Five Ways to Land a Second Interview
Five Ways to Land a Second Interview:
1. Plan and Prepare
Before any contact with employer, sit down, think about, and write out approximately five scenarios about yourself in which you felt successful about your accomplishments. Try to think of examples that highlight a wide range of skills such as organizing, prioritizing, task completion, correction of task, and problem resolution. While many seeking employment have extensive work history, it may also help to use some examples from your educational experiences.
2. Narrate – give examples
For example, someone that has always been a student might discuss an experience about a team project. Team projects in an educational setting are particularly difficult because some team members rely on the rest of the team to carry them. Motivating others in these situations is especially difficult because of lack on monetary considerations.
Prioritizing and organization go hand-in-hand. In a question about the approach to a challenging or difficult project, you would want a response that explains dissecting the task. My preferred answer to this is always; start with the most difficult first then work toward the easiest until you reach total completion. Skirting around doing the easiest portions of any project first is a sure fire way to miss a deadline.
3. Restate the question
Paraphrase the question in your answer to help remember more lengthy, two-part questions. Knowing the difference between a quick answer and answering quickly is also important. Responding to interview questions with well thought-out answers quickly demonstrates the speed of your thought process. Most employers now want worker who can perform well and do it quickly. The pre-work done in your preparation phase will pay off here.
4. Incorporate
Previous work history and work references can be incorporated into discussions. With detailed preparation, you can highlight the most important parts of your resume and use it as a reference tool during the interview process. This will show that you have invested time preparing a well thought out interview, hence problem resolution.
5. Don’t Discount
Utilize teachers and part-time jobs in your references and work history if necessary. You do have to have something to talk about in the interview. You will need to demonstrate basic conversational skills. With their permission, list teachers whom you have developed a rapport with as references if needed. These could be used in place of business references and would be preferred over personal references. Additional talking points in this category could include the best time of day that these references would be available to answer the employers questions. Want to know more? Go ahead: Definitive Guide to Job Hunting: 10 top tips for bagging that interview