Finally, Here's How You Answer Tough Interview Questions!

Linda Matias is a Job-search certified Interview Coach (CIC), Job and Career Transition Coach (JCTC) and Nationality Certified Resume Writer (NCRW) and also the writer of two books. She has also been qualified consultant for Resume writing, interviewing process and career transition areas.

In her paper, Linda described the technique for answering interview questions which are likely to be asked and how they are to be approached. In an interview, some of the questions are tough and hard to tackle. If we follow such a situation, then being aware of the kind of question and where it is coming from could help us to defend ourselves and avoid a uncomfortable situation.

Some of the examples are as follows:

Q. You don't have as much experience for this job. We may have to spend some time with you training you and taking you at a level where we expect the job requirement is. But we have another candidate to whom we don't need to train and spend time with him... so why we would hire you?

Ans. This question demands you to show up your communication skills and show the interviewer that you are a self-starter. Showing that previously you had task in hand and you managed it without any aid would be a good help to tackle this question.

Q. You have been unemployed for a long time. How do you think your skills match up our level of demand?

Ans. This is again a question which may catch you off-guard. The questioner who has found out that you have a gap in your career. Now if we have been upgrading your skills in the time period when we were unemployed it becomes easy to answer. However, if were not covering this time period with any upgrade of skills then this could blow up our interview. To avoid any negative impression it's good to enroll in a program which develop required set of skills so that we could mention them in our Resume (even if we were involved in finding out the different offerings of courses in our area, it's not bad mentioning it in an interview)

Q. I am not sure if you would stick around with this job... what if you decide to move over a new place with in a year because you feel it is boring work now.

Ans. This is relatively easier question to answer because it does give us an opportunity to openly describe our qualities and work skills although the interviewer knows about our work history. Because we have invited for an interview and the person is open to listening, it's a good sign for us as we have a chance to express our qualities which we possess without getting defensive.

Interviewers sometimes ask tough or attacking questions to check our temperament. Simply answer those questions according to their merit. We don't have to be aggressive in tone nor in our stance because it sends a strong negative message to our interviewer and doesn't work out for us in the interview.

For example interviewers are not impressed with the candidate who does not possess the quality of good temperament and self-confidence. They may ask you tough yet reasonable questions, but then they will also consider how do you approach and respond to such type of questions. Getting nervy or embroiled at that crucial stage does not help the cause.

Written by: Bryan W Goldberg

How to Describe Yourself in an Interview

Interviews with recruiters can be very nerve-racking, but the beauty of getting interviewed is that all the questions asked in an interview are very basic and in plain words are highly clich�d, therefore preparing for an interview is as easy as pie. One of the most basic asked in an interview is to describe you in an interview; where most candidates can get really overwhelmed and may mess up bad.

Interviewers ask this question in order to gain an insight into the workings of the potential employee's mind. Employees may stress out a lot over this particular question and even though one should never ever lose their heads but should be very careful while answering this question. Try not to sound too modest or too grandiose, make sure you answer the question in such a way that it is directly relevant to the job that you are being interviewed for. If you are applying for the post of a writer your employer is not really interested in the fact that you're an amazing dancer or a singer - Keep it as professional as possible, remember it's not a blind date!

Before you answer your question, always try to put yourself in the employer's shoe to guess as to what kind of employee he would want to hire. Use power words to describe that add weight to the trait you possess. Such as creative, perfectionist and other such words that instantly give the interviewer an idea about the potential employee. Do NOT feel shy, brag about your skills but remember be confident because cockiness never did good to anyone. If you're telling them about your strengths make sure that u squeeze in a few weak points here and there - your employer wants a human being to work for them not a robot. Talk about your creative side and talk about what kind of working environment best fuels yours creativity and your motivation to work.

The best way to respond to this question is to break the answer down into the following components; start your answer by listing 5 strengths that are pertinent to the field you're applying. Then mention your weakness, but do not focus too much on them - Put your best face forward. Tell them what kind of work environment you're looking for and then back up strengths by talking about your past accomplishments; if you're a newbie in the job market or if you're a veteran, talk about your past job experiences.

Whoever gets successful in describing himself inform of an employer in the right way, gets a high level of chance to be taken seriously and thus get the job. So you should start preparing yourself to express yourself in the best manner possible. You can do so by applying the best technique to overcome your fears and confidence glitches and that is the 'mirror practice'. The mirror practice helps in overcoming all the fears you have in the simplest manner and that is to stand in front of the mirror and do what can not do in front of others. After practicing this technique you will be able to get rid of your problems that can come in your interview process. So after this, you are prepared to describe yourself as effectively as never before!

Written by: Bryan W Goldberg