Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010
Here’s a brief list:
1. How would you describe yourself?
2. To be successful in this career, what do you think it takes?
3. Do you have the qualifications and personal characteristics necessary for success in your chosen career?
4. Why should we hire you?
5. What are your long-range goals and objectives?
6. What major problem have you handled recently? Did you resolve it? How?
7. What characteristics do you think make a manager successful?
8. Why did you apply to our company?
9. What do you look for in a successful candidate?
10. How do you approach critical assignments?
11. If you had to think on your feet to solve a difficult situation, what would you do?
12. Why were you fired?
13. What are the steps you take before making an important decision?
14. Name the most difficult assignment you had and how did you finish it?
15. What kind of supervisor do you prefer?
As you can see, the questions are open-ended, not allowing for a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. The more you talk, the more the hiring authority learns about you. That’s why you need to be prepared before you utter one word. Each answer must be crafted carefully to maximize your chances of being hired.
Tuesday, April 13th, 2010
Too many candidates mistakenly believe that being called in for an interview is being guaranteed a position. Nothing could be further from the truth. You might be the last person on a short list of candidates. Your skills, knowledge, and abilities are good – but not a perfect match for the company. However, the hiring manager is interested enough to meet with you and allow you to sell yourself to the company.
How do you do that? Preparation, preparation, preparation.
1. Know how to dress. If you’re not familiar with the company culture, visit their website or their offices during work hours to see how staff dress. No matter how casual they may be, the key is for you to look professional – you’re not on staff yet.
2. Do extensive research about the company. Know what they’re about. Nothing’s worse for a hiring manager than to interview someone who hasn’t a clue what their company produces.
3. Compose a list of questions about the company that indicates your interest in what is produced and how things work.
4. Prepare a list of answers to the most frequently asked interview questions. For example: Where do you see yourself five years from now?
5. Practice, practice, practice. Make certain your voice and body language don’t give away your anxiety.
6. Know how long it will take to get to your interview so you arrive on time.
To assist you in interview prepartion, consider the ResumeEdge.com JobInterviewEdge service. Details at this link: http://www.resumeedge.com/services/jie-home.html
Tuesday, April 6th, 2010
Interview Dos
- Be prepared. Know about the organization and the job to which you’re applying. And practice for the interview before you get there.
- Be well groomed. Even if the company employees dress in business casual, err on the conservative side. For men: A jacket and tie. For women: A business suit. Keep the jewelry, makeup, perfume and cologne to a minimum.
- Arrive early for the interview. Fifteen minutes is about right.
- Be respectful of everyone you meet, including secretaries and other office personnel.
- Listen carefully to the interviewer’s name and remember it. Repeat it periodically during the interview when addressing the individual.
- After a question is asked, allow a moment for it to sink in and to phrase your response.
- Pay attention to non-verbal cues. If the interviewer appears particularly interested in what you’re saying, expand upon it.
- Ask how your role in the company can positively influence their bottom line.
- Be friendly, interested, engaged and confident – but not arrogant.
- At the end of the interview thank the interviewer and ask when you might expect an answer as to your candidacy.
Interview Don’ts
- Don’t behave as if the job is already yours or beneath you. Be confident, not arrogant.
- Never interrupt the interviewer.
- Don’t ask about salary or benefits unless the matter is brought up by the interviewer.
- Don’t trash your current or former employers.
- Don’t mistake an interviewer’s politeness for more than it is. You are not friends. Don’t be too familiar or chummy. Remain professional.
- Don’t bring up anything negative about the company you’re targeting, even if they’ve gotten bad press.
- Use appropriate English and business language. Avoid slang.
- Don’t let your body language (squirming in your seat) give away the fact that you’re nervous. Try to calm down and focus on your attributes.
- No matter how desperate you are for the position, don’t make it obvious to the interviewer.
- Don’t dwell on your deficiencies – we all have them – concentrate on your strengths and convey them to the interviewer.
Our JobInterviewEdge service offers one-on-one mock interview training with our certified editors. For more information, please click this link
Tuesday, December 29th, 2009
During every interview, you’ll most likely be asked a question that throws you. You’ll start to sweat and may struggle for an answer. What comes out of your mouth may make you cringe at that point or later.
To avoid this, it’s best to be prepared for the unexpected. Here are some thorny questions you may be asked and tips on how to answer them:
1. Who do you consider your best boss? Who do you consider the worst?
Take great care in answering. The interviewer is trying to determine if you’re angry at past employers for something that may very well be your fault and if you carry a grudge.
The appropriate answer would be that you learned something valuable from every boss you had and used it to better the company’s operations.
2. What have you been doing since you were laid off?
Employers are wary of individuals with job gaps, even in this awful economy.
To allay the hiring manager’s fears you can detail activities you engaged in while also looking for a full-time (or part-time) position. These activities would include being a caretaker for someone in your family (eg: children, aging parents), learning a new skill (eg: technology) or engaging in freelance projects to pay the bills until you reached full employment again.
3. What do you consider your greatest weakness?
Everyone has them and the hiring manager wants to determine if you have insight into your failings or if you’re so enamored of your strengths, you’re difficult to work with and refuse to learn from past errors in judgement.
In answering, don’t make the mistake of saying your weakness is that you work too hard. Employers have heard this countless times and few believe it. Instead, focus on a true negative (you’re a perfectionist) and turn it into a positive (eg: I don’t want to hold up schedules by triple-checking everything to make certain it’s perfect, so I’ve developed a process so that mistakes are avoided the first time around).
The above are a few of the many examples of questions you may be asked, which will prove difficult to answer – if you’re not prepared.
With our JIE (JobInterviewEdge) service, our expert coaches prepare our clients to meet each interview challenge and to succeed.
We’d like to hear from you as to what other aspects of the interview process you’d like us to address to make JIE even more worthwhile to jobseekers.
