What you will never hear about interviews.

There are 3 types of can­di­dates,
1.   Those who nat­u­rally do well in inter­views.
2.   Those who do not and no mat­ter how much coach­ing they receive and work they put into it they just can’t seem to pol­ish their skills enough to leave inter­view­ers wowed.
3.   Those who cur­rently under-perform but can improve with the proper amount of recep­tiv­ity to feed­back and preparation.
Most fall into the third cat­e­gory. If you are in the third category feel com­fort in know­ing you’re not alone and remem­ber, there is no such thing as being overly pre­pared. Roll play­ing with some­one by phone and in per­son is indis­pens­able, how­ever there are also sev­eral other steps you can take to improve your inter­view per­for­mance and lessen your nerves.
Start by rec­og­niz­ing that some level of nerves is nor­mal if you are tak­ing this poten­tially life chang­ing event seri­ously because it depends on your level of inter­view expe­ri­ence, self-confidence, how aligned you are with the job descrip­tion and employer expec­ta­tions, what’s going on in your life at the moment. The vari­ables are end­less here.
Depend­ing on how much inter­view expe­ri­ence the inter­view­ers has, she could be could be as ner­vous as you are. This hap­pens often with smaller com­pa­nies that direct hire with­out a recruiter on staff or with a new hir­ing man­ager. You actually may be on an even play­ing field when it comes to nerves with the hiring guy.

Inter­view nerves come from at least some level of lack of con­fi­dence and/or low self-esteem com­bined with self-pressure to per­form  and emo­tional dis­com­fort from some­one we have min­i­mal to no rap­port with being “in con­trol” of our sit­u­a­tion. Here are some things you can do to be more con­fi­dent and enhance your per­for­mance at game time:
1.   Research the com­pany: Learn as much about it and the job you are apply­ing for as you can. Devour the com­pany web­site, spend time there and take notes. Show­ing you “did your home­work” says a lot about you in the interview namely that you want the job badly enough to be interested and pre­pared, but it also shows your ini­tia­tive and men­tal energy. 
2.   Ask the HR rep­re­sen­ta­tive or recep­tion­ist what the dress code is if you don’t know. Ensure you go dressed appro­pri­ately. An office set­ting requires a suit or at the very least busi­ness casual cloth­ing. Regard­less if it is an exec­u­tive posi­tion or unskilled labor, you must be detailed in your appear­ance and appro­pri­ate. Women should always dress con­ser­v­a­tively unless they are apply­ing for jobs where they would be expected to wear reveal­ing cloth­ing to work. The bonus here is that when you look your best you are more confident.
3.   Arrive as early for the inter­view as you cal­cu­late: You’ll need to relax and feel con­fi­dent to walk in the door with good self com­mand and com­po­sure. The drive there is always stress­ful enough; arriv­ing last minute will just increase your adren­a­line and make you more ner­vous. Sit in your car or in the lobby and give your­self a chance to calm down and pre­pare your­self.
4.   Remem­ber that an inter­view is a two way street: You should also be inter­view­ing the employer to see if you really want to work there as much as you think you do. It has to be mutu­ally ben­e­fi­cial or one or both par­ties will not be happy and it won’t work out. Go pre­pared with ques­tions about the com­pany and the posi­tion. In addi­tion to show­ing the inter­viewer your inter­est you will get the answers you need to know if you really want the job, if you would just be set­tling or if it’s not for you at all.
5.   When we are tense we tend to raise our shoul­ders and fid­get with any­thing in reach. Make a con­scious effort to relax your shoul­ders by tak­ing a few slow deep breaths, low­er­ing them a notch with each exha­la­tion until they are in their nor­mal posi­tion. Main­tain good erect pos­ture and resist the urge to act like you’re all strung out on caf­feine or what­ever.
6.   If answers aren’t gen­er­at­ing them­selves as fast as you would like, it’s OK to ask for a moment to for­mu­late the response to a ques­tion. Just say, “I have sev­eral exam­ples, I would like a moment to give you the one that best exem­pli­fies my skills and abil­i­ties”. No inter­viewer will have a prob­lem with that.
7.   Refrain from speak­ing about per­sonal things unless they relate directly to the job. Remem­ber it is an employ­ment inter­view not a date (though there are sim­i­lar­i­ties), stay on topic. Peo­ple who tend to dis­cuss their social life and out­side of work inter­ests usu­ally do so to fill in those awk­ward moments of silence or when they don’t know what to say and it is appar­ent to the inter­viewer. If you face an awk­ward moment of silence just smile, ask a ques­tion you have pre­pared or com­ment on your vast wealth of knowl­edge of the com­pany that you gained from your research. It will be much more impres­sive than what­ever beans you were about to spill.
8.   Most impor­tantly, remem­ber that an inter­view is really a sales presen­ta­tion of you. The employer needs to “buy” your skills and tal­ent to hire you. Your objec­tive is to present your­self in the best pos­si­ble light to show the employer why you are the best pos­si­ble can­di­date. You must prove that if you are not selected the loss will be theirs. Some­times, think­ing of you in the 3rd per­son as a prod­uct is helpful.

When it comes down to eval­u­at­ing your per­for­mance, your advanced preparation will give you a clear advan­tage over the arro­gant know it all who doesn’t need to pre­pare and the self-sabotaging can­di­date who doesn’t want the job as much as she/ he thinks she/ he does. Unless you were born with crazy mad com­mu­ni­ca­tion and pre­sen­ta­tion skills you’ll need to prac­tice and refine yours if you want to walk out of the inter­view leav­ing them run­ning to the near­est com­puter to draft your offer letter.

We at HCC wish you all the best in your interviews.