مکالمه

BEC : Interviews -Conversation

AJ: Okay, so next up the topic of job interviews. That’s really where you’re going to get the job. So you find your list of people, you do your campaign and all of it is focused on getting you an interview, getting you a personal face-to-face interview. I think in this conversation we’re going to talk about what I would describe as an American style of interviewing. ‘American style’ means you’re going to fairly aggressively promote yourself, your skills, your abilities, your accomplishments.

In some cultures that might be seen as too much and so you might need to change a little bit how you do it, but still the overall point of the interview is you have to convince the person that you are going to benefit them and their organization. So, somehow you have to show them that you have a good history of doing good work in the past and that you are going to help them.

You’re going to be helpful to them, beneficial to them.

So my basic, basic, basic, super basic formula for answering interview questions is to give a general quick answer. Whatever they ask me, you know what’s your greatest strength or whatever, I don’t know, I’ll just say something. It really almost doesn’t matter what I say because the important part of my answer is then I always follow it with ‘for example’.

So I always say my greatest strength is I have a lot of energy as a teacher, for example … Then I’ll say for example, when I teach I get my whole class energized. They’re up. They’re moving. In my last job my classes were famous for being super energetic. They became very popular and my classes grew and grew. In fact, they were getting so big that we needed to get bigger rooms for my classes.

That’s a typical answer I would give in an interview and what I’m doing with the example is I’m showing them the benefit. As an English teacher I would be interviewing with an English school and what does the owner or manager of the school want. Well, they want happy students who are going to continue to pay. That’s what they really want.

So when I give an example of I had a high-energy class and it became popular and more students wanted to join it, it’s showing that I’m going to do a good job. I’m going to make their students happy at their school and, possibly, I’m going to help them get more students and grow. That’s what they want.

I understand how English schools think because that’s my field or industry.

You need to understand how the people in your industry work. I think that’s the basic thing, right? George: Yes, that’s the basics. If you want to take a step back a little bit, my I guess biggest piece of advice to you is to be prepared. You’ve spent, who knows, anywhere from one to 10 weeks trying to get in the door, if you will, trying to get this person to talk to you, to actually have an interview so you can finish the sales process, sell yourself and get this job, but this piece of the process is a whole heck of a lot different than what you’ve done up until now.

What you’ve done up until now has been primarily a letter or email campaign with, hopefully, one, two or maybe even three phone calls. Now we’re down to the nitty-gritty where we’re eyeball to eyeball, face to face with that person that you want to convince to hire you and it’s a little different situation. It’s kind of easy to write letters, truthfully, and emails when you’re not looking in the eyes of somebody and you’re not watching their emotional reaction to what you say, but when you’re face to face with them it’s a different story.

You need to be prepared for all kinds of reactions from them and you’re going to need to prepare yourself, also, not to give some bad vibes and ugly reactions yourself. They say something that is a little distasteful for you the last thing you want to do is ooh, aah, you know that kind of routine. So the preparation part and thinking through and, of course, now here’s where your language skills are certainly going to come into play. But, yeah, that’s kind of the basics of the interview process.

AJ: What I always did to prepare is I just would talk to myself. So, I mean, alone in your room you can just answer imaginary interview questions.

recommend you stand up or you can sit down, whatever, but practice giving nice strong answers and practice always giving an example after you give your basic answer. So you’d give a basic answer then an example.

There are a lot of interview books out there. You can get them in your own language. You can get them in English. You can find lots and lots and lots of sample interview questions, so just pick a bunch of them. Randomly pick one and then answer it. You can think about it and just keep doing this. You’re always going to keep giving examples of past accomplishments, past accomplishments in your answer. Just do this alone every day until you get used to it. Another thing you can do is just go out and interview as much as possible.

One thing I did a few times to help myself be less nervous is I would just interview for jobs that I know I did not want. So I would apply for a job, I knew I didn’t want it, so I didn’t care. I didn’t care at all if I got it. I would just use it as interview practice, just the practice, get used to the process, so then when I went to interviews were I really did care about it I was more ready. I was used to answering those questions.

George: Yeah, great idea, great point. It’s a matter of practicing, really. It’s almost like you’re getting ready to go in and give a presentation or a speech. Now, it’s not really a presentation or speech. You want it to be a conversation, but it’s the same type of thing you practice, practice, practice.

I know in times where I’ve had to maybe interview or something like that, I go through different scenarios and practice in my head. When I’m mowing the yard, maybe I’m putting a load of dishes in the dishwasher or I’m sitting there washing the pots and pans, I’ll run through a scenario of oh, they’re liable to ask this question. What am I going to say? I’ll answer the thing. Just sitting there washing pots and pans talking out loud, but whatever chance you’ve got.

If you can do it alone it’s probably better. People look at you like you’re nuts if you’re walking around answering some of these questions, but doing that and have your spouse or a family member ask you a question. Let’s say you’ve got an uncle or an aunt or somebody that has a job and you say if you had a job in your store or your company what kind of questions would you ask. Have them ask you a question and then use your answer. It doesn’t have to pertain to what they’re talking about in terms of a job, but just practice, practice, practice as much as you can.

AJ: Yeah, you really have to just bite the bullet and really do some preparation.

So much about the interview, honestly, I think is just about how you come across. It’s really about your emotion and your personality and how you react to things more than really the words you’re saying.

So if you’re acting really nervous or you’re unsure, you’re not confident, you’re not the kind of person they’re looking for then that’s when you might not get the job, but if you come across as very confident, calm and friendly, easy to talk to and you’re being very specific giving these great answers with lots of examples that’s going to help a lot.

The way to be more relaxed in the interview is by preparing. Practicing, practicing, practicing, practicing like crazy and then, number two, the best way of all is by doing lots of interviews, lots of real interviews. Again, go out and interview for even cheap jobs below you that you don’t even want, that you definitely don’t want. Just interview like crazy and then you get used to it.

It starts becoming less scary. You can have these practice interviews, again, with places you don’t even care about. So it’s a good process to get used to it then you go out and you do the real interviews.

George: Truly, truly. A couple other seemingly little things, but appearance and attitude, you want to present a good appearance. By appearance I’m talking about the way you dress and this varies from one end of the spectrum to another as to whether you can get away with shorts and sneakers or you have to have a three-piece business suit. You kind of have to gage that I guess on the company you’re dealing with, the culture and the environment where you’re at, but I would warn you or suggest to you there’s nothing wrong with over dressing.

If business casual, whatever that means, is the standard in the industry or the company or the place you’re going to interview, to begin with, I don’t know about you, but I don’t have a clear definition of what business casual means because I think it runs the gamut of a whole lot of different kinds of dress. So on the safe side what would I do? I’d wear a suit. It doesn’t have to be a three-piece suit with a white shirt and all that stuff, but at a bare minimum a suit. A tie or not, again, that depends on the situation.

AJ: And it depends on the cultures too.

George: Exactly.

AJ: Some countries are more casual than others. Some are very formal, but in general it’s better to be too dressed. Like, for example, as an English teacher, English teaches don’t usually wear suits and ties, but I wore a suit and a tie to every interview I had. Once I got the job I never did it again usually. Well, it depended on the job, sometimes I did. It just makes you look more serious. So if everyone else comes in more casually then you’re in a suit. In some countries everybody is going to wear a suit anyway, a country like Japan, for example, but just dress nicely, as nicely as possible.

George: I’ve got one more tip on the body language piece of it, if you will. This might be hard to practice, but I’ll give you a suggestion. You go to your spouse or your boyfriend or girlfriend, somebody who knows you very well, spends a lot of time with you and ask them, I want you to be very, very, very specific and very truthful with me, tell me about my little quirks.

In other words, if I don’t like something do I a lot of time give a particular facial statement? Do my eyes look up? My mouth does something, my hands move? If I like something do I do the same thing? If I’m nervous what do I do? And so on. All of the possible emotions that you’re going to feel in there, ask somebody very close to you to tell you what you do and then in your practicing process practice and be conscious of those things so that you don’t give away the store on your attitude when certain questions or issues come up.

I’m not saying that you want to go in there and be just a blank page and look very dull, but there are times where you don’t want a certain emotion to come out. It’s more of an awareness than anything. I’ve known people who for some reason or another will tap their finger when they’re a little nervous or they’ll tap their toes. Well, if you’re aware of that it’s pretty easy to stop and not do it for the hour or so of the interview, but just keep that in mind.

AJ: Yeah. We’ll talk more in our commentary about some other ideas to master interviews.

George: Okay, I think that’s good. You’re in the door. Let’s get the job.

The End.