First, the most important tip: “tell me about yourself” doesn’t mean “tell me anything and everything.”

“Tell me about yourself” isn’t a polite request for your life story. What the interviewer wants to know is, “Why should I hire you?” Knowing this, your pre-interview goal is to develop a response tailored to the specific employer and addressing its interests, goals, and needs. You should revise, refine and rehearse your script until you can deliver it flawlessly — with energy, enthusiasm and confidence.

1. Sketch the big picture.

Experienced candidates should focus on the big picture first so that interviewers will place later information in the proper context. Start by providing an overview of your career. Example: “Why don’t I start with the big picture? As you can see from my resume, I have more than 15 years of experience in sales, marketing and general management, primarily in consumer products. Thanks to my experiences at XYZ Company and ABC Company, I have an in-depth knowledge of the domestic and international marketplace for the food and beverage industries.” 

2. Focus.

After you sketch the big picture, talk about specific experiences that are most relevant and interesting to an interviewer. Your research can pay off here. Learning as much as you can about the industry, employer and job (via the job description) allows you to zero in on your most relevant qualifications and experiences.

3. Showcase your communication skills.

Most interviewers observe how you organize and present information about yourself. If your recent experience is most relevant, detail your accomplishments in reverse chronological order, giving less emphasis to your first few jobs. If your most relevant experiences happened in the middle of your career, start your description at that point.

4. Highlight the benefits you’ll bring to the employer.

A job search is a self-marketing campaign. Orient any discussion of your skills and experiences toward showing how they can benefit this employer.

5. Provide details.

Have specific examples ready to illustrate your skills. For example, to emphasize your problem-solving ability, describe a problem you faced in a past job, what actions you took to resolve it and the result of those actions. Whenever possible, choose a problem that’s similar to those the prospective employer might face.

6. Disclose personal information cautiously.

When it comes to disclosing personal information, consider two factors: whether you feel comfortable using personal details and what you plan to accomplish by doing so. Keep the purpose of the conversation in mind. Whenever possible, mention personal information strategically. For example, if you’re interviewing for a job with a toy manufacturer, you could share anecdotal information about your children’s experience with the manufacturer’s toys. If you know the job requires extensive international travel, you could mention your personal travel experiences.

7. Finish strong.

When should you return the floor to the interviewer? Use nonverbal signs as your cue. If an interviewer seems restless and bored, ask for feedback about your presentation: “Is this what you want to hear? Or is there something else that you’d like me to focus on?” This allows the interviewer to change the flow of communication and establishes a two-way dialogue.

 There’s an interview technique that’s becoming more and more popular – peer-to-peer interviewing. This interviewing technique lets job candidates meet a group of employees: the candidate can ask the employees questions about the company and job, while the employees can size up the applicant and share their opinions with the hiring manager.

Peer-to-peer interviewing allows the organization to get a more complete idea of a candidate’s overall fit, while it allows the candidate a glimpse at his potential coworkers and whether she feels comfortable with them.

The Upside of Peer-to-Peer Interviewing

• Transfer of knowledge. Applicants can learn more about the company from employees (who are likely to tell it a little more like it is).
• Improvement of morale. Employees help to select their future coworkers, which gives them more of a stake in the organization—and strengthens their commitment to the company’s success.
• Good beginnings. Employees are invested in the new hires’ success and are more likely to help new employees. New employees start work knowing their peers support them.

The Downside – It Exists, But It’s Manageable

• Two-way street. Remember, the candidate is also evaluating the company in the interview process. If your peer interviewers are unhappy with the company, they might end up discouraging the candidate from taking the job if it’s offered.

Solution: Be sure you choose peer interviewers who are positive, happy, and enthusiastic about the company.

• Personal agendas. Some employees could be threatened by an applicant and not recommend him/her out of their own insecurities.

Solution: Make sure that you change up your panel and that it represents a cross-section of your organization’s workers — with an equal mix of different skills as well as ethnicities, races and sexes.  Peer interviewers should also be articulate and understand what company is looking for in its next hire.

• An interview, not an interrogation. A three-hour, six person interview is not what the candidate will expect or appreciate.

Solution: Peer-to-peer interviewing should take about half an hour, and your peer board should consist of two or three people. You don’t want to intimidate the candidate.

Two Tips 

• Interview training is essential. Employees must know what are legal interview questions and which are unprofessional or illegal.
• Make it clear that while employees’ feedback will be taken into high regard, HR and management still make the final decision.

These days, it’s not unusual to have gaps in your employment. Since 2008, the average unemployment rate has remained around 10% nationally. Employers and recruiters should be used to seeing employment gaps on resumes by now, but you’ll still want to explain them if you have them. Here’s how to put your best foot forward and keep those gaps from harming your chances of getting hired.

1. Be honest. It is important that you be truthful when presenting your work background. Don’t try to hide the gaps. That being said, use your common sense. Don’t go into an interview and feel you have to tell a potential employer about all of your faults, weaknesses and mistakes. Have a calm, prepared answer that explains the gaps in your resume without going overboard. If you’ve been out of work because you raised a family, continued your education, cared for a sick family member or recovered from an injury, don’t act apologetic. There’s nothing wrong with taking time off of work for any of these reasons.

2. Reformat your dates. Instead of laying out your employment history in months and years on your resume, such as March 2004 – January 2008, simply use the years: 2004-2008. First of all, it’s easier to follow and helps your resume look clear and concise. It also doesn’t raise any red flags unnecessarily, if there was an employment gap of a few months. If that comes up in the interview, by all means be honest about those months and what you were doing, but you don’t need to wave it under the interviewer’s nose.

If you are currently unemployed and concerned about the future impact on your resume, get active!

3. Do contract work or side projects. Consider taking contract or temporary work, especially in your industry. Hiring managers will like to see that you’re staying busy and keeping your skills fresh. You can still search for a permanent post while you take on project or temporary work, and it allows for you to have some flexibility. And, with income coming in, it may take the pressure off from feeling like you need to jump at the first permanent job offer to come along.

 4. Brush up on your skills. If contract or temp work isn’t an option, you can also take the time to invest in your professional development by taking classes. Professional associations, local colleges, continuing education programs, alumni associations, user groups, online courses and unemployment offices offer a variety of low-cost training opportunities. This will give you something to list on your resume to help explain what you did during your time away from work.

Regardless of how you handle your employment gaps, do it in a positive way. There’s nothing you can do to change the fact that they happened, so the best strategy is to develop a forward-looking resume that shows the value you offer potential employers.

The Society for Human Research Management (SHRM)’s Employee Benefits research report, released midyear, provided comprehensive information about the types of benefits U.S. employers offer to their employees. They explored 284 different areas, including:

• health care and welfare
• preventive health and wellness
• retirement savings and planning,
• financial and compensation packages
• family-friendly and flexible working benefits
• employee services
• housing and relocation
• business travel

and how these benefit offerings have changed over the last five years. How do yours compare?

Organizations spent on average 19% of an employee’s annual salary on mandatory benefits, 19% on voluntary benefits and 11% on pay for time not worked benefits.  More results:

• Health savings accounts (HSAs) are becoming more prevalent, while HMO plans have declined in popularity.
• Paid-time off plans are becoming more popular

Over the last year, there has been an increase in the percentage of companies offering health care premium discounts for employees who have annual health risk assessments, participate in weight loss programs, participate in wellness programs and/or have not used tobacco products.

• Employer-sponsored retirement plans continue to shift away from defined benefit pension plans toward defined contribution retirement savings plans and Roth 401(k) savings plans. The percentage of companies that offered defined contribution plans increased, although there has been a slight decline in the percentage of companies that offered employer-matching contributions.
• Financial and compensation benefits have declined throughout the last five years. The most significant decreases were in educational assistance programs, incentive bonus plans for executives, life insurance for dependents and undergraduate educational assistance.

Other benefit offerings that have declined sharply include

• executive club memberships
• legal assistance/services
• mentoring programs
• organization-sponsored sports teams
• professional development opportunities
• travel planning services.

Housing and relocation benefits are also becoming scarce. Fewer companies are offering assistance in selling previous homes, cost-of-living differentials, down payment assistance, location visit assistance, mortgage assistance, rental assistance, spouse relocation assistance and temporary housing.

On the compensation front, salaries are moving slowly upward, and new grads are getting better offers from new employers, according to the 38th Annual World at Work Salary Budget Survey conducted by WorldatWork, a not-for-profit organization that focuses on global human resources issues including compensation, benefits, work-life and integrated total rewards.

New hire rates are up about 2.8% from the previous year, and salary budgets increased by 2.8 percent in 2011. Base salary increases were given to 88 percent of employees in 2011 vs. 86 percent in 2010, 80 percent in 2009 (an all-time low) and 91 percent from 2006 to 2008. Across-the-board salary freezes were planned by only 3 percent of employers vs. 43 percent in 2009 and 10 percent in 2010.

As for what employees can expect in 2012, salary budgets are projected to rise by 2.9 percent in 2012. Based on individual performance ratings at years’ end, low performers can expect an average pay increase of 0.7 percent, middle performers 2.7 percent and high performers 4.0 percent.

In 16th-century Germany fir trees were decorated, both indoors and out, with apples, roses, gilded candies, and colored paper. In the Middle Ages, a popular religious play depicted the story of Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

A fir tree hung with apples was used to symbolize the Garden of Eden — the Paradise Tree. The play ended with the prophecy of a savior coming, and so was often performed during the Advent season.

 It is held that Protestant reformer Martin Luther first adorned trees with light. While coming home one December evening, the beauty of the stars shining through the branches of a fir inspired him to recreate the effect by placing candles on the branches of a small fir tree inside his home

 The Christmas Tree was brought to England by Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert from his native Germany. The famous Illustrated News etching in 1848, featuring the Royal Family of Victoria, Albert and their children gathered around a Christmas tree in Windsor Castle, popularized the tree throughout Victorian England. Brought to America by the Pennsylvania Germans, the Christmas tree became by the late 19th century.

Information gathered from www.allthingschristmas.com