Handle your job interview with skill
Time to sell yourself
Many people attend job interviews or on-job appraisals with a naive belief that if the look good, feel confident, and do a good job of answering questions they’ll succeed.
This approach is naive because to is not taking into account the dynamics operating oin an interview and, especially, it is not looking at the interview from a key viewpoint –that of the interviewer.
The interview is a selling opportunity
In an interview you are in competition with a number of others, unknown to you, so you have to ensure you convince the interviewer that you are the best for the job – and that if the interviewer backs you this will enhance rather than threaten their career.
Using the NLP Different Perspectives technique will help you put yourself in the interviewer’s shoes: https://www.nlp-now.co.uk/perceptual.htm ).
Handling job interviews with skill is the subject of the current Pegasus NLP Newsletter and is available online here: https://www.nlp-now.co.uk/job_interviews_nlp.htm
Interview tips – from the Twitter Series
(1) Prepare your sales ‘package’
Prepare your product: be clear about what you have to offer. Act and appear in most appropriate manner for this interview. Sales facts & figures: what is your track record? Show them reasons to buy you and how your personality will fit.
(2) Your selling points
Be quite clear in advance what you need them to know i.e. your 3-4 key selling points – and have facts and anecdotes to illustrate each point.
(3) Your immediate objective
Be quite clear what you want to achieve in this interview e.g. get a second interview, position yourself differently in the mind of the interviewer, evoke curiosity in what more you have to offer but which time does not permit, etc.
(4) Your attitude
Ask lots of questions. Ask clarifying questions. Reply enthusiastically to their questions. Always support your answer with evidence and specific examples from your experience.
(5) The interviewer’s WIIFM
Ensure your performance provides the interviewer with reasons to ‘buy’ you such as your thoroughness, your preparation, your knowledge of the organisation, etc. Ensure that you convince them that hiring you will enhance rather than threaten their own career.
These 5 tips were published in a shorter form on Twitter 10 April 2012 as part of our daily Twitter Tips series http://twitter.com/#!/pegasusnlp. If you already use Twitter you can ‘follow’ @pegasusnlp.
Other Pegasus NLP articles
We also have two related short workshops: Presenting with Influence and Sell Yourself!
https://nlp-now.co.uk/dealing-with-interview-nerves
http://www.pe2000.com/performance_anxiety.html
http://www.pe2000.com/pho-interviews.html
Nice post. It`s all about being prepared really. Yes, it is so important to put yourself in the interviewer’s shoes and practice aloud beforehand too if you can. Come up with specific experiences that go with each question and work out the best answer when you practice aloud. Then, ask a friend to play interviewer and put forward their own questions to you. Your friend will likely come up with some that you missed, and you’ll feel even more confident going to the interview. Kind Regards, Michael
Hi, I did a presentation the other day (about marketing, but using lots of NLP) afterwards a delegate came up to me to ask if he could have my slides as his son was attending a job interview the next day. Now that I’ve found your blog post on the subject I’ll email this to him too!
One thing I find great for interviews is using the direction filter meta program, if I can establish if the other person is towards or away from I can then let them know how good I might be at helping them either achieve great success… or avoid massive failure!
Thanks again, Mark
Thanks Reg. I used this blog post – and previous postings – to prep me for a recent interview. Thinking about your USP and ‘product’ is a winning formula. The course this week was superb…thanks.