Only a select few ever get the job of their dreams - the rest are stuck in their same-old, same-old jobs (yes, even executive and management-level positions can get boring after a spell).
The sad thing about the entire situation is that most of the people who "lost out" didn't have to. Many of them have the skills, the experience, and the discipline to do well in the jobs they were aiming for. What they did lack, however, was personal preparation in the job hunting process.
Most people think that the only skill needed in trying to find a job is writing a good resume. Indeed, many people go to great lengths trying to write an excellent one - they apply various resume writing tips, and even hire resume writing services. Then they email resumes to prospective employers en masse, and use distribution services like ResumeMachine.com. Every now and then, they will receive an interview request, which can be likened to a final screening. And this is where most people falter.
The main thing you need to do before an interview is to know as much as you can about the company that you wish to join. This may sound very basic, but most job applicants don't bother to do it. The average applicant is more concerned about what s/he will get from the company than what s/he can give to it.
Once you've done your research, you should know what the company needs in order for it to grow. It's like one of those B-school SWOT analysis situations:
1. Can you identify the company's strengths, and how you'd complement them?
2. Can you say how you'd help shore up their perceived weaknesses?
3. Can you show them opportunities they may be missing?
4. Can you help them defeat their threats?
Or put more simply, ask yourself whether you can provide what the company needs. If so, then start to formulate a plan, however basic, to present to your interviewer.
And failing this, you can always fall back on asking these kinds of informational questions outright in the interview. Once you've shown interest in the company's interests, the rest of the interview will flow naturally. And your chances of success will be greatly improved.
We're talking about body language, and if you've made it to the short list of candidates being interviewed for that executive position, there's no sense in getting sabotaged by some errant twitch you never knew you had.
Get a leg up on your competition by mastering some of these simple tricks:
* Maintain the right eye contact with your interviewer - not too little, AND not too much, according to Nick Morgan's "The Truth Behind the Smile and Other Myths - When Body Language Lies," a 9/30/2002 article for Working Knowledge, the Harvard Business School publication for faculty research. If you avoid eye contact when answering a question, the interviewer gets suspicious. Worse, staring down the interviewer makes them uncomfortable, and could be interpreted as a form of flirtation. Yes, flirtation.
* Keep your extraneous body motions to a minimum. In other words, don't fidget - it makes you look nervous and unprepared. You'll find more red flags for your body behaviors in Carmine Gallo's "7 Body Language Killers" article on AskMen.com.
* Like your mother told you, sit up straight, and don't cross your arms - present yourself as confident and poised, not defeated and defensive. You'll get more in this vein out of the "Body Language in Business" 5-page article at BizHelp24.com.
Use those resources to start making notes about your body language in your current interviews. Identify which ones went well, what your body language was like, and how you felt emotionally in those interviews. It could be the key to improvement - and landing the executive position you want.
And here's one last tip: You've probably heard of doing role-playing for interviews, but why not take it one step further? If you're going to do it, how about recording it?
Set up the camera, record your role-play, then watch it back with your interviewer. Put on your best sports commentator hat, and pretend that's not you on screen. (It can be very hard to watch yourself dispassionately like that.)
Instead, parse every little bit of body language as though it's someone else - someone you can learn from, who does some things right and others wrong, and who, with a little bit of practice, can become truly proficient in making sure the gestures match the words coming out of his or her mouth.