How to Ace a Job Interview
Highly Effective Work Habits: How to Ace a Job Interview
I came across a good article the other day about how to ace a job interview. In this article, the author presents 4 techniques to keep in mind:
- Do your homework. You need to know something about the company and position you are interviewing with. It will demonstrate to the employer that you care about their company and are interested in the position. Anticipate questions they are going to ask. These days, you are almost always asked questions like “tell me about a difficult situation you had to deal with and how you handled it” or “tell me about a project you were unprepared for and how you made the project successful”. You are not going to impress the employer by sitting there stumbling over questions like this. However, you also need to be prepared to ask questions. This shows them you are thinking about a possible career with them, that you are engaging, and a good communicator.
- Make the interviewer feel good. This goes back to engaging the interviewer and getting a dialog going. Ask lots of questions and try to connect. Don’t just get in an answer-only mode. And try to not be too serious. Smile. Things like this go a long way.
- Talk about weaknesses you’ve overcome. Nobody is perfect and the interviewer will be looking for you to admit to a weakness. Just mention something you’ve not been too great at in the past that you are either better at now or are actively working on. This shows you can improve yourself.
- Correct your mistakes. If you say something accidentally that isn’t true, correct it immediately and admit it. It will be much worse if the interviewer finds out later that you lied or exaggerated. And no one knows everything. If you don’t have the answer, just say “I don’t know” and possibly bring up a similar example to show you can relate in some fashion.
It is scary to think that these actually happen!
Having been the interviewer at times, I can attest to the good commmon sense of this advice.
Some things not to do.
Dont show up in a half shirt and covered in piercings or jewelry. The interviewer probably wont hear a thing you say and will be focused on how you could stand to put a hole in your eyebrow.
No smelling like last nights beer. Interview tomorrow? No party the night before. Gauranteed to get a promise to call you if something comes up and a quick shuffle off.
Don’t tell the interviewer how horrible your last job was. It’s unlikely your last boss was the physical incarnation of Satan and more likely you had a problem with his authority.