Are you trying to figure out how to dress for a job interview? An interview can be one of the most stressful things you’ll go through this week, and the fact that you may be lost on how to dress only adds to the frustration. Never fear, though, because there are a few principles that will help you breeze through any interview…at least when it comes to how you look. Here are a few tips for what to wear when you go to an interview.

The best rule of thumb is to see how everyone else there is dressing, and go a step above that. (You did pay attention when you walked in the first time, right? If not, just casually go back, look like an average customer for a few minutes while observing the dress standard, and then leave.) For example, if it’s a pretty casual place where everyone is wearing jeans and a t-shirt, show up to the interview in a pair of khakis and a nice polo shirt, guys, or you ladies can come in a slightly dressy skirt and top.

If people are dressing a step up from jeans and a t-shirt, it’s a safe bet to come in a shirt and tie with dress pants. If you see shirts and ties when you go in, then throw on a suit coat. If you’re shooting really high and everyone is wearing full suits, then find your best full suit to match. You’ll have to rent a suit if you don’t have one, or if yours isn’t very presentable. If the business is far away and you couldn’t justify driving the distance, or if the place is such that you couldn’t enter inconspicuously to observe dress code, then you’ll usually be safe in a shirt and tie for most positions. Ladies can wear a dressy skirt and top.

If you’re still uncertain about how to look, or if you aren’t able to go back and see how everyone is dressing, there is no shame in calling the business and just asking them how you should dress. Some people may think that this would reflect badly on them, or make them look foolish, but the opposite is true: Your interviewer will take note of your desire to look presentable, and you’ll already be ahead in the interview. After all, calling and asking shows more initiative than someone who doesn’t care and just shows up in whatever they feel like wearing!

After applying for a job and forwarding your resume, in most cases you are supposed to make some follow-ups to be sure that things are going on as you would expect. Following up on your resume submission is appropriate and highly recommended and as opposed to what many people may sometime think, making a resume follow up is not in any way part of the job application process but is just a precautionary measure to ensure that your details arrive in time and at the right desk.

Now that is not the problem if anything many career seeking individuals understand this quite rightly but the problem is how do you make a follow up that will ensure that your details get the fair chance they deserve and at the same time, you more less keep a distance in the hiring process which to be honest is an inevitable imperative.

The best ways to follow up after you submit your resume will depend on a number of factors and the process or approach chosen will in some degree reflect this considerations. To start with, you are supposed to establish contact when the time is right.

What this means is this, you just can’t submit a resume today and you are out making a follow-up the next minute no, you should give the employer ample time to receive your details and this normally will take some weeks. In case you now have no responses, then you can start to make the follow up. The first thing that you will have to do even before anything is to establish the best way to contact your employer that will make sure you reach them precisely and secondly you do not interrupt their schedules.

The best way you can actually do this is by email. Email inquiries are likely to be addressed since in most cases if not all, there is some time in the employers’ schedule that is specifically allotted to reading of emails. This way you will be getting your request to the right person without affecting his or her works.

Now after you have managed to get the best contact, the second thing should be what to write. As much as you are supposed to be modest as possible, you are also supposed to be precise with your questions and in fact, you are advised to structure your inquiries in a manner that the answer will be definite such as yes or no or true or false. Don’t ask about other people’s resumes, stay relevant to your questions remember this is a personal inquiry.

Secondly your mail should contain some contact information that you can be easily reached and even though some may find tricky to include this, make sure you give a specific time frame that you can be available for contact. Finally, your follow up should reflect concern and not complain. You should write concerned about you resume and not complaining why it hasn’t received any attebtion.

After you have been invited for your first interview in a job posting that you applied for, you are obviously telling yourself that what you say and do in that interview or probably the qualification papers that you present to the interviewing panel should be what earn you the job but surprisingly, there are some things that are not even connected to your work or for that matter prospective work that can have a huge impact in determining the candidate who wins the race.

Maybe you might ask yourself why this should be the case but listen, in any interview the most probable conclusion that you can get is that, all the interviewee are likely to be people of almost the same qualifications and ability and to have that one specific applicant that stands out may seem very difficult at least in terms of qualifications and that said, making an impact may take other auxiliary steps such as a thank you notes after the interview.

What a thank you note does is that it gives you one the recognition of your potential employer and secondly, it is the best way to show that you are very much interested in the job. As much as this alone might not be enough reason to get hired, what it can do in ensuring that your abilities are on the spotlight is something that cannot be overemphasized more than this.

When sending your thank you note it is also important to take caution so that it doesn’t work against your chances and there are some things that you should keep in mind before sending it let alone how you send it and what you write on it. to start with, you should be in a position to ask yourself, do you really have to send it, is it something that you genuinely feel you should do or is just aimed at creating a name for yourself. In most cases, genuine thank you notes have had a lot of impact in job applications than just mere thank you formalities. However even if you are doing it as a formality, you should make it look genuine as possible.

The thank you note is something that is supposed to create an impression that you are interested in the job and that you know what is the job all about and having noted this point, you should be able to make your note as relevant to the interview events as possible and also, very brief and objective.

In other words stay professional, if there is anything you will need to talk about apart from the appreciation let it be about your job and nothing else. Talking about how you felt or what you will do once you get the job is considered cozy and lack of self believe something that not many employers would want to add to their human resource. The thank you note is very important and should be written very professionally.

The ethics of finding a job are arguably even more complex compared to career ethos and practices and this is because of a very simple reason, the opportunity of making an impact in company once hired is way higher than that of looking for a job.

In other words what this means is that, while finding a job you have to impress on other ways other than the ability of your work and that is where the trick comes in. finding a job is a job itself as they say but all the same, there are still some important facts about the process that you will need to be acquitted with before moving out to find work and some of this things will include the question of how long you should wait for a call back.

In most job applications you are likely to find this rather obvious but annoying tag” don’t call us we will call” and in fact, waiting for these call at times can rise some moments of apprehension and anxiety. However even having said that, there is a specific time frame that you are supposed to get this call but it is still very important to note that the time frame will vary depending on some factors.

Typically, the maximum period that you can take to get a call back in a position you applied for from an open job advertisement will be normally a month as well as a minimum period of a week. The reason for this is because the job posting is known to the company and they have done that posting because they need to fill a position urgently and having said that, it will follow from this realization that indeed it should be in their best interest to fill it quickly. In some cases the maximum period can take even some days or weeks depending on the nature of the position to be filled.

The difference now comes in when you are applying for a job in a company that you suspect might have a position that suits your expertise.  When you send an application to such a company, your call back in most cases will likely take long if it will come anyway and this is because of the fact that, at this particular time there is no urgency to fill any positions or there are no positions to be filled at all. And what such companies do when they get your application they will tend to keep it until that time comes when they will need to hire someone with your expertise, this to be honest may take long.

However, it is very fair to believe that many are those who apply for advertised open jobs and in this case, you can rest assured that a genuine hiring firm will take very little time but also, you are supposed to sometimes put yourself in the shoes of the company considering what it does, the staff it can commit to the hiring process and the nature of evaluation required and that way you will have a picture of how long it can take.

Many job offers will often come with a lot of requirements and specifications that you will need to be well conversant with before moving on to apply for a job. The time that you take to actually read through all this requirements and understand them will depend on the nature of that particular job as well as the benefits it comes with.

Before we even move to how long it should take to evaluate a job offer, it is first important to note what it entails. Job evaluation is simply weighing the amount of work and commitment needed with the benefits that come with it. In other words you are evaluating the value of your prospective job and whether that value is reflected in the salary. In most cases this may be tricky since the emotion created in the prospect of getting that dream job may blind us from seeing the job for what it really is.

The time taken to evaluate a job will depend but in no instance should it surpass three weeks. In many job postings there is a very limited time frame to hire and so you are supposed to decide the value as quick as you can. However, the process will take some of your time since it will involve some very technical and intellectual considerations.

To start with the first step in you process of evaluation should be the requirement and the commitments that is required at the posting and that which you feel will make you do the job better. The options here should be weighed carefully since the choice on your part is very much limited. This is usually the case, in case your job posting is not in line with what you will normally call fundamental requirements and commitments, the question is most cases is not what the requirement should be but how far you are ready to go to compromise with the employer. This is a process that takes time but is all the same very important.

After valuing your requirement and the commitment it requires then you should move to the benefits the salary included. While many will at times focus on the salary alone, the reality is that this is a very small portion of the reward package. The benefits offered to you should be relevant to the exposure of risk that your job may likely expose you to and in case it involves none of this, the reward scheme should also reflect a kind of benefit on some additions outside your job description that you are likely to be engaged in.

Looking now at the salary, what you go for is not the amount but its value relative to the work you are going to do. Salaries are paid for the job and not the experience or qualifications and it is no surprise to find jobs with high expert experience requirements but pay very little. With all said and done, these are processes that should not take you long than three weeks.