Recap

I rehashed some interview advice I posted on someone else’s blog based on what I learned from the Job Seeker class I took, so be sure to check that out. As for my day, I went to the job club and heard The City of Springfield HR person talk about their hiring process. They also had a police officer there to talk about how to become a police officer. Neither job was what I was looking for but it was still worth going just for the information.

Just a quick observation I noticed about the HR person from the city, she had a split skirt and open toed shoes on. An interview no-no, I suppose she already has the job though, and she was dressed nicely.

Some of you out there in my neck of the internet might want to know this so I’m going to cover the notes I made this morning:

• The city posts all new job openings on Friday.
• For office jobs they use tests very much like those found on WWW.TYPINGTEST.COM.
• Dress up, no matter what job they’re hiring for. She said to think of it as an interview with Donald Trump.
• The city only counts job experience for the previous ten years. If you did that line of work more then ten years ago, they won’t consider it relevant. The reason being they want to make sure people are current with their skills.
• If you worked for yourself, list every responsibility you had. Don’t just assume they will know what you had to do. This is good advice for every job, when you work for yourself you have to wear many hats, write them all down.
• Don’t repeat references, if you are giving someone as a professional reference, don’t use them as personal too.
• Even if you do get the job, expect to wait about 1 to 11/2 months for the hiring process to be completed.
• If you write a thank you note, the first interviewer doesn’t make the hiring decision. Direct a note to the supervisor of the department you’re going for as well. That will have more effect then anywhere else.

I also noticed a few people there that I knew, one was a temp from Manpower I had worked with, the other was a woman who was at RGIS a few weeks ago. I suppose they didn’t call her back either, sadly I didn’t get a chance to talk to her. I always like to get other perspectives on events and would have liked to have gotten hers.

To round out my day I applied to WillStaff Worldwide and signed up with them. Their computers happened to be down, otherwise you fill out a brief bit of info on paper then finish on a kiosk in their office. I had to do everything on paper and then was interviewed.

I didn’t have a new resume typed up to show off so didn’t bring up the subject. Didn’t seem to matter anyway as without the computer, their list of questions were very brief. It was still a normal interview though, and I felt the knowledge I gained last week helped a lot. At least I felt prepared to answer questions and had much better responses then I think I normally do. I also didn’t feel a bit nervous about it, maybe a little but not nearly like I have before.

Keep up the faith out there,

-Goodnight

So you think you can type?

No news today so thought I’d share some info instead.

Ever wonder how fast you can type?

Well here are a few easy ways to find out:

http://www.typingtest.com/

http://www.typeonline.co.uk/typingspeed.php?

http://games.aol.com/game/typer-shark/

A data entry fact:

Modern data processing began with the inventions of American engineer, Herman Hollerith.

Hollerith had left teaching and begun working for the United States Census Office in the year he filed his first patent application. Titled “Art of Compiling Statistics”, it was filed on September 23, 1884 and was granted on January 8, 1889.

Hollerith built machines under contract for the Census Office, which used them to tabulate the 1890 census in only one year. The 1880 census had taken eight years. Hollerith then started his own business in 1896, founding the Tabulating Machine Company. Most of the major census bureaus around the world leased his equipment and purchased his cards, as did major insurance companies. To make his system work, he invented the first automatic card-feed mechanism and the first key punch (i.e. a punch that was operated from a keyboard), which allowed a skilled operator to punch 200–300 cards per hour. He also invented a tabulator. The 1890 Tabulator was hardwired to operate only on 1890 Census cards. A wiring panel in his 1906 Type I Tabulator allowed it to do different jobs without having to be rebuilt (the first step towards programming).These inventions were the foundation of the modern information processing industry.

In 1911, four corporations, including Hollerith’s firm, merged to form the Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation (CTR). Under the presidency of Thomas J. Watson, it was renamed International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) in 1924.