Interview Questions - How to ace what you just learned

An interview is one of the more stressful events that a person can attend, it is all about talking about you and about how good you are and what you have done and where you are good and where you are bad. It can be very revealing and for the most part it is one of the most important meetings you will ever attend with people you may never meet again.   If you are like me or like any true professional you don't like touting or focusing on your accomplishments as a way to get ahead, you would hope that others recognize your accomplishments and reward you accordingly. However in the job hunt this is not the case and your accomplishments are just another list of things. Things that are said without any real proof, visible affirmation, or way to know if what is said is true.  SO here is what I believe is a winning strategy to ace the interview and provide the new potential employer with a lasting impression during your one time decisive meeting. 

First review the job description, position listing, or whatever information you have that is specific to the duties of the job. If it is not listed and you have a recruiter that has contacted you or you have contacted ask the right questions before the interview to allow you insight into how to prepare for the interview.

Here we go. First ask what the daily duties consist of? Or ask what are the common problems encountered? Then ask what is the basic overall responsibility of the position? By asking these questions we can begin the basics of our interview response and our speaking portion of the interview planning.  The goal is to plan out exactly what you intend to say, not allow the interviewer to only hear answers to questions they have canned that are an attempt to pull information out of you that relates to the job. By only providing an answer you fall into the same rating scheme as the others that have come before you. If the interviewer is not taking active notes then you will probably be forgotten or at the very least marginalized to only a few bullets about what is good….or what is bad.  SO here is how it would go.

You come into the room, you introduce yourself then you go right into answering that first question. "So tell me a little bit about yourself.". If this is the typical recruiter interview or hiring manager interview that is the start, primarily because they have to ask similar questions of all candidates to cover their legal butts and not seem biased in doing more for a specific candidate.  After that you go into a little bit about what they expect and if your lucky they ask how you can contribute. Then they may ask some canned questions about your strengths and weaknesses, maybe how you handled a problem or what you did to make your company money. Then they ask if you have any questions. FINALLY your chance to take over the interview.  This is where you turn the whole thing around, take control and show them you understand the position, know some of what their challenges are and have real experience that will help them.

Your talking piece should be centered around these items. Let them know that through your research of the company. (Really its just asking the recruiter questions) you believe that there problem with X is something that your experience with Y would help them to solve. Go into detail with how your experience and situation relates to theirs and give some good details of how that situation does have a solution and you can help.  By doing this you directly relate yourself to that position and your experience to the solution.  Doing this also gives them an impression of your drive, real world understanding of their company and details that may have been lacking through the previous portions of the interview.  If possible have two to three good examples of how YOU match their job responsibilities

Having your resume printed out and available for your own reference will help you to be able to point to the specific job and section that relates to the story of how your experience can help them.  What this does is give a longer memorable element that is not tied to their "legal" format and allows you to expand into areas that they may not be able to because of the interview constraints put on them by their legal departments.