- Don’t talk bad about your company. Don’t talk bad about the people. Don’t say that you didn’t like working there; no matter how it comes up.
I mean, maybe you hated working there, maybe you hated your boss, but when they ask you questions, “Did you like working there? Did you like your boss?” The answer is, “Yes, I did. I liked working for my boss. I liked the people. I liked the company. I liked the culture. I liked everything about them. It’s a shame that I have to leave. I’m sorry I have to leave, but I’m looking for greener pastures, greater opportunity. I’m looking for more responsibility.”
Say any of that except that you didn’t like working there, you didn’t like what they did or anything like that. Because if you didn’t like working there or you didn’t like your boss, it’ll be in no time flat that you’ll be saying the same things about them when they hire you; you’ll find reasons not to like them, you’ll find reasons not to like your boss.
That’s just the way it goes; people who don’t like where they worked at, it doesn’t take them long to not like the new place. That’s just the way it goes; that’s human nature.
So, you don’t want to communicate that to them in the interview; no matter how it comes out, even if they ask you, “How do you like that company?” “Well, you know, I don’t really like working there anymore.”
No, you like working there and you like the people. Because otherwise, you’ll get labeled as cancer. You get labeled as cancerous when you’re the type of person that goes around, talking smack about all the people or the company, the policies, the things that you don’t like. And companies get rid of people like that.
Now, I know that’s not you. You know why? I know that’s not you because you’re here watching me today and you’re trying to better yourself. And people who are trying to better themselves, they’re not the cancerous type of people.
I mean, sure, there might be something about their company that they didn’t like and it could be very genuine reason that they didn’t like certain things. Just don’t say that in the interview; do not mention that in any way, shape or form.
Okay. So, the next one here; number 2.
- A lot of candidates go in and they’re so desperate to work at a job they’ll say, “I’ll do anything. It doesn’t matter what it is; I’ll do anything.”
Now, these are usually people who are not employed right now (maybe they’ve been out of work for six to nine months, maybe even two years) and they are desperate for a job and they will do anything.
But if you go into a job interview and say, “You know what? I don’t care what it is; I’ll do it. I’ll do anything. Just give it to me.” So, when you do this, you end up showing a certain level of desperation that just doesn’t come out very well.
You want to go into the interview, you want to talk about what you can do and the value you can bring and that you are excited to do it; that’s what you want.
You don’t want to just say, “Yeah, I’ll do whatever you got. I’ll do it. I’ll sweep the floors. I don’t care.”
Now, you want to go in there specifically; tell them what you want to be doing. You have to hold tight to your values. You have to hold tight to your beliefs and what you want to be doing. Because if they just give you anything, if they just give you any kind of job there, in two months, you won’t be happy doing it. I guarantee you.
Employers know this. They know that if you go in there and say, “I’ll take whatever you got” and they give it to you, two or three months later, you’d be like, “You know what? This sucks. I don’t want to do this anymore” and you’ll leave. And you’ll leave them high and dry. And then they just wasted a whole bunch of time and they’re going to have to go interview somebody else and it costs them a lot of money to deal with mis-hires like you.
So, when you go in there, don’t tell them that you’ll just do anything or you’ll take anything. It just sends a message of desperation.
Alright, let’s move on to number 3.
- So, when they ask you, “Tell me about yourself” or “What are some of the things that you’re good at?” Don’t tell them that you’re a self-starter or that you’re a quick learner or you’re that you’re results oriented; any of that stuff.
Now, what you do want to say is how you can do those things; you want to put it in context. So, if this is like a management position, you don’t want to say, “I’m a great leader.” You want to talk about how you have led people. You want to talk about groups of people; the teams that you have built and assembled to work on certain projects. You want to talk about how you’ve done it.
You don’t want to just say that you’re results oriented. You want to talk about projects that you completed and you finished on time and under budget and you want to talk about the details. All the results oriented and the leadership will come out in the context of what you’re saying. Does that make sense?
So, don’t go in there and just say, “I’m a results oriented leader.” Put it in context for them and show them how you have done this before and then the underlying message will be, “Hey, this person– you know, they’re pretty good results oriented leader.” I mean, that’s a label that you get put on after the fact. Alright, makes sense?
So, go in there and just tell them how you have done things, not how you would do them.
Alright, let’s move onto the next one here.
- When they ask you a question, let’s say, “Do you know how to do this?” Don’t tell them that you don’t know how. Don’t say to any interviewer that I don’t know how to do that or I’ve never seen that or I have no idea.
I mean, that’s the worst possible thing you can say; even if it’s the truth. But what you do want to say is, “You know what? Let me think about that for a second” and then you think. And what you want to do is you want to connect it to something that’s similar to what you’ve done. So, you say, “You know what? I haven’t done that exact thing, but I’ve done something that’s similar.”
And what that does is that shows them that you at least have some level of understanding of what they’re talking about. Because if you show no level of understanding about the question, that’s a big, red flag; a big mark against you.
And it’s probably that’s most likely going to be a competency question. And if you know anything about competency questions, those are weighted the heaviest.
So, if you miss one or two competency questions; that could be it. That could wipe you out right there in the interview. You could be done; just two competency questions. One, maybe you can get away with it, but it depends. It depends how crucial the question is.
Because competency questions pull in a lot of fundamentals. And if you don’t know a lot of fundamentals about what you do, that says that you don’t know a lot about what you do. So, never tell them that you don’t know. Always try to come close to something; connect the dots for them.
And maybe you need to pull lifeline here and say, “You know what? Can I think about that for a minute and can we circle back around” and they’re going to say, “Yes”. But if you pull that lifeline technique too many times, like maybe more than once or twice, that’s it; you’re done.
So, you need to give yourself a little bit of time to think about how you can connect your experiences to what they’re talking about and I know you can.
Alright, let’s move on to the last one here; number 5.
- When you go into the interview, don’t ask them, “So, what does your company do here?”
That’s the worst thing you can do. That shows that you did absolutely no research, no preparation on this company, this division, the Department or the projects they’re working on or anything. Don’t ask them what do they do here.
You should already know that if anything, ask them specifics about some of the things that they are doing. But don’t go in there blinded and just say, “Well, what you guys do around here? That sounds interesting. I think I might like to do that.”
That’s the worst possible thing you can say. That shows that you have no level of excitement about this company or about what they’re doing. It shows that you put no preparation into the interview. You spent no time researching this company or the position. It just basically says that you showed up and maybe you’d like the job. It doesn’t work that way.
It doesn’t work that way out there. There are so many hungry job seekers out there who want these positions and they are going to beat you over tenfold. They’re going to be so much sharper than you. They’re going to be on their game. They’re going to be talking about their experiences about how they relate to the job. They’re going to know what that company does. They’re going to know; they’re going to have looked it up and you can too.
So, take that extra step before your next job interview and spend some time researching the position. Gather as much information as you can so that you can go in there and now you can ask them questions that will help qualify you about this job, and about this company, and if it’s a place that you even want to be.
I mean, if you think about it, that’s really what a job interview is. You are out there talking to them and you’re interviewing them too. You’re interviewing them to see if this is something that you want to be doing. That’s the whole key to a job interview. Alright, my friend; good luck on your next interview.
Now before you go in your next interview, I would strongly suggest grabbing a copy of The Complete Interview Answer Guide from Job Interview Tools. This was the quick download. You can get it in PDF e-book, you can get it in mp3, video, audio or you can even get in hard copy.
This book has about 140 different interview questions and answers in it. It goes into detail about the STAR method, behavioral questions; where they have to use the situation, the task, the action, and result. I’ve got about 40 questions in here that just explain that.
I teach you how to answer, “Tell me about yourself,” “Why do you want to work here?” “Why do you leave your last job?” This guide is going to walk you through getting 100 percent prepared for any job interview. So I strongly recommend it.
It’s like 50 bucks. You can get it from jobinterviewtools.com. And if you like, there’s an audio version. You can download all the audio tracks. You can put them on your phone and you can listen to them. You can listen to the questions while you’re driving into work, and even some people listen to those questions out in the parking lot. They’ll get to the job in an interview like an hour before and they’ll just listen to the questions before they go in.
So, it just kind of puts you in a more heightened state, a more elevated state, a more pumped-up, energized state before the job interview.
So, grab this book; it’s good it’s good book. It’s going to help you a lot. It’s been around over 10 years. I keep it updated all the time.
And one of the best things about this guide that no other guide has; you can go on Amazon and buy books, they have questions and answers, but this guide includes support from me.
So, if you get stuck or you have a question about something in the job interview process, you can e-mail me and I will actually reply; not some college student or any of the people around here; you get me. You have me; I am your coach.
So, when you own this guide, I am your coach and you can e-mail me directly and I usually get back to you within a day or two.
Nobody else does that. I don’t know anybody else on the planet that will actually– no other author will let you e-mail them questions about their book for help; I guarantee you.
Look on Amazon; there’s hundreds of books out there and they all have questions and answers and not one of those people puts their e-mail address in their guide so you can e-mail them for help. I do because I want to be here for you. I want to help you. I want to help you succeed. Alright, good luck. Good luck on your next interview and see you in the next video. Bye now.
If you found this video helpful, then give it a thumbs up and make sure you subscribe to my channel so you get notifications every time I release a new video. And by subscribing, you support me, my message and this channel. So, I’d really appreciate it. Make sure you hit ‘Subscribe’.
