Have you ever interviewed for a job and you
didn't get it? Yeah, welcome to the club. A lot of people have; including me. Let's face it; getting hired for a job is
not easy. If that was, everybody have a job. But some people seem to be better at interviewing
and getting hired for jobs than others. So, in this video, I want to cover some of
the key characteristics that some people are doing to get jobs that maybe you're not doing. I used to be one of those people. I used to be able to walk into any job interview
and get hired for it. It's not because I was smarter or I was better
than my competition. But I'll tell you this; I was better at presenting
myself. So, someone might have been more qualified,
they might have had more skills, but I was able to show an interviewer that I was a better
fit and I was able to connect the dots for them and show them why I was the right person
for the job. It's not like my own skills were lacking. I mean, I was good. I mean, but it's hard to say who's the best
for anything. And what I'm trying to say is you don't have
to be the best technically, you don't have to know the most. You just have to be able to understand what
an employer is looking for and connect to their needs and show them that you are a solution
for their problems. One of the things that smart job seekers do
is to show relevance. And let me tell you what I mean by that. They clearly demonstrate to interviewers how
their background and their career goals are consistent with the requirements for the job. So, when your background and experience matches
the job description, that makes it a lot easier for employers to want to hire you. You want to make their job easy by connecting
the dots and showing them why you qualified. Talk about your past experiences as they relate
to the requirements for this job; you want to connect the dots. Show them; don't just tell them you're a good
fit, show them you're a good fit. Talk about those past projects and experiences
that are relevant to what they're looking for, so they can visualize you in that position. Help them see you in that position. That's what smart job seekers do. Next one, Smart job seekers show consistency. And let me tell you what I mean by that. All of their recent work experience is consistent
with the requirements for the job. That means they're not showing you jobs and
experiences they have that are unrelated to what an employer might be looking for in a
job. Everything they do; their resume is consistent
with the job description and when employers talk to them the conversation that they have
with the employer is consistent. So, sometimes you'll meet with multiple people
in a job interview and each person that you talk to, your story is the same. So, that when all those people get together
to talk about you and decide if you're the right person, they're all going to have the
same impression of you. Because everything that you said each one
of those individuals was consistent; it all matches. There's no contradiction between any of the
interviewers. Your resume is consistent, your LinkedIn profile
is consistent, all of your answers in the interview are consistent to different interviewers. So, this show that you overall are consistent. And interviewers know that when people are
inconsistent; meaning they say one thing to somebody and then they say something different
to somebody else, that usually means that candidate is hiding something. That they're lying about something or that
there's something a little shady about them. So, when you're consistent all the way around,
this kind of gives you just a big check plus that you're probably not holding anything
back, you're probably not lying about anything, because it's hard to tell a story repeatedly;
over and over and over again and have it to be the same story. I mean, that's how police departments and
detectives catch bad guys because they keep asking them to tell them the story. And all the while, the detectives are taking
notes about what happened in their story and then they start noticing inconsistency. They're like �Oh, wait a minute. You said something else earlier when I talked
to you�. So, it's hard when you're lying, to be consistent. And I'm not suggesting that you're lying,
I'm just telling you that when you're consistent overall on everything you say and do, it creates
a genuine picture of you to an employer. Next one, Smart job seekers practice. They don't just show up to a job interview
and win it. You never want to walk into an interview cold. You have to practice how you're going to answer
some of the more common interview questions like, �Why do you want to work here?�
or �Tell me about yourself� and �Why is your background a good fit for this company
in this position?� So, do this; get yourself a video camera and
record your answers to some of the more common interview questions. And if you need a list of those, you can head
on over to jobinterviewtools.com/top10 and you can download my Top 10 Questions Guide
and that will give you some of the more common questions with some of the styles of answers
that you might want to use. But practice before you go on any interview,
practice; don't show up cold. Practice what you're going to say, how you're
going to say it and do it over and over and over again. So, that when you're in the interview, it
just comes out naturally. Your answers just flow off your tongue and
you'll have a very casual conversation with the interviewer. If you don't practice and you just say, �I'm
just going to go out there and I'm just going to do it. I'm just going to show up and if they ask
me some questions about my experience, I'll go ahead and tell them�, bad idea. If you are not refreshing your memory on the
projects you worked on, you may think that you can just pull them out at a moment's notice,
but it's harder than you think. You're going to be under pressure in the interview. It's going to be harder to think in the interview. It's going to be harder to pull those experiences
out because they're stuck up there in your long term memory. What you want to do is refresh those experiences,
move them over into your short term memory. To do this, just write out your experiences,
write out your answers to some questions. That's going to keep them fresh in your short
term memory and it's going to be a lot easier for you in the interview to talk about your
experiences like they just happen and you won't fumble over your words. That's what practice does. It keeps you from fumbling over your words
in the interview. Just a little bit of practice goes a long
way and it's going to allow you to string together your experiences and your skills
in a very eloquent manner that it is going to sound impressive to an employer and you
won't be fumbling over your words or anything else like that like the competition is going
to be because they're not going to practice like you are. Next one. Smart job seekers are always planning what
their next move is. And let me tell you what I mean by that; successful
candidates are always looking ahead. They're planning out what they're going to
say and do based on how the interview goes. If an employer says, �We'll get back to
you� then they�ll say, �Well, when can I expect to hear from you?� and �Do you
mind if I follow up?� So, you always need to be thinking one or
two steps ahead of where things are going to go. They may not always go the direction you plan
that they're going to go, but at least you're thinking about what's up there? What's around the curve? What's around the bend? What could happen next? So, if they say they had some concerns about
me or my abilities to do the job, then I'm going through be prepared to address those
concerns right on the spot. And those could be anything; those could be
lack of experience, those could be age based, maybe they say, �You're 60 years old. Do you still think you can do this?�
Well, then you need to have something prepared for them to show them why your age is not
a concern or whatever their concern is, you need to be prepared to address that concern. So, you should have somewhat of an idea of
some of the things they might be concerned with about you and be prepared to address
those in the interview. If you don't, they're just going to carry
those concerns over into their decision making process and then they're probably going to
disqualify you because they have concerns and you never addressed those concerns. And it doesn't end there. Smart job seekers also ask employers intelligent
questions to qualify that employer as a place that they want to be. So, they might ask them questions about the
job, the culture, their expectations, to try to get a feel for what the employer is really
looking for and if that's something that they want to do; if that's a job that they really
want to have. So, you owe that to yourself to ask an employer
qualifying questions that will help you make an intelligent decision about whether you
want to work there or not. That's why you ask them questions. So, those are the things that smart job seekers
do. From the top; they show relevance, they show
consistency, they practice and they're always planning their next move and you should too.
