Today we're going to talk about confidence and how to boost yours in a job interview.
I've got some great pro tips, some really neat giveaways to help you as you prepare, so when you go in for your job interviews you're going to feel very, very well-prepared and confident. Confidence and the way you exude that is one of the most important ingredients to a successful job interview, but let's level-set here for a second. I know you all have varying degrees of confidence, and levels in your own confidence, and abilities, but for whoever you are, however confident or non-confident you are, think about when you were most confident.
You probably felt super-knowledgeable about what you were doing, or about what you were discussing. Knowledge breeds confidence as well as you probably felt very prepared. Preparation breeds confidence.
So first thing I want you to do is just take a deep breath. Remember if you are in a job interview. For those of you that follow me, you know I say this all the time, you are likely qualified for that job and you can do it effectively, that's why the employer invited you in for an interview. So take some comfort in that. Now the preparation part, I can really help you with.
You've got the employer, the questions they're going to ask you, and the responses you have to give them in order for them to determine whether or not you're a good fit, you, and your story, and what you're all about is good fit. The third element is the questions you're going to ask the employer to determine if they're a good fit for you. So let's take those in order and I'm going to give you a little pro tip or a couple of pro tips on each one of those.
Now, number one, knowing your story.
You know where you've been. You know what you've done. There's a huge difference between knowing what you've done, being able to recall it in detail under duress, and bringing real life into it, and the color and the details that you give your story when you share it with somebody.
You start the interview.
It's all about your story In the beginning. It usually is, and somebody just asked you, "Tell me about yourself." Or how about this one, "Walk me through your resume." That's the best because now you can waltz right through it, you've got your resume to use as a crutch. But like I said, remembering what it is that you did isn't so difficult, but being able to share your story with some real life, that's where the confidence comes in.
So I want you to, before you go into a job interview, I want you to actually think back. Sit down with your resume, pour your favorite cup of coffee, sit at the coffee table. You've got no distractions. You're not under any duress, and you could go through your resume, and I want you to think about, as you walk through the highlights on your resume and all the bullets that you've got laid out there, what was actually happening at the time you were doing that?
Remember, some of this activities that you performed might be 10 years old and those could still be very, very relevant to what the employer wants to know.
Who was on the project?
What were you doing?
Think about what the air smelled like.
Think about what the business problem was.
I have a great aid that you can download that's right there in the notes. It's my career achievements journal. It's got 14 points that you should address for every major project in your career. Use those questions to stimulate your thinking so that you could start to recall what was happening throughout the last 10 or 20 years of your career, so that when somebody says as you're walking through your resume,.
Details about what's going on at any moment in your story is what brings life to it. It helps the person paint a picture of what is happening, and it makes them feel as though you know your stuff, and you will come off as confident. That's one thing that I would do. When you shift to them asking more detailed questions about your experience, your skill sets, knowing the responses in the stories that you want to tell them, and the details that you want to use are going to be extremely important.
Point number two is, when they're asking more detailed questions, you need to be prepared for just about any question. One thing that I can give you that's very, very good, it'll be very effective, I've got a great e-book called Ace Your Job Interview,
Master the best reactions to the 14 most efficient
Job Interview Questions.
There are a lot of very, very good interview questions that the employer also disguises, but they're all looking for the same 15-20 aspects about you. In that e-book, I not only give you the 14 questions that you're likely to be asked, but 43 variations, the rationale behind why they're asked, and the very best responses for what the employer's looking for.
The preparation, and you understanding the most common and the most critical job interview questions, and knowing your responses to those, those are things that you can plan in advance. You can use that career achievements journal that I mentioned to stimulate your thoughts and the details that go along with those responses. So that's number two, and you will come off confident. You will know it, and you will be ready for just about any interview question that comes along.
Number three.
The questions that you ask. If you are well researched and you have very well thought-out questions, these can be scripted based on your requirements and what's important to you. You get to do all of this in advance, so scrip out those questions. Here's another giveaway for you if you're looking for a bunch of questions. I have a free webinar called Any Job Interview with Three Keys to Ace. The attendees get a great e-book called How to Interview the Employer, 75 Great Questions to Ask Before You Take Any Job.
Use those questions, take the ones you want, and you'll never run out of them. There's plenty of them there for you to choose from. Here's your pro tip: it's not just good enough to ask well-designed questions, and be thorough, and show that you're researched. Confidence comes from you being able to quickly respond to what the employer says in his or her response to your question. So step number one is, what's the question you're going to ask.
Step number two is you spending some time, in advance, anticipating what the potential possible responses can be, and then knowing what follow-up questions you're going to ask. That shows them you're confident. That shows them you know what you're looking for. That shows them you know how to investigate. Confidence comes from that, and if you are able to anticipate what the likely outcomes are, you're going to be way ahead of the game. So there they are.
Three areas you can focus on.
Knowing your story, taking some time, thinking about your entire career, and bringing to life the events in your career. Not just the activities, but the impact from those activities and the details. Second thing is make sure you're ready for any kind of questions that they might ask, so I've given you the Ace Your Job Interview e-book in order to do that.
And making sure that you not only have great questions to ask, but you have great follow-up questions to ask, so check out the Three Keys to Ace Any Job Interview webinar.