Anyone got any interview advice?

Basically the topic title.

I've mostly worked in temp agency roles for a long while now so I rarely have to deal with the interview process other than when it's an important client or when registering with the agency in the first place. However recently I've decided to look for something more permanent and I've just received an e-mail inviting me to do a video interview, which is a completely new experience for me so I was wondering if anyone else has gone through these before and what I should expect.

Also what are good questions to ask at an interview? Because honestly other than the hours and the pay I generally don't care about the company or the role.

Any advice at all would be appreciated, thanks.

It all depends on the kind of interviewing you're doing. From what I gather, you'd be interviewing potential employees?

@goldone: I find that the most effective way to interview for a job is to show an active interest in the job and company. I know you say you don't care about these things but it's a sort of fake it to make it situation. Do some research and try to see how the job you're being considered for affects the company as a whole. Ask questions about who you will be working with and how you will be working together. Try and make it a conversation. For a first interview avoid questions about pay or hours unless they bring it up or if you think you'll be working odd shifts.

Hope that helps and good luck duder!

@goldone: Darth Navster's advice above is good. The whole not caring about the company or role will get you no where. The person interviewing you wants to see someone who is at least willing to pretend to give a shit about their potential. No one is saying that you have to care but you are expected to pretend to care. It shows a certain degree of commitment.

Find out about the role and have some discussion points prepared for it. Ask some questions specific to that role, not the generic 'what re the hours, what is the pay etc.). Wear a suit, comb your hair, shave/wear makeup whatever. Look presentable and be engaging is really what I'm getting at :)

Good luck with your interview man.

Darth Navster's advice is great. I'll add this to it: Body language is important, avoid crossing your arms (makes you look standoffish) and slouching (makes you look uninterested). Just treat it like a face to face interview.

Also, trying to get a job just for "the hours and the pay" seems like a good short term decision, but just be careful about getting a job that you might hate, making the rest of your life miserable.

Kick that interviews ass.

First impressions mean a lot so I would recommend acting confident. Most importantly, smile when you meet the interviewer. Its always worked for me anyhow!

I'll go against pretty much all common advice and say that you should be honest, but polite. Most people will be able to see right through any bullshitting you might be tempted to do (such as pretending to be passionate about topics you couldn't care less about). If you don't know something, tell them you don't know it (but that you're willing to learn it, and then take the chance to emphasize previous experiences where you needed to learn quickly, etc etc). Doing your research about the company and your role in it certainly pays off and allows you to ask more insightful questions about the nature of your job and so on. But seriously, the only amount of faking you should do in an interview is what's considered politeness, and that should be natural to most people. Good luck!

The best interview advice I can give you, and I've landed some decently high profile jobs like working for an NBA organization where I had to go through half a dozen interviews, is BE YOURSELF, BE ON YOUR WITS, and BE ASSERTIVE.

So many young people go into a job interview trying to pretend to be the person they think the company wants to hire. They are very reactionary when it comes to the interview, answering questions and overpromising what they can do.

YOU need to be assertive and act like you actually want to have the job. Research the position. Find out what they need. Come to the interview with some ideas about what they could potentially do. Research some other companies with the same position and throw out some knowledge about how the position works in other companies.

Ultimately, a company wants to know how you can help them make or save money. That's it. If you make that case for them, how can they not hire you?

Don't expect them, or put them in a position where they feel like they are taking a chance on you.

This really helped me, listen to a song that gets you pumped on the way to the interview.

There's some good advice above on what to do to be successful. From a hiring manager's perspective, here's some tips on things not to do during an interview, though.:

• Dress like shit. Seriously, you don't have to wear formal business attire to every interview, but avoiding sweats is a good idea if you want any job, much less one that has decent benefits. Get some decent business-casual stuff, at least. Show up looking like you care about how you present yourself.
• Show up late. Pretty self-explanatory, but it happens more than you'd think. Conversely, don't be hugely early. Showing up 5 minutes before the scheduled interview is fine, unless you've specifically been told to be there earlier for some reason, such as a typing test or something. And, really, that's effectively part of the interview anyway.
• Saying "I'm a people person!" if/when asked about what strengths/skills you bring to the job. This is the most rote, predicable answer in the world. Come up with something specific that relates to the job you're trying to get.
• Accept the interview if the schedule, pay, benefits, etc., have previously been described and are not acceptable to you. If they're off by a little, maybe there's some wiggle-room, but if you can't work an entire day of the expected work schedule b/c of prior obligations, don't waste everyone's time. You're not getting the job.
• Answer your cell phone, respond to a text, etc. Turn it off. Please.
• Answering questions nonsensically. If you don't understand the intent of a question that is asked to you, request clarification. If you attempt to answer and make no sense, the interviewer will have to repeat the question anyway, and it's a bad look to take a stab at it and miss horribly. That shows that you're uncomfortable asking questions if/when needed, which could impact your work performance.

Those are just a few of the myriad ways to essentially guarantee yourself of leaving a poor impression on an interviewer, and it's true that first impressions are hugely important. In response to what questions you might want to ask, if you don't have anything specific to ask about the company or your role, a good one might be to ask about the remaining process and timeline for the hiring process. If you know what to expect and when to expect it, you can avoid falling into the trap of checking in on the status of your application too aggressively after the interview. If you don't get an update in the anticipated time frame, checking once shows that you're still interested, and you may discover that something has come up that has slowed the process down. Checking repeatedly just makes you look desperate. You don't want that.

Final tips: have a professional-sounding e-mail address (some form of your real name is best) if you're asked for one, as well as a professional voicemail greeting. Listen to your voicemail. A hiring manager is not going to text you. Don't have anything too horrible posted on Facebook, Twitter, etc., or at least make sure they're private. People do check that stuff, and it makes an impression.

This is all very good advice.

Interestingly, I work in a field where there is generally only one of me at a company. Thusly, when I interview, I'm usually being interviewed by people who don't fully understand what I do and have no idea what to ask me to tell whether or not I'm good at my job. So, I wind up being asked the most bizarre questions imaginable. One guy just wound up asking me brain teasers because he didn't know what else to ask.

So, oftentimes it's good to be able to explain just what it is you do and why it's important to a company. It seems silly, but it's a reality that the person hiring may have no idea what you're being hired for.

Try to find out who will be interviewing you and look them up online. Usually they will have a LinkedIn profile. It will give you an idea of who they are and their background.

Research the company you will be working for. Know what they do and how your role benefits them.

Have your resume in hand as they will be asking questions directly related to it.

Finally, as so many have stated, be yourself. It will help you relax and look more confident during the interview.

Good luck!

Rule number one is always going to be "Do your damn homework."

Show an interest in the employer by researching both your position and the company as a whole. When asked what you can bring to the company or why you wish to work for it, don't use vague descriptions, but rather specific examples to show the interviewer that you have in fact thought it through.

When asked if you have questions at the end, make sure you do in fact bring a short list of them. None of them should be questions easily answered by a brief look at the company website. Also try to make them have some link to things discussed during the interview if possible. The latter will sometimes require you to think quickly and do some mental gymnastics.

Rule number five? Six? Seven?

Follow up with a thank you note. I can be an actual card or an e-mail depending on how old fashioned the company / interviewer maybe, but not only does it serve as a show of gratitude that employers do actually take note of, it is a way to reinforce positives mentioned during the interview, or try to speak to something you didn't feel you emphasized enough during the interview.

A good question to ask when they ask if you have any questions (and you should ALWAYS ask something) is, "What concerns or questions do you still have about my ability to fill this role that I might be able to address now?"

It gives you a window into what they're thinking about you, and let's you argue your case if they are still iffy on one or two aspects of your resume.

Don't come across as a crazy person.

You mean like this?!

Be good at answering questions I suppose; everything else should be relatively obvious/pounded into you for centuries. The real challenge is getting interviews, unless you're the worst interviewee of all time if you can get them you'll eventually get a job.

I assume being relaxed and assertive are basically the ideal traits for interviews at least in 'murica. "Being Passionate" is not something you can fake/create/research unless the person interviewing you is a moron, so there's no ability to manufacture that one.

I got a few interviews coming up as well in the next few weeks so I can understand what you're going through at the moment. Anybody who has been interviewed or whoever has conducted an interview who says they aren't nerve racking would be lying to you. Just take into account that a bit of nervousness is to be expected in job interviews. Just show confidence, sincerity, and show them why you would not only be good for the position but a key asset to the company.

To your other question when they ask you if you have any question, make sure you ask them. I think it'd be a good idea to have a few softball questions to throw at them so they at least get a general sense you are interested in them. Some of these could be, "what is the culture like at this company," obviously you would want to do your research but like any first date you want to go somewhere there's gotta be general attraction on both sides of the plate.

So I read through all of the advice left and I wanted to say thanks as I've just finished it.

It is possibly the weirdest "interview" I've ever done. Basically the e-mail inviting me to interview was worded like I'd be talking to someone over skype, however when I went ahead with it I essentially had to record short answers to 4 questions with my webcam and then I have to wait to hear back. It's a multiple stage interview from what I gather and the reason I had to do the online interview was because it's for an internet company so they want to make sure you can use basic amounts of technology. The strangest part for me was I had a window open and I've never really noticed how shiny my bald head really is.

Thanks for all of the advice though, seriously.

The two biggest things I've taken away from interviews in regards to what interviewers like:

Be comfortable. Interviewers seem to like that I seem comfortable in the unfamilar surroundings. Why? I don't know, but they like it. This doesn't mean sit back and put your feet up and lounge about; sit up straight. Just don't fidget.

Don't bullshit. I had an interview at a bathroom store, and didn't pretend to be particularly interested in the intricacies of bathrooms. I even said I wasn't going to pretend to be a bathroom aficionado but that I liked other aspects of the job, and the interviewer told me he appreciated that I wasn't there to bullshit him and that my attitude was the kind he was looking for. Don't go to an interview at a pet store and pretend you're fascinated with fish tank ecology, focus on an area of the job that you do like.

Be honest. Smile. Don't mumble. Realize that they will probably decide whether they want to hire you within seconds of meeting you. Body language and how you dress is a lot more important than people think.

Source

@substance_d said:

I don't think this is helpful advice, because it may make people screw-up a potentially salvageable interview if it doesn't start perfectly

Also did you read the source you linked? Because that is not at all what it says! It says that only 1/20 decide within the first minute. It seems like most are within the first 15 minutes and a lot of those are within the first five. But at least that gives people more than a few seconds!

I have an interview tomorrow morning so I am on edge about this.

@goldone

What kind of job is it for? I am a developer, I've worked at multiple different sized companies from a Mom/Pop consultant boutique to a huge tech company (one of the largest in the world).

Here's my advice for interviews. I've followed this model in both having interviews and also giving them.

Show up Early - Try and show up to your interview at least 10-15 minutes early. It gives the perception that you are a punctual person and that you are taking this seriously and not just another appointment in your day.

Be Honest and Adaptive - You are going to be asked a lot of questions about examples when you have done X or tell us about what you would do when you do X . Between nerves and just sheer knowledge, you may not know everything. Don't ever be afraid to say "I don't know" but don't end there, say something along the lines of "I don't know, but I could do XYZ to figure it out"

Research The Company Before Interviewing - Know about the company you are going to interview for. Get an idea of what they do for their business. Ask questions around business process and how your role would integrate into that (if possible)

E-Mail After - I've heard that this not all the time is needed but to me it gives closure. Within 24 hours of finishing your interview, send an e-mail to the people you interviewed with. Thank them, ask any other minor questions, tell them they can ask you anything if they need more info.

Ask Questions - Ask your interviewer questions about the company. It shows interest and that you've been paying attention.

Another thing that will help you stay calm is if you have a job/income already use that to your advantage in your mind. To me every time I've gone on another interview I approach it as "i'll say what I know , answer questions but at the end of the day I still have a job". It will help you stay calm during the process.

Also, your interviewer is a little nervous too. They want you to be a good fit for the company so they don't have to interview anymore. No company will interview you unless they are sure you could be a good candidate . Having someone interview you costs money, they are just trying to confirm. Don't think they are trying to weed you out, it's the opposite. They are validdating you

It's just the way it is.

The most you can ask out of interview is to not come out embarrassing yourself. If you think you've "nailed it," you're wrong.

I have some advice since I went to a job interview last week. One do not by one of their products after the interview after you were a bit too weird in the interview, not for them for you...cos I now have to look at the lovely little heater warming my legs right now and go "uuuuugh I was such an idiot in that interview."

Second don't over share, I did cos the woman was just so easy to talk too...I way over shared and talked myself out of the job. I did feel good about it untill three days later I thought "wait...um....I think I said stuff I should not have." I then got a rejection letter which basically read "You should know stuff about the company and DON'T SAY THAT STUFF YOU SAID!"

Anyways I have a new job starting tomorrow.....and once that's finished I walk into my other job to finish my last shift.

There's a lot of great advice here about how to prepare, present yourself, and answer questions. I noticed you said this would be a video interview. I've never done one of those, but I think if I were to be invited to a video interview, I'd make sure the room behind me was neat and orderly. Dressing professionally and developing a rapport with the interviewer will only go so far if the bed behind you is covered in dirty laundry and there's an old pizza box on your nightstand.

As far as what to ask, do a tad bit of research and ask a question about the company you're interviewing for. Ask about the last person who had the job that you're interviewing for and ask whether or not they moved up within the company.

At the end, ask for what the next step is/when you can expect to hear back from them.

Remember: Your first few interviews ever is probably going to suck. Be sure to learn from your interviewing experiences and become better at it.

Lastly: EYE CONTACT. FIRM HANDSHAKE. SMILE.