Interview Tips – From Insecure to Invincible!

Whether you’re just starting out in your job search or you’re a seasoned pro applying to various ideal jobs in the market, it’s common knowledge that candidate competition is high.

This is particularly true if you’re applying to the best companies, the best job vacancies and the most competitive salaries.

That’s why your success is not only down to having a great CV, or cover letter and Linkedin profile, to get your foot in the door, it’s actually more about delivering the goods during your interview.

That’s your chance to really shine, to show your professional worth, so to speak, to stand out from the crowd and to demonstrate why you’re the only candidate they should be thinking about!

So, to help you out in this endeavour, here are 7 Great English Interview Tips to give you that competitive advantage going into the ring!

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1. Update Your CV/Resume, Cover Letter & LinkedIn Profile

Get your CV, Cover Letter and LinkedIn profile professionally written or translated by a Native English speaker, ideally by someone with corporate experience and/or knowledge of CV writing and HR & Recruitment protocol.

Why so specific?

Well, apart from the obvious, they know how to articulately use professional English and how to make your CV stand out in front of potential employers, not to mention their key insight into what recruiters are looking for.

Check out our CV & LinkedIn service here, and we’ll help turn yours into something to be truly proud of!

Make sure your cover letter is short, sharp and to the point. A bit like an abstract of a scientific paper, it must clearly and professionally deliver key points and your purpose for writing early on. 

2. Know your Professional Experience inside out!

Knowledge is power!… and in the case of your interview, it’s confidence.

Make sure you’re well-versed on your career history and can coherently and succinctly explain the details of your professional experience and skills.

While we’re on the subject of skills, it’s worth noting that a lot of people forget to really highlight their current skills and abilities and simply focus on their past experience, which leaves a huge gap in the professional image you portray to the interviewer. You want them to know what your expertise are today, not only what you’ve done in the past.

Your skills are just as important as your experience, See this TED talk on precisely this point.

Practice giving additional details about projects and challenges, about your skills in action, career changes, key accomplishments, as well as your strengths and weaknesses (or as we prefer to call them, “areas for improvement”!).

As an interviewer, there is nothing more deflating than when a candidate can’t explain their own experience or skills in detail, and ideally with a little passion and confidence, too. You should wow the interviewer with interesting information, successes, lessons learnt and more. And let’s face it, if anyone should know your experience and skills well, it should be you, right?

Start practicing your English interview skills with us today, find out more here!

3. Start well, End well!

You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression!  They’re crucially important!… And so are final impressions!

Make sure you make a great first impression when you meet you interviewer. And if you’ve done a great job during the interview, don’t throw it all away with a poor finish.

Learn how to start and finish an interview politely, professionally, confidently and as someone who is in charge of their professional destiny!

Don’t be shy or too proud to spend some time practicing the start and finish of an interview, it matters! Believe me when I say, it counts in terms of building and maintaining rapport, which is crucial for interview success.

4. Perfect Grammar & Accents

This is a common stress point for many English learners, and yet, it isn’t actually the ‘be all and end all’. There are more important things you should be focusing on!

So you have an accent, so what! It’s actually quite an endearing feature to have, so relax about it!

Of course, if your accent prohibits your pronunciation to the point that the interviewer cannot understand you, then work on your pronunciation, intonation and word stress. However, it’s not necessary to completely lose your accent.

**Top Interview Tip!**
To help you better understand the interviewer (and their accent), find out where they’re from and practice listening to that typical accent online to familiarise yourself with their intonation and pronunciation. That way, it will be easier to understand them on the day of your interview!

Regarding grammar, the more accurate you are, the better, but a small mistake here or there isn’t going to lose you the job!

In fact, in our Interview Training Course, we put your mind at ease by teaching you the most important interview grammar, while also showing you how to easily recognise which grammar to use on the day.

5. Fail to Prepare and you Prepare to Fail!

It’s an old expression, but it’s as true today as it ever has been. Don’t leave your career to chance!

In other words, even if your interview goes OK without much preparation, you’ll probably lose out to another candidate who put the time, effort and preparation in. During an interview, it really shows show’s done their preparation, and who hasn’t. 

Don’t assume you can just breeze through ‘on the fly’, without the adequate preparation… and just to be clear, ‘preparation’ doesn’t mean cramming all your practice into one or two days before the interview!

Remember, for vacancies at multinationals, you’re not only competing against other non-native English speakers, but also natives AND internal candidates! If they’re putting in the preparation, you should be putting in double!

Practice, practice and practice some more. And if you have time, invest in some additional course to elevate your interview skills, such as an Interview preparation course that suits your schedule.

6. To Script, or not to Script!

Surely this is obvious, but just in case, do not, I repeat, do not script your answers! Yes, have a good guide for what you want to include in your answers, but don’t script it word for word. 

I’ve seen a lot of candidates script their answers, and take it from me, it always comes off seeming fake, uncharismatic, and if you forget a part of the script you’ll typically freeze while you try to remember the next line! Plus, the interviewer will lose confidence in you as a top candidate.

Instead, believe in your ability to communicate in English and deliver great answers!

So, how do you overcome the script?…

Chunk your answers down into key bullet points of key information that prompt your responses. Then practice delivering the answers in a number of different ways, using different adjectives, verbs, vocabulary and even grammar tenses.

The more versatile you are, the more natural, confident and fluent you’ll be in the interview!

7. Punctuality.

In English speaking nations like the USA, UK and Australia, as well as many European countries, good punctuality in the business world is a must, and interviews are no exception.

Turning up late to an interview or unprepared, shows disrespect, disinterest and disorganisation. Don’t make that mistake. Remember tip #3?

In fact, to make the right impression, you should be neither late, nor too early! Yes, too early is a thing!

I’d recommend 5-10 minutes prior to the scheduled time. Nothing more, nothing less.

Ok, so what now?

Now that you have these secrets to interview success in your hands, it’s time to put them into action!

The first things you can do to get started are, translate and improve your CV, cover letter and LinkedIn profile, and train your interview skills in English.

Make note of the tips here that really resonated with you and focus on where you can really transform your interview game overnight. And of course, for the best guidance, interview training, native translations, and Business English courses, get in touch with us today!

Would you like to hone your English interview skills? Anxious that you’re not quite ready to face the paanel of interviewers? Well fear not!

We’re here to help professionals like you to speak excellent Business English, and FEEL truly confident to deliver your absolute best during your interview and have the best chance of landing the job!

Best,

Adam 

For the definitions of the highlighted words check our Glossary.