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SIOUXLAND SIGNAL
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IEEE SIOUXLAND SECTION NEWSLETTER
http://www.siouxland.org
Volume 9, Number 2 October, 1997
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MIDCOM GUIDED TOUR
WHEN: Thursday evening, October 23.
WHERE: Stars & Stripes Buffet, Watertown, South Dakota
ACTIVITIES: 5:00 PM Social
5:15 PM Dinner (The cost of the dinner will be about $8.00.)
6:30 PM Tour with guides Dave LeVasseur (Chief Technical Officer), Don Rigdon (Product
Development Manager), and Tony Oehlerking (Power Product Manager).
DIRECTIONS: To get to the Stars & Stripes Buffet, Take exit 177, Highway 212 West from the interstate and drive into town. The restaurant is located on the South side of Highway 212, adjacent to the Watertown Mall. To get to the Tour, Continue West on Highway 212 until you come to Highway 20 (approximately 1.5 miles). Turn right (North) travel 3.5 miles and turn into the Lake Air Industrial Park (airport is also located there). Midcom is the first industry on the right, with a red canopy. (121 Airport Drive)
RESERVATIONS: Not required.
Midcom is a rapidly growing, industry leading manufacturer of transformers and other electro-magnetic components used in computers, networks, telecommunications and related applications and industries. Midcom's products and technologies are essential to new products that are smaller, use less power and process data at ever increasing rates. Midcom's products are manufactured in high volumes in highly automated plants in Watertown, Huron and Aberdeen , South Dakota, Waverly, Iowa and Nogales and Obregon, Mexico. Midcom is the industries' technological leader and innovator with over 1600 employees.
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WATCHING YOUR COMPUTER: HDTV
WHEN: Thursday, December 4
WHERE: Dordt College Center for Science and Technology, room S101. 498 4th Ave NE, Sioux
Center, Iowa (Directions will be published in the next newsletter.)
ACTIVITIES: 5:30 PM Social, 6:00 PM Dinner, 7:15 PM Presentation by Douglas De Boer
RESERVATIONS: Call or e-mail your reservation to Douglas De Boer on or before Noon, December 1. Phone 712-722-6245. E-mail ddeboer@dordt.edu.
Our speaker's area of interest is communication systems. Last summer he attended the International Conference on Consumer Electronics where HDTV was a hot topic. He will report what he found out at this conference relating to HDTV. The presentation will be in a tutorial style, giving an overview of the ATSC DTV standard for HDTV and digital video coding.
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HOW TO PREPARE FOR A JOB INTERVIEW
The Interview! It's the only thing that stands between you and the job you want. This article is a short guide to interview preparation.
Interviews fall into four major categories depending on how the interview is conducted, and what the interviewer is looking for. An interview can be conducted in an informal manner, much like a conversation between colleagues. Conversely, the interviewer might ask questions from a list and make written notes. This is known as a structured interview. The interviewer might only be interested in job skills, or the emphasis might be on personality traits (for example: is this person easy to work with? loyal? hardworking?). The various combinations of structured vs. unstructured and skills vs. personality lead to the four major categories. Generally, an interview is not a pure type, but a mix.
There is one type of interview that has been developed fairly recently known as behavior-based interviewing. It is a structured, skill based style that assumes past behavior is a good predictor of future performance (unlike the stock market). This type of interview has been shown to be effective, however it takes a lot of preparation on the part of the interviewer. You will know that you are having this type of interview when you get questions that start: "Give me an example of a time when you..." Preparing for this type of interview will prepare you for any of the other three types. Although this article is too short to describe thoroughly how to prepare for a behavior-based interview, I can sketch in the main elements.
The first and most important step in preparation is self assessment. The goal is to gather ten to twenty stories about yourself that will illustrate (in a positive way) your work related skills and values. Evaluate your personality traits, values and skills including leadership, conflict management, and technical skills. Then think of specific experiences that illustrate these.
What about negative questions? The cliche question is, "What's your greatest weakness?". (The equally cliched answer is, "Some people think I work too hard." Don't try this answer, everyone knows it.) In general, negative questions are very difficult to answer. Here are some general strategies to cope with requests for negative information.
1. If the intent of the questioner is not completely clear to you restate the question and ask the interviewer if you have understood. This has the advantage of buying time.
2. Tactfully disagree, or admit to the flaw. Keep this part short.
3. Highlight a compensating strength, and/or show how you learned from the experience, and/or try to show the good side of your weakness, and/or distinguish between a tendency and actual performance. Example: You have a quick temper, but you have never blown up on the job.
4. In all cases, back up your arguments with stories.
The secret of success in an interview is preparation -- don't go in cold. There is more you can do to preparing for an interview. Interested readers should try "Get Hired!" by Paul Green (Bard Books Inc.)
by Ken Doniger, Employment Assistance Coordinator, Region 6
(severely shortened to fit available space by your
newsletter editor)
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# NEWS CLIPS #
# The National Building Museum, in conjunction with National Engineers Week, will present a new exhibit, "Breaking Through: The Creative Engineer," beginning in February 1998. The museum is seeking photographs of engineers at work, as well as quotations on creativity in engineering. Engineers can submit their photos (color or black-and-white, any size), captions, and quotations to exhibit curator Robert Friedel, National Building Museum, 401F Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20001. Photos will be returned upon request.
# SAT Math scores are up but engineering enrollment is coming down, according to a survey of the Class of 2001 by the College Board. Despite the infotech revolution, only eight percent of incoming college freshmen chose engineering as their intended major -- down from 11 percent 10 years ago Women are even scarcer: fewer than one out of five engineering freshmen will be women, according to the survey.
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(Budget Report removed by home page editor, format problems.)
OFFICERS OF IEEE SIOUXLAND SECTION FOR 1997-1998
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Please send comments or items to include in the newsletter to the newsletter editor
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corrections to IEEE headquarters or call them at (800)-678-IEEE.
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