The “Silent Treatment” - HR Interview Questions

The “Silent Treatment” - HR Interview Questions

You answer an interviewer’s question and then, instead of asking another, he just stares at you in a deafening silence.

You wait, growing a bit uneasy, and there he sits, silent as Mt. Rushmore, as if he doesn’t believe what you’ve just said, or perhaps making you feel that you’ve unwittingly violated some cardinal rule of interview etiquette.

When you get this silent treatment after answering a particularly difficult question , such as “tell me about your weaknesses”, its intimidating effect can be most disquieting, even to polished job hunters.

Most unprepared candidates rush in to fill the void of silence, viewing prolonged, uncomfortable silences as an invitation to clear up the previous answer which has obviously caused some problem. And that’s what they do – ramble on, sputtering more and more information, sometimes irrelevant and often damaging, because they are suddenly playing the role of someone who’s goofed and is now trying to recoup. But since the candidate doesn’t know where or how he goofed, he just keeps talking, showing how flustered and confused he is by the interviewer’s unmovable silence.

BEST ANSWER: Like a primitive tribal mask, the Silent Treatment loses all it power to frighten you once you refuse to be intimidated. If your interviewer pulls it, keep quiet yourself for a while and then ask, with sincere politeness and not a trace of sarcasm, “Is there anything else I can fill in on that point?” That’s all there is to it.

Whatever you do, don’t let the Silent Treatment intimidate you into talking a blue streak, because you could easily talk yourself out of the position.

google adsense tips tricks and secrets

I’ve been reading a few forums and blogs about Google Adsense tips lately, and thought it would be helpful to consolidate as many as possible in one place without the comments. I’ve also thrown in a few tips of my own. We start out with some of the basic general stuff and move to the more specific topics later on.


When you’re deciding to become a website publisher you will fall into one of two broad categories:

• Publish 100 websites that each earn $1 a day profit
• Publish 1 website that earns $100 a day profit

The reality of it is, most people end up somewhere in between. Having 100 websites leaves you with maintenance, management and content issues. Having one website leaves you open to all sort of fluctuations (search engines algorithm’s, market trends, etc). You can adapt your plan on the way, but you’ll have an easier time if you start out going in the direction of where you want to end up.


You can build your website around general topics or niche ones. Generally speaking niche websites work better with adsense. First off the ad targeting is much better. Secondly as you have a narrow focus your writing naturally becomes more expert in nature. Hopefully this makes you more authority in your field.

If this is your first try at building an adsense website, make it about something you enjoy. It will make the process much easier and less painful to accomplish. You should however make sure that your topic has enough of an ad inventory and the payout is at a level you are comfortable with. You may love medieval folk dancing, but the pool of advertisers for that subject is very small (in fact it’s currently zero).

Once you’ve gotten the hang of how Adsense works on a website, you are going to want to dabble in some high paying keywords, you may even be tempted to buy a high paying keyword list. This does come with some dangers. First off the level of fraud is much higher on the big money terms. Secondly there is a distortion of the supply and demand relationship for these terms. Everyone wants ads on their website that make $35 or more a click, however the number of advertisers who are willing to pay that much is pretty limited. Additionally the competition for that traffic is going to be stiff. So, don’t try to run with the big dogs if you can’t keep up. If you have to ask if you’re a big dog, then chances are, you’re not. I have used a high dollar keywords report from cashkeywords.com and was pleased with my results (see cash keywords free offer recap).

When you’re building a new site don’t put adsense on it until it’s finished. In fact I’d go even farther and say don’t put adsense on it until you have built inbound links and started getting traffic. If you put up a website with “lorem ipsum” dummy or placeholder text, your adsense ads will almost certainly be off topic. This is often true for new files on existing websites, especially if the topic is new or different. It may take days or weeks for google’s media bot to come back to your page and get the ads properly targeted. TIP: If you start getting lots of traffic from a variety of IP’s you will speed this process up dramatically.

I like to build my sites using include files. I put the header, footer and navigation in common files. It makes it much easier to maintain and manage. I also like to put my adsense code in include files. If I want/need to change my adsense code, it’s only one file I have to work with.TIP: I also use programming to turn the adsense on or off. I can change one global variable to true or false and my adsense ads will appear or disappear.

Adsense channels is one area where it’s really easy to go overboard with stats. You can set up URL channels to compare how one website is doing to another. You can also set up sub channels for each URL. If you wanted to you do something channels like this:

• domain1.com – 728 banner
• domain1.com – 336 block
• domain1.com – text link
• domain2.com – 728 banner
• domain2.com – image banner
• domain2.com – 336 block
• domain3.com – 300 block

While this is great for testing and knowing who clicks where and why, it makes your reporting a little wonky. Your total number will always be correct but when you look at your reports with a channel break down things will get displayed multiple times and not add up to correct total. Makes things pretty confusing, so decide if you really need/want that level of reporting detail.TIP: At the very least you want to know what URL is generating the income so be sure to enter distinct URL channels.

Once you know you are going to put adsense on your website you’re going to have to consider where to put it. If this is new site it’s easier, if it’s an existing site it’s more difficult. While there are some people who will be able to do it, in most cases I’d say if you just slap the adsense code in, you’ll end up with a frankensite monster (props to Tedster of WMW for the buzzword). While every website is different, Google has published some heat mapsshowing the optimal locations. No surprise that the best spots are middle of the page and left hand side. Now I’ve done really well by placing it on the right, but you should know why you’re doing it that way before hand, and be prepared to change it if it doesn’t work out.

Google has also has published a list of the highest performing ad sizes:

• 336×280 large rectangle
• 300×250 inline rectangle
• 160×600 wide skyscraper

From the sites that I run, I do really well with the 336 rectangle and 160 skyscraper. My next best performing ad size is the 728 leaderboard, I don’t really use the 300 inline rectangle too often. So really it depends on how well you integrate these into your site. Placement can have a dramatic effect on performance. TIP: When working on a new site or new layout you may want to give each location it’s own channel for a little while until you understand the users behavior.

Another ‘trick’ that can increase your CTR is by blending your adsense into your body copy. For example if your body copy is black, remove the adsense border and make the title, text, and URL black.TIP: Try changing all of your page hyperlinks to a high contrast color (like dark red or a bold blue) then change the adsense title to the same color.

The one area where I’ve found blended ads don’t perform as well is forums, especially ones with a high volume of repeat members. Regular visitors develop banner blindness pretty quickly. One ‘trick’ to keep the ads from being ignored is to randomize the color and even the placement. As with any of the decisions about location, placement and color it’s a trade off. How much do you emphasize the ads without annoying your visitors. Remember it’s better to have a 1% CTR with 500 regular visitors as opposed to a 5% CTR with 50 visitors. TIP: For forums try placing the adsense ads directly above or below the the first forum thread.

One of the latest ’secrets’ to make the rounds is using images placed directly above or below an adsense leaderboard. This has been used for a while but came out in a digital point forum thread where a member talked about quadrupling their CTR. Basically you set up the adsense code in a table with four images that line up directly with the ads. Whether or not this is deceptive is fuzzy and very subjective. Obviously four blinking arrows would be ‘enticing people to click’ and be against the adsense TOS. However placing pictures of 4 laptops over laptops ads isn’t, so use your best judgment here and look at it from the advertiser or Google’s perspective. If you have a question as to your implementation being ‘over the line’ write to adsense and ask them to take a look.

As far as using the images, I’ve done it and can tell you it definitely works. You get the best results when the images ‘complete the story the ads are telling’. For example if you have ads about apple pies, use pictures of freshly baked apple pies, instead of granny smith, Macintosh, pink lady, and braeburn apples. TIP: Don’t limit yourself to using images only on that size ad unit, it works just as well with the other sizes, like the 336 rectangle.

Another way to increase ad revenue is to use multiple ad units. According to Google’s TOS you are allowed to post up to three ad units per page. Similar to standard search results the highest paying ad units will be served first and the lowest being served last. If there is enough of an ad inventory, place all three ad units. However you should pay attention to the payouts. Current assumption is you get 60% of the revenue (on a $0.05 click you get $0.03). So if a click from the third ad unit is only paying between 3 to 5 cents you may want to omit it from your page. This is one are where giving your ad units channels does have value. If one ad unit is getting a higher percentage of click throughs you’ll want to make sure the highest paying ads are being served there. TIP:Use CSS positioning to get your highest paying ads serving in the location with the highest CTR.

Added:
I got a little criticizm for this and rightly so, as I wasn’t specific as I could have been. Do not use very identifiable brand name or products for your images. Use generic non-specific stock images whenever possible and appropriate. 

With the growth of blogs and RSS feeds you’re starting to see adsense included in the feeds now. IMHO this doesn’t work, and here’s why:

• You only get to place one ad unit.
• You have no control over finding the ’sweet spot’ for the ad unit.
• The ads are usually poorly targeted (this is getting better).
• People develop ‘banner blindness’.

I know people like being able to read full postings in their feed reader, and there are at least a dozen other reasons for full posts from pleasing your users to mobile offline computing, all of which are completely valid. However if your website depends on generating adsense revenue to survive, then bring them to the site and show them the ads there.

Placing Adsense on affiliate sites is tricky. Are you giving up a $10, $20, or $30 sale for a $1 click? This is something you have to test on your own to figure out. If you aren’t converting now it’s definitely worth a try. I like to use adsense on my article pages. For example let’s say you had an affiliate website where you sold shoes. You’re going to need some related articles to ‘flesh out’ the site. Things like ‘getting a shoe shine’ or ‘finding a shoe repair shop’ these are excellent spots for adsense. While you won’t get rich, they will usually provide a small steady income and cover things like hosting costs.TIP: If you find you have pages getting more than 50 clicks per month add more pages about this topic, and link the pages together. Mine you logs for the search terms used.

This is a dicey subject so I’m going to steer clear of precise examples. Basically you bid on low volume uber niche terms at a very low cost. You set up landing page that contains high payout ads for the related general topic. You are looking for terms with a large gap between the price you are bidding on adwords and the price you are getting on Adsense. If you pay $0.10 a click and get $1.00 a click you make $0.90 each click. To get your adsense ad approved you will need to ‘add some value’ along the way. You can make a killing or get taken to the cleaners with this one, so make sure you know what you are doing before you try it.

Have any other adsense tips, tricks or secrets? Drop me an email and let me know, I’ll give you credit.

Added
728 leaderboard works very well if it is just above the end of the
“above the fold” area on what would be considered your viewers average
resolution/browser window size if there are few other enticing links
above the fold. Makes for an interesting layout but if you’re building
a site for AdSense it may be worth it. We consistently receive very
high CTRs from doing this.

Try to build sites that allow you to quickly try any and all of
those locations outlined in the heatmap guide or at least allow you a
wide degree of freedom to easily change ad/content locations.
via:nuevojefe

#18 The "Fatal Flaw" question (Answer an Interview Questions)

#18 The "Fatal Flaw" question (Answer an Interview Questions)

TRAPS: If an interviewer has read your resume carefully, he may try to zero in on a “fatal flaw” of your candidacy, perhaps that you don’t have a college degree…you’ve been out of the job market for some time…you never earned your CPA, etc. A fatal flaw question can be deadly, but usually only if you respond by being overly defensive.

BEST ANSWERS: As every master salesperson knows, you will encounter objections (whether stated or merely thought) in every sale. They’re part and parcel of the buyer’s anxiety. The key is not to exacerbate the buyer’s anxiety but diminish it. Here’s how…

Whenever you come up against a fatal flaw question:

1. Be completely honest, open and straightforward about admitting the shortcoming. (Showing you have nothing to hide diminishes the buyer’s anxiety.)
2. Do not apologize or try to explain it away. You know that this supposed flaw is nothing to be concerned about, and this is the attitude you want your interviewer to adopt as well.
3. Add that as desirable as such a qualification might be, its lack has made you work all the harder throughout your career and has not prevented you from compiling an outstanding track record of achievements. You might even give examples of how, through a relentless commitment to excellence, you have consistently outperformed those who do have this qualification.

Of course, the ultimate way to handle “fatal flaw” questions is to prevent them from arising in the first place. You will do that by following the master strategy described in Question 1, i.e., uncovering the employers needs and them matching your qualifications to those needs.

Once you’ve gotten the employer to start talking about his most urgently-felt wants and goals for the position, and then help him see in step-by-step fashion how perfectly your background and achievements match up with those needs, you’re going to have one very enthusiastic interviewer on your hands, one who is no longer looking for “fatal flaws”.

#17 What are your outside interests? (Answer an Interview Questions)

#17 What are your outside interests? (Answer an Interview Questions)

TRAPS: You want to be a well-rounded, not a drone. But your potential employer would be even more turned off if he suspects that your heavy extracurricular load will interfere with your commitment to your work duties.

BEST ANSWERS: Try to gauge how this company’s culture would look upon your favorite outside activities and be guided accordingly. You can also use this question to shatter any stereotypes that could limit your chances. If you’re over 50, for example, describe your activities that demonstrate physical stamina. If you’re young, mention an activity that connotes wisdom and institutional trust, such as serving on the board of a popular charity.

But above all, remember that your employer is hiring your for what you can do for him,
not your family, yourself or outside organizations, no matter how admirable those
activities may be.

°•(>̯┌┐<)•° :: PHP Framework - Pilih mana yaaa ??? (˘⌣˘)ε˘`)

°•(>̯┌┐<)•° :: PHP Framework - Pilih mana yaaa ??? (˘⌣˘)ε˘`)

Code Igniter

CodeIgniter is a powerful PHP framework with a very small footprint, built for PHP coders who need a simple and elegant toolkit to create full-featured web applications. If you’re a developer who lives in the real world of shared hosting accounts and clients with deadlines, and if you’re tired of ponderously large and thoroughly undocumented frameworks

Choose Me If :

• You want a framework with a small footprint.
• You need exceptional performance.
• You need broad compatibility with standard hosting accounts that run a variety of PHP versions and configurations.
• You want a framework that requires nearly zero configuration.
• You want a framework that does not require you to use the command line.
• You want a framework that does not require you to adhere to restrictive coding rules.

• You are not interested in large-scale monolithic libraries like PEAR.
• You do not want to be forced to learn a templating language (although a template parser is optionally available if you desire one).
• You eschew complexity, favoring simple solutions.
• You need clear, thorough documentation.

Zend Framework

Zend Framework is an open source, object oriented web application framework for PHP 5. Zend Framework is often called a ‘component library’, because it has many loosely coupled components that you can use more or less independently. But Zend Framework also provides an advanced Model-View-Controller (MVC) implementation that can be used to establish a basic structure for your Zend Framework applications.

Cake PHP

CakePHP is a rapid development framework for PHP that provides an extensible architecture for developing, maintaining, and deploying applications. Using commonly known design patterns like MVC and ORM within the convention over configuration paradigm, CakePHP reduces development costs and helps developers write less code.

sedikit bertanya gambar apa di atas ? ini saya ambil dari http://framework.zend.com, secara umum cara kerja dari sebuah PHP framework ada seperti gambar diatas, dimana ada kerjasama dari 4 faktor besar, yaitu User –> View –> Controller –> Model.

Apakah sama dengan CMS ? tentu berbeda, karena CMS menurut saya ada hasil dari pengolahan yang dibentuk oleh Framework, meskipun pada dasarnya pembuatan website dengan menggunakan CMS akan lebih banyak mempersingkat waktu.

Jika dengan CMS maka Anda tinggal menjalankan saja tidak perlu lagi memikirkan untuk menulis kode program sendiri, tetapi tidak demikian dengan framework. Menggunakan framework kita masih harus menulis kode, bedanya kode-kode yang kita tulis harus menyesuaikan dengan lingkungan framework yang kita gunakan. Memang konsekuensinya kita harus belajar lagi lingkungan pengembangan berdasarkan framework yang kita gunakan, tetapi hal itu akan terbayar setelah kita menguasai dan bisa menggunakan framework tersebut. Contoh PHP Framework ialah CakePHP, Zend Framework, Symfony, Prado, CodeIgniter.

Walaupun sudah ada CMS yang bisa Anda temui tutorial dan bukunya serta mungkin anda bisa mempelajari CMS tersebut, namun kenyataannya CMS hanya bisa mengerjakan pekerjaan-pekerjaan yang terbatas saja dan Anda ‘terpatrun’ dengan apa yang disediakan oleh CMS tersebut secara sistem yg sudah ada dan tampilan. Inilah perbedaan besar antara ‘belajar secara instan dari buku’ dengan ‘belajar dari nol untuk menjadi programmer’. Programmer biasanya mempunyai logika/ algoritma pemrograman dan tentunya bahasa pemrograman yang dia kuasai untuk mengutak-atik dapur file PHP, CSS, Javascript dan databasenya he3x…1-0 ( Maklum, saya agak sensi nih dgn buku2 yang beredar dengan tambahan judul : instan…instan…, karena saya belajar sebagai programmer tidak ada yang instan..semua butuh waktu). Maka dari itu, mau tidak mau, Anda yang sudah bisa menguasai CMS pun, membutuhkan programmer untuk menangani ‘jeroan-jeroan’ di dalam web CMS tersebut.

Kemudian Framework sendiri itu apa ??

Pengertian Framework.

Artikel di bawah ini saya ambil dari http://antonifs.wordpress.com/2008/12/31/framework/

Framework dalam kacamata saya(penulis dari artikel tersebut), saya artikan sebagai pola kerja dalam menyelesaikan suatu tugas, yang dalam pola kerja tersebut disusun sedemikian rupa (secara umum) agar ke depan konsep ini bisa digunakan untuk menyelesaikan suatu tugas yang berbeda dalam sebuah koridor yang sama.

Saya persempit artikel saya pada framework dalam dunia ilmu komputer(”computer science”). Framework di sini lebih gampangnya di artikan sebagai kumpulan dari library(Class) yang bisa di turunkan, atau bisa langsung dipakai fungsinya oleh modul-modul atau fungsi yang akan kita kembangkan.

Contoh :

Di dalam Framework tersedia library “Pagination“ misalnya, yang mana dalam class tersebut terdapat fungsi yang memberikan nilai balik(return) link ke halaman berikutnya, sebelumnya, awal, akir dll. nah dalam pengembangan system kita bisa menggunakan class Pagination ini untuk semua proses yang membutuhkan adanya Pagination. ini adalah sebagian kecil dari contoh library yang di sediakan oleh framework.

Namun framework sendiri kelebihan utamanya bukan dari seberapa banyak library yang di sediakan, meski hal itu tentunya akan sangat membantu proses development. Kelebihan yang bisa kita ambil dari framework adalah kerangka kerja dari framework tersebut dalam menyelesaikan modul-modul yang dikembangkan sehinga mengeluarkan sebuah metode pekerjaan yang lebih effisien, lebih rapi, lebih bersifat general, dan lebih homogen.

Kekurangan Framework

Kekurangan framework ? menurut pendapat saya tidak ada. Namun pemilihan framework yang salah akan menjadi bencana.

Kelebihan dari Framework

Di atas saya sudah sedikit menyingung tentang kelebihan dari framework. Karena menurut saya akan terasa lebih mudah menjelaskan sesuatu dengan memberitahukan manfaat dari apa yang kita jelaskan.

Pertama kelebihan dengan adanya framework akan lebih mempermudah memahami mekanisme kerja dari sebuah applikasi. Ini tentunya akan sangat membantu proses pengembangan system yang dilakukan secara team. Semua anggota di wajibkan untuk memahami dari pola kerja framework tersebut selebihnya anggota team hanya mempelajari proses bisnis yang di kehendaki oleh system untuk kemudian di tuangkan kedalam framework tersebut. Dalam artian setiap orang harus mempunyai metode yang sama dalam menyelesaikan applikasi tersebut.

Kedua dengan memakai framework akan menghemat waktu pengerjaan suatu applikasi, karena setiap anggota sudah memiliki sebuah acuan dalam menyelesaikan modul. Dalam hal ini misalnya semakin banyak library yang ada semakin mempercepat anggota untuk menemukan solusi karena tidak setiap anggota harus membuat Class atau fungsi untuk kasus yang relatif sama.

Berikutnya Team tidak akan di susahkan dengan adanya perputaran anggota dalam artian jika ada anggota yang tidak bisa melanjutkan lagi pekerjaannya anggota yang lain bisa meng-cover kekosongan tersebut. Bayangkan jika setiap modul yang dikembangkan mempunyai logika yang berbeda tentunya akan memakan waktu yang banyak untuk proses pemahan akan system tersebut.

Kesekian-kalinya dengan adanya framework akan menjaga integritas dari modul-modul yang dikembangkan. Tentunya hal ini juga tergantung dari metode yang dikembangkan sendiri. framework hanya membantu dan memungkinkan/mempermudah proses integrasi, tidak berarti dengan adanya framework system otomatis akan ter-integrasi. Dan masih ada kelebihan-kelebihan lain yang dimiliki oleh framework.

Pemilihan Framework

Ada beberapa hal yang harus di pertimbangkan dalam memilih framework :

Pertama Documentasi dari framework itu sendiri. Documentasi sangat penting adanya mengingat pada umumnya tidak banyak orang/perusahaan yang membuat framework sendiri dalam membuat applikasi. Nah maka dari itu kita akan sangat tergantung dengan documentasi yang di sediakan oleh framework yang kita pilih.

Berikutnya kesesuaian framework tersebut dengan applikasi apa yang hendak kita kembangkan. Mengambil filosofi “tidak perlu membunuh nyamuk dengan meriam”. artinya sebaiknya kita memilih framework dengan fasilitas yang pas dengan kebutuhan kita.

Berikutnya lagi perhatikan standar2 standart framework yang ada, misalkan apakah framework tersebut MVC, apakah framework tesebut mendukung versi sekian, apakah mendukung templating dll. Semakin banyak hal yang di support oleh framework tersebut semakin baik. Karena hal tersebut akan mempengaruhi kualitas dari software yang dikembangkan.

Berikutnya, adalah faktor kemudahan. Tentunya ini sangat tergantung dari sumberdaya yang ada. Standart kemudahan sangat sulit di ukur karena ini berhubungan dengan minat seseorang akan sesuatu. Namun melirik keatas berdasarkan documentasinya kita bisa mengira2 pola kerja framework tersebut.

Kesimpulan : Dengan adanya framework akan sangat membantu proses penyelesaian pekerjaan didukung oleh analisa sistem yang baik dan pertimbangan sumberdaya yang ada.

KLIK DISINI UNTUK PERBANDINGAN JENIS PHP FRAMEWORK

#16 Tell me about a situation when your work was criticized. (Answer an Interview Questions)

#16 Tell me about a situation when your work was criticized. (Answer an Interview Questions)

TRAPS: This is a tough question because it’s a more clever and subtle way to get you to admit to a weakness. You can’t dodge it by pretending you’ve never been criticized. Everybody has been. Yet it can be quite damaging to start admitting potential faults and failures that you’d just as soon leave buried.

This question is also intended to probe how well you accept criticism and direction.

BEST ANSWERS: Begin by emphasizing the extremely positive feedback you’ve gotten throughout your career and (if it’s true) that your performance reviews have been uniformly excellent.

Of course, no one is perfect and you always welcome suggestions on how to improve your performance. Then, give an example of a not-too-damaging learning experience from early in your career and relate the ways this lesson has since helped you. This demonstrates that you learned from the experience and the lesson is now one of the strongest breastplates in your suit of armor.

If you are pressed for a criticism from a recent position, choose something fairly trivial that in no way is essential to your successful performance. Add that you’ve learned from this, too, and over the past several years/months, it’s no longer an area of concern because you now make it a regular practice to…etc.

Another way to answer this question would be to describe your intention to broaden your master of an area of growing importance in your field. For example, this might be a computer program you’ve been meaning to sit down and learn… a new management technique you’ve read about…or perhaps attending a seminar on some cutting-edge branch of your profession.

Again, the key is to focus on something not essential to your brilliant performance but
which adds yet another dimension to your already impressive knowledge base.