CareerBuilder.com of Chicago, Illinois, won a Stevie Award for Best Sales Organization in The 2007 American Business Awards.  Here’s some humorous advice from them on job interviews.

What’s the most unusual thing a candidate did in a job interview? Fall asleep? Disappear? Bring his/her mom? This month, CareerBuilder.com released its annual survey of the most outrageous interview mistakes candidates have made, according to over 3,000 hiring managers and HR professionals nationwide. This year’s Top Ten list includes:

1. Candidate answered cell phone and asked the interviewer to leave her own office because it was a "private" conversation.
2. Candidate told the interviewer he wouldn’t be able to stay with the job long because he thought he might get an inheritance if his uncle died--and his uncle “wasn’t looking too good.”
3. Candidate asked the interviewer for a ride home after the interview.
4. Candidate smelled his armpits on the way to the interview room.
5. Candidate said she could not provide a writing sample because all of her writing had been for the CIA and it was "classified."
6. Candidate told the interviewer he was fired for beating up his last boss.
7. When candidate was offered food before the interview, he declined, saying he didn’t want to line his stomach with grease before going out drinking.....
8. A candidate for an accounting position said she was a "people person," not a "numbers person."
9. Candidate flushed the toilet while talking to interviewer during phone interview.
10. Candidate took out a hairbrush and brushed her hair.

In addition to the most unusual blunders, employers were also asked about the most common and detrimental mistakes candidates have made during an interview. More than half (51 percent) of hiring managers cited dressing inappropriately as the most detrimental mistake a candidate can make in an interview. Speaking negatively about a current or previous employer came in second at 49 percent, and appearing disinterested ranked third at 48 percent. Other mistakes included appearing arrogant (44 percent), not providing specific answers (30 percent), and not asking good questions (29 percent).

"Interviews give employers a window into what it’s really like to work with a candidate: How they react under pressure, what motivates them, and how they interact with others," said Rosemary Haefner, vice-president of Human Resources for CareerBuilder.com. "If a candidate is overly negative, plays the blame game, is easily frazzled, or doesn’t come prepared, it usually sends up a red flag for employers. Be knowledgeable about the company, rehearse answers to potential questions, and always maintain a professional manner." Haefner offers the following tips for successful interviews:

1. Have they done their homework?: Nothing says "I’m not that interested in this job" like someone who has done no research and knows little about a company. It’s easier than ever to find information about a company and its activities--candidates who don’t could be perceived as lazy, unmotivated, or disinterested.
2. Getting too personal: The last thing an employer wants to do is to hire someone who brings all their personal drama to the office. Even if the interview seems casual, a candidate should always keep it professional and avoid sharing unnecessary personal information.
3. Being honest: Interviewers don’t expect candidates to have all the answers but will often test for reactions to "tough questions" to see how the candidate will respond under pressure. It’s much worse to get caught in a lie than admit you don’t know something.  If unsure of an answer, it’s OK for a candidate to say “I don’t know” and then outline the steps required to find out.  This will demonstrate the candidate is a problem solver.
4. Open-ended questions: "Tell me about yourself?" "Why do you want to work here?" "What motivates you?" These questions may seem easy, but because they are so broad candidates can get tripped up by them, especially if they don’t know where to start or when to end.
5. Negativity: No matter how tempting it is to share woes from prior jobs or how much an interviewer pushes, it is never a good idea for a candidate to say negative things about a previous employer. This implies they will be likely to bad-mouth your company in the future.

Survey Methodology
This survey was conducted online within the U.S. by Harris Interactive on behalf of CareerBuilder.com among 3,016 hiring managers and human resource professionals employed full-time; not self-employed; with at least significant involvement in hiring decisions; ages 18 and over between November 13 and December 3, 2007. With a pure probability sample of 3,016, one could say with a 95 percent probability that the overall results have a sampling error of +/- 1.8 percentage points, respectively. Sampling error for data from sub-samples is higher and varies. A full methodology is available upon request.

About CareerBuilder.com
CareerBuilder.com is the nation’s largest online job site with more than 23 million unique visitors and over 1.6 million jobs. Owned by Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE:GCI), Tribune Company, The McClatchy Company (NYSE:MNI) and Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT), the company offers a vast online and print network to help job seekers connect with employers. CareerBuilder.com powers the career centers for more than 1,600 partners, including 140 newspapers and leading portals such as America Online and MSN. More than 300,000 employers take advantage of CareerBuilder.com’s easy job postings, 26 million-plus resumes, Diversity Channel and more. CareerBuilder.com and its subsidiaries operate in the U.S., Europe, Canada and Asia. For more information, visit http://www.careerbuilder.com.

Borgess Health, Kalamazoo, Michigan, won a Stevie Award for Best Corporate Social Responsibility Program in North America in The 2007 International Business Awards.

Borgess Health is a multifaceted health system comprised of hospitals, physician practices, home health services, and a nursing home.  Located in Kalamazoo County, southwestern Michigan, it is a values-based health care provider that respects the dignity of human life and actively responds to the needs of the poor.

"Although we are a major southwest Michigan health care provider and
employer, we are a health ministry, not simply a medical business," said
Paul A. Spaude, President and CEO, Borgess Health.  "Borgess Health is
honored to have won a Stevie Award for Best Corporate Social Responsibility
Program in North America in the 2007 American Business Awards.  It shows
that we are continuing the mission established by the Sisters of St. Joseph
who began Borgess Hospital 118 years ago."
         
The core values of Borgess Health are:

1. Service to the Poor:  Generosity of spirit, especially for persons most in need;
2. Reverence: Respect and compassion for the dignity and diversity of life;
3. Integrity:  Inspiring trust through personal leadership;
4. Wisdom:  Integrating excellence and stewardship;
5. Creativity:  Courageous innovation;
6. Dedication:  Affirming the hope and joy of their ministry.

Close to 80,000 residents live in Kalamazoo County. Of that number, nearly 28,000 have incomes at or below the Federal Poverty Level (FPL). During the past decade Michigan has experienced a severe economic downturn.  Kalamazoo County has experienced closures and reorganizations in the automotive, paper, and banking industries. Those changes have impacted the health insurance status of some 4,500 employees and at least 11,000 family members.  Many of the higher-paying jobs once held by persons without college degrees were replaced with lower-paying jobs in service areas such as food preparation, home health aides, wait staff, retail, and janitorial service.  The average income for such professions is just over nine dollars per hour.

While new employment opportunities are offered by small businesses, they either cannot afford to provide health coverage at an affordable price to their employees, or do not offer any coverage.  People without health coverage have difficulty accessing traditional health care.  As a result, they often delay seeking treatment until it requires more expensive forms of treatment or the use of hospital emergency departments as their primary source of health care.

Consistent with its goal to be a good corporate citizen, Borgess implemented a charity care policy in 2001 that provides free health care to all persons admitted to a Borgess Health medical center with an income at or below 200 percent of the FPL.  During fiscal year 2006 Borgess approved 6,824 charity care accounts totaling $3,981,000.  In fiscal year 2006 Borgess also expanded its billing and collections policy to provide a 30 percent discount to families with incomes at 300 percent of the FPL and 25 percent to persons with incomes at 400 percent of the FPL.

In addition to discounting or eliminating the cost of health services for these patients, Borgess also provided $429,056 in financial support to other health care safety net providers--such as the First Presbyterian Health Clinic and Family Health Center--that provide access to health care opportunities to persons who do not have health insurance or the means to pay for health services.
 
As well as providing financial support to local organizations, members of the Borgess leadership team lend their expertise and leadership to some 40 health and human service organizations through board memberships and collaborative partnerships. Borgess senior administrators, in collaboration with other community leaders, established the Kalamazoo County Health Plan, which currently serves 4,000 uninsured low-income workers and the poorest, most vulnerable members of the community.

About Borgess Health:
Borgess Health includes more than 120 sites of care in fifteen southern Michigan cities, as well as eight owned or affiliated hospitals, a nursing home, ambulatory care facilities, home health care, physician practices, managed care services, a cancer center and an air ambulance service.  The 4,500-plus Borgess Health
employees form a health care network that offers a complete continuum of services to the 1.1 million people living in 11 counties in southwest and south central Michigan.  For more information go to www.borgess.com.

Suzanne Richard is an on-road supervisor with UPS who's worked for the company for 23 years. In 2006 Suzanne started the Renaissance Foundation, an international scholarship program at Bowling Green University in Ohio. Suzanne initially funded the foundation with UPS stock she had accummulated over her years of employment. UPS has since matched her contributions to the foundation.

For their support of the Renaissance Foundation, Suzanne and UPS were honored with a Stevie Award in the category of "Women Helping Women" in the 2007 Stevie Awards for Women in Business.

We recently spoke with Suzanne about her background, how and why she started the Renaissance Foundation, and the lessons she can offer to others who might want to start their own charitable endeavors.

Listen to our podcast interview with Suzanne Richard...

Read UPS's winning entry in the 2007 Stevie Awards for Women in Business...

Learn more about the Stevie Awards for Women in Business...

Blogs, or web logs, are all the rage these days. Each month in this space we'll point you to several blogs that we think might be of interest to you.

Valleywag.com : Silicon Valley's tech gossip blog.
Angry Journalist : A site that gives journalists a chance to vent their feelings about work lives and their profession.
Journerdism.com Will Sullivan's blog with links to a number of useful resources in the media.
Grammarphobia: Sound off on your pet language peeves at the blog of Patricia T. O'Connor, author of Woe Is I, and Stewart Kellerman.