Your tailored cover letter and CV have worked. You’ve earned yourself a job interview for that dream job. But, now there’s the next hurdle to overcome. How do you turn a successful application into a successful interview and get the job of your dreams?
There is plenty of advice on how to make your next job interview a stellar performance. But, what else can you do to make sure you stand out as the ideal applicant.
Be everything you say you are in your cover letter
Your cover letter is your opportunity to show why you are the ideal candidate for a job. It’s likely that your cover letter and/or CV had an important part in securing you the interview. There would have been something in it that intrigued the hiring decision maker. From the information you included, they decided they wanted to find out more about you.
So, imagine how disappointed they are going to be if a promising candidate turns out to be nothing like the description their covering letter portrays? If you describe yourself as confident and approachable, then turn out to be shy and reserved, it is going to make a hiring manager question what else you didn’t tell the truth about on your cover letter.
Instead, be the person your cover letter claims that you are. This approach should also spread through to your online presence. If potential employers research you on social media, they should see a connection between the person described on the cover letter and the person they see on LinkedIn.
Be aware of other people in the decision making process
Sometimes, it is not just the person who is interviewing you that you have to impress. Though they will almost certainly have a very important role in the final say, they may also look for the opinion of other people in their organisation who have interacted with you.
For example, your interviewer could ask the receptionist how you behaved while you were waiting for the interview. Were you polite to other candidates? Or were you rude and aloof? With this in mind, remember that you should be trying to impress everyone you meet during the interview process.
From the moment you enter the building you should be in interview mode. Be friendly and approachable to everyone you meet, as pokies online you never know who will have an input in the final hiring decision.
Give plenty of examples when answering job interview questions
It’s very likely you’ll be asked some tough, probing questions during your interview. They want to make you think and get as much information about you as they can.
Under the pressure of an interview situation, it can be tempting just to answer each question and try to move on as quickly as possible. But, you should resist this and, instead, try to give as full an answer as possible. Don’t just highlight what you did, also emphasise why you did it in that way.
A useful framework for this is the STAR method:
- Situation- Explain the circumstances you were in
- Task- What was it that you had to do
- Action- How did you complete the task and why did you take that course of action
- Result- What was the final outcome?
Not only will this method help you to structure your interview answers, it will also mean you give your interviewer as much information about you as possible.