What Color Is Your Parachute? (35 page)

Job-search experts report that it takes people about seven interviews to feel comfortable enough to interview well. That’s a good reason to do lots of practice interviews before you proceed with the real ones. Ask adults or friends you trust to put you through mock interviews and check out your handshake—it shouldn’t be too strong or too weak. This kind of practice will help you get better at knowing what to say and how to talk, remembering to breathe and thinking clearly even when you’re stressed.

During Your Interview

Personnel professionals tell us that many interviewers make up their mind about you in the first half-minute of the interview. They spend the remaining time looking for reasons to justify their decision. Here are the three factors that most often influence your interviewer’s first impression of you:

  1. Were you on time for the interview?

  2. Did you look the interviewer in the eye as you greeted him or her?

  
3. What was the quality of your handshake?

Interviewers also assess your attitude. They are likely to notice right away whether you are

• A pleasant person to be around—or not

• Interested in other people—or totally absorbed with yourself

• At peace with yourself and the world—or seething with anger beneath a calm exterior

• Outgoing or introverted

• Communicative or monosyllabic

• Focused on giving—or only on taking

• Anxious to do the best job possible—or just going through the motions

WHAT INTERVIEWERS NOTICE

A detailed study done by Albert Merhabian, PhD, at UCLA a couple of years ago revealed some surprising things about what interviewers pay attention to. It turns out that interviewers are preoccupied with nonverbal communication, to make sure it matches up with what the interviewee is saying (and if it doesn’t, they’re less likely to hire that applicant!).

Percentage of attention:	Focused on:
7%		WORDS Choose your words carefully. In three different ways, explain the skills, experience, or training that most qualify you for this job.
38%		VOICE QUALITY Don’t have too much caffeine before an interview. If your voice tends to get high-pitched when you’re nervous, take a thermos of warm water with you and have some sips before your interview starts.
55%		NONVERBAL (handshake, posture, what you do with your hands, nervous mannerisms, eye contact, and so on)      Don’t always look your interviewer straight in the eye. This can be seen as threatening. Alternate direct looks with looking past his or her ear, slightly above the head.

They also notice whether you project energy and enthusiasm or expend only a minimal amount of effort and exude a sense of sullenness. In many cases, your attitude is even more important than your skills, because it indicates how hard you’re willing to work and whether you can work well with other people. Employers will hire someone with lesser skills but with a good attitude before they’ll hire a more experienced and more skilled person with a bad attitude.

Don’t expect your interviewer to make a connection between your past experience or what’s on your resume and your ability to do this job, even if it’s exactly the same work you’ve done before. You must explain your experience and skills to the interviewer and show that you are qualified to do the job. Young people are often surprised how hard they have to sell themselves in an interview, even if the interviewer knows them.

Your interviewer is also trying to judge how quickly you can become productive if you’re hired. The way you conduct yourself in the interview gives a lot of clues as to what type of employee you’ll be. Here are a few helpful hints for effective interviews:

• Mix speaking and listening equally so the interview feels like a friendly conversation. People hire people they like. If interviewers don’t feel comfortable talking with you, they probably won’t like you enough to offer you a job.

• Answer the interviewer’s questions. Don’t go off on tangents. Vary the length of your answers between twenty seconds and two minutes.

• Speak well (or not at all) of your previous employer. If your experience with them wasn’t that good, think out how you can describe what you did and learned without bad-mouthing them.

DON’T GET DISCOURAGED

If your faith in finding your dream job is flagging, use your contacts to meet people who have found their dream jobs. Ask them to tell you how they got their job. See whether they can help you adapt what they learned to your job search. Find and read inspiring books or articles on people who love their work. Other people’s stories help you stay positive.

Some people get their dream job right away. More people, however, get there in several steps. Each time you have a setback, redouble your efforts to find people doing the work you hope to do—the younger in age, the better. If you work at it, you will get there.

Remember, Anya Kamenetz got her first writing internship at fifteen. After high school, she continued to find internships and get jobs at magazines so she could hone her craft. It took another dozen years before she finally became a successful author and well-paid writer. Reread
Anya’s profile
.

Though it may be hard to believe, remember that many interviewers are as scared as you are during the hiring interview. They don’t want to make a hiring mistake. It’s definitely to your advantage to help make the interviewer feel comfortable. Sometimes it’s helpful to remember that you are
interviewing the interviewer as much as the interviewer is interviewing you. Through your questions, you’ll get information that will help you determine whether this is the right job and the right place for you.

In an interview, you’re judged just as much on the questions you ask as on those you answer. The questions you ask reveal how much you know about the work, the industry or field, and the organization. Here are two important questions to ask your interviewer.

  1.
What does this job involve?
You want to understand exactly what tasks will be asked of you so that you can determine whether these are the kinds of tasks you really like and want to do. If you have done information interviews of people who do this work, you can let your interviewer know what the job entails in other companies. Even if you’ve done excellent research on this job and employer, you may find that the interviewer has additional or different ideas about what the job will involve. You need to know what those expectations are. If you know your interviewer’s expectations, you can better pick what skills or experiences you use to show your interviewer that you can do the job and meet their expectations.

  2.
What are the skills a top employee in this job needs to have?
You want to know whether your skills match those that the employer wants a top employee to have. Which of your skills match those of a top employee? Be able to state these skills and give examples of how you’ve used them in similar situations.