Effective Interviewing Leads to Good Job Offers

The interview is the central event in every job search. The way you conduct your next interview can make you or break you. Effective interviewing will lead to good job offers; poor interviewing will keep you stuck. Here are some suggestions that may help you make most of your interviews and negotiate a future that taps into your greatest potential.

Look at these seven key principles for conducting job-winning interviews.

1. Have a clear picture in mind of the job you want to do and why, from the employer's point of view, you should be given the opportunity to do it.
   
   
   
   
2. Know what the employer really needs and how you can fill the requirements.
   
   
3. Demonstrate your competence by thoroughly preparing for the interview. Anticipate questions and rehearse the key points you want to make.
   
   
4. Speak in a way that helps the employer picture you in the job.
   
   
5. In your dress, bearing, and speech present yourself in a way that builds the employer's confidence in your capability and enthusiasm.
   
   
6. Elicit ongoing feedback from the interviewer and make appropriate adjustments to your presentation.
   
   
7. Negotiate salary and benefits intelligently and assertively. Know how to communicate and get paid your full worth.

A Vision of Success

Vision (a mental picture of what is possible) ignites motivation. Painting a picture of your future success in the mind of the interviewer can communicate far more than just a recitation of past duties and accomplishments.

You can accomplish this by giving examples and asking the right questions. Use words to create images: "How do you see this in operation?" or "What do you think that would look like?" or "Can you picture ..."

Personal Vision Exercise

Take a moment to picture yourself in a productive and satisfying future job. Start by quieting your mind, eliminating distractions or interruptions. Take a deep breath and . . .

• Imagine walking into your new workspace. Examine the colors and shapes, the furniture and fixtures that fill it. See the view out your window.
  
  
• You are working successfully. What are you doing? What tools are you using? How are you using your body and mind? Whom do you work with and for? How do you communicate with these people? See the value you create and the impact you make.
  
  
• Take a few moments to complete your visualization, and then make notes of what you saw. This will help you clearly see yourself as a success in your new job.
  

Winning and Winning

Employers want to hire. Most companies are committed to bringing together the best people possible, so the purpose of the interview is to select, not to reject.

Interviewers register tangible and intangible factors in making their decisions about whom to hire. The tangible factors such as how you dress, your education, and your past accomplishments, are easily evaluated, but intangible factors like confidence, responsiveness, energy, and enthusiasm are also equally important.

Employer Insight

"It's relatively simple to choose between two people who have similar credentials, I want to hire the one who is excited about working for us and is willing to jump right in and get the job done."

Add the following to your vision of yourself as a success:

• A positive, alert, and enthusiastic attitude.
  
  
• Effective, direct communication; able to make a point and ask

A pointed question

• Willingness to do more than is required.
  
  
• A winner's presentation in dress and self-confidence.
  
  
• Versatility--the ability to change direction easily and without complaint.
  
  
• A commitment to winning.
  

To succeed in interviews, you must subtly manage the direction, rather than just follow the lead of the interviewer.

• Know in advance what the company is seeking.
  
  
• Prepare an agenda for the interview, listing the points you want to make.
  
  
• Help the interviewer visualize your success in the job.
  
  
• Stay attuned to word usage, innuendo, and body language, your own as well as your interviewer's.
  
  
• Be aware of how much time has been allocated.
  
  
• Refer to your notes during the interview.
  
  
• Ask questions that will steer the interview back to subjects that reveal your strong points, or to get the information you need to appraise the firm.
  

Break out of your (smaller) image of yourself. Go into the interview willing to assert what you can accomplish when you operate at full throttle. Step beyond old assumptions, opinions, and beliefs about yourself. Become the solution to a problem. Believe they need you more than you need them.

Employer Insight

Most applicants downplay their true potential in an interview. It's OK to be assertive and take some risks. Employers don't always need followers. They need initiators too.

Successful interviewing rests on your ability to convey to the interviewer your personal vision of on-the-job success. You should reinforce this idea with a clear statement of the value you offer, with precise questions, and with requests to proceed to the next step in the hiring process.

• Know what results you want to produce.
  
  
• Eliminate negativity, gossip, complaining, and indirection from your comments. If you've got nothing positive to contribute, just listen.
  
  
•  Avoid being tentative. Eliminate words and phrases such as possibly, somewhat, I hope, will do my best, will try, more or less.
  
  
• Refer to your accomplishments, not just your responsibilities. Include specifics where possible. Use active verbs to describe your accomplishments: "I designed . . . directed, researched, trimmed," etc.
  
  
• Be positive, talking more of opportunities than problems.
  
  
• Make suggestions that direct the employer's thinking into new channels: "What would it look like if you combined those two functions?' or "How far do you think we could go if several departments collaborated on this project?