What a Jobseeker Needs to Prove During the Interview

In the typical hiring process, companies conduct initial screenings based on hard skills and black-and-white criteria. For example, applicants who do not have a license or who lack experience in a certain computer program are automatically disqualified. That may seem unfair, but that’s just how it is.

If you are a job applicant who makes it past initial screening into interviews, be aware that soft skills rule the day. Now you must sell yourself and set yourself above other applicants. Your interviewer is searching for someone who can help the company with a critical issue. Here are three strategies you should use to prove your worth.

1. Prove you understand what the job entails. Do your due diligence in researching the company and position. Understand where the company may be weak and how you can help improve it. Read between the lines in the job ad and position yourself as someone who thrives in that sort of role.

2. Prove your case through stories, not just data and short examples. Explain why the company should hire you without waiting for the interviewer to ask it. Your stories should be no longer than sixty seconds and should have beginnings, middles and endings. Keep your tales original; if you did the same old, same old, there is no point telling the story. Some themes to prepare stories around: how you are a team player, how you think outside the box and how you save your employer money. Explain your actions, the skills used and the result.

3. Prove that you have choices; act like you do if you do not. You never want to appear desperate and like you’re doomed if you do not get the job. Employers want people who choose to work for them and not because they have no other option. Avoid comments such as: “I’m willing to do whatever it takes,” “Pay me whatever you can,” and “I would have no problem with anything you asked me to do.”

Image Source : Stuart Miles