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Questions to Ask and also Avoid During First Interview

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Multiple factors determine the development of your career, but some of them may become a moving or a ruining power for getting a job offer. We encounter these factors during the interview that is perhaps the most important part of the process of job searching. You may notice that all the interviews have a common pattern. First, you tell about yourself, then an interviewer asks some questions, you answer them, and then you ask your questions. It is highly important to understand how to ask questions properly and how to answer them to create a proper impression and present yourself as a specialist.
In this article, we are going to analyze how to ask questions during the interview and what to avoid. This information will be useful for those who have no experience in visiting interviews and are currently preparing for their first interview.

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What questions to avoid!

First, let us talk about the questions that you should avoid during your first interview.

What is the field of your company?

This is the question which automatically ruins the impression that you’ve already created. Currently, the number of candidates is always bigger than the number of job offers, and a candidate should use every opportunity to demonstrate that they are really interested in this job. Before the interview, you need to find all information about the company. Nowadays, it is easy to do it as this information is available online.

Should I work all day long?

If you want to work part time, you should find vacancies with such description. If you are looking for a full-time job, it means that you really need to work all day long. If you ask such a question, your interviewer will think that you are too lazy and that you are not ready to work 40 hours per week. No one wants to hire lazy candidates, so you’d better avoid such questions even though you may want to have some free time to make your term paper better.

Will I receive some bonuses for my work?

This is a good question for the experienced candidates who know how they can improve the work of the company and what exactly they can bring to the table with their skills. Inexperienced candidates who have no competence and understanding of the field should never ask about the bonuses. The bonuses are paid for good work or for some achievements. If you demonstrate yourself as a specialist with good prospects, the company will offer you some bonuses by itself. You may ask about the development of your skill which actually presupposes the rise of your salary, but such question sounds in a proper way.

What questions to ask!

Now, let us talk about three main questions that you are to ask during the interview.

How the workflow of the team is organized?

By asking this question, you demonstrate the employer that you understand that you will work in a team and that you want to become a part of it. Besides, this creates an impression that you have already worked in teams and know that understanding of the processes that each team member is involved in is a key to success. Also, in such a way you demonstrate your leadership and the ability to take the teamwork under control, especially if there is no established workflow for the team that you are going to join.

What will be my first tasks for the first month or two?

This is the most important question that you need to ask even if you have no questions at all. First of all, you will understand what exactly you need to work on to demonstrate your best qualities during the first months of working. Secondly, you will show the employer that you are really interested in the job itself and want to understand what exactly you will do at your workplace.

Will I have a mentor?

Inexperienced employees frequently do not know what to do at their first job. They do not even understand how to behave with the colleagues! When you ask whether you will get a mentor, you demonstrate to your employer that you really want to become a team member as soon as possible and overcome all the problems within the shortest time. Besides, it will be good to know whether you will get help from someone who will be your guide during the first weeks of working at the first job.

These 6 questions – 3 dos and 3 don’ts – will definitely help you during the first interview and will assist in holding a proper conversation with the employer. Of course, they won’t be enough to get a job offer, so do your best to demonstrate your confidence, huge desire to study, and readiness to invest into the company development by making effort and contributing knowledge.  

About Author

With a background in education and entrepreneurship, Jake Lester currently writes for the educational blogging project BeforeWriting. Jake writes for many blogs and gives useful advice for entrepreneurs, students, and educators. He likes to cover stories in productivity, careers, and education. Connect with him on Twitter and Facebook

Interview with Syed Faizan Ali - A Young Entrepreneur

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Today, I'm very excited to Interview one of the youngest and successful bloggers of Pakistan Syed Faizan Ali. I think his name needs no introduction but let me give you short introduction about him and his personality.
Syed Faizan Ali is a young entrepreneur from Pakistan and is known for his websites MBL (mybloggerlab.com) and the only Templateism. MyBloggerLab is his first website which is now one of the best blogger resource blogs. After the success of MBL, Faizan launched his 2nd project Templateism which is the No. 1 platform for Blogger templates with thousands of monthly downloads and millions of visitors. Well, when I sent him a mail, I wasn't expecting a quick reply. As he is busy person but I received a quick response and he agreed for the interview.  So let's see, how he answered my questions:

1. Welcome to Blogolect, I think your Name is enough and no introduction is required but as a part of formality tell us a little about yourself?

First of all thanks for finding me worth to be interviewed on your wonderful blog. I am Syed Faizan Ali, a Pakistan Web Entrepreneur and currently pursuing my computer engineering bachelor degree. I have founded two of the most popular blogger niche website i.e. MyBloggerLab.com and Templateism.com

2. How you started blogging and what was the reason behind it?

I wasn’t a great student being mocked by family members that I would either be a vegetable vendor or a local clerk. However, I was really good with computers, playing games was my best hobby. I took all those bad things as a motivation and fortunately end up starting blogging which resulted very well for me.

3. How much time do you spend daily on blogging, how much you spent in the early days and how much you are spending now?

I use to spend almost 18-20 hours on blogging at initial stages. However, nowadays I am a lot busy with my university and personal life. Therefore, I didn’t give much of the time to blogs. However, I still give around 8-10 hours to internet, blogging and web developing.

4. Faizan, now you're a successful entrepreneur, tell us a a little about the sources which helped you in achieving your goals?

People help you a lot, it could be your friends who you shared your happiness with, it could also be your enemies who always keep you on your toes to achieve more.

5. Templateism :) Templateism is going viral day by day and obviously its all due to your hardwork. I want to ask you a general question that how much time it took to become a professional designer/developer and what were the sources which helped you?

I wonder why I didn’t started Templateism.com at very first. But I did, which was a great thing happened to blogger.com. You just need to learn HTML and CSS to get started with developing a blogger template.

I would tell you a secret, try editing your existing blogger template. You will find wonderful codes, learn them and utilize them in your own template. Simple, Right?

6. I hardly found a few template designers from Pakistan, what do you think what's the reason behind it? It really hurts, but I am saying this after my observance, Pakistan is far away from other countries in the field of blogging. So what do you think which steps should we take to create a sense in Pakistanis that blogging is a profitable business and is better than jobs.

You see there are a lot of Pakistani designers but the difference is that they are not good at it. They focus on too many things rather than mastering one thing. I think government should develop a proper IT Institution that teaches people not only standard education but also teaches them “To Blog”, “To Earn” and “To Develop”.

7. Which are the Primary Sources of your Income?

Our primary source of income is Ads Slot selling, Selling Templates and doing custom projects for our clients.

8. How do you prepare your speech for seminars and how much time it takes?

So Far I have came into public 2 times, my first ever seminar on blogging was at Karachi University in 2013. The next seminar that I took was at IBA CED (IBA Center of Entrepreneurship Development) in Karachi in 2014. I recently did an online webinar for Google Student Ambassadors, it went really smooth. The only reason why I am able to give such seminars and presentation is becomes of the motivation audience give me back when I speak.

9. What was the key factors behind the success of MBL?

The factor was pretty simple, “Write Quality Content” and wait for the right time to monetize. If you know I waited 6 months to place any kind of advertisement on MBL. That’s the key.

10. What are your future plans?

Future plans is to expand Templateism Network and to take it to the very next level, In Sha ALLAH.

11. Competition is increasing day by day, so what you think that starting a blog in today's date is a profitable business?

Competition is getting tough but the people are getting intelligent as well. They will certainly find a way to reach their goal. You just need to be motivated.
 
12.  I have seen that all newbies pay more attention to their alexa ranking than their blog? What do you think about alexa, is it still matters?

Alexa ranking doesn’t matters a lot. Yes, It is a nice way to flaunt your website ranking but it has not a lot of worth so don’t worry about it and focus on your blog and how much you earn.

13. As a Student how do you manage you blogs and how you managed then in the start of your career?

As a student still, it is really hard to manage both. You either sacrifice your education or work. However, if you are motivated and determined in your goals you will overcome this issue as well.

15. What do you think about taking risks in blogging, like paying on advertisements and all this type of stuff?

Blogging is a risk, you put your everything on a blog and if you don’t get desire result all hardwork goes in vain. However, without taking risk you cannot do anything. Overcome your FEAR, when you put water in a Cup it becomes a Cup and when you put water in a jar it becomes a jar. Be water my friend.

16. Would you like to give any message to bloggers who are just starting their career?

First of all, new bloggers really need to learn to at least give some sorts of respect to the senior bloggers. Sometime novice bloggers shows extra aggression and that literally spoils everything. They should focus more towards their blog instead of looking what others are doing. The most important thing, a new blogger should always start a blog on a topic that he feels he can cover the best. Many people have started a website on totally unrelated topics that didn’t work out. Find your abilities and make them count.

17. What do you think about Blogolect?

Zohaib, you got a really nice blog. I would just like to tell you focus on doing whatever you are doing and don’t listen to anyone. Follow your dreams and In Sha Allah You will taste success someday.

Hope you guys enjoyed it and hope it motivated you to stick to your goals. Liked it, let us know in the comments section below.