How to Complete a Successful Interview | Episode 48 Video Lecture | Business Communication: The Ultimate Guide

well one of the things on the minds of
many especially as we still as an
economy suffer from historically high
unemployment is ultimately how do we
differentiate ourselves from other
candidates for jobs with the job market
is competitive as it is it's extremely
important that you have the ability to
set yourself apart from the other people
that are applying for jobs because
unemployment is as high as it has been
you have a greater number of people
competing for the the actual just same
job and so because of that we have to
find a way to make ourselves stand out
and so what I'm going to do over the
course of the next 10 minutes is simply
outline some of the different things
that we can do as job candidates in the
interview process to set ourselves apart
and make ourselves that much better
remember the whole purpose of an
interview is for an employer to try and
get an accurate representation of how
you would perform on the job and flawed
as it may be it is one of the common
measures that employers use to select
candidates generally all employers have
some type of face to face interview
process as a way of selecting candidates
because they can get an idea for
ultimately your demeanor and personality
and ask you obviously pointed questions
related to how you've performed in the
past and then draw conclusions on how
you would perform at some point in the
future hopefully for their organization
so let's talk about some ways to
actually differentiate yourself the
first one and probably one of the most
important things you can do ultimately
is prepare for this particular interview
the extent to which you prepare for the
interview is going to have a reflection
in terms of your confidence meaning that
the more that you prepare the more
confident that you're going to feel
going into the interview so you know
what are some of the things that we can
do to prepare and make ourselves more
confident and thus we maybe reflect our
true personality during that interview
one of the things that's extremely
helpful is to generate a list of
possible questions to essentially
develop answer
- already and although you may not be
able to get exactly what is going to be
asked you will at least have the ability
to kind of think through ultimately how
you would respond to those particular
questions and that's extremely important
and you can look online and see kind of
common questions different types of
questions that are asked and develop
responses to those and although you
might necessarily not receive that exact
question the process of developing a
response is going to help you because
you can use bits and pieces of the
response you've developed in other
questions there's generally a lot of
overlap and there's not a whole lot that
can be asked because an employer wants
to get an indication of past performance
and see if that's gonna translate to
future performance and so stick to those
areas and try and find out what are some
possible questions a great thing to do
that you might want to consider is to
see if you can maybe meet with a current
employee and discuss the interview
process with them that will give you
some better insight into ultimately what
are the whether the requirements of the
job so you have an accurate
interpretation of what the job entails
and so you can tailor your responses
because you know exactly what the
employer is looking for another thing
that you want to do is a little bit of
research on this particular company it's
very important that you have some type
of background knowledge when they ask
you ultimately why it is that you want
to work there you need to have a better
response than well I need a job not
because ultimately the employer wants to
make sure that you're going to be
committed and there's something outside
of simply receiving a paycheck that
interests you with regards to the
company and if they can match that fit
that person and organizational fit if
they think there's a match there then
the likelihood that you would stay on
board with the company is much greater
so make sure that you do some research
you know about the company their
products their services performance
different things areas of opportunity
possibly if you want to tell them
ultimately how you can positively impact
them you want to have a very tailored
and succinct answer so that you can tell
them what you bring to the table how can
you benefit them remember that's what
the employer is looking for is how is
this person going to benefit me as
a company and ultimately I want to go
with the individual who I feel is going
to provide the most benefit based on the
pay and benefits and things that I'm
obviously going to be giving them so
outside of preparation another important
thing to do is the presentation piece
you know ultimately how we present
ourselves is extremely important in the
interview and what often happens is
during the first 30 seconds or so the
interviewer is going to already
formulate an impression about you
regardless if it's accurate or not
that's the process that we go through
and it's simply human nature to try and
simply categorize somebody based upon
what we perceive about them and then
obviously put them in a certain buckets
which you generally don't turn out to be
true but it's how we process things and
so knowing that pay very careful
attention to how you craft the
presentation piece you know the first
thing is you want to be early you don't
want to arrive thirty minutes early but
you generally want to be 5 to 10 minutes
early you don't want to be excessively
early acting like you have nothing
better to do but you don't want to be
you know arrived right when the
interview was supposed to start or you
don't want to arrive late for sure that
is the best way to get off on a wrong
note and that is a surefire way to get
yourself weeded out of the selection
process so make sure that you're early
I encourage you to scout the location
beforehand if you're not familiar with
where the interview is going to take
place maybe the day before drive by get
a feel for the surroundings where things
are located not only is this going to
help you find it much much faster but
it's also going to put you at ease kind
of calm those nerves a little bit which
we all tend to feel when we're in an
interview and so it's going to put you
at ease because you're gonna be in
familiar surroundings and you're going
to be aware of what's going on and where
to find certain things so it helps for
those for those reasons now in terms of
dress you do want to dress professional
that should go without saying in terms
of the level of which to dress it's not
always appropriate to wear a suit in all
interviews what you want to gauge is
what is the dress like when you're
normally at the job and what you want to
do is you want to dress one level above
that and so if you go into if you look
around you know when you're scouting
ahead and getting a look of you from
your surroundings and you see that
everyone is dressed in business casual
well that would mean that for gentlemen
you would need to wear a suit because
that's one level above that for ladies
obviously the appropriate level of dress
as well skirts and different things are
very appropriate if it's a construction
type company obviously you wouldn't want
to show up in a suit because they may
get the impression that while this
person doesn't really like to get dirty
they're a little too polished maybe they
won't fit in but in that instance maybe
you should wear simply business casual
maybe pair of khakis and a collared
shirt and the equivalent for for a
female and so just one step above don't
go overboard don't show up in a tuxedo
or anything that's way way overkill but
you generally want to at least dress one
level above what is present in the
workplace there just to set yourself
apart a little bit but don't don't go
overboard with regards to I get
questions all the time about perfume and
cologne I personally do not recommend
wearing anything because although it
smells good to you or your spouse or
significant other you don't know if it's
going to smell good to the interviewer
we have no idea who this person is and
so we're really taking a little bit of a
gamble there with regards to selecting a
certain type of perfume and cologne and
so I encourage everybody to just
eliminate it entirely obviously you
should be showered and shaved and those
things before the interview but in terms
of wearing cologne and perfume and
different things like that I would
eliminate it altogether because it's
just something that may not provide that
significant of a return and it can
certainly provide a very significant
disadvantage especially if the person
have some type of aversion to whatever
type of perfume or cologne they are
actually wearing important things one
eye contact during the interview you
don't need to stare at the person
directly in their eyes the entire time
because that can be a little creepy at
times but you do need to maintain
intermittent eye contact you know make
sure that you're looking somewhere at
there their face and fairly regularly
maybe not staring the entire time but at
least intermittent eye contact so they
know that you're engaged you don't want
to slouch in your seat you want to sit
upright maybe even a little more forward
to show that you're actively engaged in
the conversation no chewing gum any
things like that that should be fairly
fairly standard but I
we always get questions with regards to
that another important thing is the
handshake and you really want to
practice this preferably with you know
someone at home until you get to the
point to where you have a really solid
handshake not an overly firm grip to
where you're literally breaking the
person's hand obviously that's not ideal
but obviously connecting webbing to
webbing of the hands and then a solid
you know one to two pumps maintaining
eye contact throughout that entire
process it's very important there are a
lot of people in the interview process
interviewers specifically that say they
can judge a whole lot based upon a
person's handshake so you want to make
sure that it's firm not overly firm
certainly not limp and make sure that
you made I make eye contact throughout
one to two pumps that's very very
important one third one thing that I
want to mention during the presentation
process when you're actually
interviewing is discuss salary and this
always always always comes up is when is
an appropriate time to discuss salary
and you know I personally think that if
the employer does not bring salary up I
would not mention it and the reason at
this point is you're early on in the
process right now you don't have a great
deal of leverage to be negotiating
something like salary because they
haven't yet formulated an opinion of you
now once the interview is done once they
decide that you are the person for the
job and they cannot live without you
then you're in a position to actually
negotiate salary but early on the
process it's only a deterrent and it
only signals to the employer that you're
interested in the finance aspect which
is important obviously many of us would
not work if we did not get paid that's
not feasible but at the same point in
time raising it as a significant
significant issue early on can be a
deterrent for the employer and so bring
it up on your own terms if they ask what
are your salary expectations you know it
generally always is competitive based
upon the job and things like that but
you don't have to directly answer with a
specific number because once again that
could weed you out too early in the
process where you haven't yet built up
the solid reputation for being a good
fit for this particular job and so
that's very important try to avoid that
or at least deflect that if possible
bring it up later when you have a little
bit more love
the next thing you want to focus on is
the follow-up and this often gets
overlooked you know we go through the
interview and we think yeah we did gray
or maybe we didn't do so good whatever
the case may be and then we stopped at
that point and that's all that we do
it's really important to follow up on a
consistent basis not necessarily say hey
I want a decision tell me if I got the
job yes or no but follow up with maybe
just a thank you letter to the
interviewer just saying hey thank you so
much for your time I really appreciate
you taking time out of your day to
interview myself and also what you can
do is is take a few lines to reiterate
some of the really positive qualities
about you and why you would be good for
fit for the job maybe say you know after
the interview I'm so encouraged that
this is just a great fit because of
such-and-such reasons and I bring such
and such skills and abilities to the
table to make a positive impact
you know once again thank you so much
for your time you know hope to hear from
you soon you know maybe that won't be
the difference between getting the job
or not but maybe it's just enough
remember how competitive the job market
is if you're looking for just a little
bit to separate yourself from someone
else that can be that difference right
there you know maybe the interviewer is
on the fence between a few candidates
and you go above and beyond and send a
thank-you actual card to them outlining
certain things and they know one this
person really wants the job and two
they're reminded of all those good
qualities about you maybe you
interviewed first and after 15
interviews they've kind of lost you a
little bit they don't they don't
remember everything so you taking the
time to rehash some of those things
maybe they can recall the process and
remember that you know what they did
interview very well they came off very
polished
you know let's bring him back for maybe
a second or third interview whatever the
case is so that's that's another
important piece as well what I also
would encourage you to do is in the
event that let's say you don't get the
position which obviously is an ideal but
we always want to look at these things
as a learning opportunity if you don't
get the position for whatever reason I
would encourage you to contact the
interviewer and ask them specifically
you know I feel like I would have been a
good fit for this job you know what were
some of the things that
I could work on to make me maybe a more
solid candidate for this particular
position or what was it that you saw
that didn't make me necessarily the best
fit you know maybe it's something that
you can't change but maybe it's
something that you can and maybe it's
you know maybe you just didn't address a
particular question maybe you lack a
certain area of experience a certain
educational background whatever the case
may be the whole point is is that with
that feedback you can now do something
with it because it's actionable on the
other end you would just get the
standard letter saying thank you for
replying thank you for interviewing
you're not no longer moving on that's
not overly specific and I don't know
what to do with that I don't know where
to focus and where not to focus
essentially so having that conversation
with the interviewer it's very positive
because once again they know now this
person serious about working for this
company and maybe when they didn't fit
this particular job but if another
position comes around and they and they
actually apply for it I'm gonna know
that in the back of my mind that this
person interviewed did fairly well there
are a couple things but they've worked
on it and I they've actually put a good
put forward and those types of things so
I would encourage you to do that it can
be a little bit of an awkward
conversation because generally it's hard
to accept criticism but there can be a
lot of a lot of positive things that
result from that
so hopefully that at least gives you a
couple good things to key in on for the
interview process hopefully that helps
you differentiate yourself a little bit
in that job market and ultimately SiC
excel in that interview and ultimately
get that coveted position