I’m not sure if this is a procedural knowledge gap, but I figure it’s close—and instrumentally important—enough to warrant some mention here. Basically, I’ve never really had to formally interview (whether for a job, or something similar), and I’m sure there are some things I should know that I currently do not. There are plenty of sites that purport to offer this information, but often they are neither as precise/specific nor as extensive as I’d like—given this community’s focus and high standards, I think we can do better.
Any tips to maximize the chances of winning an interview? Anecdotes are welcome, from either end of the interview process.
As RomeoStevens said, practice is your best bet, but even better is to practice with people who have a decent grasp of what prospective employers and HR people will be thinking while interviewing you.
There are surprisingly many community centers that offer direct training programs for finding good jobs and winning interviews, and they almost always include at least a little bit of interview practice. Up here in Canada, they’re almost always free thanks to government funding, but for U.S. it’ll depend on the local specifics, I’d wager. However, you want to be looking at the very local stuff, i.e. town/district or community newspapers, the city hall’s list of community organizations, the local section/version of the “yellow pages”, and so on. These are the places where you’re most likely to find or learn about the kind of places / community centers that offer these training programs.
But again, the key point is practice and experiments with good feedback (most honest feedback is good feedback, but much more so if the other person(s) are experts in this, which is much more likely in the aforementioned community centers).
Live practice, as RomeoStevens mentioned, was definitely on my list of things to do to improve interviewing skills. Your advice about seeking out direct training programs was something I did not even consider, so thank you! That would indeed seem very helpful.
Indeed, it’s something I had not considered until I was urged to try it and did it, and it proved extremely effective. My interview skills went from the equivalent of “Hurr Durr my resume iz shitty but plz hire me I need job!!!11one” to “Greetings. I have here an enticing offer that shall certainly prove beneficial to all parties involved. If you would please look at these numbers, I believe I can demonstrate how to arrange something that will exceed your expectations.”
Definitely glad I took that course. YMMV, but at the organization I went to they had very impressive satisfaction ratings and job-finding rates (which is probably the entire reason why they are surviving solely on government funding, since the government is probably getting more money from the additional employment than they are spending on these programs, judging by how impressive the numbers sounded).
I would do live practice as there really is no replacement for this. Find someone who can give you honest feedback without it being awkward and go through a bunch of times over the span of a few weeks/months.
I’m not sure if this is a procedural knowledge gap, but I figure it’s close—and instrumentally important—enough to warrant some mention here. Basically, I’ve never really had to formally interview (whether for a job, or something similar), and I’m sure there are some things I should know that I currently do not. There are plenty of sites that purport to offer this information, but often they are neither as precise/specific nor as extensive as I’d like—given this community’s focus and high standards, I think we can do better.
Any tips to maximize the chances of winning an interview? Anecdotes are welcome, from either end of the interview process.
As RomeoStevens said, practice is your best bet, but even better is to practice with people who have a decent grasp of what prospective employers and HR people will be thinking while interviewing you.
There are surprisingly many community centers that offer direct training programs for finding good jobs and winning interviews, and they almost always include at least a little bit of interview practice. Up here in Canada, they’re almost always free thanks to government funding, but for U.S. it’ll depend on the local specifics, I’d wager. However, you want to be looking at the very local stuff, i.e. town/district or community newspapers, the city hall’s list of community organizations, the local section/version of the “yellow pages”, and so on. These are the places where you’re most likely to find or learn about the kind of places / community centers that offer these training programs.
But again, the key point is practice and experiments with good feedback (most honest feedback is good feedback, but much more so if the other person(s) are experts in this, which is much more likely in the aforementioned community centers).
Live practice, as RomeoStevens mentioned, was definitely on my list of things to do to improve interviewing skills. Your advice about seeking out direct training programs was something I did not even consider, so thank you! That would indeed seem very helpful.
Indeed, it’s something I had not considered until I was urged to try it and did it, and it proved extremely effective. My interview skills went from the equivalent of “Hurr Durr my resume iz shitty but plz hire me I need job!!!11one” to “Greetings. I have here an enticing offer that shall certainly prove beneficial to all parties involved. If you would please look at these numbers, I believe I can demonstrate how to arrange something that will exceed your expectations.”
Definitely glad I took that course. YMMV, but at the organization I went to they had very impressive satisfaction ratings and job-finding rates (which is probably the entire reason why they are surviving solely on government funding, since the government is probably getting more money from the additional employment than they are spending on these programs, judging by how impressive the numbers sounded).
I would do live practice as there really is no replacement for this. Find someone who can give you honest feedback without it being awkward and go through a bunch of times over the span of a few weeks/months.