Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Rule 8

The panel interview. The mother of all interview.

When you enter the interview room greet your interviewer(s) with a big sunny smile. Give a warm and firm handshake and sit only when the interviewers ask you to. Sit up straight, do not hunch, and do not sit TOO comfortably.

The interviewers will usually start by asking you to tell about yourself. Start with your education background, what you have done so far in terms of academic and co-curricular, and what you would like to do. NEVER go into an interview for position A and tell your interviewer(s) you would like to do something else. This will blow your chances in getting the job.

Make sure you know what you are talking about. Listen attentively to the interviewers, understand the question, if you can't give a straight answer take a few seconds to think then only answer the question.

To ease your interview process what you can do is to jot down your 5 year career plan (Career progression, academic progression, and interesting things you would like to do in life). This is one of the most important and common question that interviewers will usually ask during interview.

If the interviewers ask you about your weaknesses tell them honestly about it and your action plan to rectify them. As for your positive attributes you can elaborate more on how you can still improve on them. Be showy but not too much.