Interviews can be a bit scary, given the many questions that interviewers ask. However, those questions have a pattern and are asked for various reasons. Every interviewer’s intention is to get to know the candidates, in order to find out if they are a fit for the job. Here are 5 things interviewers look for.
Confidence
One of the first things interviewers look for is how confident you are. As soon as you step into the room, the interviewers can tell if you are confident or not. Your level of confidence shows in the way you walk, the way you sit, and the way you answer questions. Interviewers can also tell if you are nervous or lack self-confidence.
Calming your nerves and handling yourself confidently shows that you believe in yourself and your skills. Every company wants people who are self-assured and can go about their jobs without second-guessing themselves.
Communication Skills
Also paramount among the things interviewers look for is how well you express yourself. Communication is very important in the corporate world. Internal and external communication is the bedrock of any successful organization. You will be interacting with colleagues, superiors, and customers in the course of doing your job.
So, practical communication skills are essential skills that interviewers look for while interviewing you. Ensure that you practice your answers to likely questions before the interview. This will help you speak fluently during the interview.
Critical Thinking
Problem-solving skills and critical thinking are some of the things interviewers look for. To assess your problem-solving skills, they could ask you certain questions to know how you would handle a certain situation and produce the desired results.
They could ask you to tell them how you handled a problem that cropped up at your last job. They could also present a hypothetical situation and ask you how it can be solved.
Interviewers usually want to know how you would handle situations that are not accounted for in the company’s playbook. So, continuously improve your critical thinking skills because you never know when you will need to solve an unforeseen problem, real or hypothetical.
Preparedness
How much do you know about the company? That is one of the things interviewers look out for when interviewing you. Companies’ HRs want to be sure that you know what they are all about because this tells them that you are prepared to join the team if you scale through.
They would like to be sure that your decision to apply for the job was well-thought-out, and not a random one. Studying a company and its values shows that you are deliberate about getting the job. Also, preparing well for a job interview gives a hint to the interviewers about how well you will prepare for presentations and work in general when you get the job.
Personality
There are different personality types. Different personalities fit into different roles, and this is one of the things interviewers look for. For public relations jobs, an outgoing personality may be a better fit for the job than a melancholic personality.
Therefore, interviewers study each applicant to know which role each person is best suited for.
Some companies ask candidates to take personality tests because they understand the importance of matching the right personality with the right job.
Based on the assessments, companies could assign upbeat, charismatic people to marketing or customer relationship roles because of how easily they make friends and convince people.
On the other hand, they might recruit quiet introverts as tech operators because they know that such people do better behind the scenes where they don’t have to be the centre of attention, and neither do they have to interact with strangers.
The goal of any interviewer is to find the right people for the job. Therefore, interviewers look out for certain things in the candidates. As a candidate, you have an edge when you look at an interview from the perspective of an interviewer.
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