Tips: Interview

Interview, as believed by most people, is one of the fascinating, thrilled moments in many people's life. Freshers face a tough time in getting into the working scenario through the hiring process. So here are some points which are mainly concentrated on the freshers and to be more specific, for people going to attend the campus interviews.

Most companies have their hiring process following some particular order. It may start with written test like verbal, non-verbal, aptitude, academic etc., and go through Group Discussion (GD), Interview with MD through phone or Technical Interview or HR interview etc.

Before getting into it, here are somethings that may improve your confidence.
Waking up your "Subconscious Mind"
Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP)
Imagination leads to Creativity
Self Confidence vs Inferiority Complex

Self-Confidence matters a lot in the process. So have faith in yourself first. Have a positive approach and believe that you are going to get through.

Before the hiring process starts, we need to prepare a resume.
1) Resume is something which we use to express our qualities to the interviewers.

i) The resume should be very much unique, short and simple. 2 or maximum 3 pages will be more than enough. It should be properly aligned and should have a proper order (You could follow any of the resume formats available) .

ii) If you are going to have another resume template as an example to prepare your's, then you should know each and everything in the resume, even what you have said in your objective, your aggregate etc.

iii) Also I have been said, not to have fancy email ID's. And some people said, that not to have underscore _ in the email Id. I dono what is the reason for it. But it is good to avoid it.

iv) Your objective should not have repeated words. Use simple but powerful words.

v) In your Resume, write about your Educational qualification, Area of Interest, Academic records/activities (projects, paper presentations, organising events, Industry visit etc.,) , Co-curricular activities, your skill sets (technical and communication) etc.

vi) Most people write the Educational qualification starting from the recent most qualification.

vii) Be careful while writing your area of interest. Make sure you know much about what is written there. Because if the interviewer is knowledged in that area, he will corner you with lots of questions.

viii) Events you won should be given more priority. Its good to have less importance for participating events, though it will contribute at times. Some times alternate words for "participation" can be used, like "modelled/constructed/developed so and so for the so and so competition" instead of "participated in so and so competition". If you are going to write about Industial visits, again beware, you should know about it.

ix) Give more importance to projects and paper presentations, as these are some examples of you working in team, and being able to express your views which is most expected from a company.

x) Hobbies , if you are writing, should be unique. If you write like hearing music, reading books, some question that might arised in the interview will be who is your favourite musician/writer etc., and you may be asked to name some of his/her other works.

2) Now lets start with written tests. These tests are given mostly for eliminating people in large numbers and it is also a quick and easy process for them. Since people can be trained in some platform where they need to work, generally companies (especially IT) hire people who have better communication skills. So verbal part and aptitude part (testing your analytical and creative skills) are very important. Whereas core companies concentrate on how knowledged you are, with little bit communication skills. But no matter what company it is, we can't just ignore communication skills.

i) About test related to your syllabus/academics, you have to know lot of the basics in subjects.

Here are few links that are related to tests.
Objectives over Descriptive
"Learn to teach" to "learn from teaching"
More you study more marks ?
How do I learn Maths ?
(There are some points in these link, which may help you for objectives)

ii) About Verbal, Nonverbal parts, I am advised by my friends to get the books Barron's GRE book and RS Agarwal's Verbal and NonVerbal and for quantitative apps, go through RS Agarwal's quantitative apps.

My friends also suggested me to get Shakunthala Devi's two puzzle books and George Summer'ss puzzle book and asked me to work out. More you practise, faster you can answer the questions.

Regarding remembering GRE words, In one training we are asked to remember words by imagining a picture. In that way we are associating every word and meaning to something. So we would be able to remember better. This is one of the NLP technique.

3) Coming to GD, I have already made a post on that. Check Tips: Group Discussion for points on GD.

4) If you can talk well before a group of people, and on stage, there won't be much fear to answer the MD in interview through phone. However here comes our listening abilities and how we approach with people who are unknown to us.

5) Technical Interview: Mostly the interview will be centered around your area of interest. Some Interviewers may deviate from this and go about their area of interest, lolz. If you are given any problem to solve, dont give up even if you don't know. Try something with your knowledge. How you approach certain problems and how is your interest to solve the problem are looked upon.

6) HR Interview: There are many do's and dont's in interviews. Like, before getting into the room ask for an excuse, greet the interviewers (and also shake hands) , never sit before they say to do so (if not said for a long time, kindly request the interviewer. Careful with your words), dont say answers in single words (like no, yes. Try to give the explanation before they ask you.) etc.

i) There are many common interview questions. This (mirror) document lists 64 common HR interview questions and how to answer them. Added to it, I would like to tell few more points.

Your answer to "Tell me about yourself" (which is hte first question in most of the HR interviews) should explain everything about you (what is in the resume) and should be less than a minute. If the interviewer already know your name, or addressed you with your name, dont start with "My name is so and so". Follow a proper order while saying about yourself. Emphasize more on your projects and paper presentations. You should control what should be the interviewers next question. When you say something interesting in your "About yourself" question the next question will be from that area.

Whatever question they ask, try to make them ask from your favorite field or from what you know. Like "Do you have team work abilities?" - Answer to this in such a way that you bring in your project work which you did as a team. Next question will be explain about your project. Then you can tell more (if you had done your project yourself, lol)

ii) Perform SWOT analysis before getting to the interview. You should know yourself in and out.

iii) There are chances that you may be given a puzzle to solve or you may be put in some imaginary situations and they may ask you what you will do in those cases. Though you can't prepare much for this, you can gather some questions that are asked before from your friends, seniors or in internet. You may also be asked question that will create impatience in you, like going into your personal life/ situations in your personal life (stress Interview). Don't show your anger there.

iv) While answering, avoid getting into fields that you don't know and putting yourself in trouble.

v) Don't answer in too long sentence. It will make you less audible or clear to the interviewer.

vi) More important, before getting to the interview know more about the company. Use their website. Be updated with current affairs. Know the news that has come recently about the company. You should show your interest towards the company.

vi) Another important thing - Be honest.

vii) When given a chance to ask for a question - dont ask them "what will be my salary?". Try to ask question that is really important. However there is nothing wrong if you did not ask anything - and again, dont just say single word "no".

viii) Keep a smiling face, be cool (don't get irritated by the questions asked by the interviewer), don't loose your confidence.

All the best.

1 comments:

Margonline said...

It is important to remain confident and be good in communicating well with employers, These tips above would definitely help one to crack the interviews.Thanks for sharing!
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