Today’s guest blogger is Paulette Steele with Real Resumes located in Queensland, Australia. Real Resumes is educating people from beginning to end on getting a job. Short videos cover all aspects including: where to look for a job, writing effective resumes, researching and preparing for the interview, and most importantly, mastering the interview itself. Paulette has 15 years of recruitment experience and a vast career in various industries.
We hear the words Location, Location, Location when it comes to finding good real estate. Well, it’s Prepare, Prepare, Prepare when it comes to finding a job and particularly when getting ready for a job interview.
There is a lot of emphasis put on resumes and sure they are important to get your foot in the door, so to speak. However, if you are going to nail that interview and turn it into a job offer, you need to do a lot of preparation for the interview. The more you prepare, the more confident you will be in the actual interview. You can be thrown any question and be comfortable with answering it.
So, the first step once the interview has been confirmed is to do your research, which is easy these days with internet search capabilities. It’s best to find out as much as you can about the company and if you are able to about the people who will be interviewing you. Not only is this information useful to you to ascertain if the company is going to be the right one for you to join, it also arms you with facts that you can use throughout the interview to show how much you have learnt about the company. This should impress the interviewers as they will see you’ve done your homework. It also gives you an immense amount of confidence in what you talk about.
Next, you have to anticipate the questions you might face in the interview. There are the questions you can expect to be asked in any interview like: why are you leaving your current employer, why do you want to work here, what are your strengths, what are your weaknesses, where do you see yourself in five years’ time, etc. More often these days, you can be asked behavioural style questions to see how you act in certain situations. So, work on a few of these too.
Prepare your answers to these questions and as many other potential questions as you can. It’s a good idea to practice answering them with someone else or to yourself in the mirror. Think of it as like rehearsing for a play. Actors don’t go on stage without practicing and doing rehearsals so why go to an interview without doing this. Of course, you don’t want to come across to the interviewers as too rehearsed as then you won’t seem genuine. I know, frustrating! It’s a fine line!
Next, you have to prepare your questions to ask the interviewers as well, otherwise they will think you’re not interested in the position. It’s okay to have these written down on a notepad so you can refer to it. Trying to remember them all isn’t an easy thing to do and probably less so in an interview situation, when it will be natural for you to be a bit anxious.
Preparing like this for an interview will ensure you feel confident when you attend the job interview. If you really want the position you’re interviewing for, then surely putting the effort into preparing for the interview is worth it. Otherwise, you may as well not bother turning up for it.