How To Improve My Interview Skills

Get In The Right Headspace

You probably dont think much about your head. But, making the wrong move may send the interviewer the wrong message.

Make eye contact like you would any other conversation. Dont avoid eye contact, but also dont turn the interview into a staring contest. Find natural moments to look away. For example, before you answer a question, take a deep breath and look up for a minute while you think of an answer.

Nodding is also an important part of non-verbal communication and lets the interviewer know you understand or agree with them. So, feel free to nod in agreement, especially if you dont want to interrupt the interviewer. But, nodding too much can signal indifference, so make sure to speak up every once in a while.

It’s Not A Solo Performance: Aim For A 50/50 Dialogue

What you really need to do, though, is to make the interview interactive. People trained in interview techniques are told to use the 70/30 rule. That is to say the interviewer aims to talk for about 30% of the time allotted and the candidate talks 70% of the time, in response.

The smart candidate actually wants a 50/50 dialogue. You should aim for a conversation, directed along the lines you prefer whereby you can play to your strengths. The interviewer can only go with what you give them. This is best illustrated by using the “what was your biggest business mistake?” question. Do you really want to tell them your biggest mistake? Really? You decide.

You are aiming for positive interaction. Make it easy for the interviewer by saying “have I told you all you need to know on that subject? Can I give you more detail?” Build rapport, find some common ground. But remember it’s not a monologue, you are both actors in the interview and it is a dialogue, a conversation, not a solo performance.

Be Polite To Everyone You Meet

In addition to the person who is performing your interview, you may meet several other people throughout the company during your interview. For example, you may be greeted by a receptionist or secretary, be escorted to the interview room by someone from human resources, interview with one or several supervisors or managers and see other employees as you are walking through the company. It is important to be friendly and courteous to everyone you meet because this will show the interviewer how well you will fit into the company’s culture.

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Update All Parties Relevant To Your Search

A huge difference exists between spending your entire workday interacting with people versus sitting in front of a computer screen analyzing data all day. Creating a spreadsheet that highlights sales figures and presenting that to your boss weekly is vastly different from standing in front of a group of twenty to thirty peers and managers and presenting that data.

Practice For The Interview

One of the best ways to improve your interviewing skills is to practice for the interview beforehand. Practicing for an interview can include several things such as working on your body language and nonverbal communication skills, wearing your interview outfit to ensure you are comfortable in it and answering questions you expect the interviewer to ask out loud to a friend, on-camera or in the mirror. The more you practice before your interview, the more comfortable and confident you will appear during your interview.

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Dont Check Your Phone

Yes. This one is so important its all by itself. Our phones are indispensable these days, and youll have it with you during the interview. But dont touch it. Not even once. Turn it off. Not to vibrate or silent. But off. Even if someone calls you during the interview and you ignore it, you dont want any interruptions during the interview.

Make A Good First Impression

Your interview may be your first interaction with the organization or this group of people. So, treat everyone you meet as though they were your interviewer.

For example, imagine that you arrive late to your interview, and you start complaining about the journey to the person who’s sharing the elevator with you. Only when you both get out at the same floor do you realize that they’re the CEO!

Arrive in good time and be courteous, polite and friendly to everyone you meet making a great first impression will pay off later in the process.

Note:

If your interview is taking place online, there are additional ways to make a good or bad impression. See our video How to Ace a Video Interview for more advice on this.

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Be Committed To The Company:

Before interviewing for the job, the person may not consider this job to be their last job. But in order for them to get the job, they will show the interviewer that they are fully committed to the company to fend off competition. This helps in not revealing any further personal plans for the individual. So the person needs to act like, this particular job will be their last job at the time of the interview. This will help them in getting the job and beat any possible competitors around.

Be Polite To Everyone

You may have heard stories of people who were rude to the receptionist, cut someone off in the parking lot, or yelled at the barista at the coffee shop around the corner and then didn’t get the job. These things happen, and they can ruin your chances. I will never, ever, not in a million years hire the person who is rude to the receptionist or barista. Many recruiters and hiring managers feel the same.

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How To Improve Your Soft Skills

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From your interview attire to your post-interview thank you note, a lot can go into a successful interview. An often-overlooked factor that can impact your interview success is soft skills. Whether its your first interview out of college or one of many, learning how to improve and develop soft skills is vital.

A big factor in how to improve soft skills relies on your verbal and nonverbal communication skills. While verbal refers to how well you speak, nonverbal communication relies on posture, body language, and eye contact.

The key to developing soft skills effectively is practice. Nevertheless, knowing where to start can be tricky. What skills should you work on improving? Are there certain methods to consider when developing your soft skills?

Keep reading to learn what soft skills are important, how to develop and improve them and more.

Split Problem Into Smaller Parts

Do you know how to eat an elephant? One bite at a time! It works for a code too. You dont have to implement everything at once. Create a general algorithm and extract some logic to separate functions. E.g. if you need in your main program logic for comparing complex items just create an empty helper function with the correct name, assume it works correctly, and use it you can implement the body of the function later on. Thanks to that you do not lose concentration on the biggest problem and avoid being overwhelmed by the swelling problems. Solving many small but well-defined problems is easier.

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So When You Answer What Skills Do You Need To Improve Pick A Real Area Youd Like To Get Better At But Make Sure Its Not Something Essential To The Job

You can choose something youre already pretty good at, but still trying to improve even more. You can choose something that you learned a long time ago but havent used in recent jobs very much.

You can name something not directly related to your work but something youre passionate about learning. For example, maybe youre an Accountant but someday youd like to be a Team Leader, so youd like opportunities to improve your leadership. You could suggest that youd like to lead a meeting or project to begin, just to build out that skill-set over the long term.

Lets look at some example answers and this will start to make more sense

Ill put that Accountant example above as the first example.

Talk About How Youre Fixing These Areas Of Improvement

Whatever skill or weakness you say youre trying to improve and whatever answer formula you follow above you should talk about what youre working on right now to improve in this area.

I cant stress this enough. Theres such a big difference between saying you need to improve something in the future, and saying youre doing it already.

The interviewer is going to be a lot more excited if you show youre taking initiative to improve your skill set right now even before you begin their job!

You never want to sound like youre waiting for a company to hire you before you start addressing a weakness! Thats not going to get them excited about hiring you. In fact, thats a mistake thatll cost you many job offers.

So to conclude, name a real area of improvement, but make sure it wont create doubt about your ability to do the job. Then, wrap up by talking about what actions youre taking to improve this weakness, and how you plan on addressing it.

As a final recap, here are the ALL steps we covered in this article

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Which Are The Most Important Interview Skills

Clearly, there are lots of interview skills that can dramatically improve your chances of landing the job. Some of those skills will naturally vary depending on the type of role for which you are applying. However, here are three of the most important general interview skills:

1. Considering Your Response

The ability to plan a considered response to an interview question is extremely valuable. In the pressure cooker environment of an interview, it is all too easy to rush your response and fail to get your point across effectively or miss some of your key talking points.

Of course, no one wants to spend 30 seconds sitting in silence thinking about what to say, but it is possible to buy yourself some valuable time using tactics like:

• Repeating the question back
• Rephrasing the question to make it clear you understand what is being asked
• Using phrases such as, Thats an interesting question

2. Communicating Calmly & Clearly

In a similar vein, being able to speak calmly and clearly in high-pressure situations is a beneficial interview skill.

When under pressure, it often feels natural to talk as quickly as possible in a bid to communicate as much information as you can, but this makes you appear stressed and flustered, and also harder to understand. Remember to breathe and slow down.

3. Listening Actively

Developing your listening skills will help you stay in the moment and fully understand what the interviewer is asking you, which in turn will help you give better answers.

Dig Deeper Into The Company:

Most of us believe that preparing yourself for the interview means knowing about the company you are interviewing for. And this can be done easily by going through the companys website.

While it is not completely incorrect to do so, it is also not enough to just go through the companys website to get information about the company. In a certain way, the company is looking for potential candidates as resource to fill a gap, or to fix an identified problem in the company.

Understand the organisations needs and wants, and prepare on how you can be an asset to the company. You have to make the hiring managers believe that your presence would add value to the company.

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Do Some Practice Interviews

Practice makes perfect. Whether you have your parents or friends do mock interviews or you recite different answers to common interview questions, its good to practice verbalizing your different reasons for seeking a specific position. The more familiar you are with expressing your experience and interest in the role, the better. That way not even interview jitters will get in the way of putting your best face forward at your next interview.

Example #: Online Marketing

Id like to get better at online marketing.

I feel theres always room for improvement in this area always new ways of doing things, but they can be neglected if you dont keep up with new trends.

Online marketing is one of those skills that transfer well to any industry, because being able to generate eyeballs on a product or service is always going to be invaluable to the company I work for.

Ive already invested in a few online courses and Im slowly working my way through them in my spare time. So far so good.

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What To Do During An Interview

Your qualifications and skills are only a part of what the hiring manager is looking for when conducting an interview. Whether you get the job depends largely on how you behave at the interviewwhat you do, what you say, and how you say it. From the first door you walk through to the final handshake on your way out, this lesson will help you learn how to behave during an interview. It will help you identify basic business etiquette that can improve your chances, as well as show you how your tone of voice and body language can be interpreted by an interviewer. It will also outline the basic rules for answering questions well.

Free Practice Tests Take Our Free Tests To Discover Whether You Need To Improve Your Psychometric Test Aptitude Tests And Personality Test Scores

Some of the organisations we prepare you for

Wanted to let you know I scored in the second highest level for the aptitude test and was eligible for rifleman with the Australian Defence Force. I also passed my interview and personality test.Thank you so much for all your help in preparing me for the tests and interview– Dwayne G.

Wanddddadadadted to let you know I scored in the second highest level for the aptitude test and was eligible for rifleman with the Australian Defence Force. I also passed my interview and personality test.Thank you so much for all your help in preparing me for the tests and interview– Dwayne G.

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Verbal Interview Questions And The Tips

In this section, we will discuss the verbal aspect of an interview and the common questions that interviewers may ask. Lets go through them one-by-one.

This is the most common and very first question in almost every interview. Here, you need to understand that the Interviewer has your CV opened in front of him, hence, it is obvious that he must have all the information. What he is really looking for- your confidence, enthusiasm, and passion with which you answer the question.

If youre an experienced candidate, you can tell-

• Who are you professionally? Share your current role and responsibilities.

• Highlight your experience and expertise. Share any key points about achievements or anything that makes you stand out.

• Explain why youre interested in this job role. Share why the job is ideal for you. Also, dont forget to include the reason for quitting your current job.

For fresh grads, you can form your answer around the below points-

• Give an overview of your field of study and why you chose it in the first place.

• Tell them about the relevant experience. Also, dont forget to include any volunteering and internships youve.

• Finally, tell them why you want this job and why you want to join this company.

Please dont say anything like I like watching movies, I like reading books, etc. Interviewers dont really care about your likes and hobbies.

How To Improve Your Interview Skills

You’ll need to do more than simply show up to the interview to perform well during a job interview and make a strong and positive impression. Taking the time to brush up your interview skills before you get on the phone or head out to an in-person interview will help you nail the interview and secure a job offer.

Follow these strategies and tips to ace your interview.

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What To Wear To An Interview

While many employers expect candidates to dress smartly, a growing number encourage casual wear at work, making it trickier than ever to choose an interview outfit.

What you’ll be expected to wear depends on factors such as the size of the company, the industry it operates in and the culture it promotes. For example, a small creative agency may have different standards to a major accountancy firm.

If you’re unsure on the dress code, ask before attending the interview. The key point to remember is that it’s better to be too smart than too casual. Only opt for a more casual outfit if you’re certain that’s acceptable – if there’s any doubt, go for smart business attire. Whatever you choose, make sure that your clothes are ironed and your shoes are clean.

For telephone and online interviews make sure you dress as though the interview is in person. Sitting in your tracksuit bottoms trying to act professional probably isnt going to go too well.

Dress For The Job Or Company

Today’s casual dress codes do not give you permission to dress as “they” do when you interview. It is important to know what to wear to an interview and to be well-groomed. Whether you wear a suit or something less formal depends on the company culture and the position you are seeking. If possible, call to find out about the company dress code before the interview.

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