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Maintained by Harry E. Pence, Professor of Chemistry, SUNY Oneonta,
for the use of his students. Any opinions are totally coincidental
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Last Revised April 2, 2001
Watch the schedule of placement visits to your campus carefully,
and be sure to ask for an interview if you might be interested.
It's a good idea to have some interview experience to prepare
you for the job hunt, but don't waste an interviewer's time if
you won't have any interest in his or her company. You should
also consider signing up for a mock interview, provided by the
campus placement office. They will videotape your performance
and then evaluated it to help you identify your strengths and
weaknesses.
Remember that an interview is a two way street. The company is
evaluating you, but you are also trying to decide whether or not
you wish to work for the company. In most cases, asking questions
suggests that you have done your homework, and so doesn't hurt
your change for the job. To better understand both the employment
market as well as the challenges that are facing companies today,
you might well visit the Forbes
500 Listing, the 200
Best Small Companies in America, or the Annual
Report on American Industry, all maintained by Forbes magazine.
Questions
for the job interview provides some questions that you may
wish to ask. The ACS Committee on Economic and Professional Affairs
also has a web site, which gives a few tips on What
a B.S./B.A. Chemist should consider before accepting an industrial
position. The Riley Guide
is an excellent tutorial on job-hunting, and vault.com
gives information about companies where you are sending your application.
Another stop on the must-see list is the salary surveys at the
Jobstar. site.
Each interviewer develops his or her own set of questions, but
the following are commonly used questions that you can think about
as practice for the real thing.
Once you have found a job, there is no time to completely relax.
Many companies are downsizing or restructuring, and you want to
make every effort to insure that your job continues to be safe.
Even if you are not looking for a new position, you should update
your resume at least once a year. Of course, this is especially
important if there are indications that your company may be downsizing.
If you do receive word that you are going to be terminated, you
may be so discouraged that you will find it to be hard to do all
of the paperwork required for an effective job search. Therefore,
you should prepare in advance.
The May 1, 1995 issue (pg. 15) of The Scientist offers
some good suggestions that you should follow to provide as much
security as possible. The following ideas may also be useful.
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