Are You Prepared For Your Interview?

Muovo well understands that interviews can range from conversations that last just a couple of minutes, to a number of formal meetings, sometimes with the head of a department and at other times with all the board members.

Interviews are there to demonstrate and prove that YOU are the right candidate for the job. Seeing interviewees on a daily basis, Muovo assures you that you are not the only one if interviews make you nervous.

However, a general truth that we can tell you is that, the better prepared you are, the more comfortable you will be when the more difficult questions start coming your way.

The article below, which was first published in HelpGuide, gives you some tips on how to prepare yourself well for the interview. Here it goes!

Job interview preparation tips

• Do your research. Gather information about the company and the position available. Try to specifically relate your experience to the duties the job opportunity entails.
  
• Practice interviewing. Enlist a friend (better yet, a group of friends and colleagues) to ask you sample questions. Practice making eye contact.
  
• Record your practice sessions. Pay attention to body language and verbal presentation. Eliminate extra movements and verbal fillers, like “uh,” and “um.”
  
• Handle logistics early. Have your clothes, resume, and directions to the interview site ready ahead of time, to avoid any extra stress.
  
• Don’t forget about your references. Don’t let your references be the last to know about your job search, or even worse, get an unexpected call from a potential employer. Many offers are withdrawn over bad references. Why take that chance? Get in touch with your references right away to seek help and to avoid surprises on either side.
• Anticipate likely questions. To get to the motivations and working style of a potential employee, employers often turn to behavioral interviewing, an interviewing style which consists of a series of probing, incisive questions.
  
  Sample behavioural interview questions include:
• Describe a situation in which you didn’t meet your stated goal, how did you handle it?
• Tell us about a situation in which you encountered resistance from key people, how did you convince the person or people to do what you wanted?
• Describe a situation in which you took the initiative to change a process or system and make it better, how did you identify the problem? How did you go about instituting change?

Preparing good interview answers
Interviewers will follow up your preliminary answers with further questions about your actions. To prepare for these types of interview questions, the following tips might help:

• Review your research about the company and the position.
• Make a list of key attributes for your desired job.
• Write sample interview questions that are likely to uncover the attributes you identified as important.
• Create answers to the sample interview questions based on a template such as “Situation – Action – Result” with specific details from your work experience.
• Practice answering the interview questions and follow-up questions so that you are very familiar with several detailed examples/stories. Rehearse key points.

Ask questions during the interview
Being prepared and asking great questions about the position and the employer shows your interest during the interview. You can't just be an effective responder. You need to assert yourself, too. By the time you reach the interviewing stage, you should be clear about what you want and what you offer to the company.

Try to be thoughtful and self-reflective in both your interview questions and your answers. Show the interviewee you know yourself—your strengths and your weaknesses. Be prepared to talk about which areas would present challenges and how you would address them. Admitting true areas of weakness is much more convincing than claiming: "I have what you need and I can do anything I put my mind to."

Questions to ask potential employers in job interviews

• The people who do well at your company: what skills and attributes do they usually have?
• What do you like best about working at _____?
• What results are expected?
• What specific problems are you hoping to solve during the first six months?
• Who are the key internal customers? Any special issues with them?
• What happened to the person who had this job before?
• What communication style do you prefer?
• What is your philosophy regarding on-the-job growth and development?
• What are your goals for the department?

Would you like to add anything else? Muovo would like to hear from you!

Nikita Pisani at Muovo

Posted in: