Career

6 Surprising Job Interview Tips


job interview

Not long ago we brought you an article with tips to help you ace your job interview and earn the internship or job opportunity that will help you take the next step in your career. While this article included tips like having a strong resume, being punctual and asking questions to your interviewer, today we want to go over a very different set of job interview tips that will help you be as well prepared as you possibly can be, getting you that much closer to landing that amazing job.

Here is a list of surprising job interview tips that will impress any interviewer you meet with!

#1 – Schedule your interview for Tuesday at 10:30 AM

While this might seem a bit of an arbitrary time, studies by Glassdoor have determined that Tuesday at 10:30am is the absolute best time to schedule an interview. Why is that? Because interviewers have tons of other projects and responsibilities they need to handle, and you want to make sure to meet them at a time when they can truly offer you their full attention. For this reason Mondays and Fridays are out, as workers are normally layout out the framework for their week or getting ready for the weekend.

Why 10:30am though? Because you don’t want an interviewer who is hungry and desperate to end the interview and grab his lunch, and you definitely don’t want one that is suffering from the effects of a food coma and is being put to sleep by you.


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#2 – Clean Your Social Media Accounts

It is well known that most employers have taken the practice of searching through applicants social media accounts for any red flags that might rule you out of the running. By now you need to assume that any statement, photo or video that you make public on any of your social media platforms will make its way to the recruiter.

While the best way to avoid employers finding inappropriate posts is to not make them at all, or to make sure all your posts are only accessible to your friends, there are other tools that can help you hide all the previous posts you have ever made in your accounts. Apps like Social Sweepster don’t just delete profanity from your past posts, but they can even help you detect and delete any pictures you have with beer bottles, red solo cups, and other objects that might be considered a deal breaker to employers.


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#3 – Play card games

Card games are a fantastic way to practice a lot of logical, mathematical, strategic and memory skills – all of which come very handy during a job interview. Games like Blackjack and Poker are numbers games that require fast and accurate calculations and remembering number sequences in order to make the right decisions. If your job interview process will include any kind of numerical testing, practicing your arithmetic skills with a session of Blackjack is sure to sharpen them up and help you improve your response time. If you want to practice your blackjack skills for free, you can do so at Ninja Casino.


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#4 – Wear a Conversation Starter

While we talked about dressing professional and avoiding distracting items in the previous article, there’s a small caveat to this. If possible, try and add one small detail to your professional attire that can catch the attention of your interviewer in a positive way, and spark a casual conversation. A lapel pin, a quirky tie or handkerchief, or a bracelet that reflects something positive about your tastes, hobbies, culture or upbringing can be a fun way to build rapport with the interviewer and address them on a more personal level.  Just remember, keep it subtle and in good taste!


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#5 – Prepare For the Classic Interview Questions

“What’s your biggest weakness?” is perhaps the biggest cliché in the interviewer’s book. But just because it’s a cliché doesn’t mean that you won’t get asked this question. The tricky part then, is having to answer this cliché question with an answer that isn’t completely cliché itself.

The best way to answer this question is to be absolutely honest and name an actual weakness that you have. But you shouldn’t just admit your weakness and let it hang there, but rather let the interviewer know what steps you have taken to overcome it and how much progress you have made so far.

Another classic interview question is along the lines of “tell me a problem you had to resolve with quick/outside the box thinking?” or “tell me about you worked as a team?”. For these questions, it’s best to always have at least 2-3 anecdotes ready that you can adapt to this question, each anecdote presenting a problem, an action that was taken, and what the outcome of the solution was. Having these anecdotes handy will prevent you from freezing up in the moment and forgetting your best stories.


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#6 – Share Your Thought Process Aloud

Many companies like to ask analytical questions or brain teasers to their potential employees. While getting the answer right will certainly impress them, what will impress them even more is if you share your deduction process with them aloud. This will help them further understand the way that you process and analyze information, as well as show off your communication skills. If you get the answer wrong, it will also have the benefit of letting you understand in which step you went wrong, but still getting credit for all the right decisions and assumption you made along the way. When it comes to questions like these, it is not always about the destination – it’s about the way.


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Now go and get yourself that job! Good luck!

 


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