3 Tricks to Nail a Job Interview You Probably Haven't Heard Before
When you're interviewing for jobs, you tend to hear a lot of the same advice repeated over and over: show up early (but not too early!), rehearse answers to common questions ahead of time, be polite to the receptionist and on and on. But here are three tips for nailing an interview you probably haven't heard before that will help in your job search.
[See: The 10 Most Common Interview Questions.]
1. Read what your interviewers read. Job seekers who are trying to prepare for interviews often read all sorts of advice about how to shine in an interview -- tips on answering tricky questions, advice on negotiating salary and plenty more. What they rarely do is read about interviewing from the other side of the desk. As a job seeker, you can get enormous insight by reading materials for interviewers, as well. Seek out materials designed for interviewers, like advice and information for how to conduct an effective interview, advice on how to interpret various types of answers to interview questions, red flags to watch for, what to ask references and so forth. You'll get a much better understanding of what interviewers do and don't care about, what they're looking for in their conversations with you and generally how they're approaching the entire process.
Similarly, you might try flipping a common piece of advice on its head: A frequent suggestion for job seekers is to role-play an interview with a friend or family member in order to practice your answers and get more comfortable with the situation. That is indeed helpful -- but don't stop there. Turn it around and role-play in the position of the interviewer, as well. Being on the other side of the conversation will help you better understand what interviewers are looking for and what answers do and don't impress. For example, you'll probably get a much better understanding of why it's a turnoff when answers sound canned or overly rehearsed, and why it's frustrating to have a candidate not answer hard questions head-on.
[See: 7 Ways to Crush a Phone Interview.]
2. Don't go into the interview determined to impress at all costs. The stress of job searching -- and the financial anxieties that often accompany it -- can lead a lot of people to get so focused on impressing their interviewers that they forget to use the time to find out if the job is right for them. If you get so focused on wanting a job offer at the end of the process, you'll neglect to focus on determining if this is even a job you want and would be good at, which is how people end up in jobs that they're miserable in or even get fired from.
And counterintuitively, you'll actually be less impressive if it's clear that you're trying to sell yourself for the job. Most interviewers will find you a much more appealing candidate if you show that you're gathering your own information about the job and thinking rigorously about whether it's the right match or not. (Think of dating as a parallel here. If you found yourself on a first date with someone who seemed determined to win your heart with no regard to how strong the match between you might be, you'd probably be pretty turned off. It's the same thing here.)
[See: 7 Companies With Perks That Will Totally Make You Jealous.]
3. Pretend you already know that you didn't get the job. A lot of job seekers report a weird phenomenon: The interviews where they do the best are the ones for jobs they're not that invested in. When you don't think that you have a chance of being hired or you're not sure if you even want the job, you tend to relax and not worry so much about what kind of impression you're making. As a result, you're likely to come across as more comfortable and more personable, and you're not as likely to get tripped up by nerves. You can use this knowledge to pull a mind trick on yourself and walk into the interview pretending that you've heard the job has already been marked for someone else -- an internal candidate, maybe, or the boss's kid. That means you don't have so much on the line -- and that might let you shine in ways that you can't if you're full of job interview jitters.
