How to Ace your Interview

{MyTalentPlace} Given its importance, tips on interview techniques and performance have been eagerly devoured by employees and would be employees of all ages. Large businesses have been created on the back of this problem and the current economic downturn puts even more pressure on those fortunate enough to even get an interview to perform in.

When you peel away all the smoke and mirrors, success in an interview is down to a couple of simple things:
•Confidence
•Ability

In this article, I'm going to focus on confidence as we can be sure that anyone making it to a short list has similar ability to the other candidates. If you're in the situation where there is one candidate who has significantly better skills and confidence, you don't have a chance. If skills levels are roughly equal, then confidence becomes really important. So what can you do to make sure you come across confidently?

The first thing is to be really, really well prepared. If you think you can pitch up on the day and do your thing with little preparation, you're wrong! At minimum, you need to know the history, sector, products/services and competitors of the company you're interviewing with. This includes a thorough review of the website, press releases as well as most recent annual reports. These will be a goldmine of information and will put you on the front foot in the interview. If you know more about last year's financial performance than the HR Recruiter who is interviewing you, you're going to look good. The frequency of press releases will tell you whether this is a marketing savvy company looking to grow or a traditional company with less focus on impressing the market. Any good website will contain the key terms and strategies a company is trying to achieve. Other aspects of your preparation should focus on being very clear on what your skills are that you're bringing to the party as well as examples of how and when you've used them. You also need to have anticipated the likely questions you'll be asked and have good answers ready. Not only should they be ready, they should be structured so they come across crisply, clearly and without waffle. People generally get bored listening to long answers.
There's another key factor though and that's the ability to think on your feet. Regardless of how well you're prepared there will always be something that happens that is unexpected. If you're thrown by a tough question that you can't handle and didn't anticipate, the wheels can come off. Your ability to think on your feet is vital.

Of course, you can also get professional help - which is where www.mytalentplace.co.uk comes in. Our exclusive focus on preparing student for the world of work means that we understand the issues. Students who have used our interview coaching service http://www.mytalentplace.co.uk/interview-skills/interview-coaching are extremely positive about how the coaching has developed their confidence and ability to perform in competitive interviews.
Dr Grant Crow is founder of My Talent Place a specialist provider for students. For more info please Visit at http://www.mytalentplace.co.uk to know more about interview skill , interview-advice or Email to:info(at)mytalentplace.co.uk