Skip to main content

#01: Tell me about yourself.

By Prof Emperor

TRAPS: Beware, about 80% of all interviews begin with this “innocent” question. Many candidates, unprepared for the question, skewer themselves by rambling, recapping their life story, delving into ancient work history or personal matters.

BEST ANSWER: Start with the present and tell why you are well qualified for the position. Remember that the key to all successful interviewing is to match your qualifications to what the interviewer is looking for. In other words you must sell what the buyer is buying. This is the single most important strategy in job hunting. 

So, before you answer this or any question it's imperative that you try to uncover your interviewer's greatest need, want, problem or goal. 

To do so, make you take these two steps:

1. Do all the homework you can before the interview to uncover this person's wants and needs (not the generalized needs of the industry or company)
2. As early as you can in the interview, ask for a more complete description of what the position entails. You might say: “I have a number of accomplishments I'd like to tell you about, but I want to make the best use of our time together and talk directly to your needs. To help me do, that, could you tell me more about the most important priorities of this position? All I know is what I (heard from the recruiter, read in the classified ad, etc.)”

Then, ALWAYS follow-up with a second and possibly, third question, to draw out his needs even more. Surprisingly, it's usually this second or third question that unearths what the interviewer is most looking for. 

You might ask simply, "And in addition to that?..." or, "Is there anything else you see as essential to success in this position?

This process will not feel easy or natural at first, because it is easier simply to answer questions, but only if you uncover the employer's wants and needs will your answers make the most sense. Practice asking these key questions before giving your answers, the process will feel more natural and you will be light years ahead of the other job candidates you're competing with. 

After uncovering what the employer is looking for, describe why the needs of this job bear striking parallels to tasks you've succeeded at before. Be sure to illustrate with specific examples of your responsibilities and especially your achievements, all of which are geared to present yourself as a perfect match for the needs he has just described.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

#16: Tell me about a situation when your work was criticized.

By Prof Emperor
TRAPS:  This is a tough question because it’s a more clever and subtle way to get you to admit to a weakness. You can’t dodge it by pretending you’ve never been criticized. Everybody has been. Yet it can be quite damaging to start admitting potential faults and failures that you’d just as soon leave buried. This question is also intended to probe how well you accept criticism and direction. BEST ANSWERS:  Begin by emphasizing the extremely positive feedback you’ve gotten throughout your career and (if it’s true) that your performance reviews have been uniformly excellent. Of course, no one is perfect and you always welcome suggestions on how to improve your performance. Then, give an example of a not-too-damaging learning experience from early in your career and relate the ways this lesson has since helped you. This demonstrates that you learned from the experience and the lesson is now one of the strongest breastplates in your suit of armor. If you are pressed for a criticis...
Post a Comment
Read more

#32: I’m concerned that you don’t have as much experience as we’d like in

By Prof Emperor
TRAPS:  This could be a make-or-break question. The interviewer mostly likes what he sees, but has doubts over one key area. If you can assure him on this point, the job may be yours. BEST ANSWER:  This question is related to “The Fatal Flaw” (Question 18), but here the concern is not that you are totally missing some qualifications, such as CPA certification, but rather that your experience is light in one area. Before going into any interview, try to identify the weakest aspects of your candidacy from this company’s point of view. Then prepare the best answer you possible can to shore up your defenses. To get past this question with flying colors, you are going to rely on your master strategy of uncovering the employer’s greatest wants and needs and then matching them with your strengths. Since you already know how to do this from Question 1, you are in a much stronger position.  More specifically, when the interviewer poses as objection like this, you should… 1. Agree...
Post a Comment
Read more

GPS & GSM Based Realtime Projects

By Prof Emperor
GPS & GSM Based Car Security System. Easy to find the stolen Car. Global Positioning System (GPS) has been used in various commercial applications including transportation, navigation and vehicle position tracking, which when coupled with GSM mobile phone technology, the technology can help locate stolen vehicle and retrieval process. Standalone GPS Coordinates(Latitude,Longitude...) Locater. (GPS+Microcontroller+LCD) The purpose this project is to get the Latitude and Longitude from the satellites and display them on LCD display. GPS & GSM Based Realtime Vehicle Tracking System. This system locates the Vehicle on the earth by the use of GPS and sends the co-ordinates (Longitude & Latitude), Time and Vehicle speed to the owner of the vehicle using GSM Modem. (GPS+GSM+Microcontroller) Microcontroller driven GPS Clock (GPS+Microcontroller+LCD) This updates time (GMT) from satellites and displays on LCD. GSM/Mobile/Cell Phone Based Device Monitoring and Control...
Post a Comment
Read more