job interview

A job interview is necessary for a company to find the best person possible for the position available and if you are one of the few people lucky enough to be called in for a job interview it will be most likely the result of a really good resume. Your resume is the key to the door of job interview opportunity. With the ease of sending resumes online, companies are inundated with job interview requests. Recruiters are expected to quickly scan the first page of a resume to see if anything stands out as applicable to the position on offer. If nothing jumps out within seconds, the resume is put aside. YOU must find a way to get your resume noticed and placed at the top of the pile in order to get a job interview.

Once the job interview is granted the preparation begins. Why is preparation so important? Because without knowing who you are, what you can offer and where you are going the job interview will be a waste of everyoneIs time. Prior to the job interview find out about the company - what they do and who their clients are. This is a key job interview technique used to build confidence in the interview situation. Knowing about the company will make you stand out as someone not only knowledgeable but sympathetic to the direction of the firm.

The second part of job interview preparation is to be able to answer the usual and not so usual questions that will be asked of you. Have selected your academic qualifications for the position on offer and have ready examples of where these are relevant. When going for a job interview questions come in basically two forms - personal and behavioral. The personal questions require that you can illustrate with examples from your resume where your experience has so far brought you. For the job interview keep your answers to under 5 minutes at the risk of boring the interviewer. The behavioral questions are the most feared type of question at a job interview. These questions are used to discover how your past performance in a previous job may contribute to your future performance in the role being interviewed for. You need to know your strengths and your weaknesses along with examples to back them up in order to make the job interview successful. Behavioral job interview questions are challenging because they are asking you to illustrate examples of where your talents made a difference. Go over these questions in advance and if possible get someone to run through them with you so that at the job interview you come across as credible and confident.

Because a job interview is a two-way street it is important that you engage with the interviewer by asking intelligent and thoughtful questions. This shows the person doing the job interview that you have researched the company, have a high level of interest in the position and communicate well.

Your personal presentation is paramount to a good job interview. This entails everything from a good, firm handshake which is your first impression in a job interview to your appearance. You must be clean and tidy and dressed for the position that you are interviewing for in order to show respect in the job interview. Youcve gotten this far in the job interview process, don't reduce your chances by falling down here. If the interviewer isn't impressed by you upon introduction, that opinion will affect the rest of the job interview.

A job interview serves both the applicant as well as the interviewer as an opportunity of getting to know each other. A job interview isn't to be taken lightly. Being prepared in advance will make the difference between being a failure and being a key candidate.

The Career Council is the #1 person-to-person solution for Job Interview Coaching. We offer the answers to your interview questions, share with you the "Secrets of Successful Interviewing" and teach you the "30 Second Sell". Face-to-face or via Skype we will give you the skills training needed to transform you into a Key Candidate. Check out how we can help you at www.careercouncil.ca