How Good Interview Skills Will Land The Job

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.

Good interview skills 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

How To Develop 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.

Why Good Interview Skills Are Essential

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.

When you attend an interview for a job your qualifications are all ready on the table, and the exercise in hand is to convince your interviewer that you are the person for the job. It is all about presentation-having a confident, professional manner, and being able to speak intelligently about your abilities and goals, and how you would be an asset to the company.

These are all skills that you can learn and once you have spent time practicing your interview skills, you will find interviews more pleasant. You will develop a style and be able to more easily establish a rapport with your interviewer. You can develop your interview skills using books and the web and there are specialist interview training courses can give you the edge you need to stand out from the crowd.

Perfect Your Interview Skills Online

Excellent Interview Skills are vital in the current job market where there are ever more applicants chasing fewer job openings. The good news is that Interview Skills can be learned and this is where InterviewGold will help.

This leading online interview skills training system will quickly and easily teach you how to excel in any interview. You will learn how to communicate confidently, how to answer successfully and how to sell yourself effectively.