Its a brand new year (finally!). 2020 has come and gone, presenting many of us with new challenges, opportunities and lifestyle changes. Through the year, we continued to coach clients, mostly through digital means, and also run workshops and curate content for the public and for educational institutions. As we reviewed our 2020, we decided to put together our Top Interview Tips to help our readers on their journey towards their career and life goals. Here are our Top 3 Interview Tips:
1. Step back and dig deep
Content and technical fixes are easy to jump to, and tend to be the default assumption of the "right" method of achieving improvements in interview and communication skills. But what is even more helpful is to initially take a step back. Think far, deep and wide about all your past experiences. Dig deep and understand how all these parts of your life form who you are. Bring your whole self - all the experiences you have had to the table, not just your current role or experience. With this, you are able to bring authenticity, humility and a strong sense of purpose.
2. Quiet the hamster wheel
The hamster wheel we refer to is not the one you get for your pet, but the one that runs at the back of your mind. We observe many of our clients having a hamster wheel at the back of their mind during their interview - "did I say the right thing, did that sound wrong, oh I shouldn't have said that" etc. These questions / statements tend to repeat over and over in the mind - most of the time without you being conscious of it. The hamster wheel requires energy, and the more energy you channel towards it, the less energy and focus you will have on the interview itself. Learn to quiet the hamster wheel, save your self reviews for later, focus on the interviewer, and be 100% present.
3. Be a storyteller
Storytelling as an effective means of communication has been proven again and again over time, and goes back thousands of years, but why does it play an important part in an interview? Here is the scenario of most interviews - you have 20 minutes to convince a stranger to take a great leap of faith and to give you the opportunity of a lifetime to achieve your career and life goals. During this very short period of time, you have to break down the walls of suspicion, build up trust and convince the stranger to believe you. Stories have a way of bridging understanding gaps and forge connections among people. When used well, stories are powerful tools that allows you to communicate with influence and with an authenticity that is difficult to replicate using any other method. Learn to be a good storyteller as stories bring life to facts and figures, draws the listener in to your journey and makes you memorable.
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Written by Siew Ling Hwang
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