Recently when giving multiple interviews, I understood that beyond learning a technology and having experience and being exceptional in your own work cracking interview is totally a different game. It is between two people trying to sell and buy an idea of the role of company matching the skills of employee and make both of them interested in each other to fulfil what they want. Every word you say in interview need to make it continue the conversation that is why avoid being wrong and avoiding saying no is mostly suggested. I tried to understand the situation and have a little better understanding of the situation, and derived some points:
- The first and foremost thing is to know that you are prepared. Learning is a continuous process, and it needs revision. So, if you were prepared few times back, maybe you are not prepared now, because human memory forgets. Always having some own testing criteria to know that you are prepared. Maybe having some flash cards ready for the topic to know if you are able to answer, if you are not, revise it.
- Be a better salesman than other candidates. You are there to make the interviewer buy the idea of you working with team and making things grow. You need to sell yourself with your skills, attitude and possibilities you go there with. Your skills matter but understand, when you buy a thing you see the packaging the pictures and marketing done for product. After use, the product might be one of the best but if packaging and marketing is not good it is hard to sell.
- When you need to talk about yourself, it is not about you, but it is about how you are aligned with the job requirements. If you don’t know job description, there is no way to align your answer to the job description.
- Example: I have multiple experience in different technologies and tools, so mostly it gets difficult to focus on one. I try to play on my strength like being average in almost all and utilize the best of all skills but when a job is specific to particular technology, nothing else matters, only one specific technology matters, and everything else is just a addon which can make the person lose interest if you can’t make it connect with the role.
- Try your best to be prepared for an interview even if there is no interview scheduled. This is because usually when you know about an interview scheduled, you get significantly lesser time to revise or gather information about the subject. Mostly, luck is the preparation meeting the opportunity. If you are not prepared, you can’t be lucky. If you don’t buy ticket of lottery, you will certainly never win it. Your preparation is your ticket to better opportunities.
- When you are answering a question, try to answer in first 3 sentences, that means the main 3 to 5 keywords related to correct answer of the question should be there before you start explaining it, that makes it immediate impact that you know what you are saying. That also means, if you are talking a lot like 5 minutes or more on same question, and not able to hit the nail on the head, that make the interviewer not interested in you. In other words, if you can’t explain a thing in simplicity and shortly maybe the idea is not at all clear to you.
- Try to avoid negativity in interview. Just think you are in an interview; the interviewer is excited about you making a positive impact on their work. Then when asking about your current job, or manager or something else, you start complaining. What will happen? Their mindset will convert into something negative. In place of looking into positivity of you working with them, they see your negativity making things wrong. Never be negative of anything or anyone while explaining the situation. Try to show that you are a good learner even if you aren’t aware of something. In real life also, try not to blame people or things, until that really going to make a positive impact, which means constructive feedback only. If you are blaming to escape your own complex situation, maybe you are making it more complex.
- Interview is not about seeking job and salary from employer, it is about solving the problem they have and how you are the good fit for solving the problem. If you are the good fit the next things like salary and situation will certainly come into picture. If you are not a good fit, you will hear any reason to be disqualified but you will never get to know what was wrong. You need to discover it yourself. After interview, try to go through all the questions you were asked and think about correct answer and/or correct way to answer it.
- Learn to accept the rejection, don’t blame, but try to learn what to improve. There are many jobs there in the world. Even if you are the best fit for every single one of them, you will never be able to work at every one of them. You are rejected at one place, because something else is waiting for you and you need a mindset of continuous improvement to grab that opportunity.
- Sometimes you think you were good at your job, and everybody was praising you in last assignment, so you have good knowledge and you can crack any interview. It is just an illusion. There is always a scope of improvement in your skills and knowledge.
- Failure are steppingstones to success only when you are ready to climb the stairs of self-improvement. Just think your interview went wrong and you blamed the interviewer or the call quality or your situation and that’s it. What are your action items after the failed interview?
Hope this helps in understanding and improving. All the best !!!