by: Alythea Ho

Ever heard about the guy who burst into song halfway through his interview, or the stalker who wouldn’t leave his interviewer alone?

Sounds like something straight out from Cracked.com, but believe it or not, these job-seekers are real.

In a JobsCentral survey held from August to September last year, we sought 396 hiring managers and HR personnel in Singapore and asked them to share their strangest interview experiences.

By Jonathan Tay

From dealing with a crying interviewee to encountering a stalker, interviewers reveal some of the strangest job candidates they have come across in JobsCentral’s latest online study. The study, which was conducted from August to September 2012, included the responses of over 390 hiring managers and HR personnel.

INFOGRAPHIC: Click here to view

By Png Han Yong

Congratulations, you’ve landed yourself an interview after weeks of fine-tuning your resume and scouting for that dream job.

In preparation for the big day, you’ve readied your wardrobe and done ample research on the company. On the day itself, you stride confidently into the interview room and proceed to breeze through most of the questions thrown at you.

By: Alythea Ho

Had a bad case of Monday blues? Hold back that angry tweet or Facebook rant about your boss first.

An employer survey by JobsCentral found that 75% of managers and hirers use online channels to snoop on job candidates. Of these, one in three say they prefer using social media sites like LinkedIn (38%) and Facebook (34%). Search engines ranked third at 28 per cent.

By Julailah Wahid

Most companies request for job references before hiring you, whether before an interview or right after one. While not all employers are swayed by references, a negative reference can be a very strong indication that they shouldn’t proceed with an applicant.

Shew. You finally have an offer on the table, and you’re so excited you could just scream. But now that you’ve jumped through the hoops to get to this point, the real work is still ahead of you. It’s time for negotiations. Typically I think there are two types of people – those who love to intellectually spar and those who would rather play rock, paper, scissors instead.

Luckily, you can overcome that aversion to negotiating by preparing yourself for what becomes crucial to you in a new job and what becomes more of a “nice to have.” As R. William Holland states in his book, you get what you negotiate for, not what you deserve. What’s important to take away from that is you don’t have a third-party fighting for your interests; you must muster up the gusto and self-awareness to enter into negotiations as a skillful opponent.

“Today, negotiation skills are an absolute necessity for successful career management,” says R. William Holland in his book “Cracking the New Job Market.” Most of us go through what he terms the “postoffer honeymoon” where we’re so elated that we just blindly accept the offer without knowing that we have every right to accept it and review it. “The truth is that you are in your strongest bargaining position during the time between when a job is offered and when you accept it.”

By Shi Tianyun

The interview for your dream job went smoothly and you left the room feeling confident. But a few days after, your confidence takes a dent when you’re sitting at home, waiting by the phone that doesn’t seem to ring. Now, stop wishing it to buzz – do something about it.

We’re saying: Follow up! You are pitted against a pool of equally-qualified individuals and the interviewers have their hands full making a decision, following up gives them a little nudge and also show them that you’re really enthusiastic about the clinching the job. And this attitude may just be the deciding factor that helped you to!

By Juliet Soh

Most recruiters end interviews with “Do you have any questions for me?”

This is a great chance for you to ask questions that will help you assess if the company and position are right for you. Interviews should be a two-way conversation and the questions you ask at an interview may be as important as the answers you give.

But that’s not to say that you should simply fire away. There are indeed out-of-bound questions and here are four you should NOT ask:

Inspirational quotes often aim to fuel human beings towards making a change in society and moving towards a better future. But how do we make this difference? Two scholars from NCSS and MCYS tell us how.

By Eliza Hamizah

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, former US president and global icon, once said, “One person can make a difference, and everyone should try.”

With a rapidly increasing global population and a world constantly going after the next big-ticket item without caring about others, social problems are bound to crop up.
As we march relentlessly towards our own perceived happiness, we forget about the people left behind. That’s why such quotes remind us that there are people who need help, and that we can create a difference by lending a helping hand, be it big or small.

30-year-old Mohamed Fareez Mohamed Fahmy and 24-year-old Lim Si Yu are two such individuals who hope to make a difference in the world we live in today through their social service professions.