Advice
You can take many steps to ensure your interview goes smoothly. One of the easiest ways to prepare for your next job interview is to familiarise yourself with the popular questions frequently asked in interviews and practice your answers.
You can expect to hear at least one, and likely more, of these questions during your following job interview.
You can take many steps to ensure your interview goes smoothly. One of the easiest ways to prepare for your next job interview is to familiarise yourself with the popular questions frequently asked in interviews and practice your answers.
You can expect to hear at least one, and likely more, of these questions during your following job interview.
In your interview, you should be prepared to go into some detail about your work history. You may also be asked behavioural or situational questions requiring you to provide an anecdote about how you have handled a work challenge or how you would approach a situation in the future.
Hiring managers will be interested in the actual professional experience you can bring to the table. Be ready to elaborate upon the work history you described in your resume.
It’s essential to do more than provide a bare-bones list of jobs you have previously held. Instead, describe how, in your previous positions, you have honed the qualifications that the employer is seeking (the job announcement is your best guide to deciding what skills you should emphasise).
Suppose you are an entry-level candidate with little related work experience. In that case, drawing upon your educational / training history, part-time jobs, or internship experience is a good idea to demonstrate that you have the required skill set.
Interviewers are trying to predict which of their candidates will most likely adapt quickly to their workplace, current teams, and way of doing things.
While you should be honest in your answers, try researching the company before your interview to learn how they do business. Is good teamwork critical to their productivity? Or do they expect their staff to work independently? Is overtime or occasional weekend work required? Ideally, your responses to these questions will show that your work habits dovetail nicely with their practices, expectations, and requirements.
You’ll be able to tell from the job announcement whether teamwork and good interpersonal skills are vital to succeeding in the job you’re applying for. If so, plan to provide examples of how you have either led or participated in teams in collaborative environments.
Use the STAR interview response technique to prepare answers to questions about teamwork that will impress your interviewer: describe a situation where you served on a team, the task you were assigned, the action you took, and the results of that action.
Most employers hope to hire employees with the professional skills to do the job and have personality traits and a level of self-awareness that will allow them to work well with their supervisors, peers, and clients.
Take the “middle road” as you answer these questions: you don’t want to appear overly cocky or full of yourself, but neither do you want to be self-deprecating or “hide your light under a bushel.” The best tone to use is one of quiet confidence. If you are asked a “trick” question about your weaknesses or mistakes you have made in the past, own up to a minor failing but then explain how you learned to remediate the issue.
The hiring process can be expensive and time-consuming for employers, especially when interviewers take time away from their regular duties to talk to candidates. Thus, their goal is typically to hire someone likely to stick around and grow with their organisation.
Before your interview, try to envision how, in an ideal case scenario, you would be able to enjoy longevity with the company you are applying to. What would you like to be doing in five years? Ten? Think about how best to align your career goals to the opportunities offered by the employer. Then, in your answer, “sell” your candidacy by enthusiastically postulating how you would be able to contribute to their operations and steadily assume positions of increasing responsibility.
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