[ACTIVITY] Soft Skills Questions You Could Be Asked During An Interview

Here are 29 sample behavioral-based interviewing questions that companies and organizations use to help assess a person’s leadership ability, teamwork and other soft skills.

Below the questions there are two activities you can do with your group.

To be a rock star at answering these questions you have to tell clear, concise, and compelling stories and give relevant examples of your skills and actions.

If you want an easy method for doing this, read How To Tell Your Story In Professional Settings.

Some of the questions can be tough to answer if you haven’t properly prepared for your interview and obviously, a few of these questions are only for people interviewing for  leadership or management positions. If you have any others to add, please let me know.

7 Online Soft Skills Quizzes

Where do you stand on your soft skills? If you are not sure, here are 7 quick and easy quizzes about a few of your soft skills.

Q & A: What Are Your Weaknesses?

Q: Al, I really enjoyed ur speech at the 4-H conference. u are funny! How do u answer the question “what are ur weaknesses?” when u r in an interview? —student at 4-H conference 

[ACTIVITY] Introduce Yourself The Easy Way: Your Personal Brand Statement

“So, tell me a little bit about yourself. What do you do?”

Have you ever had to respond to a statement or question like that? I’ve asked thousands of young people that question and the typical response I get starts off like this:

“Uhhhh…well…I uhhh…”

Not cool.

In interviews and networking situations, you will be expected to respond to questions about who you are and what you do. A personal brand statement—a brief summary about you—is a professional way to introduce yourself. If you create one and practice it, you can avoid being caught off guard.

Here are three simple steps for creating your personal brand statement:

Best and Worst Cities For Internships

The best and worst cities for unpaid internships

10 Most Attractive Employers for Young People 2010

Universum, an employer branding company, recently surveyed nearly 130,000 students at top academic institutions around the world and asked the students to chose their ideal companies to work for. The Millennials have spoken. Here are the top ten business and engineering employers:

BUSINESS

1. Google
2. KPMG
3. Ernst & Young
4. PricewaterhouseCoopers
5. Deloitte
6. Procter & Gamble
7. Microsoft
8. The Coca-Cola Company
9. J.P. Morgan
10. Goldman Sachs

ENGINEERING

1. Google
2. Microsoft
3. IBM
4. Sony
5. BMW
6. Intel
7. General Electric
8. Siemens
9. Procter & Gamble
10. Apple

The original lists include the top 100 attractive employers. Yo can read them here.

Finding Scholarships: A Few Nuggets

There are a ton of websites and a gazillion tips on how to get scholarships. Here are two nuggets and a list of resources that I suggest to students and their families.