I regularly visit LinkedIn and read the discussions, where they exist. What amazes me are the responses to job posts which just have “Interested”, a name, or an email address. Those who post this type of response are only boosting LinkedIn’s count of “engagements”, not their chances of landing that job.
No-one will give you a job. You have to earn it!
It is true that doing well in a job interview it usually critical. However, in order to do well in the interview, you have to be offered one. A good CV/resume will help, but, even before you send that to an employer, there are ways to improve your chances of being offered an interview:
- Are you already known to the employer? Do you know anyone that already works there?
- Are you actively participating in LinkedIn or other groups? By participating I don’t mean posting “Interested”, but asking insightful questions or offering helpful answers, which demonstrate your subject knowledge.
- Have you presented in conferences or webinars? Presenting papers can be difficult at first, but by researching your topics thoroughly in advance, and incorporating your research into your presentations, you will gain confidence and show that you can explain your subject knowledge clearly to others. You will also find the questions asked afterwards to be easier to answer, or could lead you to research a new topic for a future presentation.
Getting a job should never be easy. It requires you to put in that extra little bit of effort, so that you can stand out amongst the candidates, and the employers see the potential in you and also see the benefits you can bring to their company.
No-one will give you a job. You have to earn it!
I have run free prize draws for copies of 
SAS Global Forum 2018 was held in the Colorado Convention Center from April 8 to 11 (Sunday to Wednesday) in Downtown Denver.
However, I would like to apologise to anyone who attended my paper and was disappointed that my 50-minute paper only lasted 20 minutes. I was making use of the new count-down timer on the desk, which told me how long I had to go, and then had amber and red lights to tell me when I had 5 minutes left and when I had to stop. Unfortunately I didn’t notice that the starting time had been set to 20 minutes, instead of 50 minutes, and nor did the room chair. If there are time left cards, or count-down timers, then I do tend to rely on them, rather than using my own watch, or the room clock (which I couldn’t see in that room anyway). Whenever I present I have specific slides which I use to check how fast, or slow, I’m going, and at the first of these slides I saw I only had 10 minutes left, so I upped my pace. However, I can assure everyone that I didn’t remove any of the content, even though I finished on 20 minutes to the second! I just cut back on the explanation I would have added to each slide, which could have extended my presentation to 50 minutes. Had the room chair or I known that there had been a queue outside, then I could have re-run my presentation in the 30 minutes I had left, so that no-one who wanted to attend would have missed out. But hindsight is a wonderful thing!
After the conference my wife Angela and I went on a day tour into the nearby Rockies, visiting the Red Rocks Amphitheater, where the Beatles, John Denver and Widespread Panic had performed. We also visited several mining towns. Thursday was a very warm day in Denver with temperatures reaching 27C (81F), and Angela and I walked to the Denver Botanic Gardens in the afternoon. Friday, however, was not at all warm, with Denver reaching 6C (43F), but Central City in the Rockies reaching -3C (27F)! Idaho Springs was warmer at 0C (32F), but there was still a frozen waterfall there.
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