Practice Job Interview With The Tip That Matters The Most

I was recently asked the question if you could give only one practice job interview tip to a prospective job seeker, what would it be?  This question is very challenging when you consider all the possible job interview tips you could give: appropriate attire, questions to ask, research the company, interview etiquette tips, sending thank you letters, etc.  However, after thinking about all the possible pieces of advice, the one thing that kept coming to mind was practicing your answers to different interview questions. 

Practicing Your Answers To Different Interview Questions 

By practicing your answers to interview questions, you build confidence in yourself and increase your chances of making your best impression in the interview.  Instead of the interview being a situation where you are essentially being interrogated about your job history and your qualifications it moves to an opportunity for you to highlight your strong points and to best address your weaknesses. 

At some point in your practicing, you will get to the point where you answer these types of questions automatically.  When you get to this stage, you are then able to adjust your focus to seeing how your answer is being received by the interviewer and to adjust it so the response sounds natural.  After a few practice interview sessions with a friend, you should be ready for the real interview.  It is funny, but at this stage you will actually want to have the interview to show off your stuff.  This is a far cry from the beginning where you may have been filled with fear and trepidation about the pending interview. 

One final note is to be sure to write down all your questions and bullets and save them on your computer. As you are likely to have many interviews through your life, you will be able to go back to this list and update it with newer accomplishments when you need it. This will allow you to reduce your learning curve for interview preparation in the years to come.