How To Pass An Interview

Have you ever attended one of those job interviews where you sense the competition is so high that you get nervous and end up blowing it? If only you had all the tips at your finger tips and knew exactly how to pass an interview then it would surely have been much easier for you to get that dream job you gunned for.

There are those folks who are experts at job interviews and then there is the rest of us who struggle through interviews and if we ever get hired it is just plain luck that was on our side.
The good news is that the art of passing an interview is something that can easily be learnt. You can actually make the effort to get the necessary skills you require to ensure that you land any job you want by being nothing but impressive at the interview.

Do your research
Most interviews are passed or failed at the research and preparation stage. The work that you put in before the interview will usually make the difference. 

Start by finding out all you can about the organization that you would like to work for. Do not limit yourself to their websites and general company information that is easily available. You will need to go further and even read newspaper articles and whatever news you can find on them. News articles can actually be pretty valuable because they tend to highlight problems and chances are that you could even manage to figure out from the news precisely why they are hiring which will help you considerably in coming up with the right answers at the interview.

How will you get there?
Picture the following. You do not give enough thought to it and assume that the location of the interview should be easy to find. Instead you end up getting lost and this adds to your nervousness. You finally arrive with just minutes to spare and get ushered in for the interview still breathing hard and not having had the time to collect yourself. Avoid these kinds of situations by planning your route to the interview well in advance and leaving for your appointment as early as possible so that you end up with plenty of time spare. You will then be able to get accustomed to the venue and do all the other things you need to do to get as relaxed and confident as you can.

What will you wear?
Do carefully consider what you will wear and even put it on days before the interview and look into the mirror to see what you look like. Do not overdo it. Just find something you are comfortable in that also makes you look great. First impressions made in the first few seconds of entering the interview room are critical and the way you dress will always be a major contributing factor to it.

Are you ready for difficult questions?
You have prepared well for the interview, you feel confident and you look great. But in the end you get tripped up by a question right at the end of the interview when everything until then was going so great. And ultimately you fail to get the job. This can even be a greater disappointment than if you had just tripped up right from the start.

Sit down and think of all the most difficult possible questions that can be thrown at you. Take another look at your resume and put yourself in the shoes of the hiring authority. What weaknesses would you have spotted and what kind of questions would you most likely have raised?

The more intensively you carry out this exercise, the better you will be prepared for any nasty questions that may pop up at any stage of the interview process.

Your exit is also important
Remember that as you walk out, in most cases the decision will not have been made yet. So you need to make sure that you have an edge over the others by making the most out of your exit at the end of the interview. It is a good idea to shake your prospective employers hand with a firm grip and thank them for the interview opportunity while wishing them all the best in future whether or not they end up hiring you. That's how to pass an interview.