Tips for interviewing

For your interview:

Please dress business professional. (power suit/power tie) Bring two updated copies of your resume.Arrive early!!!!!

Do your homework! Research the company and let your interviewer know how much you know about the company…this is not a fact finding mission this is hopefully our next job.

Be prepared to sell yourself, and why you are interested in a career with their company.

Remember posture, presentation, eye contact and a good firm handshake are key.

Always remember, close him! Ask for the next steps in the interview process.

What should women wear to interview?

This is a very hot topic and often a sensitive one at best. Please feel free to follow the link below to explore this fascinating and complex diatribe.

http://www.quintcareers.com/dressing_at_the_interview.html

What should men wear to interview?

We would never think of leaving men out of the “what to wear” discussion but for most it’s an after thought the morning of the big day. Below is a helpful aricle that discusses the do’s and don’ts of interview attire.

http://jobsearch.about.com/od/interviewsnetworking/a/dressforsuccess.htm

Interview strategy: the Story Teller

If you read many books on job interviews, you’ll notice that some feed you lists of interview questions that you should learn answers to. But an interview is not an interrogation; it’s a conversation. Thus, I believe the best way to prepare for an interview is to come armed with a multitude of small stories about both your business and personal life.

Conversation Wins the Job

Competency-based interviews, as opposed to traditional interviews, have become more common today. In a traditional interview, the interviewer will ask you questions focused on whether you have the skills and knowledge needed to do the job. A competency-based interview goes further by asking you additional questions about your character and personal attributes that can better determine whether you fit their corporate culture. These are called “behavioral competencies.”

A competency-based interviewer will spend about half the interview on your job skills, and about half on your behavioral competencies. He or she will be looking for evidence of how you have acted in real situations in the past. So having your stories ready to go, and discussing them during a conversation between two equals, plays very well for this type of interview.

The Interviewer’s Priorities 

An employer wants to find out:

• Are you an asset or liability? In other words, will you either make money or save money for the company?
• Are you a team player? Will you fit into the corporate hierarchy or be like sand in the gears? Can you take and give (if appropriate) orders?
• Will you fit into the company culture? They don’t want prima donnas.

Your Story Strategy

The best way for an interviewer to get answers to the questions above is for you, the interviewee, to take the initiative. You should have several personal stories that you can tell as examples of your successes, and each story should last between 30 to 90 seconds.

You should start by developing your stories around these areas:

• Examples of when you either made money or saved money for your current or previous employer.
• A crisis in your life or job and how you responded or recovered from it.
• A time where you functioned as part of a team and what your contribution was.
• A time in your career or job where you had to overcome stress.
• A time in your job where you provided successful leadership or a sense of direction.
• A failure that occurred in your job and how you overcame it.
• Any seminal events that happened during your career to cause you to change direction and how that worked out for you.

Actions speak louder than words. Your actions in the past — relayed in story form — will tell a company much more than any generic response. Your stories will give the interviewer the tangible examples he or she seeks, and they will convey a very strong sense of your individuality, making you stand out more.

Why slang is ‘Way Bad’ in an interview

Here’s the 411 on slang in interviews.

Never use slang in an interview. You should speak to an interviewer just as you would to a business colleague or even a boss. That means you must sound polished and professional.

Also, the interviewer (who may not be as cool as you are) may have no idea what you’re saying when you use slang.

Last, never, EVER, use profanity in an interview. There’s simply no place for it.

Did you just interupt me?

Don’t Answer Before You’ve Been Asked

You want to make a good impression on an interviewer. You want to seem knowledgeable, confident and engaged. So when the interviewer starts to ask you a question, you jump on it, right?

Wrong.

First, it’s rude to interrupt.

Second, you may incorrectly assume that you know what the interviewer was going to ask and answer the wrong question.

Third, you won’t have time to think about your answer before you start speaking, which can lead to lots of mid-sentence “ummms” to stall for time.

When an interviewer asks a question, it’s tempting to answer quickly, especially if you’re nervous. Don’t. Instead, wait for her to finish speaking, then take a deep breath and collect your thoughts. Then answer the question.

You’ll appear calm, confident and polite. And, after taking a moment to think, you’ll probably give a much better answer too.

Don’t jargon your way out of a job

You say: “Our value proposition is to create synergy while leveraging our respective ROIs.”

The interviewer thinks: “Huh?”

You don’t need to use jargon to sound knowledgeable in an interview. First, don’t assume the interviewer is familiar with the jargon.

Also, as many interviewers will tell you, people often use a lot of fancy jargon when they want to disguise the fact that they aren’t completely confident in what they’re saying.

So speak simply and coherently and your intelligence should speak for itself.

Always Get Your Interviewers Business Card!!!

This is critical, asking for you interviewers business card is a sign that you are planning on following up or that you are very serious about the opportunity. A professional interviewer should offer it to you but if not please remember to ask. This is essential for you to be able to send a thank you email or card for their time and consideration.

The Fortune is in the follow up and by forune I mean job. Treat the interview like a sales meeting and close the deal.

Job market outlook

Despite anxiety on a national level and internationally it appears that recent college grads and those that will be hitting the job market in May of 08 will have better choices and opportunities available than the class of 07. Check out the article below for more info.

http://www.boston.com/business/ticker/2008/02/report_weak_eco.html

Sell me this Pen…

Sell me this Pen…

This is an example of situational interviewing techniques a stress inducing one-two punch. The examples in such questions can be translated to any professional job where quick thinking, analytical and verbal communication skills are necessary for success. Now before reading the answer, think what you would do in a job interview when these two questions got fired at you one after another.Both questions relate to your understanding of “feature and benefit selling;” and they are both designed to examine your analytical processes when focused on a specific goal: in other words, what are the features and the benefits of a given product, which when explained encourage its sale.“It lasts a month under normal usage, and it’s completely reliable, it never stutters as the ink runs low, you know how annoying that is.”“It has a bright body color so you’ll never lose it on a crowded desk.”“The retractable pen tip means you’ll never have to search for a lost cap, or worry about it coming off and staining your clothes.”“It comes in three ink colors. Red, black and a companion highlighter in yellow, which really helps your notes stand out.”“it has a smooth, comfy rubber grip that will feel cool and conforms to fit your hand.”“And it’s disposable, so at $1 it has to be the best value on the market.”Then, of course, you must go for the close; here you’ll get additional points for “upselling” (encouraging further sales) as part of your close.“You can buy just the one, but the professional’s set of three is a bigger value. In fact, with today’s more flexible work hours, most people are buying two sets, one for work and one for home.”Your answer recognizes the features of the product and demonstrates how they can benefit the user; and your close changes the customer’s decision from, “shall I buy one or not?” to,”shall I buy one, three or six?”The second question in the sequence is a little tougher, asking you beat you earlier stellar sales performance, by selling a more expensive product. This requires the appropriate positioning of your more expensive pen to make the bigger sale, without denigrating the qualities of the cheaper pen, an approach that would only serve to throw the integrity of the company into question. This is difficult given the limited features of pens.As feature and benefit selling has, at its heart, an appreciation for customer needs and product usage you can start your answer with a question of your own that demonstrates this awareness, and buys you some time, for example, “We have many different pens for a wide range of applications, how will you be using your pen?” It also helps to understand the psychology of the customer, as it relates to your product and its ultimate application once sold.