Mini guides: Interview skills ebook

George Sandford

English language guide to memory

1. An Introduction to Interview skills

An interview is an important life event because it can have a lasting impact on your future and direction in life. For most people, it’s something that only occurs once every few years and for this reason, they will not have had many opportunities to practice the skills. Add to this, the possibility of being interviewed in English and the task becomes quite daunting. Furthermore, an interview is a competitive event and you may be competing with many other capable candidates to land thatdream job.

Luckily, an interview is a fairly standardised process and it is possible to predict what will happen, which questions will be asked and to prepare accordingly. The key is attention to detail and trying to make a positive impact on all of the factors that you can influence. This guide shows you how.

daunting

frightening, overwhelming

land

get

dream job

the one you’ve always wanted, your ideal job

standardised

made standard, to a regular format

predict

anticipate

accordingly

correspondingly, in accordance with requirements

Glossary

daunting – zniechęcający, przytłaczający

to land – załapać, zapewnić sobie

dream job – wymarzona praca

standardised – znormalizowany, standardowy

predict – przewidzieć

accordingly – stosownie, odpowiednio

2. How good are you at being interviewed?

Tick which answers apply to you, then add up your score.

Question

Not at

   all

    1

To some

  extent

      2

Quite good/well

      3

Very good/ well

    4

1

I know how to find job opportunities

2

I know how to prepare for interview

3

I know what to wear

4

I know how to meet and greet people

5

I can manage my body language

6

I can talk about myself easily

7

I can describe my strengths

8

I can give examples of my skills and achievements

9

I know how to deal with difficult questions

10

I know how to deal with different selection tests

11

I am good at presenting for candidate selection purposes

12

I know how to make a good impression at interview

13

I can state my salary expectations

14

I know what questions to ask at interview

15

I have confidence in the level of my English for interviews

Score

31-40

OK - you’ve got the job!

21-30

Pretty good but there is still some room for improvement. A little fine tuning is all you need.

11-20

There’s plenty of work to do to get you into to shape for interview - let’s get cracking!

0-10

Are

3. Types of interview

One to one

This is perhaps the most common and obvious type of interview where there is just one interviewer. From a candidate point of view, it’s perhaps the easiest to manage. One the other hand, it becomes very important that you hit it off with the interviewer as there is nobody else to offer an alternative perspective on your suitability.

Two to one

This type of interview is also quite common and usually involves the manager that that the appointee will work for and a representative from the Human Resource department. Quite often, the HR department will do the short-listing and present the manger with three or four candidates for interview. It’s likely that the Manager will have some job specific questions whilst the HR representative may be more interested in your motivation level and overall suitability for the company. As the interviewee, you need to give attention and respect to both.

hit it off

get on well with sb.

appointee

the person being appointed

short-list

a reduced list of candidates from an original ‘long list’

interviewee

the person being interviewed

Glossary

to hit it off – przypaść sobie do gustu, zaprzyjaźnić się

appointee – przyjęty kandydat, mianowana osoba

to short-list – umieścić na liście kandydatów branych pod uwagę

interviewee – kandydat

Panel interview

Like talent shows, a panel interview involves a number of ‘judges.’ The panel may consist of anywhere from three to ten people and is usually used for senior appointments. So that each panellist can see the candidate clearly, the candidate’s chair is often placed at a distance from the main table which can make the candidate feel quite exposed andvulnerable. Frequently, each panellist will have a set time or number of questions which can lead to a disjointed interview that lacks continuity. It is likely to be more formal than the previously mentioned types of interview and requires confident presentation skills from the candidate. When answering, the candidate should address his/her remarks firstly to the questioner but then move their head and eyes to include other panel members.

Sequential interview

A