Overcome Interview Nerves: Be Prepared For Your Interviews

My article about how to overcome interview nerves explains that you can be better prepared, and therefore more confident than your interviewer. By understanding what the process is really about, you can follow my advice and have a very successful interview.

Overcome Your Interview Nerves And Be Better Prepared than Your Interviewer

Although job interview preparation is everything it's sad to say that perhaps as many as half of all interviewers you’re going to meet will be unprepared or incompetent. It’s not all their fault, it's just lack of interview preparation time or responsibility; some of them will be co-opted at the last minute to meet you and won’t have had time to prepare.

However there are those who just think they’re great interviewers and fly by the seat of their pants!!

It’s not all bad news though; you can turn this to your advantage which helps to overcome interview nerves. You can be better prepared than they are by following a few simple rules.

It may sound too simple but what they really want to know only falls into 4 key areas:

• Why are you here?

• What can you do for us?

• What sort of person are you?

• Can we afford you?

So you must prepare for this.

Let’s examine each one.

The 4 Key Areas of Interview Questions

Prepare your answers to these areas which helps to overcome interview nerves.

Why are you here?

Because you are interested in the job, the company, the challenge, the chance to learn and develop new skills, and you are ready to move for such a great opportunity.

What can you do for us?

You bring all of your work experience, your skills and achievements, as well as your desire to develop and contribute to a new team or department. (This is easy if you've already done your homework on your achievements and skills). You should have a number of skill stories to illustrate these specific points ready prepared.

What sort of person are you?

Someone who has initiative and gets on well with others and is flexible in attitude to different ways of working; maybe you are a great team player, or a strong leader or you describe yourself as loyal and conscientious. Try to avoid the "open-door" or "hands-on" type of response. Remember that 'compatibility' is much more important than 'competence'.

Put that to the test if you like - who would you rather work with? Someone who can do everything, or someone you can get on with? Does that help to overcome interview nerves?

Can we afford you?

Salary negotiation is another issue altogether, but the point is you should have a feeling for what the remuneration is likely to be and show them that you bring value-for-money. If the salary is a lot more or a lot less than your recent earnings then you must be able to show convincing reasons why you are pursuing this job.

That’s all fine as a general background but if you're going to overcome your interview nerves and be better prepared than your interviewer, you must be more specific about your precise contribution.

Put yourself on the other side of the desk, which helps to overcome interview nerves – if you were doing the interviewing, what would you really want to know that would convince you to make a job offer?

You’d want to know more about the 4 key areas above wouldn’t you?

So all you have to do now is work out your interview questions to explore those 4 areas. Make it at least 25 questions long and don’t avoid that question you don’t want to be asked (you know the one don’t you?) and then carefully work out your own interview answers.

Don’t forget to include at least half a dozen personal attributes of the ideal candidate; why these are also your attributes and be prepared to explain why they should hire you as opposed to any of the other candidates.

One final thing on job interview preparation, which helps to overcome interview nerves and being better prepared than the interviewer.

The 'Tell Me About Yourself' Question

The “Tell me about Yourself” type of question is used by many interviewers to allow you to settle in and feel comfortable. An interviewer who hasn’t prepared beforehand will tend to ask this question to buy time while she thinks of the next question.

It's then only human nature to ask questions relating to what has already been said (by you).

Your answer, which helps to overcome interview nerves, to the "Tell me about Yourself" question can therefore set the whole agenda for the interview.

Prepare this well and you’re streets ahead. It should include a brief walk through your career history from the first job or when you left university; touch on each move you made with positive reasons for the move [I wanted to get some activity based costing experience...] and key in only relevant facts that show how you meet their needs. Allow only 3 minutes for this with most time spent on your most recent experience.

Now even if you do get the well-prepared, competent interviewer you will have done your interview preparation, which helps to overcome interview nerves and you will be the well-prepared competent interviewee!!

However, don't get too complacent some organizations use structured interviews which are actually a boon to incompetent interviewers as they ask the same pre-determined questions to each candidate. No worries! the best preparation for structured interviews is to work on your skill stories. They usually tell you in advance what skills or competences they are interested in and that definitely helps to overcome interview nerves.

What else should you do? Well there all sorts of interviews so you can never do too much interview preparation it's the most certain way of feeling confident when you meet the interviewer, whether she's competent or not.

I'll give you a start if you're struggling, click on my link below for some of the most common questions you can start to work on. But don't just leave it there, build up a good list then get to work on your interview preparation.

With over 25 years running businesses, and as a Career Coach and Consultant in many sectors, Peter Fisher is well placed to guide job seekers through the steps needed in order to achieve that all important new position. He has personally coached thousands of individuals to overcome interview nerves.

He writes a distillation of these years of experience with all the essential facts and actions you must complete in order to achieve your own success. He is very clear that you shouldn’t be misled by others into thinking of “acing interviews” or “finessing” your way into a business; the most sustainable and fulfilling roles are gained through understanding your own specific needs and creating your strategy accordingly.

Specific Job Interview Guidance

For specific guidance on how you might produce your own questions and answers to help overcome interview nerves go and read my Sample Interview Answers which will show you all the most common interview questions; some really tough interview questions and competency type questions AND show you how to answer even some tricky interview questions that any interviewer might throw at you.

To learn more about his dynamic and comprehensive approach to career change, with every page dedicated to helping serious career changers go to http://www.your-career-change.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

It's one thing to overcome interview nerves with some good preparation, but if those nerves become a potentially debilitating panic attack - which do affect thousands of people, then you need another strategy altogether. For some great advice on how to deal with this go and learn how you can easily eliminate Anxiety & Panic Attacks for good!

Job Interviews are not that bad, so long as you are prepared.

Most job interviews are usually preceded by the evaluation of CVs submitted by candidates who have applied for a particular job role; recruiters/employers usually invite the best of these candidates to interview. This step is considered an entrenched part of the hiring process and considered the key step for deciding which candidate is best suited for a particular position. They are still the most common, and the most heavily weighted, pre-employment assessment tool and are your opportunity to show employers why they should hire you and not somebody else.

After The Interview

Your Questions

Of course interviews are mainly about you answering the questions they put to you, but at the end of your allotted interview time, the questions that really matter most are yours. You should hope to hear the interviewer ask you:

“Have you any questions?”

Closing Questions

Closing questions used at the end of your allotted interview time are the interview questions that matter most. These questions are the ones that can wrap up the interview and swing the result your way.

I hope you will hear the interviewer ask you:

“Do you have any closing questions for me?”

Interview Follow Up

An interview follow up letter is essential so when the interview is finally over, don't think that you need to do nothing more until you get the job offer. The letter itself can be little more than a personal 'Thank You' to the interviewer and as such may be fairly informal.

Go back to the Interview Help section of the site has been arranged to show you what to do:

Before, during, and after your job interview so that you can prepare for each stage.

When you know better what to do, you will feel more confident about going to the interview and you will handle the interview more confidently as a result. This interview help section gives you information and a checklist to get you ready beforehand; you've got some example interview questions, including what to expect in a competency based interview and how to prepare your answers to the most common job interview questions.

The interview help is laid in sections so that you can jump to wherever you need the most interview training and get help quickly.

You are here: Overcome Interview Nerves

You can go back to Interview Questions page for more answers to help you overcome your interview nerves or continue to How To Prepare For A Telephone Interview

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