10 Tips for an Awesome Interview

A few interesting facts about me. By the time I was twenty-two, I’d had twenty different jobs. I’ve never been fired from a job. I’ve received a raise or a promotion at every job I’ve ever had. And, finally, I have received a job offer after every single interview that I’ve ever been on.

It could be luck (even though I don’t believe in luck). It could be charm. In fact, it’s probably a little bit of both, but it’s also definitely something else: Preparation.

Even if you are not especially charming. Heck, even if you are the shyest person on the planet, there are ways to make sure that you will shine during your next interview. Here are my tips—from common sense to magic techniques!

1. Be early. Vince Lombardi said that five minutes early is ten minutes late. And when it comes to interviews, this is the golden rule. This seems pretty basic, but it’s critical. Running late for an interview is not only foolish, it’s disrespectful.

Expert Tip: Plan to be at your destination a half an hour before your scheduled interview time. That gives you a buffer in case there’s traffic.

2. Research. Find out as much about the company and the interviewer as you possibly can. Read the company’s website and look for its Mission and/or Vision Statement. Mention a key takeaway during the interview. “I noticed that Company X is really focused on ethics. I actually did my dissertation on Employee Ethics within Small Businesses. I would love to learn more about Company X’s approach to ethics within the industry.”

Expert Tip: Do a Google search for the person who is interviewing you. You might find a brief bio. Look for common ground and bring it up during the interview. “Thank you so much for having me today. By the way, I noticed that you went to Texas A & M. My brother is an alumni there, too. Go Aggies!”

3. Bring questions. The format for interviews generally runs like clock work. The interviewer gives a brief spiel about the company, then goes into detail about the position, then asks the candidate some questions, and finally announces: “Alright, well that’s about all I’ve got. Do you have any questions for me?”

Now it’s great if you’ve thought up a few questions during the interview, but it’s still smart to come prepared with a few generic questions in case you draw a blank. Do a Google search for “good interview questions” and you’ll find tons of great options. Don’t forget to write them down. Even the simplest things can slip your mind in a high-pressure situation like an interview.

4. Prepare to answer questions. After you’ve picked out the “good interview questions” that you want to ask, take some time to answer them as well. Write down your answers and bring them with you and also practice saying them out loud.

5. Prepare for the curve ball. This is my favourite of the tips because it was so much fun to execute back when I was conducting interviews. Most people prepare for all of the standard interview questions — “What is your greatest strength/weakness? What will you bring to our team? Tell me about your work history, etc.” — but few people prepare for a real curve ball, a question so unexpected that it really catches you off guard.

My curve ball questions varied, but a favourite was, “Do you believe in intelligent life on other planets?” Now mind you, this had absolutely nothing to do with the job at hand, but it’s a great way to get a feel for a person’s true self.

If you get thrown a curve ball, the best thing you can do is remain absolutely calm. You can smile at the jest of it, but answer the question. I found that some candidates would get so nervous, refuse to answer the question, shrug their shoulders and say, “I just don’t know.” That really turned me off to a candidate. I wanted to hear something, anything really. I wanted to see that the candidate could “act on his feet.”

Expert Tip: When thrown a curve ball, remain calm and give an answer. One candidate enthusiastically responded to my intelligent life question with, “I’m on the fence about life on other planets, but I loved the movie E.T.!” I loved her answer… and she got the job.

6. Posture. From the moment you come into the room to the moment that you exit, your posture must be excellent—even when you are sitting down. Poor posture (like slouched shoulders and a low-hanging head) are perceived as signs of weakness, laziness, and a lack of confidence. Keep your shoulders pulled back and keep your chin held high.  You will give the illusion of confidence and capability.

7. Sitting and seat placement. There are two things to remember when it comes to the seat. First, when you enter the interview room, you should always reach out to the interviewer for a handshake while introducing yourself. Then, you should wait to be invited to sit. The interviewer will motion you toward the appropriate seat. Sitting before you are invited can be interpreted as rude.

Once you are seated, ensure that your body and your legs are facing the interviewer but allow for your legs to angle away slightly, no more than a couple of inches. This gives the appearance of being open and connected; but not intimidating or arrogant. Keep both feet flat on the ground. Avoid crossing your legs which can make you appear closed off. And finally, do not tap your foot or bounce up and down in your seat. Fidgeting makes you appear uninterested and easily distracted.

8. Eye contact. Eyes are the windows to the soul. During an interview, your eye contact will play an important role in establishing your connection with the interviewer. Hold eye contact while answering questions, especially difficult ones. It is alright to look away for a moment while thinking or to glance down at your paperwork; but do not avoid eye contact. Avoiding eye contact or shifting your eyes away from your interviewer frequently can be perceived as shady behavior.

Expert tip: People often wonder what amount of eye contact is the right amount of eye contact. The best way to decide how much eye contact to use, is to follow the lead of your interviewer. There is no magic number, but the key is to follow the leader. If the interviewer seems to enjoy eye contact (is open, friendly, smiling) then use as much eye contact as she does. However, if the interviewer seems more reserved or even shy, and keeps her gaze away from you, use much less eye contact.

9. Mimicry. Like making eye contact, you should also follow the lead of your interviewer while speaking. If the interviewer is loud and outgoing, then you should be a bit louder and more outgoing, too. Not louder than her, but not shy or soft-spoken either. Likewise, if the interviewer is quiet and reserved, you should be a bit quiet and reserved, too.

It is proven that human beings like people like themselves. The more that you can mimic your interviewer, the better your chances are that she will like you. Of course, you want to be yourself, too, but being likable often means using some imitation.

10. Hands on table. During your interview, the best place to keep your hands is on the table in front of you. Do not twiddle thumbs, tap, flip your pen, or put your hands in your pocket. Simply keep them on the table casually. Pick up your pen occasionally to take notes or write down questions.

Keeping your hands on the table conveys confidence, openness, attentiveness, and professionalism.

Bonus Tip: Visualization. My final tip is my number one piece of advice for preparing for an interview. It is to practice visualization. Visualization is simply the act of imagining. The night before your interview, eliminate all distractions and spend five minutes visualizing. Close your eyes, steady your breathing, and imagine the interview room. Imagine walking in, introducing yourself, shaking your interviewer’s hand, and sitting down. Imagine how great you look. Imagine how confident you feel. Imagine answering the interviewer’s questions with eloquence and ease. Imagine your ideal interview experience.

Taking the time to visualize your perfect interview will truly prepare you to put your best self forward. Take a few minutes to visualize the scenario again on your way to the interview. By the time you get to the actual interview, you will be super-prepared. If you feel yourself getting nervous during your interview, close your eyes, take a breath, and remember your visualization. You will feel relaxed and collected again.

Now it’s your turn! Give me your best interview advice in the comments. And, if you’ve got an interview lined up, best of luck. Let me know how it goes. 🙂

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  • · · · ·

    My Journey to Financial Freedom | Part 1: The Fall

    Three years ago, I was nearly $60,000 in debt. I had a Bachelor’s degree that didn’t appear to be worth its weight in salt and a job that couldn’t cover a fraction of my monthly bills. I was terrified.

    Today, I am closer to complete financial freedom than I ever dreamed possible. Last week, I paid off my last remaining credit card balance. This two-part post is a celebration of this incredible milestone in my journey.

    In part one, I will explain how I got to that terrible place. In part two, I will explain how I’m getting out of it (and how you can do it, too).

    ————————————————————————

    A financial prison is the worst sort of prison to be stuck in. A financial prison does not have steel bars or a prison warden. You will not get sent to financial prison for committing a crime. There is only one person that can sentence you to financial prison. That person is you.

    There are two primary types of financial prisoners:

    1. There are those in financial prison who got there because they truly did not know any better. This type eventually realizes the error of their ways and breaks free.

    2. There are those who knowingly commit themselves to financial prison. This type is well aware of the consequences of living beyond her means; but she does it anyway.

    Of course there are also those who fall somewhere in the middle, like me… (Cue dream sequence.) It all started when I was 18. The guidance counseling systems in my high school and college were either completely inadequate or I simply refused to pay attention. I can’t honestly remember which it was, though I think it was the former. Either way, I was screwed.

    Before me, no one in my family had ever been to college so I didn’t receive much advice. I was thrilled to be out of high school and ready for the next step. I took my SATs one time and applied to one school. My parents, being average folks, made just enough money to prevent me from receiving financial aid; but not enough money to be able to pay my full tuition. For me, this meant loans: “lovely” student loans from “lovely” Sallie Mae.

    My mother co-signed and it was a cinch from there. Each semester I filled out a relatively simple form and like magic, Sallie Mae sent me a check. In fact, Sallie Mae was so generous that they allowed me to take out as much “extra” money as I needed every semester. It was fantastic! Yes, I had money to pay for books, meals, and extra curricula. I also had money to go out and binge drink, buy clothes I didn’t need, designer purses, and more. Sallie Mae was wonderful to me. And the best part if it was that there was no need for discussion. No one guided me, no one advised me, and no one asked me any questions. I showed up at the financial aid office a couple of times each year and it was always smooth sailing.

    On top of that, another great thing happened when I was 18! The credit card companies started to send me applications. And that was just as easy. I got one and then another and then another. Whatever I couldn’t cover with those pretty little checks from Sallie Mae, I could simply charge on my credit cards. College was good to me. I joined a sorority, I partied hard, I shopped until I dropped. What more could a girl ask for?

    It wasn’t all fun & games though. I worked through college. I worked at a children’s camp each summer; I was a Spanish teacher for two years; and toward the end of my college career I was a bookseller at Borders bookstore. All of the money I made working was spending money for me. I had Sallie Mae and the credit cards to pay all of my “real” bills.

    When I finally graduated, I was making a cool $8.25 an hour at Borders. I loved it. I was happy… until one day, out of no where, a letter came in the mail. I had a six month grace period and then I would have to start paying back those loans. My paychecks barely covered my minimum credit card payments. How was I going to make loan payments on top of that?

    So I sat down and did something that I’d never done before. I wrote up a budget. It was horrifying when I realized that even if I’d had no other bills, my monthly wages from Borders wouldn’t even cover half of my monthly student loan payments. The jig was up.

    All told, I came out of college with about $45,000 in student loan debt and almost $15,000 in credit card debt. I hadn’t even lived on campus; I commuted from home; my parents paid for some of my tuition; and I only went to a mediocre school. How the hell was this possible?

    All of a sudden Sallie Mae and the credit card companies didn’t seem so lovely anymore. There was one thought that kept repeating over & over in my head: Why didn’t anyone warn me? I felt cheated, betrayed, angry, afraid, and helpless. I wondered what the people in the financial aid office had been doing all that time. I wondered why my high school guidance counselor didn’t press me harder about applying for scholarships or grants. I wondered a lot of things, but mostly I wondered how the hell I was going to get out of the mess.

    I started sending out resumes for jobs with starting salaries that would at least cover my monthly student loan payments. I sent out resume after resume but before long, I realized another harsh reality. That Bachelor’s Degree in English with a Creative Writing Focus wasn’t so great either. Nobody was calling me back. I couldn’t even get an interview.

    The clock was ticking. I was halfway through my grace period. Then one day, one of my best friends mentioned an opening in her office. I looked over the job description and realized that it had nothing to do with what I’d gone to school for. I didn’t even know what it actually was, but the starting salary was more than what I needed. The rest was history.

    I’ve been at my current company for almost three years now. And yesterday I paid off my last remaining credit card balance! Additionally over these few years, I’ve cut my student loan debt almost in half and by next Winter, I will have it down to a quarter of what I started with.

    Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post, where I will share how I am doing it and how you can do it, too.

  • · · ·

    Let Go of Your Goals & Unleash Your Dreams

    Dreams are Just as Important as Goals

    I’ve written quite a bit about setting & accomplishing goals; overcoming fears; and making the best out of difficult situations. But what I haven’t written enough about is flat out—unleashing your dreams.

    Goal setting is a very mathematical process. It goes something like this: Define your goal. Map out the steps necessary to achieve it. Research, develop, act. Work until you get there. This is great, it makes sense, it gets things done. However, goals are full of limitations. In order to accomplish Z, first I need to do X and Y. If I want to be in this place by this date, then I’ve got to accomplish X, Y, and Z by this date. And so on and so forth it goes. We plan and work and strive.

    Yes, goal-setting & goal accomplishment are crucial elements to success; but sometimes we have to just let go of our goals and start unleashing our dreams! Throw caution to the wind and go for it. But how?, you ask. Well, you start by defining your dreams & broadcasting them to the world. Today I am going to define my wildest dreams & share them with you.

    “Achieving life is not the equivalent of avoiding death.” –Ayn Rand

    Why Are We Afraid to Expose Our Dreams?

    To be honest, I am a bit nervous about this. I feel like I am exposing a part of myself that I’ve kept hidden. When you keep your wildest dreams to yourself, you’re safe. If no one knows what you want, then no one can hold you accountable. For example, if your best friend has no idea that you dream of moving to Costa Rica to collect butterflies in the rain forest—then she isn’t going to check in with you once a month and ask where you’re at. If you’re father doesn’t know that you dream of quitting your job to build collectible trains and sell them on Ebay—then he isn’t going to be hounding you with questions about it at the holidays. And when you are not faced with those questions you are safe. Your dreams can stay on the back burner while your life passes you by. You are not held accountable. You don’t experience pressure. But, my friend, today is the day that you must realize something critical: It is pressure that makes diamonds!

    Broadcast Your Desires to the Universe

    Steve Pavlina recently wrote a post called Broadcast Your Desires. In the post, he explains why broadcasting our desires & dreams to the world is the best way to make them a reality. If you can’t broadcast your desires, it’s fair to say that you don’t own them yet. In order to make your desires become real, you’ve got to speak up about them. If you’re going to receive them, then let it be known. If you find it necessary to hide what you desire, that suggests you aren’t ready to receive.

    Well, I am ready to receive! I hope that by taking this step in my own life, I will inspire you to take it in your own. Here I go…!

    My Dreams

    1. Grow evolution you
    I want to take this blog to great heights, attract thousands of readers, inspire people around the world. I want to monetize it so that I can devote myself to improving people’s lives full-time. And as a result, I want to become location independent so that I can travel the world, spreading love & light where ever I go.

    2. Write a book
    I haven’t quite worked out the details of this one yet—it’s a bit ever-evolving. I’ll pin it down soon enough, for now I am just dreaming wildly!

    3. Travel to the Great Pyramids in Egypt
    I feel intimately connected to the people of ancient Egypt. Perhaps it is the beautiful & mysterious way that Ancient Egypt is depicted in films & literature, whatever the cause, the very idea of it thrills me. I have long dreamed of visiting & exploring the ancient pyramids for myself.

    4. Learn to speak French

    5. Spend time living & working in Europe
    Italy, France, and Belgium all seem such lovely places to me. I’d like to spend at least a few months in each place.

    6. Safari in Africa
    This is the only dream on the list that I already accomplished. In the Summer of 2006 I studied abroad in Kenya, studying, on safari, and touring. It was a truly incredible experience and I’ll be making a post about it soon.

    7. Live in the wilderness
    I am insanely attracted to nature. In fact, I am quite convinced that I am a tigress/she-wolf/mermaid trapped in the body of a human woman. I feel most at home in nature—in the mountains, near the sea, anywhere wild. I’ve long dreamed of escaping the civilization circa Into the Wild. It would certainly not be a permanent thing; but I’d love to experience it at least for a few weeks to see how long I’d last.

    8. Have or adopt a baby
    Last February my sister gave birth to me beautiful Godson, Brian. Ever since then, I’ve heard the ticking of my own biological clock a tad louder than before. I am not in any rush, as you can see I’ve got a lot I want to do before I am quite ready to “settle down” but it is definitely an enormous dream of mine, some day.

    9. Spend time on a Native American reservation
    I’d like to spend some time living or at least working/volunteering on a reservation. I am passionate about Native American culture and it would be a great honor to serve the Native American people in some capacity and to learn first-hand their cultures, traditions, and needs.

    10. Serve on the Board of Directors for a prominent wildlife conservation foundation

    11. Visit a Buddhist monastery in Tibet

    ——————————–

    These are not all of my dreams, not nearly, but the list could go on and on. For now, these are the ones that I am working toward—in the near & distant—future. It was not nearly as difficult to share them as I thought it would be! This list will be ever-evolving and I will update it as my dreams are accomplished and as they change.

    Alright, I did my part. Now it’s your turn! I would love to hear about your big dreams in the comments or if you make your own big dream post please let me know about it.

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