Job Interview Basics: How To Sell Yourself

You have presented your resume, manicured it to match the job you seek, had your initial contact by phone or mail, and now you are preparing yourself for your job interview. A job interview may take from thirty minutes to an hour or more, each hiring decision maker handles it to match their own needs. But since the interview may affect your career for years to come, you will want to do your best to sell yourself during the time you have with the decision maker. You will want to take the time prior to your interview to prepare, in order to do your best. Knowing in advance how you will handle key questions will raise your confidence level in the interview itself. You will sound confident because your answers will be delivered in a confident and knowledgeable manner. Your goal - impress the decision maker that you are the best candidate for the job. In order to do that, you will have to present your experience and qualifications in a manner that make sense to everyone concerned, and in a way that solves their problems. To do it in the same way a trained salesperson uses sales techniques to close the sale, you will want to present your credentials in a solutions oriented manner. Don't be concerned if you don't feel you have a sales personality. Sales aren't always a process of personality. More often than not sales are a matter of need and solution to that need. In this case, you will present your credentials in a way that will solve the problem the hiring agent is seeking to resolve by filling the job. So your job is to prepare for the interview so you can present your credentials to match their need, and to learn how to do "discovery", to expose the issues the interviewer is seeking to solve.

DISCOVERY

Discovery is just another way of saying: "What's the primary reason you are trying to fill this position now?" Or, "What issues are you trying to solve by filling this position?" Or, "What primary skills are you seeking for the person you will hire into this position, and why those skills?" Each of those questions leads your interviewer into an open ended discussion of what solutions they are seeking, by explaining the issues they face. Once you know that, you present your experiences in a way that solves those issues and highlights the skills you possess and they seek.

You likely will not know in advance how the interviewer will answer your discovery questions, so you may think there is no way to prepare in advance to answer them accurately. That is inaccurate. The best way to prepare for your interview is by writing out a list of the primary areas of skills and responsibility that reflect your experience. Use your resume and common sense for those key areas. After writing that list, write out a simple one sentence statement that reflects your strategy for managing each area. Then write out one or two real-life examples of how you applied that strategy to each area of endeavor. Where possible, quantify, apply numbers to your examples. Don't be too elaborate. By writing out your answers your brain will hold on to them so you can parrot back those answers and examples as required in an interview situation

Follow this advice and you will find out how much more confidence you feel while in a job interview situation. Don't hope you do well in an interview, control the results by preparing yourself to do your best. Present your credentials and experiences as a solution to the job interviewer's immediate employment issues. Do that, and you will increase your odds of finding a career position instead of just another job.

Mark Baber has 20 years experience as an Executive Search recruiter.

Mark is Recruit Consultant to http://www.JobNewsRadio.com where Jobseekers access 2 Million job transactions, and can submit their Resumes Free and have them distributed freely to Employers they choose by industry, vocation, City or Region.

Mark is also Consultant to http://www.smarthiredirect.com , a low cost, effective recruit, hiring and job applicant tracking system for recruiters, HR staff and employers at all levels.

Or, for one-on-one job search assistance submit your resume directly to Mark via: http://www.recruit-services.com