Shine in your next interview
by Connie Glaser
Best-selling author and keynote speaker Connie
Glaser is one of the country's leading experts on gender communication and women
in leadership . Exploring communication differences
between men and women, Connie offers corporate seminars on effective communications
and overcoming barriers to leadership.
The interview setting is custom-made for telling your story. In fact, interviewers
expect you to toot your own horn. After all, no one else knows how well you
can do a job.
Still, women are reluctant to promote themselves because doing so just doesn't
feel comfortable. But as Tory Johnson, CEO of Women for Hire, points out, "There's
a very clear distinction between bragging or lying vs. touting your professional
accomplishments and showing potential employers how fabulous you are. The
point is to highlight why you're the right person for the job. And while
it may feel uncomfortable spelling out what makes you so wonderful, it's
absolutely a necessary task if you want to land a job."
The thing is, there are likely hundreds -- maybe even thousands -- of people
who do, or dream of doing, exactly what you do for a living. And that means
you need to find a way to stand out from the crowed.
How to shine at an interview? These tried-and-true strategies rarely fail:
Make your resume sparkle. "In all the seminars we conduct, downplaying
one's success in a resume rates as a chief problem," says Johnson. And
she's not talking about presentation, formatting, or even properly listing
your marketable skills and experience. "More often than not, I see great
companies and great qualifications, but one of the major problems is not
quantifying or qualifying successes, which is what a savvy recruiter is looking
for."
In other words, most resumes don't spell out what you can bring to the job. "Nobody
cares if you were an account executive at a Fortune 100 company. But they
would care if you continuously exceeded your quotas or were recognized with
sales honors and awards," Johnson says.
"Nobody cares if you were a marketing director at a dot-com, but they
would care if the marketing promotion you created and executed helped triple
Web traffic. But how will they know all of this if you don’t tell them?"
Bring your "Hall of Fame" with you. Accomplished something recently
that you're especially proud of? If so, Therese Droste of Monster.com suggests
putting it in a file and bringing it with you to your interview.
"For example, your folder might contain an extremely difficult report
you pulled together for your manager at the eleventh hour and any accolades
you received for your work on the project," Droste says. When the interviewer
asks, "Do you work well under pressure?" or "How do you handle
tight deadlines?" you can play show-and-tell.
Be ready to respond to "Do you have any questions about this
job?" This
is a classic question that almost every interviewer poses, and you can use
it to promote yourself. How? "By subtly referring to your skills in
your questions about the job," Droste explains. Example: "What
I have found most rewarding in my present job is building a team, developing
its goals, and then working to accomplish those goals. Will I have the opportunity
to do that in this position?"
