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THE PREVIOUS PREPARATION
Your main ally is preparing for the interview. The preparation includes your apparel, topic discussed in the previous chapter; your attitude in front of the interviewer, which we will discuss in this chapter; and research on your future employer, which we will discuss in chapter 8.
Get ready for anything you have to face, that is always good advice. A lot more if you have such important things on the table as your future work.
Even when we don’t have all the threads of our future available, we can make something for everything to be better.
STARTING BY THE BEGINNING
The importance of the first impression
THERE IS NO SECOND CHANCE TO GIVE A FIRST IMPRESSION
It sounds like just like a phrase, but think about it, it is true.
KNOWING HOW TO LISTEN
Knowing how to listen is a not very frequent virtue. I have a long experience as an interviewer, I am more aware of this type of circumstances than people with other professions.
I will give an example in order to expose my thoughts more clearly. Try to remember conferences or radio or television programs that include panelists or audience calls. An expert lecturer or other person exposes a topic. When it is time for the questions and they ask for the assistants’ opinion, instead of asking about the things they have heard about in order to understand the speech better or understand any point that was not clear or extend your knowledge, the person who speaks gives their opinion, which is rarely interesting for the rest, in the majority of cases, with not fundaments or support in front of a professor or a lecturer who is an specialist on the topic. Why does it happen? In some cases it can be arrogance, but most of the times, it is because people don’t know how to listen and prefer to listen to themselves.
In an interview, you should talk, and you will normally speak 70 or 80% of the time during the encounter. But when the interviewer speaks, you should listen, understand as much as possible what is said and if something is not clear ask again until you totally understand what you are told.
You should fully understand the question to answer it correctly and the interviewer should understand your answers.
Remember that people communicate with words and others with signs: the tone with which the words are said, the gestures that go with them and attitudes. Let’s use examples one more time. During an interview you are explaining your last job and your interviewer begins closing his notepad and takes out a presentation card. He says nothing and listens to you carefully… With his attitude of “closing” the notepad he is telling you that the time is over, that the interview is finished, as if he would have told you: “I don’t have more time because I have an appointment with another person now”.
If you notice these actions or if they expressly tell you so, don’t continue talking as if nothing would have happened or say: “I know you don’t have more time, but anyway I think it would interest you to know…” If you act like that, instead of putting the balance on your favor, you will get exactly the contrary. Therefore, the time for saying goodbye has arrived.
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