The Magic Wand

One final word before we go on to discuss specific questions and the reasons why they are asked in an interview. The other day in the class I asked how many of the students felt that I had a magic wand and I just had to wave it to turn them into the most sought after managers in the job market. While most students were not very amused by the question there were eight to ten of them surprisingly raised their hands and said, they did. The response was at once, scary and humbling. Though no teacher or a trainer has such a stick which she can wave to turn you into super managers that the industry will kill to acquire, you certainly have one. It is called decision. You can certainly take a decision to become someone that the industry is looking for by deciding two things. One you are willing to outwork every one else in the world and that you will be honest to the core. Bingo. As far as knowledge goes every one has to be a student all his life and make an everlasting commitment to learning. You have to tell yourself that you are good person but you have to become better. There always is scope for improvement. You have to be the best you can be. You were created unique and you have to be without equal. If you can prove to the interviewer that you have great work ethic and uncompromising integrity you will ace every interview you go to provided you have the skills required for the job. Apart from that it is a marketing thing. The secret to smart sell yourself is that you need to find out what the company wants in an employee and show them that you have in you what they are looking for. Can you match your abilities with the requirements of the job? If you can, the job is yours.
So part of the process of your search for a suitable job is to thoroughly research what the employer wants. You must spend some time finding out what the employer is looking for. If you are applying for a job in response to an interview read the advertisement closely and figure out the employer’s needs. Then go ahead and provide them what they need. If your college has a placement cell who has invited a company for recruiting candidates for certain position, talk to the people manning the cell and find out everything you can about the company and the industry it functions in. Discuss the profile of the job on offer with the people in the Placement Cell. Make a check list of all the abilities and skills the job requires. Check out if you have the qualities and qualifications the company wants you to have. If you do not have some of the skills required, make a commitment to acquire the skills needed. If there have been any articles about the company that appeared in the press in the recent past read up the articles and be aware of the direction the company is moving in.
Ask yourself also a few questions like do you have the temperament to do the job you are going to be interviewed for? Is their any likelihood that you will be willing to the job without rumination if such a situation were to arise at some time in the future? This is as tough a question to answer as it is important. The answer to the question will determine how much fun you are going to have doing the job and in your life. If you were to answer the question in the affirmative you have found a job which will never be a boring because you love doing it. The secret to happiness in life is either finding what you love doing and doing it for remuneration or without it; or begin to love what you are doing. At this stage in your life when you are checking things out it is not a bad idea to go ahead and try a few things and then figure out what you like doing and what you don’t. Take a few risks. There is no bigger tragedy in life than to be stuck all your life in a rut for a little bit of extra money. No one ever regrets having spent less time in the office or at the place of work because most people are in the wrong job. The time to think what job is good for you and what job you will absolutely love doing is now before you commit your self. For most people it is too late the moment they get their first job because they never have the opportunity or the guts to change direction later.

Interview: You can only sell what the buyer wants

Let us face it. Everyone is nervous before an interview and it is a rare person who is not anxious during one. Just like a little bit of tension is actually good for health; a little nervousness is not necessarily harmful for your chances of success in an interview. Nervousness is normal. So just go with the flow and know that it is not easy for the interviewer either. Like any other form of communication, every type of interview is a two way street though here we will restrict ourselves to job interviews. Failure to identify the right candidate for the right job is as much a failure of the interviewer as it is of the interviewee.
So, you as an interviewee just need to remain generally upbeat and positive. The whole idea of the interview is for the organization to pick the right person for the right job. You have to just help the interviewee to get to know the real you as well as it is possible in the short duration of the interview – a task which is not easy by any means. It is not such a stupid idea when you are sometimes asked to spend some time to know yourself and practice articulating what you know about yourself. How, for example, will you describe your strengths and weaknesses; what are your likes and dislikes; what are your goals and dreams or what strategy do you have to achieve them? Is your strategy in sync with the goals and dreams? Do you have a strategy at all? Preparing yourself for a job interview is a lot about getting to know your own self and being able to communicate it to the interviewer on the day of the interview.
Sometimes candidates memorize answers to questions and rattle them off like a parrot would. In preparation for an interview there is nothing worse you can do. If a person cannot talk about himself what else can he really talk about? An interview, unless it is designed for some specific objective where a different approach is required, is a conversation and not an interrogation. The onus of keeping an interview conversational lies with both the interviewer and the interviewee. If the interviewer fails to keep it at that level, you as the interviewee should try and bring it to that level by being absolutely honest and disarming. So do not memorize answers to questions but certainly know what points you would like to cover in answer to a question. You could rehearse answering questions with your friends or even alone. Make sure you keep the tone conversational. Make sure you never memorize the exact language. Be natural. Be your self. It is ‘the you’ that the interviewer is looking for in you - the real you.
It may be common knowledge for marketing people but is perhaps the most well kept secret when it comes to cracking job interviews. It goes like this: find out what people need and help them satisfy that need. For getting a job find out what an organization or a Company wants and help them get what they want. In other words you must have the qualities that the employer is looking for in the candidate for a particular position. You can only sell what the buyer wants. So it is not just about you it is about the position. You must match your abilities with the needs of the employer. To be able to do that you must first know what is the employer looking for or what does he want. You have to find out what is the buyer buying. And the best way to do that is research the job being offered; research the company and the industry. If required ask a few questions in the interview itself. Yes you read it right. You can ask a few questions in the interview.
To crack an interview find out what the employer wants and give to him.

The Company You Keep

A lot of things begin to fall in place once you decide to take control of your life. You become acutely aware of the fact that no one else but you will be responsible for where you will be five years from now. You begin to think about your future and begin to design it. You will realize that there will be two types of people you will come across in your life: one that will discourage you and tell you that nothing good can come out of your plans or your efforts and the others who will encourage you and say that nothing is impossible if you set your heart to it and are willing to pay the price. Which of the two categories of people would you like to spend your time with? Obviously, the latter.
It is important that you pick your friends carefully. Have you ever noticed that you tend to become like your friends? Their attitude, their mannerisms and behavior rubs on to you and slowly you loose your own unique personality and you become like the rest of them. Some old couples even begin to look alike. Not only do birds of a feather flock together birds that flock together slowly acquire the same feather. Like an eagle brought up in a chicken coop that never learns to soar high in the skies and acquires instead all the pedestrian traits of its co inhabitants; you will never live up to your potential if you do not surround yourself with people with positive attitude. You can’t choose your parents and you cannot do anything about the circumstances you were born into but you can certainly choose the friends you will spend time with and the kind of life you will lead.
If you will spend most of your time with people whose attitude sucks you will acquire the same attitude. A person with a negative attitude loses out many opportunities that will come his way because a negative person’s mind is closed to opportunities. A successful person is the one who got a chance and took it. It is up to you to decide which people will influence your thinking and then take positive steps to seek their company. After all where you will be after five or ten years depends on the books you read and the company you keep.
Whenever you embark upon a project or an adventure you want to be told you can do it. Such words of encouragement are vital and they will only come from people who have a ppositive attitude and are no threatened by your success. Such people will egg you on and on days,you are feeling low will listen to you and will inspire you with stories about other people who went through similar circumstances and finally succeeded because they never gave up. Negative people, on the other hand, will tell you how they themselves tried something similar and they failed and that you should give up as you don’t have any chances to succeed. Who would you rather listen to?
I am in no way advocating that you should not be realistic in analyzing your chances of success. You cannot be foolhardy and pursue an unrealistic goal. For example I will be absolutely foolish to set my self a goal of beating Usain Bolt or Asafa Powell in a hundred meter dash. So much for ‘whatever the human mind can conceive and believe it can accomplish’. One needs to be guided by the serenity prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. Yet your friends have a very powerful influence which at best of times the most independent amongst us cannot ignore. You need to be very careful about the friends you choose and the company you keep. Surround yourself with positive people; chances are you will always get positive results in whatever you do.