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Top 3 characteristics employers look for at interview
Top 3 characteristics employers look for at interview
If you display all three of these characteristics you will be vastly increasing your chances at interview. I find that 90% of the interview feedback I receive for rejected candidates is related to these points!
Energy & passion
You absolutely must show a strong desire to do the job and work for the company you are interviewing for. You must have thought about and be ready to answer questions about your reasons for wanting to specialise and develop your long term career in this area. They might not expect you to know everything about the subject area but they will want to see a real commitment from you, and they need to know you are going to commit to the company. This is all about preparation and going into the interview with the right outlook, which leads on to…
Positivity
Nobody wants to work with anyone who displays negative characteristics, particularly when the existing team is full of positive workers. Being negative about the job you are leaving or have left, or slagging off any previous managers or employers is a big no! Don’t focus on the past, and instead think about the future and how your career is likely to progress with this new company. You will be asked questions like “Why did you leave your last job?” and you need to prepare for this type of probing in order to answer positively.
Robustness
For most jobs, you will need to show some element of robustness. Clients can be tricky creatures at times, and those able to stand up to difficult individuals effectively are few and far between. If you can show that you are able to do this, the interviewer will take notice. This is the purpose of questions like “Tell me about a difficult situation at work and how you dealt with it”.
All of these points are common sense, but in the heat of an interview can be easily forgotten. Try and keep these points in mind in your next job interview – smile, display energy and answer in a way that demonstrates how robust you can be.
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