Resources and Links

7 Ways to Stop “Um-ing” and “Ah-ing”
Through Your Job Interview  

  1. Evaluate your verbal communication skills by audio-and/or videotape yourself as part of a mock interview, suggests Leah Ross-Kugler, MS, CCC-SLP, a certified speech-language pathologist. This way you can go back and listen for where you stumble.
  2. Prepare talking points about yourself and keep them tucked inside your writing portfolio. Discreetly refer to your points in order to keep the flow of conversation moving seamlessly.
  3. Focus on your breathing by taking replenishing breaths between phrases so you can use complete words instead of sounds. Ross-Kugler explains this helps slow down your speech and allows you concentrate on what you’re going to say next.
  4. Modify a distracting behavior such as giggling by smiling. By using an action considered to be positive and engaging, you not only patch over a potential gaffes but also improve your connection with the hiring manager.
  5. Designate a ring or a watch to a hand that is not routinely assigned to such accessories. They serve as reminders for avoiding nervous laughter during an interview, proposes Ross-Kugler.
  6. Join a speaker’s group such as the National Speaker’s Association (www.nsaspeaker.org) or Toastmasters International (www.toastmasters.org) to practice and improve your verbal communication skills.
  7. Keep an empty “filler sound jar” along with lots of pennies handy. Monitor your own number of filler sounds or enlist a friend or family member to do so. Similar to keeping a “swear jar,” throw a penny inside the jar each time you use a word filler, snort, giggle or do anything that interrupts your flow of speech.

When you want to get the right message across, it’s best to let the words flow. While you may not catch every ‘um’ or ‘ah’ at the next interview, you’ll certainly reduce the number you say and come off as the clear, intelligent candidate you are.

Property Management Job Search Resources

The Internet has opened a vast new way of searching for employment in professional property management. Regardless if you’re new to this career or you’re a season professional, the following internet websites offer both resources and job postings that if visited regularly, will only enhance your job search success.

Keep in mind, these are job search suggestions put together by some of our members, based on their own experiences. The more imaginative you are, the better your chances of finding employment. If you find another resource not listed here, that would benefit others in our field, drop us a line at info@ihmcanada.net. 

Armed with your Certificate in Property Management from the Institute of Housing Management along with your industry wide recognized professional property management designation “A.I.H.M.’ (Accredited Member, Institute of Housing Management), you are well on your way to a satisfying and challenging career in professional property management.

A good tip when visiting these websites is to save the ones you wish to return to by clicking on “Save to Favorites” in your browser. Better yet is to create a new folder in your Favorites tab and save these links in a newly created folder such as “Property Management Jobs”. Once this is done you can revisit the job sites daily, weekly etc simply by clicking on your Favorites tab and the websites will be in your Property Management Jobs folder. Best of luck! 

Other Tips and Resources

There are up to 47 municipal governments, called “Service Managers” in Ontario that provide social services including social housing and property management. Many job postings in property management are advertised on each of these municipal websites. To search for all 47 municipal government/Service Manager websites (or just the municipalities you wish to work for) use Google and type in “47 Service Managers” (without the quotation marks). Click on the results and write down the names of each of these municipalities. Then, type in the name of each municipality in the Google search bar, and click away at the results until you have that municipal government job posting web page. Save that page to your Favorites folder for regular re-visiting.

There are many property management companies in Ontario who hire their staff directly. Use the Google website to search for property management companies in Ontario, and click on the search result links to find them and their career job posting sites. Save these websites you visit in your Favorites tab, so you can visit them as part of your job search.