Interview Success Zone

I wanted to share with you an excellent interview skills DVD I came across more than two years ago. Originally it only came as a DVD with a CD that you played on your way to your interview. Now the producers of the package have actually created a bumper package with a number of really helpful extras. Interview Experts is PACKED with tips on how to breeze through your interview. I’ve attached here a preview of Interview Experts which will give you a taste of what is on the full DVD.

Click here to view the preview video

I train hundreds of people every year in all these techniques that you will see there, and I’m so pleased to see that my approach is echoed by the many employers, recruiters and business executives who are interviewed in Interview Experts

If you are interested in buying the DVD, for a limited period only, I have arranged for a 20% discount for all of my blog visitors. Just Click Here and on the order page type in the promo box “cv20″.

Go ahead and read the article in the Daily Mail talking about the DVD, entitled “The Perfect Interview” I’m really pleased that the DVD happens to cover and complement so many of the points that I hopefully also talk about on my blog, newsletters, forum and my ebook

Frankly I’m a little shocked at the price of the package. Considering the value to an interviewee, if it made the difference between getting a job and not, the standard price of £39.99 (before the 20% discount) is simply mindblowingly good value!

The DVD covers lots of interview techniques, including:-

* APPLYING FOR THE JOB
* PREPARING FOR THE INTERVIEW
* MAKING YOUR CV STAND OUT
* ASKING POWERFUL QUESTIONS
* CLOSING WITH STYLE
* BUILDING RAPPORT
* PREPARING PRESENTATIONS
* HANDLING TRICKY SITUATIONS
….and many other really crucial interview tips.

In the package though, you also get £87.93 of bonus materials including:

Bonus 1 - Interview Experts CD (worth £17.99)

This free Audio CD is ideal for learning in the car and on the way to interview, making sure you are really prepared for your meeting and banishing any last minute nerves. You can easily download the CD onto your iPod / MP3 player.

Bonus 2 - DVD Online Version (worth £5.99)

In a hurry? Need this information fast? We have included a full online version that you can watch immediately after payment. You can watch it as many times as you like while you wait for your DVD and CD to arrive.

Bonus 3 - E-Workbook (worth £12.99)

To help focus your own answers and to tailor your interviews accordingly, we have included an e-workbook, for you to write down your answers, and make sure that you are extra prepared for the interview.

Bonus 4 - Winning at Psychological Tests (worth £14.99)

A classic problem for many interviewees is the Psychological Test. It has been known to catch many people out at interview, and some candidates have had offers withdrawn on the strength of a bad test. Find out how to avoid this fate.

Bonus 5 - Winning at Assessment Centres (worth £12.99)

Probably the most nerve wracking type of any interview. Usually you are up against a number of candidates, who have to act out situations with actors employed by the company. So many trip up at this stage without thinking.

Bonus 6 - Surviving Redundancy (worth £9.99)

The Credit Crunch has affected so many of us, and those worst affected have been made redundant. To help deal with these scary times we have put together this guide to help you through the minefield following that fate.

Bonus 7 - Perfect CV (worth £12.99)

CV’s are a sales document - they are designed to sell you quickly and effectively. However many people do not know how to structure one effectively. This means you are ruled out before the game has started.

So with the discount, you get £147.92 of interview tools for under £30!

I hope you find Perfect Interview a really useful toolkit to help you succeed in your next interview. It will help you calm your nerves, and sidestep your competition with ease.

Good luck!

Interview Success Zone

INTERVIEW SUCCESS ZONE: Today’s interview is with a master in enterprise and personal marketing systems. C.J. Hayden, all the way from California, USA, is the creator and author of an amazing 28-day marketing system that I use and will soon be facilitating:
Get Clients Now! (TM) and co-author of the ultimate job search system Get Hired Now! (TM)

Get Hired Now!

INTERVIEW SUCCESS ZONE: Welcome to Interview Success Zone CJ. , and thanks for taking the time out to share with our readers your years of marketing expertise.

C.J. HAYDEN: Thanks, Jason, I’m pleased to be here and appreciate your kind remarks about my books and coaching programs.

INTERVIEW SUCCESS ZONE: C.J., as you know I spend many hours a week as a career transition coach for a well known international outplacement company. Many of my clients and indeed readers of Interview Success Zone, frequently ask themselves and me, “What more can I do to find job vacancies?”.

With a career in sales and marketing, I personally believe that the root cause of the lack of traction (and indeed at-traction), is poor or non-existent marketing on the part of the job-hunter. This is not their fault of course. Many of my clients in fact have been in their job for 20-25 years, and are ‘rusty’, to put it mildly when it comes to the world of interview success, and job searching. The interesting thing also is that the businesses also do not market their own vacancies. Your book refers to the fact that 85% of available jobs are never advertised. Clearly, the job-search world has changed. Can you share with our readers a few components of a successful job search?

C.J. HAYDEN: Jason, people often ask me how they can find more job openings, and the first thing I tell them is that they may be looking in the wrong places, or at least, not enough of the right ones. The approach most jobseekers take is to apply only for open positions — those they see advertised or posted somewhere. But given these recent statistics that 85% of jobs are never even advertised, they’re missing out on most of the possibilities.

What jobseekers need to do is look for positions that haven’t been advertised, and to find those, you need to actively market yourself to companies and hiring managers directly. You have to approach an organization where you would like to work, find the right person to talk to, and present yourself as a candidate for the job you want to have — without waiting for them to tell you that job is open.

Most companies find that they don’t have to advertise their open positions, because they get plenty of good candidates from within the organization, from the personal networks of people who work there, and from people who are applying to work there without waiting for an open position to appear. When they advertise, they are often besieged with far too many applicants for them to handle. So they prefer to fill positions without making them public whenever possible.

Now there are some companies and government agencies that have a policy of posting all open positions. But even that is often not so helpful. Many of the organizations that post positions publicly still end up filling those jobs with people already on the inside track. So what you need to do as a jobseeker is get on that inside track.

The most effective ways of finding more job openings are asking people you already know, networking with new people in your industry or field, and applying directly to organizations where you would like to work, whether or not they are advertising a position. The least effective ways of finding openings are using the want ads in the newspaper, browsing job sites on the Internet, and posting your resume on job boards. Only 2-4% of jobseekers report that they found their job by using an Internet job site. That ought to tell you right there it’s not where you should be putting in your time.

INTERVIEW SUCCESS ZONE: Thanks C.J. . What common themes have you come across, when talking to job seekers before they launch themselves into your Get Hired Now!, training program?

C.J. HAYDEN: I find that a lot of jobseekers are stuck in some very similar places. Many times the whole idea of looking for a job is so overwhelming that they just don’t know where to start. Maybe they haven’t had to look for work in many years, or they haven’t sorted out exactly what sort of job they’re looking for. Or they see all the places on the Internet they could potentially be spending their job search time. How do they choose where to begin?

Another place people are stuck is that there are just too many things for them to do. Maybe they are already working full time and don’t have many free hours available for jobseeking. Or they’re not sure whether they should spend time improving their resume or going to netoworking events. They can’t figure out how to prioritize and manage their precious job search time.

Or the third place people get stuck is that they find it’s very difficult to stay motivated. When you are putting yourself out there and not getting interviews, it can be very demoralizing. When there’s no one looking over your shoulder, it can be easy to procrastinate about jobseeking activities. When you interview and don’t get the job, it’s hard not to take it personally.

These are the three most common places I find people’s job search has bogged down.

INTERVIEW SUCCESS ZONE: That’s very interesting. Are there some obvious ‘easy kills’ or baby steps that job-seekers can take to start to boost their confidence?

C.J. HAYDEN: Most people conduct jobseeking as a solo activity, but I think it’s much more productive, and can even be fun, when you consider it a team sport. There’s no question that a job search can be frustrating and stressful, and you need to have some extra support. Very often your spouse, your parents, or your current co-workers are not the most helpful people to discuss your jobseeking efforts with. I suggest to jobseekers that they consider either joining a job search support group, finding a job search buddy, or working with a career coach.

When you have a group or a buddy or a coach, you have other people on your side, to cheer you on, listen to your troubles, provide you with some needed perspective, and reassure you that everything is going to work out. That’s one of the most powerful steps you can take to keep your confidence up and increase your motivation.

INTERVIEW SUCCESS ZONE: If 85% of all available jobs are not advertised, how are job-seekers meant to know that their dream-job is just waiting there to be filled? Doesn’t this attitude on the part of employers demonstrate how important it is, as I believe it is, for job seekers to make direct contact and follow up with employers, rather than using a recruitment agent or headhunter?

C.J. HAYDEN: Using a recruiter or headhunter can be a useful adjunct to your personal job search activities in some cases, but you can’t rely on them. Many jobseekers don’t realize that recruiters work for the companies who have the open positions and not for you as a jobseeker. They aren’t going to try and “place” you somewhere. Instead, they’re going to evaluate you as a candidate for the positions they happen to be handling at that time. If you are a good fit, they’ll present you — along with several other candidates — to the employers they represent. If you aren’t so good a fit for the positions they are trying to fill, you’ll never get an interview.

You are the only one who really cares if you ever get another job, so you need to be in the driver’s seat. That’s the only way you’re ever going to find a job you’ll actually enjoy in a place you truly want to work. Imagine if you were looking for an apartment. Would you sit at home waiting for someone to call and tell you they had an apartment for you and take whatever they offered? Of course not. You would go out and look at several apartments, and compare them to each other. If you were new to the area, you’d explore different neighborhoods, too, to see which one you wanted to live in.

This is exactly how you need to go about your job search. Go out and look around at different companies or different positions in your field. Find out more about them through company websites or media coverage. Talk to people who work at those companies. How do they like working there? What’s going on in the company? Might there be a good place there for someone like you? Who should you talk to about the possibility of working there? You have to take control of your own job search.

INTERVIEW SUCCESS ZONE: That sounds like good advice. How do you feel the current recessionary environment is affecting how employers go about hiring, and how can job seekers take advantage of this? Are there some ‘magic words’ or approaches that can be used to improve them ‘closing the sale’ and getting chosen for the position?

C.J. HAYDEN: In a recessionary economy, it’s more important than ever to focus on finding unadvertised positions, because competition for each job can be more intense. In many cases, what you say in the interview is much less important than how you got there. When you land an interview because someone that hiring manager trusts referred you for the position, you have an advantage before you ever open your mouth. So using networking and referrals as a way to find out about open positions and set up interviews is a powerful approach in a tough economy.

Once you’re in the interview, put most of your attention on making a personal connection with the person you’re talking to and coming across as likable and flexible. That often counts for much more than what you actually say. Finding a job is all about people. It’s the people you know and people you meet who will help you the most in getting a job. So worry less about what you say and put more emphasis on making a human connection with people. That approach will benefit you in all areas of your job search.

INTERVIEW SUCCESS ZONE: Why is having a structured marketing system, like Get Hired Now! (TM) towards job searching so important? Can’t job seekers just ‘play it by ear’ as each day goes by?

C.J. HAYDEN: First, there are the problems I already mentioned — not knowing where to start, finding there’s just too much to do, and losing motivation. Most jobseekers fail to find work quickly not because they aren’t qualified or because there aren’t enough jobs available, but because they aren’t looking for work in the most effective ways. They’re spending too much time in “analysis paralysis” or stop-and-start frustration or losing track of what they meant to be working on.

All of those issues can be addressed by having a structured system like Get Hired Now! to tell you what to do first, help you manage your time, and keep your motivation up. What the Get Hired Now! system does is help you choose the most effective approaches for your job search, based on your unique situation and personality. Then it provides a step-by-step job search system that includes planning, tracking and accountability. It helps you organize and prioritize all your job search activities into a daily and weekly plan. You can use the system by yourself, or with a group, buddy, or coach to help with your job search.

INTERVIEW SUCCESS ZONE: Well, that’s pretty convincing. How can readers get hold of more information, and learn about your different marketing systems?

C.J. HAYDEN: Get Hired Now! (TM) is available as a book at: www.gethirednow.com What you can also find there is a list of our licensed Get Hired Now! facilitators around the world. You can take the Get Hired Now! (TM) program from one of those facilitators, or hire a facilitator as your coach to support you as you work through the program. You can also bring the program to your company, association, or networking group, so you can work through the program together with others. For people who are more interested in getting clients than getting a job, I also have a companion book and system called Get Clients Now! (TM)
and you can find out about that at www.getclientsnow.com (TM)

INTERVIEW SUCCESS ZONE: C.J., On behalf of all Interview Success Zone’s readers, please accept my warmest thanks again for all your help and advice.

Next time at Interview Success Zone, I will be interviewing a presentations and pitch specialist, Beth Harvey, who will be sharing her top tips on making an impression when pitching your skills and ideas to an employer. If you want to be notified when the next blog post is put up, you can either subscribe to the RSS feed, or if like me, you don’t know what that means, just go to http://www.interviewsuccesszone.com and type in your details there. You’ll receive three FREE emails with job search tips, as well as then being notified of changes to the Interview Success Zone Blog.

If there is a topic that you are interested in learn about that will make a difference to your job search, leave us a comment, and we will write an article on it in the future.

Until then, remember 85% of the jobs available are still waiting for you to find them - keep looking under those rocks! Happy Job Hunting!

Jason

P.S. If you visit C.J.’s website Get Hired Now!, you can request your FREE copy of the Get Hired NOW!™ Special Report: “How to Find a Job in 28 Days or Less”

Jason
Interview Success Zone

There are some really great ways for you to ensure you don’t get offered the job. And so I thought I’d highlight 7 of them here, and resources I have found on the internet that can help you:

1) Not reading up about your company, and showing an interest in the company’s mission and goals.
Getting good information on your future company, is just as important for you to help you decide whether you want to work for that company, as it is for you to impress the employer by your knowledge of their operation.

2) Not grooming yourself before the interview - Read some tips on how to dress to impress here. Read the interview with Gill Hicks in an earlier article here at Interview Success Zone

3) Not Following up Go to CVTIPS.COM has a great article on following up
Like selling any product, following up with your new customer is critical to making the sale. So Following up after your interview is absolutely vital, to maintaining all of that rapport that you painstakingly built up during your interview.

4) Not making friends with the PA or secretary - Come 6pm on the day of the interview after you have left, everyone in the office, including the secretary are going to be talking about all the people who came in that day. Those that made a particularly good impression, will get the thumbs up. Every interaction with the company is important. Remember the golden rule in sales - The Customer is always right. The employer is your customer - they’re always right, even when they’re wrong.

5) Not writing a well thought out and personalised covering letter
Every job application has to be carefully prepared for personally. You’re better off writing 10 customised applications, than sending off 100 ’standard’ forms. Get Examples here

6) Not putting together a killer resume/CV Get Examples or here
and lastly, my favourite:

7) Not applying for a job that is really YOU in the first place!
See how knowing your profile can help you realign yourself, and help you swim downstream, rather than upstream. Regain that feeling of sheer excitement when you get up in the morning! Oh, oh, you just gotta read this book! The Adventures of Johnny Bunko.
It takes about an hour to read, and really will press the reset button on your career! Go to my Career advice bookshop on amazon.co.uk

Making sure you get all of these points covered, will dramatically improve your chances of success at interview! Have fun with all the resources!

Gill Hicks is a well respected NLP expert and Image consultant, and it was through Gill that I first got involved with NLP.

Gill consults at the same outplacement firm that I do, helping hundreds of people every year, who have been made redundant, to maximise their chances of success at interviews by making massively important changes to the way they look, act and speak. Gill also runs her own image consultancy business, called Positive Potential.

Like you, I was curious, to understand why dressing for success is so important, and how you can improve your chances of success in interview just by wearing the right clothes. Gill agreed to take some valuable time out of her schedule, to share some of her pearls of wisdom with Interview Success Zone.

Here’s what Gill had to say:-

Jason Economides: Gill, Firstly thank you so much for taking the time out to share your views and your experience with Interview Success Zone’s readers. Gill, can you explain to us what an image consultant is and why we all need one?”

Gill Hicks: I’d like to start by saying we don’t all need an Image Consultant Jason! We are born with ‘perfect dress sense’ and it is this dress sense that tells us when we have made the right purchases – they are the items we love wearing, they make us feel good and more confident. Some people are really in touch with this dress sense – they love and wear everything they buy and they always look good.

For most, it is the 80 /20 rule, they wear 20% of their wardrobe 80% of the time – it is these people who would really benefit from a consultation. Not only is this type of wardrobe a huge waste of money, but the biggest waste is people going around much of the time feeling very mediocre – what a waste of life! An Image Consultant will demonstrate a wide range of colours, styles, accessories, and textures to harmonise with their client’s colouring, shape, personality and lifestyle so the client can then confidently purchase items that will appeal to their dress sense, will make them feel and project an air of greater confidence.

The image consultant should give advice on dressing appropriately for their client’s working environment and career aspirations. If an interviewee has any doubts, a consultation would be a very sensible investment, reaping huge financial rewards by raising the chances of obtaining a better paid position more quickly.

Jason: You work with a wide variety of professionals, and I’m sure there are certain expectations depending on which industry someone is working in. Perhaps it might be useful for our readers to see some contrasting stories, for instance someone in financial services, and someone in Information Technology. What are some common themes?

Gill: Yes, I have worked with thousands of individuals from a huge range of industries. Well within Financial Services there are obviously a wide range of cultures – from back office to front office, traders to H.R. etc and from private banking, hedge funds, investment banking, retail banking and so on. An appropriate style of dress is slightly different amongst all of these, so what could I helpfully say is a fairly common theme?

I see a number of people dressing at a level they have come from rather than investing in the level they are aspiring to. Think of the Tesco Value range packaging versus their Finest range – we believe the quality of the packaging reflects the quality of the product inside – we respond to people in much the same way, it is quite simple really.

So up the quality and aim to dress to the ‘highest common denominator’ for the position and culture and prepare to try on dozens of suits until you find one that really makes you feel great – or ideally go for made to measure.

I.T. is another story altogether! I think it is fair to say that appearance will be less influential in interviews for technical, non managerial roles than in almost any other sector I can think of. However, a good ‘technician’ is somebody who has a certain amount of creativity, is results focused and detail conscious – so think of trying to reflect these qualities in your appearance with particular attention to a high level of maintenance (i.e. everything clean, polished and contemporary).

The common theme I have noticed amongst the IT profession is poor attention to detail in their appearance.

Jason: (Adjusting my tie and checking my hair) Great thanks Gill, that’s really interesting stuff. What sort of motivating feedback from clients can you share with us, after they have come to see you for a consultation? How does it help inner confidence and results in meetings?

Gill: I have a stackful of letters from clients – I keep them all! I hear that not only have clients received far more rapid promotion than they could have imagined, but the thing I love is hearing how confidence levels have soared – it always gives me a little shiver, and of course it impacts on every part of their lives.

It is difficult to attribute interview success directly with a client’s consultation, but since first impressions happen within a couple of seconds, and having talked to possibly hundreds of interviewers, I can confirm that in many instances a decision as to ‘this one looks very promising’ or ‘this is going to be a waste of time’ is frequently taken instantly the interviewer sees the candidate — before the interview has ‘officially begun’ and that first impression really impacts on what the interviewer then ‘hears’.

Appearance and body language is all they have to go on at that first impression stage, so appearance is crucial.

Jason: Wow, well we had better make sure we get it right then. As I’m sure many people reading this won’t have the opportunity to meet with you in time for their next interview, can you give us two crucial dos and don’ts, that will have an immediate impact?”
Gill: Do have a good clear out of the wardrobe, discarding or putting to one side anything that you wouldn’t want to wear on a ‘good day’. Check you have enough really ‘feel good’ items to be able to ring the changes for up to 3 interviews with the same firm, and diarise what you have worn where as it is easy to forget if you are applying for several roles.

Don’t wait until you are called for interview to race out to the shops and buy something new – it will almost certainly be a mistake if bought in haste. You will get interviews, so do some research shopping first and don’t get tempted by buying too early with an ‘it will do’ attitude wait to you find something that makes you feel great.

Jason: We’ll all take your advice Gill! Finally, if someone wanted to find out more about your services, do you have a website they can visit, or a way they can contact you to ask a question or three?
Gill: Ah, I’ve been caught out! This is just the prompt I needed to get on and update my website – which I have been meaning to do for some time! I’d be delighted to answer any questions and can be emailed on gill.hicks@positive-potential.co.uk and they can go to www.positive-potential.co.uk

Thank you Jason, and good luck to all your readers!

Jason: Thanks Gill, I’m sure they all appreciate the advice! I’m off to clear out my wardrobe! Now where are those leather trousers…….

Hi there!

Interaction and bouncing ideas off of other people with similar experiences or specialist career advice knowledge is a crucial element in the pursuit of a successful career, and being successful in interviews, so I have just set up a forum at : http://interviewsuccesszone.myfreeforum.org
Go take a look and start posting questions. Soon enough, you will have replies from people advising you on interviewing.
Interview Success Zone (http:/www.interviewsuccesszone.com) is here to help you in every way we can.