• The official blog of Abacus Group — a place to share our knowledge and thoughts on trends in recruiting •

It’s the daunting question that you know the interviewer will probably ask: What were you doing during the time when you were not working? Whether you chose to prioritize something in your personal life, or your jobs came to an end and it took some time to find your next role, it is not uncommon to have some gaps in time on your resume.

Having a phone interview is an exciting first step in the process of landing your dream job. It gives you and your potential employer the opportunity to get to know each other before meeting in person.

When preparing for an interview, rarely do you need to practice the answers to questions about your past positions, current role, and the skills you have acquired. However, every interview includes some tough questions that can catch you off guard if you don’t have a plan on how to answer them.

Regardless of what role you are applying for, leadership skills are sought after across all companies and industries. Compared to technical skills, they are not as easy to quantify but demonstrating that you have these leadership skills will put you above those whom you are interviewing against and assure your potential employer that you have the ability to make a great impact on the company and community.

Knowing how to talk about your weaknesses in a job interview can be difficult. However, it is important to understand the motivation behind the question in order to answer it favorably.

It’s hard to predict what questions and scenarios will arise in an interview. However, questions like “why did you leave your last job?” and “where do you see yourself in five years?” continue to play a part in many interviews.

Your resume ticked a lot of boxes, you’ve passed the phone screen and now it’s time to be brought in for an in-person interview. Congratulations for making it this far but in the words of the Carpenters, “we’ve only just begun”.

Panel interviews are becoming increasingly popular and certainly have their advantages over their one-on-one alternative. What needs to be understood however, is that one does not approach a panel interview in the same way they might a one-on-one.

Panel interviews are often better alternatives to one-on-one interviews because they provide a more subjective format since each interviewer gives his or her valuations of the candidate based on the same encounter.

The question of “why did you leave your last job” or “why are you looking to leave your current job” is always asked at some point during the interview process. As recruiters, it is a question we always ask candidates as it’s a means of learning what motivates the candidate to pursue new work.