Success Through Confidence Series Part 17: Ten Tips For A Super Job Interview

Job interviews in many organizations are getting sophisticated these days. Psychological tests, role plays, and challenges to one's "quick intelligence" and street smarts are often part of the package. While it's impossible to anticipate everything you may encounter, here are ten tips that will help you negotiate the interview process successfully.

1. Prepare and over-prepare.

2. Be particularly clear on what you know and what you want to achieve.

3. Make sure your responses match your claims.

4. Be clear about your strengths

5. Describe your weaknesses as strengths. Show that, in overcoming a weakness, you've learned to be a better person.

6. If you've been fired, be forthright about it – but don’t be bitter.

7. Be clear where you want to go – have direction and focus.

8. Have clear personal standards.

9. Interview the interviewer.

The applicant who will take anything offered is unlikely to win any but the most temporary of positions. A competent interviewer (there are some) will respect your efforts to assess the organization and the position in terms of whether or not it meets YOUR requirements.

10. Don't allow yourself to be stressed out by the salary issue.

Know the range of compensation for the job you're seeking, make your own realistic determination of what you're worth, and then be prepared to stand your ground.