Worried about how to crack your job interview? However good your profile is, you’ll have to pass a few interviews in order to get the job you want. Interview prep is the key element to get a job offer: your goal. Keep reading to find out what to expect in an interview and your to improve your interview skills.
How To Crack Your Job Interview: Preliminary tips
#1 – Be yourself
Be yourself at all times. After all, you don’t want to spend the rest of your working life pretending to be someone else – or you won’t enjoy going to work. Just be yourself, and be honest.
#2 – Relax
Stay calm, after all it is just a chat with a potential employer. If you are unsure about how to crack your job interview, remember this: stay calm, stay sharp, and deal with the stress.
#3 – Do not rush to reply
Recruiters will probably ask tough questions. Like you do during exams; think first, and then answer the question. Thinking for a few seconds before replying will improve the quality of your answers.
Types of interviews
Trading houses generally use two main type of interviews: competency and technical interviews. In fact
Competency interviews
In this type of interview, the recruiter aims to find out whether the candidate has the right set of skills to succeed at the job position.
This type of interview is more like an HR screening type of interview and feels a bit like the HR employee is just ticking boxes.
Technical interviews
Technical interviews generally come during the second stage, when the actual manager interviews you.
Because of the higher degree of difficulty involved, technical interviews are mainly used for advanced trading jobs, consulting, engineering, IT and other scientific roles.
Here the key question is whether the candidate’s level of proficiency in a particular task. Technical interviews are harder to crack, but practise makes the master.
Practical tips
Research the company and industry in advance
Find out what the company does, where is it growing, and what are its main challenges and competitors. Investigate the latest news such as mergers, expansions, or divestments. Such knowledge will likely impress the recruiter.
For starting or graduate roles, recruiters won’t generally ask you about the industry/sector in depth. The most important here is how they estimate your potential trajectory and corporate culture fit.
Second stage interviews with managers will be tougher and the hiring committee will highly appreciate if you know how their industry works. It is also a good trick to crack your job interview to find out the names of people working in the company, and management.
If you want to know how to crack your job interview, the single best recommendation is to do your homework and come to the interview prepared: learn in advance what the company does and how can you contribute to the team. Understand what void they are trying to fill with the position.
Prepare answers to the key questions
You should expect a number of typical questions such as:
Generic Interview Questions
- Why should we hire you?
- Why did you chose to move to e.g. London?
- What are your strengths/weaknesses?
- Where do you want to be in 3 or 5 years?
Behavioural Interview Questions
- How did you react when you last faced a big problem?
- When was the last time you had to take an important decision and how did you decide?
- How did you deal with a big failure or mistake?
- How did you achieve your biggest goal?
- How would your skills add to your team’s performance?
Prepare 2-3 smart questions for the recruiters / managers
Asking the right questions is a very important skill in business. Again, if you want to crack your job interview do your homework and prepare well. Come up to the interview with thought-provoking incisive questions.
Remember that you are also interviewing them. Would you want to work with them? Can I see myself in their shoes in a few years from now? You need to ask yourself such questions too.
Next steps
Once you have have fine-tuned your CV & Cover Letter, and prepared for the interview, make sure you learn about the company and industry.
Do you have more questions about how to crack your job interview? Shoot them in the comment box.
