RESUME SKILLS | Hobbies & Interests. The How to write them and the WHY.

The Rules to make sure you Ace The Interview with your Hobbies & Interests.

Most applicants know where they were born, what they did, their education, information about parents etc. 

Somehow when they get to the hobbies and interests part it all seems pointless.

Most have hobbies & Interests on the resume, because it came with the format they were copying . Some of them, choose to copy the interests and hobbies of friends or worse, what the college placement cell advised!

Be honest. Do you have one of the following listed under your hobbies and interests section?

Reading
Traveling
Music
Internet Browsing

If you do, you are only one of the 96% candidates out there.

Hobbies and Interests are something to talk about. 

It’s a window into your personality, that is beyond the standard work stuff. These are things you are supposed to be passionate about. 

You should be using this extensively to not just market yourself, but also to steer the direction the interview takes.

Here are the rules:

Make them true
Have something you are passionate about. Something no one needs you to work upon, or do. Something that excites you, something that makes your eyes sparkle when you talk about it.

Make them Unique
As far as possible mention your hobby in a way that sounds unique. 
Use this as a lever for the interviewer to remember you. 
Don’t say reading, when you can say ‘classics’ or ‘Indian art history’ or something more specific. 
If it is music talk about genre, artist or even a special decade!

Make them demonstrable
You may like to think, but really that is not a hobby. 
If you put something like singing, be ready to sing in the interview. 
If you put something like dramatics, be ready to emote. 
Put something that can give the interviewers a little break from the monotony of taking interviews. 
If you say coin collection, carry a unique coin with you!

Make them relatable
Be honest at all times, but if you have more than one hobby, choose the one that the interviewers may be able to relate to. 
Yes, you read that right. 
This like all other parts of your resume, this one needs to be customized according to the people you are sending it out to.

If you don’t have a hobby or interest, get one! 

It’s not just something to talk about in an interview, it is something to treasure and add value to yourself as an individual.

There you have it.

The Rules to make sure you Ace The Interview with your Hobbies & Interests.

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Interviewing 101

Whether you are breaking into the job market for the first time, or are ready to write the next chapter of your career, nailing the interview is always a crucial step in the process.

Pre-interview preparation is important – know about the company. Start with their website, current press releases, look up the LinkedIn profiles of the interviewers if you have that information, and see what Glassdoor.com says about what it’s like to work there. Write down a few key questions you’d like to know more about. A few generic but helpful questions for any interview include:

• What is a typical day like in this role?
• What are the expectations about accomplishments expected in the first 3/6/12 months of this job?
• What do you like best about working here?

Now that you’ve completed your homework on the company, next you should know how to dress – should you wear a suit? Or business casual attire? If in doubt, it’s always better to be overdressed than under-dressed. Many companies will coordinate the interview and send you an email with information on what to expect, how to dress, and who you will be meeting with – this information can allow you to feel more relaxed about what the interview will be like, so take a deep breath and soak that information in.

It’s important for all job seekers, not just recent college grads, to identify their skills and interests and be ready to verbalize them easily and convincingly. Consider these questions when evaluating what your key skills and interests might be:

• In your past work experience, what have you been energized by?
• What gets you out of bed in the morning?
• What would your last supervisor say is your biggest asset?

Once you have answered these questions, spend some time thinking about how you’d explain your competitive edge – why should they hire you over other candidates? Be ready to sell yourself as the best candidate in a confident but non-boastful way.

Be familiar with behavioral interview questions, where you will be asked to tell a story about a time when you experienced a certain situation. Do so briefly and effectively, further convincing your interviewer that you are capable of the doing the job. Quantify whenever possible. Briefly tell the story using the STAR method: the Situation you were in, the Task you were faced with, the Action you took to get the job done, and the Result. By preparing a few key stories that back up your competitive edge and skills, you’ll feel more confident handling typical interview questions.

Finally, close the interview by asking for the job, if you feel like the role is a good fit for you. The interview is as much about them evaluating you as a potential employee as it is about you deciding whether you can see yourself thriving in the role with the company. Ask what next steps are, and when you get home, send a thank you email to your interviewers.

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What Recruiters Look For in a Cover Letter

Capturing the attention of a recruiter with your cover letter is challenging to say the least. It is common knowledge that cover letters need to be customized for each position an executive applies for. But what details do recruiters really want to read in a cover letter? What format do they like best?

Customize

A cover letter should indicate that you are familiar with the company, and/or job, and show how you would be a great fit. Including some relevant industry news or recent product launches shows that you are interested and following industry trends. Recruiters want to know that you are paying attention to their needs and that you fulfill the criteria they are looking for.

Format

Recruiters don’t want to take a lot of time to pour over lengthy dense paragraphs to extract information. Keep paragraphs short and details concise. Let the resume shine with more facts and save in-depth details for the interview.

Errors

You may be in a hurry to submit your resume and cover letter for a listed position or just too busy to re-read your documents, but those few extra minutes could save you from quick elimination. It is critical to proof any written materials that you submit for a potential job. While some think that autocorrect is a wonderful feature in a program, it can autocorrect you right into the round file.

Professional

Some people think that an “out-of-the-box” cover letter will get more attention and in a few instances that may be true. Let’s say if you are a marketing executive and want to show your creative side. Generally though, at the executive level, recruiters want to read a professionally written cover letter. They see this as an extension of how you communicate, and it helps them evaluate your potential with the hiring company.

Match experience

Recruiters play the match game. How quickly they can match your past work experience with the qualities and requirements of their current job order is key. What’s most important in the cover letter is to highlight those skills and experiences so the reader can instantly see you as a good match.

A cover letter should explain who you are and why you are perfect for the job. Period. A crisp professionally written cover letter can do that for you.

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Lessons From a Fighter Pilot for Businesses and Leaders

A fighter pilot thrives on the threshold of uncertainty and risk. In combat, a combination of factors makes even the best-equipped pilot vulnerable. A combination of intelligence, execution, and feedback enable a fighter pilot engage or disengage an enemy.

Coincidentally, these are the same things that are needed by businesses or leaders who also thrive on uncertainty and risk, in situations where decisions need to be made quickly and correctly, and executed nimbly.

Let's look at one concept that has enabled the fighter pilots gain advantage in challenging situations.

The Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act (OODA) Loop

If I didn't tell you that this term originated in the US military, you could mistake it for business jargon! And, you will be mostly right. The term, which originated in the US Air Force, has been used in other fields outside of military, and very rightly so. You might be amused to know the concept has been used in F-16 and later fighter jets since the 1970s.

And, it is not much different from business methodologies we use today, or any such tools of decision-making and execution.

The four component of the OODA loop and its analogy in business are:

• Observe: Collect data about the enemy aircraft via various mechanisms and tools. Very similar to the intelligence we gather in businesses.
  
• Orient: Interpret the data as it pertains to the pilot, and all the experience and perspective the pilot has. This is very critical since misreading of the data could mean engaging the enemy or not. In business, we tend to collect a lot of "noise" data. But interpretation of this data could open up choices we need to make. Misreading the data, based on experience and perspective (or lack thereof) could send the business in a wrong direction.
  
• Decide: Based on the intelligence and orientation, decide which of the choices the pilot needs to make - engage, flee, keep observing, anticipate, and so on. Not so different in business world.
  
• Act. Take the chosen path.

The process doesn't stop when the pilot has acted. The loop iterates again based on new intelligence from the altered situation.

Timing is key, but not everything

John Boyd, who developed the OODA loop, was nicknamed "Forty Second Boyd" for his skill in gaining advantage in air combat in a short time.Timing is critical in military situations, given that your life depends on not only the decision and action, but how quickly you can make the decision and act upon it. However, you can't sacrifice other aspects for timing, else you will risk getting into a worse situation than when you started.

By rule, all startup companies start from a position of disadvantage, and need to gain advantage by not only the right decisions, but act upon it, and sustain that - all in a short time. The one way to do it, learning from OODA loop, is to create a constant feedback, decision, and action cycle, adapting every time there is a change in situation.

This also can be applied to almost any aspect of business, where agility and adaptability is key.

The human factor

While the entire cycle can be automated, remember that it is finally humans that decide to act. Like a fighter pilot who has many tools at his/her disposal, the experience and perspective, and finally the ability to decide and act can't be ignored. And, while at it, we can refine our data collection mechanisms to weed out data that's not relevant or contextual.

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iPhone 6 5.5-Inch Model Facing Yield Issues, Launch May be Pushed to 2015: Analyst

It seems nothing is going Apple's way when it comes to the next iPhone's production. A recent report suggested that the company might face component yield issues in an attempt to meet the thin form factor of the iPhone 6.

Now, KGI Securities' analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claims that due to production issues, the launch of the alleged larger iPhone 6 variant, believed to be the 5.5-inch model, may be delayed to next year. He adds that in any case the phone is indeed launched in October, it is likely be available in limited quantities.

MacRumors quotes Kuo who noted, "Production bottlenecks on 4.7-inch iPhone 6 centre on the yield rate of in-cell touch panel and metal casing. As in-cell touch panel becomes larger in size, the edge of the panel may become insensitive to touch. Meanwhile, under new manufacturing process for the iPhone 6 metal casing, colour unevenness is an issue."

Notably, this is not the first case of yield issues reported for the long-rumoured 5.5-inch iPhone 6 variant. Back in May, a report suggested that the use of costly sapphire as a display material, waslimiting the production of the alleged iPhone 6 with 5.5-inch display.

Last week, a report tipped that Apple might introduce a new haptic feedback technology in its next generation iPhone devices, while another leak suggested that the company had almost doubled orders for the iPhone 6 when compared to the iPhone 5.

Earlier this month, a report revealed a September 25 (Thursday) availability date for the alleged 4.7- and 5.5-inch iPhone 6 models, which is not in line with Apple's traditional Friday launch, while also claiming that the name of the larger 5.5-inch iPhone 6 variant will be iPhone Air.

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QA and Devs Working Together

In our latest experience report, Tearing Down the Walls, Stephanie Savoia asks us to,

“Imagine a wall. Now imagine a developer creating code and throwing it over…[where] it lands on the heads of the Quality Assurance (QA) or Test team. This is where the code is tested in various ways. If the development team does unit testing, then many of the tests QA are creating/executing are duplicative. If there are no unit tests, QA are left to test as much of the affected code as they can.”

Now imagine a more efficient world where QA and Devs work together much more closely. That’s where Stephanie is today. This report recounts her journey from being a member of a separate QA group, to being a valued member of a unified XP team that includes both Developers and QA. Pairing on her team is not only Dev/Dev but also QA/Dev. It happens daily. And the whole team takes responsibility for code quality.

Stephanie Savoia has been working in quality assurance for 12 years. Currently, she is a Technical Lead in QA at Marchex, Inc. Prior to that she worked at LexisNexis. Before that, she created the quality control process for deliverables at Applied Discovery, a legal software company, and verified the data that would be sent to opposing counsel and government entities such as the Securities & Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice.

The Agile Manifesto says,

“We are uncovering better ways of developing
software by doing it and helping others do it.”

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How much does it cost to make an app?

“How much does it cost to make an app?” As a developer, this is the most common question I am asked. This is like asking “How much does it cost to build a house?” Following the house analogy, are you looking for a mansion or a shack? Do you want a house made of straw, sticks, or brick? Do you want a custom home or a tract home? Just like a house, the variables in developing an app are endless.

Develop a Storyboard

The first place to start is defining what you want your app to do. I normally recommend our clients storyboard their app (the technical term is wireframe). The wireframe is like the blue print in the house analogy. The goal for developing a wireframe (or storyboard) is to capture functionality and flow. This is not the time to worry about the actual aesthetics yet. It’s important to start from the beginning though, when a user first launches your app. Think about what’s the first thing they will see? On the home screen, if they tap the first menu selection, what happens next? And so on.

To create our wireframes, our designers use a design tool called Balsamiq. I send our clients a PowerPoint template where they can either use PowerPoint’s drawing tools or they can even print it out and hand draw it.

Other Factors

Beyond the storyboard, other factors that will impact the development and cost are:

• Integration to an existing backend / Development of backend: Most of the apps we develop now either need to talk to an existing backend or we have to create a backend to support the app.
• Integration to third party vendors: A lot of features that typically used to be expensive to develop can now affordably be added by leveraging third party vendors. Examples are push notifications and mobile commerce.

In addition to the wireframe, if you’re app requires extensive integrations to third party vendors, you may need to put together an architectural diagram.

Getting a Quote

For the most part, a developer should be able to provide you a quote to develop your app based on your wireframe (and architectural diagram). You can find reputable U.S. based developers at iphoneappquotes.com and theymakeapps.com.

You can also find freelancers and offshore teams at elance.com, guru.com, odesk.com; Just beware. I’ve talked to clients that have used developers from these sites and it’s a mixed bag. I’ve talked to a few people that have had good experiences and I’ve heard of some horror stories.

If you feel like your app concept is the next Uber, it’s okay to ask the developer for an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) or to ask them to sign your NDA. When you go through this process, you’ll find a vast range for the quotes. My recommendation is to look at other when selecting a developer.

(Shameless plug – we also would, of course, be happy to provide a quote for your project. Just visit us at Apptology.com)

Alternatives

App development, like most technology has become commoditized to some extent. If you have little budget for app development, you may consider DIY (Do It Yourself) App services like ibuildapp.com or seattlecloud.com. There is also a middle ground where a developer can create a robust but cost effective solution based on templates. Apptology offers a cost effective app development solution using templates (called ReadyBuilt). Mobile Roadie is another developer that uses template. Apps based on templates are primarily used to promote a business or to provide content and are typically a fraction of the cost of developing apps from scratch.

Final Thoughts

My answer to the question, “How much does it cost to develop an app?” is “It depends.” If you are thinking about developing an app, I highly recommend taking a little time to create a storyboard or wireframe. This step will help you flush out your concept and greatly assist a developer in providing a solid quote for your app.

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