Improving the Odds
Preparing for the Interview
Handling Interview Questions
Body Language and Attitude
Interview Etiquette
Interview Close and Follow Up
Diversity Recruitment
Preparing to Advance Your Career
Search Engine or Search Firm… Which best represents you?
Pharmaceutical Jobs are plentiful - Know why you are looking

Interviewing should be seen as a job in and of itself. It represents an opportunity for you to sell yourself and an opportunity for the employer to evaluate your qualifications, attitude, enthusiasm, analytical skills, communication and presentation skills and confidence.

Common sense is the most important thing you can bring to any interview. Interviews are, after all, a purposeful exchange between two parties with common interests. There is no substitute for good preparation and a conscious effort in preparing for interviews. However, your ability to "think on your feet" may well separate you from the crowd.

First, you must know yourself. You must recognize your career goals and know what experience you would like to gain in your next assignment. You should know your key strengths and weaknesses.

Second, you need to "package your positives." Prepare a list of major accomplishments. Prepare examples or your work to demonstrate your achievements.

Third, "package your negatives." Don't dwell on former failures. Acknowledge them and indicate that you have learned from the experience.

Fourth, learn as much about the opportunity as possible.

Fifth, prepare a list of standard interviewing questions. Be ready to ask them at the appropriate time during the interview and be sure to listen carefully to the answers.

Sixth, have a well-prepared briefcase or notebook. Carry it in the left hand so that you are prepared to shake hands with the right hand without shuffling. Include at least 3 copies of your resume along with a complete reference list.

People want to be recruited based on their skill set, not just because they are a part of a minority group. So at the Bandish Group, LLC we emphasize skill set and experience first.

When recruiting for our clients we discuss the minorities who are already employees of our client, which attracts minorities to want to join the team as well; showing that our client is diversified. . We have adopted behavioral-based interviewing to reduce the effects of beliefs, attitudes and stereotyping that contribute to subjective, sometimes biased, candidate evaluation.

We attend diversity conferences and career fairs. We collect business cards and obtain event attendee lists, then follow-up quickly. These are potential candidates now and in the future. A key source for us is utilizing internal company referrals. Good people know good people. We also seek external referrals: Professional groups, professional associations and customers are all excellent sources for our diverse candidates. We also network with previous candidates we have previously recruited and have developed a relationship with. Establishing lasting relationships with former diverse candidates who were not selected for employment at the time but were good candidates, nevertheless.

We are continuously expanding the list of targeted diversity colleges and universities. The Bandish Group staff is educated and trained to participate in the diversity initiative. We are key in networking. Our database is our number one referral system.

We have imbedded a diversity message into our regular recruiting materials as being certified by WBENC. We ourselves are a diversity recruitment agency.

To assess the demographics of our candidates, we have a resume/candidate tracking system in place. This system can be searched by location and will indicate how many candidates we have in each searched location. In conducting a diversity search we open the demographic search to ALL locations, if relocation assistance is provided, to avoid demographic issues. Within the system we can also assess gender, and ethnicity if the candidate is willing to present that information.