Interview Guide

When attending a job interview, you want to impress your prospective employers by projecting a professional image of yourself. Much of this is achieved by anticipating questions that will be asked and preparing appropriate answers. The following tips might be useful to you in preparing for an interview.

Before you start to search for employment it is very important to assess your skills and positive points.

Using the skills that you identified in your C.V it is important to address how these skills could be applied to the job that you will be interviewed for. You will often be asked a question such as: Tell us what your weaknesses are. It is advisable to have a pre-rehearsed confident answer to this question.

A successfully interview comes down to being well prepared and confident. The person who can answer questions in a way that apparently knows the companies business and the role of the job which the company hopes to fill, will come across to the interviewer in a more positive way.

Be sure you know the time, date and location of the interview and name of interviewer where appropriate. Check out how you will get to the location, and when you need to set off to be there in good time. Have what you are going to wear ready in advance. If you are asked to bring certificates, references etc, get them ready before the day. Take your interview letter.

In the interview it is important to remember a few outline rules.

• Always speak clearly, don't mumble and try to make eye contact with interviewer as often as possible.
• If you don't know the answer to a question, don't be scared to admit it, but also don't dwell upon the point. You can turn the negative point of not knowing the answer to the question to an advantage, by asking the interviewer the answer to the question, in a way that makes them believe you are very interested in knowing the answer.
• Never lie in an interview, it most likely will be given away either in your body language or mannerisms. Sometimes the interviewers will ask the same question but in a different way to double check the answers given.
• Some questions or hypothetical situations may be totally unexpected don't be scared to stop and think about the answer. You will most provide a better answer to the question if you have time to think about the answer, and it also proves that you can think under pressure and do not dive in with the first answer that comes to mind.
• Finally it doesn't matter how bad the interview went; Smile nicely thank the interviewer for his time and then calmly walk out. You can think nasty thoughts outside later:).

Good Luck with the interview.........