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Out Of The Box Interview Tips

Think Out Of The Box To Pass a Job Interview

Run of the mill interviewing techniques are becoming talk of the past.

“Tell me about yourself”?, A question that has been out there for so long that candidates tend to just learn the answer to it by heart with minor tweaks here and there.

If the questions aren’t going to change so will the same patented responses will be given during interviews. There is no advancement in the interviewing procedures and no learning for graduates coming fresh out of the universities.

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Let’s consider a situation where a candidate (you) gets the call from HR representative of the company you applied to.

A unique feature about this call would be (we’ll get into that) but how normally a candidate would respond to one such call:

HR: “Hi, is this Mr. X I’m speaking to?”

Mr. X: “Yes, who’s this?”

HR: “This Ms. Y from ABC Co., you applied for the position of XYZ. Have you got a minute, I have to ask a couple of questions?”

Mr. X: “Please go on”

HR: “Ok, so have been you working somewhere?”

Mr. X: “Both yes and no, actually I resigned from my previous employment and am currently serving my notice period”

HR: “Ok, it says here you’ve been with the firm for last 5 years, what makes you want to switch?”

Mr. X: “Although, I have had no issues here during the tenure of my employment, all I feel is a bit stagnant where I’m and want to challenge myself in pursuit of new and better opportunities”

HR: “Alright, let me schedule an interview with you tomorrow say at 11am?”

Mr. X: “Sounds good to me, will be there.”

HR: “The directions to our office will be emailed to you shortly.”

Mr. X: “Sure thanks. Bye.”

That is how a normal telephonic interview appears as. But if we could improvise and candidate can earn the seat in front row? Startling? We pick it up from point no. 10 above and see how it changes.

   

Mr. X: “Can I suggest a date, as I have some things to take care of in the days to follow? Hence I won’t be able to squeeze time for the meet.”

HR (based on the availability): “When it would be possible for you to visit, then?”

Mr. X: “On so and so date (suggest a date for 2-3 days ahead)

The idea is to buy time so you can thoroughly search about the company, its stakeholders, review their profile on LinkedIn and prepare yourself well.

HR: “How does day after tomorrow sound?”

Mr. X: “Great!”

Now if the counter argument is not up to your liking, best lock in the day as it maybe that the organization is interviewing other candidates or the interviewing authority may not be available in those days.

At least by making a request you have made your presence felt and that you are not typical instead expressive. Just that is the purpose of asking to schedule at a later date. This gives you leverage in negotiations at the time of offer.

You don’t need to insist on scheduling for the day/date you have in mind or you’ll lose the opportunity, altogether. An attempt suffices and generally employer allows for a day or two in scheduling meets for candidates.

Interview questions and answers

Secondly, the questions needs to be revisited to allow candidates to speak open-endedly and when someone is provided the platform to speak, their frame mind is reflected and the person interviewing can gauge whether or not the person would be a suitable fit for the organization.

Questions could be:

“How much element of fun is part of your life?”

“Do you cater to sarcasm?”

“What if I were to ring up a close friend of yours, will he/she be able to tell me your weaknesses?”

Author Bio

Rayanne Dany is an HR consultant and can be reached for assignment writing service via her twitter handle. She has tons of experience in different organizations amounting to a total of 10 years. Her insight over the years as an HR professional has paved way for writing improvement techniques.

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Why Confidence Is Key in the Job Interview

Confidence Is Key in the Job Interview

Confidence equals charisma and a charismatic interviewee is the one who steals the job offer

Don’t ever underestimate the power of a confident interviewee.   Confidence is the packing for your gift and your gift of course is your unique selling point. People admire confidence, are spellbound by charisma and are naturally persuaded by those who ooze self-esteem.

This article will teach you how to increase your job interview confidence, confidence that will win you the job offer.

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Job Interview Confidence #1

Confidence is an emotional state. The natural state for most in the job interview is anxiety.

This technique is quick and powerful and will spin your anxiety into a feeling of extreme confidence

First think about being in a job interview. As you imagine this situation, focus on the feeling of anxiety inside of you. Notice where this anxious feeling originates from in your body; your stomach, feet, chest, head

As you focus on this feeling of anxiety you will feel it move inside of you, you will feel it spinning. Imagine you can see this spinning feeling and give it a colour.

Imagine pushing the feeling externally. See it spinning in front of you.

Flip this spinning feeling back on itself so it spins in the opposite direction, spin it faster and faster, faster still until it changes colour.

Once it changes colour, push it back inside of you replacing the old feeling. Spin it faster and faster inside of you until you start to feel the feeling of confidence spreading throughout the whole of your body.

Do this before your job interview and you will double your job interview confidence

Job Interview Confidence #2

All job interview coaches will tell you to use examples and stories to sell your skills and unique selling points. This is a great strategy to adopt.

Using stories has a confident side effect, it makes you feel more confident. Anxious interviewees have an external perspective, they focus on the employer’s reaction. By using stories you will naturally go inside yourself, imagining the event from your own eyes as you dictate the story-line.

When you have this internal focus your fear evaporates and you focus on the emotions attached to the story – which will be positive as the story or example will be one of you being at your best

Interview questions and answers

FREE With Every Purchase of The 73 Rules for Influencing the Interview

Job Interview Confidence #3

Put yourself into awkward situations

Confidence comes from familiarity. This is why most people are anxious in job interviews, this random activity – the job interview,  is so uncommon that your frame of reference is one of fear. By making, being the focus of attention, a common experience, you eradicate the fear through exposure.

Attend public speaking groups, approach and talk to strangers, go to speed dating, as for directions…anything to get you speaking more. To key skills, you will want to learn and develop is improv speaking and debating

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How to Con the Interveiwer and Get Away With It

The Interview Con

To con the job interviewer (well anyone really) you need to promise them something of great benefit.

In the job interview this is how you will double there profit, decrease overheads or gain them millions of pounds in new business.

The bigger the benefit the better.

In the job interview stress how easy it is for you, the star employee, to achieve this. Explain how this system is something you successful implemented in your last organisation. Explain how the cost for this system is low or none at all, it’s about the knowledge or contacts that you have, that you are happy to share with them.

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Sweep aside the Skeptics

Depending on how you frame the “Great Bennett”  some employers will be skeptic.

You need to get the interviewer to commit to you. When someone commits to you, even if this commitment is only a small commitment they are psychologically more likely to commit to something bigger.

In the interview you ask the skeptic interviewer that if were able to double their profits would they recruit you? Every interviewer will answer yes to this.

Sweeten the pot.

Share a piece of advice, a contact or something that shows that you have something that would benefit the organisation. This will create interest and desire.

Create Positive Visualizations

Ask how if you were to be successful in the job interview and if you were to implement your success strategy how would this benefit the company?

Get the interviewer to imagine you both collaborating together and get them to imagine how your strategy/contacts along with what the organisation is currently doing would together take their profits to the next level.

The more you influence the interviewer to imagine you and them being successful the more they will buy into you.

At this stage you may want to return to the commitment stage, offering a few more sweeteners.

Interview questions and answers

Create Desire

The interviewer now, will be imagining how they will benefit from you being hired. Not only will they want to recruit you they will want you on their team.

You will hear the language the interviewer subconsciously uses go from the language of a skeptic to the language of desire.

They will want to offer you the job on the spot, but employment law won’t allow this.

To keep the flame burning once you leave the interview, explain that you have already been offer another job that you are highly interested in.

Scarcity is a massive motivational pull, as people always want what they cant have.

If the employer see’s massive value in you but then realises that a competitor make snatch you up, their desire for you will triple.

Not only will you be offered the position, you will now be in a strong position to negotiate a high salary.

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How would your colleagues describe you? Interview Question

Interviewers, ask this job interview question as they want to uncover your skills and strengths.

Employers will often ask you to name your strengths, but they know that many interviewees will exaggerate this answer, but often when ask to describe how others describe, interviewees can often be honest.

In this article we have broke down what the interviewer is looking for in a perfect job interview answer and to help you create the perfect answer we have recorded an example answer.

Job Interview Question: How would your colleagues describe you?

 

Explanation of the Question:

Interviewers enjoy hearing quotes, have a couple of quotes prepared from people at your previous job “David always said I was….” and use statements like: “In my last job I was always known for…” By giving quotes from a named person can be as effective as giving the interviewer a written reference.

Example Job Interview Answer

“In my last company I was always known as the person who got things done. I remember over hearing my Manger Sharon, saying ‘if you need a job doing quickly and efficiently to get me to do it”

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Job Interview Peak Performance

To be your best in the job interview you need to know how to control your emotions, to access your positive mental state and to be at your job interview peak performance. There are no two ways about it, if you are at your peak mental state in the job interview you are more likely to be offered a job.

As an interview and confidence coach in Manchester, I support people to access their peak state which has led to my interviewing coaching clients receiving more job offers.  Today I will share a technique I use with my clients to boost their mental performance prior to the job interview.

Accessing Your Peak Performance

First, decide which mental state would work best for you. For many confidence is the key emotion that I will allow them to be their best in the job interview. The technique that you will learn is often used by athletes to access their peak performance prior to a game or event.

By following the simple steps below you can teach your mind to focus, increase confidence and to access its peak state.

Step 1 – Choose the state you would like to access

Step 2 – In a seat, close your eyes and take 10 deep breaths counting down on each out-breath
Step 3 – Notice how each breath helps you to relax a little bit more
Step 4 –  Remember a time you felt at your best; you being confident, in the zone, at your peak, focused, or any state that will help you to be the best
Step 5 – With your eyes closed, replay this time in your mind’s eye; see what you can see, hear what you can hear and feel those same positive emotions

Step 6 – Replay this memory and this time, imagine being their seeing things from your own eyes, hearing the positive self-talk and feeling the positive emotions at their peak
Step 7 – As you feel these emotions at the peak, start to spin the emotions, faster and stronger, stronger and faster until they double and triple in intensity
Step 8 – Now, take these feelings and imagine yourself in the future being positive before the job interview, being at your best in the job interview and spin these feelings stronger and faster, faster and stronger until you feel that you will get a job, that you will be successful, that you will be confident in the job interview
Step 9 – Repeat this exercise 3 times and notice how the strength of the emotion increases with every repeated go

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Improving Your Interview Skills

If you find that you aren’t being offered positions then you need to improve your interview skills. This article will give you several ideas on how you can build up your interview skills.

Interview Coach/Mock Interviews

The easiest way to improve your job interview skills and to see where you are potentially going wrong in the job interview is to meet up with an interview coach.

An interview coach will either complete a mock job interview, where you will be asked sector-led interview questions or they will assess your interviews skills by asking a verity of coaching style questions allowing you to explore, reflect and challenge yourself before helping you plan how you can come across as a stronger applicant during the job interview.

The interview coach will also teach you how to break down the interview question so you can first understand what criteria the employer is looking for as part of the answer and how you can structure the interview answer in 3 steps to ensure the answer delivers a big impact.

Some interview coaches are also trained to help you boost your confidence using a variety of techniques.

Confident Interview

A good question to ask yourself is “to pass interviews do I need to increase my confidence or is my confidence strong and I need to learn how to sell myself in the job interview?” This will allow deciding whether or not you need an interview coach or a confidence coach?

A confidence coach will teach you how to anchor confidence to the job interview. This internal resource can be used so you act at your best during the job interview. These techniques are used daily by athletes, sports professionals and even business leaders for multi-dollar meetings.

Toastmasters and Improve Classes

 The reason people become stuck in the job interview is due to being asked out of the blue questions that they didn’t expect or by being asked questions they didn’t prepare for. The interview coach will always reiterate the importance of practice. A great way to learn to think oin your feet by attending a group where you get the chance to think on your feet.

Acting improvement classes are great for learning this skill, as is toastmasters – a public speaking group where they do an exercise called table topics where you have to speak on an unknown topic for 2-3 minutes.

The key here is to practice answering off the cuff questions so you can learn to deliver confident answers. This is a key skill in all job interviews.

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How to Answer the Job Interview Question Why did you choice this career?

Why did you choose this career? 

Explanation of the Question:

We all have a different story to tell, some us “fall” into a career, while others had a career goal from an early age. Use this question to highlight your passion for your career and add in information on your experiences. Passion + experience = a good employee.

Example Interview Answer

“I have always wanted a job “helping” people, after university I took any job I could take and ended up working a Male Hostel, 10 years later I am still in the same industry, I just love that my work helps others improve their lives. I have learned so much over these 10 years that helps me quickly move people forward.”