Interview Questions UK

Anyone going for an interview literally has to live and breathe preparation in order to give a good account at interview. Times are competitive: it is pretty much an employers market, in the sense that they can hire and fire who they will. In addition, rising unemployment means you could well be up against people who are more experienced and better qualified than you are. So how do you regain an edge? How do you compete on equal terms? Well you do the 3 Ps: Preparation, Preparation, Preparation!

First of all you need to research the company you hope to be working for. You need to ensure that you find out relevant details, which you can then work into some of the answers you give at interview.

This rolls into the second thing you need to do and that is to examine the job description/person specification and start to think about questions the interviewing panel may ask you. Think carefully and then once you have come up with a few questions devise your answers: practice them until you feel that you are capable of answering a question with ease. Next you need to think about how you can get certain key points across: a bit like a politician, with key messages they try to weave in to answers they give. So if you think they may ask you why you want the position and you answer about how you want to work for a dynamic company, you have a lot of skills to offer, you feel that your skill set is well suited to the job description and that you understand that they are really equipped to deal with the economic challenges that lie ahead etc then you need to think about what other questions you could answer with these same points. Then if they don’t ask you why you want the position, but do ask why you want to work for the company, then you answer with roughly the same points. The only thing to remember here is not to just have one or two stock answers!

So preparing for an interview is not too difficult but it does take time and a lot of patience. But it really can help your career and get you a job where you enjoy coming to work. And after all that hard work : Don’t be late for the interview!

It is easy to think that a telephone interview is going to be a really soft option. After all, you haven’t got to walk into a room with an interviewing panel and then try to convince them that you are the right person for the job. Instead, you just have a chat with someone on the phone and if they are pleased with you then you will get the job. Far easier, right?

Well the reality are that telephone interviews are actually much harder. When you are having a face to face interview, then the interviewing panel will be able to pick up on your body language, they will know if you establish good eye contact, how you seem. Even subconsciously they will be making judgements as to whether or not you are trustworthy or are reliable.

Yet you can’t give many signals out when conducting a telephone interview. So to make sure that you give a good interview, prepare for it in the same way as you would an ordinary interview. Make sure that when you speak to the interviewer, that you have a copy of the job description in front of you. If you have had a few hours or days notice about the interview, then make sure that you have prepared some answers to possible questions. Jot down key headers in big letters to act as prompts for you when you answer their questions.

But at the very start of the interview, when you are exchanging greetings, smile as you say hello. People in the media say that you can ‘hear’ a smile, because it changes the tone of your voice. So smile and this will send a signal that you are trustworthy and that you have good interpersonal skills.

The rest of the interview will be like a standard interview, but in order to make a good impression, you need to smile, have the job description and some notes in front of you: breathe deeply, relax and go with the flow. This should help you to give a really good impression of yourself and make that job yours!