Interview All-Star: 3 Tricks to Tone Your Interview Skills and Find a Job

Professional athletes must spend many hours working toward their goals in order to succeed. The same is true for job seekers. If you’ve been on the hunt for a job for a while, you’re probably well aware of how intensive the job search process can be. Applying and interviewing for jobs takes a lot of time, energy, and dedication. To land the job you desire, focus on beefing up your interviewing skills.

Stretch Your Small Talk Skills
In sports and in job interviews, sometimes you have to stretch yourself beyond what you’re comfortable with. You may not like making small talk, but your ability to converse well with interviewers plays a big part in their impressions of you. If you find yourself clamming up or stammering through chit chat with prospective employers, you need to practice your conversation skills. To perform well at the “big game,” rehearse answering common introductory questions such as: “What do you think of this weather?” and “Did you have any trouble finding the place?” Practice will keep your answers from being too abrupt or rambling.

Exercise Self Confidence
Star players don’t become MVPs by putting themselves down or being pessimists. When you believe in yourself, others are inclined to do the same. Even if you’ve been through 50 job interviews that haven’t resulted in a job offer, keep a smile on your face and maintain a positive attitude. Remember, successful athletes have to keep playing their best even when they’ve lost a few games. So, refrain from making self deprecating remarks or using sarcasm. Instead, convince employers that you’re the right person for the job by demonstrating self assurance and optimism.

Strengthen Your Post-Interview Follow Up
When athletes are weak in a particular area, they train hard to become stronger. If your post-interview follow up is lacking, you need to focus on pumping it up. What you do after the job interview is nearly as important as how you act during the job interview itself. You can’t win the job offer without having a good follow-up game. Keeping in touch with the employer by being available for repeat job interviews and sending a thank you note are important steps in receiving the coveted job offer. Make post-interview follow-up a top priority, and you’ll be rewarded by becoming a candidate employers can’t wait to draft.

Do you ever feel like your job search skills are in need of a work out? What type of “training” do you do before a job interview?

Comments

[Michael Henreckson]

Good tips, I can't make up my mind which part is the hardest. Probably follow-up, I tend to put that off until it's so late it doesn't matter.

[lyn]

Great post. It's interesting to know that building self-confidence can be as easy as ABC. Interestingly enough, www.confidencebuildingcourses.com offer good tips too. Might be interesting to check it out.