HOW TO PREPARE A JOB INTERVIEW

Here I want to share with you some tips about how to prepare a job interview.

First of all, I have chosen this topic because in these times Spain has a rate above 25% of unemployment. Besides, a lot of companies have closed or have reduced their staff, so nowadays there are less job positions and more people looking for one. For that reason, it’s very important to be ready for interviewing. In order to that, I’m going to revise several points to take into consideration when you’re preparing a job interview.

1. Adapt your CV:

To start, having an incredible and well qualified Curriculum Vitae is not enough, we should adapt our CV to the job position and to the company. It’s not recommended to use the same CV for every interview.
 

2. Investigate about the company:

Moreover, we should research about the company, its products and its markets. We can look its website, ask people and so on, in order to find out what the company makes and sells, and which are its goals.

3. Prepare some FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions):

The third point is to prepare some FAQ. There are a lot of questions that all interviewees are going to be asked during the interview. If you are able to be ready for these questions preparing them before, your interview will go much better.

For instance, some of these questions are:

• Why did you study this degree? They want to know if your career is consistent and it has coherence.

• Have you improved your education and training during these last years? They want to get to know your motivations and your improvement effort.

• Which is your most important strong point? And weakness? They are looking for if you can identify them. About weaknesses, we should be able to reformulate it positively. For example: I don’t have experience but.... I’d love to learn the job method of your company... or in that way, I won’t have any bad habits that could be an impediment to my adaptation to the company.

• Where do you think you are going to be in 5 years time? They are trying to figure out if you have defined your future employment.

• Why do you like to change your present job? They would like to know the reasons that it makes you look for a new job.

• Why should we choose you and not others? You should prove them that you’re the best option.

• Do you have any questions? You should show interest about the company but...you shouldn’t ask questions about published information in its website or that is well-known. For example: You don’t ask Mercadona if they are going to do discounts because their business policy is always low prices.

• What have you learned about your mistakes? You should be able to recognize and improve them.

• Do you like working alone or with other people? It’s about your team spirit.

4. Personal image:

But not all what we say in words is all what we are saying. If you think your image doesn’t mind, you’re wrong. It does! If you wear a suit, your image will be more responsible and elegant than if you wear jeans and a T-shirt. In this case, your image will be younger and more casual. It doesn’t mean that the first is better than the second. It depends on the vacancy job and what the company looks for. For instance, if you want to work in a lawyer’s company, you won’t attend the job interview with jeans, but if you want to work as a mechanics it will be weird to attend the job interview with suit.

5. Non verbal communication:

Also, we should keep in mind non verbal communication, because it gives a lot of information about us.

If you’re with your arms crossed, it means that you’re on the defensive. If you aren’t able to look at the interviewer’s eyes while you’re talking to him or her, it means you’re shy or you’re hiding something.

And how do you shake hands? If you don’t press enough, you seem insecure. If you press too much, you give the impression that you usually like to control the situations excessively. If you only shake hands with the fingers, it means you’re a shy person.

In addition, if you hide your hands while you’re talking, it can be because you’re hiding something or because your fingernails have been bitten, which means you could be an unstable person.

6. After the interview...

Finally, to continue with the preparation, after an interview we should check it: What have I done well? What have I done badly? That’s a good way to improve your next interviews.

That’s all. I hope this information will be useful to you in the future.