What techniques you should know for an interview

A guy came into the computer store where I am working part time at; afterward, my manager told me the funny part of the interview. The guy kept calling my manager “dude” until my manager told him “Please stop calling me dude; this is a professional interview.” No comments on his qualification, but I want to point out something really important in an interview from this example. By writing this post, I am not saying I am excellent in interviewing or being interviewed, but these are some interview techniques I observed based on my past experience.

Preparation

1. Research: If you are going on an interview that’s what you are dying for, I am sure you will do a lot of research to know more about the background of this company. Yet nowadays, lots of people have the same mistakes that they tend to have a resume template and just simply change the name of the recipient and send it out without knowing a bit more than the company. Even if you are not too sure whether this is your perfect job, you should give it a try; spend a couple minutes, google them, call the company and pretend you are a customer or whatever, just know what they really are and see what type of person they need, then you can modify your resume with confidence and fit yourself in.
2. Dress: It’s not really necessary to put on your formal dress for every interviews. Take one of my co-works for example; the first thing he was told was to change his suit into jeans and less formal clothes after he was recruited. Yet, when you are not unsure, a better suit will never let you down. Why? When you are in an interview, you are having social interaction with one person or a group of people (formal or not); if you want to gain their respect to your knowledge level and background experience, you should respect them first as your interviewer. Yet, there is usually a misconception that people will tend to put on the most expensive suit they have; but they never wear that suit in their daily life. By saying dressing right, you don’t need to put on your famous brand named suit; what you need is really a more formal suit that makes you feel comfortable. Of course, it has to be neat and tidy.
3. Being Punctual: This is the golden rule everyone must follow; you have to be on time, or I should say, at least 5 minutes early. Of course you don’t want to be late since if you do so, the success rate of your interview is very low. You might not feel being ready if you come in right on the dot; what will you think when you see someone came into your interview room sweating like after a sport game, if you were the interviewer? Do you think he/she is ready and can focus on the interview 100%? Giving yourself 5 minutes or so outside of where you are going to have the interview can let yourself calm down a bit; or you can use the time wisely to take a look at the working environment or even just give the reception a good smile will benefits you a lot for the interview.
4. Documents: Usually you are not required to bring a lot of documents when you are invited for an interview, but it’s always a good idea to have them with you. First, knowing you are not leaving anything at home will increase your confidence during the interview. In addition to that, you are ready to show your interviewer extra works that you have achieved beyond what’s on your resume. By saying documents, I meant most of your personal identifications, your achievement or some photos you can share to your interviewer that are related to your resume (remember, your resume should have already been modified according to what the company is looking for.).

During the interview

1. Confidence: It’s not the time to think whether you are good for this job; leave this question to be answered by your interviewer. Tell yourself that before you entered the interview room, you are totally ready for the interview. All the preparations I have introduced above should prepare you quite well. Beyond those, I can share two tips I use all the time during my past interviews. First, keep your smiles on; it’s free and it really works. Smiling can lighten up the atmosphere; you will feel less stress and they will get more information from you to help them decide you are the right one they are looking for. Second, look at them straight. I know being in a strange place will kind of make you nervous and you will tend to look away from the interviewer or you don’t know where to put your hands. If you feel uncomfortable in looking at their eyes, well, look at their nose; they can’t tell. First impression is almost the key to your door of success; during a half-an-hour interview, most interviewers can make up their minds in the first 5 minutes. Therefore, show your confidence, engage them to know more from you, especially the reasons why you are so good for the job you are applying for.
2. Use appropriate words: Interviewing cases are different; some are formal while some are casual. Yet, I think words like “dude” should never come out of your mouth. If you want to show your ease and confidence, a smile and good gesture should speak it out for you. Besides words come out of your mouth, using body language will also help to release the tension created already especially you are not expert on choosing wording or English is not your native language.
3. Question wisely:If you are asked “Do you have any other questions for us?” or “Do you want to know more from us?”, there is a high possibility that you are on the list to be considered. What should you ask? I have heard people asking “What will the salary to be?” or “How many paid days do I get for a year?”; well, I can’t say these questions are wrong if you are pretty much told you are hired, but if you are not sure how big is your chance to get the job, you’d better ask some safe questions. By asking the two sample questions above, you will leave an image to the interviewers that you care about your paycheck and paid holidays more than anything else. It will be safer to ask questions related to the work like will you get training if you first started the job or what’s the team structure (working in a team? team size?). However, to tell you the truth is that, no questions fit all situation; you really need to judge the conversations between you and the interviewer yourself.

Post actions

1. Confidence: Yes, most of the interviewers will tell you “please wait for our response which will let you know whitin XX days.” Just don’t let yourself crash after hearing this; it’s not the statement of failure. For most of the cases, the interviewers are just trying to be fair and offer same chances to other candidates like you. So once again, keep yourself confident, say thanks to the interviewers, shake hands (don’t wait for him/her to start this), walk out of the door confidently as you entered.
2. Thank-you card: Less and less people are doing this nowadays, but I think it’s a good manner to show your true thanks to the interviewers. No matter you are accepted or rejected, it should be a great experience. From the time they received your resume and application form, they need to invite you for the interview, then scheduled a time with you and then spent time for the interview; believe it or not, it’s a lot of work even though to you it’s just a phone call telling you the result. Why don’t you just send your interviewer a thank-you-card or email and showing how you really appreciate their time and kindness; if you can do a bit more, drop by at your most convenient time, bring in the card yourself, get a chance to say thanks to them personally and tell them you would like to wait for another opportunities. Won’t that amaze them?  What you are doing is really putting add-ons to your first impression that they initially got.

I am not sure if these tips are still working fine as it’s quite hard to come up with a sure-working tip for all cases. Some of the tips I talked about above are the mistakes that I made before. If you disagree with me or you have some more tips, please leave me a message and I can put it up for you. Once again, I am not professional in interviewing, but this is my personal experience which I am sure I will gain more as I learn more; hopefully I can add more on to it and you can get some confidence before an interview.