How to be Confident in an Interview

Job interviews fall in to the top ten categories for situations that intimidate you, make you nervous and situations that knock the confidence out of you.  Why? Because we have to sell ourselves to the employer, for many this is a new and highly intimidating time. For your job interview to go well you have to make you the product stand out from the other interviewees, to do this you need to ooze confidence.

These 5 tips will help you boost your confidence before your next interview giving you the winning edge over other interviewees.

• Buy new interview clothes, we all feel better and more confident when were wearing something new and smart. Once dressed stand in front of the mirror and look at and note everything that looks good about you

• Before your real interview, attend a fake job interview for a job you don’t want, use this experience to improve your interview skills. Look back and write a list of everything that went well for you and record a second list of what you can do to improve your chance of a job offer

• Make a list with three headings; Skills, Qualities and Experiences. Under each heading record as many skills, qualities and experiences you possess that are required by the new employer. These are your key selling points that you need to discuss throughout the job interview

• Complete an interview visualisation; imagine attending the job interview and everything goes as planned, you know the answers to the questions, you build rapport with the interview, you feel relaxed, calm and incomplete control. Go one step further and imagine you have been offered the job, see yourself working in this new organization, the boss appreciates your work ethic, your new colleagues respond well to your professionalism – imagine this is the job you have always wanted. This technique is used by professional athletes before Olympic events.

• Before you step through the interview door, take 10 deep breaths, as this will allow you to relax. Once calm imagine you are a confident person, stand how a confident you would stand, hold your head up high and push your chest out a little and walk in, as a confident you would walk – own the interview

These 5 easy to complete techniques can make a real difference with your interview success as interviewers only want to employee confident employees. If you’re still worried about being a bag of nerves at your next job interview, you can boost your confidence while reducing your negative self esteem in just one day by learning how to be as confident as a comedian.

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Can You Answer Interview Questions?

To win job offers, you can’t just rely on your experience and skills, the trick to winning offers of employment is by your ability to answer interview questions. Below you will find ten interview questions and an explanation of how to answer them. To ensure you pass your next job interview Employment King have gone to the employers and asked them what they require as a successful answer.

Tell me about yourself

For this question give a brief introduction about yourself, think of a good opening line, be really positive talk about previous positions and any significant achievements – ensure what you talk about is relevant to the job you are applying for.

What are your strengths?

This is one of the most common questions you will be asked. Give an answer relevant to the skills and qualities relevant to the position you are applying to. The interviewer is trying to find if your strengths match the job. For example, if you are applying for a job where accuracy is an important issue, one of your strengths could be that you have an eye for detail.  It may useful to find different words to describe similar attributes and qualities in order to avoid repetition.

If your interview skills are lacking, you will want to book a session with an Interview Coach

What are your weaknesses?

Again, another commonly asked question.  A frequent mistake to make when answering this question is to say something negative like “I can sometimes let things get on top of me”. Be positive and sell yourself with every interview question, turn a negative into a positive. For example, “In the past I felt I needed to improve my typing skills, because I wanted to be the best I can so I have recently enrolled on a typing course”. This will show that you can identify your weaknesses but at the same time, you are willing to improve. Most importantly: do not mention a weakness that is any way related to the job you are being interviewed for! This might sound obvious but it is a common mistake!

What do you enjoy doing outside of work?

This is sometimes asked as an opening question to get you talking and to calm your nerves, a lot of people answer “Socialising with friends” “Playing on my computer” “Taking my family on day trips”. Whilst these are valid and honest answers they do not really bring anything to the table that is special, that makes you stand out.

If you can say that you volunteer you will be guaranteed to impress! Although this should be truthful! You can apply to volunteer in any area you like, ideally in a position relevant to the job you are applying for. Volunteering is seen as a positive activity by all employers, you only need to volunteer once or twice a month and when you can answer this question  with “Currently I’m volunteering for Oxfam, I really get al lot out of helping others…” you can see that there are few who wouldn’t be impressed with that answer.

Why did you leave you 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…”

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

Where do you see yourself in 4-5 years time?

Tell the interviewer how you want to progress through their company, a manager does not want to be re-advertising and interviewing in a year’s time, do not infer that you may want to leave after a certain amount of time. “I am really keen to learn how your company operates; I can see myself attending any available training and using this knowledge and my own drive and ambition to work my way up the company.” It may be useful to see if there are any formal progression tracks or training programmes.

Why do you want to work here?

An interviewer knows you are applying for other jobs, you may be offered a job with this employer, start employment and then leave for another job offer. An interviewer would never say this affects who they pick (and a large amount of companies using a scoring system to stop this from happening). But would you offer someone a job if you thought that they weren’t fully committed to your company? Show the interviewer how enthusiastic you are about the job, industry and their company. “Your company has such a good reputation and I know you have the ‘Investors in People’ award and this impresses me. I have been following your company for the last couple of years and I have seen how you have grown and I feel I would like to be a part of this.”

Have you got any questions for me?

Most interviewers ask this question and generally towards the end of the interview. Remember to prepare for this, as asking questions will be a great end to an excellent interview. Ask about company expansion, the team you will work with and anything to do with new contracts and personal development/training.

learn more about passing job interviews, learn the secrets of employment

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How Many Types of Job Interview Can You Think Off?

As many of you will already know, there are many different types and styles of job interviews.  You need to understand why employers use different interviews to help you prepare for them. The explanation of each below is to give you an overview of the different ‘types’ of interviews, if you are invited to one of these different ‘types’ of interviews you will now know more about them and will feel more confident about attending them

• Screening Interview

A screening interview is a brief interview used by employers to quickly and efficiently eliminate unsuitable or unqualified interviewees. This is usually carried out over the telephone and tends to focus on confirming and clarifying that you have to essential minimum requirements needed for the job you are applying for (Essential requirements will be found in the Job spec of the application pack).  Employers use this to save time and money during the interview process.

• Speculative On the spot Interview

As we said above if you apply for a job speculatively by walking into a business, you have to be prepared to have an On the Spot Interview. This interview will be informal and unstructured as the interview/manager would have not prepared any questions and again wants to see if you have the minimum requirements for the job you are applying for before offering you a full interview.

• Telephone/webcam interview

You are likely to have a telephone interview for all jobs that requires you to use the telephone as the main job duty. Telephone and webcam interviews can be used when the interviewee cannot attend an initial interview (Perhaps due to the job role being overseas) This type of interview again is used to save recruitment costs and in order to decide which candidates they want to interview face to face.

• Face to Face Interview

This is the most common interview; the interview can sometimes be informal as only one person is involved. The interviewer will often have a series of prepared questions designed to find out if you have the skills, qualities and knowledge for the position you are applying for. Often the manager or HR representative will carry out this interview.

• Panel interviews

In this type of interview you will be questioned by several people making up the panel. The actual number of interviewers can vary depending on the company (some companies use two person panel interviews because the manager has not interviewed before) On the panel they may have an expert/manager who knows the job you are applying for and will coordinate the interview and questions. Or the panel (normally when this is a panel of 2 or 3) will co-ordinate the questions between them. Ensure you look at each member of the panel and involve them during the interview.

• Follow Up Interview

This often happens when you are applying with large companies who have a big recruitment drive on. Only a small number of interviewees will be asked to attend a follow up interview. If you are one of them then this is a great sign -it shows you that an employer is very interested in you!

This extract was taken from The Secrets of Employment

• Group Interview

This is an informal interview with a large number of other interviewees often for customer service based roles. You will be asked discuss a topic or complete a problem solving exercise. A group interview can last anywhere from two hours to a whole day. Interviewers will be watching for your contribution and your role within the group. Consider what skills they would like to see from you. As a natural leader you may be great at organising and getting the task in hand done but you might need to be aware of using your listening skills and allowing others to talk.

•  The Sequential Interview

Sequential interviews are where an applicant is interviewed in stages. You may have to complete certain tests including Literacy and Numeracy. You may be asked to attend interviews with several people, with each interviewer asking questions relating to a different aspect of the job role.

As you can see there are several interviews that you may be asked to attend, as long as you are prepared and understand the job you are applying for you will do well. As all the questions/exercises/test you are asked to complete will be relevant to the job you are applying for.

If you want to learn more about passing interviews using interview and NLP techniques download The Secrets of Employment Now

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Do you keep failing job interviews?

Einstein once said “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” This is true for many job hunters who continuously fail job interviews, they continue to make the same mistakes in every job interview.

Employment King has teamed up with leading employers to discover What type of job interviewees continuously fail job interviews and our research has found that 10 types of job interviewees will always be refused job offers from all job interviews. Read this article and make sure you don’t fall into any of these 10 categories.

If you want to win more job offers through passing  job interviews, download this mini interview guide for FREE and don’t fall into one of these 10 categories; 10 people who will never pass a job interview.

What to do next? Click the link below for your free PDF Mini Interview Guide

Are you one of these 10 people who will never pass a job interview

If you have a job interview coming up and you feel scared and nervous, what can you do? I agree some job interviewers can ask some Tricky Questions which means you need to know Killer Answers to each interview question Tricky Questions, Killer Answers

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How to Prepare your Interview Answers

To pass more job interviews you need to start preparing which means a little work before your job interview will go along way. By following this quick procedure will help you gain more job offers making more money.

• First think about the position you are applying for and ask yourself “what skills and qualities does the employer require me to have?” and make a big list. You now have a list of the employer’s essential criteria.

Record your list of essential criteria here

 ____________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________

• Next take each skill or quality and break down, as an example “Communication Skills – how do you communicate?” –  e-mail, face to face, telephone, fax, body language, sign language, etc. make this list as big as possible, there are no wrong answers be creative add anything you associate to communication (or your essential criteria)

• Now you have a giant list of criteria and a breakdown of those particular criteria you can now move onto the third stage – paragraphs. All you need to do here is put the breakdown of the criteria into a paragraph (and this doesn’t need to perfect yet)

 Let’s use the communication example – remember at this stage the paragraph doesn’t need to read well as we are still in the ideas stage. “I communicate with everyday, over the phone and face to face. When talking over the phone I use my voice tone to build rapport and ask regular questions to ensure the other person is taking onboard what I am saying. When talking to people face to face, I use my body language to increase likeness and watch the other people’s body language and face gestures to check they agree with what I am saying”

You are probably thinking of several different sentences you can use for the essential criteria required for your job position.

• The final stage is to add real life examples to your explanation, using real life examples show’s the employer two things; one you understand what their essential criteria is  and more importantly you have implemented in previous roles (which is often taken for you can do that part of the job)

Your real life examples need to be related to the position you are applying for. In sales jobs communication skills and rapport building are key essential criteria, so you can edit your above profile using real life sales (or any position) experience

“In my previous sales position I was always on the monthly top 10 sales executive’s board often at the top, this is because I understand the importance of communicating with people over the phone. I would often use my voice tone to build rapport with customers and ask customers questions throughout the sales pitch to ensure they were listening to me…..”

I would add that you need to re-write your interview answer 3 times to ensure it really sell’s you

Finally after each interview have a think about which answer worked well and which answers need improving as passing interviews means you need to understand how to sell yourself through well formed interview answers.

If you want to pass more interviews read Tricky Questions, Killer Answers by Employment King

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Interviewing the Interviewer

A good interview is more off a conversation compared to a set of interview questions and answers and I would add once your are in a flow of a conversation, you will feel comfortable asking the interviewer your own questions, which means you don’t have to wait until you’re asked “do you have any questions for me?”

This article is about gaining rapport and trust early in the interview, which will give you the confidence to ask your own questions throughout the interview, highlighting your confidence and professionalism to the interviewer. I would also add once you start asking questions, you will be interviewing the interviewer, which will give a more informed discussion when deciding whether or not to accept the job offer.

Research

First research the company and the job position, as often the position title can vary in duties depending on the organisation you work for.  You need to make a list of what is important to the company, what skills, qualities and experiences the organisation requires. Even more importantly what are the company’s’ values, beliefs and company mission? – this information is easy to locate through the company websites and especially for large organisations on online forums.

Questions

As you are asked questions, you can answer your interview question relating to your researched list of requirements – in essence you will be speaking the company language.

You will start to see a lot of nodding as the employer agrees with your view point (as it will be the same view point the company takes) this will quickly lead to good rapport

Once in rapport, you can start to ask the interviewer questions, first on their requirements as this is something the company will feel passionate about and will answer freely

While asking the company requirement questions, slip in a question you would like to know the answer to, the interviewer will freely answer these questions.

Having a Conversation

By answering and asking relevant questions, the interview will naturally turn into a conversation, often with the interviewer taking a second to look back at the next question (which they forgot to ask due to the conversation) and then saying out loud something similar to “OK, erm actually you have already answered this one..” this unconsciously will re-enforce to the interviewer that you are the right person for the job.

Job Offer

Obviously with a large amount of rapport and the employer believing your values and work ethic are that of the organisation, you are likely to be offered a position. Unlike previous interviews where you answer a set of questions, selling yourself –  this interview has been a conversation, where the interviewer has openly answered your questions, this has now given you a more detailed picture of the company  (you will already have an overview from the research you undertook) You now can make a more informed choice if you want to work for this particular organisation, as you will agree there is nothing worse then starting a new job and hating it within the first few weeks, I would also add using this technique will secure you more job offers giving you the option of organisations to work for.

Learn the Killer Answers to Tricky Interview Questions

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