Job Club Journal

Day 5 –  Time to ‘test’ our knowledge

 Don spends the first half hour talking about Employment Tests; that is tests that employers can select from to give to prospective job seekers.  There are between 10 and 25 tests that are routinely given to prospective employees.  Sometimes they are multiple choice, sometimes tests are on paper and other times on computer (these often submit immediately).  Often tests are timed.  For example, Reading Comprehension is often timed at one question per minute.

There are library books about tests and how to take tests; some examples follow.  TABE tests – test math and reading comprehension – and are usually timed.  Most questions concern basic math.  These tests are graded on the number of questions answered or that were not completed.  The best solution is to answer the questions you know and go back to the remainder.  Leave word problems until last unless you are skillful at answering these.

MMPI tests – you can look at these in the public library.  The five-hundred-question test is more accurate than the two-hundred-fifty-question test.  These evaluate ’emotional stability’ and ‘aptitude for honesty’.  Employers use these because 90 percent of company losses stem from employee theft.

Follow up:

The remainder of the class is devoted to resumes and how to put them together (pp. 14-25) in our Notebook).  The KEY TO A SUCCESSFUL RESUME IS TO PROOFREAD!  PROOFREAD!  PROOFREAD!   Just in case you didn’t get that, no typos, no misspellings, no grammar errors – any one of these will guarantee your resume winds up in the circular file (trash can!).  So have several people, including the people on your reference list, read your finished resume.

 You need to tailor your resume to the position for which you are applying so make a general resume and then alter it to fit the specific position for which you are applying.  Use the company’s job description to formulate your ‘objective’ and tailor your skills to those the prospective employer has listed.  If you have about two thirds of the qualities the employer is looking for, you can apply for the position.  Your resume should fit on one page if at all possible – REMEMBER THE PURPOSE OF THE RESUME IS TO GET YOU THE INTERVIEW, not the job! (More on this later.)

Where the items in your job application, resume and cover letter overlap, the information must match – if you say you worked at a specific place, the particulars on that employer must be consistent: name of company, address and phone, position you held.  Write at about a sixth-grade level.  Focus your education to the specific position for which you are applying. Resume only has to have your last ten years work experience, unless you had a job you particularly want to highlight because it applies to the job for which you are applying now.