How do you answer difficult questions?

Interviewing for a position is tough. Many are called, but few are chosen. Following are some basic job interview facts and considerations you should keep in mind as you prepare for your next interview:

1) According to Albert Mehrabian, UCLA professor emeritus of psychology, 55% of communication has to do with body language. Therefore, it makes sense to learn how to decode an interviewer’s body language and how to minimize your own body language mistakes during an interview.

2) People think of and remember images much better than they do words or text. When watching a movie, do you remember the images or the actor’s lines? You can see it’s imperative to convey a strongly positive image during an interview. It starts with the proper clothing and includes posture and a smile. An attractive image is memorable and catching.

3) Consider that the interviewer is the final authority of the outcome of the interview. The interviewer is the one who makes the decision. The best kind of interview contains professional and amicable dialogue, but at the end of the day, the candidate has to convince the hiring manager of being the ideal candidate.

4) To be hired, three conditions at minimum must be met. The candidate:

• Must bring evidence of possession of the skills required to perform the job.
• Must be a superhuman performer, not just an average one.
• Must be able to discuss validation by influential others, not self.

5) Providing good interview answers is essential, but asking the right questions is at least as important. Ask strategic questions. Strategic questions are those types that bring the candidate closer to the goal of getting the job offer. Don’t ask tactical questions like how to do certain things, because asking tactical questions puts doubts in the interviewer’s mind. After all, the interviewer expects the candidate to have answers. That’s why the candidate is interviewing.

6) Typically, there are four types of interviews with very different objectives.

• An interview with the big boss.
• An interview with the hiring manager.
• An interview with peers.
• An interview with a human resources representative.

Each of those kinds of interviewers evaluates a candidate’s answers from a perspective different from the other interviewers’ perspectives.

7) Candidates are often too long on their past. In evaluating the applicant’s candidacy, the interviewer is focusing on the candidate’s future. And candidates should, too.

8) Interview preparation is key. Before an interview, most people prepare for perhaps only a couple of hours. That’s by far inadequate when there are several other candidates with excellent potential.

9) If the position a candidate is applying for is of great importance, the best approach is to work with an experienced interview coach. This is the differentiator, as opposed to those who prepare on their own.

10) Get used to twenty-first-century technology. For instance, more and more companies are using video interviews prior to in-person interviews. This demands another layer of hardship and complexity in addition to being prepared with content. For example, proper lighting, good quality of sound, and favorable placement of the camera at eye level are essential. If you’re using a laptop placed on the desk in front of you, it may be likely that the interviewer will focus more on your accentuated double chin and not your eyes.

11) At the very minimum, the candidate must be super clear on the value proposition that answers the following four questions:

• What is that you do?
• Whom do you serve? or, Who are your customers?
• What value do customers perceive in your services?
• What do you offer that customers can’t get elsewhere?

12) The relationship between the interviewer and the candidate is identical to the relationship between a salesperson and a buyer. You’re the salesperson here, so be convincing by offering facts and not opinions. Otherwise, you won’t be fully trusted.

13) Last, in order to be hired, a candidate must leave the interviewer with good feelings about the candidate’s trustworthiness and likability.

If you excel in many of these interview tips, chances are good that you will beat your competition and the job offer is coming your way.

You must have a great resume

Growth, evolution, changes. Technology may be a wonderful thing, but it has negative elements—especially if you’re in transition and looking for a job. Why? Perhaps you don’t know how to conduct a contemporary job search. Well, that may not be true, and don’t blame yourself.

The résumé

Two decades ago, applicants would submit their IBM Selectric–typewritten résumés to companies’ personnel offices when applying for jobs. Today, applicants modify and tailor their word-processed résumés to include many of the keywords they pick up from job descriptions themselves because applicants know that companies’ applicant tracking system softwares rate those keywords high when hiring managers make queries. Regrettably, in the current economy, the job market is literally flooded with résumés to the point that résumés are clogging up the system and overwhelming the people making searches. One study pointed out that a company’s applicant/candidate search surfaces way too many very qualified applicants because all of the applicants’ résumés have the right keywords—which causes yet another problem: yes, the computer mechanically selects résumés based on skills and keywords, but the hiring manager is looking also for a good fit into the company’s culture. And that’s the reason companies conduct multiple interviews.

The interview

If you’re asked to come in for an interview, it means you had sufficient keywords to convince the hiring manager that you have the skills to do the job. But now comes the second test, which for some is more difficult. In the next hour or so, during that interview, you have to convince the interviewer(s) that in addition to a skill set, you have the personality traits to make you a welcome employee in their organization. For example, you show your passion and excitement for the job and the work; you’re an excellent communicator; you have a pleasant demeanor; you’re not argumentative, opinionated, or abrasive; and you possess all the qualities of the ideal candidate. It is hoped that the interviewer’s boss would comment favorably on your selection and that your future peers and subordinates would praise you in your absence. This is a tall order, because all of the other candidates of course have good skills too; otherwise, they wouldn’t have been selected for interviews.

So, what’s the key to success? There are two answers: (1) prepare for the interview by practicing, practicing, practicing mock interviewing with an experienced interview coach, and (2) learn how to be an actor. In fact, while interviewing, you are an actor onstage, and those interviewing you are watching you perform and judging you based on that performance. With proper and adequate preparation, you should be able to outshine your competition. Good luck with the offer—and congratulations on being a good student and open for new and helpful ideas.

Don’t fall in their trap. Guard your credit card

Welcome to America, the land where marketing was invented and perfected. I applaud those who successfully deploy marketing methods and have flourishing businesses. But many buyers fall for certain ads without doing their due diligence. Following is the typical format of an online marketing campaign. If executed well, it could be very rewarding and very profitable for the owner. The onus is on the potential purchaser to make sure not to give in to emotions with a knee-jerk reaction or immediate belief.

I am a career coach specializing in helping clients with job interview preparation, and I follow online marketing offers in my field with an open mind and for the sake of guiding clients about whether such general coaching programs might be advisable for them versus a more-custom-tailored one.

The step-by-step online marketing system is carried out by marketers who:

1. Create an attractive-looking Web site—including pictures of young and good-looking people—and who post testimonials on the home page for credibility.
2. Provide a brief text based on logic but appealing to readers’ emotions.
3. Pretend to give away something of value via a video or downloadable relevant material.
4. Provide a video whose duration is not disclosed, because if it’s too long, people will not commit to watching.
5. Declare three common and obvious problems that people have, and make it dramatic.
6. Say they have the solution and can help.
7. Indicate that they can offer the solution only for a limited time, and so buyers need to hurry up and make a decision.
8. Now go one by one through the three problems mentioned earlier, and emphasize the potential negative outcomes if not dealt with.
9. Make it sound simple and give [away] an example.
10. Include a stern warning by referring to their competitors and how expensive and their products are and how poor the quality and stressing that what the competitors are offering does not work.
11. Go back to the three problems but now discuss them one by one, highlighting how easy and beneficial their program is.
12. Go into details about what the purchaser will get, and they make it look simple yet comprehensive.
13. Now make the “call for action” by laying out the cost of the program if purchased individually and mentioning that if purchased now, it is just a fraction of the total cost.
14. Offer various ways and methods to purchase via credit card.
15. Make it look good, and throw in a few bonuses.
16. Reference the very large number of people who bought the product and are thrilled with it.
17. Show several specific testimonials of happy customers.
18. Provide a limited, money-back guarantee.
19. Repeat one more time everything the purchaser gets.
20. Don’t stop now but also offer the “special”—“only for those who buy today”!—and throw in additional articles and bonuses.
21. Point out the consequences of doing nothing by appealing to the emotions of buyers not ready to commit.

In conclusion

You have to decide whether such a product or service is for you. Based on how it’s presented, it sure looks simple and fast, and it solves a problem inexpensively. But are you ready to pull out your credit card?