job interview tips

the interviewer is most likely just as nervous as the interviewee...

Really listen to any questions they ask you and think before answering. Have a few questions of your own to ask.

Never ask about rate of pay or benefits during the interview.

Look around the room and read the interviewer by their office then sale yourself as the person your interviewer would like personally.

It helps to know something about the company. Exactly what they do, how they do it, how long they've been in business, how big they are.

Show them you've heard of them, and you're familiar with what they're all about.

I agree with Green Witch, it's good to have a few questions to ask. For instance, what particular qualities would an employee need to do a good job in the position. Do they need to be detail-oriented? Should they be a "people" person? Have strong grammar skills? What computer software should you be familiar with, etc.

Don't forget to relax and smile too!

Right. Know the company, and hopefully, the people and culture. It sounds sort of sucky, but you really want to dress and talk the same as the interviewer.

1. Be prepared. Do a bit of research into the job, and figure out how you and the job are likely to fit. If you are informal and the job is highly formal, do you really want the job? Knowing about the company and the job in advance, will help you formulate a series of questions that you will want to ask, and it may give you a clue as to what the company will be looking for in potential personnel. Ask yourself, "what questions am I most likely to be asked". Then work out a short answer to each likely question. In a half hour interview there will normally be between five and 15 questions that directly pertain to the job. Be prepared to answer the 30 most probable questions, and you should be well prepared.

2. Have a good resume prepared, and be sure that it is matched to the company and job your looking at. Keep the resume brief, no more than a single page printed on very good stock. Have at least three copies of your resume in your brief, and be sure to leave one with the interviewer. Some recommend handing over your resume at the beginning of the interview, and others say wait until the end of the interview. There are arguements for each option, be flexible.

3. Dress appropriately. For almost any sort of professional position, you should dress conservatively. For men, a dark blue "sincere suit" that fits properly is safest. Dark, unpatterned socks, and well-polished shoes. The safest shirt is white, but an unpatterned light blue or grey is probably acceptable. Your shirt should be fresh from the laundry and starched. No fancy fashionable and trendy shirts please. No more than 1 inch cuff showing, but 1/2 inch is better. French cuffs should be avoided for entry level jobs. The necktie and pocket hankerchief can match, but neither should be loud and attention-getting. Your model for dressing properly for professional positions should be what you would expect a Judge, banker, or national politician to wear.

For a position in the trades, dress as if you were going to work immediately. In all cases, your clothing should be clean and pressed. Personally you should bath and shave before your interview and layoff the scents. Heavy doses of perfume or aftershave lotions can kill you. Be sure that your hair has been recently styled, is clean and properly combed/brushed. Avoid flashy jewelry. A classring from a prestigeous school, or a small discrete lapel pin is alright, but don't make a thing of your Phi Beta Kappa Key.

4. Arrive early, but not too early. If you are on site, say a half hour before the interview, scope out the place keeping a low profile. Be in the office about 15 minutes prior to your appointment. Sit and relax until you are called. If there are other candidates waiting, be friendly but not chummy with them ... don't play games. Regard yourself as being "on stage" from the moment you arrive until the moment you drive away. Stay alert, but relaxed.

5. When you are called in, remember that the first impression you make can make or break an interview. Good posture is essential; head erect, shoulders back, and walk with purposeful strides. You want to appear confident and able to handle anything that might come your way. Shake hands with the interviewer ... firm grip, but no strength contests. Some interviews are with a panel, if so give each of the interviewers one of your resumes. Sit where directed, and maintain friendly eye-contact with your questioner(s). Let the interviewer take the lead, and then follow appropriately. Some interviewers like to start off with seemingly informal conversation, and others may want to jump right in with some hard and probing questions. If the interview starts informally, sit back and relax as you exchange pleasantries, etc. If the interview is more hard edged, sit in a more attentive pose.

Questions can really vary, and they can be tricky. If you don't understand the question, ask for clarification. Listen carefully, consider your answer before opening your mouth. Some questions call for straight forward factual answers, and others expect the interviewee to demonstrate judgement and the ability to think. Generally, its best to give a simple, clear answer when possible; "yes", "no", and so forth. Then you can follow up with a brief remark expanding on the simple answer.

Personal questions call for simple direct answers, and you shouldn't try to respond with your life history or amusing annecdotes about your dog shep. Put your best foot forward, but don't gild the lilly.

Other "fact-based" questions are meant to discover whether you are familiar with particular problems/techniques, etc. This is an opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge and skill sets. Answer as best you can, don't guess or try a bluff. If after you've answered, you realize that you made an error of fact ... briefly correct yourself. When the question is to determine your judgement and thinking ability most often there is no "right" answer. Give your answer, and then briefly outline your reasoning for arriving at it. Whatever you decide to go with in this last sort of question, stick to it afterall it is your opinion.

There are a number of techniques that can be used to "cover yourself", but mostly they lie on dangerous ground. For instance, an interviewee might ignor one part of a compound question and answering only that part of the question they feel comfortable with. A similar technique is to avoid the thrust of a question, by giving a longish answer only marginally on-point. I advise against trying these, or any of the other half dozen or so techniquest that are available. You don't want to risk being thought insincere, evasive, or "slick".

In answering questions, speak clearly in a conversational tone. Look at the person you are talking with, and be alert to the visual clues they respond with. In poker we call these little give aways "tells". Follow-up on positive responses (affirmative nods, little smiles, leaning toward the speaker, etc.) , and back away from negative "tells" (little negative headshakes, a slight frown, looking away from the speaker, fingers drumming on the desktop, etc.). Pay attention, you'll learn a lot and will be able to respond appropriately.

6. Ask your questions. The interviewer will near the end of the interview ask if you have any questions, or additional comments to make. This is the time to ask those questions you prepared in advance, if they are still relevant. Keep the questions short, listen to the answers carefully, and move on. This is also the time to introduce any brief personal or work related information that might further your candidacy with the firm ... but keep it brief.

7. The close. "All I ask is the opportunity to demonstrate my abilitiy to be an asset to your firm. I hope to hear from you soon, and look foward to a long mutually beneficial association with you." Get up from your chair, hold out your hand. While shaking hands, "Thank you for taking the time to speak with me". Then leave. (I recommend memorizing this close, it has worked for me and many others of my acquaintence over the past 40 years.) REMEMBER ... you are "on-stage" until you've left the parking-lot, so stand and walk with the relaxed easy confidence of a winner.

8. Send a short note that will arrive a few days after all the candidates have been interviewed acknowledging and thanking the interviewer .

9. Once you have the job, don't rock the boat during your probationary period. Get along with fellow workers and do your share in a cheerful manner. Avoid friction with the boss, afterall he/she is writing your performance evaluations. After a short break-in period you might try introducing some small innovative ideas that will make the work more effective and/or efficient, but be careful not to make enemies until you are firmly entrenched and hard to attack. Team work is the best way to get almost anything done, so be a part of the team and build it to its highest capability.

GO GET'EM TIGER

If i had the b***s, Id love to just ask , 'Why should I work for this company?'
And listen to them sell their company to me.

In a tough job market when one is competing for an entry-level job, asking the company to sell itself to the applicant may be a bit too much. However, if there aren't a lot of candidates lined up and fighting for the job and the applicant has a superior background, why not? Asking the company about what they have to offer shows confidence, if asked in the proper time and manner.

Once a person has a proven track record, is associated with success in the field and has a reputation amongst peers, and hit all the right marks in the career path, this sort of employment interview is much less likely to occur. One puts out signals within the industry that they may be interested in moving, and descrete job offers are made. You may meet with a member of the upper management of the recruiting firm at dinner, or in some other relaxed atmosphere to discuss the possibility of changing your flag. In this case, there aren't usually any questions probing your technical knowlege or your judgement, since those are already known. What is discussed, are the reasons that you might join the recruiting firm. Compensation packages, opportunities, etc., and the recruiting outfit will be selling itself ... afterall if they didn't already want you badly they wouldn't have come to you.

BTW, I always like to go to an interview session with a couple of $100 bills in my wallet. Just having the cash at hand is a great confidence builder.

I like the cash idea!!

The thing to remember is that the interview is short, and the number of questions that can be pursued is limiteed. You are competing with other people for a job, the chance to put your skills and ability to work and show the world how useful you can be. This is an opportunity to gain experience and continue your education in the toughest of all schools, the marketplace. Having a secure income makes one independant, and provides the wherewithal to live a comfortable and useful life.

The harder the competition, the better you have to be and appear. If there are 100 applicants for one job, how do you comeout number one? The answer is with careful planning and near flawless execution. When there is a huge pool of candidates, many will be eliminated purely on the basis of their application and/or resume. To survive this test, be sure all of the information you supply is accurate, verifiable (though these most items may only be spot checked, or pursued in finalist candidates), and clear. If you use handwriting, on applications for instance, be sure that your writing is easily readable. Block printing is proably best, as being more easily read. Fill out all the relevant blocks. Applications are almost always required for jobs right up to mid-management levels. They permit the hiring company to directly compare candidate qualifications and gather personal background information. They also are impersonal and cold. Your resume, on the other hand, is designed to stress you and your strong points. Resume information MUST agree with the information on the application, and may be useful in filling out applications. Resumes should ideally be short, one page ... two at the most. There are several traditional resume formats, and you should use the format best fitted to the type job you are seeking. Be certain that there are no misspelling, or grammatical faults. Use good, distinctive but conservative, paper stock.

The resume's job is to represent you, and set you apart from other candidates, in ways the application can not. It is designed to be read at a glance, and will be a reminder of you after you've left the actual interview. For some jobs, especially those requiring a high degree of creativity, novel resume formats can sometimes work. I've seen miniture books, special paperfolds, the use pictures and bright colors, etc. The upside is that this sort of resume will get you instant attention, and may even get you into the finalist circle just to see what else you have to offer. The downside is that these resumes aren't easy to stack with the other 99 that were submitted, and might go astray. If you fail to hit the bullseye with these, they can have you eliminated from the competition early.

Lets be positive ... you've survived the first round and are invited to interview. If the top 10% are invited to the interview, there will be 10 competitors of 100 applicants, all of whom on paper meet the jobs requirements. Only about six interviews can reasonably be done in a day, so if there are more than 6 candidates expect the process to run for two days to two weeks. Two weeks! That is 60 candidates, from a pool of 600 to 1000 applicants. The lower the percentage asked to interview, the tougher you can expect the competition at interview to be. With large numbers, everyone must be scheduled and interviews kept within the alloted time.

Those interviewed first tend to set the initial standard against which subsequent candidates will be judged. If you don't hit the ball out of the park, the standard you will set is the middle ground with some competitors rated above and others below you. You don't want to be in the middle of the pack, especially in a tough competition. The larger the competition pool, the more likelihood that early candidates will be forgotten. Those interviewed just before, or after lunch, may face an interviewer who is distracted by hunger or desire to take a nap. At the end of the day, the interviewer is tired and wants to go home and have a drink while watching their favorite television show. Since you don't get to choose when your interview will take place, you have to be prepared to make the very best presentation you are capable of in 30 minutes, or less.

Appearance may not be everything, but in highly competitive job interviews it is arguably number one. What goes into making up your appearance to the interviewer? Your personal grooming, the clothes you wear and how you wear them, and your posture. The interviewer wants to be assured that the candidate will not later be a loose cannon, and will represent the firm well to customers and the public. No one wants to risk loud, radical candidates who might later cost the company. The least risky candidates will fit into the existing team, and conservative people are less likely to later spring unwelcome surprises.

The interviewer is looking for character. Candidates should be self-confident, but not ego maniacs. They should be attentive and willing to engage in objective discussion. To what extent do they have the social graces? Don't pick your nose, scratch, or belch. Civility and good breeding are a definite plus. Forthrightness, honesty and loyalty are looked for. Of course, if you are competing with the Boss's son-in-law, or the son of his old college room mate, you probably don't want the job anyway.

These are all atributes of your appearance, and the first impression you make is often the most important. Before you open your mouth, the interviewer will have already made several important judgements about you. Those judgements may be incorrect, but then you have to spend precious time overcoming the negatives. You may not ever know that your interview was lost in the first 10 seconds. On the other hand if that initial impression is excellent, any small faults or mis-steps in the interview may be overlooked, or discounted.

Every candidate is expected to do well with the fact questions, by getting the answers correct. Those who score best, answer with confidence in a few short sentences. If the candidate has to think about the answers they generally will rate below those who seem to have been born to answer that question. What I call judgement questions, are looking for a means of judging how well a candidate thinks, and and how they are likely to act later when faced with important business questions and/or problems. Considered opinions rate higher than knee-jerk responses, or "solutions" that clearly have major faults. The candidate should be able to clearly communicate how they arrived at their answer/opinion/judgement. Even if the interviewer disagrees with the answer you give, you gain points by how you arrived at it and how reasonable the answer is.

I've interviewed people for very good and desirable jobs who came to the interview late, and poorly groomed wearing wrinkled clothes inappropriate to the job. Candidates whose handshake was either missing or worse than a cold fish. Candidates who refused to look me in the eye, or who spent the whole interview squirming in their chair. I had one fellow who insisted on standing for the interview as if he were giving a speech. Evasive candidates whose honesty was greatly in doubt took up valuable time. Few of these apparent losers were hired, though on paper all of them were qualified for the jobs they interviewed for. Don't be one of this group.

I'm glad that I'm retired now and never have to participate in the interviewing process. It is stressful and filled with risk. Candidates need to seize upon every slight advantage available in making the best presentation possible.

Yikes Asherman, talk about advice! Well Done!

I've been to dozens of interviews and I actually like doing them (I know, it's weird).

One thing I didn't catch in all of Ashermans posts above (or I missed it if it's there), at interviews these days the interviewer usually asks some (putting-you-on-the-spot) questions like:

"Where do you want to be in 5, 10, 15, etc., years?"

"So why should I hire you, rather than someone else?"
- Do refresh the interviewer on what you believe your qualities are - I am reliable, dependable, willing to learn, get on well in a team environment, looking for an opportunity to expand my knowledge-base, and so on and so forth. End it with an enthusiasm about the job itself, the company, and the people (if you have met some of them).

"If you could change something about yourself, what would it be?"
Or
"What is your biggest weakness?"
- Do not respond to this Q with a pat "I work too hard" like it's a weakness. Interviewers have heard it far too often and they know you are sucking up to them or heard this somewhere.

"If I were to ask your former boss/co-worker to describe you in three words, what do you think they would say?"
- An interviewer once asked me this, then called my former boss (who was one of my referees that I had given them permission to call for a reference) and asked him the same question. Shortly after the interview I had talked to my former boss and he asked me how the interview went and we had discussed this question they asked. He almost choked when they called him and knew what my responses had been, so he tried to mimic those responses but using different words. He came and told me immediately after the call and we both laughed about it. The lesson here is, tell the truth. Don't make stuff up. Try and be as close to what you really think this person would say about you.

"Tell me of a situation where you made a mistake and how you learned from it"
Think of anything that happened, something small, where you screwed up and how you fixed it and not only came out with a good result but felt better having learned a lesson. Knowledge and experience makes a person better.

There are loads more questions and interviewer can throw at you. Check out the Random Question Generator at monster for some others.

Thank you guys!

will follow the advice.(s)
wow you certianly are experts some of you!

Thanks! again.

All I can add to the wealth of information you received is a couple of things. What seems to impress me as a manager when I interview people is to support your answers with actual true life examples. Say you answer something where you are explaining that you are pro-active - they give an actual circumstance where you displayed this trait. Anyone can say they are A, B or C - but are you really. By giving a true example it proves what you are claiming.

Also when you are finishing up - pretty much ask for the job by letting them know you are interested. So many people do a great interview and then you don't know for sure if they really want to work there. In my past interviews, I would usually close with I am definately interested in this position or something similar. Let the interviewer know you want this job.

Never say anything bad about any place you have worked or are currently working. Even if you loathe your current job, and the interviewer asks you, "Oh, I see you work at so and so, so why are you looking for a job here?"

In answering the question put a positive spin on your current job and tell them you are interested in moving in another direction, etc.

cheers guys for the info!