Tuesday, March 19, 2024

How To Ace Your Interview

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Match The Color Of Your Outfit To The Image You Want To Project

How To Ace Your Job Interview Over Zoom | Forbes

A CareerBuilder survey of hiring managers and human-resources professionals found that different clothing colors convey distinct impressions.

Twenty-three percent of interviewers recommended wearing blue, which suggests that the candidate is a team player, while 15% recommended black, which suggests leadership potential.

Meanwhile, 25% said orange is the worst color to wear, and suggests that the candidate is unprofessional.

Heres what other colors indicate:

Gray: logical/analytical

Red: power

Dont Interview On The Same Day As The Strongest Candidates

Research suggests that interviewers base their evaluations of individual candidates on who else theyve interviewed that day.

One study, from researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University, found that applicants who interviewed at the end of a day after a series of strong candidates were rated lower than expected. On the other hand, those who interviewed after a series of weak candidates were rated higher than expected.

Its not clear whether this is an unconscious phenomenon, or whether interviewers are consciously rating the last candidates higher or lower than they should because they dont want their supervisors to think theyre giving everyone the same ratings.

Either way, if you have any knowledge of who else is interviewing and when, choose to come in after comparatively unqualified candidates.

Q: What Are Some Tips For A Phone Interview

I have a phone interview tomorrow with a large company. Do you have any tips or do’s and don’ts for a phone interview? – LaQuita L.

Many of the ways you can succeed in a phone interview happen before you even get on the call. For one thing, it’s important that you find a quiet place with good service to make sure that you won’t be disrupted or distracted. Also, remember that even though this is a phone interview, you still have to exude confidence and enthusiasm. It may sound silly, but jump up and down or wave your arms in the air do whatever you need to do to get your energy up. This will help you get into the right headspace to show the positive attitude interviewers are looking for.

One of the greatest things about a phone interview is that you can have your notes! So go ahead and create a list of the key points you want to mention, as well as the questions you plan to ask the interviewer.

In a phone interview, it can be more difficult than usual to read the interviewer and get an idea of what he or she may be thinking. Because of that, take a moment every now and then to check in and make sure you are on the same page. A simple Does that answer your question? or Does that make sense? can go a long way.

Finally, remember that a phone interview is just like any other interview. You should always come prepared with questions to ask, and don’t forget to send a thank-you note once it’s all over.

Also Check: What To Write After An Interview

During The Interview Turn Off Notifications And Close Windows And Tabs

Getting a sudden Skype or Slack call or even an email can really throw you off, says Graham. Its not only distracting to the people on the call, but its certainly distracting to you to see that you just got a message. I think its really important to close down everything else on your computer except what you need to have open. By closing windows, youre also giving your computer and internet connection the best chance to make it through the call without glitches.

How To Follow Up After The Interview

How to Ace Your Next Interview

Its important to follow up with an interviewer after a walk-in interview, both to thank the company for the interview opportunity and to ask about the status of your application.

To follow up, you first need to ask your interviewer for their contact information at the end of your interview. Try to get a business card from them, or ask for their email, that way you can make sure youll be able to get in touch with them.

Later, on the same day of the interview, send a short and sweet follow-up message. You can thank the interviewer for their time and remind them that youre happy to answer follow-up questions. Its also a good time to ask any questions that you either forgot to ask or thought about since the interview to show that youre engaged and interested.

If that email doesnt receive a response, its a good idea to send another follow-up email a week later. You can check in on your application status, or just give the person a gentle reminder that youre still waiting on a response.

Don’t Miss: What Are Some Good Interview Questions To Ask A Candidate

Practice Great Body Language And Eye Contact

Be ready to maintain eye contact with the whole panel, with slightly more attention toward whoever asked the question youre answering.

And practice your body language in general eye contact, posture, keeping your hands and feet still , etc.

If you dont feel confident or dont have good body language habits, its going to become a bigger problem in a panel interview or group interview because its more pressure, more people to make eye contact with and interact with, etc.

Treat It Like Any Other Interview

The following best practices apply to both on-site and virtual interviews.

  • Study the Job Description: Make an inventory of your skills and experience that align with each job requirement, and be ready to showcase them. Its okay if some skills are areas of growth for you. In these instances showcase your ability and agility to grow and learn new things.
  • Research the Interviewer: Once interview attendees are confirmed, look them up on professional networking sites like to get familiar with their background. Identify questions based on their experience and interests.
  • Practice and Prepare: If your interview process includes a panel presentation, be sure to practice! Conducting a dry run with family, friends, or peers can perfect your talk track.
  • Dress the Part: Salesforce tends to be more casual, but this doesn’t mean there isn’t a time or a place to step it up a bit. Bring your authentic self to the interview. We want you to get to know you and what makes you unique.

Recommended Reading: How To Prepare For An Administrative Assistant Interview

Find The Best Environment In Your Home

While closets may seem like a safe choice for an interview they tend to be small and have a door you can close they can also be echoey and dark. Graham says you should identify a space in your home with the best combination of sound and lighting quality possible, so if theres a room with natural light where you can close the door, go there instead.

In terms of the sound and lighting, you dont need to go out and buy expensive equipment or a new sound system, says Graham. Instead, do a practice run multiple runs are ideal on your existing set-up with a friend at the same time of day as your interview, so you can see how the light and neighborhood noise is at that time.

Try to ensure that your background is as neutral as possible. If your real-life background is busy or cluttered, its OK to use a plain Zoom background, says Graham. Just use one that youve tried in advance so it doesnt create any strange glitches when you move around. Ive also seen people and this is easy put a sheet up behind themselves, she adds.

Youll Learn About Your Competitors

How to Ace Your Video Interview | WSJ

Consultants always try to learn how they stack up against the competition, so be sure to ask about other candidates in the running.

  • Where are you in the hiring process? How many other candidates are there?
  • How do you see me compared to other candidates?
  • What kind of person are you leaning toward hiring?
  • Can you see any reason why you wouldnt want to have someone like me on board?
  • What kind of person would be your ideal candidate?

As powerful as consultative interviewing is, it doesnt mean youll be asking all the questions, and it doesnt mean every interview will be smooth sailing. Thats why weve put together some interviewing tactics for you to deploy along with your consultant mindset.

Recommended Reading: What Are The Top 5 Questions To Ask An Interviewer

Tips For Great Job Interviews

From researching the company to handling certain key interview questions, make sure you make a great impression and ace your next job interview by following these 20 tips.

Want to ace your next interview and land thatopen job youve been seeking? Here are 20 tips to help you prepare.1. Research the industry and company.An interviewer may ask how you perceive his company’s position in its industry, who the firm’s competitors are, what its competitive advantages are, and how it should best go forward. For this reason, avoid trying to thoroughly research a dozen different industries. Focus your job search on just a few industries instead.

How To Do Better

When you are interviewing for a job, the interviewers primary concern is whether or not you can do that job. If they get the impression that there is something you cannot, or will not, do, chances are they will move on to another candidate. This does not mean you should overstate your qualifications or say you can do something you cant. Instead, if there is a part of the position you feel under-qualified to fill, mention that you would need some extra training for that aspect.

When given the choice between an under-qualified candidate who is willing to learn and a fully-qualified candidate who does not seem like they want to do the job, managers prefer the first.

If you feel that there are aspects of the job that you truly would prefer not to do, you might not be a great fit for the position.

Also Check: What Are Some Good Interview Questions

Tell Me About Yourself

Hiring managers often start the interview with this question to give you the opportunity to share highlights of your background. In your response to the question, provide a short overview of your career path, career goals and the duties of your current role. Emphasize your most impressive achievements and the skills and qualifications you’ve developed that are most relevant to the role.

How To Ace Your Technical Interview

How to ace your Data Analytics Interview

Technical interviews are common in the IT industry, and if you are going to start your career in IT, you need to know how to ace your technical interview. Technical interviews are typically conducted for developers, engineers, and other specialized IT job positions. The purpose of the technical interview is to access your tech knowledge, skill level, and communication tactics.

In this article, well cover what a technical interview is and how to prepare for it so you can ace that job interview.

Read Also: How To Draft A Thank You Email After An Interview

How To Prepare For A Video Interview

Only practice can make you confident and ready for your video interview, and for that you can use the Big Interview Practice Interview Tool. It will help you:

  • Get comfortable with video interviewing and
  • Practice as many times as you need to improve your skills
  • Remember, you want to work all the kinks out during practice, not on the interview day. With the Practice Interview Tool, you can re-record a question as many times as you need to and get valuable feedback from friends and mentors before moving on.

    To get started, simply login to your Big Interview account and choose Practice Interview from a Practice dropdown menu.

    From there you can start a new mock interview by choosing the type of interview you want to get ready for.

    We always recommend starting with a General section to get a better understanding of most common interview questions and answers.

    From there, you can choose your practice set based on your experience level, industry, or type of interview.

    When youre ready to practice, click the screen of the interviewer to hear the question. When youre ready, hit the record button to record your answer.

    You can record as many answers as you like, practicing until you feel confident you have it down.

    Once you are happy with your video, you can save it and send it off for feedback.

    The more you practice with video interviewing, the more comfortable you will become until answering questions virtually is just as easy as talking to someone in the same room.

    Arent You Overqualified For This Position

    When you reach a certain level in your career and lose your job, chances are good that at some point during your job search, that hideous term overqualified will rear its unwelcome head. How should you respond when it does?

    First, lets interpret what hiring managers are telling you when they trot out this term. They may say or imply that your skills and experience far exceed what the position requires, but what they really mean is:

    • I think your former salary was so high that we wont be able to afford you.
    • Im worried that if I hire you at a lower wage than you used to get, you wont be as committed to this position.
    • Im concerned that youre older than the usual age range for people who typically fill this type of position.
    • Im concerned that youre older than the person who will be managing you.
    • I think youre desperate and will stay only until something better comes along.

    The best way to put these fears to rest is by making the job the focus of your conversations, emphasizing the value you can bring to that job and to the company. You need to reassure hiring managers that you will be committed to the job and satisfied with a position at that level.

    Also Check: How To Prepare For A Facebook Interview

    Youll Feel More Confident

    Acting like a consultant makes you feel more powerful and calm during the interview process. Instead of sitting there passively answering questions and hoping theyll hire you, youll work to understand the companys situation and what their needs might be. But theres no need to act like a know-it-all. When making suggestions, show some humility. Youre not an insider yet.

    Hone Your Storytelling Skills

    How to Ace Your Job Interview

    Youll need to talk about yourself through compelling stories. The better you are at doing this, the more memorable youll be. If you struggle here, consider working with an expert career coach who can work with you so you have the skills and confidence to ace any interview. And, if you dont have access to something like the G5 Hub, take GetFive executive job coach Tom Rices advice and just use your smartphone. Wait, what? Read on for this devilishly simple trick to hone your storytelling skills.

    Rice asks his clients to use their smartphones to record themselves answering questions as though they were in a job interview. People have very little idea of how they come across to others, he says, and seeing it in the palm of your hand is a powerful way to hone the impression youre making. The first step is to come up with a list of possible interview questions and craft a story for each answer. Practice those answers over and over and over so you dont even have to think about them. They need to roll off your tongue.

    The next step is to grab your phone and record yourself answering those questions. When youre finished, view the recording in three ways.

    Youll be horrified, Rice laughs. But thats OK. Because its only you seeing it, not your prospective employer. Now youve got a baseline and can see where you need to improve. Do it 25 times if you have to, to get it right, he says.

    All of that practice and self-awareness will help you nail your next interview.

    You May Like: How To Interview A Real Estate Agent

    Control Other Distractions You Might Have

    Keep adults, children, and pets away.

    You dont want a cat jumping on the back of your chair, your mom hollering at you, or your toddler screaming right when youre talking about how amazing and professional you are. Yes, were all human and we all have lives, but these distractions tend to diminish your credibility a smidge.

    If theres a risk of vacuums, leaf-blowers, and jack-hammers try to plan ahead for these contingencies. And of course, if something really is unavoidable, you can:

  • Apologize, address it very briefly, and move on.
  • Mute your mic or blank your webcam for a moment and feign technical difficulties.
  • A combination of 1 and 2.
  • And again, do not do your video interview in any public place . Youre just setting yourself up for distraction or disaster .

    Be Friendly And Assertive At The Same Time

    One fascinating study, from the University of Guelph, in Canada, sought to address the reasons why candidates who seem anxious are less likely to land the job.

    Turns out, at least in mock interviews, its not nervous tics like fidgeting that hurt your chances. Rather, it could be that being anxious makes you seem less warm and assertive, and makes you speak slowly.

    If youre not naturally extroverted, you need to make sure you sell your skills, study coauthor Deborah M. Powell told Forbes. Dont be afraid to take ownership of your contribution to a project.

    Powell told Forbes that slow talking hurt candidates chances because interviewers may have assumed that the candidates were having a hard time answering their questions.

    You May Like: What Are Some Good Interview Questions To Ask

    Maintain Good Eye Contact

    We all know how important it is to make confident eye contact during a job interview. This is much tougher to do via video. When youre speaking to someone via video conference, your eyes naturally want to focus on the face of your conversation partner. Depending on where that face is on your monitor and the location of your webcam, this can cause you to appear on-screen as if you are looking down or away.

    You can avoid this by resizing and moving the window with the persons video image. Move it up or as close to your webcam as possible. This will give the closest approximation to real human eye contact.

    PRO TIP: Theres a fine line between good eye contact and the serial killer stare. Webcam eye contact can feel a bit awkward at first and a lot of people respond by overcompensating. Just try to relax and act as usual .

    A good rule of thumb is that if someone can see the whites all-around your pupil then your stare is probably too intense.

    Michael Ellsberg, author of The Power of Eye Contact has this advice:

    The kind of eye contact you want to have when you go into a job interview is neither too aggressive nor too weak. Its walking this perfect middle line that is called confidence.

    There are also some cultural considerations depending on where you are in the world , but a good rule is to not sustain eye-contact for longer than 5 seconds at a time.

    Break eye-contact, look away briefly, breathe, then reconnect.

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