Coursera - Interviewing and Resume Writing in English Specialization by University of Maryland

Master the English Job Search Process. Gain tools and strategies to navigate the complex path of interviewing and resume writing in English.

Interview Research and Preparation
This course, the first in the "Interviewing and Resume Writing in English" specialization, guides you to discover the interests, talents and competencies that you can use to find and do work that leverages your strengths, passions and who you are as a person, so you can start doing work that matters to you and to the world. Whether you already have a career and are looking to move forward, whether you’re looking to change careers, whether you’re starting out in the world of work, whether you’re coming back into the world of work after some time away – this course will help you see your path more clearly and will teach you how to communicate your value to an employer in a way that he or she can immediately recognize.

After completing this course, you will be able to 1) use your individual cognitive, social and emotional traits, together with areas of interest, to discover how to find the future jobs that can give you the greatest satisfaction; 2) identify transferable skills of greatest value to the employers who have the jobs you’re interested in; 3) apply a simple strategy for presenting your skills to an employer in an effective and convincing fashion.

Successful Interviewing
The goal of hiring managers is not just to hire people who need a job. It’s to hire people who believe in their organization, its mission and the work that’s involved in the job position. Every hiring manager knows: Hire people to do a job and they’ll work for your money. Hire people who believe in the work and they’ll work for their passion.

And this is not a case of “fake it until you make it.” You have to be genuine about your belief in an organization and its mission. That means you have to have researched the industry, the company, and the position – and be able to show how your goals in life align with the company’s mission. Having done so will shape the impression you convey as a candidate, the way you answer traditional questions, and the way you demonstrate that you’re the right candidate for the job. This course is the second in a five-course specialization. We recommend that courses #1, #2 and #3 be taken in sequence. Course #4 - on resume and cover letter writing - can be taken in any sequence, while course #5 is the capstone for the specialization as a whole. This course can be thought of as "Interviewing I", while course #3 is "Interviewing II." Course #3 covers more advanced interview formats, including behavioral and situational interviews - along with the special case of telephone screenings. The logic for including telephone screenings - which happen at the start of the interview process - late in this specialization on interviewing is that those screenings, while happening early in the process, involve all the skills that you'll learn from course #1 through course #3. As for this course, it will teach you how to: 1. Do thorough research on a company of your choice. 2. Prepare for those critical first 3-5 minutes of an interview (when many recruiters say an interview is either won or lost). 3. Prepare for the all important "Tell Me About Yourself" question. 4. Prepare for traditional interview questions. 5. Use strategies for handling the salary question. We don't teach you salary negotiation techniques, but we do teach you how to avoid putting yourself in a weak negotiation position. 6. Prepare an elevator speech - all three variations. 7. Use persuasive speech techniques to present professional accomplishments and qualifications in a manner that conveys benefits to a potential employer. 8. Use persuasive speech techniques to convince a potential employer of your interest, motivation and preparation for a particular position. 9. Adapt your nonverbal communication style to the expectations of English-speaking interviewers.

Advanced Interviewing Techniques
People interviewing for jobs today often fail because they are using yesterday's strategies. Recruiting technology has become more sophisticated, and the best employers are constantly changing the way interviews are done. This course gives you detailed strategies for handling tough competency-based, or behavioral, interviews so that you can communicate the knowledge, skills, and abilities that you have and that employers demand.

You will be able to: 1. Identify what the hiring organization is looking for in using behavioral interviewing techniques. 2. List the steps in the S.T.A.R. response strategy and apply the steps, using reasonably correct language, to respond to behavioral interview questions. 3. Use your responses to behavioral and competency-based questions to communicate your personal values. 4. Identify what the hiring organization is looking for in asking situational and wild-card interview questions. 5. List the steps in the P.R.E.P. and 5 W's response strategies and apply the steps, using reasonably correct language, to answer at least one wild-card and two situational interview questions. 6. Develop an optimal strategy for responding to the weaknesses question, based on recognizing why a hiring organization asks these questions. 7. Demonstrate your personal strengths and maturity through your responses to the weaknesses question. 8. Correctly apply hedging language to soften a negative and boosting language to emphasize a positive aspect of your professional and/or academic background. 9. Ask questions to determine how well an organization fits with your personality, career goals and salary objectives. 10. Ask questions that communicate your competencies and strengths. 11. Negotiate the best job offer and compensation package for yourself. 12. Perform successfully on telephone interviews.

Writing Winning Resumes and Cover Letters
How can you bring your resume to the top of the pile? How can you present yourself to prospective employers using the language they already speak inside their organization? This course will give you answers to those questions. You will learn how to convert a boring resume into a dynamic asset statement that conveys your talents in the language that an employer understands.

After completing this course, you will be able to: 1. Identify the real purpose of a resume. 2. Identify relevant competencies for a position. 3. Adapt your resumes to Applicant Tracking Systems (resume screening software). 4. Write powerful and convincing accomplishment statements using your accomplishments inventory to strategically assemble the most relevant evidence of competency for a specific position. 5. Use the resume skills tier method to strengthen your resume. 6. Write summary sections and objective statements aligned to a job position. 7. Take advantage of web resources to find power language for your resume. 8. Produce a strong resume in a format that is suitable both to your background and the position you're interested in. 9. Produce strong cover letters that use A.I.D.A. to help you achieve your career goals. 10. Produce effective follow-up letters that help you stand out from the competition.

How To Land the Job You Want (Capstone Project)
In the capstone project, you will combine the skills you’ve learned in the prior four courses of the specialization to polish your elevator speeches, complete your resumes - including multiple versions for different targets - complete your story file, identify possible jobs or careers, perform the research you have learned to do, write suitable cover letters, and ideally land a job!