In this article, Kunal Ahuja of Vivekananda Institute of Professional Studies discusses how to crack your first job interview.

Job interviews are like first dates. Good impressions count, awkwardness occurs. Outcomes are unpredictable.

How to crack your first job interview

There are some ground rules which one need to follow to crack their first job interviews.

Remember the interview is a one-shot exam one never gets an opportunity to have a review or take a look, in the end, answers given have been recorded by the interviewer and you cannot edit them or change your stand but after every interview you can learn from every interview and avoid same mistakes in next interview.

Proper conduct is necessary to crack your job interview as your interview is an analysis on how your professional conduct will be during the job tenure.

Let’s discuss some of them so that you don’t miss out your initial kick start of your career

Know about the company

Before attending an interview you must do some homework i.e. research about the company and the employer for whom you are going to work for a very long period of your professional life.

By having proper knowledge about the company you can answer well to questions scuh as,

• What do you know about the company?
• What do you know about the company’s competitors?
• What do you know about the products and substitutes?  

By asking these questions interviewer get to know about your seriousness for the job and your awareness about the profession you are entering in. Don’t just get an overview of the company but have a proper knowledge about company’s last 3 years achievements and downfall so that the interviewer can ask your suggestion for the same which means they know you can add value to their company.

Proper dress and professional outlook

The first impression is the best impression so better be conscious about the way you dress up and carry that professional outfit as the first impression in most of the cases depends upon your dressing sense. More or less your dressing sense and professional look tell about your hygiene, seriousness about the job and the interviewer will consider a good profile for you once you are through the technical qualifications required for the job.

For men must always shave before they go for the interview and for women it is not necessary to wear western outfits.

First impressions are lasting; give special thought to your dress, your grooming, and accessories.

-BRIAN TRACY

Walk in with confidence

I can and I will watch me, the moment you walk into the office your interviewer should get this impression about you. Your confidence is very much visible so greet your interviewer with a smile and give him a firm handshake. Respond to every question by looking into the eyes of the interviewer let him watch what you are answering is right and you are very much confident about yourself. Don’t just say yes to every opinion if you got one, say it if you are confident about it as the interviewer might trick you into giving some wrong opinion. Confidence is what imprints in the other’s mind so never lose it.

Punctuality counts

Arrive early at the venue it helps you settle down and relax, interviewer always expects you to be punctual and with this habit, the interviewer gets more impressed as one who is early to work will definitely add on to the value of their company and tells about the seriousness of the interviewee towards his job.

Listen carefully, Don’t argue

To answer correctly you must first listen, be attentive to whatever interviewer is saying as your presence of mind is one of the most important characteristics which he requires in his company. If you are not able to connect or understand his questions and rather than asking him to pardon you directly answer to his question which he finds even a little bit vague he is never going to like it.

Respect his experience and position because there must be some quality that he is on the other side of the table therefore never get into an argument with the interviewer. Be willing to clarify his questions and learn from him whatever he has to tell you about his experience this quality of yours will make him feel like a mentor and he will be comfortable in mentoring someone like you in future.

Try to fit in

Always think that if you need this job you have to prove them that you deserve it. The organization requires the candidate who has the required set of skills for this particular job for which you have to show them that you have all of them or most of them and the rest is easy for you to adapt as per their requirement. Before proving them you should understand the job requirement and tell them what are you bringing to the table. Make yourself worth their investment and teachings, they will be willing to hire you only if they see some benefit to the organization and are sure that you will be an asset to the company.

Honesty is the best policy

Yes, this moral value plays a major role in creating an impression in your interview. Be honest about yourself and the answers you are giving, the interviewer is fine if you don’t know the answer and you are ready to accept it but he will not like any wrong or faulty answer. Learn to say ‘ Sorry! Sir, I don’t know’, may I know what would be the best source for the answer to this question?’

Any wrong answer delivered with hastiness will create a negative impression on the interview which is bad for your professional start.

Pen down your strength and weakness

By telling them about your strength and weakness the interviewer gets to know your attitude of how much you know about yourself. You can share the incidents or object on which you worked and got to know about your strengths and weaknesses. Don’t forget to add on that you are working on your weaknesses by doing this you tell them how flexible and self-aware you are.

Don’t be afraid to lose your job interview

Understand that why you fear interview. You don’t fear the interview but fear the thought of rejection so to overcome the fear of interview it’s important that you overcome the fear of rejection.

Ask few questions to yourself before attending interview-

• What if you don’t get this job?
• What will be worse if you don’t crack this interview?
• How important is this interview, is it the last one of your life?
• Where will you be after you get this job and even if you don’t get it will that future change?
• What will you do if you fail in the interview?

Enter into the interviewer’s room with one perspective ‘ you don’t need this so badly ‘ yes you heard right. If you need something you will chase it and the moment you start chasing anything you will not show the right attitude it requires. It does not matter how much it is important for what matters is you took your first chance and you were so close. Remember not a single success story starts with ‘I DID’ but most of them start with ‘I failed to do this.’

End your interview on a positive note

No matter how it went ask for interviewer’s feedback, it leaves a positive impression in the mind of the interviewer and he will appreciate your positive attitude. Ask him few questions like-

• Do I need to know something more about the work culture?
• I would love to be in touch with you.
• Ask something related to the job.

Your queries speak a lot about your priorities so be very professional in questions you ask, never show your concern about the salary or leave benefits. Show him the passion with which you will be working in their firm.

Now let’s have an analysis of the types of interviews which are undertaken nowadays, once we know what type of job interview do we have to undertake then only we can prepare ourselves for that interview.

Every interview is set to test some of the other qualities in an interviewee and to nail every such interview the interviewee has to have a different set of skills as well as perspective.

Telephonic interview

This kind of interviews takes place for initial screening and narrow down the broad list of the potential candidates. Telephonic interview is set as a qualifying round for personal interview to check your communication skills and your genuineness. You will be informed about the telephonic interviews in advance so be certain about your schedule and agree for a particular time period as per their requirement.

Some key tips for telephonic interviews-

• Clear your schedule 30 minutes prior to the interview so that you can settle down and recall your resume.
• Answer on point, don’t exaggerate.
• Don’t interrupt unless you need to ask something important.
• Keep a copy of your resume in front of you.
• Maintain a list of achievements and keep it in front of you.
• If conversation exceeds the time limit be flexible as it is a good sign
• Before signing off, ask about the next step. This is a professional way to get a feedback.

Personal interview

When you are called to the office for the interview it is the personal interview. Get a good professional dress up and walk in with a confidence. Carry whatever is required to show your professionalism like the pen, original as well as the copy of the documents, a professional pad etc. everything is under observation during this interview so be careful about your communication, body posture or the way you carry yourself.

Video conferencing interview

In this era of global hiring, video conferencing interviews are very common so to save from the travel cost these interviews are arranged. There are many things about which you have to be more careful during video conferencing interviews.

• The bandwidth of the internet should be good so that image and audio are clear if it is not that good at home to visit a private room in cyber cafes.
• You should be dressed the same way as you would have during the personal interview.
• The table in front should be clean.  
• No disturbance or noises in your background.
• Make sure you don’t get the feeling that you are at your home and do anything randomly like having without permission or something like that.
• Make eye contact otherwise, the camera will be focused on your head.
• Use picture-in-picture feature so you can see how your appear.

Stress interview

Stress interviews are set to test how you handle the stressful situations which nowadays has become important for an organisation to check how well can a candidate handle a stress. So, during stress interviews, you will ask tricky questions and the interviewer will also try to provoke you or may also become rude or loud upon you in those situations you need to be patient and don’t get furious or aggressive at all.

Campus interview

During your final semester in your college, you will be attending many on campus interviews for which they will first conduct a written examination and which if you qualify you will be eligible for the personal interview. Organisations come to your college and hire a good number of job seekers some consider it beneficial for their beginning of their professional career.

Technical interview

This kind of interviews is set to test your technical skills which are with the regard to your particular course or field you have studied in.

Apart from all of the above tips there are many other strategies which you may apply for your situation and prepare yourself for your interview and nail your dream job.

Few questions generally asked during an interview

• Tell me about yourself?

• Why do consider yourself as a good candidate for this job?]

• Tell about your strength and weaknesses?

• Where do you stay? How will you manage to commute to the office?

• What are your top three strengths and weaknesses?

• What do you know about the company?

• What are your expectations from the company?

• Are you willing to relocate to another city?

• Where do you see yourself in five years from now?

• What are your plans for further studies?

• Are you a team player or wants to work individually on projects?

• How many hours can you put into work?

• What is my time according to you?

• What are your expectations in terms of compensation?
• Describe your dream job? Does this job qualify to be the one? if yes, how?

Questions you need to ask the interviewer

At the end of the interview, every interviewer gives you the time to ask some questions, these questions tell a lot about your professional concern and your priority. So, you should be asking questions which pose you as a professional for which the interviewer is willing to answer happily.

Some of them are,

• What are future plans of the company?

• What would be my top three deliverables if I fit in for this role?

• May I have a look at the work area?

• Any specific quality which suits this job?

• Can you tell some more about the company’s work culture?

• Who will carry out my appraisals if I am recruited?

• When will a decision be made on the successful candidate?

• How can I add more value to the firm beyond the job requirements?

• May I contact you if I have other questions? Can you share your contact details?

• How long have you been in this company?

• How good has been your experience in this company so far?

• Apart from the interview, it was a good experience with you.