Top 10 secrets to win every job interview

A job interview is a critical and challenging aspect when seeking employment. Job interviews are competitive, so, how do you stand out? The following job interview secrets can provide useful tips when preparing for an interview.

1. Prep your greatest stories Amazing stories rarely come by on the fly.

Therefore, get your most impactful stories ready and ensure that these stories are related to the job. Write down up to 10 different stories that sum up your experience. Story telling makes people talk naturally. Take the challenge-action-result approach. What is the challenge that prompted them to look for a person for that position? What action could be taken to solve this problem and what would the result be?

Practice by telling these stories to friends and family, after doing this a couple of times, your confidence level will naturally grow.

Related posts: 7 secrets to tells about your career stories

2. See each Job Interview as an opportunity to work towards success

Practice makes perfect. However, practicing a mock interview or a real interview is never enough. Performing well in an interview can present you with other opportunities within the organization, even if you feel you do not meet the job requirements.

Practicing for an interview is a good idea. The more you practice, the more you improve your interview skills, and also the more prepared you will be whenever an interview comes up. An example of how practicing interviews makes a difference can be seen in a story about a safety engineer who had three different interviews lined up during his job search from different companies. The last time he went for an interview was six years ago, so, he was very nervous. However, after the first and second interview, he was more relaxed, his confidence grew and he was more confident and happy after the third interview. He got an offer for the second interview, and according to him, he felt more confident after each successful interview.

If you like this image, pls share it to your Pinterest boards

3. Search yourself on Google

A bad online presence can damage your reputations and ruin your chances of securing a job. Your employer may want to know more about you by searching you through search engines like Google, therefore, searching yourself on google is important. You can remove things that will create the wrong impression about you and update with positive stuff before a potential employer assess your profile online. Ensure you set your online profiles in order six months before applying for a job. You can create a blog and write about topics you are passionate about.

4. Structure your answer

Most people see a job interview as a passive experience where they answer questions and are confident of securing the job if they answer the questions asked correctly. Rather, see an interview as an opportunity to answer or respond to questions following a guide or plan on the subject of interest. Your answers should emphasize how your skills will be of relevance to the company. To improve how to answer questions in the interview, draft 5 points and have both short and long answers to each point. Nevertheless, you are required to pay attention or listen carefully during the interview. Ensure you carry out proper research on the company before an interview to enable you to prepare appropriately for questions the interview is likely to ask.

5. Take evidence of your achievements

it isn’t enough to talk about your past achievements, also go along with samples or evidence. That said, you do not want to go along with materials that are confidential to your previous position because it portrays you as careless. Feel free to go along with items such as pay slips, references, league tables etc. as long as they are appropriate.

6. Bring examples of your work 

I have been called several times by hiring managers who expressed their delight at some of my candidates who came to the interview session with samples of their work. You also have the opportunity to do this. Make the most of printed words, it shows how prepared you are and this alone might just set you apart from other candidates. Idea: Some candidates take a copy of their most recent written review to the interview. Obviously, you should only do this if your evaluation is outstanding. Perhaps you could come with a graph or a chat that illustrates the actions you took that saved your old company some money or even how you improved their business.

Always couch your examples with the following line of logic:

• This was the situation at the time.
• This is what I did to remedy the situation.
• My actions yielded these results.

7. It only takes 90 seconds

It only takes 90 seconds to win the heart of an employer in an interview. An interviewer will assess you and decide if you are suitable for the position within the first 90 seconds. Therefore, creating a good first impression is essential. Creating a positive impression may allow the interviewer to ignore your mistakes or flaws afterward. Employers tend to lose interest in a candidate who hasn’t made a positive first impression. Creating a positive first impression has a significant impact on the interview process. Ensure you are properly and neatly dressed for the meeting, maintain good communication and body language, and be polite.

8. Zeal to learn

Always be eager to learn during an interview. Research carried out by Jeannie Kahwajy, a specialist in organizational behavior showed how candidates with the zeal to learn turned negative interviews around. She performed the test through a mock interview. The experiment consisted of a recruiter (primed with a negative bias towards the candidate), and three groups of candidates. The first group was to prove they were qualified for the job, the second group were instructed to learn from the interview, while the third group (control group) had no specific instructions. From her results, only the group with the zeal to learn were offered the job because they turned the recruiter’s negative bias.

9. Creating a good first impression

According to a survey, 43% of candidates do not make a good first impression. The best approach to creating a good first impression is to be yourself in a good and polite manner, instead of displaying another person’s character. According to Twohill, your first impression may occur earlier than you planned for, it may happen in the elevator. According to her, “Initiate a conversation with people you meet in the elevator. You have no idea of the people you meet there.”

10. Close the sale

See every interview as an opportunity to sell yourself, thus before leaving, ensure you close the sale. When selling a product, you require answers if the buyer wants the product or not, such is also applicable in interviews. Ensure you probe and find facts about the interviewer’s thoughts on you.  If you get a negative response, see it as a challenge and employ measures to overcome or convince the objections of the interviewer.