7 tips to stay
confident during interviews:
Staying natural and confident during interviews is the most crucial
part of getting recruited. The success and failure lies on this particular
aspect. It’s not how much you possess the knowledge it’s how you exhibit the
knowledge during interviews. A normal interview may range between 5-25 minutes;
however this may vary according to the nature and level of the job, industry,
interviewer/ interviewee’s skills and expertise to handle interviews.
We have seen many who are the tigers on transcripts with
flying grades / CGPA’s, however remained unsuccessful in securing a simple job.
They possessed all that was required to secure the job, however they failed to
impress the interviewers and lacked the basic ingredient of interviewing skills
which is called ‘CONFIDENCE…’
Let me share with you an example of an interview that we intended
to hire a full time engineer for our Fareham, Southampton, UK factory.
John Moore (Technical Director) showed a keen interest in a candidate during
interview and the session prolonged to almost half an hour. After the interview
Mr. Moore told me that he would not recommend this gentleman for the job. I was
surprised as the candidate fulfilled all the basic requirements and skills for
the job. On enquiring, he told me that the candidate was not confident during
the interview and he suspect as if was trying to hide something from him…
This is one of the many examples that we notice or even unnoticed
during the interviews. This is something that all the panel members dedicate a
special attention during the interviews.
Tips
1. Prepare well before the interviews. You can establish
a clear link between the job advertisements, the potential job and the expected
requirements from the candidates. List down the potential questions and answers.
Hire the services of your fiend to ask those questions and try to address them
with confidence, logic and tactfully. You will be surprised to discover that
you were able to predict 50-80% of the questions being asked during the
interviews.
2. Try to understand the corporate structure and
the working. Even with similar professions there may be huge differences
between the working conditions, practices and expectations. A visit to the
organization may give you many verbal and nonverbal indications and understanding
of the prevailing working environment. This will be very helpful to the candidates
who are in their earlier professional carriers, especially the ones who have
just graduated from the institutes. Normally such candidates feel huge nervousness
and hold an artificial view of the organizations.
3.Try to
get information about the interviewer and his style of work. Is S/he task
oriented or people oriented. Plan your interview according to what s/he feels important
than what you feel yourself. It’s all about her/him, not you during interviews.
4. Try to collect latest information related to
your field of studies. Read news papers, professional article, digests etc… It
looks very odd during an interview if a mega event has happened within you professional
arena and you exhibit to no knowledge about this.
5. Sleep well, eat well and reach well before the
time of interview. Make sure you carry all the relevant documents, invitation
letters and other proofs required during the interviews.
66. Have faith and confidence that this is not the
first and the last job on earth. Make this a learning experience and try to
enjoy the session as much as you can.
7. Last but not least, don’t get hurt with failures.
Turn every failure into a useful lesson. Try to work on the weakness that you
discovered during the interviews. Also try to appear in as much interviews as you
can. By this you would learn the key questions that are being asked in your
professional area. You will learn about the key skills that they look for
during the interviews. This will grow your confidence level and ultimately let you
secure the desired job.
Best of luck for your interviews….
Afzal Moshadi Shah
