Q & A Table of Contents
How Should My Students Prepare For Job Interviews?
From: Maria, Buenos Aires, Argentine
Question: How can I help my students to do well in job interviews? Could you send me some tips of the things they should and shouldn't do? Is there a way to have the perfect interview and not to waste any chances of getting a job?
Response: Job interviews are negotiations. The person being interviewed is attempting to sell a product (himself or herself) to a potential customer. If we view the job interview as a sales process, many of the same lessons apply as in any other attempt to sell a product.
Successful salespeople are careful to 'qualify' their prospective customers. That means doing research to figure out whether the product they have to offer meets their customer's needs. As students look for jobs they should learn as much as they can about prospective employers from other people who work for those companies, from people who do business with the companies, and, most importantly, from the people who are interviewing them.
Rather than looking at an interview as time to put on a performance, to demonstrate all of one's talents, one should regard an interview as a chance to learn about what the potential employer is looking for. If an employer is looking for experience for example, one needs to find out whether there are creative ways to substitute other qualities for many years of experience -- if your students have been active in student clubs, social events, publications, or charitable work that may appeal to the interviewer.
Job applicants need to think ahead of time of what information they need before they can make an attractive proposal to a possible employer. Who are the employer's constituents: customers, shareholders, suppliers, labor organizations, etc.? How will the student help the employer respond to his/her constituents' demands? If a job applicant asks lots of questions, then listens very very carefully, then demonstrates s/he has been paying attention by asking the interviewer questions like, "Then if I understand you correctly, a, b & c are important, but you don't care too much about d." the applicant is demonstrating s/he takes the interviewer seriously.
A good job applicant needs to have a sense of his/her short- and long-term interests. If someone wants a job for three months before going into the next year of school that is quite different from looking for a place to gain experience or even spend one's entire working life. Knowing one's interests means you can ask better questions.
A good applicant should think about why the interviewer asks particular questions. Why is it important to the interviewer to learn about the applicant's sports interests, family background, or educational qualifications? If an interviewer asks questions that are inappropriate (such as age, sex, race, religion, etc.) it may be a signal that the applicant should walk away quickly.
The applicant should exude self competence without falling into the trap of appearing arrogant. Understanding oneself, one's goals, and one's skills can help the applicant understand his/her product better and sell it more effectively.
A perfect interview? It is like a perfect negotiation -- it only happens when the parties conclude their discussion with an agreement about which each one is comfortable and to which each is committed.
I wish your students good luck,
Steve
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