Let’s face it, the job hunting process isn’t necessarily all that fun, and the toughest part is to sail through those job interview questions that are meant to filter the candidates to a single winner out of 4, 5 or sometimes dozens of them.
I recall my first interviews. I was nervous like hell, and with good reason. I was going to meet the person who, in the lapse of an hour would be deciding whether I would have a livelihood to count on, and the security to pay the bills (and eventually grow professionally), or whether I would need to pound the pavement again and go through the grinding, time-consuming and often cruel process of job hunting.
So it began, “Hello sir, welcome to our company, to begin why don’t you tell me about yourself”. And then, one after the other, those job interview questions kept raining on me while I was trying to answer them to the best of my knowledge and the advice of friends, books and “gurus” (all of them, by the way, disagreeing with each other on HOW those job interview questions should be tackled!).
“Well that would be it for today sir, thank you for coming to meet us. We’ll get back to you shortly with our feedback”.
Not too long after, I’d receive a kind email informing me that I was “not chosen to proceed” but thanking me “very much for my interest” and wishing me “all the best in my job hunt”. Another chance blown! I thought to myself, as I reached my face with my hands and rubbed my eyes and cheeks in frustration: “Why the hell did I fail?” I knew I was qualified, so it had to do about how I replied to those damn job interview questions!
And then the whole taxing process would start again, look for jobs, send letters and CVs, get an appointment and then HOPE that the job interview questions they’d ask me were the questions I could answer “correctly”… I felt tired, disappointed and angry, I couldn’t take it anymore. I kept thinking, “Is there a secret to these job interview questions?”
As it turned out, there is not one secret. There are five.
One day I ran across an old friend of mine, who happened to be an HR manager at a large company. As we chatted along and I told him about my problem, he replied:
“Look, you are going about it completely wrong – I know I shouldn’t do this but I will do it anyway – I’ll tell you exactly what you need to do and say to crack even the toughest job interview questions anyone can throw at you”.
A month later I couldn’t believe my luck! I had 3 companies offering me great jobs and they were trying to outbid each other on my salary package. Believe me, nothing tastes better than the feeling of revenge :-)
The funny thing is that I was not smarter or more qualified than before. I just knew what job interview questions I was going to be asked and how I would go about answering them. Or rather, not answering them, as that was the first secret my friend taught me. “You don’t answer a question, you RESPOND to it – therefore keeping full control of the information you give to your interviewer”
The truth is, your interviewer has problems and you need to give the information that will demonstrate you will solve those problems. The job interview questions he asks are in most cases, just superficial questions to the big issue (or issues) you need to respond to.
By knowing the 5 secrets, I was able to get the job of my dreams, and I dare say, anybody can!
