General
How Do Others Ace Their Interviews?
by Steve Hernandez on Feb.23, 2010, under General
February 22, 2010
The job interview is an unusual situation: You’re put in a room you’ve never been in, with a person you’ve never met, to talk about a company you don’t work at, in order to persuade somebody that you’ll be excellent at a job you don’t have.
No wonder it feels awkward, artificial and anxious.
But a lot of the “mystery” around great job interviewing comes from the fact that we don’t do it that often. Every few years, we’re supposed to magically dust off our interview skills and go out there and shine.
Well, I talk to a lot of job-seekers, hiring managers, and recruiters, and the “secrets” behind great interviews aren’t really that mysterious after all.
So here’s what you need to know for making your job interviews a lot less nerve-wracking and a lot more effective.
Pick three points and stick to them.
Ever watched the politicians on TV? When the host asks them a real zinger of a question, you’ll notice they rarely get flustered. Instead, they reply right off the top of their heads with an answer that seems to be completely coherent and well-crafted.
No matter what the question is, and no matter how impertinently put, the politician has an answer and doesn’t get distracted by the host’s badgering. I can’t say whether that’s good for us voters, but I can tell you it’s deadly effective for giving a great interview.
It’s called “staying on message” and the politicians don’t do it by accident.
Before they go on TV, they write down (or have written down for them) “talking points” that make the key arguments they want to make. And whatever else happens, they make sure to get their talking points across.
So in order to ace your interviews, you’ll want to have your own talking points.
And here’s the truly amazing thing — you don’t even need to come up with them on your own. Unlike the fickle electorate, your target audience will tell you exactly what you need to say! All you have to do is ask them.
When you are setting up the interview, ask the recruiter or HR person: What are the three key things you’re looking for in this position? And why are they important to the company? (If you’re not able to get this question in beforehand, you can still ask it right at the start of the interview.)
They might say this position is for a new initiative, or this role is critical for the implementation of the strategy, or the boss needs an expert to help assist them in this area.
Whatever the three key needs for the role are, write down beforehand how you can accomplish those needs. Don’t over-practice, just make sure that you know their three needs by heart, and you’ve got a reasonable argument for why you can help them.
Then during the interview, if conversation gets steered away to upcoming spring training or the snow this winter, or Tiger’s apology on Friday, you just make sure that you steer it back to how you can contribute on the three key needs.
Stay on message and when you walk out, your message will stay behind with your future boss.
It’s not about you
If you think about the interview from your future boss’ point of view, the interview is not about you. It’s about how well you fit into his or her needs. If you stick to your talking points above, you’ll avoid one of the most common errors people make in job interviews: talking about themselves without a real purpose.
Yes, you need to discuss your career goals, but only in the context of how they match up with what your boss is looking for.
And, yes, you need to discuss your prior performance and successes, but only to the extent that it supports how you match the three key needs the company has for the open position.
A job interview is a sales call — it’s about selling you and your experiences and skills and talent for the role.
It’s not an A&E Biography about ${firstname}, it’s a discussion about the company, their needs, the role, and how well you do, or don’t, fit into the plans.
And it is most especially not a chance for you to get distracted on extraneous topics that may be very important to you, but have absolutely nothing to do with how well you can do the job. Because these topics are very important to you and you’ve been thinking about them a lot, you’ll need to make an extra-special effort to avoid dwelling on them in the interview:
- How difficult the job search is (ok, yes it is, how is talking about this going to help you shorten your job search?)
- What your perfect career would be (we’re not here to talk about your perfect career, we’re here to talk about this job and who we should hire for it)
- The wrong decisions made by your previous boss / company / colleagues (how is this helping you get your next job? It’s not. Avoid.)
If I can be slightly tongue-in-cheek, the rule for job interviews is: “He who talks the least, wins.” If you can get your interviewer talking about their needs, their hopes, and their viewpoints, you’ll be collecting a lot more information about what it takes to get the job. Making your key points can take as little as 10 minutes if you’re strictly on message. Use the rest of your time to find out what else you need to know to make your case.
Have good questions
Even though I’m usually the final person to meet a candidate here at TheLadders, I’m always surprised when people I’m interviewing say they don’t have any questions for me. Sure, you’ve already met four of my colleagues and they’ve answered a lot of the open questions you had about TheLadders, but, really? You have absolutely no good questions for me?
And that’s because asking questions is only 50% about addressing your needs, explaining the role to you, and satisfying your curiosity. The other 50% of asking questions is showing your capability to think critically about the company, the industry, and the role. Use that time to show off your good noodle by asking (brief) insightful questions.
And because I like you, here are ten questions that are good for almost any interview, plus a bonus question that will really make you stand out:
- What’s the biggest change your group has gone through in the last year?
- One year from now, if I get the job, what will earn me a “gold star”? What are the key accomplishments you’d like to see in this role over the next year?
- What’s your (or my future boss’) leadership style?
- About which competitor are you most worried?
- How do your sales / marketing / technology / operations work here?
- What type of people are successful here? What type of people are not?
- What’s one thing that’s key to your success that somebody from outside the company wouldn’t know about?
- How did you get your start in this industry? Why do you stay?
- What are your best and worst working relationships with other groups in the company?
- What keeps you up at night? What’s your biggest worry?
And here’s the bonus, my favorite, and the best way to really demonstrate how much value you’re going to add to your boss’ career:
How do you (Mr. or Ms. Future Boss) get a gold star / big bonus / your boss’ recognition & thanks at the end of the year? How can I best help you do that?
Why is this question so good? It shows you’re thinking about others, not just yourself. It shows that you want to be helpful and help the boss and the team achieve. And it gets your future boss thinking about how beneficial it is going to be to have somebody like you on the team helping them achieve their goals.
OK, Readers, that’s how you ace the interview. Good luck this week!
I’ll be rooting for you!
Guidelines to Development on the Hollywood Operating System
by Steve Hernandez on Nov.05, 2009, under General, Technology
Courtesy of Cain’s Brain.
1. Any PERMISSION DENIED has an OVERRIDE function.
2. Complex calculations and loading of huge amounts of data will be accomplished in under three seconds. In the movies, modems transmit data at two gigabytes per second.
3. When the power plant/missile site/whatever overheats, all the control panels will explode, as will the entire building.
4. If you display a file on the screen and someone deletes the file, it also disappears from the screen. There are no ways to copy a backup file — and there are no undelete utilities.
Corollary: Deleting a file instantly removes all copies of said file from disks, memory, frame buffers and caches across all computers in the universe.
5. If a disk has got encrypted files, you are automatically asked for a password when you try to access it.
6. No matter what kind of computer disk it is, it’ll be readable by any system you put it into. All application software is usable by all computer platforms.
7. The more high-tech the equipment, the more buttons it has. However, everyone must have been highly trained, because the buttons aren’t labeled.
8. Most computers, no matter how small, have reality-defying three-dimensional, real-time, photo-realistic animated graphics capability.
9. Laptops, for some strange reason, always seem to have amazing real-time video phone capabilities and the performance of a CRAY.
10. Whenever a character looks at a terminal, the image is so bright that it projects itself onto his/her face.
11. Computers never crash during key, high-intensity activities. Humans operating computers never make mistakes under stress.
12. (From Independence Day) No matter what kind of virus it is, any computer can be infected with it — even an alien spaceship’s computer — simply by running a virus upload program on a laptop.
13. (From Jurassic Park) A custom system with millions of lines of code controlling a multimillion dollar theme park can be operated by a 13 year old who has seen a Unix system before. Seeing an operating system means you know how to run any application on that system, even custom apps.
Note: What OS was it really running?
(1) “These are super computers”. A CrayOS?
(2) “Quicktime movie, Apple logo, trash can.” MacOS?
(3) “Reboot. System ready. C:\” DOS?
(4) “Hey, this is Unix. I know this” Unix?
The computers in Jurassic Park were Cray supercomputers running the MacOS as a graphical shell of DOS all layered on top of a Unix base.
14. You cannot stop a destructive program or virus by unplugging the computer. Presumably the virus has it’s own built-in power supply.
15. You cannot stop a destructive program downloading onto your system by unplugging the phone line. You must figure out the mandatory “back door” all evil virus programmers put in.
16. Computers only crash if a virus or a hacker is involved.
17. All text must be at least 72 point.
18. Word processors do not have an insert point.
19. The only way to reboot is to shut off the main power to the building.
20. Passwords can be guessed in three and exactly three tries. If you cannot guess the password in three tries, you must give up immediately.
21. Any task or program can be executed by simply pressing Enter, no matter which program or window is in the foreground.
22. All scanners, video cameras and digital cameras have a resolution of approximately 500 megapixels. Any image can be infinitely magnified with no pixelization.
23. Security will not improve over time. Nonaffialiated personnel can take over a space ship without needing an account or access control. Corollary: Anyone can override access control lists in the future.
24. All hackers wear black T-shirts or Hawaiian shirts.
25. Incoming messages are displayed letter by letter. Email over the Internet works like telegraphs.
26. Microsoft Windows doesn’t exist. Macintosh has a 75% market share.
27. GUI operations, such as image selection and manipulation, can be handled easily and quickly via the keyboard.
28. If a robot’s eyes turn red, it becomes evil.
29. Cell phones and laptops have infinite battery life, until you need to call for help.
30. Latency does not exist. Voice and data can be sent to Mars in real time.
Study Finds College Grads Are Seeing Fewer Job Offers, Lower Salaries
by Steve Hernandez on Sep.10, 2009, under Academic, General
KLAS-TV Las Vegas, NV (9/10) reports that a recent study from the National Association of Colleges and Employers found that “college grads are taking major hits to their high salary hopes.” According to the study, “the average starting salary for college grads this year was about $48,000,” a decline of “about $1,100″ from last year. Job offers are also down roughly 20 percent for college graduates. Meanwhile, “another survey highlights which college fields have the lowest-paying jobs.” These include “social work, special education, and elementary education.” A student interviewed as part of the article noted that engineering is one of the few fields that are seeing pay increases.
Labor Market Remains Tight. The Wall Street Journal (9/10, A2, Evans) reports that economic recovery notwithstanding, employment continues to lag. The Journal notes that the number of open positions reported by the Labor Department was 2.4 million, compared to the 2007 figure of 4.8 million jobs. The Journal also notes that the Federal Reserve beige book says “labor market conditions remain weak.”
The AP (9/10, Rugaber) reports, “Job openings fell to the lowest level in nine years in July…as businesses remain reluctant to hire despite signs the economy is improving.” Yet, “jobs are being added in some sectors, as companies seek more health care, technology and child care workers. The report underscores the tough competition that jobless Americans face.” The AP notes, “The report also adds to evidence that companies likely will wait until the economy is clearly recovering before hiring new employees. Many analysts believe the economy is likely to grow at a healthy 3% rate in the second half of this year, pulling the country out of the worst recession since the 1930s.” They worry, however, “that the growth will be difficult to sustain, particularly once government stimulus measures, such as the Cash for Clunkers program that ended last month, are no longer in effect.”
Wage Gap Smaller As High Paid Workers Lose Ground. The Wall Street Journal (9/10, A1, Davis, Frank) reports in a front-page story that during the current recession, the difference in income between top earners and those at the bottom has declined. Rather than indicating an improvement for lower-paid workers, the Journal notes that smaller wage gap is the result of declining compensation at the top of the labor market.
Making Your LinkedIn Profile Stand Out to Employers
by Steve Hernandez on Aug.14, 2009, under General
by C.G. Lynch
January 12, 2009 —
As the economy falls deeper into recession, many people have turned to LinkedIn, the social network for professionals, to job hunt and connect with contacts who might help them land a new gig. But career experts say your LinkedIn job-hunting efforts will all be for naught if you don’t build your profile page properly and ensure that it is search-friendly for potential employers and recruiters.
You can take some simple steps (all free of charge) to ensure that you’ve done everything possible to differentiate your LinkedIn profile from the others, career management experts say. These steps will make it more likely that recruiters and other LinkedIn users will find you serendipitously when they navigate and search the site.
We’ve arranged these tips (roughly) in the order they appear on a LinkedIn profile page. In order to change your profile, log into LinkedIn and go the left menu. Click on the aptly named “Edit my profile” link.
Picture
While you don’t necessarily need to pay a professional photographer, it’s important to upload a picture to your LinkedIn profile, says Jason Alba, CEO of Jibberjobber.com, a career management firm, and author of the book I’m On LinkedIn – Now What?.
“It doesn’t have to be amazing, but a picture just makes your profile a lot more personable,” Alba says. “With the way digital cameras are nowadays, just put on a suit and have your friend take some pictures and crop it in.”
Professional Headline
Like the New York Times has its slogan “all the news that’s fit to print,” your professional tagline should sum you up for the LinkedIn reader, very concisely.
Because the professional tagline occupies the prime real-estate immediately below where your name is, you really want to make this one count, says Kirsten Dixson, a career management consultant who specializes in helping people utilize web applications for their professional endeavors.
“It’s how you position yourself right away in the reader’s mind,” Dixson says. “It should be a shortened version of your personal brand.”
According to Alba of Jibberjobber.com, if you have a job, it’s not necessary for you to use your actual title, especially since that appears in the “current” jobs section of your LinkedIn profile section. If you’re looking for a job, “think of the tagline as your ten second pitch,” he says. “It’s not easy to do [in so small a space], but make sure you get a clear message in there of what you’re about professionally.”
What Are You Working On?
This is like LinkedIn’s version of Twitter, the short messaging service that allows users to leave status messages regarding what they’re doing. Unlike Twitter, all your status messages should be business-like in tone and compelling for readers.
According to Dixson, these messages could ask an intelligent question to your fellow contacts, known as “connections,” on LinkedIn. Or you might offer mention of a specific project you’re working on that exemplifies the kind of work you do or are interested in pursuing.
Dixson says the status update also provides an easy avenue to keep your page fresh. If you update it regularly, it will show that you’re engaged with your LinkedIn page and the people who visit it.
Your Websites
LinkedIn allows you to list three websites on your profile. Most people choose to add their company sites, or blog (if they have one).
When you go to add a site in the edit settings page, you will be given the option to describe the site generically as “My Company” or “My Blog.” But if you look closely, you can click on “Other,” which will allow you to type in something customary. Alba recommends using that feature.
While you could choose to type in your company name, Alba says you might want to use a phrase that’s descriptive and that will draw readers in. In Alba’s case, for instance, he would describe his blog as “career management blog” instead of the generic “My blog.”
Go get your LinkedIn URL
Like any social network or web service of its kind, LinkedIn will create an address for your profile page. Ideally, you want to have your name at the end of the URL. Such as, for example, http://www.linkedin.com/in/cglynch.
You can edit your LinkedIn URL. And do it quickly, especially if you suspect many users share the same name as you. It’s much like free e-mail services: it’s better to be John Smith@[email service] than JohnSmith1431@[e-mail service].
“This is a URL you might leave in your blog or homepage, or maybe in your professional e-mail signature,” Alba says. “If it’s cleaner and recognizable, that will be helpful.”
Summary
The “summary” section is the meat of your LinkedIn profile, and matters a great deal both in terms of human interaction (do people find it interesting?), and also in terms of LinkedIn’s powerful search engine, which will find certain keywords in it relevant, and return you higher in search results when people query terms in your field of work.
“The more keywords you have the more relevant you are in search,” Alba says. “So if you’re in project management, for example, you might want to have PMP (Project Management Professional) in there.”
But Alba says you must remember that humans will be reading your summary, so don’t get so hung up on keywords that the summary becomes unreadable.
“Some people will do SEO (search engine optimization) and make it just a list of keywords,” Alba says. “That’s not very compelling for a human reading your summary.”
One thing you might do, Dixson says, is focus on writing a good concise summary of yourself in the summary field and save the keywords for “specialties,” which appears as a subsection within the summary and can be modified when you click to edit your summary.
Recommendations
Recommendations allow people viewing your profile to get a third-party perspective on you and your work. If you ask someone to write you a recommendation, you will be able to approve it before it gets posted to your profile.
While Alba says it’s nice to have that recommendation where your boss gushes over all the great work you do, don’t stop there. Go for what career coaches call the 360-degree view.
“If you can have subordinates say you’re the greatest boss in the world, or customers who say you’re great to do business with, that provides [readers of your LinkedIn profile] with a much fuller view of you,” Alba says.
What to do with Apps
In October, LinkedIn launched its applications platform, making it possible for users to add up to 10 different apps to their LinkedIn profile.
“Whatever you do within the apps, keep it on brand,” Alba says.
As an example, then, don’t use the slideshow application to post pictures of your vacation to Florida or anything personal. Instead, the app to create a PowerPoint-like presentation showcasing your work, Dixson says, or display your career goals in another engaging format.
CIO.com
The Hidden Secrets of Online Quizzes
by Steve Hernandez on May.18, 2009, under General, Technology
You can have a ball taking online quizzes on Facebook and other sites, but here are some things you should know before you do.
JR Raphael, PC World
Tuesday, May 12, 2009 04:00 PM PDT
I am a genius. I’m charismatic, kind, and understanding. I’m also a Disney princess named Aurora and the reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe.
But I’m not crazy (at least, not completely). I’ve just been taking a lot of online quizzes lately — you know, the ones all over the Web promising to reveal your IQ, personality traits, or celebrity resemblances. Aside from discovering my inner Sleeping Beauty, I’ve also learned something important: These quizzes are about far more than providing users with enlightening or entertaining information.
The Real Deal
While Web quizzes may be fun to take, they’re also a powerful tool for companies to collect your data and even your money — and often in ways you might not notice. We’ll get to the spooky stuff in a moment, but let’s start with the simplest method of quiz-based marketing: advertising. The very nature of a typical online quiz requires you to divulge all sorts of details about yourself. Those tidbits of info are like nuggets of gold for advertisers craving a way to connect with you.
“The big trend is about engagement,” says Debra Aho Williamson, a senior analyst with eMarketer. “These quizzes are getting people to pay attention to ads.”
After more than 100 online ‘offers’ appeared, the author gave up on trying to obtain the results of the test he took.
Paying attention, it seems, is almost a requirement: Aside from being carefully targeted at your interests, the ads are often in-your-face and impossible to avoid. Take, for example, TheFreeIQTest.com, a quiz I found via a text ad on Google. By the time I clicked through the 105th “offer” (aka advertisement) it threw in front of my results — no exaggeration — I gave up without seeing the results of the quiz.
“There’s a clear annoyance factor, leading people to one thing, then at the last minute bait-and-switching them,” Williamson says. “The challenge with this type of advertising is walking that line between people wanting it and people wanting it to go away.”
The ads can follow you long after you click away, too. Just look at RealAge, a detailed quiz that assigns you a “biological age” based on your family history and health habits. The site, a recent investigation revealed, takes your most sensitive answers — those about sexual difficulties, say, or signs of depression — and sells them to drug companies looking to market medications.
Bigger Issues
Unwanted advertising, unfortunately, is only the tip of the iceberg. Some online quizzes will surprise you with required payments or purchases before you can access your results. While the requirement may be in the fine print somewhere, it’s often not in a place you’d easily notice before beginning the process.
It’s when the PayPal logo pops up that you realize Test-IQ.com wants $7 to give you your quiz results.
That’s exactly the scenario I found at Test-IQ.com, a quiz advertised on Facebook. The site’s home page makes no mention of a fee–you’d have to click to the privacy policy and read to the bottom to discover the $7 charge. Other sites, such as IQ-Test-Results.com, slip in recurring monthly fees for registered users.
You really have to dig to figure out what this quiz site wants to do with your credit card.
Then there are quizzes like CheckMyPersonality.com. Its Web site says, “Happy! (Shy) Sad? Outgoing, Fun? Which are you? Find Out for Free with CheckMyPersonality.com.” This site goes as far as to periodically access your credit card once you’ve signed up. I discovered a line in the company’s privacy terms that gives it an ongoing right to “verify that your credit card account is valid and has credit available” by charging fees and later crediting them off.
Worse, that line isn’t even in the terms linked on the home page–it’s in a secondary set buried deeper in the site. It comes up under a link labeled “Privacy Policy” on the fourth screen you reach as you fill out the quiz. The page is hosted on a different domain, and is separated from the site’s privacy policy page, but it is still branded as CheckMyPersonality.com.
CheckMyPersonality.com also authorizes its owners to dig up all kinds of information on you. The company states that it may use “third-party service providers” to track down everything from your household income to your buying habits–and then resell that data to marketing agencies.
“These [types of sites] are data-mining havens where users willingly opt-in from the very beginning,” says Ryan Jacobson, an attorney and cochair of the Entertainment Media and Privacy Law Group at the law firm SmithAmundsen in Chicago. “I’m afraid that the average user fails to recognize or take the time to understand what privacy rights he or she is actually giving up by responding.”
CheckMyPersonality.com, incidentally, didn’t respond to our requests for comment.
The Trust Factor
Ultimately, deciding whether you should take an online quiz comes down to a question of trust: Are you comfortable putting your information–personal or financial–into the owner’s hands? Remember, even if you don’t directly input data, it can be passed along. Such is the case with Facebook, where just opening an application automatically grants its developer access to your entire profile. And don’t assume that the developer isn’t going to use the information within.
“The very intimate and detailed nature of the information featured on Facebook profiles makes such a database very valuable to marketers,” says Guillaume Lovet, a senior manager with security company Fortinet.
Finally, bear in mind that the quizzes’ results may not even mean much. In the case of online IQ tests, for instance, many of the exams are about as valid as my excuse for missing mah-jongg night at the clubhouse.
“These things are simply not sophisticated,” says Dr. Martin Eaton, a licensed clinical psychologist and adjunct professor at the University of Southern California. “Calling them intelligence tests would be a misnomer.”
The test that declared me a genius, I can only assume, was a rare exception.
Connect with JR Raphael on Twitter (@jr_raphael) or via his Web site, jrstart.com.
How much coal does it take…
by Steve Hernandez on Apr.24, 2009, under General, Personal
Utilizing the numbers below, we find:
2,460 kWh/ton = 2460 kWh per 907.18474 kg of coal
= 2.71169 kWh / kg of coal
If utilizing Gigabyte’s Dynamic Energy Saver application saves (2.412265625 W / h) 21.1314 kWh, then I’m saving 57.3018 kg (126.3289 lbs) of coal with that little application running. What’s funny is that the 21 kWh x $0.12 / kWh only saves me $2.52 per year in energy savings, BUT, in theory the system will produce less heat so it won’t heat up the room so much, requiring less cooling. Probably not anything terribly noticeable, but hey, it’s something.
Further, it will save:
0.0828 kg (0.1821 lbs) Sulfur Dioxide
0.084448 kg (0.1858 lbs) Nitrous Oxide
30.63293 kg (67.392 lbs) Carbon Dioxide
From being pumped into the atmosphere.
Every little bit helps to save mother Earth.
**********************************************************************************
How much coal is required to run a 100-watt light bulb 24 hours a day for a year?
We’ll start by figuring out how much energy in kilowatt-hours the light bulb uses per year. We multiply how much power it uses in kilowatts, by the number of hours in a year. That gives 0.1 kW x 8,760 hours or 876 kWh.
The thermal energy content of coal is 6,150 kWh/ton. Although coal fired power generators are very efficient, they are still limited by the laws of thermodynamics. Only about 40 percent of the thermal energy in coal is converted to electricity. So the electricity generated per ton of coal is 0.4 x 6,150 kWh or 2,460 kWh/ton.
To find out how many tons of coal were burned for our light bulb we divide 876 kWh by 2,460 kWh/ton. That equals 0.357 tons. Multiplying by 2,000 pounds/ton we get 714 pounds (325 kg) of coal. That is a pretty big pile of coal, but let’s look at what else was produced to power that light bulb.
A typical 500 megawatt coal power plant produces 3.5 billion kWh per year. That is enough energy for 4 million of our light bulbs to operate year round. To produce this amount of electrical energy, the plant burns 1.43 million tons of coal. It also produces:
| Pollutant | Total for Power Plant | One Light Bulb-Year’s Worth |
| Sulfur Dioxide – Main cause of acid rain | 10,000 Tons | 5 pounds |
| Nitrogen Oxides – Causes smog and acid rain | 10,200 Tons | 5.1 pounds |
| Carbon Dioxide – Greenhouse gas suspected of causing global warming | 3,700,000 Tons | 1852 pounds |
It also produces smaller amounts of just about every element on the periodic table, including the radioactive ones. In fact, a coal-burning power plant emits more radiation than a (properly functioning) nuclear power plant!
Car Insurance
by Steve Hernandez on Aug.30, 2008, under General, Personal
Well, my car insurance had to be renewed recently, and I was with eSurance. My 6 month premium was $415 (which I thought was descent). I have never been in an accident and my last ticket was several years ago. So I get a notice from eSurance that my new renewal premium was $563. That’s a ~35% increase, and I haven’t been in an accident or anything?!
I called (quite a few times) to make sure there wasn’t something incorrect on my driving record, and there wasn’t. The only thing they could say to me was “The premiums have increased in your state.”, I asked, “What’s the average increase?”, to which she replied “about 9%”. I almost flipped! “So why is my premium being raised by more than a third?”. “I don’t know sir.” PFFT, know this, I left eSurance.
I went online and got quotes, and eventually went with Geico. Surprisingly, Geico’s premium for me came out to $260 for 6 months!!! That’s less than half of eSurance! WoOhoO!! Same converage, same deductibles. Same everything, with online paperwork too!
And I would like to say that the Geico customer service rep was delightful. I tried to leave a good word with her supervisor, but that individual was not in yet (I called at like 8:40am). She said “If you’re please with our service, please let someone know about it”. I’m a man of my word, so that’s exactly what I’m doing.
Geico saved me 58% ($303) on my car insurance. Highly recommended.
Mac vs. PC
by Steve Hernandez on Aug.15, 2008, under General, Technology
Contributed By CainsBrain.
Personal Quote
by Steve Hernandez on Jul.02, 2008, under General
“Where overlap and duplication exist, consolidation is plausible, possible and preferred.” – Steve O Hernandez
