Knowing the things that are important to interviewers

In fact, nearly all good interview questions boil down to these three key generic questions:
• Can you do the job? They’ll want to know what you’ve done, how you did it and what
the outcomes were.
• Are you the sort of person they can work with? It means: Will you fit into the existing
culture of theorganisation? Or Will you get on with the boss?
• How motivated are you? As we all know, highly motivated employees are keenly
sought after by employers—with good reason.
There are two significant benefits in knowing that interviewers are keenly interested in these
three generic questions. First, it guides you in the preparation of your answer. Second, it
provides a useful way to deal with questions at the actual interview.
Practice
The third aspect of convincing an interviewer that you’re the best person for the job is practice.
Once you’ve prepared your answers, you need to sit down and practise them as much as you
can. The more you practise, the better you’ll be. Do it in front of the mirror, sitting on your
couch, or pacing your room.
Practising your answers aloud
It is important to practise your answers aloud, rather than just mentally rehearsing them. That’s
because the human brain distinguishes between talking and thinking and you need to stimulate
the talking part of your brain.
Get some feedback
Ideally, you should do your practising at real interviews. The more interviews you attend, the
better—even if you have to attend interviews for jobs that you’re not really interested in.
You can increase your chances of getting honest feedback by making interviewers feel as
comfortable as possible. You can do this by:
a) assuring them that you only want five minutes of their time; and
b) telling them that the only reason you’re seeking feedback is to improve future interview
performance.
Mock interviews
It’s a good idea to set up mock interviews with someone you can work with. The more closely
you can simulate a real-life situation, more benefit you will derive.
An effective way to conduct mock interviews is to get into role and stay in it for the entire
interview. No distractions, no small talk and especially no starting again.
• If possible, avoid providing the questions to your helpers
• Give them lots of questions and ask them to choose the ones they want.
• The important thing is to get yourself used to answering unexpected questions.
Perseverance
• The worst thing you can do when setting out to improve your interview performance is
give up because it all seems too hard. People who persevere very often gain valuable insights
simply because they have the stamina to stick it out.
• And if you don’t believe in yourself, others usually don’t believe in you either—not a
great place to be when you’re trying to convince interviewers to believe in your abilities. Such
as: ‘That’s too hard’, ‘I can’t learn that’, ‘What will others think’.
• You don’t have to be a chronic quitter or burdened with low self-esteem to give up on
working on your interview skills.
Suggested activity: Neurolinguistic programming
People often quit because they associate negative feelings with what they’re doing. If you can
make yourself feel good about the process of improving your interview skills, then there’s a
good chance that quitting will be the last thing on your mind. Next time you feel like quitting,
you might like to find a quiet spot and take the following steps:
• Close your eyes and imagine yourself performing extremely well in an interview. Do
not hold yourself back. The better you make yourself feel, the more powerful the exercise will
be.
• Keep on repeating this exercise until you capture that feeling of excitement. The key to
this exercise is to generate the great feeling that goes with succeeding at an interview. Your
only limitation is your imagination.
• Once you’ve captured that feeling, the next step is to recreate it when you need it—in
other words, when you feel like quitting. Every time you’re afflicted with the scourge of
quitting, use your anchor and let your ability to influence your feelings do the rest.