Nervous About Interviewing? Here’s Help

Remember these 3 basics for a successful job interview

Even the most confident professional can get nervous during an interview. Sticking to the basics will help you focus on compelling answers instead of the butterflies in your stomach. Make sure your responses meet these three requirements for successful interviewing:

1. Relevancy: Answer the question you are asked. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Many jobseekers don’t completely understand the question and start talking hoping “it will come to them.” Warning: the answer won’t come to you. You will only get more anxious as you realize you are off track. Write down questions or ask for them to be repeated if you aren’t 100% clear. Winging it will only get you in trouble.
2. Conciseness: When you violate rule #1, it leads to problems with rule #2. Interview answers should be approximately 2 minutes, long enough to provide enough information for the interviewer, while still holding their interest. Being concise gives the interviewer time to ask follow-up questions to delve deeper into the points that they are curious about. This back and forth allows for conversational engagement, which puts everyone at ease.
3. Do No Harm: Don’t say something you will regret. Violating rule #1 and rule #2 is the surest route to putting your foot in your mouth. While you are obligated to tell the truth in an interview, it’s not true confessions. If you start talking, unsure of the question, begin to ramble, the next thing you know you will be revealing how you haven’t gotten along with your boss since that bad performance evaluation. Ouch.

There are no do-overs for an interview. Take the time to prepare using the position description as your guide. Practice questions out loud and time your answers. Understand what your greatest weakness is, and explain how you’ve overcome it. Most importantly, go back to the basics, and then relax. The interviewer is probably as nervous as you are.

August Cohen is an award-winning, triple certified resume expert and executive coach supporting professionals in achieving their next-level career goals. Directing determined job seekers in all aspects of modern career management, her services encompass powerful branded resumes, focused interview practice sessions, and targeted job search strategies. Recently featured in the Yahoo! HotJobs article “Resume Writer Secrets for Pumping Up What You Know,” August is also a contributor to the upcoming book, “The Twitter Job Search Guide,” due out in March 2010.