by: Michelle Roebuck
When preparing for an interview, you need to know your skills, experiences and achievements, and how to answer interview questions.
Your Skills
Become an expert about yourself. Before you wrote your resume, you probably prepared a list of skills, experiences and achievements. If not, then it’s a good idea to take some time and prepare one.
This information will help you answer questions that are most commonly asked during the interview. There are all types of interview questions, but no book or web site can give you the answers. Only you can come up with answers to these questions, because you’re the only one who knows what your skills, experiences and achievements are.
The interviewer is asking these questions in order to find out how much of an asset you will be to the company if hired. Come up with real life examples that highlight how your skills and achievements helped you in your previous or current job. Think of situations where you:
- Solved a problem for your supervisor or manager
- Developed an action plan in order to meet a deadline
- Led team projects successfully
- Received some sort of recognition or award at your previous job
- etc…
Answering Interview Questions
When you come up with these examples, make sure your examples focus on what you can do for their company once hired. That’s what the job interview is all about…what YOU can do for THEIR company.
If you give example after example of how your skills and experiences will help their company, the more appealing you will become as a potential employee.
There is a danger of over-preparing for an interview. There are hundreds of books and websites that will give you the "most commonly asked interview questions and answers". You try to memorize the answers to these questions and when it’s time for the interview, you sound like you’re giving some canned response. You don’t sound like yourself.
The best advice I can give you when it comes to answering interview questions (especially difficult ones), is know your skills, experiences and achievements and be yourself. This way, you don’t go into the interview sounding like someone who memorized a canned answer out of some book. Just relax and be natural.
Trust yourself enough to answer questions in a natural and honest way. Keep your answers in the positive. When you’re relaxed and answer questions in an honest way, you’ll be able to think on your feet and provide answers that the interviewer wants to hear.
Ask yourself, "What skills, experiences and achievements do I have that will make me an asset to this company?" If you can answer that question while going through the interview process, you will be one step closer to landing the job you want.
About The Author
Michelle Roebuck provides job interview tips and resume writing advice at her website http://www.job-interview-and-resume-tips.com Sign up for her Free newsletter at http://www.job-interview-and-resume-tips.com/newsletter.html
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