How you can ace your next interview with the help of these 7 tips
Hey, everybody, Don Georgevich here with Job Interview Tools. Today, I want to give you my seven best tips to acing your next interview; guaranteed. So, if you want to use your next interview, go ahead and let me know by hitting the “Like” button on this video. Subscribe to my channel and ring the bell and we’ll dive right in.
So, you got an interview coming up. I know you want to ace it. So, I’m going to give you my top seven steps that are going to help you get there.
First thing you’ve got to do, number one, is the handshake. And I can’t emphasize this enough because a handshake just sets the tone for the whole interview. That good, firm handshake from you to your interviewer.
Now, whether you’re a man or a woman, it doesn’t matter. Always shake hands. And some people, they feel I feel uncomfortable. They feel awkward shaking hands; don’t. I mean, don’t go in and shake the receptionist’s hand; the person who greets you there. But the hiring manager, the manager or anybody else that you’re meeting with, shake their hand.
And look them in the eye when you shake their hand; don’t look away like that. Look them in the eye, shake their hands. It just sends so much of your energy over to them. It lets them know that you are happy and excited and thrilled to be there.
Now, if you go into a big meeting room and there’s like ten people, you don’t have to walk around and shake everybody’s hand. That would just be ridiculous and take too much time.
So, in those cases, I’d like to shake just the manager’s hand and maybe one of the person that’s right next to me and then I do the group shake where I’m like, “Hey, everybody, it’s nice to meet you.” Bam, done. I just shook eight hands with “Hey, everybody, it’s nice to meet you.”
So, I can’t emphasize the handshake enough. Get a good firm handshake. And if you’re not good at it, practice with a friend before you go. But remember, look them in the eye and shake their hand and smile and say, “It’s good to meet you.” All right.
Number to maintain eye contact. Just like we did in the handshake; we’re looking them in the eye. When you are talking in the interview, make eye contact with everybody that you’re speaking to.
So, let’s say, for example, say one person is going to ask you a question. You’re going to look at them and you’re going to start talking and answering the question. Now, what you want to do is you want to include everybody else in the room, whether it’s two people, three or ten. There’s probably going to be more than one person in there.
So, let’s say it’s three or four people. So, first, you look at the one person and you start answering the question. Then you move over to the next. While you’re still answering the original question, you’re looking at the next person and the next person and the next person.
And what you’re doing by that, by making that eye contact with each person as you give your answer is you’re bringing them in to your answer. It’s respect. If you just answered the question to the one person who asked it to you and didn’t look at anybody else, for one, you’re going to make that one person feel very awkward by staring at them the whole time. So, you’re excluding everybody else when you don’t look at them when you’re speaking.
And that’s just part of presentation in general. I mean, any time you’re giving a speech, you’re looking around the room and you’re making eye contact with people to bring them in, to make them feel like they’re there and that you recognize them.
So, let’s say it’s just you and the hiring manager and they have one other person. You look at the hiring manager, go to the other person; hiring manager, back and forth, back and forth. Bring them all in.
Now, let’s just say it’s you and the hiring manager, you don’t want to say, “Don said make eye contact.” Don’t stare at them the whole time. It’s okay in those cases to kind of just break away and just give that little break. We all need that momentary pause. Because you can’t just have eyes on you all the time. You don’t want them staring at you all the time either. They’re going to look away or they’re going to look down. So, you want to do the same thing in the interview.
Number three; maintain good posture in the interview. So, I would encourage you not to sit back like this the whole time. You want to be sitting up straight in your chair. It’s okay to put your elbows on the table, but you want to maintain good posture for a couple of reasons.
One, it looks professional; doesn’t make you look like a slob. And it’s also going to help you deliver your message a lot better. So, when you’re speaking and you’re maintaining good posture, that’s going to allow your diaphragm to get out more vocal energy (for lack of a better word) and it’s going to allow you to emphasize everything that you say. Plus, you’re going to feel better about yourself.
I mean, how do you feel when you’re just sitting back slouched in a chair? Yeah, it might be comfortable, but it’s a relaxed position. You want to be in a straight, upright position, because you are trying to communicate. You’re trying to convince, you’re trying to sell yourself. How effective do you think you would be at selling somebody if you were slouched back in your chair? Probably not very effective; not very convincing.
So, sit up straight, maintain good eye contact and that’s going to create just a whole professional image. And all too often, you probably already know this stuff. And everybody does. But you know what? They forget it. And so, that’s why I’m here today reminding you of these little subtleties that make all the difference.
It’s the simple things. It’s not the advanced stuff that makes a difference. It’s mastering all these little simple things. Okay, let’s move on.
Number four; communicate clearly. So, when you’re speaking to them, think before you speak. So, if they ask you a question, you don’t want to just start, blah, blah, blah, blah because what’s going to happen is you’re going to start talking in circles. You’re going to start thinking back in your mind about a time when you had to save the day and the odds were against you and you’re going to remember everything you did in a very scattered way. And it’s just going to kind of come out all messy and sloppy. You’re going to talk in circles. You’re going to start changing the order of what you said, “Oh, wait a minute. No, this happened first. That happened.”
So, to communicate clearly and effectively in the interview, when you’re answering the questions, when they ask you a question, the first thing you want to do is take a quick pause. And this happens in milliseconds. Think about a story that you want to tell them; an experience, whatever it is. And then, very important, here; think about the end point of your story. Where do you want to stop? What’s going to be the conclusion?
You need to identify the last line of what you’re going to say instantly. And what that does is that gives you a target of something to aim for while you’re giving your answer. So, they ask you a question, you think, “Okay, I’m going to tell them about this story and I’m going to tell them about where I saved the day (and whatever). Everybody was happy and then I’m going to stop there.”
Then you start talking. You tell them the story. And all the while you’re telling them a story, you have a point that you’re going to focus on. Without this focus point, you end up being a rambling mess and you end up going blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all throughout the question. And by the time you’re done talking, they don’t know what you said, you don’t know what you said.
And oftentimes when we’re doing this, we forget what we’re saying. And the interviewer is looking at us like, “Oh” and then we’re thinking, “Oh, my gosh, they must want more information.” So, you start talking some more and you’re talking in circles and it’s just a big mess. So, that’s how you communicate clearly. And it works we’ll.
Number five; bring a set of questions to ask them. And everybody always wants to know, “What questions should I ask?” Well, you know what? Those are different for everybody. You don’t want to just ask the same old standard questions. You want to ask questions that are going to help you understand more about this position and whether you want to work there or not.
Now, I actually made another video on this topic. I think it’s called 12 Questions to Ask An Interviewer. I’ll try to put a link to that down in the description below. But I want you to go into the interview, to have a set of questions that you need answers to that are going to help sell you on whether you want to work there or not.
And those questions are going to be different for everybody. So, I can’t tell you what they are. You have to come up with them. What’s important to you about this job?
Now, if you’re like, “Well, hey, Don, I don’t have any questions, I’m just going to take it. Whatever it is, I’ll take it. I don’t care.” That doesn’t work. You want to ask them questions to show them where your focus is, to show them what you are interested in.
When you ask questions that shows them that you are doing your homework about the job. You’re not willing to just take anything. You’re challenging them on the position, on the company, on the work. And that just speaks volumes about you compared to the other person over there who doesn’t ask any questions, who is just like, “Yeah, I’ll just take the job.” And we don’t want to give it to them because they just want the job and they’re going to quit in six months. I want somebody who wants the job, who wants to do that kind of work. And that’s what your focused questions are going to show them.
Number six, bring more copies of your resumé and references. Because when you get in the interview, let’s say you’re sitting down five people and three of them say, “Do you have any extra copies of your resumé?” “I don’t have one.” And they’ll be like, “Well, I can go print one” and it just be a whole disruption. You want to say, “Yeah, here you go. I have extra copies right here.”
Now, another thing good thing about bringing extra copies is you can bring your latest version. Because oftentimes, you get into an interview and maybe it’s been a month since you first applied to that job. The employer might say, “Hey, do you have an updated copy of your resumé?” And you know what? Maybe you do, because maybe there was something about your old resume that you didn’t like, you need the change, whatever or you had a misspelling on it, an error. So, here’s an opportunity to give them a fresh, updated copy that is corrected.
And have a copy of your references. But don’t offer them references. Don’t offer your references unless they ask. I think that’s too pushy. The employers only interested in references if they’re interested in hiring you. If they’re interested in hiring you, they want to call your references. So, which case they will ask you for your references.
But just volunteering them, saying, “Hey, would you like a copy?” I think it’s too pushy. Make them come to you for them. Make them do the work. All right.
Last one here. Number seven; be consistent with everything you say. Oftentimes, employers will have usually about four interviews and they could do all those in one day. They could break them up over four different times. But you’re likely to interview with at least four different people.
So, what you say to the first interviewer should be consistent with what you say to the third interviewer and the fourth interview. Everything needs to be consistent. Because if you’re not, they’re going to catch it sooner or later. Because what you tell to the first person, he’s going to take notes. And then when you talk to the third person, she’s going to take notes.
And if you say different things to both those people and then afterwards, when they compare their notes, they’re going to be like, “This Don guy here said this and then he contradicted himself and he said that.” You’re out.
So, they don’t want that. You want to be consistent all the way through the process. So, don’t tell different stories to different people. You can tell different stories, just make sure that all your facts and you have everything straight and all your ducks are in a row. All right. So, there you go. Be consistent with everything you say.
And that is all I have for you. I give you my top seven, my very best seven tips, for helping you ace your next interview.
Now, I want to give you a free gift since you’re here. Head on over to jobinterviewtools.com/top10 and you can download my free Top Ten Guides. It’s got the top 10 questions in it that are going to help you get ready for any interview.
Because, I mean, these seven steps, these are great. These are going to help you in the interview. These are sort of the structure part, but you still need to prepare for that interview and you still need to practice questions. You still need to know, “Why do you want to work there?” or “Tell me about yourself” or “What are your weaknesses?” “What are your accomplishments?” “What are your career goals?”
This little Top 10 Guide is going to show you how to answer all of those and do it very easily. And cool thing is, this is free; absolutely free. jobinterviewtools.com/top10.
Now, they’re going to ask you more than 10 questions, obviously. For that, I have another book here. Now, this one’s not free. This is The Complete Interview Answer Guide.
This one has about 140 different questions in it. It’s got behavioral questions in it. It covers everything the Top Ten covers and like ten times more. It’s going to teach you how to answer all of those real difficult experience-based questions.
And cool thing. This book is available hard copy, like you see here. I’ll ship that out to you. It’s available in e-book. You could just download it instantly. Also comes with audio and video. So, if you’d like to learn by watching videos or you want to download all of the audio tracks, put them on your iPod and you just love listening to me talk, you can do that, too. Only this book has all of those. You can get all those from jobinterviewtools.com.
And all those questions and answer, they’re going to educate you on the whole process of what you can expect, of what it’s going to feel like to be in that interview with all those interviewers grilling you with question after question after question. This guide, it’s just going to break down the barrier for you there, and it’s going to get you well prepared for your interview.
All right, my friend, that is all I have for you. Good luck on your next interview. I’ll see you in the next video. Bye now.
