如何在网络面试中脱颖而出(双语)
爱思英语编者按:现在,越来越多的用人单位出于节约成本的考虑,纷纷采用虚拟招聘会的形式招募人才。虚拟招聘会和传统招聘会非常类似,但也有着重要的不同之处。那么,要想在这种招聘会上脱颖而出,求职者需要做哪些准备?
Dear Annie: I’m just starting my senior year in college, and the career center at my school has announced a virtual career fair, taking place in a couple of weeks, where students can “meet” a big group of potential employers online. I’ve been to a couple of in-person career fairs (I got a great summer internship at one of them last year), but I’m not familiar with the virtual kind. How do they work? Besides having a resume to upload, is there anything else I should do ahead of time? — Wondering in Wisconsin
亲爱的安妮:我现在刚上大四,学校的就业指导中心发布了一则虚拟招聘会信息,该虚拟招聘会将在几周内进行,届时学生们将在网上“见到”许多潜在的用人单位。我参加过几场现场招聘会(去年我在其中一场招聘会上找到了一个很棒的暑期实习职位),但是我不熟悉虚拟招聘会。虚拟招聘会是怎么运作的呢?除了准备好要上传的简历外,我还能提前做些其他准备吗?——WW
Dear W.W.: Great question. Virtual career fairs aren’t new, but they’re rapidly growing in popularity, in large part because they’re a cost-effective way for employers to size up large numbers of far-flung candidates without having to put recruiters on airplanes.
亲爱的W.W.:这是一个很好的问题。虚拟招聘会并不是新兴事物,但是它正在迅速普及,很大程度上是因为, 这种方式可以节约用人单位大量成本,因为用人单位不必让招聘人员飞到现场,就可以对千里之外的大量求职者进行评估。
“I’ve gotten about 75% more invitations to virtual career fairs in the past year than ever before,” says Chris Brown, vice president of human resources for West Corp., the parent of video conferencing company InterCall, which has also hosted a couple dozen online fairs.
“和以往任何时候相比,我去年收到的虚拟招聘会邀请函要多75%,”西部公司(West Corp.)人力资源副总裁克里斯•布朗(Chris Brown)说。西部公司是视频会议公司InterCall的母公司,而后者也已经组织了数十场网上招聘会。
Everyone from veterans’ groups, to career sites like Monster, to colleges like yours is sponsoring virtual recruiting events these days, Brown notes, but “Millennials are really leading the way on this. They’re much more comfortable than previous age groups with doing everything via phone or laptop.”
布朗注意到,现在,从退伍军人团体到诸如Monster这样的求职网站,再到大学,所有组织机构都在主办虚拟招聘会,但是“千禧一代在这方面起到了带头作用。和之前任何年龄组的人相比,他们更乐于使用电话或笔记本电脑做任何事情。”
In some respects, a virtual job fair is similar to the face-to-face kind. Once you register for the event and log on at the appointed time, you’ll find you can download information about the employers who are participating, watch videos and, at preset times, stream live presentations. Instead of the usual career-fair booths, you’ll find chat rooms where you can drop in and ask questions.
在某些方面,虚拟招聘会和现场招聘会有相似之处。一旦你为该招聘会进行了注册并在指定时间登陆,你就可以下载参加招聘会的用人单位信息、观看视频,还可以在预定时间观看流媒体现场演示。你会发现,你不用走入通常的招聘会展位去询问问题,而是加入聊天室进行提问。
“Often there’s also a Skype component, where you can sign up for a job interview,” says Brown. “The online setting gives you options for different ways of learning about a lot of prospective employers at once.”
“通常,还会涉及到Skype组件,你可以通过Skype报名参加求职面试,”布朗说。“网络环境给你提供了选择,让你通过不同的方式一次性了解许多未来的雇主。”
To make the most of that smorgasbord of choices, do some research in advance on the companies that will be there, just as with an in-person job fair, and choose a few you’re especially interested in “meeting.” Brown suggests checking out company websites too.
正如对待现场招聘会一样,要充分利用这种大杂烩式选择,你需要提前对参加招聘会的公司进行研究,然后选择一些你特别感兴趣的公司进行“会面”。布朗还建议查看这些公司的网站。
“Often, employers make a lot of information available before the fair starts, so you can go in ahead of time and look around,” he says. The person who’s available in the chat room during the event may not be the right one—you may be looking for an engineering job and find yourself chatting with a marketing recruiter, for example—so “the more specific you can be about what you’re looking for, the better that recruiter will be able to connect you to the right person at the company.”
“通常,用人单位会在招聘会开始前提供许多信息,所以你可以提前进入聊天室并了解情况,”他说。聊天室的招聘人员可能不是“合适的人”——比如,你找的是工程类工作,但是发现和你聊天的却是营销类岗位的招聘人员——所以,“尽量确定你想从事的工作岗位,以便招聘人员最大程度帮你联系到‘合适的人’。”
Brown offers a checklist of suggestions on how to stand out:
对于如何脱颖而出,布朗给出了如下建议:
Test the technology when you register. “Most sponsors ask you to test the technical environment ahead of time, to make sure it works smoothly with your computer, but some people skip this step,” says Brown. Don’t. “You don’t want to waste time downloading Adobe Flash, or whatever you might have to do, while the fair is going on.”
注册时测试技术环境。“大多数主办方都要求应聘者提前测试技术环境,确保技术环境在应聘者电脑上运行流畅,但是有些人跳过了这个步骤,”布朗说。不要这么做。“你不希望在应聘过程中浪费时间下载Adobe Flash,或者不得不做的其他事。”
Sign on with a professional-looking user name. Ideally, this should be your actual name, or your name plus an easy-to-remember digit or two.
使用具备专业水准的用户名进行注册。理想情况下,用户名应该是你的真实姓名,或者是你的姓名加上易于记住的一位或两位数字。
Have a good photo of yourself ready to upload. Otherwise, Brown says, you’ll be visible to recruiters only as “a blank gray avatar that makes you look like you’re in the Witness Protection Program.”
精选一张好照片以供上传。否则,布朗说,招聘人员只会把你的照片当作“一张证人保护计划中的空白、灰色头像”。
Write a short profile, in addition to your resume. This takes the place of an in-person introduction, and tells briefly where you live, what kind of work you’re interested in, why you’d be a great hire, and anything else you’d like to say about yourself that your resume doesn’t cover. If you’d rather upload a short video instead, you usually can. Either way, include your contact information so recruiters can get back to you later.
除了简历,再写一份个人简介。这份个人简介代替现场介绍,简略介绍你的住址、你感兴趣的工作类型、你的优点以及任何其他你想介绍,但是未在简历中体现的内容。如果你不想这么做,而是想上传一个简短的视频,通常情况下也是可以的。不管采取哪种方式,你都要加上自己的联系信息,好让招聘人员在之后回复你。
Stick with standard English. “Chat rooms are usually informal, so people use texting vernacular, emoticons, and so on,” Brown notes. “But these chat rooms, where you are conversing with recruiters, are much more formal.” He even suggests typing out questions for particular employers into a Word document beforehand, proofreading carefully, then cutting and pasting them into the chat room. “This might sound overly fussy,” he admits. “But you want to come across as correct and professional.”
坚持使用规范英语。“聊天室通常是非正式的,所以人们会使用短信白话、表情符号等,”布朗说。“但是,你与招聘人员进行对话的这些聊天室要正式得多。”他甚至建议,提前把向特定用人单位提出的问题录入到一个Word文档中,认真校对,然后剪切并粘贴到聊天室中。“这听起来可能过于挑剔,”他坦言。“但是你希望给人留下恰当且专业的印象。”
Make a note of recruiters’ email addresses. These usually show up on the screen in the chat rooms. You need to keep track of them—with notes to remind yourself of who was who, and what you talked about—so you can follow up when the fair is over, thanking the recruiter for her time and reminding her why you’d be a terrific hire.
记下招聘人员的电子邮件地址。电子邮件地址通常显示在聊天室的屏幕上。你需要把它们记下来——并且加上注释,以提醒自己谁是谁,以及你们交谈的内容——这样你可以在招聘会结束后跟进,感谢招聘人员花费的时间,并提醒对方,你为什么会是一个非常好的雇员。
Dress neatly and clean up the room that’s behind you. Sure, you can attend a virtual career fair in your dorm room, surrounded by party debris and an unmade bed, dressed in bike shorts and a ratty old t-shirt. But what if the employer of your dreams invites you to video chat? Yikes. Just in case, clean up your space, comb your hair, and be ready for your close-up.
衣着整洁,并将房间打扫干净。当然,你可以在自己的宿舍中参加虚拟招聘会,周围是派对的垃圾和未整理的床铺,穿着自行车短裤和破烂的旧T恤衫。但是,万一你梦想中的雇主邀请你视频聊天呢?为了以防万一,整理好你的房间,梳理好头发,并且做好特写镜头的准备。
Good luck!
祝你好运!