To put it succinctly, the standard advice is - be honest, be yourself and be useful. Honesty will help you stay focussed on the reality instead of cooking up stories, being yourself will eliminate all artificiality, and being useful (to the interviewers) will prove you are a potential asset not a liability.
These traits work wonderfully well, across sectors and profiles. So be it a Civil Services panel interview, or an MBA selection board, or a job promotion screening, these will work.
(1) Humility, even if they're recruiting for the Chief Assassin's post. That is because no matter howsoever meritocratic the organisation is, humility makes the recruiters and bosses look at your much more favourably. However, make it as natural as you can ;)
(2) Eye-contact, as nothing evokes greater trust than positive, solid eye-contact. At least you look truthful doing that. Just make sure you look at everyone in the panel, and not a particular individual (you’ll scare the poor soul)! And yes, don’t stare, just look normally.
(3) Sense of humour, as that shows your human side like nothing else does. Just remember - you’re not inside your hostel room in the dead of night. This is a decent social setting, with seniors. So crack clean jokes. If you utterly lack access to such, please gather some consciously! And don’t crack jokes that take some effort to understand, either.
Humour indicates depth. Self-deprecating intelligent humour indicates confidence as well.
(4) Groundwork, regarding the specific domain of the interview, is critical. You must read the entire website of the company (organisation); prepare summary notes; remember top 10 facts worth remembering and relevant to your job. This will make you supremely confident as you know the contours now.
(5) Google search the top keywords relevant to the job and company. It’ll throw up very useful data. Go through all those links carefully once. If lady luck favours you, the code would stand cracked!
(6) LinkedIn search the top bosses of the company. Their strategy would be visible to you at a primary level. But don’t cozy up with them immediately through connection request and such, they may not respond at all.
(7) Clean up the social media, boy! Before you land up for the interview, clean up your immediate posts on all social media. Delete the obnoxious stuff. If your social media is cluttered with horrifying insights into your deep persona, get ready for some stares from the panel. Hope you got the point! [ of course, it depends on the seniority level too ]
(8) Execute on the D-day perfectly. Take a bath, wear neat clothes, wear little perfume, don’t smoke (or drink!) that day, take your meals properly, be positive, switch off your phone prior to and during the interview (unless you need to show some online project work, App, etc.), carry a good quality pen, avoid conspicuous footwear, don’t be stubborn about tea/coffee/biscuits offered during the interview (like - Sorry sir, I cannot take tea/coffee. I’ve never taken it.), maintain positive body language (neither too informal nor too stiff) and carry a properly arranged portfolio! (Phew - it’s better to start a company than doing this - ha ha)
Remember, they need you as much as you need them. Go ahead, crack it!
Thanks for reading, and have a good day!
A comprehensive, topic-wise and useful collection of my various posts and answers can be found here. Enjoy.
~
These traits work wonderfully well, across sectors and profiles. So be it a Civil Services panel interview, or an MBA selection board, or a job promotion screening, these will work.
(1) Humility, even if they're recruiting for the Chief Assassin's post. That is because no matter howsoever meritocratic the organisation is, humility makes the recruiters and bosses look at your much more favourably. However, make it as natural as you can ;)
(2) Eye-contact, as nothing evokes greater trust than positive, solid eye-contact. At least you look truthful doing that. Just make sure you look at everyone in the panel, and not a particular individual (you’ll scare the poor soul)! And yes, don’t stare, just look normally.
(3) Sense of humour, as that shows your human side like nothing else does. Just remember - you’re not inside your hostel room in the dead of night. This is a decent social setting, with seniors. So crack clean jokes. If you utterly lack access to such, please gather some consciously! And don’t crack jokes that take some effort to understand, either.
(4) Groundwork, regarding the specific domain of the interview, is critical. You must read the entire website of the company (organisation); prepare summary notes; remember top 10 facts worth remembering and relevant to your job. This will make you supremely confident as you know the contours now.
(5) Google search the top keywords relevant to the job and company. It’ll throw up very useful data. Go through all those links carefully once. If lady luck favours you, the code would stand cracked!
(6) LinkedIn search the top bosses of the company. Their strategy would be visible to you at a primary level. But don’t cozy up with them immediately through connection request and such, they may not respond at all.
(7) Clean up the social media, boy! Before you land up for the interview, clean up your immediate posts on all social media. Delete the obnoxious stuff. If your social media is cluttered with horrifying insights into your deep persona, get ready for some stares from the panel. Hope you got the point! [ of course, it depends on the seniority level too ]
(8) Execute on the D-day perfectly. Take a bath, wear neat clothes, wear little perfume, don’t smoke (or drink!) that day, take your meals properly, be positive, switch off your phone prior to and during the interview (unless you need to show some online project work, App, etc.), carry a good quality pen, avoid conspicuous footwear, don’t be stubborn about tea/coffee/biscuits offered during the interview (like - Sorry sir, I cannot take tea/coffee. I’ve never taken it.), maintain positive body language (neither too informal nor too stiff) and carry a properly arranged portfolio! (Phew - it’s better to start a company than doing this - ha ha)
Remember, they need you as much as you need them. Go ahead, crack it!
Thanks for reading, and have a good day!
A comprehensive, topic-wise and useful collection of my various posts and answers can be found here. Enjoy.
~
