50 Worst Job Interview Mistakes

I have a piece of useful information for the fresh graduates and others who intend to attend for an interview. These are the 50 worst job interview mistakes which may get yourself eliminated. These may be common sense to certain people. However, there are a lot people being oblivious of these mistakes.

Image from: http://www.zakshow.com/2009/01/15/how-to-triumph-in-a-job-interview/

1. Arriving late.

2. Arriving too early.

3. Lighting up a cigarette, or smelling like a cigarette.

4. Bad-mouthing your last boss.

5. Lying about your skills/experience/knowledge.

6. Wearing the wrong (for this workplace!) clothes.

7. Forgetting the name of the person you're interviewing with.

8. Wearing a ton of perfume or aftershave.

9. Wearing sunglasses.

10. Wearing a Bluetooth earpiece.

11. Failing to research the employer in advance.

12. Failing to demonstrate enthusiasm.

13. Inquiring about benefits too soon.

14. Talking about salary requirements too soon.

15. Being unable to explain how your strengths and abilities apply to the job in question.

16. Failing to make a strong case for why you are the best person for this job.

17. Forgetting to bring a copy of your resume and/or portfolio.

18. Failing to remember what you wrote on your own resume.

19. Asking too many questions.

20. Asking no questions at all.

21. Being unprepared to answer the standard questions.

22. Failing to listen carefully to what the interviewer is saying.

23. Talking more than half the time.

24. Interrupting your interviewer.

25. Neglecting to match the communication style of your interviewer.

26. Yawning.

27. Slouching.

28. Bringing along a friend, or your mother.

29. Chewing gum, tobacco, your pen, your hair.

30. Laughing, giggling, whistling, humming, lip-smacking.

31. Saying "you know," "like," "I guess," and "um."

32. Name-dropping or bragging or sounding like a know-it-all.

33. Asking to use the bathroom.

34. Being falsely or exaggeratedly modest.

35. Shaking hands too weakly, or too firmly.

36. Failing to make eye contact (or making continuous eye contact).

37. Taking a seat before your interviewer does.

38. Becoming angry or defensive.

39. Complaining that you were kept waiting.

40. Complaining about anything!

41. Speaking rudely to the receptionist.

42. Letting your nervousness show.

43. Over explaining why you lost your last job.

44. Being too familiar and jokey.

45. Sounding desperate.

46. Checking the time.

47. Over sharing.

48. Sounding rehearsed.

49. Leaving your cell phone on.

50. Failing to ask for the job.

(Credit to author: Karen Burns)

Sonic Velocity – Piping Design

Sonic velocity is also known as speed of sound. In chemical engineering, sonic velocity is defined as the sound velocity of the internal fluid. From my knowledge, this term, sonic velocity is important to verify if the internal fluid across the valve achieves “choked condition” or “critical condition”. When the fluid achieves that condition, it is described as choked flow. Choked flow is an undesired condition to the process flow system. It is a condition in which the mass flow rate will not increase with further decrease in the outlet pressure (P_outlet) and fixed inlet pressure (P_inlet). When choked flow is achieved, the Mach number will be equal to 1 (Ma = 1).

The formula of Sonic Velocity is as defined below: (Rule of thumb)

[Source: Branan, C. R. , The Process Engineer’s Pocket Handbook, Vol. 1, Gulf Publishing Co., 1976]

Sonic velocity, V_s = sqrt (K*g*R*T/Mw)

Where,

V_s = sonic velocity with unit of ft/sec

K = C_p/C_v

g = 32.2 ft/sec²

R = 1544 ft lbf °R⁻¹ lb-mol⁻¹

Mw = Molecular Weight

T = Absolute temperature, °R

Sometimes, clients request for this computation in the dynamic simulation (HYSYS). This is to ensure if the flow achieves ‘choked flow’ throughout the simulation analysis.

In HYSYS software, sonic velocity is not included in the “Stream” Properties Tab. It requires doing a manual computation using the intrinsic property of the fluid. This can be done by inserting a HYSYS “Spreadsheet” icon in which the required variables (K and T) can be imported from the “Stream” “Properties” and “Condition” tabs. After that, the sonic velocity formula can be input into one of the cell in the spreadsheet using the variable imported from the “Stream” “Properties” and “Condition” tabs. When the integrator is activated and calculation integration step begins, the sonic velocity result will be automatically generated itself for every single integration time step.

In order to monitor the progress of the flow condition (choked flow or not), another flow speed is inserted next to the flow sonic flow. The flow speed can be described as

v = (actual volume flow) / (internal piping cross sectional area)

Sonic velocity and flow velocity are plotted in a strip chart. As the integrator is activated, the calculated result of sonic velocity and flow velocity will be plotted in the strip chart. From the strip chart, it can determine if the flow achieves the choked condition. For non-choked flow condition, the flow velocity must always be lower than the sonic velocity.

A token of appreciation to Phil Leckner’s explanation:

“Some people do not allow the velocity in the downstream piping to ever achieve a flow greater than 75% to 80% of sonic. You can do this by increasing the piping size but of course, you pay more for this as well. I don't necessarily subscribe to this limitation. I will size the pipe for sonic velocity but then choose the next larger standard pipe size. This will bring the velocity down somewhat. I then have the piping designers design the pipe for potential vibration if necessary.”

Sitiawan 27 August 2010

After Singapore meeting, I drove all the way to Sitiwan for a vacation. Sitiwan is quite a tranquil place where many beautiful mansions can be found. The food is incredibly awesome. The traffic is very smooth and wide. During the trip, I was bloated with a lot of nice foods. FYI, I am not a meat eater nor pure vegetarian but yet I could find many nice foods there. Thanks to Dennis’s father, I managed to try a lot of great foods. There was a restaurant we have been to quite frequent, Michelin Star Restaurant. The chief is very skilful in cooking. At first, I though it is an ordinary restaurant which is good in non-veggie meal. To my surprise, the chief is an expert in vegetarian cuisine. I was so fortunate to have such a wonderful meal in this restaurant.

Favourite restaurant (Michelin Star Restaurant) we often visited

Besides that, several orders were made. Before the meal, we started with whisky and red wine. Dennis and I did not drink as we are not really keen in alcohol. After that, they started the meal with abalone. Oh gosh, at 1st, I thought uncle was kidding of ordering abalone. Well, I didn’t take any of that as I do not eat meat but I grabbed some mushroom and broccoli from them. After having abalone, the main course was served that are pork, fish and 2 vegie. The price was quite reasonable. If we ordered these several meal, it may costs more than what the price in Sitiawan.

This is the excitement of having this meal. That is the dennis’s expression over the delicious meal. Hehe…

After dinner, we went to Foo’s Steakhouse for dessert where Dennis and I enjoyed the sesame ice-cream.

The Energy Challenge of the World (Essay)

These days, majority of international media are focusing on the flooding issues in China, Russia and Pakistan. The flood has devastated most of their lands and put them into a plight. The main reason of the flood is the climate change caused by global warming. In general, global warming effect increases the average temperature of the Earth and causes imbalance in the ecology. From these incidents, it can be seemed that global warming effect is becoming more significant and horrendous. Everyone starts to realize that the Earth is sick and we, human beings are the culprit of this issue. We burn the fossil fuel to meet our demands in energy that is the main source for all the industries. Without energy, the economics cannot grow and mankind is unable to survive. Fossil fuel combustion will emit a green house gases which are carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. These gases are the contributions to the global warming. The global is facing the energy challenge in boosting the economic growth while protecting the environment.

Undoubtedly, energy is highly demanded for one nation’s economic development. Nowadays, the energy demand is growing rapidly as the big developing countries like China and India enter the most energy-intensive phase of economic development. These countries have an abundant supply of cheap manpower in the world. Majority of the international investors enter their nations to access to the low-cost manpower and increase their profits. Due to the surge of investment in these countries, enormous energy is needed to construct building, infrastructures and maintain operations. If the countries fail to ensure their energy security, the growth of economic development will be retarded. As a matter of fact, the investors incline to the country which can ensure the sufficient energy supply and the cheaper labour cost. The competitions of getting more investors become more tensed and fiercer. As a consequence, the energy demand in these countries increases at a great accelerated rate.

However, the supplies of easy accessible fossil fuel are hard to keep up with the energy demands in the future. The world will enter a predicament when supplies cannot meet the energy demand. All the industries will be affected and all the operations will be slow down. Electricity generation and all the productions using energy will be halted. All the works will be unable to continue. The global economics will become disorder and there will be probably higher rate of retrenchments and unemployment. It will have great impact on the transportation sector as it is the main consumers of fossil fuel. Although alternative and renewable energy can be used to substitute the fossil fuel, it takes a long time for these energies to provide as high power as fossil fuel. Therefore, the world will have to utilize the energy more efficiently and increase the use of other energy sources like renewable and alternative energy gradually.

In general, the future energy challenge is to meet energy demands while protecting the environment. In order to meet the energy demands, advanced cutting edge technologies to unlock more oil and gas from difficult-to-reach remote or hostile environments have to be implemented. Besides that, new techniques for prolonging the existing oil field lives, renewable and alternative energy are the essential remedies to ensure sufficient energy supply. As carbon dioxide emitted from combustion is the main element of contribution to global warming, research and development of the carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects become more vital. To ensure energy security, coalition among countries is very significant.

FPSO – Floating Production Storage and Offloading

A conventional offshore platform

FPSO was the term I came across for my second project. FPSO is the abbreviation of floating production storage and offloading. These days, almost all the easy accessible oils have been explored and produced. Majority of the existing production oil field are going to be dried soon. The oil exploration activity was broaden to the Deep Water Exploration and Production. The conventional drilling is done through the fixed platform generally. Nowadays, there is a trend that drilling and production activity on a floating vessel (ship). I just realized of this fact after being involved some projects in my current job. So far, I have been so oblivious and ignorant.

 

FPSO

FPSO looks something similar to the above picture. FPSO unit is a vessel which processes the crude oil and gas received from the nearby platform. The oil and gas will be discharged to the slug catcher before 1st stage separator. FPSO oil and gas processing unit generally serves several purposes. For instances, it has dew point control unit for oil processing which ensures the oil dew point is within the range of 8 to 10. If dew point is too high, the oil production company will earns more and people will pay more for less oil. If the oil dew point is too low, the oil becomes less easy to evaporate and it may reduce the oil production company. For the consumers’ benefit, lower dew point will be more favoured. For natural gas processing, it ensures that natural gas will never condense to liquid oil during the gas transportation through pipeline. These are two basic issues addressed mainly. Well, at least for my current experience and knowledge. (hehe, pls correct if I am wrong).

Flow assurance from the production oil rig to the FPSO is normally the main concern before production. Apart from that, due to the deep water exploration, flow assurance studies slowly becomes crucial to the whole production. It is a study to ensure the successful flow of oil and gas from the reservoir to point of sale (FPSO normally). As the above picture shows, there is some S-shape bend before it flows into the FPSO unit. This is done to break the riser slugging which can cause horrendous damage to the FPSO (it may burst the crude oil and gas receiving vessel). There are some other activities involved for FPSO risers like Pigging.

Normally, so far as I know, FPSO can serve for approximately 20 years and the company that constructs FPSO in Malaysia is Bumi Armada. I suppose there are some companies doing similar project. Another great competitor to Bumi Armada is MODEC, a multinational engineering company with head quarter located in Tokyo, Japan and main offices in Tokyo, Houston and Singapore and Brazil.

SG Meeting (26 August 2010)

This is the window view outside the meeting room.

This is internal artificial waterfall.

After taking dinner, we just took taxi to client company for meeting marathon. It was the longest meeting I have in my life – whole day. This time, we had meeting with all Japanese engineers and teleconference with Houston Lead Engineer. Well, as a graduate process engineer, I was remaining silent and taking the notes for every single details of the work and comments throughout the meeting. Besides that, I was assisting to put up all the simulation model, data and report to show to the clients. Every single number shown must be check meticulously before being shown to client. At least this time, I did not screw it up like last SG meeting. LUCKY.

Meeting room

I snapped this meeting room view during lunch break. Wow…It was like after war. A table full of engineering calculation sheet, simulation generated data, data analyzed graph, charts and so on. During lunch break, food was provided. Last time, it was pizza but this time, it was sth like burger (it has a name for it, but I don’t know it) as picture shown below. Fortunately, vegetarian food was provided and I quickly grabbed one before being taken or I would end up eating beef “burger”. That would be “pain in the ass”. Inside the “burger”, it has a slides of potato (I think), a few large unsliced mushroom and some vegetables with some dressing. Frankly, it was not really tasty and the bread was so dried (I think that is what the actual food should be). It was so unhealthy as it was just sugar (coke) and carbohydrate(dried bread and fried potato).

Hangout Hotel@ Singapore (25 Aug 2010)

This is the Hangout Hotel reception counter.

Sofa in front of the Reception counter

After I reached Singapore, I took taxi directly and went to this hotel, Hangout Hotel@SG. Along the journey, the street was very busy. I could see a lot of people walking around. When I saw the watch, it was about half to 10. It was a bit different from KL. In KL, I hardly see people in the street at this time.

The hotel is located at Mt Emily. The road up to Mt Emily is rather narrow, only 2 lanes to&fro. Along the road up to Mt Emily, I could see a modern beautiful primary school, houses and gardens. I still could see some people jogging with the dim road lamp. I could learn how safe it is in Singapore.

Hangout Hotel is a budget hotel which ideal for budget traveller and backpacker. The room rate can be considered quite cheap and better than the hourly hotel I stayed for the last time SG training Trip. The room is quite cosy but there is no TV inside. So pathetic. No TV… I spent my night there without TV. The bathroom is quite ok, not really that fantastic. It was just clean enough to bathe, pee and stool but the entrance to the shower head is quite small. BTW, the soap provided smells nice. I love that mildly sweet scent but it goes quite fast. There was a problem with the hotel room. The electricity cannot be activated through the room access card. Another card from the reception counted needed to activate the electricity connection.

On the next day, I went down for breakfast buffet. There was no many choices of food. All the people there ate and left very fast. I wondered if they were rushing for time or that was the culture. I could see many western travellers and young businessman. I think they were like me spending within budget.