The best way to help you impress the interviewers is to be prepared and practice answering to questions that appear

time and time again. Why do you want this job? This is one of the most predictable questions and is also one of the most import ant. You need to demonstrate that you have researched the employer and tie your knowledge of them into the skills and interests that led you to apply. What can you do? Questions focusing on competency will require you to use specific situations fro m your life, education and work experience as examples. You should explain why y ou have made certain decisions, how you implemented these decisions and why cert ain outcomes took place. Employers believe that the best way to find out about a potential employee s future performance is to find out about examples of past per formance. Questions of this type can be: Explain a situation when you worked in a team; describe a difficult work situation and how you found a solution; or, te ll me about a time when you excelled in your work. Use the STAR method to help a nswer these types of questions: Situation, Task, Action, and Result. What are your strengths/weaknesses? Don t deny you have weaknesses; it s a good idea to choose a weakness that you have worked on to improve and describe what action you are taking to remedy the weakn ess. Your strengths allow you to tell the interviewer your Unique Selling Points (USPs) and reiterate why they should hire you. Back up your strengths with exam ples to paint a fuller picture. Any questions? It is essential that you ask your interviewer a few questions at the end of the interview. This will show them that you are interested in the job and themselves . Ask about the work itself, training and career development: but avoid question s about things already stated in the job advertisement, or questions about holid ays or pensions, which, if you are successful, you will find out about soon enou gh. --------------------What are your salary expectations? Well what are they? Whether we feel it is vulgar, or simply bad manners, most of us tend not to open ly talk about money. Society deems a conversation about money to be an extremely personal and sensitive one. This is probably why when an interviewer broaches t he subject of money, it can make even the most prepared candidate feel that bit awkward or flustered. To help ensure that doesn t happen to you, here are some tips on how to answer : hat are your salary expectations? Research If the salary on offer for the job is not advertised, it makes sense to do some research. Look at similar roles in similar organisations in the same area and tr y and establish what the typical salary is for this type of position. Look at re gional and national salary surveys and get a broader understanding of what the c urrent rates are for the position. Many of the bigger job boards have links to c urrent salary surveys and can help give you a bit of an indication as to what to W

expect. You will then be able to state to the interviewer that you are aware of the market rate for this type of position in the local area, and that you imagi ne they would be offering something that is in line with the competition. The Complete Package -----------------How To Talk About Your Biggest Weakness In A Job Interview You re in the hot seat and things are going well. You talk about your attributes, skills and strengths with ease. Just when you think it s pretty much in the bag, t he hiring manager asks that dreaded question: What s your biggest weakness? This is one of the questions people have the hardest time answering, says Amanda A bella, a career coach, writer, speaker, and founder of the Gen Y lifestyle blog Grad Meets World. [Your response] tells the interviewer a lot about your characte r, so it definitely holds a lot of weight. Andrew G. Rosen, founder and editor of the popular career advice blog Jobacle.co m, agrees. This is a go-to question for interviewers, he says. It s a seemingly innoc ent question that has the potential to quickly expose a major flaw. It s the Hail Mary of the interview; a final last-ditch attempt to trip you up and send you in the other direction. But with a little planning, most interviewees can easily n eutralize this question; even use it to their advantage. It s not a trick question and there s no right answer but interviewers are looking for s omething specific in your response to this challenging query. Hiring managers who ask about weaknesses during interviews are looking for exampl es of how a person faced obstacles in the past, says Dylan Schweitzer, a group ta lent acquisition manager for Enterprise Rent-A-Car. All employees have flaws, but how they deal with failure and have made steps to fix them are indicators as to how they will handle constructive criticism in the future, he says. Interviewers ask about weaknesses and failures because resiliency is a critical skill set whi ch employees must have. As a manager, you expect to give constructive criticism to your employees and the ability of a person to take that and improve is import ant when choosing who you will manage. Abella concurs. Hiring managers know that no one is perfect. However, they want t o make sure of a few things. First, she says, they want to know that you aren t con ceited and are aware that you make mistakes. Confidence is great, but there s a fin e line between confidence and conceit. Second, it s also a question of character, s he says. If your weakness is that you have a bad temper, you may come off like a loose cannon who will be difficult to work with. Meanwhile, if a weakness is som ething like I put a lot of pressure sometimes too much pressure on myself to succeed, but I ve worked on this, then that doesn t sound so bad. Interviews are designed to filter out bad candidates just as much as they are ab out finding the right one, Rosen says. What s your biggest weakness? is sort of a sil ly question and the interviewer is hoping they will catch you off guard, when yo u don t have a scripted answer to fall back on. They think you will reveal somethi ng you didn t want or expect to. To ensure this doesn t happen to you, here are some tips for talking about your bi ggest weakness in a job interview: Know your weakness(es). Penelope Trunk, a career coach and author of Brazen Care erist: The New Rules for Success, wrote in a blog post on the topic: If you don t k

now your weakness, take a personality type quiz and the results will show you. E veryone has specific strengths and everyone has specific weaknesses. It s pretty c ertain that if you are not clear on your weaknesses then you are not clear on yo ur strengths, and your value at the office will be questionable. Be honest, but don t mention essential skills. Do not give a bullshit answer, Trunk writes. Saying something like, I pay too much attention to detail is actually a ter rible answer for someone who is getting hired to do detail work. It means you ha ve a deficit in the exact area you re tying to get hired for. The best answer to t he question is when you tell a truthful answer, because it s very unlikely you wil l be hired for the thing you are most weak at doing. For example, someone who is a production artist could say his weakness is financ e, she says. So what if he doesn t like finance? He is not getting hired to do it. To avoid mentioning a weakness that can crush your chances of landing the job, r eview the job description to see what exactly the employer is looking for. Talk about how you ve conquered the weakness. Be prepared to share an example of a previous failure or weakness that you ve successfully turned into a strength, Schwe itzer says. Do not discuss areas of opportunity that you are still working on and have not yet fixed. For example, if you say that you used to come in late to work and usually come i n on time now, you can expect to not get a job offer. The example of coming into work late needs to have a story behind it of how a manager, mentor or family mem ber talked to you about how timeliness impacts your personal brand and ever sinc e then you arrive early to all meetings. In fact, an example of a manager recent ly complimenting you on being the first one to arrive at meetings or events woul d be the support needed to show you fixed this issue. Don t prepare an exact response. Of course you want to be prepared for every commo n interview question especially tricky ones like this. Think about your weaknesses ahead of time, but don t rehearse a response. Your answer might change slightly a ccording to the rest of the conversation with the hiring manager, and you don t wa nt it to come across as unauthentic or staged. Only discuss work-related weaknesses. Always make sure that they are business app ropriate, Abella says. Personal weaknesses are okay sometimes, but what these guys are really looking for are your weaknesses in the work place and how you ve overc ome them. You also want to avoid personal drama, she says. Sure, everyone has got some, but companies want to ensure this won t affect your job if you get hired. Besides, it s considered completely inappropriate to bring personal drama into the business w orld. Don t say you re a perfectionist or you work too hard. Schweitzer says common respo nses that are immediately dismissed are: I am a perfectionist, and I work so hard t hat I don t allow myself to relax. Interviewers hear these examples all the time and often will ask for another example or just move on knowing you prepared for tha t question. Use the weakness question as an opportunity to share how you ve overco me a professional challenge and how you now are better because of it. Trunk agrees that you should avoid the perfectionist response. If you are not being interviewed for detail work it s not a believable weakness. And if you are being hired for detail work being a perfectionist will make you slow and annoying. Hiring managers know that people make mistakes, and they want to know how you ve ha ndled yours, Abella concludes. Being aware of your weaknesses is a good sign; it s

hows that you know where your boundaries are and aren t suffering from a case of h ubris.

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