 |
Most people need help improving their interview skills. Even those who think they do well in interviews.
We all have blind spots when it comes to interviewing. And even if you’re naturally good at interviews, there are some novel things you can do in your next interview to increase your chances of landing an offer.
How to improve your interview skills
1. Go in with a solution in hand
Most job seekers don’t think far enough into the future when going into an interview. They’re only preparation involves trying to answer commonly-asked interview questions, and considering what salary they want.
But your goal isn’t to be like most job seekers. Your goal is to stand out above the competition.
You do this by thinking beyond the offer and anticipating the problem the company needs the employee to solve. Then, you prepare a possible solution to present, one you might can implement once hired.
To learn how to uncover the problem and prepare your solution, check out my post, “Modern Interview Advice to Make You Stand Out From the Competition.”
Modern Interview Advice to Make You Stand Out From The Competition
2. Give unique and honest answers to common questions
Old habits die hard, so a lot of employers ask the same old pointless interview questions they’ve always asked. This doesn’t mean you should keep giving the same old answers you’ve always given to these questions.
There are ways to give more unique yet honest answers to these questions. This keeps you from sounding like all the other candidates.
To freshen up your answers to stale interview questions, check out my post, “How to Handle the Most Pointless Interview Questions.”
3. Prepare for exercise-based interviews
Some employers have wised up and stopped asking pointless interview questions. Instead, they’ve started conducting exercise-based interviews.
This interview method requires you to perform various skills, instead of just having you verbally describe your abilities.
Although this method has been around for a long time, it’s become more popular among employers in the past few years.
Do you know how to prepare for such an interview? Find out in my post, “What You Need to Know About Job Interviews of the Modern Era.”
What You Need to Know About Job Interviews of The Modern Era
4. Save time when preparing for behavioral interview questions
In addition to exercise-based interviews, behavioral interview questions remain a good predictor of your skills and work ethic. This is why they’re always so popular among hiring managers.
But there’s no way you can prepare for every possible behavioral interview question. Instead, you can be ready for just about any of these questions when you follow my preparation method described in my post, “The Secret to Answering Behavioral Interview Questions.”
5. Be ready to answer the question, “Can you teach me something complex in 5 minutes?”
If you’re interviewing for jobs with highly popular companies, you need to be ready for less common interview questions such as this one.
To learn how to answer such questions, check out my post, “A Google Insider Shares His Interview Advice.”
6. Know how to handle interview ghosting, before it happens!
As you may unfortunately know, interview ghosting happens all the time these days. But, you can reduce your chances of getting ghosted after your next interview.
Find out how in my post, “Did You Get Ghosted After Your Interview? What to Do Now.”
More resources
Videos
- The Most Common Job Interview Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
- Steps to Acing the Interview and Reducing Your Interview Anxiety
- The 3 Super Powers of Successful Job Seekers
Blog posts
- How to Make Phone and Video Interviews Run More Smoothly
- How to Answer These Important Pandemic Interview Questions
- Are Your Job Search Strategies Not Working for You?
- Is Your Resume Not Working?
- How to Avoid an Epic Fail When Networking
