Interview Preperation

Emily Gohl from Recruit4health explains how to prepare yourself for your interview

Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance

Good preparation is a key part to having a successful interview beginning with knowing the names and job titles of the people interviewing you.

One of the most important things you can do is prepare answers to questions you may potentially get asked... also rehearse them out loud. This will make you feel more confident and prepared when you walk into the interview room.

It is always a good idea to plan the route to your interview to make sure you give a good impression of being punctual. Find out directions as well as information on parking if you are driving or the nearest railway station or bus stop. If due to unforeseen circumstances you know you are going to be late contact the company to inform them of your expected arrival time and let the agency know you have done this. When you arrive ensure you apologise immediately and explain your reasons.

Interview Questions

Interview questions may vary but in essence they are all trying to establish the following:

• Your skills and experience to do the job
• Your enthusiasm and interest for the job
• Whether you will fit in

If you can answer these questions, using real-life examples to illustrate your points, then you should be able to answer most of the questions that arise including the following frequently asked questions.

1. Tell me about yourself?

This question or something similar usually starts every interview. Your answer should be well-rehearsed, confidently delivered and last between 3-5 minutes.

This is your opportunity to sell yourself and your answer doesn't have any boundaries.

Remember they want to hear you speak and gauge just how confident you are. It is your chance to sell yourself!  

You need to:

Why you shouldn't take a Counter Offer

Using a job offer as a bargaining chip with your current employer may seem tempting but all too often it ends badly. If you want a raise, then negotiate one on its owns merits or prepare to move on.

1. Employers often make counter offers in a moment of panic but after the initial relief passes,  you may find your relationship with your employer has changed for the worse. You are now the one who is looking to leave, you are no longer part of the 'inner circle' and you may be top of the list if your company needs to make cutbacks.
   
2. Even worse, your company might just want time to search for a replacement, figuring its only a matter of time before until you start looking around again. You might turn down your other offer and accept your employers counteroffer only to find yourself pushed out soon afterward.
   
   80% of people who accept counteroffers either leave or are let go within a year
   

What Not to Include in Your CV

You may have spent years building up the necessary skills and qualifications to come across as the perfect applicant for your dream job. Don’t go and blow it all now by including any of these fatal mistakes on your CV!

Jargon and Fluff
Avoid using acronyms and jargon when writing your CV. Employers will lose concentration if they have to stop and work out the meaning of every acronym on your CV. Also avoid unnecessary fluff – keep it clear, to the point and back up any lofty statements with hard facts.

Comedy email addresses
An inappropriate email address like sillybilly@hotmail.com will mark you out as unprofessional. If you don’t have a professional-sounding email address then set one up before you start applying for jobs, especially if you are posting an online CV!

Irrelevant information
When compiling your CV, don't include irrelevant information and make sure anything you do include can be interpreted as a positive attribute for the job. List your most relevant and transferable skills on the first page and keep the document under two pages long.

How to read a CV

Human capital is the most important asset to any employer, so short listing and assessing the calibre of 300 CV's to identify the 10 best can be a daunting prospect.

Reading the CV

The first step is to match your candidates against your Job Specification. Beyond that, here are some things to look for:

1. Skills: Seek out CV's that describe how the candidate measured their performance using the relevant skill. Furthermore, has the candidate correctly described the skills needed for the role?
2. Achievements: Candidates that describe how they added value to a job through, for example, saving money or increasing sales outperform other candidates that list job duties.
3. Transferable Skills: Career changers that describe relevant, transferable skills.
4. External Validation: Winning awards or being selected to chair working group meetings rarely happen to under performing individuals.
5. Promotion: Steady and consistent promotions are a good indicator that the individual can sustain the enhanced job responsibilities and that the person has been highly regarded.
6. Length of Service: Advantage or Disadvantage?
   Long Service: Some consider many years of service a benefit, others consider the candidate institutionalised.
   Short Stints: Look for signs in the CV. The candidate could be a job-hopper or could be going through rapid fast paced promotions or it may be normal for the sector.
7. Photographs: Ignore photographs/videos when recruiting as they allow for the potential to discriminate on the basis of age, sex, race, etc

Clients tell recruiters what they really, really want

Despite the recruitment industry turning over billions of pounds, are agencies always meeting clients’ needs?

Lawrence Hargreaves, managing director of Nicoll Curtin Recruitment

With turnover in the region of £23bn in 2011-12, the UK recruitment industry is clearly meeting a need. So it may come as surprise that there is a huge disparity between what recruitment agencies are delivering and what clients actually want.

New research carried out for IT recruiter Nicoll Curtin illustrates the extent of the gap of this ‘delivery gap’. For example, only 4% of hiring managers say they are “always confident” in the ability of their recruitment consultant to submit candidates of the right quality.

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A massive 75% of hiring managers [only 30% of whom had worked with Nicoll Curtin] believe this stems from the consultant failing to understand the requirements of the role.

Similarly, 72% of the 140 hiring managers interviewed believe that recruitment consultants care more about placing a candidate to secure their fee than finding the best candidate for a role.

RAISING STANDARDS

What Not to include on your CV

You may have spent years building up the necessary skills and qualifications to come across as the perfect applicant for your dream job. Don’t go and blow it all now by including any of these fatal mistakes on your CV!

Jargon and Fluff
Avoid using acronyms and jargon when writing your CV. Employers will lose concentration if they have to stop and work out the meaning of every acronym on your CV. Also avoid unnecessary fluff – keep it clear, to the point and back up any lofty statements with hard facts.

Comedy email addresses
An inappropriate email address like sillybilly@hotmail.com will mark you out as unprofessional. If you don’t have a professional-sounding email address then set one up before you start applying for jobs, especially if you are posting an online CV!

Irrelevant information
When compiling your CV, don't include irrelevant information and make sure anything you do include can be interpreted as a positive attribute for the job. List your most relevant and transferable skills on the first page and keep the document under two pages long.

CV's and Cover Letters

Making Your CV Work for You

Until your interview, you are only as good as your paperwork and perhaps telephone manner.

This makes your CV and covering letter crucial. They are essential tools in most job searches. Like any marketing document, a CV should help you sell yourself.

Preparation:

Think about your skills, competencies, qualifications and experience. What are your unique selling points and strengths? Think in terms of what you have achieved.

If you are replying to a specific job advertisement, review what key words and tasks were used in the advertisement. Which of these words applies to you? Use these words in your CV.

Helpful Hints:

Remember that you want your CV to be read and responded to. Include enough information to stimulate interest, but not so much that you bore the reader. If you provide small, digestible pieces of information you stand a better chance of having your CV read. Three pages maximum is preferred, but keeping it to one page is even better! Every word must contribute to the overall message - so keep it brief and ensure that the content is relevant to the job you are applying for.

Successful Interviewing

You rarely get a second chance to make a good impression on a prospective employer, so at your interview it is important that you get it right first time.

Below is some advice on how to prepare for that all important first meeting.

Preparation

Prepare yourself, interviews are two way meetings. They are both an opportunity for the interviewer to find out about you and whether you are a suitable candidate - and for you to find out about the organisation and if the position will provide you with the challenge and job satisfaction you are looking for.

Think about your skills, qualifications and experience and ensure that you can talk confidently about what is written on your CV. Particularly ensure that you can talk about the skills relevant to the position you are going for.

Prepare some questions to ask at the interview. At the first interview it would be wise to restrict your questions to the details of the job and the organisation. Salary and benefit discussions are best left until a second interview or a job offer is made.

Do your homework

Interviews - A 10 Point Plan of Action

Careers expert John Lees FREC offers you a 10-point plan for interview success:

• Plan carefully. Do you know where you are going and how to get there? Who are you seeing? 

• Make sure you know the names of the people who will be interviewing you. Practice saying them if they are difficult to pronounce.  

• There's no such thing as enough preparation for an interview. Find out everything you can about the company and what it makes or does. Look for current news - show you are up to date.

• Why does this job exist? What problems will it solve? What are the Key Result Areas? 

• Remember: employers buy experience. Think about what evidence of achievement you can talk about in the interview; rehearse your success stories.