Chapter 1
Honing Your Job Interview Skills
In This Chapter
Seeing how job interviewing is like acting
Spotting whatâs new in interviewing
Applying seven concepts to make you stand out
Putting into practice ideas that make a good impression
A resume or profile functions as bait to snag a job interview. The interview is the decisive event when a hiring authority decides whether youâll be offered the job.
Because the job interview is such an important part of getting a job â and you may not have interviewed in awhile â any number of unfortunate scenarios may be sneaking into your unconscious, including fears of these confidence-disturbers:
- Stumbling and mumbling your way through the ordeal
- Being glued to a hot seat as they sweat the answers out of you
- Forgetting your interviewerâs name (or the last place you worked)
Exhale. Youâve come to the right book. Take the suggestions within these pages to heart and youâll head into every interview feeling confident, calm and well prepared. What more can you ask?
Note: This first chapter serves as an overview for the entire book. The pages that follow are wide and deep, with details that can help you gain a lifetime of confidence in your ability to sail through the drama of interviews and secure the best job offers.
Being the Successful Candidate
When youâre engaged in a selection interview, your entire future may rest on how successful you are in presenting yourself to a stranger across a desk in 15, 30 or 60 minutes. Making life-altering decisions during this micro slice of time isnât real life â itâs a performance.
The most successful interviews for you require solid preparation to rehearse what you want to say, showing your future bosses that youâre smart and quick on the uptake, as well as able to communicate and not likely to jump the tracks.
At each meeting, your goal is to deliver a flawless performance that rolls off your tongue and gets the employer applauding â and remembering â you. Perfect candidate, you!
But what about all the people who tell you, âJust be yourself and youâll do fine in your interviewâ? That advice doesnât always work for you when it comes to job interviewing.
Why âbe yourselfâ can be poor advice
The bromide âbe yourselfâ is very difficult to articulate with consistency. Be yourself? Which self? Who is the real you? Our roles change at various times.
Your role: Job seeker
Jerry is a father, an engineer, a marathon runner, a public speaker, a law student at night and a writer of professional papers. Jennifer is a loving daughter, the best salesperson in her company, a pilot, a tennis player, a rugby fan and a history buff.
But at this time in their lives, Jerry and Jennifer â like you â are job seekers. Similarly, the stranger across an interviewing desk is in the role of interviewer.
Getting real about the job seeker role
Playing the role most appropriate to you at a given time, and playing it effectively enough to get you the job you deserve, isnât turning your back on authenticity. To do less than play the role of a hard-charging job seeker courts unemployment â or underemployment.
Why âbe naturalâ can be poor advice
First-cousin advice urging you to âbe yourselfâ in a job interview is the âbe naturalâ admonition. On the whole, isnât natural better than artificial? Not always.
Is combed hair natural? Shaved legs? Trimmed beard? Polished shoes? How about covering a cough in public? Or not scratching where you itch?
Being natural in a job interview is fine as long as you donât use your desire to be natural and authentic as an excuse to display your warts or blurt out negative characteristics.
Never treat a job interview as a confessional in which youâre obligated to disclose imperfections, indiscretions or personal beliefs that donât relate to your future job performance.
In job interviews, every minute counts in the getting-to-know-you game. And to really know someone in a brief encounter of 15, 30 or 60 minutes is simply impossible. Instead of real life, each participant in an interview sees what the other participant(s) wants seen. If you doubt that, think back: How long did you need to really get to know your flatmate, spouse or significant other?
If you insist on being natural, an employer may pass you over because of your unkempt beard or unshined shoes, or because you donât feel like smiling that day.
The things youâve done to date â your identification of your skills, your resume and profile, your cover letter, your networking, your social media efforts â are all wasted if you fail to deliver a job interview that produces a job offer.
Make the most of your critical brief encounters by learning the skills of storytelling, using body language, establishing rapport and doing more of whatâs in this modern interview book.
New Faces, New Factors in Interviewing
Are you having trouble staking out your future because you canât close the sale during job interviews? This mangled proverb states the right idea: If at first you donât succeed ⌠get new batteries.
Recharge yourself with knowledge of the new technology and trends that are affecting job interviews. Here are highlights of the contemporary job interview space.
Interviewing in the digital age
Classic interviewing skills continue to be essential to job search success, but more technological firepower is needed in a world growing increasingly complex, interconnected and competitive.
The new tech trends revolutionise all components of the job search, including the all-important job interview. Here are examples of technological newcomers and how they change interviewing practices:
- Video interviews: Both live and recorded video job interviews are coming of age, requiring that you acquire additional skills and techniques to make the cut. Chapter 3 is a primer on how you can outflank your competition by presenting like a pro in video interviews.
- Phone interviews: Automated and recorded phone screening services permit employers to ask up to a dozen canned screening questions and allow candidates up to two minutes to answer each question. Informed interviewees anticipate the questions and must hit their marks the first time because you donât get the chance to go again with recorded answers. Read about this technology in Chapter 2.
- Credibility: Credibility issues are surfacing for multitalented job seekers (or those with a chequered work background) who, by posting various resumes and profiles online, come across as different people with different skill sets. This development can be a knockout punch for you in a tight job market where employers have plenty of candidates on offer. Sidestep the emerging problem of identity contradictions in interviews by following the advice offered in Chapter 14.
- Web woes: Employers can hire experts to scour the internet and social media (such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter) to check out your online history. Such a service rakes through closed databases in the deep web, leaving virtually no secrets unrevealed. If the deep web reveals negative information, you may get a chance to defend yourself in an interview â or you may never know why you struck out. See Chapter 14 for more information on this digital sleuthing tool.
Expect new kinds of interviewers
If the last time you trod the boards of job interviewing you w...
