Job Interview Training: Impress the Hiring Manager

1. Course Promo Video: in this job interview training course, you'll learn how to perform well and avoid the common airs that cause many candidates to lose out on the job. My name is Duncan Kerber, and I'm a professor of business communication. For almost 20 years, I've been interviewing people in the workplace in university settings. I've interviewed close to 1000 candidates, and I want to tell you but what the best candidates are doing. Rights course provides a step by step process to help you master the art of doing effective job interviews. Job interviews air strange human interactions that we aren't typically trained for. But I'll show you how to prepare to impress. By the end of the course, you'll be able to leave your research of the company into your answers. Identify and prepare for the toughest questions in your field. Answer with specific details and stories that show your experience. Deal well with a new kind of interview, format the online interview and avoid the typical problems that occur on the interview day courses designed around a logical process. It begins with organizational research, then provides typical questions. You'll be asked and suggested answers unique to this course watch videos of actual interviews. See how great candidates answered key questions. Learn how to fix bad habits in verbal and nonverbal communication. And look at the issues of doing Skype interviews. Course finishes with a look at how to make a good impression on and after the interview day . The ideal student has a job interview coming up soon, but no experience is required. Thank you for your interest in my job interview training course. What do you try? A free preview of some of the lectures. I hope to see you in the course. 2. Welcome to the Course from the Instructor!: Hi. I want to thank you for taking my job interview training course in this video. I'm just gonna talk a bit about an overview of this course and how it came about. I've been interviewing people for our close to 20 years now, including the last 10 years of students in the business communication program at a number of universities. And in that time, I've learned a lot about what makes a really good interview, and I have distilled those lessons into this course. We're gonna begin with a look at research and research is really important because most people who are doing job interviews don't even think about the organization. They focus completely on themselves, and it's good to show in an interview that you have some knowledge of the organization, so we'll talk about that. Then we'll get into questions there. There isn't an infinite number of questions that you might be asked. Actually, I found in my experience of doing interviews that there are a core group of questions. Some are factual summer behavioral, and we'll look at what those questions are and the best answers, which are detailed answers that focus on achievement, not things you did. But achievements and also a few stories can be helpful to show your success in the workplace. Also, talk about some verbal and nonverbal bad habits that a lot of people have when they're doing interviews. And then we'll look at the new kind of interview format, which is the Skype interview, and this presents some challenging problems as well. Finally, the course will look at what to do on the day of the interview, and I'll talk about my own experience with doing those interviews. And then we'll look at what to do after the interview to make that good impression. So again, thanks for joining the course. If you have any questions, please send them to me within the course and let's begin. 3. Course Overview: in this video I want to talk about on overview of the course and the nature of doing job interviews. That nature is that these air highly unusual situations. How often do we really sit down with human beings and wait for their questions and give prepared answers to sometimes re strange questions? We don't do it very often, so just recognize that the job interview is an unusual human relationship. You know, interpersonal communication. Second, we have to recognize that almost everybody has nerves when dealing with a job interview and these air normal, its normal tohave, some sort of nerves. And in some sense, having mirrors could be a good thing, because that means you care. You really want this job. You don't want your nerves to be debilitating. Eso it shows through, but you want to get up for these situations. You don't want to be too relaxed. I think if you're to relax for a job interview, maybe you don't really care about the job. Maybe you don't really want it. You're just taking that opportunity to do an interview. I think sometimes your best performances can come when you've got a little bit attention, a little bit of pressure there because it focuses your mind and gets you thinking on one subject, which is yourself in your experience. And I think also year nerves will decline over time. The more you do, the less nervous you'll be. So if you've got opportunities to do job interviews or these mock job interviews, do them practice tried over and over again and you'll get better at it and then your nerves will decline. Let's now take a look at the course plan. First, we're gonna be dealing with preparation in terms of understanding the organization you're applying for. Many people do job interviews without actually looking at the organization that they're applying for. Sometimes this comes because you apply to many companies and just don't have time to do any research. The best interviews require you to do some research about the organization, and I'll talk about what that looks like. Then we'll move on to the interview questions. You'd be surprised there isn't an infinite number of questions that are asked. There are variations on some of these questions, but basically there are maybe 10 15 common questions that come up in job interviews, and we'll look at those. We'll look at some problem questions, difficult questions and also some unethical questions and how to answer them there. We're gonna look at the nature of answers, and I'm gonna talk about what are some weak answers and what are some really strong answers . Then we'll move on to some interpersonal communication principles, whether that's verbal communication or what's often neglected in job interviews. And that is your non verbal communication as well. Now, most of this applies Teoh in person, face to face interviews. But now Skype interviews are becoming more and more common, and I've done a few of these myself. I also interview all of my students every semester at my universities. I've interviewed hundreds of students over the years on Skype, and I have a few samples of those interviews in this course. We're gonna talk about what is some of the key issues with Skype interviews, both performance and some technical issues. Then finally, want to talk about the day of the interview, what you need to do on that day, the performance itself and after once the interview has been completed 4. Organizational Research: Understand the Organization's Position and Vision: earlier in the course, I talked about the stress that comes with job interviews. Well, that stress could be made worse by a lack of preparation, and that preparation could be coming up with answers to questions. But it can also mean researching the employer website and learning as much as possible about the company. You can also check AH website like Google News to see how the company is doing. Is there any information about its prospects? Thes days, Some news about the company. What should you look for on the website or in the news? We could ask some questions of the organization. For example, you could ask what is the organization's philosophy? That's important to know because then you know how to answer the interview questions in a way that will fit that philosophy. Another question you should ask is, What is the organization's strategic goal? What are they trying to achieve in their business? Sometimes they'll say that on the website, sometimes you might have to find that in a news article and then with Google News, for example, you could look up. How is the organization doing right now? They expanding or the getting into new markets. So they coming up with new programs or services or whatever it ISS. So those areas to examine include obviously products and services, As I said before, but also, you could look at the corporate structure that may give you some hints as to how they're operating and maybe how you might fit in with your position. You could do some research on the kinds of customers that they have. Are they the same kinds of customers? Maybe that you've had in jobs you've worked at, you can look at what awards the organization has, one that tells you a lot about how well they're doing and also what groups are awarding these things to them that can be helpful to know. You might also learn something from their website or from the news articles about the culture of the organization. Now this is good just for you to know whether you want to work in that culture, but it can also help you tailor your answers to their cultural expectations. 5. How to Prepare for Questions: Now let's turn to the heart of your job interview, preparation and that is looking at interview questions. So in this video, I'm going to be talking about that preparation, how you do it, talking about some types of interview questions. There's two main types, and we'll look at some problem questions and how to answer them and finally talked about the questions you should have for the organization. Job interview Question. Preparation is so important, but a lot of people just don't do it. So what do you need to do to prepare well for the possible questions? Well, you can't guess every question that you might be asked. But there are question banks on the Internet for your field. In this course, I've included a list of possible questions, so make sure you access that file and and look at that and use those questions. But I don't know, obviously, every single fields question. So I would suggest going online and just googling your feel. The job interview questions, and you'll probably find some very unique ones. But overall, there are just a certain number of questions were two differently, sometimes depending on the interviewer but mostly mascot same points, same questions, trying to get at the same things. So find those job question banks, then prepare your answers and do at least one mock interview. So I often have a family member. Read the questions to me to simulate that you can ask a friend to do that for you when I didn't have anybody to ask me. Sometimes what I would do is actually use the text to speech software in my cell phone, and I would have the cell phone voice asking me questions like this. Can you describe your skills for me? Then I would answer the question right there, and sometimes I answered it badly. I knew I did, and then I would try again and again. And also, I suggest recording the interview model, mock interview and watching it back. And I know some of us don't like to see ourselves on video or hear our own voices, but it's really important to record yourself and watch and listen to see what the bad habits you have. Maybe you tend to scratch yourself on your face. Maybe you tend to twirl your hair around your finger while you're talking. Maybe you move your head too much easier things we're gonna talk about later in this course . But you don't know it until you see yourself on that video and here yourself, answering the questions. So what I would do typically is I would record myself answering it. I would listen to it, and then I would go. So I don't like that answer. Or maybe I could have said it. Ah, more succinctly. Maybe I could have added information and I would sometimes write those new points those additional points down. Then I would have my phone talk to me again. Can you describe your skills for me? And I would say it again, recording myself a second time and watching it again, listening. And that that point I usually felt like, Okay, I've got this answer down. You could do it 1/3 time. That might be too much, but at least answering it twice gives you a chance to see and develop the right answer. For that question, 6. The Two Common Types of Questions: most interview questions fall into two types or categories. There's the factual questions and the behavioral questions. Factual questions are just simple questions of fact. As the title suggests things like, Where did you Go to High school? Where did you go to college? Did you do this? Did you do that? Ah, love. That stuff's already on your resume, but sometimes the interviewer will ask you that question anyway. And in the second a list, some sample questions, the behavioral questions. Those are more for trying to figure out how you function in the workplace, riel life actions that you've done in the workplace. So if you're facing a certain situation, how would you react? And they're trying to elicit an understanding of your adaptability, your problem solving capabilities, how you work in a team, how you manage time, how you set goals. These kind of things are also they're looking at your creativity, your initiative decision making, how you manage stress, how you do all of these things. Now let's look at some question sample, so I've provided a longer list with this course, so make sure you check out that additional file. But here's some examples of these types. So a simple, factual question. How would you describe your skills? You're talking about those skills that you have, with its technical skills or time management skills and so on. You might get asked by the interviewer what attracted you to this position at our company. If you've done your preparation, as I suggested, you should do. Earlier in the course, you would speak to something about the company that made you want to apply. Now, a behavioral question is something like this. Give me an example of a time when you had to solve a challenging problem. How did you respond to that challenge and that question. They're asking you to mention something that was pretty significant in the workplace, and they want to hear how you dealt with it, to know if that matches what their expectations are for. Someone in that position later in this course will talk about the nature of these answers and how you can give the best answer. But for now, they're just some basic sample questions. So these are the questions you should be preparing answers to and rehearsing in your mock interview 7. "I Can't Answer That": Difficult, and Unethical Questions: Now let's look at problem questions. So these air the difficult questions that you may be asked and also sometimes the unethical questions you might be asked. The first kind of difficult question that you might be asked would be something like, What Disney character are you most like? Now that's a very difficult question to answer on the spot on. I don't think you could sit down and prepare for that. It's a waste of time to prepare for a question like that. But there aren't that many ways out of answering that kind of a question. Maybe you just have to say something like, That's a really tough question. I'm not sure how to answer and just move on with it. Ah, more realistic, difficult question is one that deals with the negatives. So sometimes you get these questions that focus on how you fail, for example, describe a project have failed. What would you do differently now? So that kind of question they're giving you on opportunity to be, you know, so show some humility suggests that something went wrong, and they've also given you the opportunity to move out and away from the negativity by looking at what you would do differently. That's a difficult one. I haven't heard that very often, but you might want to have an answer to that. You might wanna have a project that didn't work out, just in case someone asks you about those kind of failures. Another difficult question. That isn't a trick. I would say it would be something like, What's your biggest weakness? So we all have weaknesses that we're working on at any given time. I know in in my academic job interviews, I have one in mind that I would use if somebody did mention that kind of a question. Now it's something that you could probably see on my CV on my resume. But I've got that in mind in case anybody ever asks me that. So how do you deal with weakness questions while you can turn your weakness into a strength ? So so you might say, You know, sometimes I work too hard when I get involved in a passion project, and no one's gonna criticize you for working too hard. But that's a good way to turn your weakness into a strength. You might also mention a weakness that effects other jobs, not this one. So you've got some kind of deficiency, but it won't affect this specific job. And maybe that's why you're applying for this job, because that skill is not required or it's something that you're just not good at third, you could describe a weakness that you're working to fix. So let's say the job does require knowledge of statistics, and maybe you aren't that good at statistics. But if you're working to take maybe a certificate in statistics, the local college or university, you could say that. So you know I'm not too good statistics, but I'm actually taking a course in this right now on getting a certificate, and I hopefully by the end of that, of course, I will have those skills. Those are three ways that you could turn negatives into positives. Now I often feel like in interviews I've been in that most people honest people are not focused on what you're doing badly. So most of the time your questions will deal with positive successes, achievements and things like that. But it is good to have a few answers ready in case they spring one of these ah weakness or failure questions on you. Continuing along this line of problem questions are the unethical questions. Those are questions that focus on personal issues and identity, things to do with race, religion, gender. These were not questions that you're gonna answer fully. I mean, you're not even gonna answer them. You're gonna turn it back on them or move away from the question. I always feel like if you're getting some of these questions in an interview, you should question whether you want to work for the person that's asking unethical things mean, why do they want to know these things? Why don't even think these things are important? So what are some response strategies that you can use? People are throwing unethical questions at you. There's one called the direct but brief response. If somebody says something like, Do you attend church regularly? You can just say in a brief style directly. Yes, I do. And then you let the dead air go and they will have to fill it. They will have to ask another question. There's another strategy called the polite question. So that is you turning the question back on the person. If somebody says What does your husband do, You could say, Why do you ask? Because that's a strange question to ask in the first place. They shouldn't be asking that another response strategy is polite refusal. So if they ask, Do you have any Children? You might say my family plans will not interfere with my ability to perform this position. You're not really answering it right, and that's your right. It's your right not to get into such personal questions. And then, finally, another response strategy is turning the question in a new direction. So somebody else say something like, Where were You Born? And you could say I'm quite proud of my background is X because it's helped me deal effectively with people of various ethnic backgrounds to see you've turned what could be a negative into a positive by going in that new direction. So these are some easy, quick responses that you could throw back at the interviewer by use. This is a red flag. If they're asking these questions, it's a big problem. The big, unethical question that was asked many years ago that obviously can't be asked anymore is, you know, are you planning on getting pregnant? That kind of a question is obviously wrong, and companies can get into trouble nowadays with with the policies and also government rules about the sorts of things they can't really get into some of these private issues of identity in a race, religion, gender and so on. Just keep that in mind that you have, ah, cool, calm collected response to these kind of questions and second, consider whether you want to work for somebody who's asking such questions. 8. Your Questions for the Hiring Manager: Usually at the end of the interview, you have an opportunity to ask your questions. This is a great opportunity to show your preparation. So what you've done remember I said that before you're even getting into preparation for your questions, you should be preparing information about the organization, and that's can spark some questions for the end of the interview. If they ask you for questions at the end and you don't have any that can show a lack of preparation or maybe a disinterest in the organization. But if you've done your work, you've looked into the organization. You read their website and maybe some news about the organization. You could ask a really smart question, like I noticed in your annual report that you're developing a new Children's program. Will the successful candidate be involved in that project? So see how I've taken my preparation and used it to ask a smart question about the company . Now, should you ask about money about salary, I don't think you should bring it up. Sometimes they will bring it up. Now, I'll ask you and what are your expectations? It's a good idea. Have an answer to that. Some things you can look on Web sites like Glassdoor dot com. There's some other websites where you can search and get expected salaries in that area. I don't really like talking about the money at that stage. My answer to that question is usually I'll think about that. If I have receive an offer, make it look like you're so focused on this interview and the questions and your skills and experience that you haven't even really given it much thought, even though you might have given it thought, I don't want to be limiting myself by say, Well, I want $100,000 then I'm not gonna get a callback because their budget is no more than $60,000 or something that you don't want price yourself. At that point, you want them to take it all the way to making you an offer, and then you worry about the money, so that's usually how I would deal with questions of money. Don't ask selfish things like how much of vacation time you're going to get or things like that. That's not something you ask at the end of a job interview. Just make sure you have those really smart questions for them. 9. Fundamentals of Good Answers to the Hiring Manager's Questions: in a previous lesson, I talked about the possible questions that might come up in this course. Includes a PdF file listing of those questions. I mentioned that you should prepare your answers in this video lesson. I'm gonna talk more about what those answers should look like. It's not good enough. Just have answers and know what questions might be asked. There's a certain type of answer that you need to offer, so you're gonna be preparing those answers. You've got to memorize them now. It doesn't have to you word for word. I mean off to my answers on my when I write them down or just point form and then I'll fill it out with my words as I speak. But you wanna have those memorized and to go even beyond just answers to questions. You may also want to have a little to do list where you say here, the things I want to. Eventually during this interview, get whether that person asks me the right questions or not. I want to get to the's great things about me. At some point. Somewhere in the interviews, you might have three or four achievements. Maybe that you want to make sure you do mention sometime during the interview so you can have that memorized as well. Just a quick little 3.4 point lists of things you want to get to its some point, along with the memorised answers to those questions that I gave you previously. What about length? So questions of answered length I've done so many interviews with people, and the worst answers are the ones that simply are one word answers where people just say yes or no. I even if the person is asking you a question that can be answered with just yes, just to know. And it's an honest question, not an unethical question like we saw in a previous lesson. You should same or than yes or no, you should elaborate on it. What does that mean in terms of length? I mean, you don't want to talk for more than a minute for an answer. Minute and 1/2. If you are doing the mock interview practice that I encourage, then you can see how long your answers are on your recorded file on your computer. What does this mean in terms of sentences? Maybe 567 sentences per answer. If you're going too long, you may get yourself into trouble. I always find when I when I talk too much in an answer, I get into trouble. They started improvising too much. You don't want to go off your planned answer too much because I can get you into trouble and I find in some interviews it's It's the people who say too much. Sometimes let's start raising doubts so you don't want to say one word, but you also don't want to go on for five minutes for three minutes or something like that . There's a nice middle ground there where you're going to give enough oven Answer to show that you know what you're talking about, but you don't want to do too much. So in the rest of this video, we're gonna look at week answers. So I've done hundreds of interviews and the answers that are particularly poor fall into certain categories or certain things that people are doing wrong. We'll look at some examples of that that will turn to the strong answers. So what you should be saying to the interviewer and then we're gonna look at some sample strong answers from actual interviews. What are weak answers? I've got a few categories here of weak answers that I've seen in my experience. The 1st 1 is skills, so someone will say something like, I know how to use the latest version of Microsoft Excel and I always respond to this in my brain thinking. So what? You know how to use the latest version of Microsoft Excel Great. So many other people know how to use the latest version of Microsoft Excel. What's not happening here is the person is not linking the use of Microsoft excel to some sort of achievement. What have you achieved with this tool? So don't just relate your skills relate them to successes, and we'll get MAWR into those ideas of success and achievement in the next slide. The other category that people often comment in is a thing that I call things you did. So you might say I directed strategy and reviewed contributions from the team. Okay, great. I mean these air task. You know, when you see a job ad, it says the successful candidate will do X y and zed. Okay, so you've done those things, but you can't stop there. You have to talk about how those contributions lead to some success. Also, a lot of the people who in the job interviews I have done will say things like, I am a very hard worker. Anybody could say that you could be the laziest person in the world, the person that's on their couch all day doing nothing, and you can come to a job interview and lie. And you can say I'm a very hard worker. That doesn't prove it. And we need evidence. We need proof. We need success and achievement, and these kinds of answers just don't do that. They're too focused on static things and tasks that you've done, and none of this would set you apart from anybody else. Remember, there's other candidates. There's other candidates and know how to use Excel. This other candidates a directed strategy and reviewed contributions from the team. There are other candidates that are hard workers. How are you going to set yourself apart from other candidates? That's what we'll talk about in the next slide. So what do you strong answers look like? Well, first of all, if you've done your preparation answers that show. You know something about the company. Those air strong answers. Beyond that, there are two things that I believe can help you. The 1st 1 is to focus on objective achievements. So you could say something like, I won the yearly award for the highest volume seller. So somebody else somebody objective gave you an award for sales. That's an objective achievement, you know, Week answer would be something like I was a great seller of products, but that's not enough. That's two general. Anybody could say that. You've got to say, I want a yearly award. Don't lie. I mean, you actually did win the award. But that objective achievement says something way stronger than the generality that I'm a great seller or some like that. Another one could be. I was promoted from cashier to manager in one year. That's an objective fact. It's already on your resume, but you're accentuating that you're highlighting that in the job interview. That's objective. You were promoted. Nobody can deny that. And it says a lot that you went from cashier to manager in just one year. Wow, that's a big achievement. And also in that achievement, it was somebody else that was saying, You're awesome. We're gonna promote another example of an objective achievement would be my software innovation saved the company $230,000. Again, you could say I'm a great software programmer or inventor or whatever, but that's not enough. But if you give the money number Wow, that's amazing. Objective achievement. Another thing you can do. We'll see these in the sample answers. To come in this video is you can tell little success stories, these air, not novels. They're just a few sentences where you take the interviewer into the workplace, like in a time machine, back to a specific moment where you had to deal with somebody. These are great answers for those behavioral questions that I talked about earlier. Don't give how you would deal with something generally. Instead, give a riel example when something went wrong and you solved the problem so a little success story could go like this. The customer was yelling, and I calmed her down by providing two options. A credit to her account or a discount. She accepted the credit and gave us a positive review on our website. That's an explanation showing you a specific moment where you succeeded in, for example, customer service. So that's a little success story that you could mention that brings to life your work in the workplace and the more details you have in those little success stories, the more re a little seem. I won't seem like you're making this story up. It'll seem like it really was something that you did successfully. So focus on those objective achievements and tell a few of those little success stories. I think that will set you apart from the other candidates that will push your answers further so you won't simply be speaking in generalities and things that anybody could say vague answers that anybody could say You'll be speaking in very specific, objective examples. 10. REAL INTERVIEW ANSWER: The Challenging Problem Question: I want to share with you. Some sample strong answers, and these fall into four questions. Ah, question about a challenging problem. A question about a project you initiated about. How do you stay organized and how do you persuade? And these are candidates, riel people answering riel questions. And I want you to watch these videos and listen very carefully to their answers. And after each candidate, I will talk a little bit about what went well in that specific answer. So let's look at the first candidate under the challenging problem. Question. Um, can you give me an example of a time when you had to solve a challenging problem? How did you respond to that challenge I get? So I worked at Canada's Wonderland when I was in high school, and a big um, rule at Canada's Wonderland is you are not allowed to line job, and it is something that happens quite often. So I was working at the top of a waterside is it was a lifeguard, and there were two parents with two little girls, and they had to inner tubes to send them down. They went down. They kept one inner tube and Then the little girls came back up. Skip the line as a whole and they want to go try to go down again. I'm so I very politely informed the parents I Unfortunately, that was considered line jumping. It wasn't allowed. It was a very busy day. It wasn't fair to the rest of the kids, as well as parents that were waiting in line for a very long time. The two months that were with those two little girls started to get very aggravated, very frustrated with me. Ah, they didn't understand why we have the rule in place. So I did my best to explain it to them in a very positive manner. Keep friendly with them understanding about like, you know what is frustrating. It's a long lineup. After about five minutes, I started to realize that it was becoming out of my comfort zone. I was able to handle it on my own, so I did, and I called some calling somebody to help me out to sort of explain that. So I wasn't by myself in the situation, as I did recognize that it was beginning to get out of control and it wasn't a situation that was to be dealt with on my own. Okay, so we can see in this answer that she's given that she's given a very specific example of the workplace. She works at a water park. Thes parents are jumping the line with their kids, and she calmly and clearly shows how she dealt with it. And she does escalate that to her manager, and that just shows that she knows policy. She knows procedure, and we get a little taste of, ah, of an actual behaviour. So there's a good answer to a behavioral question, and she seems very friendly. She has a good pace. She's speaking fairly clearly all the things that I talk about in this course. Now let's turn to the next candidate and see how he answered that very same question about the challenging problem. Can you give me an example of a time when you had to solve a challenging problem? How did you respond to that challenge? Yeah, two years ago, I worked at a restaurant or did Jack Astor's, and my job was to do Pantry would be a pantry chef, so I made just pizzas in case ideas, nachos, stuff like that. So I didn't have any experience in ah, pre making, um, like PICO and guacamole and the prep stuff so I'd never experienced in that. But we got really busy one night, and we ran out of PICO and guacamole. So they asked me to come off the line and go make it myself. And I had had no experience during that. So I had to go on the work computer, look up the recipes from our website, and then I had to locate all of the items throughout the back of the restaurant because I had no idea where they were either. And then I had to, uh, chop everything up by the food processor and get it all out in a relatively quick time because we needed it for a bunch of warders over still on the board. So in this example, he, too, is giving that specific case from the workplace. If he was applying for a restaurant job, I could see how this would be. Ah, very, very good example of when he was faced with a problem of not having guacamole and other things for the restaurant. And he gives that one night that one night experience. Don't speak in generalities. Give a specific example that shows exactly how you overcame that problem. And he saw the problem and it was difficult for him. But he solved it. And we get a taste again of that workplace experience in a very, very specific case. And this wasn't a really long answer. He didn't spend five minutes talking about it. He gave it concisely. He gave all the details so I could understand the challenge and then how he dealt with it. 11. REAL INTERVIEW ANSWER: The Project Question: the next set of sample. Strong answers concerns a project. So I asked this question off. Three candidates. Let's go through each video in turn and really listen carefully to their answers, and I'll provide some comments after each one. Let's go to the first candidate. Can you even example of a project that you initiated? So at community care, we have 160 volunteers I had mentioned before we. Actually, when I started in 2015 we weren't really addressing the inclusiveness and diversity of our clients. We don't just see people who are struggling with their funds. The low income. We see a diverse population and some of our volunteers mostly mostly or seniors who are retirees where there during working school hours so they don't necessarily understand all of our clients. Mental health issues, addictions issues. So we actually implemented a one hour Siri's, uh to one hour Siri's of diversity and inclusion training. So understanding that people coming from different ethnic backgrounds, religious backgrounds, again with mental health and addictions, hoping that all of our volunteers would go through that it took about a year and 1/2 to get all of our current volunteers through it. And now all of our volunteers air to do it within the 1st 3 months. Okay, great. So here she talks about a problem. So there's a training problem with their volunteers. And she gives a very specific example of these 21 hour Siris of training to believe for some older volunteers at the charity. And that's a very specific example, a problem that's been solved through a project that she has come up with that she has invented. And it seems like it has worked. And they've, you know, they've actually trained most of these volunteers at this point. That's just a really good specific example. Let's now see how the next candidate answered this same question. Can you give an example of a project that you initiated in the workplace When I worked at half value, my manager came to me as she was in a scared that our sales were decreasing and she wanted me to kind of bring storm and come up with an idea as to how to increase sales. I came up the idea of doing a customer appreciate appreciation barbecue, and on that day we handed out free hot dogs, hamburgers and drinks. And we also had a customer donation. Can't, uh, can I guess? And all of those donations went to the germ Humane Society, and the barbecue was a great success, which was good. How much money did you raise to remember, I believe? Well, it was in food, cans of food. So it was like a dollar 49 cents per can. And I believe we got, like, 40 cans. That's pretty good. Yeah, So on this project we get this customer appreciation barbecue it barbecue that's described with the donations and so on. She did a good job to mention the actual name of the employer right off the bat, which was pet value. Ah, lot of people will often not mention the name of the organization. They just say at their last job or a couple of years ago, they did this. It's always good to name Drop that organization, cause it constantly reminds you, has the hiring manager off what you know, the company was all about now the end of the interview. I did ask that question about how much they made, and I do that because she did not actually go far enough to say how much money or how many cans she got. It would have been perfect if she had also added that detail that final outcome. So it's not enough just to say that you have this barbecue. But what was the final outcome in terms of donations? The next video actually does that same thing on a similar theme. Now can you give me the example of a project that you've initiated or you've been a leader on? Yes. So a few years back, I'm I did hold the title of Miss Brampton when I was 17 years old and when it was coming to the end of my I guess you would call it your Rain. I helped out with the product that the competitors that would be running for the current year had to take part in. So I found an organization in Brampton Regeneration Brampton, which is a food shelter for those that do not have, you know, a place to live or that do you have a place to live but not necessarily means to provide food for themselves, and I organized for all of the competitors to collect items such as toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant, stuff like that. Teoh give to this shelter. So in total, I believe that we collected over 300 items for the shelter. Great. So see how she had a similar example to the last candidate. This one again, is about donations and is a shelter Now. She actually named the shelter itself Regeneration Brampton. So she gave really specific details. The more specific you are, the more riel that it seems. So she gives that example, and then she closes it off with the 300 items. That's a lot of items to get through this campaign, this project that she initiated. So that's a good example of giving very specific details, not talking too long. I think it's about a minute, but giving that specific case and the oak focus on the outcomes, not just what you did in that project. 12. REAL INTERVIEW ANSWER: The Organization Question: another question you might get asked deals with organization prettily. If you're younger applicant, they want to know what techniques you're using to stay organized. They've got one good answer for this one. So let's listen to this candidate. My next question is described a situation where you had many projects to at the same time. How did you stay organized? Yes. Oh, my time management planning skills. Um, take Brydon and I like to plan ahead. Um, all my all right here. Actually, I have a board of everything. All my stuff for the year. I put everything in order and have all the dates and times on them when they're dio. So then I'll plan a specific time slot for myself to look at them toe, get it through my head and process it and then I'll have I'll set certain sections of time during the weekends. Ah, or nighttime daytime whenever I have free time and I'll preset those times to work on them in advance so that when the due dates do come, I already have most of it done, if not all of it. So here he's clearly prepared for this question, and I did give all of these candidates the questions so they could practice them, and he's clearly prepared that answer with what I like to see specific techniques. Some people will just generally answer this question and say that they're a very organized person and they always got things done on time. But that doesn't really help me understand exactly what you do to stay organized. He was doing a Skype interview, so he was able to actually point out behind his head that board that you see in the top right corner there in a face to face interview. He obviously wouldn't have that kind of prop. But he was ready for that and he was ready to show me that behind him and get into some specifics about how he stays organized. And I think it's those details that make it more real. They make it seem like this is actually true. He is not making this up. He's not a lazy guy who is just saying he's well organized. He's really showing it. So your answers need to show that, And that was about a minute of an answer. That's probably enough for this specific question. 13. REAL INTERVIEW ANSWER: The Persuasion Question: the final strong answer deals with the question called How do you persuade? This is a challenging question because people often give very general answers. They say, Yeah, I'm persuasive and what I do. Some people don't understand what persuasion means, and they give a completely unrelated answer. But most importantly, people don't answer this question with specific examples. And throughout all of these videos I've talked about give examples, give riel cases, and this candidate does that. Can you give an example of a time when you had to persuade or convince other people to take action? So again, with the volunteering, um, it is very, very hard to get volunteers out on Saturday, so sometimes it means, um voluntary again with um showing them that students can do it. Seniors could do it and persuading with a little, maybe show up with some Tim bits may show with some coffee. I know it seems small, but for someone giving three hours of their time or four hours of their time, it is a difficult task, especially through outside in the cold, especially if they're outside the heat that sometimes just, um loving them know that they're doing something that's worthwhile as well as course, And then what treats is good? Okay, so there's a good example, because I think it shows to the hiring manager that she's really had to experience getting volunteers to come out on Saturdays or Sundays. It's not easy to get people who are not being paid to come out and do things. So she shows that reality of the person who has to manage volunteers. She mentions making them feel worthwhile, sometimes coming out of volunteering with them. So obviously, she's already done this before. She's showing that experience, and then she mentions, kind of coursing them, are convincing them, come out with some treats. If you're Canadian, you'll know what a Tim bit is, a little doughnut ball that people bring out in boxes and that kind of thing, but also coffee. So she's actually had to do this to get those volunteers to come out. You also notice with this example it's a short one, but she does smile a bit at the end. She seems friendly about it, and I'm sure that you're a hiring manager who is hiring someone to be involved the volunteers. You can relate to this experience so you get a little laugh out of that idea as well 14. Non-Verbal and Verbal Communication Problems to Fix: in this lesson, we'll look at some communication principles of the verbal kind and the non verbal kind. Some of these things, certainly in the verbal section or things you've probably heard about. But we have to forget about the non verbal communication that were giving off in a job interview. So let's take a look first at the verbal on the verbal side, the first thing to look out for when you performing the job interview is to speak loudly enough. A lot of people go in very shy, and they want to be deferential to the interviewer, so they speak very quietly and sometimes you can't hear it at all. And so you can't get the total answer. So if you're not speaking loudly enough, you're not getting that information out to the interviewer. So that's the first key point on the verbal performance side. Second is, you need to reduce Thea MMS and Aahs and likes. It's almost impossible to remove all of these things. And perhaps somewhere in this course, I've said, um ah and like, but you need to reduce one of the ways to reduce it is to be aware of it and to listen to yourself on your mock interview and see if you're doing it. If you If you got a few peppered here and there, that's not a big deal. But some people get their speech overrun by hums and likes and Oz, and that's when it becomes annoying. So you just don't want to do it so much that it becomes a new ing. So listen to yourself in the mock interview and see if you are doing those things, those little verbal interruptions. Another thing that comes up in some people speech is up talk. I don't know if you've heard of this before, but it kind of reminds me of the way people talk in California. Sometimes used to be a thing when I was young, called Valley Girl Talk. Basically up talk means that you are going up in your melody in your voice at the end of sentences when there's no question. So, of course, as we talk, we can speak in a monotone style. So that is Hi, my name is Duncan Kerber, and I am going to talk to you about job training. You see how there's no melody there but singers? No, you have to go up and down in your melodies. So if you listen to me talking right now, sometimes I'm going up. Sometimes I'm going down. That's fine. But some people go up constantly at the end of a sentence, even when there's no question. So when we ask a question, we go up. Do you want the burger or the fries? See, I went up on that, but on things that are statements, we just go down when the period comes at the end of the sentence. If I say I've worked really hard this term, right? I went down when I hit turn, but some people, when they have up, talked ago. I worked really hard this term, and then I did a lot of studying, and I got great grades to see how I went up. When the period comes at the end of the sentence, and that could be really annoying, and more importantly, it shows a lack of confidence. You're almost questioning your own statements as if they are questions, so we want to go down of the end of a sentence. You could go up in the middle of a sentence. That's fine. I'm doing that when I'm talking to you right now, but I go down at the end of a sense, and that gives us more confidence. This tends to happen mawr with women than men, and it's been proven in studies to be more of a thing that men don't do on women do. But I've even noticed, and I taught a course a few years ago on presentations at a university, and in that class, I noticed a lot of young men were doing up. Talk is well, so it seems to be a trend, maybe from popular culture. People talk like that on YouTube videos and so on. But you want to avoid that to show more confidence. Now let's turn to the next verbal problem that you need to make sure you're not doing in your speech, and that is avoiding slang now. This doesn't come up that often, cause most of us know that we do a job interview. We don't speak in the slang that we might say to a friend like you wouldn't say in a job interview that's sick or that's dope, man, You wouldn't say that, but I once in a while, maybe 101 100 students that I interview each term talks like that. So you've got to reduce that. You want to project that you are a mature member, a possible member of an organization, not some street slang person. Next, try to slow down a bit and savor your words. There's a tendency to speak very fast when you're nervous. So you're talking like this. You're talking like that. You're talking so fast that no one can understand you. Slow down. Just savor your words, Say the full sentence. Don't mumble or trail off. Some people have a tendency to trail off in volume as they get to the end of the sentence. You see, I trailed off there. They're not sure what to say. They don't know where they're going with a son, so they just trail off the end of the sentence. We don't want to do that. You want to speak the same volume right to the end of the sentence. And that projects a sense of confidence to non verbal communication is the process of intentionally or unintentionally signaling meaning through behaviour other than words. We all communicate nonverbally every day, so it's not just about what you say but how you convey it in many different ways with your body. In many ways, you communicate without even realizing it. There's a great video on YouTube. If you have a moment. Google, Mark Boden, b o W D e n And he is a video about the inauthentic cell. So he makes an argument that we often don't want to do job interviews or presentations or whatever human communication we do. And that shows it shows in our body language and our facial expressions, and his video is a great one to watch. It's one of those Ted talks where he shows how you have to sometimes change your body language or your gestures, your facial expressions to make it look like you really do care about what's going on. And so, in a job interview, I've seen situations where you can tell the person does not want to be there. They don't like doing job interviews, and that shows in their body language is a thing. Koth leakage queues and these air unintentional nonverbal behaviors that are not very flattering. They don't make you look very good, and often you don't even realize you're doing it. If you are doing the mock video recording of your interview, as I mentioned earlier in the course, then you're going to see some of these. So what are they? Well, first of all, we have gestures and body movement. What's your body language like? Are you biting your nails or you're fidgeting? Are you twisting your hair? That's one. People have long hair. They often twisted as they're talking. Some people like to crack their knuckles during an interview. I've seen people wipe their knows a lot like their noses, not even running. It's just a natural reaction. When they're nervous, they just start rubbing their nose. Some people cross their arms. Mark Boden, in that video that I mentioned on YouTube, talks about how crossing your arms suggests you're not happy with things or confrontational . These were all things that happen when you're nervous. So once you get over those nerves, you'll avoid some of those automatic gestures or body movements. The next one is facial expressions. Some people often will have frowns when they're doing job interviews. I don't know why, but they can't get a frown on their face, or they just look nervous. in the face, their tents, and it really helps to smile. You don't want to overdo it. Sometimes you can smile too much. But maybe going into the interview, just think about that. You want to be friendly and smile a bit when it's appropriate. Also, I behavior is interesting. We're looking at nonverbal communication. Ah, lot of you'll don't want to look people in the eyes and in certain cultures to look. Someone in the eyes is seen as, ah, problem that you are questioning authority or something, so they tend to look away. But actually, in our culture shows respect, it shows confidence. Toe. Look, somebody in the eyes Now you're not gonna look 100% of the time right in the person's eyes during the interview. But you do most of the time. Look at them when you're speaking. Now, if you look away too much, it suggests boredom that you dislike doing this interview that you're not confident yourself. So be careful of your eye behavior and then finally, clothing. So you want to dress well, but you want to make sure that it's correct for the job itself and the environment. If you're doing a job interview at a car garage. You're gonna work as a mechanic. You're not gonna come in in a tuxedo. That would look awful. You? No, the stupid to come to that interview with a tuxedo. If you're looking at a job, let's say landscaping, cutting grass and stuff like that again. You're not gonna come in a tuxedo or even a tailored suit. Maybe just a dress shirt and dress. Pants would be nice. You don't want to draw too much attention to your clothes that can have a think. You just wanna have a nice professional look that is a step above maybe what you would normally wear to work, but not too much that it draws attention to the close itself. Also, you may want to get a fresh haircut eso that you don't look too messy on the day of, and I also suggest getting your interview clothes ready a few days before because sometimes we think we have that dress shirt in the closet somewhere. We have those pants somewhere, and then on the day of the interview, we go to our closet. We realize it's all wrinkled, and we don't have an iron and should have gone to the dry cleaners or something like that. So you want to make sure a few days in advance that you've got your interview clothes ready to go. They don't need dry cleaning or ironing or anything like that, and then on the day you just take it off the hanger and it's ready to go. 15. Skype Principles and Problems: Everything I've talked about in this course applies to all job interviews. But there's a new player in the job interview business that requires a little more discussion, and that is the Skype job interview. And now this could be any job interview done through any video sound software, so it may be face time, but often it's Skype. I've done a few of these in my own experience in terms of jobs I've applied for and have also interviewed hundreds of students over Skype myself. So let's get into some of the unique issues that come up with doing a online video interview. The biggest challenge with Skype interviews is primarily technical, so there are some technical issues that will come up. Let's go through those. First of all, you have to be concerned with the lighting of the room you're in. So sometimes if you're in a room that's very dark, your computer will try to adjust. But it just doesn't look clear enough. Also, you don't want to have the lighting behind your head so some people will do interviews where the window during the daytime is right behind them, and so that illuminates the back of their head, not their face. We need lighting on your face during the interview. I've even sometimes taken lamps from other parts of my house and put them in front of my computer. So behind the camera, on that way, the light is coming from behind the computer onto my face. That's a little trick that people in television would understand. Get that lighting on the face and some of the great loggers is, as they're called on YouTube off to have a little light source right behind there. Computer. You can buy those on Amazon that will illuminate the face really well. So you want to see that face now. You should be close enough to your camera, and usually this would be on your laptop so that we see your face and maybe the top half of the upper body, so we don't want to see your whole body. We don't want to see the majority of you. We just want to get that faces. We want to see facial expressions, but we don't want tohave the face so close that it's your chin on the bottom of the screen and the top of the head on the top of the screen that's a little too tight. So back up a bit, move your chair a little bit back. Also, one thing I've noticed with Skype interviews is often the Internet connection is not good, so find a reliable Internet connection. If you don't have that at home, you may want to actually create a hot spot on your cell phone and do your connection from your laptop to your cell phones. Internet or cellular data is often that is more reliable and depends on your house and your location in your neighborhood. My Internet connection sometimes drops out, and that could be a problem. Now we all know that these things can occur. We can't necessarily completely prevent them, and I assume the person interviewing you will know that to. The other thing is, we often don't know whether the Internet breakdown is on the employer's side of things or the interviewees side of things. He won't be blamed if there's cutting out of the connection. Skype is pretty good at also downgrading the connection. If things are not going very well in terms of your Internet speed, it'll sometimes degrade the image. But keep the voice clear so that we can at least hear the person on the other end of things . But I would suggest having a backup app ready to go in case the Internet just drops down completely. So by that I mean do the interview on your laptop so you're using your laptop webcam. But if that's not working, have the app on your phone the same app. So the Skype app on your phone, and you can quickly jump over to that one and call the person back in case there's Ah, breakdown. I've had to do that a few times also, sometimes if you've never used Skype or even if you have, sometimes the sound just will not be working. So you'll call the person or they'll call you and you can see them. But you can't hear them or they can't hear you. And in that case, it's best to jump over to your cell phone and use the cell phone app. It always works in terms of the sound. The only problem with using the cell phone app is you've got a prop it up. Obviously, your laptop automatically the screen is propped up, right, so it's nice And still, if you're using your cell phone app to talk to the interviewer, then you've got a prop it up on a book or something like that. And sometimes it can fall, and that's not good. You don't want to hold your cell phone in your hand because then it shakes too much, and that looks really unprofessional. But have that back up ready. Then finally, try to keep dogs, cats, other animals, kids out of the room that may require you to lock the door if you're doing this at home. If you're in an office, lock your office store, find a conference room that no one's gonna be using because that could be a distraction. I remember one of my students was doing an interview from home, and the dog was trying to get in the room and was barking and that kind of thing, and she had to stop the interview and go and take the dog away to a further room. There's a famous Skype interview on TV, not for a job, but just an expert was speaking on TV from I Think Hong Kong. And as he was speaking to the journalist through Skype and on live television. His daughter is like three year old or four year old daughter just came running into the room behind him to see Daddy, and then another kid in a walker came, you know, flying into the room. And then after that, his wife came running into the room to grab the two kids and pulled them away. And this was all seen in the background of the Skype video on, and it became viral on the Internet. You can find that video online of those kids interrupting, so we want to keep the dogs. You want to keep the kids out of the room. We want total silence. We want to ensure that there's total silence for the duration of the interview onto performance. The first main tip when you're performing a Skype job interview is to keep your head relatively still. So Skype accentuates movement because you're you're so close to the camera. So if you're moving your head to Meijer, you're shifting back and forth in your chair. Sometimes people have a rotating movement on the chair. They shift back and forth. That becomes accentuated. If you've ever watched the nightly news on TV you know that the anchor keeps their head completely still. When they're reading the news, Watch that the next time you watch the news, they keep it very still nuts. Do not accentuate any movement that might be distracting, so try to keep your head relatively still. Sit in a chair that maybe doesn't shift or lock your chair in place so that you are straight to the camera. Second, look at the eyes of the interviewer on the screen, so don't look at the camera. The camera is positioned at the top of your laptop screen typically, and sometimes people will try to look into the camera. But it's best to look into the screen at the eyes of the person. It doesn't look unusual. It doesn't look like you're not looking right at them. But I know sometimes people will look at the camera, and that creates almost on awkward perspective, as if they're not looking right at me. And then, third, do not look at notes. There's a tendency with Skype interviews to put a bunch of notes on the wall in front of you or on your desk in front of you, so you do not have to memorize your answers to questions, but that's really noticeable. When you look off screen at something, it's very noticeable, and it shows perhaps a lack of preparation. I mean, I know you have notes there, so that's preparation, but a lack of preparation in terms of memorization and just knowing your stuff. So make sure you've got all those answers down and do not have any notes. Don't have, like a little no pad file on your screen. I can see when I do these interviews with students I can see when they're looking at a no pad, not at me on the Skype Channel. So just keep that in mind. You should internalize all those answers so you don't have to look at any notes. You wouldn't look at any notes if you were in a face to face job interview, so don't do it in the Skype interview. Don't fall back on that. If you internalize your answers, they'll come out of your mouth more naturally. But if you have reading off notes, they're going to come across as stilted as to prepared as if you're reading off a script. And that isn't conducive to creating a natural delivery 16. On the Day and After: Finally, let's turn to some issues on the day of the interviews, we're gonna talk about some preparation issues and some performance issues for face to face job interviews. Then I'll turn to a little bit about what to do after the interview ends. Now let's look at the on the day principles when you're actually going out to do that. Interview first, I would suggest planning to arrive early. I remember one of my first job interviews. I was probably 20 years old, 21 I was going to a different city on the train, and I hadn't really scoped out the neighborhood or the building itself. So it was all new to me and I didn't give myself enough time. So I arrived pretty close to that interview time. I found my way to the building, but when I got there, I didn't realize that the elevators were extremely slow. They had me one elevator working, and it was extremely slow and actually made it up to the floor in the building a little bit late, and I was so worried. I was so stressed out, so just make sure you arrive early so you can avoid all that. I would even suggest going the day before and just scoping out the area. See how long it takes you to walk over from the train station or wherever your parking going to the building. You could even try the elevators, see if they're working that kind of a thing, and that will give you some peace of mind when the day comes that you don't have to worry about actually getting there on time. Next, bring your resume and references. I know you've already sent those, usually to the hiring manager size. They'll just ask for a resume. So it's good to have those references on paper in case they asked for them. But sometimes they want another copy, and it's nice to have those with you. I would also suggest bringing a no pad and pen to write down the questions. As you're asked, This may look a little strange. You might think that's unusual. Toe have a no pad and pen with you, but I actually think it gives you a kind of studious look like someone who is really careful and and curious, and it helps you sometimes with your train of thought so I always have a problem in interviews that I start talking on an answer. And then about two or three minutes into that answer, I forget what the question was. Or maybe there were two questions in one, and I've only answered one of those. So it's good to write those questions down, even just a few ah, point form words just to remind you. And then if you run into any problems with your train of thought, you just look down and you see it. But I think it looks really nice on the other side of the table from the hiring managers point of view to see you taking notes. It looks like you're really serious. Next, try to be nice to everybody. So I know we want to be nice to the, uh to the interviewer, the hiring manager. But it's important to be nice. Also to the secretary, the admit assistant, whoever is your first point of contact with the organisation because that person may be asked with, you know, what do you think about the candidate? How did they deal with you? So if you're dealing well with those people, maybe the word will get around to the hiring manager. When you get into the room with the hiring manager of the interviewer, give a good handshake, strong handshake and some eye contact. Even if you're a very shy person, you may even want to practice that with one of your family members or friends. Just get used to giving a good handshake, some eye contact. Not too much eye contact, but enough toe look like you're not too shy. And then, finally, a key thing is to listen. When we are nervous, we tend to be thinking about our performance. We tend to be thinking about how we're feeling about doing the interview, and that is a big problem, because that's very much an inward perspective. Instead, you want to be just listening to every single word that person says, putting out of your mind, anything that you're thinking, putting those nerves out of your mind. Putting the negativity out of your mind. And just listening to the person's question on this is really important to sometimes when I've done interviews, the interview E doesn't actually answer the question. So the way I've worded the question is to prompt often a very specific example from the candidate. And yet the person didn't listen properly, and they give me a different answer, and that's not gonna help them at all. In my assessment of their abilities. Let's look at the period after the interview. So first you should email a thank you note the day after the interview. Make sure it's grammatically correct. Maybe run it through a website like graham early dot com to make sure there's no mistakes in it and just thank them for the courtesies you received. And that will remind them of you, probably if there were a lot of candidates. Now, if you're lucky enough to get an offer, great. But don't jump at it right away. Make sure you see all the terms of the contract. And also you might just be excited that you got a job offer. Maybe you've got other irons in the fire out there. Maybe you've got other jobs coming up. You don't want to jump at the 1st 1 that comes along just because you're excited that they offered it to you. Think about the company. Think about whether you really want to work there or you're just excited to have a paycheck . Then finally, when you do get that offer, consider negotiating. So a lot of people, particularly young people, will take the first offer and run with it. They don't want it to be rejected or turned down or something like that. But generally speaking, you can ask for a little more money, some perks, maybe a new computer for the office. Or, you know, whatever you're thinking. If you're in an academic position, you can ask for research, budget so on. So consider negotiating a little bit. It's expected. Now, in some companies, they may not be able to do anything relief there unionized because there will be set rates of pay on a grid. So if you're beginning employees, you really can't negotiate anything. But in a lot of private companies, you can and they like you remember, they really like you. So you can up that money offer a little bit. And don't worry about going too high. I mean, you don't want to go beyond something reasonable, but the worst case scenario is that they say sorry, we can't go that high and you're stuck with the original offer number. They're not gonna pull the offer away