Interview Communication Techniques - Sterling Career Concepts

Interview Communication Techniques Interview Communication Techniques Not everyone can claim strong verbal communication skills, and sometimes nerves or stress can unhinge a normally effective communicator. Interview coaching can often work out the kinks, but other times, it’s a problem for which job search candidates need to devise work-around strategies. When faced with a traditional face-to-face interview scenario, consider some of the following strategies to downplay your weakness and improve your odds of a strong interview: Create a PowerPoint presentation that can be used as talking points to reduce the need to develop answers on the spot. This allows the candidate to take control of the situation. The slides can include selling points about your experience, value in past projects, educational highlights, and perhaps even suggestions or a recommended course of action for the potential employer to show you did your research well (something that might not be conveyed well during the course of an interview if your communication skills are subpar). Depending on your preference and comfort level, this presentation could be a bound flip book or a PowerPoint presentation on a tablet or laptop. Ask the interviewer for a problem to solve if you have strong technical skills. This would allow you to share your technical knowledge, but further advice would be to practice this technique so that poor verbal communication skills do not interfere with delivering the answer. Suggest or agree to any initial phone screenings rather than face-to-face meetings. Telephone interviews allow you to have notes spread out in front of you as you speak. This is not as easy during a Skype call, but it works well during a traditional telephone screening. This again would eliminate some of the need to devise answers on the spot. A general recommendation would be to practice, practice, practice! The majority of interview questions can be prepared far in advance. I recommend clients get a notebook or set of index cards and write out answers to standard interview questions ahead of time. This improves your comfort level with the material and should reduce the amount of error. If this describes your concern with interviewing, consider contacting us for an interviewing preparation session or two to boost your confidence to ensure you are well prepared.