Job Interview Coach

Do you advise people to "mirror" the personality of their interviewers? I've always been confused by this: does an 'alpha male' interviewer want someone who matches his "alpha-ness", or does he want you to be submissive so he can out-alpha you?

Asked by breclaw almost 11 years ago

When two people are naturally in harmony with one another, like when they really connect on a personal level, they actually copy each other’s behaviors. So you will find very similar body language at the exact same moment between two friends or two people engaged in conversation. You may find uses of each other’s phrases or slang or things like that. That's what is meant by mirroring, it's a natural behavior where people copy one another.

Some people advocate that you should mirror each other during a job interview. To be honest, if you can get away with creating similar behavior as your job interviewer, like for instances, if they have a certain way of folding their hands. It's not a bad idea to copy folding their hands in that way. But if you force yourself to repeatedly copy their behavior, it's going to look kind of creepy and unnatural.

So the key in doing any sort of mirroring behavior is to make it look natural. In doing that, you will make yourself seem more similar to the interviewer and you will be able to connect a bit more strongly, but if you spend too much time and focus on this it will just look creepy. So please be careful.

I've been out of a job for 8 months now but I'm going on lots of interviews so I must be doing something wrong. Do you ever recommend just EMAILING an interviewer and asking what the problem was? I don't think I'd get an honest answer.

Asked by Luis202 almost 11 years ago

If you've been getting lots of job interviews but you have not been getting job offers you should definitely collect feedback on your performance to find out what you are doing wrong. You are welcome to call the interviewer up and ask them for feedback on your performance. They may or may not give you an answer, but if you put them on the phone they are at least not afraid of having something in written form like an email that the legal department may not be comfortable with. So having them on the phone will be more candid than an email response and also, because it's a call that would be something they are not ready for and they will be less careful with their words and they will be more willing to give an honest answer.

In addition to reaching out to your interviewer, you can also reach out to an interview coach, an employment agency, a local nonprofit that helps people with job placement, and you can also hire a professional coach to give you feedback on your interview performance.

But ultimately, if you are interviewing multiple times and not getting job offers, it's really important to figure out what's stopping you and fix that problem as quickly as possible.

What's the single biggest mistake you can make in an interview?

Asked by Betehchg almost 11 years ago

The single biggest mistake you can make during a job interview is not focusing on the core objective of a job interview. Simply put, the core objective of a job interview is to prove that you are the perfect fit for the job and that you are going to bring value to this job and to this company.

So if you spend your time asking about salary, benefits, or what the perks are of the job, or you spend your time focusing on powerful adjectives, like your fantastic, wonderful, unique that's really not going to help you with your case. The case that you need to present is why what you bring to the table solves the problems of that employer.

Do you believe the "body language is 90% of communication" thing?

Asked by Nick almost 11 years ago

When it comes down to the job interview, do I believe that body language is 90% of communication? In essence, all the interview comes down to is body language.

I actually want to answer this question with both a yes and a no. Body language can stop you from getting the job. But body language won't be enough for you to win a job offer.

Take the question, "Why did you leave your last job?" Some people who might have faced a layoff or had an awkward situation can look like guilty puppies or like your hand stuck in the cookie jar on answering this question. That super guilty look can be enough to cause doubt in the interviewers mind and cause someone that job interview.

In a recent career builder study, seventy-five percent of employers said that they have problems with interview candidates who aren't making significant eye contact. Basically, these people weren't confident of themselves and their abilities and this lack of eye contact made the interviewer start to doubt whether this person was competent or not. If you are afraid to make eye contact, which often happens when someone is lying, it's going to cause some doubts in the interviewers mind about your skills, abilities, and overall honesty and integrity.

So in all these cases, body language can actually cost you the job interview, plain and simple. But if you are able to manage basic body language, make reasonable eye contact, smile at appropriate times, and not look super negative or embarrassed or anything else that makes the interviewer doubt your overall qualifications for the job. That is going to come down to the substance of what you say during the interview.

What is the snowflake test?

Asked by Ndjdjddiodjsns over 4 years ago