Go for a mock exercise before the real talk at the job table
.........................
Hone your interview etiquette................ Churn the
right mix of deportment, attitude and dressing skills for a great job talk !
Never make the big mistake of treating an
interview lightly. It's not an impromptu thing where you depend on your
improvisation skills. An interview requires careful thought and planning
before you take it. Keeping in mind some basic attitudes and presentation
techniques will help you sail through it with panache.
So if you thought that going for an interview
just meant pulling your best suit out of the wardrobe and updating your
resume, please think again. You are forgetting the other essentials: body
language, basic etiquette and attitude.
Remember that you are actually selling an entire
package and the packaging, in this case, is as relevant as the product
inside. Ultimately you are presenting yourself as a valuable professional to
a new job environment. And you can't do that without minding the basic
interview etiquette to get you ahead of the rest of the pack.
An interview is the sum total of many parts.
It's not just what you say but how you say it that matters equally. So it's
good to brush up on more than just your training skills when you do go in for
an interview.
ATTIRE
How you dress for an interview is perhaps as
relevant as the way you lay out your resume. Says Nina Kochar of Upgrade
Management Services, an organisation which coaches' executives in the basic
rules of corporate etiquette: "A person who is sloppy in appearance
shows a sloppy personality, so you have to be decently dressed." Of
course, decently dressed does not necessarily mean being dressed to the
gills. In most cases, this would mean you would wear long sleeved shirts and
a pair of formal trousers. In fact, Nina Kochar does not recommend suits, especially
for younger people. "A lot of young people do not have the money to
invest in suits, consequently, they wear ill-fitting or borrowed suits and
that looks even worse. A tie, shirt and pant should do the trick for most
junior level positions."
Most HR experts would also tell you to mind the
accessories like ties, belts and shoes. To be sure, badly matched shoes and
ties can have a jarring effect on an interviewer. Similarly, please avoid
heavy jewellery or personal accessories as they would look incongruous on
you.
ENTRANCE AND INTRODUCTION
Even though most of us are primed for the
basic grilling that we would face during the interview, we seldom pay
attention to the way we enter an interview room or how we introduce
ourselves. Says Subhashish Mitra, deputy manager, Essar Cellphones: "A
lot of people do not think it important to knock properly while entering the
interview room. They assume that as an interview is taking place, the panel
will be expecting them. To my mind this is a very major faux pas which
really jars."
In fact, the best way to enter an interview is to knock, ask for permission
to enter and then wait for a while before you actually sit down. Few
interviewees know this but the interview panel needs a little quiet time to
discuss the previous candidate before they get around to the next one. So
your silence till you actually get seated would be very valuable. Try and
keep a bag with you for all your papers and certificates; make sure this bag
is an unobtrusive as possible.
ATTITUDE AND RESPONSE
This is a grey area for most interview
candidates. While dressing up and resume writing are skills you can handle
with a little practice, cultivating the right attitude as an interviewee
requires a lot of patience and reading between the lines. The usual complaint
of most interviewers is that few interviewees are able to stri perhaps the
best thing you can do for getting your answer right. Most interviewers like
to give a lead to the candidate in the way they ask the question, so it's
entirely up to you to note facial expressions and the tone of the words.
Do you show your certificates immediately
to the interview panel?
Not till you are asked actually. You might already have sent in your resume,
so you shouldn't try and offload all your achievements and skills onto the
panel till a turn in the interview leads to such a situation. Try and take
cues form the tonal variations, facial expressions and thrust of questions
from the interview panel. That in itself will give you a clue as to where this
interview is heading.
TEN THINGS THAT AN INTERVIEWER LOOKS IN
YOU!
1. Family Background
2. Education
3. Experience
4. Stability
5. Initiative
6. General Ability
7. Interpersonal Skills
8. Confidence
9. Aptitude
10. Pleasant Looks
How one wished that an interview were a simple
meeting of minds and hearts. Just one casual meeting where an employee's
future gets sealed. Unfortunately, it's not something as pre-ordained as you
would like it to be; it's a pre-meditated exercise which fetches you dividends
only if your homework is done right.
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