Five Failsafe Ways to be Prepared for your Job Interview

Be Prepared for your Job Interview

This Months Guest post comes from Simply Marketing Jobs

The golden rule of being interviewed is BE PREPARED! It sounds obvious but so many well-qualified job seekers make the mistake of arriving for interviews without planning properly in advance, hoping their experience and personality will carry them through. So what can you do before the big day to ensure you impress the interview panel and land that job?

How to Prepare for a Job Interview.

Carry out extensive research on the organisation

It’s vital to do all the research on the company that you can.

Spend time going through the company website and if the post you’re applying for is senior, get a copy of their latest published accounts (normally these are available to download from a company’s corporate website).

Google is of course a fantastic tool for finding out some interesting facts about the organisation you’re hoping to work for.

“What do you know about our company?” is one of the most commonly asked interview questions, so having to scrape around for something to say instantly looks bad. If the information is on their website, there is no excuse for not knowing about it, and having pre-prepared opinions about recent business activities and marketing campaigns will demonstrate your interest. It’s best to keep any negative opinions to yourself of course.

Areas of the business you must research:

· What does the company do?

· What’s the company culture?

· Which products and services does it sell?

· Growth plans for the future

· Main competitors

· Financial performance

· Recent published trade news

· Who will be interviewing you and what is their role?

Presentation

First impressions really do count so don’t risk everything by looking scruffy or inappropriately dressed.

Always overdress rather than risk being under-dressed. Studies show that often the average length of time between a candidate entering the interview room and a decision being made is less than four minutes.

After this time, recruiters are often looking for evidence to support the decision that – perhaps subconsciously – they have already made.

If you are at all unsure about the dress code ask the recruiter well in advance. Remember to think about your body language too – smiling often, sitting upright rather than slouching, and making plenty of eye contact will all show you in a good light.

Punctuality

As a professional, you don’t need to be told to arrive on time, but if you have interviewed extensively yourself you’ll know just how many job seekers still arrive late.

Make sure you find out where you are going and plan how you are going to get there. If you are unsure of the exact location of the interview print out a map.

Allow plenty of extra time in case of travel delays, particularly if you are heading into central London, or any other major city for the job interview. If you arrive very early find a nearby café and collect your thoughts and make any final preparations e.g. ensuring you have your mobile phone turned off before you go into the interview.

Prepare for the likely questions

Many people fall down here, simply because they haven’t spent sufficient time thinking through answers to fairly straightforward questions. Here are a few classics that will remind you of what to expect at an interview and what kinds of answers to give.

Why do you want to work for us?

The interviewers want to know you are genuinely interested in the company and the opportunities this job provides.

So you must demonstrate that you understand what makes this company different from its competitors, and what you think will be the interesting/challenging/rewarding things about working there.

Think carefully about what really appeals to you about this job and company and how you can stand out from the other people who are applying for this job, and come up with at least three points – e.g. the brands are powerful and widely admired in the marketplace; it’s an award-winning company; you’ve read fantastic client testimonials on the company website.

How would you describe yourself?

Whatever you say it’s important to be honest and genuine.

You want the interviewer to feel confident that they are seeing your true personality rather than telling them what you think they want to hear.

Remember to give plenty of evidence to back up statements or claims about yourself. Rather than telling the interviewer you are ‘target driven’, give live examples of when you have hit or exceeded targets and describe the steps you took to ensure targets were never missed.

What are your strengths?

The interviewer wants to know what your key strengths are in relation to this particular job. Make sure you choose examples that are relevant to this role but also examples that set you apart from other applicants.

Try to have four or five strengths available in case the interviewer asks for some further examples. Remember that for most jobs you will want to include an example of working well as part of a team, and fitting in well with others.

What is your greatest weakness?

Of course, be careful not to say anything too negative about yourself – such as you struggle to concentrate, or are badly organised.

Prepare an example of a weakness that you have overcome – for instance, your time management skills have improved in recent years because you now use a certain system. “I used to accept too much work in an effort to please everybody, but soon discovered that I was diluting my focus and not performing as I should…. Today I try not to be superwoman, but explain carefully to colleagues why I must prioritise my workload.”

Where do you see yourself three years from now?

Don’t overstate your ambitions here. The company really just wants reassurance that you’ll stick with the company and stay motivated over time. So it’s best to say something like: “I envisage myself enjoying my work in a progressive company like this one, and being valued as an asset to the organisation. I hope I would have performed well enough to have earned a promotion, having proved I am worthy of such a position.”

Have questions prepared too

‘Do you have any questions?’ is actually a very important part of the interview process, so don’t say ‘no’, whatever you do.

Asking insightful, pre-prepared questions when given the opportunity is as important as any of the answers you will have already given during the interview, this is well worth remembering.

Not having relevant questions or squirming uncomfortably as you try to think up an intelligent question on the spot will make you look badly prepared and disorganised.

Have 10 questions prepared before you go into the sales job interview. As the interview progresses several of these will no doubt be answered as part of the general interview dialogue. However, when it is your turn to ask questions, pick the 3 to 5 questions that seem most relevant at the time.

Good questions to ask might include:

• What is the company’s approach to training and development?

• How would you describe the company culture?

• What is the biggest challenge facing your company currently?

• How will my success in this role be measured over the next 12 months?

• What kind of person does really well in this division?

Being fully prepared in these ways should set you off on the right track. The more prepared you are, the more confident you will appear on the day, which should also help reduce nervousness. So put in the time, and the rewards really are within reach!

This article was provided by Simply Marketing Jobs, a leading marketing recruitment board.

April 21, 2013December 12, 2020

7 Unbelievable but Absolutely True Interview Fails

Beware!!! These interview fails can happen to you, learn from their mistakes and prepare for interview success.

Scared to Death

You have to agree that the job interview is one on the scariest situations you can put yourself in. Interviewers will often feedback that nervous interviewees constantly sweat, tremble and shake.

But for one 17yr old interviewee, having the interview shakes was a life saver. This young nervous interviewee thought nerves had gotten the better of him; he started to shake prior to the interview, in the interviewee, the shakes got worst, so bad the interviewer started to become concerned.

He shook so much throughout the interview, that he was rushed to hospital, later to find that he had a massive Brain Tumour. Shaken Stevens eat your heart out, read how this amazing but terrifying interview saved his life.

Source

iPhone Owner Make The Worse Employees

A crazy company rejected a job applicant for owning an iPhone. The interviewer spotted the interviewee in the waiting area accessing his iPhone.

The crazy employer wasn’t concern that the applicant had a phone in his hand; he was disappointed that it was an iPhone saying “Students who have iPhones don’t work. Everything you have was bought by your parents. You haven’t bought anything by working yourself. You are wealthy and can’t stand the stress. Working at our company is tough. It calls for someone who can take the pain and suffering.”

Read more about this frustrated interviewer with incredible prejudices.

Source

Slow Worker for Fast Food Joint

An American student went for a job interview in the famous fast food chain McDonalds, famous for its Big Mac and speedy service, with this in mind the interviewee didn’t understand the importance of matching the employers criteria, answering one question by saying “speed in the workplace wasn’t his strongest point.”

Finally, the interview was lost when he followed this damaging statement up by telling the employer how he wanted to be an English teacher, not a fast food worker and finally topped the interview off by stating that he could only work certain days.

Read how not to pass the job interview here.

Source

Cat Kills the Interview

Telephone interviews are great, you don’t have to get up early, you don’t have to shave and you don’t even have to get dressed. You do have to remain professional….and lock your pets up. During a phone interview with RBS, the interviewee was set a complex maths question, while the interviewer listens on the other end of the phone.

Surprised, the interviewer heard, “You f*cking c*nt!” shouted down the phone by the applicant. Shocked the interviewer hung up the phone, ending the interview.

What the interviewee couldn’t see was the actual cause of the outburst, the interviewees cat had crept up a clawed her leg, which was the real reason for the outburst, not the complex interview question.

Source

Murder Arrested at the Job Interview

No matter how much experience and skills you have, one sure way to guarantee that you won’t receive a job offer during a job interview is when you get arrested for murder.

An unnamed girl accused of murdering two young men, was wanted by police who could not locate her, but they knew that the girl had a job interview due and waited for the girl to attend the job interview before arresting her – to the surprise of the interviewees

Source

The Heineken Interview

How would you react if your interview started by the interviewer wanting to hold your hand, crazy I know, later after a couple of general interview questions the interview stands up and faints. You get up to help him, only then the fire alarm goes off.

As your led outside a team of firemen are trying to get a stuck potential co-worker to jump out of the window onto the safety net, but there’s not enough fireman to hold the net, what would you do? Help out, watch or just go home? This is one of the best but bizarre job interviews ever.

Watch this amazing video:

Source

Interviewer Eats his Dinner In the Interview

Good interviewees know the signs of when the interviewer is getting bored, but none have been this obvious.

Luke went to the interview unprepared, the interviewer quickly realised this and became quickly bored of the interview. After a couple of interview questions and to the surprise of Luke, the interviewer put his feet up on the desk and started to eat his lunch, if that wasn’t bad a couple of minutes later and half way through a sandwich, the interviewer ask “you’re still here?”

Find out more about the worst interview ever.

Source

April 9, 2013December 12, 2020

Is An Interview Thank You Letter Really Worth it?

Is An Interview Thank You Letter Really Worth It?

The key to passing the job interview is to ensure the employer remembers that you meet the essential criteria for the position you are applying for. A great technique which is vastly underused is to summaries your interview success in a post interview thank you letter.

Most candidates don’t send thank you letters, and those that do only thank the employer for their time. They are both missing out on a great opportunity to get one last selling point across to the interviewer, as well as thanking the employer, also summaries the interview mentioning your unique selling point, the key criteria the interviewer was most impressed with this.

After interviewing all day it is easy for the interviewer to forget information discussed or even to confuse applicant’s answers, by summarising your selling points in a thank you letter the interviewer is in no doubt that it is you who has the correct skills for this position

April 9, 2013December 12, 2020

Odd Ball Interview Questions

“How do you get an elephant to fit inside a mini car?”

For oddball questions, as with all the interview questions, you need to practice and prepare your answers.

The only way to prepare for unknown and often quite random questions is by asking someone to through random questions at you.

Not all interviewers ask these questions.

Interviewers ask questions that are relevant to the position you are applying for, the question “How do you get an elephant to fit inside a mini car?” can be answered from the perspective of an engineer or from a creative perspective.

Employers want to check if you can think outside the box, problem solves, creatively think or analyse information which is why they ask these, which often seem random but are in fact skilled based interview questions

· Why are manhole cover round?

· If you were shrunk to the size of a pea and put in a jug how would you escape?

· Given the numbers 1 to 100, what is the minimum number of guesses needed to find a specific number when playing “higher” or “lower”

March 28, 2013

Does Your On-line Story Affect Your Interview

Your online story creates your personal brand. We are all aware that the interview is designed for the interviewee to sell your unique selling point, but in this digital age the employer has the advantage of checking your story online.

You may at the interview create a professional persona, impressing the interviewer. The interviewer, ready to offer you the position, makes one final online check only to fine your face book page full of photos of you out drinking and partying and your status updates recording how you feel to hung-over to go into work today.

With this in mind the digital job hunter can support their cause by creating an online brand. Your online brand can be the difference between a high salary job offer and the unemployment line, imagine your unique selling point is writing winning tenders on a contractual basis.

The employer investigating you online, finds your linked-in profile recording the extensive list of recognised employers you have successfully worked for, twitter updates stating the bids and tenders you have won, showing a timeline of your work and your face book wall creates a professional image of you with updates about your charity work and online references from happy customers and employers.

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March 28, 2013December 18, 2020

How to Answer The Interview Question Do You Consider Yourself Successful

A number of employers ask interview questions based on ‘success.’

Success is ambiguous, as each person views success differently. A young career professional may feel successful as they were the first in their family to attend higher education, but a second candidate who grew up in a household where education was deemed as the norm, may not view attending university as a success.

The underpinning objective for the ‘do you consider yourself successful? interview question is more about achievement and the journey to that achievement.

The frame of the interview answer should be one of a hardship the candidate has overcome.

Therefore, the interviewee, to score a high scoring interview answer needs to set out a problem, show planning and how they overcome difficulties and what it was they achieved.

A single parent, as an example, may talk about balancing a family, and a job while studying for a master’s with an open university course. The parent could then go on to discuss additional difficulties; maybe the child became ill or the employer had to make staff cuts.

The ‘difficulties’ is one way to show personality, work ethic and determination. Did the difficulties allow the parent to give up? Or did they grit their teeth determined to be a success?

How to answer the ‘success’ job interview question.

As everyone succeeded in something, this could be finishing school to climbing Everest, the initial answer should be a responding ‘Yes I have been successful….’

Next, state ‘…one example is…’ The ‘one’ example infers there are many other successes.

To answer the question follow these 4 steps:

Set the goal – to finish a master’s, become a world champion, to set up a part-time business.
Explain the current barriers; being a single parent, stating a disability, how everyone said you current achieve this goal
Through in additional difficulties – talk about the journey, how you were on track to be successful and then…a ‘difficulty’ happened.
Conclude. End the story by stating the success, but more importantly, what you learned about yourself along the way

Example Interview Answer.

“Yes, I would say I am successful. One example of being successful was when I set myself a goal to move into this job sector.

I had left school with no GCSEs and came from a family that didn’t encourage attending higher education – they believed that instead of spending money on education, everyone should find work.

Once I had committed to this career goal I created a careers plan, stating what qualification I needed to gain and enrolled in nigh school, initially gaining my GCSEs and then an access course for nursing.

It was half-way through my access to the nursing course when my father became ill. As an only child whose mother had passed away many years previously, it came down to me to be the carer for my father.

This took up a large amount of time, and my initial thought was that I should quit the course. But, because I am passionate about the profession I knew I had to plan better and manage my time to ensure I could be there for my father while having enough time to spend on my course.

Some of my friends were nurses and they use to tell me how busy they always were, having to do extra shifts and work long hours. So I imagine that caring for my father while studying was my job. This helped me frame it in the right way to stay motivated.

What I learned about myself is that I have self-determination. even when there is a problem I can knuckle down and get the job done.”

March 20, 2013January 1, 2021

How to Answer The Interview Question How Long Are You Planning to Stay With Our Organisation?

Employers spend around 33% of their profits on recruitment and will prefer to employ an applicant who will stay with the company for at least 2-3 years.

In reality, an employer will never really know what will happen in the future and how long an employee will work for one organisation. So why ask the ‘duration’ job interview question?

In most cases, an employer will only ask how long an applicant is likely to stay working for them – sometimes framed as the interview question ‘how long have you worked for your previous organisations?’ because the employer has experienced a high turnover of staff.

This interview question is common with contract work, project work, and for low paid or low skilled roles.

How to answer the interview question.

The interviewer with the ‘how long do you plan on staying with our company?’ interveiw question is concerned with staff retention.

Therefore the interveiw answer must reassure the employer to score high marks as part of a structured job interview.

How to reassure the interviewer.

One way to reassure the interviewer, to score high on the interview scorecard, is to explain how you have researched their organisation including the values and the company vision, or how you know friends who are employees of the company and who talk positively about the company culture, which has resulted in you wanting to make a career out of working for this particular company.

What you are doing with this interveiw tactic is saying – ‘I don’t just want any job, I want a career with your company.’

Another similar approach is the ‘matching’ technique. Here an applicant can talk about their personal values, what motivates them as an individual and which type of environment they work well in. And matching this to what the interviewer stated at the interview start (In most job interviews, the interviewer will kick off the job interview by discussing the job role, the team and the company culture)

Here you are showing how this organisation is the ideal workplace for your temperament.

A final interview technique is to express dislike.

This approach may sound dangerous, but in fact, it has the opposite result – desire.

When asked about duration, the interviewee can talk about how they dislike job hunting, moving from one company to the next having to learn new processes and procedures, and how they only applied for this role as it is their preferred employer.

Applicants can evidence how they are loyal to a company by explaining how they have worked for their previous employer for the past 10-20 or 30 years.

This approach is saying if you recruit me I will be a loyal employee.

March 17, 2013January 13, 2021

How to Answer The Interview Question Tell Me About a Suggestion You Have Made

More and more, organisations are looking for employees to share ideas, suggestions, to be innovative and creative, due to the fast-paced changes within job sectors created by globalization, new entries and technology.

When asked an interveiw question on ‘suggestions’ you will know that this organisation is forward-thinking.

This question also tells you the company is looking for team players and creative people.

Use a real-life example of when you put a suggestion forward, the situation, how the idea developed and the outcome.

Answering ‘suggestion’ Interveiw Questions.

Situation – initially start the interveiw question by describing the problem the company was facing.

This could be, as an example, a new product from a competitor that was going to reduce company income in your organisation. Or how global events were affecting sales or production.

Developed – next explain your process for finding a solution (the suggestion you took to an employer) Use detail here; talk about two different ideas and how you looked at the opportunities and threats for each option.

Talk about any research you undertook or challenges you faced. SHow that it wasn’t just a lightbulb moment and that you thought about the suggestion or idea.

Outcome – end with the positive outcome, how the idea was initially tested and then implemented, and how the idea helped the company financially.

Example Answers

“In my previous company, the management team was asked to suggest ideas how we could break a new policy to the workforce, that long term would save jobs but the short term could potentially upset some of the workforces. Having had previous experience in change management I knew change management theories that could be easily administered. With the orgnasiation being a smaller family-run company with no experience of change management, I went away a created a project plan including a comms and risk plan. The whole project was detailed out with step by step guides on how to implement the changes. The manager was really impressed with the detail and research and implemented the project plan that resulted in a smooth change with no staff losses or grievances.”

March 17, 2013

How To Answer The Interview Question Why Did You Leave Your Last Job?

How to Answer The Interview Question Why Did You Leave Your Last Job?

A dreaded question for many! When answering this question never give a negative answer. “I did not get on with my manager” or “The management did not run the business well” will show you in a negative light and reduce your chance of a job offer. Answer the question positively, emphasising that

you have been looking for a career progression. Start by telling the interviewer what you gained from your last job

“I enjoyed my last job, I quickly learned how to multi-task and prioritise work and over the last 3 years I have seen myself grow. I am now ready to take the next step up the ladder with my career and feel I would suit working for company such as this”

If you were made redundant, let the interviewer know, this is not a negative!

This is an extract from the Interview E-Book “Tricky Questions, Killer Answers – over 50 interview questions and answers”

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March 17, 2013

How To Answer The Interview Question What Experience Do You Have In This Field?

How to Answer The Interview Question What Experience Do You Have In This Field?

For this question you first need to read and understand the job specification, as this will tell you what experience the interviewer is looking for. Your answer should relate your experience and achievements to that of the job role. Often interviewees will talk about experiences that are not relevant to the job role, this will only lead to the employer becoming uninterested in you.

“I have over 6 years experience as a nursery nurse, in that time I have gain an NVQ Level 2 and 3 in child care. I have worked with children of all ages including groups of children with disabilities. I understand the importance of “health and safety” and “every child matters” and use my creative skills to organise games and activities to teach young children new skills while keeping them entertained. Recently I also won an award for employee of the year”

This is an extract from the Interview E-Book “Tricky Questions, Killer Answers – over 50 interview questions and answers”

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