Page 91 - 101 Dynamite Answers to Interview Questions

84 Nail the Job Interview!

1. Greeting and small talk
2. Establishing common groundicebreakers
3. Indicating purpose of interview
4. Drawing out information through the exchange of
questions and answers:
. General and specific questions
. Brief and drawn-out answers
Conversations to clarify questions, explain answers,
and reach mutual understanding
5. Summarizing information and understanding
6. Indicating next steps to be taken
7. Closing

The interviewer will be prepared with different types of questions and
comments for each interview phase. You should be prepared to respond
positively to each of these phases.
Expect the greeting to be short. It will go something like this. The
interviewer will extend her hand and say

How doyou do Mr. Anthory. I’m Sarah Wtite. Gladyou could
come in this morning.

The next thing that usually happens - just before the interviewer explains
the purpose for the interview - is that you engage in a few minutes of
small talk. This brief period gives both of you a chance to feel more at
ease with each other. If you lnow something about the interviewer’s
interests - either from information gathered in your research or because
of something you see in the office - you might use this topic to establish
common ground.
Small talk for establishing common ground is important. For example,
we lnow a young women who applied for a teaching position at a
community college. A few weeks earlier, she had read Mager’s book on
behavioral objectives for instruction. At the beginning of the interview,
she noticed a copy of Mager’s book lying on the interviewer’s desk and
commented about it. The interviewer was pleased to learn she was
familiar with it. She is convinced to this day that it was a major factor in
getting the job offer. It established common ground and set her apart
from the many other people applying for the same position.