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Interview Skills – How to Perfect your Interview Skills and Land that Dream Job

By Annette Lewis

Gone are the days when we could expect a job for life. We live in a fluid job market, one in which we can expect to change jobs many times during the course of our working lives.

The ability to succeed in interviews has become an essential life skill. Master your interview skills and you’ll put your career on the firmest possible footing and land the job you really want.

It will allow you to:

• Break into an area or even a specific company of your choosing
• Take a step up in your career
• Increase your salary
• Get back into work after a layoff or career break

So Just How Does One go About Developing Winning Interview Skills?

Here are just two key areas to focus on which will help boost your ability to perform well in interviews.

Get to know yourself

A job interview is all about selling yourself. You need to convince the interviewer that the package of skills you bring will add something to their organisation. To do this effectively means that you need to know yourself intimately, not just your strengths but also your weaknesses.

An essential exercise which will enhance your interview skills and one I recommend all my interview coaching clients carry out, is to jot down what you see as being your Unique Selling Points. These are made up of your key skills, experience, strengths and achievements. To help ask yourself these questions:

- What am I really good at?

- When have I been praised for doing a job well?

- What activities do I enjoy?

- What is unique about me?

- How can I benefit this employer?

When complete, ask your friends or colleagues to comment and find out what they regard as your strong points. All of this will help you create a profile of yourself which will boost your ability to sell yourself effectively.

And finally, don’t forget to make a note of your weaknesses, jotting down what you are doing to overcome each one.

Develop your communication skills and you will boost your Interview Skills

Effective interview skills are very much aligned to good communication skills. Indeed in a recent survey of large employers, communication skills were listed as the single more important decisive factor in choosing new managers.

It goes without saying that your ability to communicate in the interview is central to your success.

To help, why not take part in a mock interview? Ask a friend or colleague to act the part of the interviewer, give them a script with a selection of questions and start as if you were in a real interview. When complete, ask for feedback on your interview skills and how effectively you communicated and consider especially the following points:

- Eye contact and Body Language

- Use of appropriate words

- Volume and tone of your voice

- Speed of speaking - Use of hand gestures

- Overall impression created

Repeat the exercise a couple of time and you will find not only will your ability to communicate and convey your message improve you will become more comfortable in an interview scenario.

Good interview skills are not something most of us are born with and indeed an interview can feel quite alien. With the right preparation however, it is possible to become an expert in the interview room, to develop perfect interview skills and of course to land the job that is right for you. See below:

Top Tips to Help Perfect Your Interview Skills

So, how would you answer tough interview questions such as 'What are your weaknesses?' or 'Why should we hire you instead of the other candidates?'.

And, how confident do you feel about answering Competency Based or Behavioural questions, both very commonly used at present.

For expert help with answering these difficult questions, we recommend InterviewGOLD™ a great online interview skills course that has helped thousands of candidates get jobs. Easy to use online system Video Practice Interviews Interactive Mock Interviews Questions with Model Answers All specific to your job and level Created by Recruitment Specialists

Want to Develop Excellent Interview Skills Quickly and Easily?
Click here to Learn How » 

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About the Author

Annette Lewis is an accredited interviewer and has recruited for many organisations within Healthcare, Education, Customer Services and Banking.

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