Demonstration Speech – Preparing for a Job Interview

INTRODUCTION:

Imagine you’ve worked really hard on a resume. You sat down with a native speaker to help you edit it. You’ve made sure there are power verbs that describe really well what you did in your various job positions. You created an amazing “Summary” at the beginning of the resume to highlight your strengths and show how you can stand out as an employee. You showed within each bullet point in your resume how you positively affected the companies you worked for in the past by using quantitative results statements. And finally, you wrote a great cover letter to go with your resume package. Now imagine all your hard work has paid off. You’ve gotten a call from a company with a job you would really love to have, and they want you to come in for an interview. What do you do? Do you simply jump up and down, scream with joy, grab your resume and go? No. You shouldn’t. In fact, you should work just as hard preparing for a job interview as you did writing and preparing your resume because writing a great resume is actually not the most important part of the process of getting a job. It is merely a way of opening the door to a company. What’s really important is getting that face-to-face time with someone at a company who has the power to hire you, and once you get that opportunity, you need to be really prepared to handle yourself appropriately and professionally. So today, I’m going to talk about what you need to do to prepare for a really strong interview with a potential employer.

BODY:

The first thing you need to do when you know a job interview is coming up is research the company. Get online on their website or find other printed information about the company, and find out their history, find out about all aspects of their business, and if you can, find out what direction they are headed in in the future. Then, create some questions to ask them about information you haven’t found during your research. If you do this, when you sit down with the potential employer, you can ask them educated questions about their company, which will impress them. They want you to be interested in them as much as they are interested in you, and they will usually ask you during the interview, “Do you have any questions about us?” You should always have some questions ready to ask them, so they know you are really concerned about where the company is going and how you can help it get there.

Secondly, when you know a job interview is in your future, you should predict the questions an interviewer is going to ask you. I’m handing out a list of “100 Typical Interview Questions.” Look over the list, write down some notes under each question, and then practice answering these questions so you are able to answer them well with few grammatical errors and with strong vocabulary.

The third thing you should do is related to the list of typical questions asked by an interviewer. When you first sit down with an interviewer, after you shake their hand (being sure to pump up and down firmly but gently twice) and introduce yourself formally, the interviewer will usually start the interview with one command: “Tell me about yourself.” Another form of this question is “Why should be hire you?” or “Why do you want to work for our company?” This is the most commonly used technique for interviews today in the United States. And this is the most critical question they will ask you. It is critical because it does two things for you. First, it gives you the opportunity to tell them the most important things about you in what we call a “two-minute pitch.” This “two-minute pitch” is like an advertisement for you, which gives a brief overview of why you should be hired. It also helps the interviewer to really get to know you through background information you give on yourself, through the way you use language, through your body language, through your tone of voice, through your facial expressions. It also highlights any key work-related information that shows how you belong in whatever position you are interviewing for. However, most importantly, this two-minute advertisement is a way for you to gain control of the interview. The interviewer, like any other conversation partner you have, will use what you say to ask the next questions. Let’s use the sample “Two-minute pitch” I’ve handed out to you as an example of what I mean. (read the pitch). Notice that the speaker in this pitch says that he organized and developed his last company into a successful multidivisional operation. That a serious accomplishment and one that an interviewer will definitely want to know about. Therefore, the interviewer might ask this individual the following questions:

· Assuming that we hire you, how do you see yourself creating the same success for our company that you did for your previous one?

· During the time with your old firm, what was the toughest challenge you faced and how did you handle it?

· As a leader, how much hands-on management do you feel is necessary, and how much delegating do you think is necessary? How do you strike that balance?

All of these questions are from the list of typical interview questions, and you can anticipate what will be asked based on the information you provide them in your pitch. Therefore, what you decide to put into that pitch not only sells you to the company, but it helps you gain control of the interview when you sit down for it.

The third thing you should do when you know an interview is coming up is gather your references and print a “References” page on the same paper on which you printed your resume. A list of at least three references are normally presented during the interview, so have it ready when and if the interviewer asks for it.

The last thing you need to do is prepare yourself physically for the interview. You should look presentable when going in to talk to someone who may give you a job. “Presentable” means your hair should be cut and styled cleanly – no Mohawks or blue hair dye unless you are interviewing with an artist, a rock band, or a tattoo parlor. Secondly, “presentable” means you should dress appropriately when you go in for the interview. Even if the business environment is “business casual” and doesn’t include suits regularly, for the interview, you should still wear a business suit and tie if you’re a man and a skirt or slacks, blouse, and possibly a business jacket if you’re a woman. This shows you are out to impress and you know this is a formal interview situation. Also, watch out for any piercings – tongue, five in each ear, or nose ring. These should be taken out unless, again, your employer is going to be a rock superstar.

CONCLUSION:

O.K. So to sum up, preparing for an interview is hard work. You have to think about what you are going to wear and how professional you are going to look. You need to research the company so you know about it before you walk through its doors. You need to create your list of references, and, most importantly, you need to prepare for questions that will be thrown at you. If you do all of these things, you increase your chances of getting that job you really want. The worst feeling in the world is walking out of a job interview knowing you blew it, you did horribly because you weren’t prepared. Avoid that feeling. Prepare yourself, and then, walk out of your next job interview feeling strong, successful, and hopeful that you’ll get that call back from the company saying, “You’re hired!”