WinTheView™ (WTV™) is a proven interview preparation and presentation tool that helps job seekers to concisely articulate their skills and accomplishments to the key hiring criteria – during the interview. The candidate goes through a presentation development process that bolsters confidence and demonstrates a professional and proactive approach that will impress the hiring team and results in faster job offers!

Although interview preparation is everything it’s sad to say that perhaps as many as half of all interviewers you’re going to meet will be unprepared or incompetent. It’s not all their fault, it’s just lack of interview preparation time or responsibility; some of them will be co-opted at the last minute to meet you and won’t have had time to prepare.

However there are those who just think they’re great interviewers and fly by the seat of their pants!!

It’s not all bad news though; you can turn this to your advantage. You can be better prepared than they are by following a few simple rules.

It may sound too simple but what they really want to know only falls into 4 key areas:

* Why are you here?

* What can you do for us?

* What sort of person are you?

* Can we afford you?

So you must prepare for this.

Let’s examine each one.

Why are you here?

Because you are interested in the job, the company, the challenge, the chance to learn and develop new skills, and you are ready to move for such a great opportunity.

What can you do for us?

You bring all of your experience, your skills and achievements, as well as your desire to develop and contribute to a new team or department. (This is easy if you’ve already done your homework on your achievements and skills). You should have a number of skill stories to illustrate these specific points ready prepared.

What sort of person are you?

Someone who has initiative and gets on well with others and is flexible in attitude to different ways of working; maybe you are a great team player, or a strong leader or you describe yourself as loyal and conscientious. Try to avoid the “open-door” or “hands-on” type of response. Remember that ‘compatability’ is much more important than ‘competence’.

Put that to the test if you like – who would you rather work with? Someone who can do everything, or someone you can get on with?

Can we afford you?

Salary negotiation is another issue altogether, but the point is you should have a feeling for what the remuneration is likely to be and show them that you bring value-for-money. If the salary is a lot more or a lot less than your recent earnings then you must be able to show convincing reasons why you are pursuing this job.

That’s all fine as a general background but if you’re going to overcome your interview nerves and be better prepared than your interviewer, you must be more specific.

Put yourself on the other side of the desk – if you were doing the interviewing, what would you really want to know that would convince you to make a job offer?

You’d want to know more about the 4 key areas above wouldn’t you?

So all you have to do now is work out your questions to explore those 4 areas. Make it at least 25 questions long and
don’t avoid that question you don’t want to be asked (you know the one don’t you?) and then carefully work out your own answers.

Don’t forget to include at least half a dozen personal attributes of the ideal candidate; why these are also your attributes and be prepared to explain why they should hire you as opposed to any of the other candidates.

One final thing on interview preparation and being better prepared than the interviewer. The “Tell me about Yourself” type of question is used by many interviewers to allow you to settle in and feel comfortable. An interviewer who hasn’t prepared beforehand will tend to ask this question to buy time while she thinks of the next question.

It’s then only human nature to ask questions relating to what has already been said (by you).

Your answer to the “Tell me about Yourself” question can therefore set the whole agenda for the interview.

Prepare this well and you’re streets ahead. It should include a brief walk through your career history from the first job or when you left university; touch on each move you made with positive reasons for the move [I wanted to get some activity based costing experience...] and key in only relevant facts that show how you meet their needs. Allow only 3 minutes for this with most time spent on your most recent experience.

Now even if you do get the well-prepared, competent interviewer you will have done your interview preparation and you will be the well-prepared competent interviewee!!

However, don’t get too complacent some organisations use structured interviews which are actually a boon to incompetent interviewers as they ask the same pre-determined questions to each candidate. No worries! the best preparation for structured interviews is to work on your skill stories. They usually tell you in advance what skills or competences they are interested in.

What else should you do? Well there all sorts of interviews so you can never do too much interview preparation it’s the most certain way of feeling confident when you meet the interviewer, whether she’s competent or not.

I’ll give you a start if you’re struggling, click on my link below for some of the most common questions you can start to work on. But don’t just leave it there, build up a good list then get to work on your interview preparation.

By: Peter Fisher

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lachamba.com – Preparation tips for behavioral interviews entail your rehearsal of success stories of which I have vlogged.

When you enter the interview room for your law enforcement oral review board interview, there is sure to be some serious anxiety going on inside you. This is normal and it’s expected by your oral board panel. However, it will also be expected that at some point during your oral board interview, that you are able to get control of this anxiety and be able to comunicate with the oral board panel in a clear and convincing manner that demonstrates you have the knowledge and ability to become a successful police officer.

One of the best ways to reduce this anxiety is to be fully prepared for your police interview. The best preparation comes when you know what is expected of you. When you know wha is expected of you, you won’t be caught off guard. One way of doing this is to get a list of the most commonly asked oral board questions. Once you have such a list, your best bet is to practice answering these questions over and over. This will build your confidence…and this confidence is one of the key ingredients to a successful police oral board interview.

The purpose of this article is to give you a “jump start” on making your list of the most commonly asked police oral board questions. That being said, I’m going to now give you what I consider to be the most commonly asked police interview questions, and that is:

“What have you done to prepare for a career in law enforcement?”

So, what have you done?

As an experienced police oral board rater, I can tell you that the best answer to this question is usually the longest answer. That is to say, the more “good” stuff you can tell the oral interview panel, the better. They will want to hear that you took college level criminal justice courses, that you spoke to recruiters, that you went on police “ride-alongs,” and that you attended police prep course given by the local police department.”

The oral board will also like to hear that you understand the importance of being physically fit and that you are running and working out regularly. Perhaps you can relate your prior work experience to that of police work. This is usally easy to do if you were in the military (because you understand paramilitary organizational structure) or even if you were a waiter at a local restaurant (because you have extensive people interaction).

This is usually one of the first questions asked during the law enforcement interview process and being fully prepared to answer this question with good, solid relevant information is sure to set the tone for the rest of the interview.

Prepare yourself, have confidence and best of luck to you!

By: Mark Denton

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So many people blow their chances of getting their dream job before the interview. They aren’t armed with the basic facts that make them feel properly prepared and informed at the interview stage. So what information should the interviewee find out before attending a job interview?

1) Company Background

The Internet has to be the key for finding about the company. First of all have a look at the company website. What kind of tone is the website setting? What kind of consumer is the company likely to be targeting?

Have a good read through any mission statements, financial results or ‘about us’ sections on the company website. As well as getting a better feel of the company paradigm, you will be able to discuss future company strategy from a more informed perspective at the interview.

Remember to have a search for other websites that offer a neutral perspective on the company as well. Companies House provides information on previous years’ accounts. Also, the Chairman, CEO or Managing Director may have appeared in the news in the past, so remember to search for their personal names on websites like Google News.

2) Industry Competitors

You need to know who your future competition will be if you get the job. In addition, if you can inform the company at interview stage of things that they don’t already know about the competition, it gives you a significant advantage to getting the job.

First of all, search for your prospective future company name on a search engine like Google. (Don’t type the URL straight into the address box at the top of the page.) Secondly, assuming you find the company’s website listed on the search engine, there should be an option for viewing ‘similar sites’. Click on this option and you should be able to view a list of websites belonging to companies in the same industry.

Once you find the competitors’ websites, it is a good idea to do a very quick ‘SWOT analysis’ of their product and service offering. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. All you have to do is write down five quick bullet points on each SWOT heading about each company. It should take no longer that an hour to focus on the three most likely competitors, but it demonstrates a superb amount of personal preparation and keenness for the position at the interview.

3) Industry Trends

From your Competitor SWOT Analysis, you will be able to determine whether or not the competitors have any unique selling proposition compared to the company that you have the job interview with. You can then establish whether or not the consumer market for such unique propositions are expanding or contracting.

Ways of determining whether or not it is worthwhile suggesting during your job interview for your prospective employer to consider amending their current product offering include researching consumer trends websites such as Mintel or business information websites like the Financial Times.

In Job Hunting Tips – Interview Preparation – Part 2, we will discuss the questions you are likely to be asked at a job interview, the questions you should prepare to ask at your job interview and techniques to ‘close’ the interview effectively.

By: David Bain

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