Five Tips for Job Interview
Interviewing is a scary endeavor for many candidates. Many questions are running through their minds, resulting in increased anxiety and lower performance. Let me let you in on a secret, everyone is anxious before an interview because you do not know what the interviewer will ask you. My recommendation is don’t worry about the questions you will be asked. It’s more important to come off genuine. Here are 5 tips for preparing for an interview.
First, always dress nicely for an interview. While it’s not common nowadays for interviewees to wear their Sunday best to an interview the better you are the dressed the more confident you will be. Also, it shows the interviewer that you are a serious candidate who will make the effort necessary to stand out.
Second, check out the business, company, or organization’s online presence before the interview day. This is an integral part of your interview prep. You are trying to learn as much as you can before heading into the facility for the interview. What are the company’s mission and vision statement? Look up the company on Glassdoor and Linkedin. On Glassdoor, you will find a variety of information including employee assessment of what it’s like to work for that business, company, or organization. You are looking for a pattern. Is everyone saying this is the best place they’ve worked, or are they saying the supervisors and managers are horrible?
Third, read over the job posting several times before the interview. You are trying to identify what the hiring manager is seeking in a prospective candidate and how you are the best fit. This can be very difficult since some job postings are extremely vague.
Fourth, the majority of interviews now use behavioral-based questions. It may seem daunting when the interviewer says, tell me about a time when… The key to being ready for these is to have a few good short stories that walk the interviewer through you in a situation dealing with the kinds of issues they’re interested in. If you’re in customer service, you’ve dealt with that difficult customer that was never satisfied. We all have situations at work where there is that one coworker who couldn’t get along with anyone. You’ve faced situations at work where you missed a deadline for one reason or another. You’ve worked in places where priorities change like the hands on the clock. Just say how you dealt with those situations. You generally want to achieve a positive outcome. Even when asked the dreaded question, what’s your weakness. Show how you’re working to improve yourself by addressing that weakness.
So, in answering the behavioral questions there is a systematic process that works best for you and the interviewer. Set the situation, what were your actions/what did you do, and the result/outcome. Keep the story short and concise, the interviewer doesn’t need infinite details.
Fifth, always ask a few questions. Prepare several questions and have them ready when the interviewer asks you if you have any questions. At a minimum, you should be asking when a decision will be made. Another good question, what are the expectations of a candidate within the first 30 days. Open any search engine and type, “questions to ask in an interview.” You will get many results. Jot down a few and take them to your interview.
By taking these five steps you will be better prepared for that next interview. Don’t beat yourself up after the interview for not saying XYZ when you recall the interview session. You will see a lot about including additional information when you are sending a thank you note after the interview, but from my experience, once the interview so is the opportunity to answer a question.