Your initial contact with the recruiter can be by phone or email, and shortlisted applicants will then be invited for an initial interview. You should carefully prepare for the initial interview because it may spell winning the job or lose it.
Before going to your interview appointment, you should first research the company you’re applying for. Yo need to learn about its history and business. The internet provides tons of information to help get you started. How you present yourself to the interviewer is part of your overall package. Remember, you’re selling yourself here, and you want the other side to buy, thus you should work to present an attractive side of you. Wear something respectable. Go buy some new pants, long-sleeved shirts, and a necktie. Keep in mind that the interviewer wanted to know if you are fit for the job, hence, you should appear that you own the job.
In the interview proper, you should anticipate some of the questions the interviewer may throw at you. The interviewer may start with general questions then proceed to specific ones. Your preparation and research from the day before should help you with this. The trend nowadays is to ask applicants questions that will show their competencies. If you are asked with questions that sound like they want to uncover how you react or what you did in certain situations, you may want to follow the S.T.A.R.s pattern.
S.T.A.R.s or Situation, Task, Action, and Results aims to let you explain in detail your accomplishments, whether from schools or from previous companies, from each key competencies. As part of the interview process, interviewers wanted to have a deeper understanding of your competencies by asking you to provide a couple of past scenarios where you perform a function that suits some key competencies. You can start by describing to them the scenario back then (situation) and relay to them a set of strategies you have planned to pursue (task). Then, explain to them the detailed steps of how you accomplished the task (action), and provide the interviewer with the outcome (result).
Sometimes, interviewers throw some difficult and stressful questions. They may also throw some morally challenging questions to test your resolve, such as: “What if a doctor asks you for a date in return to helping you achieve your quota, will you accept it?” I myself had asked this many times to numerous applicants. Most applicants, eager to get the job, answered yes thinking that I will appreciate their show of eagerness. They are dead wrong!
The interview is only the first step. Other processes may follow, depending on a company’s program. If you have passed the initial interviews, they may subject you to an individual or group dynamics. With this, potential employers would want to know how you react in a simulated real-world scenario. They may also want to know how your mind works. They may ask you to sell a random and obscure item and test how creative you are. They may also subject you and the other applicants in a group activity to know who has what it takes to be a leader or to know if you assert yourself to others or not.
