Mr. Praneeth, a fresh postgraduate from one of the top b-schools of the country were in the interview.
The interviewer while having a glance at the resume asked the pretty regular question “tell me about yourself”.
Mr. Praneeth started telling about himself since the moment his grandfather migrated from a small village in Maharashtra to Hyderabad.
The interview interrupted him and tried to
ask him the next question when praneeth was about tocome into the
present generation finishing his father’s history.
In fact many candidates even though they are good at communication,
cannot manage themselves timely.
Praneeth was trying to explain the whole history,
instead he could have presented straightly in a couple of
sentences covering the important events.
When the interviewer shot the second question
“why there is a lot of difference in the academic percentage between your graduation and high school studies”.
Praneeth was a bit panicked and tried to lie with a fictitious story in such a way that it can never happen.
The candidate tried well to cover up the fact that he could not do well in the exams as he was not interested in the subjects (chemistry & Physics) in the intermediate,
rather he would have convinced the interviewer expressing his greater interest in math elevating his 90 percentage.
Praneeth lost his confidence completely on watching the interviewer’s expression with the lie he came up and was ready trying to frame a new story to support the previous.
“Okey Mr. Praneeth, tell me about your academic project….!” the interviewer involved. “It is on the chain marketing system.
I have done the project from Amway (Pvt) Ltd, Praneeth expressed excitingly”. “What exactly you learned in your project?”
Praneeth was reading the inventory he prepared the previous night with all enthusiasm, like market surveys, analysis, dealing with clients, business index, supply chain, consumer behavior, etc.,
The interviewer took the chance to pose a question on business index. Praneeth was again thrown into the same pit where he was, and went on searching for the answer.
This usually happens with the many candidates. One needs to stick to the scope of the project.
Exaggerating the skills and accomplishments escalates the interviewer’s expectation and it would obviously be tough to prove on real time.
Praneeth in this case would have presented the only skills he actually had hands on, and have tried to highlight with confidence. This would definitely work in practice.
“All right!! Could you tell the definition of chain marketing?”, the second interviewer exclaimed. Mr. Praneeth felt bad with his gesture and answered in triggering acceleration.
“Well praneeth, it is given in the resume that you write poems at leisure, can you just tell us a poem on corporate hiring?”.
The young man actually read the poems but, never tried to write.
The problem is the same as above. Mere zooming the content and skills in the resume does not yield better results.
A compatible explanation with live examples make your interview successful.
Praneeth is neither bad at his subject nor poor in communication. What made the interview unsuccessful is the presentation and situational anxiety.
Many of the candidates faces the similar situations, but it is not impossible to overcome this.
Here are Some Tips to Over Come Interview Problems
• Always dress neat while going for an interview. Prefer plain shits. Girls may use bangles without any glittering.
• Never enter the interview hall in a hurry. Always wear a smile on your face.
• Do not enter the room and take the seat without permission.
• Listen to the questions carefully and avoid asking for repetition.
• Avoid using negative sentences in answering for eg: No, I am not in interested, no, It is wrong., etc., rather you can follow the rule “positive rejection – negative acceptance” if necessary.
• Maintain neutral emotions.
• Never raise a controversial topic unless you have a clear idea of supporting or opposing with appropriate reason.
• Just skip the questions if you feel controversial, and handle smartly. For eg: religious and spiritual issues.
• Never lose the confidence, even if the interviewer tries tricking you blame for something
• Maintain optimism and gentleness throughout the interview.
Mr. Vijay is a career guide and consultant HR executive at ResourceMaster, a career guidence and jobs consultant agency located in Hyderabad . He writes on career guidance and soft skills.