There are hundreds of articles on the web today outlining the many do’s and don’ts of interviewing for a job opportunity. While these tips are important to consider in preparation for an interview, few of them take into consideration the importance of how you make your interviewer feel during the interview.
The impression you make on your interviewer goes beyond your appearance and the professional experience and skills you list on your resume. Making a favorable impression is heavily dependent on the common ground that you find between yourself and the interviewer. This “common ground” can consist of interests and aspects of backgrounds that you share, but it can also be “paved” with the likeability, credibility and respectability that you exude in your interview. Learning to project these three qualities can help you to take charge of finding common ground in any interview, and may also help you change the tone of an interview should it seem to take a turn for the worse.
Here are six ways you can command the common ground and make a professional and memorable impression on your interviewer:
1. Broadcast Your Brand. Developing a strong one-word personal brand and supporting pitch and presenting it as an answer to the “Why should we choose you over the other candidates?” questions not only makes you look professional, confident and self-aware, but also makes you memorable. The interviewer may not remember the three to five individual strengths you promote in your supporting pitch, but he/she is much more likely to recall your one-word brand and the good feeling your confidence and your pitch associate with it and in turn, with yourself.
2. Demonstrate Passion. Whether you are passionate about something in your professional life or your personal one, when appropriate, make it known to your interviewer. Sharing your passions with someone else exudes confidence, but more importantly, suggests potential for similar passion and personal investment on the job. Your passion can also make you stand out as more authentic and likeable.
3. Emphasize Common Interests. If you happen to come across something that you have in common with your interviewer, when appropriate, ask him/her a question or two about it and strengthen your connection through this commonality. It may be your college, your hometown, a shared passion or a shared current experience, including getting married or having children. Whatever the connection may be, make your bond with your interviewer stronger as this also enhances your likeability and authenticity.
4. Listen and Learn. While an interview technically may be about getting to know you, make sure you do your fair share of listening. Listening can help you discover common interests and can help you collect the information necessary to respond more effectively to the interviewer’s questions and to ask deeper, more powerful questions. Besides, talking too much may make you appear overly confident or self-absorbed.
5. Be Succinct. When sharing information about yourself or answering the interviewer’s questions, keep everything you say short, sweet and to the point. The more you can say in fewer words, the more prepared you seem, and you are less likely to lose the interest of the interviewer.
6. Stay Positive. No matter what questions the interviewer asks you, always give your responses a positive spin. If you are asked why you left your last job, regardless of the reason, put a positive spin on it and say that you were looking for a career change or more responsibility. If you have had a lot of trouble breaking into a specific industry, demonstrate your positive resilience and determination to achieve your end-goal. No one likes a negative person, and negativity weakens your confidence and can make you memorable for the wrong reasons.
Chris Perry is a Gen Y Brand and Marketing Generator, a Career Search and Personal Branding Expert and the Founder of Career Rocketeer, the Career Search and Personal Branding Blog.
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