Interview Tips
Interview Manners
Attire, body language and manners count during interviews. After all, interviewers
are regular people like the rest of us, impressed by good behavior and offended
by inappropriate behavior.
Yet, surveys and other indicators show that job candidates' interview manners
and other professionalisms are on the decline.
For example, according to the results of Vault's Interview
Manners Survey, up to 95 percent of employers surveyed indicated that job candidates'
manners had declined in some way, shape or form, such as removing shoes, bringing
pets and the topper of late, rudely interrupting their interviewers by making
cell phone calls.
As another example and among other bizarre behaviors, FacilitatorGuy reported
on his "Interview
Bloopers" page that a job candidate ate a hamburger and french fries
in her interviewer's office and even wiped up ketchup with her sleeve. Worse,
another job candidate interrupted the interview to phone his shrink, for advice
on how to answer specific questions!
As a last example, Alison Doyle, who runs the Job
Searching site at About.com and has also worked as an HR representative,
told this writer that one of her interviewees unbuttoned his shirt and started
to drop his drawers to show her the scar from a boat propeller, as "proof"
that his unemployment wasn't his fault.
Yikes!
Alison stopped Mr. Nasty from mooning her and—needless to say—she
didn't offer him the accounting job. She also didn't offer it to "the young
lady in a bright red skirt so short and tight, that she could hardly sit down!"
On the following pages are tips for acting professionally before, during and
after interviews, to avoid offending interviewers and increase your chances of
landing a job.
You might think that some of the interview tips are no-brainers. If so, that's
good. It means that you are already on your way to completing successful interviews.
No offense is intended; but, as you've read above, weird stuff really does happen
during interviews!
Subsequently, the following interview tips simply attempt to cover what's generally
prudent and what's not for interviews.
| The interview tips are based on good manners in the USA. Good manners are
appreciated everywhere, but what constitutes them might differ among other
countries. |
|
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