by Marc Hogan
www.persuasion-skills.co.uk
During the 1960s, everyone was talking about space exploration, The Beatles, and the mini skirt. Not everyone was attending one of England's eighteen universities. Graduating from one of these universities guaranteed a job and opened many doors of opportunity. Now, with many more than eighteen universities in England, this is no longer the case...
During the 1980's everyone was talking about, yuppies and mobile phones. It was a decade of prosperity and free enterprise...
Today we are talking about mobile video phones. Fame Academy. Weapons of Mass Destruction and the current economic slow down.
Competition for MBA, Graduate, and Executive level jobs is now fiercer than ever before...
Each company that advertises a job vacancy in the national newspapers receives hundreds if not thousands of applications.
Having a degree, an MBA, or many years of Management Experience is no longer an assurance that you will receive an interview.
It is no longer even an assurance that your application will be read...
People tend to believe that an interviewer makes a decision about a candidate within five seconds of meeting them.
Persuasion Skills advises students that the sheer weight of applications for each position make it much more likely that the CV sifter will make this five second decision...
A well known company, which shall remain nameless, reduces many of its applications by not even taking them out of their envelopes. One of the first things a potential applicant should always do to ensure that your application passes the 'five second sifter test' is to always send your application in a good quality, clean, well-presented white envelope - never, ever brown!
Your cover letter should never be addressed 'Dear Sir / Madam' if the advertisement has specifically invited applications to 'Miss Jones', I do not know any woman who likes to be called 'Sir'. This is another way many companies weed out careless application forms. Of course your CV should be well laid out on a good quality paper, probably with a slight off-white or cream colour, do not go for day-glow colours!
Once you have secured the interview to your dream job, you should approach the interview as if it were an exam in which you are allowed to relax and talk. Preparation for the interview works like revision for an exam. The more you know about the company and the industry, the more successful you will be in the interview itself.
Mental rehearsal is also very important. The world's top athletes use NLP to mentally rehearse a race before they run it, hundreds of times. A good applicant should do the same. Your brain very rarely recognises the difference between fantasy and reality. So if you have already sat the interview ten times before you have even got there, your brain will be much more relaxed.
Obviously it is also very important to be well-presented and on time, being late for an interview is never an option. Make a point of finding out the name of the person who is interviewing you. There is nothing worse than walking into a company's head office and announcing that you are 'here for an interview' but not being able to respond when the ever-so-helpful receptionist asks you 'who is it with?'
One of the biggest errors many applicants make is not to prepare answers to difficult questions, such as, what is your biggest strength and what is your biggest weakness? The pregnant pause as you try to come up with an answer can be the kiss of death in an interview.
However, the biggest mistake that most applicants make, is to believe that an interview is about the interviewer asking them questions. You must ask questions of the interviewer.
Asking questions about the role and the company show that you have actually thought about the job and that you care (in NLP this questioning technique is called Criteria Elicitation).More importantly it turns the interview from a one-way question and answer session to a conversation. Conversations are things that you have with friends. This will not only make the interview more enjoyable for the interviewer, it will also make it more enjoyable for you and provide a much more positive outcome.
During the interview, take time to consider whether you like the offices, do you like the interviewer, is he/she the same person that you will be working with, is it difficult to travel to the office, will you have to move, do you like the role, and what opportunities does it offer for further development? These things can make a difference when you are stuck in traffic on your way to work on a cold, wet, Monday morning.
It's important to remember in an interview situation that they are not just choosing you, you are also choosing them.
Advanced Persuasion & NLP Interview Skills For Career Success