www.thegrindstone.com: 5. Have an amazing breakfast. Okay–this sounds silly, but have you ever been so nervous you couldn’t eat before a job interview? Right. Well, what’s worse than nervousness is stomach growl noises peeping up into the middle of your interview. Not only will you squirm in your seat trying to stop it–while obsessively thinking about it–your potential boss may actually hear it.
11 comments:
In reading some of the posts on good interviews lately, they all seem to add up to a single main idea. Be confident. True, this is part of being prepared on how you wan to say things and what you wear. But, the fact of the matter is that we really cannot fully expect what will happen in an interview. Therefore, being confident is better than remembering thousands of tips and tricks that essentially add up to just that.
Ok first I just want to point out that the article was called "4 Ways..." but there were five pieces of advice. I don't know why that bothered me so much but it did. With that said, I think these pieces of advice are actually really important and it's interesting, these are (mostly) my preparation steps for crits. I think Carolyn is absolutely right. Acing an interview is all about confidence and having faith in your abilities.
I feel like most of these tips are common sense. Of course you want to be prepared for your interview, and you want to be dressed appropriately. However, I do think the last tip has a lot of credence. Interviewers are most likely looking at multiple interviewees in a single day, or over a span of days. At job fairs or conferences like USITT, they're looking at hundreds of potential employees. Make sure that there's something about you that will stand out. Were you the guy with star wars tie that everyone commented on? Were you the girl with the funky earrings or the eye-catching sparkly scarf? Give your interviewer something to remember you by. It also has a good chance of being a conversation piece, and will give the interviewer something to connect with you about.
The same thing can be said on paper. What's special about your resume that will make it stand out? Was it sent on a different color paper? Did you have an interesting fact, experience, or special skill? Every little thing helps.
So yeah, being confident and not a jerk will definitely help you in an interview. The piece about a really delicious breakfast also was neat, and something I hadn't really thought about. There is something really magical that happens when you've been able to consume a delicious, somewhat leisurely breakfast that makes the whole day better. At least there is for me.
I would argue that your resume shouldn't wait till the last minute to be updated. I'm trying to get into a habit where every time I start a new job, I add it to my resume, then as I'm given projects, I can update it as needed. That's really cut down on my pre-interview stress, and then the night before I can focus on last minute tweaks and sleeping.
It is really cool how many articles on this blog are dedicated to interviews, what people are looking for, how to give a good interview, etc... I think that is really great because our interviews and experiences are so different than the ones that are being talked about it is useful to pick out pieces of advice that WOULD be useful to people in our profession. This article in particular is very vague, they are basic ways to make sure your performance, eating a good breakfast and all that which can pretty much be applied to any sort of interview.
I felt like this article was lacking in a lot of ways. First, I was looking for something fresh and new regarding job interviews. However, the information was only a step above standard. Although, I had never thought about the breakfast tip, so that was new and something I might try. I usually am too excited to eat before interviews. I wanted to connect with the article in the way that it was written, but at least I felt like it was trying to hard to be "hip" and "cool." Plus, these ways didn't scream "badass" to me. At all.
I'm not sure why this article needed to be targeted at women, which it seemed to be to me. Why does the writer feel the need to say "ladies!" at the end of the section about breakfast? Why are all the tips on dressing to impress relating solely to details like heels and purses? I think the idea behind the tips given here is universal: confidence comes from within, but there are little ways to make yourself stand out in the interviewer's mind that are worth considering. We all know that books are constantly judged by their covers, especially when it comes to being up for a job against a lot of people. But this makes it sound like women need to show off that they are pretty or do things to make themselves more girly in order to compete with "the boys" and to me, that is a load of crap.
Maybe it's just that we read so many articles about interviews on the blog, but I, like many above me, was very underwhelmed with this article. It says nothing beyond "eat breakfast" and "be prepared." You want to stand out, but not too much, and you want to have answers, but don't sound rehearsed. There's nothing new or exciting or badass here at all.
In answer to Becca, I was also initially a little offended that this article was targeted so much at women, but than I realized that the whole site is meant to be a site for women, so the article made a little more sense, although it's still a little too superficial for my taste.
The part of this that I find hard to walk the line on is getting a read before the interview of what is appropriate attire. A couple of times I have gotten off on the wrong foot with people because of going into an interview over dressed. It would be nice to know ahead of time what was the expectation. Maybe I just need to do more research on the company before I get there. A good breakfast is something that I have also missed when flying into a city for an interview. Without knowing the city I have had to satisfy my hunger with McDonalds at the airport and I feel like after a mcgriddle nothing will go right.
This article was just a waste of time. As people have said, all these "tips" were straight up common sense. Also question the credibility of this article pointing out that you should prepare, but not over prepare? I understand wanting to sound genuine and authentic in your interview, but you also want to genuinely sound like you know what you're doing. I also want to address that though this article was on a site meant to target women, I irritated that they didn't discuss real issues that women face in a job interviews versus their male counterparts.
I think that they should have elaborated on preparing your resume. It is definitely imperative that you update its information, but you should also review it and make sure you yourself are fully aware of what it says. Too often people forget key skills and experiences that are written on their resume and when asked about them can't speak with confidence or sell it for all it worth. I think that that would have been a great addition to this list.
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