Whether hiring for internships or full-time positions, most recruiters have heard statements like these from college students over and over again:

"I have strong communication skills." 
"I'm self-motivated." 
"I'm good at managing my time." 
"I have excellent leadership qualities." 
"I work well with others."

When you make claims like these in your interviews -- perhaps in response to a question like, "What are your greatest strengths?" -- you're not likely to blow the recruiter away with originality. In fact, the recruiter may think, "If you only knew how many times I've heard that one. How do I know that's true?"

Stand out by providing specific examples to back up the statements you've made. It's not difficult, especially if you prepare beforehand, and it will greatly elevate your standing in the recruiter's eyes.

For example: A recruiter is interviewing a new college graduate for an entry-level job and asks, "What's your greatest strength?" Which statement would grab your attention more if you were a recruiter?

1. "Well, I'm very self-motivated. I often start projects on my own without direction from others, because I enjoy it. Compared to most people my age, I have more self-discipline and more willingness to try new things."

2. "Well, I'm very self-motivated. I know you've probably heard that before, so let me give you an example. For the last couple of years, I've volunteered part-time at my college's computer help desk. I wanted experience helping people with computer-related problems, so I approached the information technology director and asked her if she'd teach me to work on the help desk in exchange for my time and efforts. It's turned out to be great for both of us. She's gotten much-needed help, and I've been able to gain hands-on experience I wouldn't have gotten otherwise."
Clearly, the second response is more compelling. Why? Because the student not only makes a claim, but he backs it up with tangible evidence. Recruiters like evidence, especially since they don't hear it from candidates often enough.

You can even use this give-an-example approach to answer an employer's more hypothetical questions. The recruiter says, "You're working with a small team and you have a significant conflict with one of your team members. What would you do?" Which response is more convincing?

1. "I would try talking with the person first, to see what we could do about our differences. If that didn't work, I guess I'd probably go to my supervisor and see if he could intervene somehow. It would be important to get our conflict resolved."

2. "That actually happened to me once in a social psychology course I took. We were doing a group project, and it was clear that one person wasn't doing his share of the work. I talked with other people in the group about it, and they felt the same way I did. So I offered to talk to this person about our concerns. I'm really glad I did. As it turns out, he was stressed out, because his father had been in the hospital for several weeks having tests done. He was having trouble in all of his classes. So I mentioned the fact that our school has a counseling center and encouraged him to go there. He did, and he got the help he needed. The rest of us then divided up his work."
Again, the second response is much more persuasive, because the student has gone beyond simply predicting what she would do in a conflict situation; rather, she illustrated how she handled such a situation before, leaving the employer to conclude that the student would likely resolve future conflicts in a similarly professional way.

Examples will always beat mere words in job interviews. So as you think about the questions an employer will ask, be sure to prepare responses that feature your real-life experiences -- stories that will leave the employer thinking, "Now here's someone who isn't just telling me something, but showing me something. This one's a keeper."

When is Halloween?

Halloween falls on Monday October 31st this year but the main celebration is likely to occur on Saturday the 29th. Look out for children trick or treating on the day itself though.

Why do we celebrate Halloween?

Every year we wear scary outfits, bob for apples and carve pumpkins - but why?

The Americanised (Americanized?) Halloween that we experience now actually originated in the Celtic fringes of Britain, and was adapted by Christian traditions, immigrants' conventions and an insatiable desire for sweets.

The word comes from 'Hallowed evening', and is the day before All Hallows Day - also known as All Saints' Day.

What is the history behind Halloween?

The origin of the festival is disputed, and there are both pagan and Christian practices that have evolved into what Halloween is like today.

Some believe it originates from the Celtic pagan festival of Samhain, meaning 'Summer's End' which celebrated the end of harvest season.

Gaels believed that it was a time when the walls between our world and the next became thin and porous, allowing spirits to pass through, come back to life on the day and damage their crops.

Places were set at the dinner table to appease and welcome the spirits. Gaels would also offer food and drink, and light bonfires to ward off the evil spirits.

 The origins of trick or treating and dressing up were in the 16th century in Ireland, Scotland and Wales where people went door-to-door in costume asking for food in exchange for a poem or song.

Many dressed up as souls of the dead, or Aos Si, and were understood to be protecting themselves from the spirits by impersonating them.

The Christian origin of the holiday is that it falls on the days before the feast of All Hallows, which was set in the eighth century to attempt to stamp out pagan celebrations. Christians would honour saints and pray for souls who have not yet reached heaven.

What has Halloween got to do with dressing up?

Celts dressed up in white with blackened faces during the festival of Samhain to trick the evil spirits that they believed would be roaming the earth before All Saints' Day on November 1st.By the 11th century, this had been adapted by the Church into a tradition called 'souling', which is seen as being the origin of trick-or-treating. Children go door-to-door, asking for soul cakes in exchange for praying for the souls of friends and relatives. They went dressed up as angels, demons or saints.

The soul cakes were sweet, with a cross marked on top; when eaten they represented a soul being freed from purgatory.

Nicholas Rogers, a historian at York University says that when people prayed for the dead at Hallow Mass, they dressed up.

When praying for fertile marriages, "the boy choristers in the churches dressed up as virgins. So there was a certain degree of cross dressing in the actual ceremony of All Hallow’s Eve.”

In the 19th century, souling gave way to guising or mumming, when children would offer songs, poetry and jokes - instead of prayer - in exchange for fruit or money.

Halloween trick-or-treating

The phrase trick-or-treat was first used in America in 1927, with the traditions brought over to America by immigrants. Guising gave way to threatening pranks in exchange for sweets.

After a brief lull during the sugar rations in World War Two, Halloween became a widespread holiday that revolved around children, with newly built suburbs providing a safe place for children to roam free.

Costumes became more adventurous - in Victorian ages, they were influenced by gothic themes in literature, and dressed as bats and ghosts or what seemed exotic, such as an Egyptian pharoah.

Later, costumes became influenced by pop culture, and became more sexualised in the 1970s.

Many of us have fallen victim to a scary Halloween prank, or even played the nasty trickster ourselves.

From jumping out of bushes dressed as zombies or spooking people in their sleep as ghosts - the terrifying list of possibilities is endless.

But what happens when a prank goes wrong? And what lessons can be learned from them for next time?

Why do we carve pumpkins?

The carving of pumpkins originates from the Samhain festival, whenGaels would carve turnips to ward off spirits and stop fairies from settling in houses.A theory that explains the Americanised name Jack O'Lantern came from the folkloric story of Stingy Jack, who fooled the devil into buying him a drink. He was not let into heaven or hell - and when he died, the devil threw him a burning ember which he kept in a turnip.

The influx of Irish immigrants in the 1840s to North America could not find any turnips to carve, as was tradition, so they used the more readily available pumpkin into which they carved scary faces.

By the 1920s pumpkin carving was widespread across America, and Halloween was a big holiday with dressing up and trick-or-treating.

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Have you been considering blogging but do not know how to get started? Well, this article has lots of information to help you make your blog get noticed in the crowd. Above all, don't let fear or intimidation stop you from blogging. Because of the proliferation of great technology, you will likely find blogging to be quite manageable. These tips will help you make progress toward enjoying blogging success.

Make your readers feel as if you are ever present for them. Make a habit of interacting with them. When you connect with your blog readers, they will expect that you will be around. You have an obligation to your readers if your blog really takes off. If you get frustrated, think of your readers.

Don't forget SEO work when it comes to blogging. Since your goal is for individuals to visit your blog, you need to be sure it ranks high in search results. Choose specific, popular keywords to use in both your blog title and throughout the entry itself so that you will attract more readers.

You must update frequently to keep your blog fresh. If you want to grow your readership, it is necessary to inject fresh content regularly. Without lots of new material, visitors will not be motivated to come back to your blog. Blogging daily will significantly improve your traffic.

Consider purchasing a domain instead of using a free blog site. It only costs a few dollars but gives you the ability to brand your website and increase your search engine rank. Doing this will also make your URL easier for visitors to remember, particularly if your business or website's name is the URL.

Invite other bloggers who have found success to write guest blog posts on your blog. This will raise the value of your blog and provide your readers with quality content. This also leads to an increase in quality traffic when these guest bloggers alert their readers to the content on your blog. Work with others to make your blog more content rich than ever.

You should allow guest posts to help increase blog traffic. This helps you develop relationships with other blog owners and can come in helpful. It's amazing what having a tight circle of bloggers will do for your site! In addition, guest blogging helps build link connections for both sites: they post on your blog, you post on theirs, and you both have fresh content from a new perspective and a backlink to your respective sites.

Keep adding fresh content to your blog so that readers have new and interesting material to read and a reason to keep coming back. The best blogs have regular content posted to them at least once every day. Don't let this requirement overwhelm you. If you want, you can write several weeks' worth of material before opening your blog to the public so that you'll have material to post if you get stuck. This gives you plenty of useful content ahead of time, just in case you get stuck with it in the future.

Make the appropriate social network links available, so readers can follow your blog. Linking your site to popular sites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, among others, will make a big difference in the success of your blog. Using a portal will give you lots options to communicate and reach out to the readers and possibly draw more readers in.

Now that you know the right way to start, you can start creating the blog you want. You can build yourself a blog to take pride in by using the suggestions provided here. Whatever the reason you blog, use the advice you have picked up in order to keep writing posts people want to experience.

First Post

Hello friends
This is my first post on Photospher.I create this blog for the discussion on Photography.
This is a place where you publish and share your amazing photos which you clicked with your own finger.

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