 PRESENTING
IN THE WORKPLACE – PART ONE
“When you’re
prepared, you’re more confident. When you
have a strategy, you’re more comfortable.”
Fred Couples
PREPARE YOURSELF
TO WIN THE JOB! The set of guidelines below will
surely help you to prepare yourself for an interview
as a job candidate to win the job, identify and
use strategies for successful employment interviews,
use a variety of techniques for preparing for
an interview, practice handling job interviews,
participate effectively in the interview, and
win the job you are aspiring for!
A business interview is a conversation between two people for specific
purposes. Typically, the people take turns playing
the roles of interviewer and interviewee. This
simplified outline will hopefully make that big
difference!
I. The
Key to a Successful Interview: PREPARATION
A. Know the details of the meeting
B. Learn what you can about the other participant.
C. Think through the interview in advance.
D. Plan the topics you want to discuss - prepare
answers to questions:
1. How would you describe yourself? (Interviewee
selects several appealing things about his background,
interests, and personal skills. Phrase the information
into three to five positive sentences).
2. Why are you interested in this position?
3. What do you do to keep you in good physical
condition?
4. Do you plan to continue your education? What
field are you planning to study?
5. Tell us about your hobbies. What do you do
with your spare time?
6. What are your strengths?
7. What is your greatest weakness? (Interviewer
wants to know whether the applicant can be objective
about his shortcomings and whether he knows himself
well enough to have overcome some failings.)
8. What subjects did you like best in school?
9. What business and personal communication skills have you learned in school?
10. Why do you want to work for the company?
11. What did you like most and least about your
last or (current) job?
12. Do you have any questions? (Be prepared with
several questions that show you have researched
the job for which you are applying and the company.
E. Be physically prepared.
F. Be mentally prepared.
G. Set the interview in the proper perspective.
H. Expect the interviewer to take the lead.
I. Carry your share of the load.
J. Know the questions you don’t have to
answer like:
1. your personal life
2. religion
3. race
4. physical attributes
5. national origin
K. Follow Up
II. Communicating
One’s Best Skills and Accomplishments
An interviewee becomes
a good candidate for the job being sought for
when he sums up everything he wants to get across
to the interviewer. Interviewee must need to communicate
his skills and accomplishments by knowing himself
well.
Complete the SAY-IT,
PROVE-IT CHART below. This will help you come
prepared to communicate vital points. Under the
SAY IT column, list your strongest skills and
accomplishments. In the PROVE IT column, give
examples and stories that illuminate them.
For example:
SAY IT. “Self-taught computer troubleshooter.”
PROVE IT. “I used skill to solve problem
of downed computers facing many people on my team
at Company ABC. In one day, I had every computer
up and running before the IT Manager could even
come to help.”
III. Identifying
Potential Liabilities
A. Common examples
of potential liabilities (dark-cloud issues):
1. One job for a long time
2. Too many jobs
3. Experiences in a different industry
4. Unemployed
5. Once got fired
6. No experience in a company of this size
7. Unrelated or insufficient education
8. Overqualified
B. Three-step
process to follow to address dark-cloud issues:
1. Pause briefly and evaluate what can-do or will-do
factor the question received relates to.
2. Respond briefly with the facts.
3. Redirect your assets.
Here are examples
of handling dark-cloud issues with the steps given:
1. Consider the will-do factor dealing with reliability
or stability.
2. Answer with something like the following: “Retrenchment
and chances to grow and gain new skills have been
the main reasons I’ve had such a variety
of experiences.”
3. Redirect to assets by stating something similar
to this:
“What this has done for me is help build
multitude of skills that help me in roles like
the one you have available. In addition, my experience
has taught me to be adaptable to change. You’ve
talked about the need to have changes occur in
your work environment, and that is one of the
factors that has attracted me to this position.”
REFERENCES:
1. Speaking for
Success by Miculka
2. Talk Your Way to Success by Wilder
3. Your Executive Image by Seits
4. How To Say It Best by Griffin
5. Communicating Effectively byBrounstein
6. Super Confidence by Lindenfield
7. Improving Personal Effectiveness by Fotis
8. General Office Procedures by Archer
9. Office Fundamentals by Gregg
10. Self-packaging the Professional by TBGutierrez
(Teri
Gutierrez is a corporate trainer, author, speaker,
and web columnist. She can be reached at gutierrez_teri@yahoo.com)
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