer with a company who doesn’t have the same values will soon become bored, agitated or stressed, which will lead to them quitting their job or becoming depressed and falling ill. If you have not reflected on and identified your values then you may fall into the trap of applying for similar unsuitable roles in which you quickly become bored, creating a cycle of negative career choices.

Once you know what you truly value in a career, you can match your values to that of the position you are applying for and I would add, once you find your values in the position you are applying for you will quickly become more excited about the position and this excitement will shine through during the interview which will lead to leaving a lasting positive impression.

Often enthusiastic, passionate and motivated interviewees gain job offers over experienced but boring interviewees – candidates might give the same answers but they are not always heard the same by the bored interviewer.

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Job Interview Questions and Answers for Boots

Often out of 300 applicants only 6 candidates will be interviewed. In most interviews, but this varies depending on the job sector and employer, you will be asked around 10 questions during a 45-minute interview.

Job Interview Questions and Answers for Boots

          • Job Interview Question 1: What is your experience in retail or customer service?

Give an overview of your retail and experience and highlight 3 key career achievements related to retail. Retail employers would like to hear about teamwork, customer service skills and attitude to work

        • Job Interview Question 2: What would you do to improve customer service in a Boots store?

Answer this question using the 3 way process. State the problem, give the solution and the outcome. Ideally use a real-life example.

        • Job Interview Question 3: Are you happy to work unsocial hours

Unsocial hours in retail often refers to late evenings and weekends. As this is a key factor in the retail sector you have to answer yes. When possible give examples of when you have been flexible with working hours

   

          • Job Interview Question 4: Give an example of working successfully in a team?

Again with this question you can use the 3 way process. State the problem, give the solution/team approach and the outcome. Ideally use a real-life example where you took charge of the team

        • Job Interview Question 5: What do you know about Boots and our products?

Do your research. The ideal applicant will know the products and customer base

        • Job Interview Question 6: What are your favorite products?

Compare the Boots product to products in competitive stores, explaining why the boots product is better value and quality

        • Job Interview Question 7: What do you know about our current range of products?

Pick a range and discuss how this range is different to competitors – what are the advantages from the customer’s point of view?

          • Job Interview Question 8: How would you help an elderly man in the store?

To answer situation questions, use a real-life example – again use the 3 step process; the elderly man wanted X but couldn’t Y, I A, B and C, this resulted in X, Y and Z – a happy customer

        • Job Interview Question 9: How would you sell this shampoo to a young woman?

Answer by explaining that you would discuss 2 products explaining the similarities and differences. This helps the customer feel like they have choice, but what often happens is the customer will buy one of the products. If you only discuss one product, the customer can buy or leave it.

        • Job Interview Question 10: Why do you want to work with boots

You need to show your passion for Boots. Why Boot’s and not topshop or Asda? If you want to work for boots, not any old retail store you are likely to stay saving money on recruitment.

        • Job Interview Question 11: Do you have any questions for me?

Good interview questions to ask interviewers at the end of the job interview include questions on the company growth or expansion, questions on personal development and training and questions on company values, staff retention and company achievements.     Many people are afraid of job interviews.

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Preparing Your Interview Answers for Maximum Impact

Maximum Impact Interview Answers

To beat the job interview competition the savvy interviewee will prepare each interview answer to maximize the impact each answer has on the interviewer.

Don’t fall into the trap of simply re-reading your CV the night before the interview, instead start preparing weeks ahead of the job interview – as soon as you receive the invitation to interview e-mail.

This way you will have time to predict each question, prepare each interview answer and ensure each answer sells you and your skills, work ethic and employment experience.

The simple 3 step process below, will help you prepare each interview answer (the examples we will concentrate on qualities and skills, but the same process can be used for experience related interview questions).

Step 1 Predicting the Interview Question

First think about the position you are applying for and ask yourself “what skills and qualities does the employer require me to possess?” and write a big list of required skills, qualities and experiences. You can also use the job specification or job profiles to predict the essential job criteria.

Step 2 Breakdown the Skill

Each essential job criteria requires a certain skill or quality. Create a mindmap for each required skill, as an example “Communication Skills” – ask yourself “how do you communicate?” – e-mail, face to face, telephone, fax, body language, sign language, etc. make this list as big as possible, there are no wrong answers be creative add anything you associate to communication (or your essential criteria)

Next think about a real example of when you have used this skill or quality and recorded it.

Step 3 Creating the Answer

Now you have a giant list of criteria and a breakdown of those particular criteria, you can now move onto the third stage – paragraphs. All you need to do here is put the breakdown of the criteria into a paragraph (and this doesn’t need to perfect yet)

Let’s use the communication example – remember at this stage the paragraph doesn’t need to read well as we are still in the ideas stage. “I communicate with everyday, over the phone and face to face. When talking over the phone I use my voice tone to build rapport and ask regular questions to ensure the other person is taking onboard what I am saying. When talking to people face to face, I use my body language to increase likeness and watch the other people’s body language and face gestures to check they agree with what I am saying”

Use real life examples show’s the employer two things; one you understand what their essential criteria is and more importantly you have implemented in previous roles (which is often taken for you can do that part of the job)

Your real life examples need to be related to the position you are applying for. In sales jobs communication skills and rapport building are key essential criteria, so you can edit your above profile using real life sales (or any position) experience

“In my previous sales position I was always on the monthly top 10 sales executive’s board often at the top, this is because I understand the importance of communicating with people over the phone. I would often use my voice tone to build rapport with customers and ask customers questions throughout the sales pitch to ensure they were listening to me…..”

You need to re-write your interview answer 3 times to ensure it really sell’s you. After each interview think about which answer worked well and which answers need improving. Reflecting on your interview answers allows you to improve with each and every job interview.

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Job Interview Peak Performance

To be your best in the job interview you need to know how to control your emotions, to access your positive mental state and to be at your job interview peak performance. There are no two ways about it, if you are at your peak mental state in the job interview you are more likely to be offered a job.

As an interview and confidence coach in Manchester, I support people to access their peak state which has led to my interviewing coaching clients receiving more job offers.  Today I will share a technique I use with my clients to boost their mental performance prior to the job interview.

Accessing Your Peak Performance

First, decide which mental state would work best for you. For many confidence is the key emotion that I will allow them to be their best in the job interview. The technique that you will learn is often used by athletes to access their peak performance prior to a game or event.

By following the simple steps below you can teach your mind to focus, increase confidence and to access its peak state.

Step 1 – Choose the state you would like to access

Step 2 – In a seat, close your eyes and take 10 deep breaths counting down on each out-breath
Step 3 – Notice how each breath helps you to relax a little bit more
Step 4 –  Remember a time you felt at your best; you being confident, in the zone, at your peak, focused, or any state that will help you to be the best
Step 5 – With your eyes closed, replay this time in your mind’s eye; see what you can see, hear what you can hear and feel those same positive emotions

Step 6 – Replay this memory and this time, imagine being their seeing things from your own eyes, hearing the positive self-talk and feeling the positive emotions at their peak
Step 7 – As you feel these emotions at the peak, start to spin the emotions, faster and stronger, stronger and faster until they double and triple in intensity
Step 8 – Now, take these feelings and imagine yourself in the future being positive before the job interview, being at your best in the job interview and spin these feelings stronger and faster, faster and stronger until you feel that you will get a job, that you will be successful, that you will be confident in the job interview
Step 9 – Repeat this exercise 3 times and notice how the strength of the emotion increases with every repeated go

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10 Strength Based Job Interview Questions

Strength-Based Job Interview Questions

A new style of job interviewing is becoming popular with employers in all sectors – strength-based interviewing.

Rather than using situation interviewing questions, where applicants give examples of their experiences, strength-based interviewing ask you questions on your strengths, preferences, and work style.

As with situation job interviewing, the interviewee can prepare their interview answers by predicting the job interview question.

Below are 10 strength-based interview questions, read the question and prepare your answer in preparation for any forthcoming job interview.

How to prepare for an interview

10 Strength-Based Interview Questions

Strength-Based Interview Question 1 – What energies you at work?

Strength-Based Interview Question 2 – What task or duties are you completing when you are using your strengths?

Strength-Based Interview Question 3 – Are you at your best when working in a team or when working on your own initiative?

Strength-Based Interview Question 4 – Which task engages you?

Strength-Based Interview Question 5 – Do you prefer starting or finishing tasks?

Strength-Based Interview Question 6 – Which task come naturally to you?

Strength-Based Interview Question 7 – Do you prefer following orders or completing tasks in your own way?

Strength-Based Interview Question 8 – Describe a successful day?

Strength-Based Interview Question 9 – What is important to you at work?

Strength-Based Interview Question 10 – Do you have any questions for me?

How to answer strength-based job interview questions

The idea for strength-based interveiw questions is for the interviewer to gain an ‘honest’ response from each applicant, as each strength-based question doesn’t have a right or wrong answer.

So be yourself, be truthful.

The idea here is to stop an interviewee from preparing high-scoring job interveiw answers. But applicants can and should prepare for their job interveiw.

When answering strength-based questions, use examples drawn from your industry experience to highlight your level of sector knowledge and your skillset. During the examples, focus the answer on what you did not what the ‘team’ achieved.

For multiple-choice questions, as an example ‘do you prefer starting or finishing tasks?,’ that you have no preference to (you can start or finish tasks) give an example for each option; ‘On X project I enjoyed starting X task because of Y, when working on A I enjoyed finishing the project because of B.’

Be prepared, when answering both options, to be challenged on your preference.

Interveiwers trained in strength-based interviewing will look for non-verbal communication cues to check the congruence of your words and communication.

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Why Do Psychopaths Get Offered More Jobs Then You?

Not all psychopaths are killers. Many career professionals with psychopathic tendencies will quickly reach the grade of their sector, often kicking people in the face on their rise to the top.

Psychopaths are often found in top-level positions in industries including the finance sector, medical professions and sale roles. One in four people in your workplace could be a psychopath but rarely does the none psychopath recognize the psychopath’s traits, allowing these master manipulators to gain promotion after promotion.

But how do psychopaths win over the interviewer? How do psychopaths quickly climb the career ladder, winning job offer after offer? What do psychopaths do differently in the job interview, and can you learn from these persuaders?

You can use these 5 psychopathic traits to win over your next interviewer.

The Psychopathic Interview

Psychopaths have particular traits which they use blatantly during the interview process. This devilish designed manipulates the interview, stopping you the none psychopath, from being recruited, while helping the psychopath rise through the ranks gaining pay rise after pay rise, promotion after promotion.

Superficial Charm.

The Interview Psychopath wears a well-fitted interview mask, mimicking the employer’s personality or creating a charming front that wins the interviewer over.

This confident charming persona, which is not their real personality, creates strong rapport and likeability. The psychopath will uncover the employer’s values, likes and interests and state how he himself enjoys these same passions and preferences the interviewer’s likes.

To learn from the psychopath you also have to be charming and confident. Research has shown how a warm smile creates positive feelings in the recipient. Create a conversation to find commonality with the interviewer which increases likeability.

A Grandiose Self-Perception.

Psychopaths truly believe they are smarter and more powerful than they actually are. This belief system oozes confidence and confidence is a key quality to winning job interviews.

The psychopath will give examples of past projects, explaining how they achieved the contract KPIs, how they increased profits and how they rallied the team to meet the deadline. The psychopath is happy to blow their own trumpet, and in the eyes of the psychopath their musical instrument is massive.

Take a leaf out of the psychopath book and throughout the interview shout about your achievements, don’t shy away and minimize your effort, instead make it clear that it was you who was the pivotal person that achieved the desired outcome

Deceits and lies.

Most people feel bad when lying, but the psychopath is highly comfortable creating a perfect picture of themselves which may be far from the truth. No matter what the employer requires, the psychopath has the experience, whichever skill is essential the psychopath has in abundance and however the employer approaches task, the psychopath has the same work ethic

Now, we won’t suggest that you lie as this can have implications during your employment. Instead you need to think about previous roles and look at what skills are transferable, how you have approached work different in similar organizations and how your hobbies have given you a new set of qualities and make these fit the interviewer’s essential criteria.

An Absence of Emotions.

The psychopath lacks emotions, they don’t feel guilty when lying, or remorse when taking credit for other people’s achievements and the psychopath rarely feels nervous in the interview process.

The psychopath, who always feels superior, looks down on the interviewer increasing their personal feeling of power. The psychopath sees the interview as game, a place to manipulate and deceive, an arena to show off and to showcase his talents.

For many, interview nerves kill the interview. You don’t need to go as far as the psychopath but you can create a new perception of the interview. Instead of one where the all-powerful interviewer questions you, demanding to know the answer, you can frame the interview as a place where you are an authority, an expert and industry specialist, and this person talking to you, wants to learn from you, they want to know why you are so successful and how you always achieve KPIs.

Never Being Wrong.

The psychopath rarely admits to being wrong, making mistakes or errors. In a promotional interview situation the psychopath will quite confidently put the blame on others, highlight colleagues shortcomings and explain how other peoples errors where the catalyst for the failure in the project.

In external job interviews, the psychopath will simply not mention any inadequacies and focus the interview on their unique selling point. When questioned on weaknesses, the psychopath will reframe the answer and talk about development opportunities.

Too many interviewees happily offer up their weaknesses and failures, even when not asked. Instead keep the interviewer focused on your strengths, positives and achievements. You need to associate only positivity to your interview as these create the basis for a successful job interview.

Do You Need To Be A Psychopath?

To increase your chances of being offered a job at the interview you don’t need to be psychopathic, but you can take a couple of tips from the psychopath’s interview approach.

The key to a successful interview is to be confident, charming and likable. You need to frame every interview answer as a positive.

Remember times when you have used the required skill they are questioning you about and reframe negative based interview questions.

By framing the interview as a place to showcase your talent increases confidence and never discussing negativity creates a positive association that can only lead to more job offers.

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Why You Should ALWAYs Question The Interviewer

Many people fail the interview process because they rarely question the interviewer.

During the interview you will be asked around 6-10 questions throughout a 45 minute interview, designed to see if you have the skills, aptitude and experience to work in their organisation.

Often though, these thought-out questions can be highly ambiguous. The interviewee on hearing the question will make their own sense of the ambiguity; wrongly making the question fit their own experience.

The answer the interviewee gives, which they believe is a strong reply, is taken negatively by the interviewer “why are they telling me about X when I want to know Y?”

Your Brain Blocks The Required Answer

The interview questions asked are designed to gather particular information. If asked a generic question, let’s use the example of managing a successful project, the interviewee could talk about managing staff, pre-project planning or problem solving.

If you discuss in detail experiences that aren’t relevant to what the interviewer is interested in hearing or wanting to undercover through the generic question, your interview can falter.

This small issue is a big problem. The interviewers own experiences will filter your answers, and if you don’t state the answers the interviewer is hoping you will discuss then the job offer will drift further away.

Often the interviewer will repeat the question or ask additional questions to give you a chance to change or add to your answer, but because of our own experience relating to the question, we rarely change the given answer.

How Your Mind Differs

Imagine that the employers experience is one where throughout a project, problems appear and the project manager has to fire fight to meet the targets and deadlines (this could be due to the project type, the sector they work in or the way a previous manager managed the project – the reason doesn’t matter, but the employers experience does)

You are asked “how you would achieve targets if an unforeseen problem occurs”. Now, your own experience is being a pro-active planner, which has led to your own practice of being one where predict problems in the initial planning stage to prevent unforeseen issues from appearing.

Your answer in this situation would discuss how you “plan” “prepare” “foresee” “pro-active” “check outside the box” all key skills that have helped you to be successful.

But the interviewer from their own experience is looking for someone to discuss “fire-fighting” “problem-solving” “re-active” “working under pressure”

The outcome maybe the same, but the employer’s experience differs from yours. These two sides of the coins rub against each other and causes interview friction, as the interviewer can’t get the interviewee to see their perspective and vice versa.

The Power of a Question

When asked an ambiguous question, you the interviewee need to clarify the required answer. This way you can frame the answer so the interviewer understands fully what you are suggesting.

“How you would achieve targets if an unforeseen problem occurs”.

Reply “There are two key times to deal with problems one as the problem occurs or by pre-empting problems, which would you like me to discuss?”

“We want to know how you would handle an unforeseen problem in the middle of a project”  

Now you have the details of the required answer, which means you can give an answer the will relate to the interviewers own experience

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Air Conditioning Engineer Interview Questions

Job Interview Questions for An Air Conditioning Engineer

                • Job Interview Question 1: What is your experience in air conditioning engineering?
              • Job Interview Question 2: How does an air condition system work?
              • Job Interview Question 3: Explain relative humidity?

                • Job Interview Question 4: What are the 3 key parts of an Air Condition Engineer job duties
              • Job Interview Question 5: How do you manage your day?
              • Job Interview Question 6: How to you ensure you meet industry regulations and health and safety requirements?
              • Job Interview Question 7: What is your approach to pricing a new job?
                • Job Interview Question 8: What do you check when completing annual maintenance on an air condition system?
              • Job Interview Question 9: Give an example of how you applied your problem-solving skills to a design challenge
              • Job Interview Question 10: Do you have any questions for me?