At Interop, Datacom Systems announced the launch of a new line of affordable 10Gb data-filtering link aggregation TAPs and data access switches. The new devices provide test and monitoring access for 10Gb networks, improve monitoring efficiency and optimize network resources particularly for decentralized environments such as remote offices or anywhere departments and autonomous groups need efficient access to network data.
“Many of today’s new solutions are geared toward centralizing monitoring resources,” said Datacom Systems' Chris Koeneman. “While in some cases centralization can be ideal theoretically, we find that many times these solutions are too costly to purchase, too complex to manage, and simply unrealistic for many of our customer’s needs. This new line of products is aimed at providing the appropriate amount of technology, exactly where it is needed in the network—efficiently and effectively.”
The company's SINGLEstream 10G Link Aggregation Taps provide in-line full-duplex visibility at 10Gb, even for single-interface monitoring applications. The SINGLEstream line of 10G link aggregation taps enables bi-directional monitoring of 10Gb full duplex links by aggregating both Tx and Rx data streams into one single stream of traffic, allowing any connected monitoring device (including those with only one NIC) to receive a complete copy of all the data in a single trace file.
The company's VERSAstream 10G Data Access Switches with data filtering help network and security professionals overcome monitoring, troubleshooting, and deployment bottlenecks by providing efficient out-of-band monitoring access to 10Gb networks. Advanced filtering technology allows network analysts to customize the traffic flow sent to any monitoring tool based on configurable filters, such as IP address, port number, MAC address, VLAN, frame, protocol type, or customizable off sets in the IP header.
If you're at Interop this week, be sure to visit Datacom Systems at booth #930, or check out the company website. - posted by
Jason Bovberg
HR reps and hiring managers generally agree that hiring and firing are the two worst parts of the business. Fortunately, sharpening your hiring procedure can kill two birds with one stone: reduce the difficulty and guessing in hiring and decrease the frequency of firing.
How? By injecting logic deep into the heart of the hiring process. Consider this innovative 5-step hiring procedure from Platinum Solutions, an award-winning software development firm.
The 5-Step Process
Here is the 5-step process that Platinum Solutions uses:
Online technical test. All applicants start by taking an online technical test to measure basic competencies in the industry and technologies relevant to the position. According to Laila Rossi, CEO of Platinum Solutions, this test cuts out 50-60 percent of applicants. Talk about reducing the strain involved in sifting through hundreds of resumes, a process that is fraught with unqualified candidates slipping through the cracks and excellent candidates weeded out.
Cognitive test. The second step is a cognitive test to measure the logic and critical thinking skills of candidates. Simply put, you want smart people in your organization. And as I mentioned in my article about the top 5 skills you absolutely need, problem solving is crucial to success in the business world.
Face-to-face technical interview. In this stage, a trained interviewer will ask specific questions to gauge technical capabilities. Please note that this interview does not focus on experience, but current skill and competency. While hearing about deployments an employee managed or examples of when they handled a crisis situation might be interesting, these anecdotes do little to prove one's competency. A far greater test is to ask complex, targeted questions, and then judge the depth and value in the answer that the candidate gives. It's absolutely essential that a well-trained and technically-savvy individual conducts this interview.
Top grading interview. The "top grading" interview (as Rossi puts it) is potentially the most interesting piece of the entire hiring process. In this step, a hiring manager (or trained interviewer) will go through an employee's entire work history with him or her in a very probing manner. The interviewer will ask questions such as "What role were you hired to fill," "What were your experiences with other staff," "What staff did you disagree with and why?" Basically, because the interviewer knows that the company is going to do spot reference checks on any employee (not just employers) in previous organizations, they have no choice but to be honest. And given the invasive nature of the interview (in-depth, ad hoc), no interviewee can prepare enough canned answers to not easily be spotted for a liar.
"You're giving people truth serum," said Rossi. "That's what it is. When you ask so many questions about so many people on their team, that's truth serum. I get people who just say 'Why did I even talk about that?', That's when you know it's a good interview."
Reference check. The last step is a reference check--not with the favorite employer, teacher, and uncle that the employee provides information for, but the fellow co-workers and managers that stick out from the top grading interview. Through these calls, you discover the nitty gritty of how the employee works with others, what his or her strengths and weaknesses are, and whether he or she is a good fit for your organization.
The Result
The end result of this process is that you're left with a candidate who you know, without a doubt, has the technical competencies, the intellect, and the proven work history to succeed. You essentially isolate any biases based on personalities. "You get those friendly interviews where they have something in common, and the interview's over within 10 minutes. That's a waste of time, and that's how you get those faulty hires," Rossi said.
That's not to say personality isn't still important, though. Just in a business context. "You want to make sure a person can establish rapport--maintain eye contact. I definitely get people who stare down and twiddle their thumbs or stare at the ceiling. Those are not people we would typically hire," Rossi said.
For more information about where we've gone wrong in hiring and techniques getting the best candidates, I strongly recommend a book by Justin Menkes called Executive Intelligence. In the book, the author shows how the glue that binds the world's best leaders are skills such as reasoning, critical thinking, problem solving, and empathy. The author also provides resources for creating interviews that test for these qualifications.
Not the Best Process for All Jobs
Granted, this 5-step process isn't the best hiring process for all types of employees. For low-level positions in non-critical roles, you may opt for a more basic, personality-based interview process. But for the positions that play key roles in driving your business, you need the most intelligent, capable people you can find. And given that few organizations use processes like this, I have little doubt that there are numerous excellent candidates in your area that simply haven't surfaced to your awareness.
At Microsoft Exchange Connections this week in Las Vegas, Exchange expert Tony Redmond delivered a keynote address entitled "Top 10 Things You Need to Know About Exchange 2010." With Microsoft's announcement earlier this week at TechEd Europe in Berlin about the immediate availability of Exchange Server 2010, Redmond's topic was well chosen, and the keynote was well-attended. For those who couldn't be there, here is Redmond's top 10 list.
1. Exchange 2010 is release 3.2 of Exchange Server—What Redmond means by this statement is that Exchange 2010 is the second version of the third generation of Exchange. The first generation includes the versions before Exchange 2000; the second generation is Exchange 2000 and Exchange 2003. The third stage began with Exchange 2007, which marked a fundamental change in the architecture of Exchange organizations. As the second release of this generation, Exchange 2010 should be past the initial growing pains that such drastic changes bring about.
2. First fundamental refresh of the Information Store since 1996—The improvements or upgrades to the Store include a larger database page size (up to 32kb from 8kb in Exchange 2007) and improved I/O, which is more sequential and less random. Because of these improvements, single instance storage (SIS) has been eliminated as no longer important. Also, storage groups are gone; management is intended to be by the database.
3. New software-based approach to high availability—High availability is built in to Exchange 2010 through Database Availability Groups (DAGs), which let you replicate databases to multiple servers with automatic failover in the event of problems. This architecture also introduces the concept of incremental deployment—that is, you can add servers and mailboxes as you need them; you don't have to plan everything before you even begin.
4. Hosted Exchange and on-premises are equal (almost)—Exchange 2010 was developed from the beginning to be scalable as a cloud-based solution as well as deployable in your on-premises data center, and it has received extensive testing through Microsoft's online initiatives. Therefore, it's clearly ready and able to be successfully deployed as a hosted service, although a few features might still be available only with on-premises deployments.
5. No upgrade path, must install on fresh hardware—I suspect this is a point that still might be unpopular with many users. Redmond explained that because you need to carefully consider your underlying OS, it makes sense to do fresh installs rather than upgrades. Exchange 2007 had the same situation; however, keeping in mind that this version is within the same generation, no doubt many admins expected the opportunity of in-place upgrade at least if they were already on Exchange 2007: no such luck.
6. More fully developed message compliance features—Compliance features in Exchange 2010 build on the good start of Exchange 2007 and provide a more feature-rich and customizable experience. Although the new personal archive isn't specifically a compliance feature, it can be used in conjunction with retention policies and rules to aid in better mailbox management. Improvements to the transport dumpster (what Redmond called Dumpster 2.0) let it keep track of all edits and deletions for better visibility of end user actions. And Exchange 2010 also introduces cross-mailbox search capability, which is a great first step toward e-discovery.
7. Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) replaces ACL-based permissions—With RBAC, users see in the GUI only functions they have permissions to perform; this restriction applies also to PowerShell-based management and the ability to use only cmdlets that are authorized for assigned roles. Redmond did mention the need to be careful assigning roles or you could end up locking yourself out of the management areas you need to be in, with no way back.
8. PowerShell 2.0—As you've no doubt seen, Exchange 2010 adds many new features, and that means many new Windows PowerShell cmdlets to manage things—hundreds, in fact. Additionally, PowerShell 2.0 adds remote management capability so you no longer need to work locally to get the job done. Redmond warned to be sure to test your PowerShell 1.0 scripts because some cmdlets have been removed and some might work differently in 2.0.
9. Exchange Control Panel (ECP)—You can still manage Exchange 2010 with Exchange Management Console (EMC) and Exchange Management Shell (EMS), but now you also have the option to use the browser-based ECP, giving you additional remote management capabilities. You can also use ECP to delegate some functions to end users, such as simple password resets—and thereby save lots of call to the Help desk.
10. And lots more—OK, Tony, I think you're cheating a little with this one, but in a well-meaning way. After all, there's a lot of worthy stuff to talk about with Exchange 2010. Redmond's list of more items included such things as MailTips, Exchange Web Services as API, UM upgrades such as personal attendants, and of course the big improvements in Outlook Web App (formerly Outlook Web Access, but still OWA).
Greetings from Las Vegas, where I’m presenting at SharePoint Connections, an event for which I’m also the content chair for IT Pros, along with Andrew Connell who handles the developer content. Today is a bit freaky for me, because I’m presenting a full-day preconference workshop, the SharePoint Collaboration Jump Start and it’s the first time I’ve been asked to present a workshop about the “old version” of SharePoint (WSSv3, MOSS 2007) now that I can also talk about the “new version” (SharePoint Foundation and Server 2010).
It’s like walking a line between the past and the future, and it is also fascinating to hear the questions that people are asking, now that they are hearing about what’s new in SharePoint 2010. I’m finding myself having to split my brain between 2007 and 2010!
I also wanted to take a moment to update you about two issues I raised in previous editions of the SharePointPro Connections UPDATE newsletter: scalability and virtualization. There’s good news, and there’s bad news.
In this final piece, I've compiled notes from a dozen responses and interviews I've had since this series started, and am presenting the definitive list of the most critical skills needed to succeed in IT (and in many cases, in any career).
Business/Economics
Like any trade in a capitalist society, IT serves the role of business. Make no mistake: you must understand business and economics to succeed in IT. OK, if you're an MIT alumnus super genius, you can probably get away with simply doing/creating super complex concepts and processes and letting everyone else figure out what to do with it. But for the rest of us, understanding business is critical to success.
Where to start: If you're currently working, you have a great source of learning about business—your current organization. Take great interest in all those big boring corporate strategy meetings. Understand the business and what your company needs to succeed. Make friends with salespeople.
Even if you're not currently employed, there's a lot you can do. I won't suggest taking business classes because I know cost is kicker, but do immerse yourself in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and even marketing-focused sites like Marketing Professionals. It might seem odd, but given that marketing is the fundamental communication tool for business (it's a lot more than just advertising), understanding marketing is understanding business in many ways. Books about starting a new business are also great resources (even if you don't want to start your own business), because you need to grasp all the fundamentals of business to launch a startup.
Problem Solving/Critical Thinking "A train is traveling from Seattle to Phoenix at 55 miles per hour…"
That was a joke. Problem solving might hearken back to 5th grade mathematics, but it's a whole lot more. Being able to be approached with a problem, and then have the drive, focus, and critical thinking skills to outline the problem, research it, and solve it, is one of the most critical skills an employee can have. And in IT, no amount of experience can prepare you for every possible situation that can arise, so you need to demonstrate to a potential or current employer that you're capable of analyzing a problem and driving a solution. This is a skill that many people in the current workforce lack, and its importance cannot be overstated.
Where to start: Browse technical forums and try your hand at solving complex problems, including those outside your range of expertise. Go to Amazon.com, search 'problem solving', and peruse the books out there. Find something that sounds interesting and valuable. And as a last tip, try your hand at Yahoo! Chess when you have some free time, or visit your local game store and play some strategy-focused board games or card games. You'd be amazed how well these games can cultivate critical-thinking skills.
Technical Expertise
This might seem like a no brainer, but technical expertise is an essential to your success. Just as you can't get into your local grocery store without a pair of shoes and t-shirt, you can't get anywhere in the job market without a base of technical experience.
Where to start: If you're new to IT and want to move into the field because you "like computers," save yourself some time and get the education you need first. Find a technical college that offers virtual labs or start working on relevant certifications (preferably both). As for those that are already experienced in IT, don't stop learning new skills and technologies. Research the new and upcoming software programs in your field, and learn everything you can about them. Read technical sites for continuing education. Get additional certifications. You get the point.
When Microsoft launched the Exchange Server 2010 beta back in April, they touted the three pillars of its development: Flexible and Reliable; Anywhere Access; and Protection and Compliance. With the imminent release of the final product, this is a mantra we're hearing again at launch events such as The New Efficiency, and I expect it will be a theme at next week's TechEd Europe in Berlin and Exchange Connections in Las Vegas. Today I'd like to take a look at the Protection and Compliance part of the picture—specifically, how you can implement email retention policies with Exchange 2010.
Earlier this year, Penton Media, Windows IT Pro's parent company, implemented an email retention policy based on managed custom folders in Exchange 2007. The basic policy is set up so that any email item is automatically deleted after six months unless a user moves it to one of a set of managed custom folders in the user's mailbox. Each custom folder has a specific retention length assigned to it ranging from 18 months to 8 years, corresponding to specific legal retention needs; items within a folder are automatically deleted when they reach that folder's retention length. One additional folder is labeled as Permanent and is used for items that need to be maintained indefinitely.
So the system is set up and pushed out to end users by the IT department. You can read about the process the Penton IT department went through in "Establishing an Email Retention Policy: The IT Perspective." With a bit of training, it's not difficult for end-users to adhere to the policy and save the appropriate messages in the correct folders. However, the system is fairly rigid; end users have no ability to either override the policy in specific instances or customize it to meet personal workloads or workflows. With Exchange 2010, administrators can choose to change that situation.
First of all, in Exchange 2010, you no longer need managed custom folders, although they're still available. Retention policies can be applied to any folder. In fact, there are different types of policies for different situations. Most similar to managed custom folders is the Retention Policy Tag (RPT). This type can be applied to Outlook's default folders (e.g., Inbox, Deleted Items, Sent Items); they can't, however, be applied to the Calendar, Contacts, Journal, Notes, or Tasks default folders. For overall mailbox management, Exchange 2010 gives you the Default Policy Tag (DPT). Policies of this type apply to any mailbox items that don't have a retention policy in force because of the folder they're in or because a user has set a tag specific to the item.
That leads to the third type of policy, Personal Tags. Assuming administrators have enabled this functionality, end users can use Personal Tags to apply policies to individual mailbox items and to folders they create (though not to default folders, which are covered by RPTs). This ability is where end users can really customize email retention in their mailboxes.
The tags work together in a smart way. For instance, if you have a Personal Tag applied to a mail message so that it should be retained for three years, and you move the item into a project folder that has a retention time applied of one year, the system keeps the longer date on the individual item. Even better, when you open an item or view it in the Outlook Reading Pane, information about the item's current retention is clearly displayed for you at the top of the message.
Along with each of these tags, you set an action to apply when the age limit is reached. For instance, you can have the item moved to the new Exchange 2010 archive or moved to the Deleted Items folder. You could also have items clearly marked as over the retention limit to bring them to users' attention; this is a nice feature particularly if you're just implementing a retention policy. This method brings items to the attention of users so they know something must be done—and with luck, they'll do the right thing.
During a recent call with Windows IT Pro editors, Ian Hammeroff, senior technical product manager for Microsoft, demonstrated how easy it is to apply retention policies with Exchange 2010. "Our motivation about doing it this way is that it really allows users to use retention policies and archiving policies in a way that doesn't interrupt their workflow," he said. "In Exchange 2007, we had a total folder based approach where the IT department pushed down a set of custom folders or default folders and the users had to drag and drop their messages into these different folders, and that was the only policy that you could apply to that mail message. Here you can do all the customization and be very granular if you decide to do so."
When Penton introduced its Exchange 2007–based retention policy with managed folders, it seemed like a fairly slick technological solution to the problem of managing what to keep and what to delete from that ever-growing Inbox. However, the Exchange 2010 capabilities make what we have now seem about like an abacus compared to a modern computer. It's that kind of leap forward. You can read more about this feature in the Microsoft article "Understanding Retention Policies."
It should come as little surprise that the resume is a critical part of the hiring process. Arguably it's the most critical piece, because without a good resume, you can't even make it to any other step in the game. And, after hearing from Jack Williams with Staffing Technologies that you shouldn't even bother writing a cover letter, it looks like your resume is your sole tool to get you to the next phase.
But writing a good resume is about a lot more than grammatical perfection, layout aesthetics, and an accurate work history. A resume is one of the most difficult marketing pieces most people will ever have to write. And that resume needs to be able to clear every hurdle in the process: the computer screen, the recruiter, the HR rep, and the hiring manager. This article will explore what each one of these foes is looking for.
The Computer Search
When sizing up this opponent, it's easy to get a satirical image of a C3PO-type bot scanning over your resume with quantitative checks in mind. And realistically, that might not be that far off. While not every employer will use a search to shrink the candidate pool, many will. And while a technically savvy recruiter or hiring manager could easily glean your credentials from your resume, you have to make it easy for the computer. Common search queries will be for relevant technologies, software, and certifications.
"As a job hunter, I can put key phrases on my resume, and then someone who does a database search and pulls them out, if they're looking for someone who's certified that's one easy thing they can pull out," said Matt Rodriguez, owner of Dunn-Wright Systems, LLC.
The moral: be sure that if the job description asks for proficiency in a given software program or requires a certain certification, that you make sure those pieces are on your resume. Even if you don't think they're that valuable or you don't keep them on your resume as a standard, don't let your name get removed from the pool for a stupid reason.
The Recruiter
In many ways, a good recruiter is the voice of reason in the hiring process. They're experienced in the art of hiring, and don't focus on mostly irrelevant things like good personality fit with the team or whether you like to fish. Therefore, figuring out how to succeed with a recruiter is far less of a science—demonstrate clear experience in the fields required and a strong interest in the position and company. Many recruiters are paid based on the length of time that their chosen candidates stay in the position, so you want to make it clear that you're very interested in the position and passionate about the job.
I go into much more depth about how to please recruiters in this article. But one last note: remember that recruiters are only as good as the company they're working for. So while being an overall smart, driven individual should be enough to get you to the next phase, recruiters need to cross their T's and dot there I's. In other words, also make sure you clearly demonstrate that you have the competencies requested on the job description.
The HR Rep
Human resource professionals can take on a number of roles in the hiring process—they might be in charge of the original resume screen, they might conduct screening phone interviews, or they may be used for salary negotiations. Potentially all of the above.
The main thing to remember with HR reps is that they're not technical experts. Therefore, they're going to judge you by their own set of pseudo-scientific criteria based on best hiring practices. Do you make eye contact, smile, and hold a conversation well? (This only applies to in-person interviews, of course.) Do you demonstrate confidence when discussing the details of the position, and are you able to communicate fairly complex and technical concepts in terms that they can easily understand? If so, you shouldn't have a problem clearing this step. (And, to reiterate: don't wait for the HR rep to ask you questions related to the job description. Make sure to demonstrate that you meet all the requirements of the job description as you go along.)
Lastly, make sure you have some answers to those questions such as "Give me an example of a time when you had to switch gears halfway through a project," or "Tell me about a time when members of your team disagreed on something, and what you did." I don't personally believe that these questions do much of anything to measure competency, but HR reps love them because they require very little planning or understanding on the part of the interviewer.
After the jump, we'll cover the fourth and final opponent, the hiring manager.
Next time your Help desk people look ready to reach out and strangle the user on the other end of the phone, consider the Pauli Effect. It’s a term named after an Austrian theoretical physicist named Wolfgang Pauli and refers to the mysterious failure of technical equipment in the presence of certain people.
Pauli’s presence, unfortunately, seemed to guarantee that his colleagues’ experiments would fail due to technical issues. It happened so often that he was actually banned from the lab of another physicist.
Short of banning certain people from the network, you might want to consider a file synchronization tool that lets you do data backup and restore, picking and choosing files and folders to synchronize or back up—thus keeping the files of these “Pauli-Effect people” safe and accessible. GoodSync Enterprise lets you do a silent installation on employee workstations so that end-user files are locally available, yet also always current on a centralized company server. Its command-line capabilities and task scheduler help you create and run sync jobs, and its job templates let you preprogram the most frequently run jobs. For more information see Siber Systems GoodSync. - posted by
Caroline Marwitz
Last week, SharePoint Technical Product Manager Jie Lie announced on the SharePoint Team blog the immediate availability of the October 2009 Cumulative Update Package for WSSv3 and MOSS 2007. As with earlier updates, you must have a service pack installed prior to installing the CU.
And as before, you install the service pack (SP2) on WSS prior to installing it on MOSS, then you install the cumulative update on WSS prior to MOSS. This must be done to every server in the farm. Links to detailed instructions for deploying cumulative updates can be found on another SharePoint Team Blog post.
We've also got all kinds of updates (of the “news” kind, not of the “patch” kind) for SharePoint 2010, starting with the announcement of the SharePoint 2010 lineup at SharePoint Connections. Now that we can talk about SP2010, we can tell you about the great sessions that Microsoft and top industry experts are presenting.
If you missed the excitement at the SharePoint Conference, this will be a great place to catch up with the most important news. And, unlike at the Microsoft conference, SharePoint Connections knows that you’re still implementing WSSv3 and MOSS 2007—there’s a great balance of bleeding edge and practical, real-world information on the conference workshop schedule. And if you haven’t begun to implement SharePoint, you should consider joining me there for my SharePoint Collaboration Jump Start on Monday the 9th.
Out on the ‘Net, there’s a lot of first-class new stuff for IT pros and developers about SharePoint 2010. Here’s a guide to some of the best news and SharePoint resources from recent days…
• Microsoft has four major web sites for SharePoint 2010:
o The SharePoint 2010 site, where you can begin looking for all things SharePoint 2010. By the way, this site is running on Beta 1 of SharePoint 2010! o The SharePoint 2010 Developer Center o For IT Pros, check out Microsoft's IT pro-related SharePoint site, which links to the TechNet Tech Center for SharePoint 2010 o And the SharePoint 2010 forums at the MSDN site
In part 1 of this series, we learned that candidates need to be able to admit their weaknesses for their strengths to shine through—someone who claims to have no weaknesses comes across as dishonest. And personality is the critical cog in any candidate.
In this article, I'll drill down even deeper into the hiring process with tips straight from a high-level recruiter from Staffing Technologies, an IT placement agency. After all, if you can impress a recruiter who is trained to pick apart your resume and answers to get to the truth in a matter of minutes, then you certainly have the skills to handle interviews with hiring managers.
"I don't know why people seem to think that all the jobs are available on corporate websites or job sites. Most of them aren't," said Jack Williams, vice president of national sales and recruiting for Staffing Technologies. "For a person who's out of work, regardless of what level, you need to make contact with three or four really solid technology-based staffing firms in your home town and stay in touch with them. They get new jobs every day, and those jobs get filled every day. You're not going to be in the mind of a recruiter who just got a hot job unless you do."
Resume and Cover Letter
The job application, which typically consists of submitting a resume and/or cover letter, is your first step into the door. Without a professional resume, nothing else you do matters. And according to Williams, the #1 mistake applicants make is a sloppy resume. "One of the things we see all the time is sloppy resumes—resumes with typographical errors on them, resumes where they claim they're on a job and then they're not, or a real cardinal sin would be when they have gaps in their resume and don't explain it. Or they don't include urls for the companies they've worked for, and just leave a lot of stuff out."
Oh, and this is important: modify your resume for every job you apply for. Structure it like a powerful piece of sales copy, leading the recruiter down a slippery slope that ends with you as the clear choice for the job. But can the buzzwords and lofty talk: provide quantitative, measurable data to support why you have those skills. "Employers are usually looking for a candidate that has 100 percent of the skills listed on the job application," Williams said. If someone can't look at your resume for a minute or two and have a strong understanding of your specific skills and expertise, then something needs to change.
What about cover letters? Probably not worth your time, according to Williams. "It's funny, cover letters used to be a really big deal, and used to be an expectation for most companies. At this time, I might see one five percent of the time, and I think most companies expect it virtually never. I'd even argue that it doesn't get read most of the time. Most of the time they're looking for a resume that is on the money and has everything they need."
You Must Prepare and Ask Questions
This one surprised me, but Williams was as clear as day: if you don't come into an interview with questions about the company and job, your chances of getting that job are slim to none. So always, always, come prepared with questions.
"I think [having questions] is a huge deal. If I'm interviewing someone and they don't have questions, I'll usually end the interview and never think about them again. Candidates for a job interview need to realize that they're interviewing the company as much as they're being interviewed. I really think someone should have 10-12 questions at least. When in doubt, make them up. And please don't tell me that I've answered all of your questions. I couldn't possibly have. I want someone that is inquisitive and wants the job and wants to know how they can be really good at the job if they get it."
Sample questions that are good to ask include: what's the company like, what's the culture like, what's your management style, what's the job entail, what's the turnover like, what's the history, who's your audience, what's your financial position, how can I excel, and any job-specific questions you can think of.
Jump to the next page for some more awesome recruiter advice.
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