Tell me all about employment interviewing
 

How is the pay for recent grads?

What do you love/hate about it?

Are you allowed to take notes or tape record interviews? I have a good memory, but I will be intimidated if I have to remember every detail from dozens of interviews by hard.

Re: Tell me all about employment interviewing
 

I think depending on what field you are getting into the pay can often be quite sucky for recent grads, especially factoring in loans, rent, car payment, etc. I heard somewhere only like 1% of new grads can actually say they have their "dream job" and are making the salary they think they should be making. What recent grads often forget is a Bachelor's degree is often the same as a HS diploma and you need to receive a Master's and specialized training before you make a decent salary. I've never heard about anyone tape recording an interview but I am sure if you asked ahead of time that would be okay. Ummm, another thing is in this day and age so many people are going back to school so fields are flooded with recent grads which makes it harder to get a job. Just playing devil's advocate here, don't mean to discourage anyone.............

Re: Tell me all about employment interviewing
 

How is the pay for recent grads? - That's a sort of tough question to answer but there are plenty of us that have graduated within the last few years and make enough to live on our own, pay bills, and have enough money left at the end of the month to go shopping or hit the bars.

What do you love/hate about it? - I hate hate hate applying for jobs and writing cover letters and crap. Luckily the two jobs I've had since I left college pretty much fell into my lap so I didn't have to write too many of them. As far as the interview itself, I would get a bit nervous that the interviewer would throw some sort of bizarro question my way to try to figure out some hidden meaning from my answer but everything was pretty straightforward so that's cool.

Are you allowed to take notes or tape record interviews? - Having been the interviewer before, I'd think it would be pretty strange if someone was recording or taking detailed notes during the interview. If you're doing group interviews at a career fair or something it might not be too strange to jot a few things down, but if you're in a one-on-one interview at an office it might be better to write things down after you leave.

Sorry, I didn't make myself clear. I meant the job of being an interviewer, not being interviewed myself.

Ahhh. Well in that case.

I hated negotiating pay and yes you can take notes.

Oh Okay! I've actually interviewed people before and we have our potential employees fill out an application that lists dates of employment. That's a big thing for us. We(I) focus a lot on length of employment, type and why they left the job. I am straightforward in letting all potential employees know that the pay sucks for non-profit, especially in residential programs, which I used to work in in my agency. I want them to know this up front and want to know if this is going to be a problem before I proceed with the interview. You learn A LOT about people too by focusing on their past employers and why they left. So many people bad mouth their past employers, it is amazing. My former boss said he didn't want to hire someone for this reason but ended up giving her a chance and it was the worst decision. I still haven't ran into the tape recording thing though........I do recommend taking notes.

I do some interviewing at my current job. I like it, although after a few it can get kind of tedious. It's entertaining if you get some bad interviewees.

I usually take notes, but in a way that also shows that I'm listening. If you're just staring at a notepad, it doesn't look so good.

Ah, I am a junior recruiter and am learning the fine art of interviewing itself. My boss and superiors say to not think of the pressure of the interview itself. Think of it instead as a step in the process, the natural return of a job post. You get a resume, analyze the candidate's experience and ability to promote themselves on paper, then calling them on the phone, analyze their ability to snap to communicating themsleves on the spot. Interviewing, meeting face to face, is just the next step.

Our firm figure $15ish/hr for recent grads with no specialized skills. They could earn $25,000 - $30,00 plus benefits but nowadays, very few firms seem to hire straightaway grads. A lot like to take the temp-to-perm route (I did this). We don't use a tape recorder but do take notes on the inside page on the application folder. Some useful stuff to help: a job description, a resume you've already analyzed with notes, and a clean copy of the resume.

Enjoy the sweaty palms the first few times! They're tasty!

So if you've been fired from a position, should you say so? I dont bad mouth my last employer, I just say it was a bad match and they decided to let me go.

And I always take notes.