How to Excel at Interviews

Whether you are going for your first interview or you want to refresh your interviewing skills, then this eBook is for you. Discover common interview questions and tips for answering them. Learn how to manage your nerves and portray confidence. Put your mind at ease about body language. Learn all about competencies and how to structure your answers at a competency-based interview. Discover simple techniques for keeping your answers punchy and effective. This book contains the fundamentals of interview preparation, ensuring you walk into your interview as prepared and as polished as you can be.

Preface

The purpose of this book is to help you prepare thoroughly for an interview. If you have an important interview scheduled, or if recent interviews have not gone your way, or if you haven’t attended an interview in years, in the chapters that follow you will discover tips, questions and insights that will support and challenge you to walk into your interview as prepared as you can be.

So let’s get started.

Content

1. Getting Started
   1. Introduction
   2. What’s ahead?
   3. Getting the most from this book
   4. What is the purpose of an interview?
   5. The Interview Scales
2. Knowing your strengths & shaping your answers
   1. Your strengths – what you want interviewers to know about you
   2. Questions interviewers ask to uncover your strengths
   3. Uncovering your strengths
   4. Packaging your strengths into an answer
   5. More tips for shaping your answers
3. Competencies
   1. What are competencies and why are they important?
   2. How interviewers assess competencies
   3. Eight common competencies & examples of questions used to assess them
   4. The STAR Approach – How to structure your answers
   5. Ten additional tips for demonstrating competencies
4. Questions you should be able to answer
   1. What are your weaknesses?
   2. Where do you see yourself in five years time?
   3. What motivates you?
   4. Why have you applied for this job?
   5. What do you know about this company?
   6. Do you have any other questions?
   7. The Curveball Question
5. Congruent Communication & Your Personal Brand
   1. Verbal Communication – The Components
   2. The ways we can use our voice
   3. Beware of verbal fillers
   4. How to minimise verbal fillers
   5. A quick note on listening
   6. The do’s and don’ts of Body Language
   7. Some final body language tips
   8. Determining your Personal Brand
   9. Factors that influence your Personal Brand in an Interview
6. Managing nerves & portraying confidence
   1. Why do we get nervous?
   2. Why confidence is important
   3. Strategies for managing nerves and boosting self-confidence
7. Final Tips
8. Appendix
9. Author Profile – James Sweetman