If you submit your CV for a job and you get invited to an interview, it means you already have one leg in the door into that organization. The interview is an opportunity for you to prove that you are the real person you claimed in your CV.
Unfortunately, this is where many people fail, and where others succeed.
I know people who have a 100% success rate with interviews, and other people whose interviews have always been an interesting conversation with the panelist such that it was a tough choice for the company not to pick them.
As someone with a 90% success rate myself, I have engaged some of these interview geniuses and come up with tips to help you boost your success rate at interviews – especially for those who have interviews coming.
1. When you have received the interview email, go and study the company. Try to know their history, their stories in the press, recent successes, management team, check their website and social media pages. Start to think like you already got the job.
2. Practice a short but concise introduction of yourself. Tell it like a story, and make sure you leave some suspense. Good storytelling makes you an interesting candidate and it helps you attract the kind of questions you are ready to answer.
3. Go back to read the job description again, line by line. For each responsibility on the job description, match it with a previous experience you have had, and practice how to tell it as a story too.
4. Develop new ideas or refresh old ideas you have used before, which you can bring to your new job to fulfill the job responsibilities. That’s your manifesto. Practice them and break them down into talking points. Doing this boosts your confidence and helps the panel see how ready you are to take the job.
5. Prepare at least one question for the panel, which could be around the company’s culture, growth plan for employees, expectations on the job, success factors etc.
With these 5 tips, you will not only end up having an interesting interview but you will among the top 3, if not the best performing candidate(s) considered for the role.
(c) Olumide GlowVille