Job interview success – how to get those offers!
Posted on 4:13pm, 19th May 2010 • 2 Comments
Achieve job interview success by preparing properly for your interview.
Most candidates don’t (they haven’t been taught how) though job interview success depends on it. The right way to prepare for an interview isn’t to exhaustively rehearse answers to the questions you expect to be asked nor to “research” potential employers by quickly flicking through their web sites. You’ll need a completely different mindset.
Starting with a very clear view of your target employment sector and the type of job you want to apply for, work at understanding the wider context of the job. This is how employers think – you’ll instinctively answer their questions in ways making job interview success more likely if you adopt their pattern of thinking.
Working on the context of the job vacancy from “outside -in”, what are the marketing changes, technological developments and financial pressures and so on that confront your target employment sector right now? If the sector’s being hit by rapid, destabilising change, for example, job interview success is much more likely for candidates showing they’ve hit the ground running all through their earlier careers.
Zooming in a level from employment sector to potential employer, what are the organisational implications of these various developments for your potential employer? Currently, highlighting earlier triumphs in virtually pain-free, consensual cost-cutting should help you to job interview success in all public sector management roles!
The next part of preparation for job interview success involves reviewing in fine detail your career history (anything older than 15 years back probably won’t be that helpful). This is the bit most candidates do, but usually don’t do in enough depth. So – do you know your career history well enough to give at least 3 different (good) examples of your achievements in every aspect of your work a sensible interviewer might ask you about? Can you explain the value to your employer of everything you did, preferably using financial data or percentages to back up what you say? If you can’t, you’re wasting chances of job interview success.
Lastly, remember interviewers are human too.
Job interview success sometimes depends on candidates diplomatically prompting the recruiter to ask job-relevant questions that are to the applicants’ advantage (eg “You mentioned earlier in the job interview, success in driving up market share is a key goal for your client – I helped my company become market leader in my last job but one; should I explain how I did it?”).
Similarly, most interviewers can’t interview and take decent notes of the interview at the same time. At the end of the interview (not during it), leaving the recruiter a brief written record of the achievements you think are directly relevant to that particular job and company just tweaks the chances of job interview success in your favour.
Job interview success is also a matter of confidence, if you think you won’t get the job then you won’t. You have to believe in yourself and also visualise yourself at the interview doing really well, see yourself answering all the questions and feeling confident that you have given great answers; take a few minutes to play it all through your mind exactly how you would like the interview to go.
You can apply this to any part of your life not just job interviews.
When you get that dream job you can visualise your first day going absolutely brilliant, because the first day is always the worst!
You can achieve anything you think you can achieve.
Christine • 4th June, 2010 at 12:22 pm
Interviews can be a frustrating waste of time because not all prospective employers know what their actual requirements are. This may come down to an individual’s view of what is needed, or could be driven by corporate policy. This is where your employment agency can help, ask them to put your questions to the company well before any interview, so you are sure exactly what is expected of you and how closely you meet their requirements. In one embarrassing case where I had applied for a position as a liaison officer between the customs and federal law enforcement authorities I was stunned when the first question I was asked at the interview was, “Why do you want to be a policeman?” As that wasn’t the position I’d applied for the interview went rather downhill from there. Bill
Bill Ballington • 4th July, 2010 at 3:05 am