Interviews are all about portraying yourself in your best light. Creating a positive persona and being able to highlight how your skill set matches the brief is crucial and only solid research will help you achieve this.
However we can give you some easy tips on how to quickly improve your interviewing ability.
1. Go the extra mile.
Just researching the home page of the company website is not enough, with so much content easily at our finger tips, there is no excuse to turn up to an interview having just done the bare minimum.
Use your recruiter to find out all about the person you are meeting, the reason for the role. Read the business latest press releases to find out what is actually happening in the business, what are they celebrating, what are they looking to improve?
Use LinkedIn to its potential. If you and your interviewer share contacts ask them to endorse you and recommend you. Ask them how they know the interviewer and can they speak highly of you in their regard.
These little tweaks to your research can help shape you as an exceptional candidate.
2. Practise makes perfect
Not all interviews are the same by any stretch of the imagination, but in essence they are all looking for the same thing. To find a great candidate to fill the empty hole in their organisation. For you to truly exceed at interview, you should be practising your interview technique regularly.
Reading blogs like this will help hone your talents, but also having strong answers to typical questions such as…
What are your personal growth plans?
What do you wish you had done differently in business?
Where do you see yourself in the future?
…Will help you immensely.
Your answers should be concise and considered, portray you in a positive light, and relate back to the job description. It is great to say you have ambition to become a Sales Director in the future, but if the organisations you are looking to be hired by don’t offer that sort of progression you may shoot yourself in the foot (or be interviewing at the wrong job.
3. Have a conversation
Interviews should be a double sided experience. A change for you to promote yourself to the business and an opportunity for you to find out more about the company, culture and team.
If you have done a decent level of research then you should have some great questions prepared naturally. However trying to engage the interviewer in a conversation will allow you to probe more about the business, highlight your research, and make the meeting feel more natural.
- Stay happy
Positivism is crucial in an interview, in all forms. Interviews are not the place to list the parts of your role that you despise in your current position, not is it the right time to speak badly of your line manager or previous company.
If you critique where you have worked previously, you will be causing concern to the interviewer that you will repeat this after working for them. No one wants to be bad mouthed in an interview.
Remain positive even if you demonstrate an example of one of the skills required for the role. Question how long training would be on that area, reaffirm that you are a quick learner, and positively reinforce that you feel confident in learning new skills
5. Follow up
After the interview, make sure you follow up with a thank you email or letter. It is a simple technique which allows you to really stress your interest in the role and can leave a fantastic positive impression.
Find out how to write a great thank you letter here.
Good luck