Preparing for Your Interview
Congratulations! All your job-seeking hard work has paid off – your resume has been noticed and you’ve been called in for an interview. However, the worse thing you can do is to walk into the interview unprepared. Potential employers want to feel like your interested in their company – not just in the paycheck they’ll be sending you. Check out the following tips to help prepare for the big event:
Research the company
Spend some time looking around the company’s website before you go in for your interview. The goal is to become familiar with the company’s current situation. What are their most recent achievements? What challenges are they currently facing? Look to see if the website has a “News” or “Press Releases” page – both of these are great places to go to get a good feel for what the company is going through.
Videotape Yourself
Interviewing is stressful, and sometimes this stress plays out in uncomfortable body language and physical mannerisms. The best way to curb these behaviors is to be aware of them and to consciously work at maintaining natural body language. Ask a trusted friend to help you conduct a videotaped mock interview session. Try to act as naturally as possible, and then watch the footage after the session is over. Do you touch your face too often? Are your hand gestures too wild or jerky? Conduct another mock interview session and try to be more aware of these reactions occurring.
Practice Commonly Asked Interview Questions
Although every interview is different, there are some common questions you can expect to come up regularly. The following are some of the most frequently used questions:
Give me three of your best strengths and three of your weaknesses?
Describe a situation in which you had to make an unpopular decision
Describe a situation in which you had to compromise your morals
Where do you see yourself in five years?
Why do you want to work for this company?
Practice giving your responses to these questions in the mirror – that’s right; actually watch yourself speak the answers out loud. The more comfortable you are with the answers you’ll give, the more relaxed you’ll be in the actual interview setting.
Practice “You” Statements
In an interview, it’s tempting to go on and on bragging about your own accomplishments. After all, you wouldn’t be in the interview if they didn’t want to find out more about you, right? However, hiring managers don’t just want to know about you – they also want to know whether or not you’re the best choice for their company. Therefore, when you’re practicing your responses to common interview questions, try to give responses that show how your skills and experiences can be used in the job you’re applying for.
For example, if the interviewer asks you to share one of your greatest strengths, you can talk about how your advanced safety training will help meet specific company flight safety goals (which you’re familiar with from your company research). Or, if you’re asked to discuss a situation in which you compromised your morals, you can explain how the lessons you’ve learned will improve your performance in this new position. Put the company’s interests before your own and you’ll have the interviewer eating out of the palm of your hand.