Studies Note: Job Interview

Four Strategies That Make Travel Fun

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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq-c0rEVsc1QICZ-TpzUmhhuE2T_uqP2MH9M-0z8zZzztL7CGDRRGhOnMHNB-DMyTjcn1lfm4eBWFhfEOOOTSIHTdcA2tBBaB3nZcLZrEByTcclw8eujxVCgwB_2ix06J_EfuoRLtmN_P7/s1600/36bad61.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq-c0rEVsc1QICZ-TpzUmhhuE2T_uqP2MH9M-0z8zZzztL7CGDRRGhOnMHNB-DMyTjcn1lfm4eBWFhfEOOOTSIHTdcA2tBBaB3nZcLZrEByTcclw8eujxVCgwB_2ix06J_EfuoRLtmN_P7/s1600/36bad61.jpg" /></a>I travel a lot. I first started traveling for business in the 1980s but it wasn’t until the late 1990s that I began traveling consistently. While there are plenty of people who travel more than I do, over t 
he years I’ve picked up some tips and strategies on how to make travel fun. Following are four ways I try to make travel fun. 
 
1. Attitude: It is key to having the best experience possible. 
 
I like flying. I’m a private pilot who unfortunately hasn’t been able to fly an airplane nearly as often as I’d like. I enjoy being on an airplane up in the air. I look out my window at the wing of an airplane and marvel at the fact that a small bit of vacuum (Bernoulli’s Principle) can hold up tons of weight. But, a lot of things have to work right in order for an airplane to get from one place to another. 
 
I marvel at people who get visibly upset when the pilot comes on the PA system and announces that there is a “mechanical problem.” Now, I understand just as well as the next person that I’d like to get to the place I had planned reasonably close to the time I expected. But, I also really don’t want to be on an airplane that isn’t working correctly. 
 
Maybe as a pilot I know more than most, but the same attitude applies to weather problems. If there’s a thunderstorm rolling over the airport, I’m not very excited about being aboard the first airplane to try and weave its way through nasty weather. 
 
Things will go wrong. Weather is unpredictable. Mechanical parts break. 
 
Your expectations and attitudes will go a long way to helping you navigate through the unexpected. And if there’s anything I’ve learned in my years of travel, it is to anticipate the unexpected. A friend taught me a phrase that has been very helpful in these situations. When something goes wrong I now ask myself, “What does this make possible?” It’s amazing how thinking about the answer to this question can change your attitude. 
 
2. Kindness: You’d be surprised how much it helps. 
 
It’s no surprise to anyone that the airline industry has going through massive change over the last several years. It’s also not surprising that there are airline employees who are not happy with these changes. However, I discovered that most want to help when they can. 
 
It’s amazing how a smile and a kind word in a stressful situation can go a long way to making your life easier. You see, the gate agent does have a lot of flexibility in how much they can help you get to your destination. When you are kind to them they may be a little more willing to go out of their way to help you. But, also recognize that sometimes they literally just can’t do anything. 
 
I experienced this earlier this year when I was trying to get from Minneapolis back home to Nashville. This winter has been especially challenging as numerous winter storms have played havoc with the airline schedules. My question to the gate agent was, “What options are available?” And as he began searching I made the comment that it must be especially stressful given the weather conditions that week. Everything was booked but he was able to find me flights to Memphis. I rented a car and drove the three hours to arrive home that night. 
 
3. Strategy: Think ahead about your options 
 
Having a strategy and knowing your options ahead of time is an important aspect of making travel fun. 
 
I start checking the weather the day before I’m scheduled to leave on a trip. If it looks like weather will be a factor on the trip I start looking for alternate options that might be available in case there’s trouble. Sometimes that means getting to the airport early and trying to catch an earlier flight. Sometimes it means changing my routings to go through a different city. Sometimes there’s nothing I can do and I just have to hope for the best. 
 
This is when not checking luggage becomes a valuable strategy. It is much easier to jump on another flight when you can take your luggage with you. 
 
4. Proper Tools: Access to information is vital. 
 
Access to accurate and up-to-date information is especially vital on the days you are traveling. Smart phones — and the apps you can get on them — have completely changed my travel experience. While I will reserve a more detailed explanation of the applications that I use during my travel for another article, here is a short list of the apps that are key to making travel fun. 
 
TripIt.com: A web-based service I’ve used for a number of years to help me track my travel arrangements. I forward confirmation emails for my airline flights, rental cars, and hotels to the website. It parses the information from the confirmations and creates a detailed itinerary for my trip. The site automatically monitors flight status and sends me notification of any changes. 
 
FlightTrack: This app syncs with the information at TripIt and provides another way to track the status of my flights during my travel. I often get notification of delays and/or gate changes prior to them being posted by the airline. 
 
FlightAware: This app allows me to track a specific flight number. If my flight is a continuation of another flight I can track when the flight is due to arrive at the airport. It can be very helpful to track the status of the inbound equipment. 
 
Airline Apps: My phone also has apps for American Airlines and Southwest – the primary airlines I use. I have used these apps for information and to book tickets. You can read how useful these apps can be in my article The Power of Mobility in Everyday Life. 
 
Whether you travel a lot or just a little, incorporating these four strategies into your travel plans can help make travel fun for you also. 
 
What strategies do you use to take the stress out of travel? 
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Four Strategies That Make Travel Fun

I travel a lot. I first started traveling for business in the 1980s but it wasn’t until the late 1990s that I began traveling consistently....

The MBA Debt Burden: Facts & Fiction

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The MBA Debt Burden: Facts & Fiction</h2>
Earlier this week, a new report on student loan debt seemed to have some good news for MBA graduates. The study by the New American Foundation suggested that the debt burden of MBAs was significantly lighter than the borrowing assumed by all other graduate students. 
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Citing 2012 numbers, the report said that the typical debt of MBA graduates who borrow is just $42,000, versus $161,772 for graduates of med school and $140,616 for law school. In fact, graduates of every other master’s program incurred more debt than MBAs, according to the study. 
 
Well, forget it. If you’re aiming to go to a highly ranked business school for your MBA, you can pretty much toss the New American report in the garbage. Even after Harvard Business School handed more than $30 million in fellowship money to its students, the average debt burden for Class of 2013 graduates was $73,926 last year—and that was pretty much a bargain, compared to the loans racked up by graduates of the most prestigious business schools. 
 
At the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, the estimated debt burden was a record $118,100, while at Columbia Business School it was $115,200. MBA graduates of Duke University’s Fuqua School last year saw their average loans increase by 6% to $108,186 from $102,054 in 2012 and $96,805 in 2011. 
 
And you don’t have to graduate from a highly ranked school to leave with an MBA and a pile of debt. Last year’s graduating MBAs from Pepperdine University’s Graziadio School of Business and Management racked up average debt loads of $89,245, a whopping 35% increase over the $66,111 in average debt just two years ago. 
 
So why does the New American Foundation report show typical MBA debt at only $42,000, up only $627 since 2004, according to the report? Mainly because the Department of Education numbers include part-time MBA students who are earning their degrees as they work and can therefore afford not to borrow as much money. It also includes graduates from a much wider range of schools not in the highly selective category. 
 
Still, some fairly prominent business schools actually beat the New American average. MBAs from the University of Washington’s Foster School last year averaged student debt of only $38,394. At the University of Wisconsin’s business school average debt totaled only $22,410 and at Brigham Young University’s Marriott School, it was only $27,942. 
 
At the highest ranked MBA programs, the analysis of student loans by Poets&Quants also showed that many business schools are pouring in record amounts of scholarship money that is both slowing down increases in average debt and in some cases resulting in some significant declines. 
 
Consider MBA graduates at Vanderbilt University’s Owen School. They saw average debt fall by 9.6% in 2013 to $76,205 from $84,342 a year earlier. The school managed to lower student debt by holding tuition and fees low, increasing its pool of scholarship money by 27% in the past three years, and getting more students summer internships and full-time sign-on bonuses. “Together, these have driven the very desirable result of affordability and reduced student debt,” says M. Eric Johnson, dean of the Owen School. 
 
The University of Texas at Austin also reported a significant decrease in MBA debt burdens. The Class of 2013 saw a 12.6% fall in average borrowing to $70,395 from $80,589 a year earlier. A spokesperson for the school attributed the decline to both additional scholarship funding but also better data. ”For the first time this year we pulled data and reports straight from our university’s central Financial Aid Office, rather than trying to calculate the numbers internally. We found out that we had been over-estimating the amount of indebtedness in the past,” the spokesperson said. 
 
New York University’s Stern School reported an impressive 11.3% drop in average MBA debt to $93,832 from $105,782 in 2012. Stern Dean Peter Henry says a major concern for him is “accessibility” to higher education. One of his top priorities is to raise more money for scholarships for both undergraduate and graduate students. The reason average debt is down at Stern, he says, is increased funding for scholarships and a new program that forgives loans if a graduate pursues a career in the social sector. 
 
All told, though, average debt was up at 19 of the ranked schools at which borrowing is highest. It was down as nine schools. High average debt is also a sign that a school is offering less scholarship support than rivals and trailing in the “arm’s race” to win the best prospective students. Business schools that decline to provide average debt numbers–including Wharton and Columbia–are known to have comparatively smaller pools of fellowship money than their peers.</div>

The MBA Debt Burden: Facts & Fiction

The MBA Debt Burden: Facts & Fiction Earlier this week, a new report on student loan debt seemed to have some good news for MBA gradu...

Job Interview: Why Only 3 Questions Really Matter

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Job Interview: Why Only 3 Questions Really Matter</h2>
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Even for the most fearless amongst us, job interviews can be nerve wracking. In order to give us the best chance of success we tend to prepare for many of the difficult questions we anticipate, questions like: 
 
Why should we hire you? 
What can you do for us that other candidates can’t? 
What are your key strengths and weaknesses? 
Of course, you can never predict how an interview will go and what questions you will get. You might get an interviewer who fires one tough question at you after the other, or one that turns the interview into a more comfortable, natural two-way conversation. Preparing, therefore is difficult. In most cases we practice the answers to a long list of possible questions. The problem is that this can leave you over-prepared and as a consequence your pre-conceived answers can come across a bit robotic. 
 
From my experience, there are really only 3 questions you have to prepare for and you can link most of the interview questions back to these three. Preparing for these three questions also means you can answer most questions more naturally, simply by referring mentally back to your preparations for these three questions. 
 
Basically, any interviewer wants to establish 3 key things: 
 
Have you got the skills, expertise and experience to perform the job? 
Are you enthusiastic and interested in the job and the company? 
Will you fit into the team, culture and company? 
However, during the job interview, the interviewer might use many different questions and angles to get to the answers. If the interviewer doesn’t get what he or she wants from one question, they might ask them in different ways. Or they might probe from different angles to test for consistency in your answers. 
 
Here is what’s behind these 3 questions: 
 
1. Have you got the skills, expertise and experience to perform the job? 
 
Think about the key skills you might need for the job you have applied for and assess your own level of expertise and experience in that context. It makes sense to identify the more specific or technical skills that your potential employer might expect as well as some more generic skills such as being a good communicator, having good IT skills, being a team player, etc. Once you have prepared for this question it will help you answer many different interview questions without getting sidetracked into talking about things that are not relevant. Remember that you want to demonstrate that you are aware of the key skills, expertise and experience required to do the job and that you have what it takes to perform it. Always go back to the key skills, expertise and experience when answering scary (and sometimes silly) questions like: 
 
Tell me about yourself? 
What are your greatest strengths / weaknesses? 
What can you do for us that other candidates can’t? 
Why do you think you are right for this job? 
What do you think the main challenges will be? 
Etc. 
2. Are you enthusiastic and interested in the job and the company? 
 
Any potential employer wants to know that you are interested in the company and excited about the prospect of working there. You therefore want to demonstrate that you have researched the company, understand its strategy, current performance, structure, market position and products and that you can’t wait to join them. For most, you will have done your homework before you even applied for the job, but if you haven’t then check out the ‘about us’ section on their website and search for the latest strategy documents, annual reports, key statistics as well as the company history. Show that you know them and demonstrate your enthusiasm for the job and company. Here you might also want to think about your ambitions and how they fit into the company you have applied for. You can then use the insights for answering questions such as: 
 
What do you know about our company? 
What do you think our company is aiming to achieve? 
What do you know about our products and services? 
Why do you want to work for this company? 
Why do you think this job is right for you? 
What motivates you? 
Etc. 
3. Will you fit into the team, culture and company? 
 
This final key question is about your personality and your style and how you as a person fit into the team and culture of the company. Companies have different cultures, which translate into different ways of behaving and working. It is important to make sure you fit in and don’t feel like a fish out of water. In fact, it is important for the company as well as for you. Again, hopefully you will have done some research prior to applying for the job. Sometimes, it can be tricky to find detailed knowledge about the company culture, in which case you simply talk about your assumptions and why you feel you fit in. One relatively new website that offers a glance inside companies is Glassdoor. The site is still in it’s infancy but provides a growing amount of data and information about what it is like to work for different companies. You want to map the culture of the company or the team you are planning to join and compare this to your personality traits, style and behaviors. Again, once you have done this you can use it to answer questions such as: 
 
How would you describe your work style? 
How would you describe yourself? 
How would your colleagues describe you? 
What makes you fit into our company? 
What makes you a good team member? 
If you were an animal, what animal would you be? 
Etc. 
Of course, any interview is a two-way process. In the same way the interviewer wants to find out that you are right for the company, you need to assess whether the company is right for you. Each of the questions can be turned around so that you can assess: 
 
By joining this company, will I make best use of my skills and expertise and will they help me to grow them further? 
Is the company excited about having me work for them and will they give me the necessary support? 
Is the company culture the right fit for me so that I can flourish and be myself? 
If you ask relevant questions from your point of view then this will make the interview more balanced and create a more natural conversation. 
 
I hope this is useful? Please let me know your thoughts and share any comments you might have on the topic. 
 
------------------- 
 
I really appreciate that you are reading my post. Here, at LinkedIn, I regularly write about management and technology issues and trends. If you would like to read my regular posts then please click 'Follow' (at the top of the page) and feel free to also connect via Twitter, Facebook and The Advanced Performance Institute. 
 
Here are some other recent posts I have written: 
 
The Toughest Interview Question Of All ...And How to Answer It 
Caution: When KPIs Turn To Poison 
Want a Promotion? Then Don't Upspeak! 
Bored at Work? Here's What To Do! 
Six Ways NOT To Shake Hands 
The 75 KPIs Every Manager Needs to Know 
Simple Tips To Boost Your Career And Find Your Dream Job 
The Tale-Tell Signs Of A Bad Boss 
Stop Using These 30 Phrases At Work! 
The One Thing Successful People Never Do! 
 
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Job Interview: Why Only 3 Questions Really Matter

Job Interview: Why Only 3 Questions Really Matter Even for the most fearless amongst us, job interviews can be nerve wracking. In order...