Consider a position where you desperately want the job. It might be the money, conditions or you just don’t enjoy your current job anymore. The night before you decide to prepare for the interview.
Taking out your CV and looking through it your mind is full of ideas that only the incompetent get the best jobs. You have to have the gift of the gab or have an uncle working for the company and there must be hundreds of people with better experience and skills. You practice imagining the interviewer naked as a way to calm you down. It works for a few minutes until you suddenly realise they might be doing the same to you.
Reluctantly you put your barely read CV away and go to bed to dream of turning up to the interview naked. Having slept in you barely make it to the company on time. Being out of breath you wheeze the name of your interviewer at the receptionist and go blank when she asks you for your name. You get the idea she does not think much of you.
A few minutes later a sour faced old cow greets you as your interviewer. She smiles at you like a serial killer just about to fall on their prey as she leads you to the interview room. In a desperate attempt to clam down you start some small talk. This basically consists of babbling something about the weather, the traffic and some TV you watched last night. Luckily the interview room is close by.
You eventually make it to the interview room and the old crone offers you a coffee. After spending a few minutes wiping yourself down from the coffee you just spilt down your front the old crone asks if you are ready to start the interview proper. She then says something like, “Just as a nice gentle start, talk me through your CV."
You immediately start to worry about what is going to happen when it gets rough. You then realise you didn’t bring any copies of your CV and can’t remember what is on it. A few minutes of you wittering about your favourite holiday destinations and she now things your CV is a fake.
The old crone decides to focus you in on some key areas by asking why you want to leave your current employment. You fumble around trying not to admit that you hate the company, the work and your boss and eventually hit on a “looking for fresh challenges" answer. Annoyingly she asks what sort of fresh challenges you think her company will give you.
Panicking you scramble for an answer. An image of her naked flashes through your mind and you realise that this won’t work for you. Suddenly realising that she might be thinking of you naked puts the original question out of your mind and you sit their blankly. A whole lifetime later and the interview is still going on.
At the point where you have lost all feeling in your extremities your old hag tells you that this is your chance to ask questions as she has finished hers. Trying to appear still alive you ask her how soon will the organisation make a decision. She answers the question, and leaves you outside the company wondering if you have got the job.
Whilst many people will have had some experience of this sort of this imagine an interview where you are so confident that you build massive amounts of rapport with the interviewer as well as take control of the interview. You then answer all the interview questions implanting suggestions that you are the best candidate for the role whilst turning any objections in to benefits. How good would this sort of interview feel?
Seem impossible? Perhaps not, many of these skills are naturally occurring and you have certainly seen others do this as part of their daily lives.
Think about circumstances where you have heard about someone just ambling through life getting what everything, including the jobs they want. These are the people using these skills, sometimes naturally, sometimes they have been trained. In most cases you can learn all these skills in a matter of hours.
Your CV could be rewritten in less than a couple of hours adding lots of NLP and psychological pull to get more interviews than you could dream of. It may take a couple of hours working through a Hypnotic Interview Answer formula, but once it is done you will be able to answer interview questions powerfully for life.
Learning to build rapport, maintain your composure and banish interview nerves sounds difficult but could take as little as thirty minutes.A couple of hours mastering job interview techniques would make the difference for most people between the job you are doing and a truly great job.
While regarded by many as an imperfect way to choose a new employee, interviews are used by almost all organisations irrespective of size or sector. You may not like the process and indeed some fear interviews intensely however to get that crucial first job and to move up the career ladder you must become not only comfortable in the interview room but also learn how to become an excellent interviewee.
Many candidates believe that having a great resume/CV is enough to see them through the interview and win the job offer. This is a common mistake that results in disappointment. The reality is that all candidates have a great resume/CV and in my experience it is often not the applicant with the best experience or skills who will win the job rather the one who performs best at the interview.
So just what do you have to do to stand out of the crowd and impress on the interviewer that you are the right person for the job? This article looks at the key techniques that any job interview candidate can use, irrespective of the type or level of the position to succeed and win those great job offers.
Be Prepared:
A common mistake made by candidates is not being fully prepared and there really is no excuse. There is usually more than enough time from the date you receive your invite to the interview itself and proper preparation and practice will enhance greatly your ability to answer questions, to communicate and to present yourself in the best possible light. There is no one recommended way to prepare for an interview. Instead, there are key tools and techniques that can be used to improve one's chances of interview success. Find out as much as possible about the type and format of the interview. Research the company to find out how commercially viable it is, what skills are they looking for and discover if the company is right for you.
Focus on your strengths:
Remember that the organization knows that you CAN do the job and they want you to confirm this to them during the interview. Don't let any negative experiences or a gap in your career for example negate all the great work you have done.
Step into the Interviewers Shoes:
What exactly is the interviewer looking for from you? Imagine yourself in the interviewers place and try to get a feel for what they need from you. Once you can do that effectively you will be able to build a relationship with them from the first moment of the interview.
Listen:
Focus on the questions being asked and if you are not sure of the meaning of the question, then ask. This is a two way conversation and the interviewer will respond favorable to being engaged like this however, don't do this with every question as you may come across as lacking in confidence.
Relevant Answers:
Keep your answers relevant to the question and do not be tempted to ramble. You may have an interesting story to tell or a great strength but if it is not required in the job don't mention it.
Body Language:
Smiling, maintaining eye contact, a relaxed focused posture, restrained gesticulation are all examples of good body language which will work for you in the interview.
Ask Questions:
You will be given an opportunity to ask questions usually at the end however you do not have to wait until then necessarily. As in any conversation there will be appropriate time when you can interject and ask relevant questions. Be aware that questions about salary, working hours, holidays etc should not be asked at this stage.
Both Rintu Basu & Annette Lewis are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Rintu Basu has sinced written about articles on various topics from Neuro Linguistic Programming, Interview Questions and Business Loans. You can find out more about NLP and Hypnosis applied to Job Search Technqiues through The NLP Company run by Rintu Basu. Rintu has developed a downloadable Hypnotic. Rintu Basu's top article generates over 49500 views. to your Favourites.
Annette Lewis has sinced written about articles on various topics from Interview Questions. Annette Lewis is an accredited interviewer, job coach and career consultant. She provides free advice for job interview candidates at