One thing I notice is the vast amount of articles coming around that are talking about interviews, their processes and their tips. I want to give a different perspective; try doing the same thing everyone else is from a different country. It actually makes it a lot tougher, even though you might not think so.

My Problem

If you follow my blog you realize, I’m currently studying in Alicante, Spain, my 3rd year of my international business major. As much as I am loving it, it makes apartment hunting and job hunting for the upcoming summer and school year much more difficult.

As much as I would love to send in a snail mail copy of my resumé or give a quick ring to the HR department of wherever I would like to apply, it financially isn’t that feasable. Doable, just not reasonably. The benefits of using some direct contact methods that help by being stateside:

• You usually get to talk to someone, and if you’re anything like me thats much more reasurring than sending your resumé into the black hole of the online database.
• The advantage of the company receiving a physical copy of your resumé shows not only your persistence but your will to succeed and advance in the working world

The Realization

The first step is realizing you have a problem. When you get stuck in a difficult situation, you probably already know it. So understanding that you are in this pickle is naturally the first thing you need to do. Then after that you can begin focusing on ways to rectify, and make the problem one that is almost non existent.

The Solution

Anticipation. The simple fact that you can anticipate these problems make the solution much easier. My Suggestions:

• Skype: If you haven’t found the many many benefits of Skype yet, I suggest giving it a try. Should you be called for an interview you have an economical and practical way to conduct a phone interview on the cheap, especially if YOU have to call.
• Google Voice: 2 benefits here: Recorded transcriptions and a proper phone number where you can receive a transcribed voicemail in case you get a call back.
• LinkedIn: The online resume: get connected, get out there, and get known.

Naturally, I’m still going through my application process for this summer, but as more develops and more comes my way, I’ll be more than happy to clue you in on my tips. If you have any please leave them in the comments.

Image by Ben Heine

BenHeine.com

Posted via web from Greg’s posterous

I had the joy of being able to send over a few interview questions to the CEO of Zappos, Tony, and here’s what we had.

What gave your company the idea to run a site that catered to a market
> of people who wanted shoes?

History of the company is here:

http://www.zappos.com/about.zhtml

Our #1 priority as a company is our company culture.  We believe that if
we get the culture right, most of the other stuff, including great
customer service, will fall into place on its own.  Long term, we want the
Zappos brand to be about the very best customer service and the very best
customer experience.

For Twitter, we don’t really view it as a marketing channel so much as a
way to connect on a more personal level, whether it’s with our employees
or our existing customers.

Initially, we started getting the entire company more involved with
Twitter because we saw it as a great way to help build our company
culture.  But then we discovered it was also a great way to connect with
customers as well.

We have a presence on MySpace and Facebook, but most of our focus has been
on Twitter because it’s much more personal.

> How do you use online marketing to improve sales?

Online marketing definitely drives some of our sales, including buying
keywords on search engines such as Google and our associates program.