Interviews

In an interview, your focus or lack of it is picked up very quickly by the interviewer.
Many a career opportunity is lost through lapses of attention, or assuming that the
interviewer understands what you are saying.

This is a problem for people who are unaccustomed to interviews. Without practice and mindfulness, which means a heightened degree of awareness of your surroundings, you may miss a question or misunderstand it, and give a response which isn’t well received.

The best way to avoid this situation is to practice being interviewed with a trusted friend who plays the role of the hiring manager. Ask him/her to interject when they feel you are wandering off topic.

Some questions and topics you can expect will be explored are:

▪ So, tell us about yourself.
▪ Describe what you did in your daily duties.
▪ Give us examples of how you met challenges in your previous jobs.
▪ Why are you looking?
▪ Why do you want to work for us?
▪ Why should we hire you?
▪ How would you handle the challenges of this job?
▪ What strengths do you bring?
▪ What are your weaknesses?
▪ What are your salary expectations?
▪ Where do you see yourself in a few years?
▪ How long do you think it will take to get up to speed?
▪ Why did you leave your last employer?

Each one of these questions is a standard open-ended probe to gather information. You cannot answer them with a ‘yes’ or no’; more details must be provided.

Practice these answers until you are comfortable with them and their variations. You don’t want to sound robotic in your responses, you want your presentation to flow smoothly from one topic to another, and repeatedly answering these questions in a practice session helps you accomplish this.

“Give me six hours to cut down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” – Abraham Lincoln

Define your worth to the employer. Convince employers that they should invest in you.

Progressive employers view talented graduates as a valuable resource for future growth. Employers hire people who have demonstrated that they want the opportunity to grow.

Many employers have said to us that without an established track record, they will tend to hire someone because of what attitudes, energy, and character strengths they see that can be a foundation for training and future development.

Think about your skills, your strengths, and your experiences in school.

How have you applied yourself to your studies? What strengths and skills helped you succeed? If you have had the opportunity to work in an industry related co-op placement, then there is some assessment that the employer may obtain, based on your employment reference.

The skills you learned in part-time jobs are transferable to other employment. Employers look for evidence of the ability to learn quickly, get along with coworkers, and work in an organized, self-motivated manner. Extracurricular activities are taken into account, as is volunteer work. List your accomplishments and talk about them.

As an entry-level employee with no co-op history, the employer doesn’t have a track record to measure your performance. Instead, they look at grades, honours awarded, scholarships received, and Dean’s list citations. Tell them what you have done and how you did it.

Put yourself in the employer’s shoes, and understand the employer’s point of view, concerns, and needs:

• Is this person someone we can invest time in to train them?
• Will this person be staying with us long enough for us to benefit from having trained them?
• Does this person have a willingness to cooperate and be a good team player?
• Is this person someone who communicates effectively?
• Does this person have realistic salary expectations?

Hiring managers hire people that show confidence, enthusiasm, a willingness to learn and work hard, and flexibility in an interview. These attitudes make a positive impression which lead to job offers.

Recruiters are alert to signals that indicate to them that a candidate may not be suitable to refer. Your recruiter is constantly putting you in front of his/her client, mentally, imagining how you will present yourself, and whether you meet the criteria for hiring established by the client.

These warning signs factor into a decision to refer or not:

▪ Negative attitudes such as victimization, resentment, grievances with employers and arrogance give pause to recruiters because they want their client to identify with and not be turned off with the people they refer.
▪ Rambling, unfocused responses cause hesitation because clients like clear and focused answers to their questions, and they don’t want you to annoy their client.
▪ Unrealistic salary demands relative to the position under consideration often prevent your referral for review to the client.
▪ Lack of flexibility to accommodate an appointment time for a client’s busy hiring schedule.
▪ Low buyer interest due to a poorly constructed resume, poor grammar and typos, and/or the inability to clearly express what you have accomplished, learned and want to achieve is a major stumbling block to referring you.
▪ Many moves from company to company that aren’t contractual ones, and/or backward moves in title and responsibility are a concern to recruiters because their clients expect evidence of stability and forward progress in a candidate’s work history.
▪ Long, unexplained periods of unemployment raise red flags because this issue raises other questions about employability, self-motivation, and work performance competence.

The biggest assets you can bring to any job interview when you have little or no practical experience are your communications skills, your listening skills, your flexibility and your enthusiasm. The ability to communicate effectively, maintaining good eye-contact and asking questions concisely and in a focused manner, listening actively instead of passively, thinking ahead to what you are going to say next, and the personality and attitudes that you project to the interviewer are as important—if not more so—than a good academic resume.

At the entry-level, you are hired more on your ability to communicate effectively and the willingness to learn and accept direction with enthusiasm and flexibility.

The word that most comes to mind to suggest to you to increase the effectiveness of your
presentation is ‘projection’. If you are naturally soft-spoken, a conscious effort to speak more forcefully will be helpful. This doesn’t mean shouting at the interviewer, rather it is about putting more energy behind your words—projecting.

You know what you can do; you have a storehouse of knowledge, the accumulated experience built over years in the industry, and if a potential customer asks you questions about how you do what you do, you have ready answers based on that foundation.

Imagine that you are going in to sell a potential, important customer on the benefits and advantages of using you, as if this is a company that you have identified as having great prospects for revenue for your current employer. You will be on your toes, ready to give it your best shot.

Sell the benefits of you: project the strength of your knowledge and abilities through your voice and body language. Employers respond to self-confidence and belief in what you can do. The best salesmen believe in the products and services that they represent.

Engage the interviewer’s imagination through holding their attention with a smoothly flowing narrative, focused on your proven track record: tell them what you have done with time-frames, results achieved and growth realized.

Facing the interviewer squarely, leaning toward the interviewer, holding their gaze, and using your hands to reinforce a point that you are making are simple techniques to put more power behind your words and the ideas you express.

If you project that confidence in who you are, why you are successful and give concrete
examples of your progress and achievements, you will go a long way toward convincing the interviewer that you are the one to hire.

Sports people, high achieving sales people and actors frequently use visualization to enhance their performance and presentations. For an employer to make a hiring decision in your favour, they need to see you working there, and to do that they must identify with what you are saying about yourself, your abilities, and your track record.

Being genuine, projecting your strengths of character, personality, and making the human connection with the employer helps create this buyer interest.

Mentally rehearse how the interview will unfold, what you will say and how you will feel in speaking about who you are and what you can bring in the way of experience, knowledge and achievement to the employer. The more vividly you can see yourself connecting with
the interviewer, the more confidence you will project. Sincere confidence founded on being who you are generates a sense of trust.

Many accomplished speakers practice their speeches in front of a mirror, or will work with a colleague, practicing and polishing their delivery. When salespeople know the features of their product or service and believe in the benefits, they are able to communicate those ideas successfully to the prospective buyer.

The same holds true in interview situations. If you know yourself and what you can do, you can create that buyer interest by being yourself, and presenting your unique features and benefits that the employer can see will bring value to their company.