Overview of Accounting Analysis Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Overview of Accounting Analysis - Assignment Example 52). Hence, admission of SEC and FASB standards will help in reducing corporate managers from providing unrealistic information and transaction within and outside the firm. Therefore, elimination of FASB standards and SEC will only increase the chances of corporate managers to provide unrealistic information about the firms; hence, I disagree with Bill’s idea. 2- Many firms recognize revenues at the point of shipment. This provides an incentive to accelerate revenues by shipping goods at the end of the quarter. Consider two companies, one of which ships its product evenly throughout the quarter, and the second of which ships all its products in the last two weeks of the quarter. Each company’s customers pay thirty days after receiving shipment. Using accounting ratios, how can you distinguish these companies? It should be noted that these two companies have no difference in their income statements; hence, they are all considered to have the same expense and revenue amounts. Nonetheless, they have different balance sheets. However, assuming that all other factors are the same, the company with even sales of products will have higher cash and receivable balance accounts at the end of the quarter compared to company that ships all its products within the last two weeks. Nonetheless, below accounting ratios will be appropriate in differentiating the two companies (Palepu and Healy Pg. 167): This will increase the estimated depreciable life of assets. In this case, the corporate managers may decide to increase the depreciable estimated life of the assets especially when they realize that their assets are likely to last in the market than was predicted initially. It may lead to a decrease in uncollectible allowances with the gross receivable percentages. The changes in the customer focus to the firm may make the managers to reduce

MGMT345 U4 DB Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

MGMT345 U4 DB - Assignment Example r the 12 weeks leave are such as when the employee gives birth and has to take care of that child; is under placement for a child as a foster; seeks to care for their spouse, child or family member with serious medical conditions; the employees themselves are seriously ill and cannot discharge their duties normally; or when there is a succeeding exigency arising from the circumstance that the employee’s spouse or child is actively covered with the military. For the 26 weeks leave, may arise when an employee seeks to attend to a spouse or child seriously injured and is a covered service member (Aitchison & United States, 2003). This Act can affect an organization’s operations in two dynamic ways. First, the organization would need to reinstate the employee to their original position or a similar one should they return to work after the leave; thus, likely to affect the firm’s productivity. Second, the company would be required to continue offering the medical coverage for the employee, despite being away on leave. Finally, with this new Act, the organization is required to put up posters at all places that inform the employees of its contents, which may be costly to the

Benefits of Parent Involvement in Child Education

Benefits of Parent Involvement in Child Education Family involvement makes a difference in a child development. Family is inside the microsystem and is close setting for a child, so child will get direct influence and experience from the family. For the sake of the healthy and holistic development of children, educator need to understand the importance, benefits, challenges and ways to get family involvement. According to Epstein (1995), there are six types of parent involvement, which are parenting, communicating, volunteering, learning at home, decision making and collaborating with community. Parent involvement not just means that parent only have one way to interact with the school such as collect the report, school need to provide various activities for the parent to be involve in children’s learning process. For the parenting, teacher can help the parent to learn about child development and what is developmentally appropriate practice for children (Epstein, 1988). For example, parent can learn the four types of parenting styles, included authoritarian, authoritative, indulgent and uninvolved parenting style and the impact on children from the aspect of autonomy granting, acceptance and involvement and control. When school provide this type parent involvement, it actually helps school to have a deeper understanding about the environment, practice and culture of that family. Co mmunicating is also important parent involvement, it helps to develop an effective communication between school and home about children’s progress and school activities or policy (Epstein, 1988). Besides that, volunteering provide opportunity for parent to participate in the school activities such as fund-raising, provide car pools service and teach topic related to their professional (Epstein, 1988). Policy of the school and convenient of both side need to be considered to prevent unexpected event to happen such as parent prepare peanut butter cake that are not allow in school food safety policy. Learning at home give chances for parent and children to engage in educational activities at home together (Epstein, 1988) , for instance, complete the collage with the adult guidance, take picture of holiday time for show and tell session and prepare a traditional food to bring for the family night. In addition, parent also can be involved in decision making activities (Epstein, 19 88). Parents are not just the people that pay the fee, they are also valued member to give comment to and develop school policy such as curriculum planning, teacher hiring standard and chose teaching materials. The last type is collaborating with the community, it means that school support parent to provide services to the community (Epstein, 1988). For instance, raise fund for charity organisation, clean the housing area and donate reading materials to the public library. Why the parent involvement is importance for the children’s development? Firstly, most of the children spend more time in home with parent than in school, the attitude of parent has greater influence on children than teacher. For instance, when parent care about the school activities so much, willing to participate as much as they can and show the initiative towards it, their children will indirectly know that because of school is important, that is why parents spend so much time on it. Children will have better attendance and done the homework in time with the adult guidance. Secondly, when parent get involved in school activities, they will have deeper understanding about the way school teach their child, the school policy and they may change their perception or belief about child development. Through this, children can obtain better nourishment from parent that are knowledgeable and responsive toward the children’s learning experience in school and try to link it to the home environment. Thirdly, emotion wellbeing of the children can be enhance if the parent involvement is sustained, not just a few times in one year or limited to greeting each other and pay fee only. Some children do not like to go to school and want to stay at home is because they do not see the relationship between the school and home, they think these two are separated, they feel insecure and anxious when they leave house and parent. So, when parent get participate in the school activities, children will know that relationship of school and parent is well established and feel comfortable and proud when they saw parent show the care for their learning and school is view their parent as valued members to cooperate with. Children gain lots of benefits from the family involvement in early childhood centre. They gain the sense of self-worth in school because they really feel secure and acknowledged that school is the place for them to learn and spread their wings safely, without any negative emotion. Consistent responses between parent and school also help children to develop self-worth, self-confident and positive engagement with adult, classmates and learning process (Carol, 2010). When parent and teacher have effective communication, they will talk about how to enhance children’s development and how to provide enrichment for children, children know adult are care for them, not just dumping then in school alone. Parents also increase the confidence and level of self-esteem on themselves and school provided education through the activities such as child-rearing skills class, field trips and policy making process (Carol, 2010). Besides that, parents also know school is supportive and will not fe el lost when bring up young children, especially young, first time to be a parent. When they acquired the skill to help their child better, they tend to support the learning at home more, in consistent, authoritative and developmentally appropriate way. Furthermore, not only children and parent gain benefit from parent involvement, teacher gain too. When parent are involved in the learning process of children, teacher will gain insight into that family’s culture, background, sensitive issue and practice. Every parent have different expectation for their own child too (Carol, 2010).This will help teacher to plan more suitable, appropriate learning experience and activities for children and their family members. Teacher morale can be improve too (Carol, 2010), when teacher know that parent are willing to collaborate with them, their energy and positive mind set will be increase, thus they will have strong competence in the profession and advancement. Quality of teaching also im proved because obtain the assistance and support from parent such as teaching aids or resources, parent talk about their professional and volunteer as replacement teacher (Carol, 2010). There are some challenges of parental involvement, including time management problem, personal problems, language or culture differences, attitude of teacher and lack of understanding and trust (Carol, 2010). Nowadays, working parents are very common, they are very busy and not always available. If the school did not take this into consideration, the parent involvement will be reducing because parents are not free to attend the activities. This will cause the lacking in direct, face to face interaction between teacher and the ineffective delivery of message. Teacher also have time problem, they are busy all the time and fail to maintain a regular communication with families. Parents will feel fear and reluctant to approach the teacher (Carol, 2010). Every person has different personality, some are introvert, timid and some are out going and open. When the parent or teacher have difficulties and do not dare to tell each other about their needs, both of them will lost the opportunity t o help and this will influences the child. For example, teacher lacking teaching material and parents do not have transportation for the child. For the people with low self-esteem and confidence, they think that they do not have the ability to help each other or they feel shy and shame because of their low socio-economic group. Parent with old, traditional parent involvement concept also cause the challenge for family involvement in school (Carol, 2010), they think that it is unnecessary, waste time and not willing to contribute their effort to the learning activities of their children. Other than time and personal problem, language or culture differences is another factor that build the challenge of involve parent in school (Carol, 2010). Culturally and linguistically diverse parents always have the problem in interaction with school, they have different ethnic background like Malay, Chinese, Indian, different culture, they speak different language such as Bahasa Malaysia, Mandarin , English, Tamil, and even speak in different dialect, for instance, families that speak in Mandarin also use Cantonese or Hakka as their daily language, especially for old people like grandparent. If the school did not care for need of these culturally and linguistically diverse parents, misunderstanding, miscommunication and ineffective message deliver will occur. Parent who do not know English will unable to read the notice written in English, parent are not willing to work with teacher or other parent that with different races because of the stereotype and when children display difficulties in learning, school and parent are unable to discuss the problem and solve it because they speak in different language and do not understand the language that use by each other. Besides that, attitude of teacher is also a challenge for parent involvement (Carol, 2010). Some teachers show excessive professionalism towards parent, parent will not active to involve because they feel fear, unhapp y and difficult to approach the teacher when they want to express the need and contribute their effort (Carol, 2010). There are also pessimist teacher that only report negative information to parent (Carol, 2010). They only focus on bad things and neglect contribution and achievement of children and parent. For instances, teacher always talk about disruptive behaviour of the child in school and often make assumption that parent did not try to manage and improve the behaviour. But sometimes, disruptive behaviour cannot be change within a short period even with lots of effort contribute by parent in home. Parent also will feel stress, annoyed and hopeless because of the pessimism of teacher. Frequently, teacher have the problem of power struggle (Carol, 2010), they feel that they are the only one have power in classroom and do not want to share it with parents. They are not eager to find the ways for parents to feel secure, equality and comfortable (Carol, 2010). So, parent involvemen t need to be rejected from their point of view. Teachers that lack of self-confident are reluctant to admit help (Carol, 2010) because they feel their professional will be disappear and reduced if they ask for help from parents for example if they need cooperation in replacement of teacher, getting the teaching material and planning learning experience about certain area of knowledge which that teacher are not familiar than parents. When the school is not able provide appropriate physical setting, space problem will be arising (Carol, 2010). Parent need facility such as discussion room and car park area to participate in the school activities, if the room or area is not provided, how the parent are going to park the transport vehicles, sit down, and communicate with the teacher? Also, lack of understanding and trust will lead the parent involvement to become limited and powerless (Carol, 2010). Parent and teacher both feel that each other are lack of ability to enhance children†™s learning and development. For example, parent feel that they know best about their child so whatever practice on child is definitely appropriate and correct, teacher will feel that parent are not knowledgeable than them because of the lower education level and different professional area. The suggestions from each party are not accepted. Because of these feelings, miscommunication often occurs, which make the process of parent involvement even problematic. Past negative experiences of parent also the root of lacking trust on teacher, for instances, teacher did not take care of child with special need, caused the child injured in school and teacher did not provide appropriate solution and any suggestion that help to prevent the accident to happen again. For sure, parent of the child will feel disappointed and do not believe the teacher have the competence and skill to improve the development of their child. Who want to work together with the teacher when there is no faith and ho pe? There are different type of activities that can enable parent to assist children development using their abilities, time and energy (Carol, 2010). First type is school-wide activities, it included workshops, family night, parent education class, adult training program and support services such as car pools and babysitting for younger children (Carol, 2010). This is where the all parents and teachers come together and work collaborative to participate in school wide program. They use this chance to interact, share information and discuss the issues related to school. Through this activity, all parent and teacher are capable to develop warm and positive relationship with each other. Second type is communication activities, school can engage parent in activities through the use of phone calls, newsletter and email to give the reminder and notification to parent (Carol, 2010). Technology is very advance nowadays and it is also the tools to enhance communication, school need to use it wis ely and appropriately. Not only through phone call and email, school can organise chat group on social media such as Facebook and Whatapps for discussion with parent to run more efficient. For example, discussion group for family night, parents and teacher can give comment and suggestion like person in charge of beverage, food and performances. Any changes and reminder can be sent to each other faster than compose an email. Educational activities is the third type of activity, parent are encourage to participate in the activities occur in classroom or school and help the class to run more smoothly such as fund raising, volunteer for manage classroom, work as photographer during children’s performance, design webpages if the some parent have the knowledge and skill about it, beautify the environment of classroom by cleaning unwanted stuff and create wall painting (Carol, 2010). This kind of activities enable parent and school work together to set up better learning environment for children and children can see the parent’s contribution, know that parent are really involved in the school when they saw the wall painting and their parent helping in classroom, not just talking through phone and come to school for meeting. For the parent with special need child, they are invited to develop the individualised educational plan for the child too (Carol, 2010). Fourth type is service activities, this included childcare service, parent support group, resources libraries, material centre and exchange of service (Carol, 2010). Parent can obtain the resources and service from the community and school to lighten the burden, reduce the stress and improve the quality of living. Parent can borrow story book and teaching aid to guide children’s learning at home, seek for school’s counsellor when face the problem that will influence the child’s development and welfare and support other parent when they need any help. During this activities, both of the school and parent are the contributor and receiver at the same time, it help both party to realise the importance of provide helping hand to others that need help and give them the opportunity to serve the community. The last type is decision activities (Carol, 2010), it allow parent to make decision about school, not just let the parent to be the fee payer only. Parents are given â€Å"power† to decide what will happening in the school such as the standard of hiring teacher, what is included in the policy, review and design the educational program (Carol, 2010). When parent are involved in the program planning, they will gain the knowledge about the requirement of quality program and authentic developmentally appropriate practice. Only after they know about what the program is about and how it is implementing, they will be support the program (Carol, 2010). Thus, they will not question about teacher’s professionalism and let the teacher have the negative feeli ngs because the effort is not appreciated by parent and fear to communicate with parent. In conclusion, working with parent and families is a continuing process. Even though with the best way and approach to involve the families in the educational activities, this process will not be successful if parent and teacher are not capable to solve the problem and challenges between them. Therefore, teacher need to take the initiative to approaching the parent, help them to overcome the barrier, explain the importance and benefit of parent involvement in school to them and finally develop best way to invite them to the school activities. When teacher showed the enthusiastic, parent need to be responsive too because in order to develop positive relationship between school and families, both party need work cooperative to contribute effort to the process, not just rely on particular one party. References Epstein, J.L., Coates, L., Salinas, K.C., Sanders, M.G., Simon, B.S. (1997). School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Your Handbook for Action. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Carol, G. (2010). Home, school and community relation. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Importance of Strategic Planning when Entering International Markets Es

Importance of Strategic Planning when Entering International Markets When a company decides to take their business international, there are many different factors that they need to take into account. There are differences in management styles, international laws and treaties that regulate international business, trade barriers, tariffs, taxes, exchange rates as well as cultural customs that come into play. Each of these is significant and needs to be taken into account in order to minimize potential problems. It is essential to an expanding company to study these factors and integrate them into taking their business abroad. Many times, lack of knowledge can create serious problems and in some situations stop a business deal from happening all together. If such matters are not ever correctly dealt with they can completely destroy the entire business. All a company needs to do to reduce this risk is some research in the international market. Today it is difficult to completely stay out of the international market place. Even if a business is completely based in a specific country, it is very possible that another company outside their country supplies them. Even if there is a small company that is simply importing some parts from Mexico, there are rules that must be met for NAFTA. It is almost impossible today for a company to avoid dealing with international issues. That is why all companies should have some understanding of international business. When first discussing international business, one must realize how beneficial international trade is to the world. Trade amongst countries has been growing very rapidly since the end of the Second World War. One way of looking at international trade is the simpl... ...se Expatriate Managers in Canada.† Journal of International Business Studies 27 (1996): 443-466. 9. Robicheaux, R. A. and Bandyopadhay, S. â€Å"Working With Dealers in India.† Journalof Managerial Issues 7 (1995): 379-402. 10. Saimee, S. â€Å"Costomer Evaluation of Products in a Global Market.† Journal of International Business Studies 25 (1994): 579-604. 11. Simos, Evangelos O. and Triantis, John E. â€Å"International Economic Outlook.† The Journal of Business Forcasting Methods & Systems 18 (1999): 32-36 12. Srinivasan, T. India. New York: Marshall Cavendish Corporation, 1994. 13. â€Å"There’s No Such Thing as Simple in International Business.† Agency Sales 29 (1999): 4-6 14. Walter, Ingo and Murray, Tracy. Handbook of International Business. New York: Ronald Press Publication, 1982. Importance of Strategic Planning when Entering International Markets Es Importance of Strategic Planning when Entering International Markets When a company decides to take their business international, there are many different factors that they need to take into account. There are differences in management styles, international laws and treaties that regulate international business, trade barriers, tariffs, taxes, exchange rates as well as cultural customs that come into play. Each of these is significant and needs to be taken into account in order to minimize potential problems. It is essential to an expanding company to study these factors and integrate them into taking their business abroad. Many times, lack of knowledge can create serious problems and in some situations stop a business deal from happening all together. If such matters are not ever correctly dealt with they can completely destroy the entire business. All a company needs to do to reduce this risk is some research in the international market. Today it is difficult to completely stay out of the international market place. Even if a business is completely based in a specific country, it is very possible that another company outside their country supplies them. Even if there is a small company that is simply importing some parts from Mexico, there are rules that must be met for NAFTA. It is almost impossible today for a company to avoid dealing with international issues. That is why all companies should have some understanding of international business. When first discussing international business, one must realize how beneficial international trade is to the world. Trade amongst countries has been growing very rapidly since the end of the Second World War. One way of looking at international trade is the simpl... ...se Expatriate Managers in Canada.† Journal of International Business Studies 27 (1996): 443-466. 9. Robicheaux, R. A. and Bandyopadhay, S. â€Å"Working With Dealers in India.† Journalof Managerial Issues 7 (1995): 379-402. 10. Saimee, S. â€Å"Costomer Evaluation of Products in a Global Market.† Journal of International Business Studies 25 (1994): 579-604. 11. Simos, Evangelos O. and Triantis, John E. â€Å"International Economic Outlook.† The Journal of Business Forcasting Methods & Systems 18 (1999): 32-36 12. Srinivasan, T. India. New York: Marshall Cavendish Corporation, 1994. 13. â€Å"There’s No Such Thing as Simple in International Business.† Agency Sales 29 (1999): 4-6 14. Walter, Ingo and Murray, Tracy. Handbook of International Business. New York: Ronald Press Publication, 1982.

Four Frames of Organization Essay

Apollo 13: Scene 3 ( Mattingly – exposure to measles) and Scene 6 (Houston, we have a problem). What happens when an organizational structure changes – is it always a negative or can positive things occur? Do you see evidence of emerging leaders in Scene 6? Were they who you anticipated?Label this M1P2 and post no later than Monday. â€Å"Major initiative to redesign structure and processes has often proved neither durable nor beneficial. Moving from designing a structure to putting all parts in place and satisfying every interested party is difficult and hazardous.† (Bolman & Deal, 2008, p. 72) Change in Organizational Structure can be very challenging in process. Consume both time and resources yet no guarantee of success could cause resistant in some group of employee. Employee’s resistant causes a dominoes effect making change much harder. However if there is an obvious serious problem, nonetheless change will have to happen no matter. .In scene 3 – Mattlingly exposure to measles. Change happened rapidly only within 72 hours before the mission. Change are always more positive than a negative. But how to overcome change is difficult. When change happened, the good is.. Could make more money, work smarter, cutting cost, and reduce workload†¦more efficient. Reduce stress of employee in the long run†¦ If decided change is going to happen, it will happen.. but it is harder and take longer when people resist. In this case everyone at the command room and in the vessel, both accept the change. The change move better. Ken also except. Freak out, expected something bad will happened. Not comfortable to work well together. Did I see the leader emerge? Is it who you expect? No not really, when they pull ken in to help†¦ I think it was more like Jack that was had more detail and better calculation. He was the one who alert Lovell that we need †¦ Organization is confusing, eventhough majorily agree what is best decision, in the end it could turn out to be bad, but if the decision to change is made, then stick with it†¦ †¦

Investigate different ways in which reaction times Essay

Some people have slower reaction times than others. To find this out, I have decided to test some people in my class. We are now going to investigate different ways in which reaction times of people can be measured. Reaction times A reaction time is how long a person takes to react to something. Methods of Testing Reaction Times 1: Time how long it takes to move from one point to another, after being told to start by a blow of a whistle, clap of hands or simply by saying go. 2: Time how long it takes to rise from the blocks in a race. 3: Time how long it takes a person to react when someone instructs them to stand up. 4: Time how long it takes for a person to press a button when a buzzer goes off, record how long the buzzer is ringing for. 5: Time how long it rakes for someone to turn off a light when it starts flashing using an electronic device to time how long it takes for the light to be switched off. 6: Drop a ruler and measure the distance it drops before the person catches it. The class discussed all of the above methods and decided that some would not work and that some wouldn’t be possible due to lack of resources. The class decided to use the same method of measuring reaction times so that we could collect enough data. 1: This method would be very hard to time, as the accuracy of the time would also depend upon the reaction time of the person holding the stopwatch. Also the time taken would not only measure reaction time it would also depend on how fast the person can run. 2: This would be a good method if we had access to Olympic standard equipment, which would measure the time electronically from the sound of the gun to rising from the blocks. 3: This method, just like number 1, would be hard to do. The time again would also depend upon how quickly the person can move to a standing position. The reaction time is how long it takes to begin to stand and this would not be possible to measure. 4: We cannot record this properly as we do not have any stopwatches to make sure we have an accurate reading. 5: This applies the exact same as number 4, we do not have the possible equipment for this method. 6: This is possible as the distance the ruler drops only depends upon the reaction time of the person trying to catch the ruler. After considering all the possible methods, my class decided to use the dropping of a ruler and measuring how far it falls. When we conduct this experiment, the arm will be held out at shoulder length and the ruler will be held between the thumb and the index finger at 0cm. We shall work in pairs, one person will say go and the other person will release and try to catch the ruler with the same hand. The first person will keep a record of the distance the ruler has dropped. We will assume that the longer the distance means greater time.

How to Answer the Most Common Job Interview Questions

How to Answer the Most Common Job Interview Questions Going into a job interview can feel a bit like prepping for the Hunger Games. You have a general idea of what you’re facing, but you don’t know the specifics- who knows what those devilish game makers will have in store for you? Nobody dies here (unless job interviews have really changed since the last time I went on one), but there can be only one person left standing: the victor, the one with the job offer. And as in any good conflict where you want to come out on top, you want to be as prepared as possible going into it. It’s impossible to know exactly what questions to expect ahead of time, but there’s enough commonality in how job interviews are structured that you can take an educated guess- and educate yourself accordingly. Here’s how to answer common interview questions. 1. Standard Interview Questions2. Behavioral Interview Questions3. Tricky Interview QuestionsThe first thing to do is to figure out what kinds of questions you might face be fore you even think about trying to prep for specific questions. The question types fall into two categories: what we’ll call â€Å"standard† interview question and behavioral interview questions.Standard interview questions are about what you’d expect: questions that ask you about your past experience, your current skills, and your professional goals. Some examples:â€Å"Tell me more about your coding background.†Ã¢â‚¬Å"Can you tell me about your day-to-day responsibilities in your most recent job?†Ã¢â‚¬Å"How did you get started in this industry?†Ã¢â‚¬Å"It says here that you worked for seven years at Job Co. What did you work on there?†Ã¢â‚¬Å"What is your biggest strength?† (And its devilish counterpart, â€Å"What is your biggest weakness?†)â€Å"Where do you see yourself in five years?†These are straightforward questions with (hopefully) straightforward answers. You know your resume and your experience better than anyone, so own the information.How to Approach Standard Interview QuestionsIf it helps, think of these questions as a kind of game show, like The Interview Guys do. There’s a concrete answer available for every standard interview question. â€Å"I don’t know† or uncomfortable silence will throw up a major red flag to the interviewer, so make sure that you’re solid on your resume, the job description for which you’re interviewing, and the talking points you want to use in the interview. (I’ll take â€Å"Leadership Experience† for $400, Alex.)Top 5 tips for answering standard interview questions:Be confident! You’re talking about your best professional self, so be ready to cover your skills and accomplishments.Don’t give short answers. If you’re asked about your background in coding, don’t just say, â€Å"I took a class five years ago,† then wait for the next question to come along. Say, â€Å"I start ed with a class five years ago, and took off from there. I’ve used and grown those skills in my current job, where I was responsible for updating and maintaining the company website.† You don’t need a novel’s worth of details, but the interviewer is looking for you to expand on your own history- all he or she knows is what’s in the bullets on your resume. It’s your job to fill those out and make yourself look like a well-rounded candidate.Remember: it’s not about you. But, you say, isn’t it about my experience and skills? Yes and no. The whole point of the interview is to see how you’ll fit in with this job and this company. So when you frame your answers, make sure you’re always emphasizing how this skill or that experience point relates to the job at hand.Be honest. This kind of question is where, uh, soft spots on your resume might come to light. The interviewer will expect you to be able to answer all of these questions with concrete info, so if you can’t offer supporting information, or have long and awkward pauses, that’s a problem. If you’re not fluent in Spanish, don’t list it. If you weren’t really the youngest CEO ever at your last company, don’t suggest you were. Forget a background check- if you can’t back up your resume’s assertions in the interview, you’ll never even get to that stage.Be specific. This isn’t so hard for questions about your background or your software proficiencies, but it’s tougher when you get to questions about your strengths and weaknesses. The best way to hone in on these is to think of specific examples from your past. For example, â€Å"At my current job, I developed a workflow that improved sales reporting, so I’m very good at zeroing in on challenges and working with a team to solve them.† Or, â€Å"I’d say my greatest weakness is my tendency to try to tak e everything on myself. In my last job, that led to a lot of stress around deadlines, and I’ve since learned that I need to work harder on prioritizing and setting boundaries to get everything done smoothly.†RELATED:  How to Answer These 5 Common (but tough) Interview QuestionsThe best advice we can offer you is to think about how to answer common interview questions in advance and anticipate having to give anecdotes about your experience. You won’t know ahead of time which ones are likely to come up, but by having talking points in your pocket for every part of your resume, you can be ready for any standard questions that come up.Behavioral interview questions are a little less straightforward, with no easy answer. These questions are kind of like storytime: the interviewer will ask you to talk about a specific time you faced a challenge or demonstrated a skill. You’ll know behavioral questions when you hear them because they’ll have telltale phr ases like:â€Å"Tell me about a time you†¦Ã¢â‚¬ Ã¢â‚¬Å"What would you do if†¦Ã¢â‚¬ Ã¢â‚¬Å"Show me how you handled†¦Ã¢â‚¬ Ã¢â‚¬Å"Walk me through a time when you†¦Ã¢â‚¬ Ã¢â‚¬Å"How would you deal with†¦Ã¢â‚¬ What do all of these have in common? There’s a performance element, and usually an action verb. It’s on you to come up with an answer, and phrase it in a smooth interview operator kind of way.RELATED:  How to Answer Behavioral Interview QuestionsHow to Approach Behavioral Interview QuestionsThe approach for these questions isn’t so different from that of traditional questions. They just require a little more thinking on your feet, because there’s no easy factual answer. You’ll be drawing from your history directly (â€Å"tell me about a time when you†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ), or indirectly (â€Å"what would you do if†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ).Top 5 tips for answering behavioral interview questions:It’s not about you, itâ€℠¢s about them. The advice for standard interview questions (#3 above) remains the same here: remember that it’s really about the interviewer and the company, not you. You’ll be providing info that illustrates how you have operated and will likely operate as an employee, but that information will be weighed against what the company wants and needs for this job opening. You’re not answering the questions in a vacuum. So make sure that your answers dovetail with the job description.Don’t be brutally honest. If you’re asked about the biggest challenge in your career so far, and your most trying time happens to have been the royal-est screwup in the history of royal screw-ups, don’t bring it up. Before the interview, spend time thinking about less dramatic anecdotes that don’t make you look bad. Or if you do end up talking about a time you messed up, absolutely make sure to follow up with a quick point about how you learned from it and hav e turned it to your advantage.Come up with pre-answers in certain categories. Behavioral questions usually seek to draw you out on skills like leadership, problem-solving, and personal interaction. Long before the interview, start doing a personal audit of your work history and come up with a list of relevant anecdotes in the following areas:Challenges you faced, and how you overcame themTimes you led others or managed a complicated project with numerous peopleWorkplace conflicts or differences of opinion, and how you handled themKeep it brief. You don’t want to leave them confused or wanting more by being too abrupt, but if you feel yourself start to ramble on (adding details that aren’t really necessary, explaining things in tangents), then rein yourself in a bit. Rehearse your likely stories ahead of time, so you can adjust the flow, and what feels like the right presentation. Rambling can come off as nervous babbling, and you don’t want to undermine your con fident aura on interview day.Keep it professional. They’re definitely not looking for examples from your personal life- make sure you limit your stories to things that happened at work.The Trickiest QuestionsOnce you know the types of questions and how to mine your resume and experience to prep ahead of time, you can focus more on the most challenging questions of all: the â€Å"you tell us† questions. These aren’t really standard interview questions, because they’re not straight facts or expansions on points found on your resume. They’re not really behavioral, either, because they don’t illustrate how you’ve approached workplace issues in the past (or would). They’re open-ended, and that’s what makes them scarier. Some examples of these extra-hard interview questions.â€Å"Tell me about yourself.†Ã¢â‚¬Å"Why should we hire you?†Ã¢â‚¬Å"Why do you want to work here?†Ã¢â‚¬Å"Why did you leave your last job ?†Ã¢â‚¬Å"Do you have any questions for me?†Ã¢â‚¬ËœWhat is your biggest weakness?†Spin negatives into positives. This applies most fully to the â€Å"biggest weakness† and â€Å"why did you leave your last job?† questions (especially if you were let go, or left in a bad situation). The kind of formula you should keep in mind is, â€Å"I experienced X, but I learned Y, and now I work very hard on achieving Z. It’s an experience that I take very seriously.†Don’t pull the interviewer’s leg. If you’re asked about a weakness, talk about a weakness†¦don’t try to say you work too hard, and gosh darn it, that’s your biggest flaw. Every single one of us has real flaws, and candidness can be the key to establishing trust with the interviewer. However, when you talk about a weakness or a challenge you’ve faced, always, always (did I mention â€Å"always†?) talk about what you did/do to overcome i t, and what you’ve learned from it.Don’t panic†¦or pause too long. The deer-in-headlights reaction is not a good look during the interview. Either you look like you’re trying to invent an answer, or you look like you just don’t know how to respond. Practicing answers for the questions above (using, again, specific examples from your resume and your work history) can help you feel more comfortable with repurposing your material for a variety of potential questions.Always tie it to the job/company. Before the interview, review the job description, and highlight the areas that connect to your resume. If the job calls for managerial skills, â€Å"tell me about yourself† can be a quick walkthrough of your rise to leading men and women to greatness (increased sales or efficiency). If it’s a general question about why you want to work here,Keep it professional (redux). If you want to work for this company because your commute would be cut in h alf, don’t say that. â€Å"Tell me about yourself† is not an invitation to show pictures of your beloved pet lizard, Dr. Greenjeans III. Just give a quick rundown of where you are, professionally, and where you’re hoping to go. Personal opinions and personal life don’t really belong in an interview. (Exception: mild small talk before or after the interview- but even then, no big personal confessions or controversial opinions.)RELATED:  How to Answer the Toughest Interview QuestionsThe best way to deal with any interview questions is to prepare in advance- you can practice the spirit of them, if not the exact content. If you have a trusted buddy or family member, have them lob unscripted (professional) questions at you, so you can get better at fielding things on the fly. And if you need a cheat sheet on common interview questions and how to tackle them in the meantime, here’s a quick overview you can use as a reference. [via UndercoverRecruiter]A nd remember the most important part: you got this! Don’t panic no matter what you’re asked, and answer with confidence. May the interview go ever in your favor!