Many times, candidates focus so much on preparing the right answers and being ahead of themselves that they completely forget about the most important things that factor in or affect your merits in an interview. Your body language. This is how you communicate your state of mind through your body.
Before taking admission to a college or being selected for a job, an interview is one of the most complex and stressed-over processes that is dreaded by candidates. An interview is a subjectively-rated assessment of a candidate’s personal, professional, or educational competence and potential. In many companies and colleges, there are multiple levels of interview rounds before a candidate is selected to pursue the organization.
What makes interviews so tricky
As mentioned above, interviews are subjectively-rated. Meaning, there isn’t a right or wrong answer while answering an interview question. Not only that but during an interview, a candidate is assessed on so many things that might not even be intentional or conscious at the moment. This includes body language or confidence level. How you conduct yourself is so much more important than how correctly you answer a question.
Acing interviews is an art. It takes deliberate preparation and the right mindset and reasons. But once you are aware of the key factors, you can drastically improve your interview scores and leave a great impression on your interviewer.
Picture credit- diceinsights.com
1. HR AND TECHNICAL
The most important thing that you have to remember while preparing for an interview is the nature of the interview. HR interview refers to the interview taken by the HR (human resource) of a company and usually consists of personal and personality-based questions. This usually comes after the technical interview round. The technical round is thoroughly based on the technical skills required for a certain job. It is very important to be very specific about what you are preparing for.
2. BE CANDID. BUT BE PREPARED
Many times, candidates get confused between the difference between being candid, flexible, and spontaneous and being unprepared. The best way to make sure that you are extremely candid and carefree at the moment is to make sure you are as prepared as possible. The more prepared you are, the less calculative and nervous you will be at the time of the interview. Without adequate preparation, the interviewers can see that you are more or less bluffing with your answers and can easily sense your lack of confidence in the situation.
3. BODY LANGUAGE SPEAKS LOUDER THAN WORDS
The importance of body language needs to be stressed enough. Many times, candidates focus so much on preparing the right answers and being ahead of themselves that they completely forget about the most important things that factor in or affect your merits in an interview. Your body language. This is how you communicate your state of mind through your body. Simple things like standing and sitting erect and maintaining eye contact can communicate confidence. And sometimes, being too erect and rigid can convey a lack of openness. This is why mastering the art of posture and body language is extremely important.
Picture credit- Inc. Magazine
4. KNOW YOU COMPANY OR COLLEGE
This can prove to be helpful. It makes a great impression when a candidate walks in informed about the organization. You need to know everything about the company from its foundation, but it helps to know the recent events or benchmarks that the company made. This is a great way to initiate a bond with your interviewers and can set you apart from the other candidates.
5. AVOID NEGATIVE CONFIDENCE
One of the most popular tips that people give each other to ace an interview is to be confident. But the lesser-known fact is the thin line between confidence and negative confidence. Negative confidence is arrogance and can create dislike towards you. Confidence is just being sure about who you are. Arrogance is a strong sense of ego associated with who you are and that is never a good thing. Especially in an interview, it can be counted as a major character flaw.
6. MAKE IT INTERACTIVE
Do not restrict your interview experience to merely answering a series of questions thrown at you. It helps to portray a warm personality if you make a little more effort than what is required of you by mandate. Smaller things like asking your interviewers how their day went or adding additional information along with your answer can give you major perks and leave an impression on the interviewers.
7. DRESS YOUR PART
This although is one of the most popular tips that people give, does matter. How you dress is how you package yourself. How something is packaged tells a lot about what is inside. Hence make it a point to dress your part for the role that you are interviewing for.
Picture credit- eduMBA
These are some of the most important tips to remember to make an impression on your interviewers and ace it. We are Fuzia, signing off for the time being hoping you achieve all your goals.
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