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Fortunately, in my most recent interview, all five of those factors were in my favor and I should find out sometime this week if I am hired.
I do disagree on your mood comment as I had an interview a long time ago when someone interrupted our interview twice to pull the interviewer away and it affected his mood...was more stressed than when it started. The look of the applicant can certainly be a reason, but it is definitely not the only thing that affects mood. I do agree with your five factors for success.
Oh ok, I thought you meant the interviewer had a unpleasant look when meeting the applicant for the 1st time.
Forget about saying you're well qualified at this and you have experience at that. How can a candidate, who doesn't have direct experience, go about making a positive impact on the interviewer?
Do charm and personality work? Sense of humor?
You answered your question.
If the interviewee asked you to come in you already have the qualifications. At that stage, the interviewee is just checking to see if you are a perfect "fit" for the company.
Always know your accomplishments no matter small you think it is. Rehearse your accomplishments starting with the problem that needed to be solved and how you solved it and the results of your work. You need concrete examples, not generalized things.
Know your strengths and weaknesses. When talking about your weakness, tell how you were able to get around it or able to change it in your work environment and how you turned it into a strength.
You may not have direct experience, but you do have experiences. Be able to take your experiences and talk about your transferable skills that can help you in this job.
Research the company and the particular department (business unit, etc) you are interviewing for. Then you know what they do and expect and talk about how you can accomplish their goals that you found out about in your research.
if it's a male boss, open your blouse a bit to show cleavage. also remove your wedding ring from your hand. leave other jewelry on that makes you look feminine. wear good perfume, nice makeup. make yourself "available."
if it's a male boss, open your blouse a bit to show cleavage. also remove your wedding ring from your hand. leave other jewelry on that makes you look feminine. wear good perfume, nice makeup. make yourself "available."
That sounds like a strategy in a different era, but it is darn funny! It could backfire if the interviewer is gay, but most are straight.
These days the interviewer might think you are trying to "set him up" for a harrassment charge down the road. Then again, it might work!
I do a lot of technical interviews, so here is my take from the technical perspective.
If it is listed in the posting, I am going to ask about it. I know that no one candidate is going to have every technical skill we desire. But, you've had a couple of days to get ready for the interview. You have known about this posting for weeks (often months). If you don't know something about one of the technical skills listed, go learn something about it so you can say more than "I don't know".
Example: If I have a listed requirement for parcel fabric experience, it takes less than an hour to learn the basics of parcel fabric. My favorite question is, "Can you explain what a least squares adjustment is?" I had exactly one candidate ever say, "I saw that in the job description and looked it up last week..." They got hired.
Think on your feet. Okay, so you don't have experience leading a geopspatial project. I bet you have -some- sort of leadership experience or you had heavy technical involvement in a geospatial project somewhere. When you can suss out your own transferable skills and relate that, I am impressed. Your answer to any "Have you ever" question about your work experience should never be no. Find something, anything, that shows you have some semblance of the skills being explored with that question.
If you know you have something unique and related, tell me when you hit a relevant spot. It should have been on your resume already. Sometimes we don't list a certain skill because no one really every has it. "You asked about experience with FME and python. I have not really used either one, but I have used GDAL extensively." I hear something like that and I am going to tell the hiring manager, "They know GDAL, that's impressive. They will have no trouble picking up FME and python."
(These are a bunch of geospatial terms I am throwing out, but FME and GDAL do the same thing basically, just with different interfaces. Python is a language often used with GDAL, and use similar logic. Least squares adjustment is a fundamental concept to parcel fabric, which is a specific data model for mapping out tax parcels. All of these things can be figured out with a little research before the interview.)
Forget about saying you're well qualified at this and you have experience at that. How can a candidate, who doesn't have direct experience, go about making a positive impact on the interviewer?
Do charm and personality work? Sense of humor?
Here are some general ones I always use :
1.What is your ideal candidate and then explain why you fit
2. What are the challenges of this job and explain why you fit
3. Tell me about yourself practice this answer so you sound good and only talk about education and
work experience how you are a good fit.
4. HR mgr tell me about how much you made. Deflect and tell them what is the range of pay and then
say it's agreeable ask another question and change subject
5 . Don't use weak language....I hope, I think, it needs to be I know I can do this job
6. Do you speech filler, um I like, uh
7. You should record answer questions and see if your um's and like's
8. In your thank you e-mail thank them and expand on why you are a good fit for the job to remind them why you are a good fit.
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