Step-IV: Winning Interview: How to Win In The Interview Room
Anticipate questions and plan your answers!
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Review the “Toolkit: Interview Basics” in your Playbook. Make a point of saying hello to the reception’st on the day of the interview.
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Think of atleast one nice and interesting icebreaker. Your Playbook has many tips.
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Be ready with your 5 Point Message Template.
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For the possible questions you think are going to be asked, practice answering them using the Top Dog technique explained in your Playbook.
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Think in advance how you will “close” the interview. Use the tips in your Playbook.
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Using the template in your Playbook prepare a high impact followup email.
To complete these activities use “Playbook: Win In The Interview Room”.
The Day Before Your Interview: 3 Things To Do
Send a reconfirmation mail to the interviewer reminding him or her that you are “looking forward to your meeting” with him or her the next day.
Eat light food only and exercise a bit. You must have a light stomach before your interview.
Get 8 hours of sleep. This is a must.
On The Interview Day
01. Walk-in with confidence
- An attention to some basics lets you walk in with confidence.:
Toolkit: Interview Basics
02. Use easy iceBreakers during introductions
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With some advance planning you can make the greeting to be more interesting than just talking about the weather or sports.
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Toolkit: Easy Conversation IceBreakers
03. Look for opportunities to deliver parts of your 5 point message
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A 5 point message lets you organize your thoughts and deliver your key points thoroughly yet concisely.
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This will be most useful when you are asked -“Tell me about yourself”.
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You will use different parts of this message at different times in the interview.
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This answers questions most frequently asked in interviews.
- If you want, you can proactively say that I had prepared an introduction for you and share part of your message.
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Toolkit: 5 Point Message Template
04. Handling the questions
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Use the Top Dog technique for answering questions. This is widely loved by all executives.
05. Closing the interview
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Do you want to make a hard close or a soft close? Both are ok.
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Note: Hard Close implies that you want a yes or no from the interviewer right in the interview itself. In a Soft Close you could ask “What are your thoughts about the interview today?”. Other examples of soft closes questions are:
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Do you have any concerns that I need to clear up in order to be the top candidate?
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What do you see as my strengths and weaknesses for this job?
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This job sounds like it’s something I would really enjoy. Do you think there is a fit here?
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Do you have any questions about my suitability for this position?
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Make sure you have a clear next step from the interviewer and a date by which you expect to hear from him/her.
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Ask for the interviewer’s mobile phone, business card or email id. Let him know that you may contact him if you don’t hear from him by the expected time.
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Can the interviewer refer you to someone else if you are not a fit for this particular job?
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Write an eMail the same day to the interviewer thanking him for the meeting.
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Thank the person who had referred you to the interviewer.
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If you are not selected, you should still thank the interviewer and ask if he can refer you to anybody else he knows.
