z.ky's Interview Advice

I'm going to present some advice that isn't commonly found online, but really helped me. These days, interviews can be very structured - for example, competency-based interviews. Every type of interview can be Googled, and situations and questions within an interview for a particular job or company are shared by interview "survivors".

But what can't be researched and learned off is personality.

Here's my top advice to augment all scenarios that can be learned off and gabbled verbatim in competency-based interviews. It goes without saying that you should have the required skill set and competence, and be reasonably prepared and hold the appropriate level of *genuine* enthusiasm and desire for the job - that is your foundation.

Source

1. YOU are the authority on your own experiences. Think of interviews as exams, which test you on your past experiences. And know one knows YOUR experiences better than YOU. Therefore it's an exam that's impossible to fail...if not for two key points: the relevance and presentation of your experiences. You are in command. Tailor all of your answers to make them relevant to the question, and have a structured answer that's easy to follow: tell it like a story. No one can correct you on your own experiences, because you are the only one who has experienced them. It seems quite absurd to lay it out like that, but it's true; realising that will give you confidence and power.

2. Be yourself (and be genuine!). The importance of this applies beyond the interview. If you feel that you have to modify your personality or be highly creative when telling your experiences, you have to ask yourself why you're there, and whether you'll be happy keeping that demeanor up if you get the job, and possibly work there for years. Even if you fool the interviewer and get the job, you are fooling yourself into misery. An example of this is consulting, which people don't seem to get: consultancy is people. If you don't like people, why are you going for it? If you get the job and are forced to interact with clients constantly as part of your job, you will be miserable...because it's not "you". "You" are all you can be sure to have, for the rest of your life. Everything else is uncertain. If you try to bend and manipulate your own self, you are losing your spirit: what you are, inherently. No job is worth losing yourself over.

3. Inject some positivity and laughter into the interview. This is lifted directly from Part Two, Chapter 1 of How to Win Friends and Influence People.

"Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.
"Thus the sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our cheerfulness if lost, is to sit up cheerfully and to act and speak as if cheerfulnees were already there. "
--William James

Smiling and laughter release hormones that make you happy, such as endorphins and serotonin.
(--Science. I first did some research on this when I was in secondary school, and I recommend that everyone do the same. Simple and enlightening.)

This is kind of sneaky, but make your interviewer feel happy, so that they will associate you with positivity and like you. And who wouldn't choose to work with someone they like? You don't always have to be at the mercy of the interviewer. Entertain them. Be memorable to guarantee further consideration. If they refuse to smile, don't fall for it. They may be putting on an act to put some pressure on you - all part of the test.

--

Ahem...that was slightly tangential, but the first point really helped me. It occurred to me a few nights before my first interview, and it helped me gain confidence and dispel nerves. Hope it helps others too!