Transcripts
1. Introduction : Welcome to how to ace
your next job interview, the only job interview guide you'll ever
need in this class, you learn how to make a great and confident impression in your next job interview. My name is Melissa, and I'm leading you
through this course. I was 15 years old when I
did my first job interview. And as you can imagine, I was very nervous. My mother actually
made me fit for this first interview
in my entire life. She told me what to
say, what not to say, how to dress and all
these kind of things. Where since that day, 28 or 29 years have passed. And since that time, I conducted many job interviews. I'm an executive chef
actually and have been working on five
different continents and different countries. And I conducted many,
many interviews, are recruited a lot of chefs
and also I might save, of course, had to do job interviews and apply
for different positions. I wanted to grow. I wanted to make Korea my online classes
here to help you, to make recruiters hire you. And here's how I'm gonna do it. You will learn what the
purpose of a job interview is, how to prepare for
your next interview, how to research the company. What is important to know
about grooming and clothing? We will talk about
your equipment setup, especially when you
do online interviews. Then I will lead you through the 16 most popular
interview questions and how to answer them. I will share with you some
general interview tips. Also, I will talk
about how to properly sell yourself because this is
crucial and very important. I will also share
with you how to take proper stories because
this interconnects with selling yourself and being confident in
front of the recruiter. I will let you know what
you have to do after an interview and then
we do a wrap-up. And of course, I will share
additional resources with you with a center Q and
A's and other stuff. So you can look forward to this course and also
towards resources. By the end of this course, you will be able to conduct
your next job interview. And a much more confident
manner goal is to make a great professional impression and to land your next job. There are no requirements needed for this class other than that, you have an open-mind and
the willingness to learn. This course is for everyone
who wants to improve his or her interviews
goods in order to stand out and get the job.
2. Grooming and Clothing - Part 1: The next thing you have
to pay attention to, obviously, is your
grooming and clothing. Would give you a
few simple tips. What I usually do before I
go into an interviews of B at an online interview or a face-to-face interview
does not matter. If you are a man. I only speak from my
own experience here. I would shave. That's what I do. Some men have beards and I think they look pretty good with that. It's up to you. But I normally go wedge shaped into a job interview
regarding my hairstyle. I mean, you can see
here on this video, my house style is very simple. There's nothing much to do here. But of course, make sure
your hair is clean, neat, simple. I also, when I go into a job
interview right before it, I will go to the bathroom
and check my teeth, clean area, some leftover
food sticking between them. And it happened to me already. And then now I noticed that
on an online interview. So how do you stick little
things happened to me already. That's why I'm
mentioning them here. Just make sure that
I address properly. This is of course, different
from industry to industry. Depending on what, for what
kind of industry you apply. You have to do your own
research there where you have to wear a suit and
tie or smart casual. In my industry, when
I do interviews, I wear sweatshirt
like this here, or maybe a short, you know, but I certainly do not
sit around in a suit and tie because in
my business, guys, I wear a normally a chef jacket and there's no need for
that to sit around, to walk into an HR department human resources
office hours office with a suit and tie
or for me know. But also of course, I do not
show up at the chef checker. That would be silly. Yeah, that's my tips for
how to groom and dress up. One more thing before I forget, makes sure you have been to the bathroom that you're not need to run during
the interview. That would be a little
bit silly to be honestly, if you have to leave the recruiters sitting
for a couple of minutes.
3. Grooming and Clothing - Part 2: During online interviews,
I normally just address my upper part because my lower
part nobody can see. So that means I do not
put on a nice pants or trousers or nice shoes because that's not necessary
in an online interview. It's a no-brainer, of course, that you, of course, dress for the occasion with clean shoes when you walk into
a face-to-face interview. And like I mentioned before
already in my introduction, I have conducted
plenty of interviews. I hired hundreds of chefs
for my various kitchens. And I can tell you from first-hand experience
how crazy things can be. I remember one guy, one chef, young chef in Indonesia
when I worked in Medan and Sumatra, remember he applied for a position in the kitchen
and I was sitting in my office and my sheriff's
office and then This person, I knew he was coming. I had his resume, I had a severe on my desk. And the picture looked already a little
bit strange to me. And then when he
walked into my office, he just was wearing
a t-shirt with famous heavy metal
band printed on it. And he was wearing a
base camp sunglasses. So I mean, there's nothing
wrong with varying a base camp or sunglasses and especially when
the sun is shining. I also wear sunglasses. I'm not a heavy metal fan, but I like to listen to other
kinds of music, of course. But I wanted to give
you this exam before. No goal. This is what
you do not want to do in terms of dressing and grooming and clothing that you show up or
show the recruiter what you taste of
music is or what kind of bands or musicians
you prefer. It's none of your business. It's also none of the
recruiters business. You have to pick
neutral clothes. For me. This is common sense. Yeah, I don't know if I
mentioned this year in my class, of course, because
it's important. Obviously some people, they do not know about it and
their fingers just cool. Walk in like a I don't
know what like he's just just coming from a
heavy metal festival. So of course you can imagine
what happened to the MI. Of course I talked to him, I chatted with them. That's what you have to do
as a professional recruiter, but he did not make it. So I wish them a good day
and I never called him back. So that was the story of the young little chef in Indonesia who applied for
a position in the kitchen.
4. Privacy, Water & Cigarettes - Part 1: When you conduct
online interviews, then I will share with, you know, some of my
most important points. Actually, as a matter of fact, all my most important points, which I find unnecessary
to pay attention to. These things. You do not take care of when you walk into a
face-to-face interview. We have talked about the
grooming and clothing already. That's what you basically
have to take care of. Now you want to be on time. You address up nicely. You have a copy of your resume or your CV with
you and that's basically it. Yeah, a notepad and a pen would be nice to take some notes because this is a
great tip I can give you here by taking
notes, you show interest. And the recruiter sees that you are professional because
you're writing things down. And it shows him that you are different than
other candidates. For the preparation for
an online interview. There are a few things you need to know and you have
to pay attention to. The first thing I do normally is make sure that
I have privacy. Not only privacy, but
also that the location where I do this interview
is quiet place. So obviously I would not do a job interview on a busy airport or train
station or I don't know, a restroom where you can hear maybe funny noises in
the background you have that's crucial that
you have a place where you are alone and privacy. Not that some body is
knocking on your door and it hasn't happened to
me when I lived at my mom's place while ago. I had a job interview. I conducted a job interview. I was interviewed online and suddenly my mom
came into the room. I wasn't thinking about
that, but it happens. So the next time I made sure I told my mom Mom I
have a job interview. No, please do not disturb. So we have to communicate
this to your family. If you're not living
alone, if you have kids, wife, whatever,
communicators properly. This is very important
because you know, you imagine you're sitting in it because interviewers,
something precious. You pressure there and you are nervous and
you're always nervous. And even me, having
conducted so many interviews successfully, I'm still nervous. I still prepare every single
time because like I said, it is every interview
is different. You never know from what
side they will hit you. If you are nervous and excited and you
are focused and you want to make
everything right and suddenly you get disturbed by some noise or somebody's coming to
the room or whatever, believe me, it will
totally disturb your your really stop you and it will make you
even more unsecure.
5. Privacy, Water & Cigarettes - Part 2: The next thing I recommend is to have always a glass of water. I have a bottle because
I drink a lot of water and because after
a lot of talking, my mouth gets dry, I
don't know about you, but it's always good
to have a glass of water and there's
nothing wrong to take, zip off that glass
during an interview. It's perfectly normal. Of course, you should do it when you finish talking
and the interviewer, the recruiter is asking you a question or was
continuing with the interview. I mean, that's a no brainer, but I want to mention this. I remember when I
was interviewed a few years ago for a
position and Saudi Arabia, believe it or not, the
interviewer on the other side, it was an online interview. That was the financial
controller who interviewed me. He was smoking a cigarette. He and his body, his colleague from
the Human Resources. He was actually the
human resources manager, believe it or not,
it's a true story. Both were smoking cigarettes in front of me
while being online. And I was just sitting there and smiling or not smiling at them, but now silently smiling
because as I mentioned, every interviews defendant,
you learn so many things. And my personal opinion
is you should not smoke cigarettes or anything else when you do your interview. For me, this is
just common sense. But for some people not. And that's why I
mentioned the CEO. Okay. So take note. Okay.
6. Check your Internet Connection! - Part 1: Next thing is check your
internet connection. And here I'm speaking out of experience because I used
to be a little bit sloppy. In the early days. I knew I had an interview coming
up at ten AM, prepare everything in our
question and answers. My grooming everything was fine. But I would only
check the connections like five minutes before
the interview would start. And that's not enough. Now, I usually what
I do now is that I blocked the 30 minutes, the last 30 minutes before the interview actually
starts, I block off. So let's say the interview
is happening at ten AM, 930. I would block everything. That means the
remaining 30 minutes. I would use to check everything. My Internet connection,
grooming clothing, and the other stuff. We will talk about later, I will mention to you
in a few moments, check your internet connection. Make sure your, your acoustic and an out all
these little things. Make sure everything is
plugged in into your laptop. Not that suddenly your laptop goes black because
your battery is slow, make sure the battery
is fully charged and everything that you have battery backup also let us
say there is a power failure. You never know what happens. I never happened to
me that there was a power failure, but hey, you know, things happen and you want to you want
to be prepared.
7. Check your Internet Connection! - Part 2: Which device should you use conducting an
online interview? I use a smartphone,
simple thing. You also can use laptops. It's up to you, but I
would suggest you use a smartphone because you
can adjust the height. If you have a standard
which you can buy, you can pluck the smartphone
into the stand and you can vary the length
of your smartphone. Unlike a laptop,
in our laptop is as either sitting on your
lap or on the table, but it does not look
professionally. You want, you want
to have your camera on eye level, okay? This is what many peoples
to do and I want you to pay attention to it when you do a Skype interviews
or Zoom interviews, or you can also see
that on YouTube a lot. When people do interviews, many people, they
use the laptop. There's nothing wrong with that. Certainly there's nothing wrong. Don't use Skype or Zoom. It's not about that. But the thing is, when you use a laptop, people looking down there, looking from the top down and to not even the camera
looking onto the screen. And that's
unprofessional actually. When you use your laptop, and I suggest that you
lift your laptop up with something to bring the small
camera onto eye level. Because you have to put yourself
in the recruiters shoes, how he perceives and CSU
from the other side. News anchors, for
example, on TV. They do not look into laptops, their cameras also
on high-level, That's like you do with other people also
when you talk to them or when you sit with
at least when you sit together with people. Of course, when you're standing taller people in smaller paper. But here it's important
that when you use a laptop, then please put something. I usually take books. Put a stack of books
underneath my laptop until the cameras on
high-level, I'd like I said, use a smartphone because
that's much easier to adjust the height when
you have a stand, which you can purchase
easily in any shop.
8. Look into the Camera - Part 1: And then the next thing is, once you brought the camera
onto your eye level, then it is very
important that you learn to look and speak
and to the camera. And this is also
one thing you can notice with many people
on YouTube when they do interviews via when
these Skype interviews or Zoom interviews are being recorded and then
published on YouTube. People look on the screen. And I understand why I
did the same thing before because the screen is very big like on the smartphone also, but the camera, camera on the left-hand side
or right-hand side, on top on the laptop is
a very small dot only. And it's irritating to look
in today's small camera. And what's even more irritating because it's happening
right now when I, as I record this video and
I do this now on purpose, I'm looking now at the
screen and you can clearly see that my eyes are looking away
from the camera. That looks just
unprofessional in R. If I want to
look up my notes, which I also have here, I think then, then it's fine. It's like news anchors also. They sometimes they have notes and look down
to read the notes. I think that's perfectly fine
as nothing wrong with that. I don't have a
teleprompter and I do not intend to use
a teleprompter. At least not now. But you see when I look at my own picture,
at my own screen, I see myself talking a little bit more
comfortable for me actually, but I should look
directly into the camera. This is what you need to train, you need to practice. This is not something you, you learn now from me
because I'm saying that you have to really force yourself and it is uncomfortable,
believe me. But there's no other choice. But the benefits are big
because when you look, when you give you answers, but also when you just listen what the
interviewer has to say. You permanently, not
permanently when you listen, but let's say 80% of the time we want to
look into the camera. Yeah. And 100% of the time we want
to look into the camera, into the small little camera
when you give your answers. Because imagine the person
on the other side perceives you as looking him or her
directly into the eyes. So this is much comes
across much more professionally and
convincing and confident.
9. Look into the Camera - Part 2: No, I remember I had a job
interview a few months ago. And I practice that because I've done
many online classes. I recorded many online
classes already. I also have a YouTube channel, so I'm kind of used to that. When I do job interviews, yeah, I practiced that. I look into the
camera all the time. And then at the end
of this interview, this CEO interviewed me. He actually said the AMA said, very happy with the
outcome of the interview. You seem to be very focused
and blah, blah, blah. I knew why he was saying that, because I was constantly looking into the camera also
when he was talking, not looking away or looking at the screen or somewhere else? No. Because it is the
same when you have a face-to-face talk with your friends or your family
member or your colleagues. And you have something
important to say. And you, I'm talking
to him or her, and this person is
just looking around. What it is says Already. How would you fear? You would feel stupid
if we would probably feel disrespected in our winter, you would just think, why, why do I waste my time
with this person? She or he is not
listening anyway. She is not here is not focused.
10. Test your Audio - Part 1: Testing your equipment, your internet connection
and everything. Also includes that you
test your audio and video. I know Skype has this function. You can test your audio and
video. You have to do that. Trust me, I ran into problems. Like I said before, when I used to check
everything like only five minutes before
the interview would start. So you really need
to check everything. If you use them. If you want to use a microphone, you can do it. I'm not so familiar with the technicalities we
are to plug it in. You can use a
microphone, of course, it has a much better
sound quality, comes across much more
professional identity suggests to do that. But make sure that your screen, your videos working in. And that is what you have
to do from your site. If during the interview it
happens that the line crashes, that can happen happen
many times to me Also, the line crashes
because the other side, I conduct interviews where people live thousands
of miles away and the Internet
seems to be not so stable as many people
think or say it is. Interviews can break down. And then it's maybe the fault of the recruiter,
but it doesn't matter. At least you are prepared
and check everything. It's the worst thing you can do if you are not
ready for the interview and you still adjusting
after two minutes after the interview had
started and you're adjusting your your
sound and this and that. So that's your responsibility to be ready absolutely
professional, I told you now. And next thing is earphones. I use earphones,
but I'm not using this big things like here. I see some people on YouTube. They're wearing these devices, which I do not recommend. I recommend earphones, though. I do not recommend headphones. Why? Because it's not
professional in my opinion. I use them in private
conversations because I need to hear what the other
person has to say and it's very
important to me. And I can block off the
surrounding noises also. Then I use headphones
and it's very, I feel very comfortable
because I also wanted to here and
we want to focus.
11. Test your Audio - Part 2: Normally, during job interviews, I use small earphones, ear plugs, which you
can plug into your ear. You know them, you know
what I'm talking about? And that's okay. A perfectly fine I've
done it many times. Nobody ever complained to me or we could not give you the job
because you use earphones, your phones during
a job interview. No. Ear phones is perfectly
okay because at least for me, I want to listen,
I want to hear, I want to hear what
this person has to say. And depends on your
surrounding. Where are you? Are you in a noisy environment? Is there some background
noise which you cannot avoid? Maybe there's a
construction going on and this is something
that's out of your hands. If you have background
noise going on which you have no influence
over, then you know, it's distracting you
and you might not hear what the recruiter, the interviewer has to say, and that is foolish. If you have to ask him or
her organic excuse me, can you repeat the
question because you know, there's some background noise. It can happen. Yes,
you can do it, but I recommend that you be proactive and anticipate
as much as you can. That's what I also do with this cost here to
teach you to be more proactive and to assume everything what can go
wrong during an interview, but which you have influence over which you can eliminate, use earphones for better sound. And to make sure that you hear very clearly what the
other person has to say. The next thing is
also very important. It's proper lighting. And actually, I will show you a
picture now of my setup, how it looked like, how it looks like usually when I conduct online interviews, you can see my setup here with the smart phone and my notes hanging
there and everything. And I use a light also. It's up to you what kind
of light you want to use. For example, now
I'm sitting here in my room and on the left
side I have a big windows, so the daylight is coming in, the sun is shining today.
This is very good. I have natural light, but from the other side, I have artificial light
to get a balance. And I also used some lights
which are installed in the room because
you want to make sure that you are
clearly visible, but you don't need to
use professional lights. I know they are SED
lights, ring lights. For those of you who
have a YouTube channel who are producing
YouTube videos, I don't need to tell you, but for those people
who were not use natural light sources
or any kind of light, lighten up your room. It looks much more professional. The interviewer wants to
see your face, of course, and add some dark shadow in the background that's
unprofessional.
12. Backgrounds & Note Pads - Part 1: Talking about background. Make sure your background
is clutter-free. You see my background here
is a very simple and clean, neat and tidy background. I chose this of
course deliberately. Sometimes I see
on YouTube people who are being interviewed
in a room or a hotel room. And in the background
you can see they're bad, not made up, not clean, not tidied as stuff flying around on the bed or
even in the room. And I find that very unprofessional because there's
nobody else's business. How your bad looks like if you have no other
choice, of course. And the bed needs to
be in the background. Makes sure the baddest
made up, you know, that there's no
clutter flying around or anything else
you want to have. Clean and clutter. Three, neutral background. Also, please make sure there are no clothes or socks or
travelers flying around. I have seen at all, trust me, it's just
it's just ridiculous. It's not professional.
13. Background & Note Pads - Part 2: I mentioned that already
have very important also have a notepad and append
the two somethings I attend. Some, this is something
I used forget a lot of times because during
the interview The recruiter will
pass on information, sometimes very, very important
and useful information. And you want to write it down because you cannot keep
everything in your head. Trust me, because you
are busy with yourself. You have to focus, you have to manage to give
your pitch to sell yourself, to come up with great stories. And you want to give
the right answers. So this is, trust me, your brain is under high pressure and a
high-performance pressure. And you might overhear some facts or some points which the recruiter
is mentioning, then it can happen
that you send them an email after you
interview with the few questions because this is what they
will offer you off. Every good recruiter
will offer you to ask questions even after
the interviews finish, because sometimes you know, you cannot come up with
the question and the bot after the interviewing or
when you are relaxed and you, all these questions come popping into your
mind and then you write down these
questions and did you send an email to the recruiter? Then it is kind of silly if you repeat the questions or ask for something the
recruiter actually already explained during the interview. That's why it's so important to have a notepad and
a pen which works, yeah, and you might laugh
now, but it's true. I thought I have everything ready while back during
one of my interviews. It's a few years a
few years ago, ready? I had a pen like
this thing here. I wanted to take
notes and NFV found out or the fingers networking. I can adjust. Say dear
recruiter, Kenny. Kenny, Give me a minute break. I need to grab a pen. You can do it. But trust
me, it's unprofessional. You don't want to do it. You don't want to waste the precious time
of the recruiter. We're all busy these
people also and recruit us in order to
recruiting all day long, conducting interviews
all day long. So you don't want
to be prepared.
14. Have your CV ready!: Yeah, I have a printed
copy of your resume CV ready in front of you because there might
be questions coming. It happens also happened to me. Of course, the recruiter has your resume on his or her desk. And like I said before, the interviews can
vary everything. Every interview is different. Some people, they check
your resume like crazy. They go through everything, every single bullet point. But I had other interviews
when nobody really cared about my resume anyway. But you want to be prepared. And if somebody is going through your resume
and once know, hey, I must say, you know, here in 2017 you worked
in bottom in Indonesia. And I saw that you were in
charge of three restaurants. Tell me a little bit, little bit more about this thing, then. Have your resume ready
that you can refer to it. Obviously, my resume
is quite extensive and I have not everything
memorized in my brain, not every bullet point. It's impossible to memorize
all these bullet points. But therefore I have. And this is also my next
point in which you could see on the picture I'm
going to show you again. I have attached all these
handwritten notes right? Right next to the camera
because this is where it can quickly look at when I want to give proper
answers and yes, I even write down my answers and my key selling
points in all my strings. What I'm strong head, what are my strengths? What I, what I'm
not so strong at. I still write these things
down as you can see. Because trust me, it can, can be a nervous undertaking,
a job interview. And you want to, you want to denote
you're nervous, you're excited and
you know how it is, how your brain works when
you're nervous and excited, sometimes you have blackouts. And that's the worst
thing you can you want, you want to avoid that. So be smart, right? The most important
things down also, right at the effects
of the company down. Whatever you find necessary, whatever you find important during a job interview
of write this down. And of course you want to
memorize as much as you can. You want to rehearse
your stories, the answers, which were the answers to these common
interview questions. We're going to talk about it
later in another section. Of course you want
to memorize them, but half deck up notes. Ready? Trust me, there will
a moment comes when you probably black out and if you have your
sticky notes ready, then you're much
better prepared.
Marcel Riemer, Minimalist, Traveler & Chef
