As a telecommuting job seeker knows finding a work at home job is only one half the battle. Getting a phone interview is one step closer to landing the job.

You really only have one shot at an interview unless the first interview is a preliminary one. Either way you want to get a second interview and here are 5 tips on how you can have a winning interview and secure the position as yours.

1. Preparation - Come prepared for the phone interview. While you can't have rehearsed answers, you can prepare yourself to what may happen.

The two most common and toughest questions asked are, "Why do you want to work from home?" and "What are your weaknesses?" Be prepared to have an answer for both and practice saying it. Don't try to memorize or write down your answer because reading it off a paper will sound scripted, robotic and unnatural.

Have your cover letter and resume in front of you for quick references. Also have with you a pad of paper and pen to jot down any relevant information during the interview.

2. Quiet environment - It's easy to get distracted and lose concentration if there is background noise especially if you have kids or dogs. If possible, make other arrangements for child care and keep the television and radio off. If your phone interview comes unexpectedly, find the quietest room in your home.

It's best to use a landline phone, but if you're using a cell phone make sure it's fully charged and you're in the part of the house with the best reception.

3. Clear speaking voice - It's natural to be nervous, but when some people get nervous they ramble, speak fast, they sound too excited and their voice may crack or quiver. Slow down, be clear and concise. Only answer the question being asked. Avoid elaboration as this can lead to shooting yourself in the foot and make you sound like a nonsensical rambling fool.

Avoid the "ums" and non-speaking words like "mmhmm". Avoid using slang words like "yeah" and "uh-huh".

Speak with confidence and with a smile on your face. While your employer can't see it, they will certainly hear it in your voice.

4. Be a professional - Be courteous and professional at all times. Don't knock your previous employers or talk badly about other companies. There should be absolutely no eating, drinking or gum chewing during an interview.

For some people, getting dressed for the interview gives them more confidence. Get out of your jammies and dress for success!

5. Ask questions - This is part of being prepared for the interview. Research the company. Have a list of questions for your employer as this shows you were listening and are interested in the job.

One last tip: Like any other job interview follow it up with a "Thank You" letter and reiterate why you think you'd be the perfect telecommuter for the job.

S McIntyre owns www.WorkAtHomeSpace.com a free work at home resource focusing on work at home companies, daily telecommute job leads, articles, business resources and other work at home related topics.

You can find support and work at home tips on her work at home forums.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/5-tips-on-winning-the-telecommuting-phone-interview-1080917.html

Do you wonder if you're missing anything by looking at just the top 10 search results? Or maybe the thought of clicking the Next button 100 times and risking carpal tunnel stops you from digging deeper.

Meta search engines can help find results you might otherwise miss. However, combining results from many engines into a single list brings up some issues. By understanding the problems and their solutions, you can choose a better meta search engine to use.

Problems that Affect Meta Search Engine Rankings

1) How to judge the importance of results? If there was broad agreement between the major search engines, ordering search results would be straightforward. Unfortunately, numerous studies have shown there is surprisingly little overlap among the top results of the major search engines.

In hindsight this is not surprising since there is enormous pressure to get high rankings using dubious tactics such as link farming or hidden content only seen by search engines. The result is a lot of "noise" in rankings when compared over different search engines.

2) How to pinpoint areas of interest? Many search engines offer suggestions for search terms that help focus on your area of interest. Eventually though, you have to look through lists of results. If meta search engines can help pinpoint interesting results in the list through indexing, clustering, or re-ranking, that saves your valuable time.

Ranking Methods used by Meta Search Engines

1) Original ranking - one method is just to use the original rankings returned by the search engines. Some adjustment is necessary to break ties or boost results perceived to be more relevant. For example, dogpile.com changes the original ranking based on what search terms are used.

* Problematic - different search engine ranking methods are probably not compatible.

2) Vote ranking - an interesting method of ranking is to order by votes, where a web page gets a vote each time it is in the top 10 results of a search engine. Some meta search engines, such as Ixquick.com show you how many votes each result got.

* Good - however not many web pages get multiple votes.

3) Filtered ranking - this method is based on whether results contain certain words or phrases. You can choose words or phrases that filter out results or keep certain results with desirable phrases. Many desktop-based meta search engines have this feature.

* Useful but brittle - a result may be ruled in or out by accident depending on what specific word the author used.

4) Cluster ranking - once you have settled on good search words or phrases, eventually you must look through a list of results and pick out the most relevant ones. Clustering puts results into similar groups so that instead of looking through one long list, you immediately rule out non-relevant groups and concentrate on smaller lists of relevant groups. Clusty.com uses clustering to group results into smaller lists that are easier to search.

* Good - depending on the size and quality of the clusters.

5) Relevance ranking - Besides looking at the content of the search results, the latest meta search engines, such as iMetaSearch, can also look at which results you have marked as relevant and sort results based on your feedback. These meta search engines can re-order the results or clusters to automatically find results and clusters similar to the one you have marked.

* Good - user feedback is taken into account and all words plus their context are used to find similar results, not just a few specific words.

Chuck Paulson has over 12 years experience using and building meta search engines. He has recently released the simple-to-use iMetaSearch meta search engine at Puffinware LLC.Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/finding-the-best-results-using-meta-search-engines-1077458.html